Is military development useless?

[Arginine]

I am always struggling with manpower, and find that I have to pick quantity first, just to do OK. I probably do some other things wrong, too many wars, high unrest with loads of rebels, poorly chosen fights, whatever, bottom line is, I never have any manpower until I finish the quantity idea group.

I checked out the wiki, to see what increases my monthly gain of manpower, doing 1 dev click adds 250 manpower -> 2 men/months. At this rate, modifiers don't really help. Comparatively, doing an admin or diplo develpment adds way more income than this low MP.

Do I see it correctly, that if someone has manpower issues, military development doesn't help? Blobbing adds more and to me it looks like it would be a better solution to MP issues than development.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1879843259

I would have 39 force limit, which I can never fill.

[pmpdadypenguinmn]

You can only blob so much in mp. Quantity + Economic is 30% lower dev cost. With a state edict that's 40%. You want to spend your excess mil on development and build barracks. It all adds up over time. If you have a monthly manpower gain of 2500 men a month but didn't develop, the player that has less land than you but has developed, built barracks and regimental camps with a manpower gain of 5k+ a month will beat you in a straight out fight because he can last longer before mercing up. Once you start getting mercs, you start taking loans because of reinforcement costs. The player that goes bankrupt first loses

[Kapika96]

Nope, every little helps. Plus what else would you use your military points on? If you're up to date on techs/ideas then they're the least useful until the age of absolutism (where using them to boost absolutism can be worthwhile).

Besides, it's not just manpower. Boosting your dev also increases your force limit, potentially adds new building slots to provinces and certain total dev thresholds are required for some things (eg. becoming an empire).

[brian_va]

adding some dev in an existing state should net you more than just taking more land that ends up being a territory, but at some point you would need to really start stacking all the things that increase manpower; dev, edicts, building, estates, advisors and so on. and then there are strategies that aim to minimize losses, but those are kinda outside of your direct question.

short of doing all that, start mixing in some mercs if you can afford it, spreading out "manpower" usage between money and actual manpower.

[tinisiyo]

You have 30k manpower, for 12 mil dev without any modifiers you add 10% on top of it. That is not useless. Especially compared to admin and dip development.

[Arginine]

Originally posted by tinisiyo:

You have 30k manpower, for 12 mil dev without any modifiers you add 10% on top of it. That is not useless. Especially compared to admin and dip development.

That would still only be 25 men/ months. It is insignificant compared to having quantity. In comparison, if I would spend all those mill points on development, I would only gain about 80-100 men/months. With the first two ideas (+50% national MP, +20% recovery speed) i gain atleast +50% men/months. In early game, just as in late, unlike the 80-100 flat amount, which stays just that... +100 flat.

[tinisiyo]

So what did you expect from dev? That is how the game works. The game is about expansion, so ofc conquering a 20 dev province and coring it for 200 admin is more profitable then getting same 20 dev spending 40 points per dev. And the game is developed to make the world conquerable so nor the player nor the AI can develop provinces endlessly.
Development is an additional mechanic to spend you monarch points on when they hit the cap, to entertain yourself in peacetime. It is not designed as a core mechanic of the game.
Ofc quantity is the best way to increase your army, but it takes an idea slot from you while you could spend it on quality or offensive to strengthen you troops or any other ideas.

[Raider Deci]

Originally posted by Arginine:

I am always struggling with manpower, and find that I have to pick quantity first, just to do OK. I probably do some other things wrong, too many wars, high unrest with loads of rebels, poorly chosen fights, whatever, bottom line is, I never have any manpower until I finish the quantity idea group.

Improve your game with those things that you just mentioned and you wont have the same problem with manpower. Constantly reinforcing also takes a big toll on the economy. Quantity only provides a bandaid over the core problems.

[Kapika96]

Originally posted by Arginine:

Originally posted by tinisiyo:

You have 30k manpower, for 12 mil dev without any modifiers you add 10% on top of it. That is not useless. Especially compared to admin and dip development.

