Core States and Manpower Question

[Tisreece]

Hey guys, so I've started my first campaign as Saudi Arabia (weird choice I know, but surprisingly good when picking up the game for the first time, you have to rely on trade so you learn that, and you can choose political stance so you and you can have an outside view of WWII which is a great starting point) and I'm at about 1943 right now.
Bit of backstory of where I am in the game: I started off by building up Civ factories which was more difficult than you'd think since you only start with 1, of which that 1 is producing consumer goods so you start with 0 production. I turned communist early on, allies with the Soviets and won wars against Yemen, Oman and Iraq. I then went to war again with Iran and managed to take half their country, the other half taken by the Soviets.
I'm using about 190K for my army and manpower is quite low, sitting at around 40K.

The problem is I only have 3 core states (the ones I started with) and all my conquered land is considered 'colony states' which has a 98% reduction on local manpower so really I'm still only using the men I have at the start of the game so I'm very limited when it comes to building an army. I've changed my policy so I have I think 10% recruitable population, I don't fancy going higher than that due to penalties on my factories and I'm gaining a measly 450 men per month in manpower.

So my question is, is there a way to gain more manpower or have faster manpower recovery speed? Or is there a way to turn colony states into core states? Or some way to lower than -98% on local manpower?

I have experience with pretty much all paradox games (although this is the first HOI I've played) and usually you just wait for manpower to tick up again before going to war, but this games doesn't span centuries like EUIV or Vic II so waiting for manpower would mean waiting for WWIII or IV before I can make a move again for conquest.

[equinox1911]

In short, no you kinda have to make due with the manpower you start with.

The only thing that really affects it are manpowerlaws, land doctrines or national foci that up the [recruitable population]. hoi takes place in a much shorter timespan so waiting until more ppl are born is not really a choice.
Taking over prvinces with a mil or more pop gives you a few k manpower but thats pretty much the extent to which you can manipulate your manpower pool.

[Jack O'Neill]

Originally posted by equinox1911:

In short, no you kinda have to make due with the manpower you start with.

The only thing that really affects it are manpowerlaws, land doctrines or national foci that up the [recruitable population]. hoi takes place in a much shorter timespan so waiting until more ppl are born is not really a choice.
Taking over prvinces with a mil or more pop gives you a few k manpower but thats pretty much the extent to which you can manipulate your manpower pool.

This really sucks and severely limits possibilities after WW2 if true. I started as The Netherlands and occupied all of Germany. Took all provinces in the peace talks. Now after the war I want to continue conquering but that is not possible because I have no manpower natively: 8 million natives, 100 million something people in cores who do not get drafted...

[Carlos]

well the point of the game isn't what goes on after WW2, like he said, chaging your recruitment laws and focus can get you a lot more manpower but eventually you'll run out of options, gotta be smart, the game takes place in like a 12-15 year span, that's not a lot of time for new people to be born and join the pool

[Tisreece]

Hmm :/ It's a shame really. I think it would be an awesome feature to have the -98% penalty to tick down very slightly, like 0.005% daily. That way you still have to struggle with manpower like they did in real life but you can still conscript those in conquered territories (like they did in RL).

[Jack O'Neill]

Originally posted by Tisreece:

Hmm :/ It's a shame really. I think it would be an awesome feature to have the -98% penalty to tick down very slightly, like 0.005% daily. That way you still have to struggle with manpower like they did in real life but you can still conscript those in conquered territories (like they did in RL).

I guess I'll just have to create a mod for it or wait for it. What you are suggesting is way more realistic as it is right now.

[Jack O'Neill]

In case you are still looking: here is a mod that removes the stupid penalty:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=698827165

[Tisreece]

Yeah I noticed that one, although I want to get achievments (even though there is a bug preventing me from getting any at the moment).
Seems like a good mod though, although removing it completely would probably make Germany OP as ♥♥♥♥ :') hahaha I can't imagine how screwed I'd be with millions upon millions of Nazis

[Peiper]

You can simply cheat. Type ` to open the cheat interface and simply type: manpower (number)

Typing simply: manpower -- will get you 10 million souls to cast into the furnace.
or you could get really crazy and type:
manpower 666

That will give you exactly that many more people.
Some of these work. I'm trying to figure out why remove_core doesn't work as we type which is how I ended up here. Cheers!

http://www.hoi4wiki.com/Console_commands#See_also

[Tisreece]

Not a big fan of cheating, especially as I prefer to go on ironman

[Sustr]

So I am playing Oman which has (I believe - 300k pop). I was able to conquer Saudi Arabia and Yemen with eleven divisions (it tooks more than year), of course I used scraping the barrel. It is 1942 right now and game is practically over, because there is no manpower to even replace loses I took which is about 25k from 85k. Conquered Saudi Arabia has (I believe) 1.5 mil people. I understand, that they will not support me for 100% but, with these debufs game is finished.

I love this game and I really enjoy 1936 to 1942 but right now it is jus max. speed watching?

[Tisreece]

Feel the same way, I've posted two ideas on the Paradox forums about this, hopefully developers are reading them and might pick it out.
I suggested a 0.005% daily decrease in that -98% manpower debuff, or some kind of building like a barracks to increase local manpower in a particular state.
There are mods to change the -98% penalty, and I might try one of them at some point but atm I'm just doing Ironman so I don't really want to use mods

[Widrea]

The manpower debuff for colonial states appears now to be 99.8% not 98% in every game play as japan i get .241% which is a huge nerf down from 2%, not sure if bugg or paradox ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up on a decimal. dont have any other countries to base this on yet as i havent finished my japan game... and likely never will since im garontee'd to run out of manpower if i finish the war with UK. side note i own russia and china as colonies annexed and all not capitulation

[lilac]

You can always use tdebug for state ID and add_core <state ID> to add cores.

[KraDox]

They way to go is to puppet them. That way they will be able to utilize their own manpower to the max.

[Leo]

Yeah, puppeting a country like china and build divisions using their manpower. Since you only need 10% as much manpower on your side it can be quite good for smaller nations or just any major late game.