That would still only be 25 men/ months. It is insignificant compared to having quantity. In comparison, if I would spend all those mill points on development, I would only gain about 80-100 men/months. With the first two ideas (+50% national MP, +20% recovery speed) i gain atleast +50% men/months. In early game, just as in late, unlike the 80-100 flat amount, which stays just that... +100 flat.

Firstly, the significance, or lack thereof, doesn't really matter when there's nothing else to really spend military points on anyway, what else would you do with them?

Secondly, this doesn't have to be an either/or situation. You can take quantity ideas and boost military development. In fact, if you've taken quantity ideas then boosting mil dev is actually even more beneficial. With quantity ideas each boost to mil dev would be worth about 3.75 men per month, and that's without additional bonuses from buildings, nobility etc.

Thirdly, it's not all about manpower recovery either. Having a higher max manpower may mean that it doesn't actually get low enough during a war to require relying on the monthly recovery to reinforce your armies.

[AN]

Not to mention getting manpower from the nobles, or a parliment debate, or from slackening standards, are all boosted by your max manpower/mil dev.

[Tulduil Iphukiir]

Originally posted by Arginine:

I am always struggling with manpower, and find that I have to pick quantity first, just to do OK. I probably do some other things wrong, too many wars, high unrest with loads of rebels, poorly chosen fights, whatever, bottom line is, I never have any manpower until I finish the quantity idea group.
[...]

One thing that is true for many things in EU4:
If you cannot afford something (like a war costing too much manpower/money for too little gain) don't do it. (There may be rare exceptions)
Of course, this requires experience and skill, things that should come over time.

You say you "always struggle" and "have to [always] pick Quantity". Hence I assume you already played more games than the one from the screenshot.

Try to play a game (can also be Korea) and deliberately NOT pick Quantity (or not within the first three groups).
Try to keep your manpower high (watch supply limit, siege only with as many units as needed, use some mercenaries, Nobility, avoid equal fights, attack when the enemy is sieging your mountain fort, check where rebels will spawn and move your army there beforehand, raise autonomy to prevent rebels, ...).
If your manpower gets low in a war take what you can, even if it is only money, there is no need to fight every war to 100% war score. Wait between wars for manpower to recover (default are (I think) 10 years from 0 to full manpower). You have nearly 400 years to play, there is no need to hurry early (I assume you are a beginner and you shouldn't even think about things like WC or True Heir of Timur now).


I did a Korea game on 1.28 (so before the recent changes) and oonly once had a problem with manpower (when I overlooked that Yeren was guaranteed by Ashikaga and all of Japan invaded my South while my armies were fighting/sieging in Manchuria, around 1480. That war cost me all my manpower and I won it only through many loans).

[Mr.M]

Small sidenote tip for your campaing since you apparently have MoH:

Culture convert to Jurchen if you want to cheese the game a tiny bit - since this gives access to Banner troops.

They are less useful for non horde nations imo, 2 banners per 10k troops still help tho (since they cost less and use 25% manpower) and you can just use them for cav only too.

[Arginine]

Thanks for the tips! My last playthrough was with spain, where I didn't pick quantity, and the only reason I managed to expand was thanks to my standing merc armieS that I funded because I was so rich. I tried to max out discipline, but that didn't help much either.

I don't yet know how to fight wars better, but I rarely go for 100% WS, I can usually demand what I want with 50-60%.

I will definitely try manchu next playtrhough, but I want a "traditional" korea game, I am just going for those achievements

[brian_va]

Look up remans paradox on YouTube, good videos about combat and other stuff

[Arginine]

I fight on equal grounds, I can hardly get the enemy to engage me on favourable ground. I lose as many troops as my enemy. If I am up against 30k soldiers, I will lose 30k soldiers over the course of the war. I do win the battles, because I reinforce during the battle, and always try to flank my enemy.

[Arginine]

And here is the reason why I need higher manpower recovery rate:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1880988976

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1880989042