Where is my manpower going?

[Das_Daw]

I have 1 Million manpower and I am NOT training any new divisions. I am at war and after a year the 1 million manpower is gone. (More actually because over that year more man are recruited from my country. So idk. might be 1.2 million man I used up in that year).
During that time I waged a war that I took 70k casualties in.
So 70k dead soldiers out of 1.2 million. The other 1.13 million manpower are gone too now, so I can only assume they replaced wounded soldiers (?). This would mean that I allocated 1.13 Million wounded during the time I had 70k casualties. But shouldn't some of those wounded soldiers filter back into my manpower pool? Or where exactly are all those man going? Are wounded soldiers leaving the manpower pool all the same? Is there any way I can track what is happening?
I am puzzled how I chew threw all my manpower within a year without building anything and me havin just a ~5% casulty rate. (I am even using the field hospital support divions to mitigate losses).

[HappySack]

Sounds like they've sent to occupy the territory you've captured.

Be sure to change from military governor to local police force as its the cheapest type of occupation, and use a single cav to further decrease the manpower requirements.

[Das_Daw]

I have switched to local police before the war. And I did not capture any territory in that time.(3 tile, not provinces, but tiles!) This cannot be where the manpower went.

[Mack]

If it's not garrisons it's:
* If you are a puppet the overlord building units with your manpower.
* A mobilisation law went backward.
* You went to total mobilisation.
* You selected a focus or decisions that reduced your manpower pool.
* A political appointee has a status that reduces manpower pool.
* You made significant amounts of bad attacks and got them wiped out and you're misreading casualties figures.
* Ships & Plane Squadrons getting built using them (although that isn't going to be in the numbers you say).
* Increased the size of an existing division template and the manpower went into the existing units, or if not expanded, they were missing their manpower anyway.

[Das_Daw]

Originally posted by Mack:

If it's not garrisons it's:
* If you are a puppet the overlord building units with your manpower.
* A mobilisation law went backward.
* You went to total mobilisation.
* You selected a focus or decisions that reduced your manpower pool.
* A political appointee has a status that reduces manpower pool.
* You made significant amounts of bad attacks and got them wiped out and you're misreading casualties figures.
* Ships & Plane Squadrons getting built using them (although that isn't going to be in the numbers you say).

Thank you for getting back:

I am playing Japan 37/38
- so I ain't a puppet
- Mobilisation law did not go backword

- I did got to total mobilization. Does the -3% manpower continually chew up my manpower? I thought it will now just replenish slower since I am drawing fewer new recruits?

- The only other national focus I took that influences manpower (mobilization of the mind or whatever it is called in english) increases the recruitable manpower by 2.5% - so it should have pretty much canceled out the general mobilization effect?

- Did not pick any politician / army chief etc. with manpower impact.

- Not a single unit of mine got wiped out. I am reading the casualty number from the war screen. Is that one not precise? (The screen you open via the little button that only pops up in your "messages" at the top of the screen when you are at war. Exploding shell icon)

- My naval docks are working since forever to finish 2 CVs (6k manpower a pop). Yes I have to of my meagre military factories building planes, but that is 2 planes a month which only draws 40 manpower a month.

[velvetcrabman]

Sounds like you have the China bug.

Try exiting game and reloading, if that doesn't work then disband 10 divisions or so and pretty soon manpower should climb again. (Save game first just in case)

I've seen this happen when playing China with over 4mio in back pocket, not sure why it happens but one or other of above usually solves it.

Don't know if this is what is happening to you but seems a problem common to anybody occupying mainland China regions at times.

[Bored Peon]

A crappy garrison temple will suck away manpower just in raw numbers.

Garrison templates with MP brigades extremely useful the fuller the template is as it lowers the raw manpower needed (since the game uses fractions of a temple to garrison.)

With the new feature of seeing equipment and manpower changes before spending the xp you can see how much of a difference it makes.

Best general garrison temple is all cavalry and MP brigade.
Swapping cavalry for trucks can further increase suppression a bit for same manpower.
Swapping cavalry for armored cars can further increase suppression and reduce manpower.

Now you have to factor in resistance levels, as the resistance goes higher so does the damage to your garrisons which can bleed you dry of manpower if you take on too much at once. Especially considering at 13% or so a province starts increasing resistance in nearby provinces.

Then you also have the armor factor which can reduce damage and reduce manpower loses from resistance damage.

You also may want to look at your advisors later in the game. Many countries late game it makes a difference removing research or political power advisors for ones increasing manpower, increasing compliance, or lowering garrison damage.

Rooting out resistance in problem spots with spies and using the suppress resistance focus makes a difference.

If playing a non-democracy in a non-democratic faction you can use spies to gain collaboration before capitulating. This will give you a head start on compliance giving you manpower and resources and lowering resistance. It is one of the main crucial things to playing minors and taking over larger countries, otherwise manpower goes down the drain to garrisons.

Also be VERY careful with certain countries who have resistance focuses and use them. For example Ethiopia has a nasty one that GREATLY increases resistance in Africa in ANY nearby occupied nation. I think the Scandinavians and South Americans also have similar as well.

[Das_Daw]

Thank you for the hints, but again: garrison is not the problem. I have not taken any meaningful land and according to the soldier overview I only have allocated a meagre 26k in manpower to be garrison soldiers. The provinces I have taken from china have 2% resistance atm, so it is not like they are slaugthering the garrison soldiers by the thousands at this point. So this cannot be the issue for the manpower drain.

[Bored Peon]

Originally posted by Das_Daw:

Thank you for the hints...

No problem. At this point without being able to see it for myself the next possibility would be like velvetcrabman said that you got the China bug.

[Das_Daw]

Which seems to be a plausible sollution. I had to start the game anew because I screwed up and this time around in roughly the same time of the war, my manpower just fell from 1 million to about 700k while I was having about the same recorded casulties. So this time around it is not all that illogical to me.
So I might have encountered a bug last time. Since I am playing ironman deleting will not be an option, but I will try restarting the game if manpowerlosses seem fishy again.

Thank you all for your help!

[Kaelmato]

"- I did got to total mobilization. Does the -3% manpower continually chew up my manpower? I thought it will now just replenish slower since I am drawing fewer new recruits?"



This is the most likely culprit, total mobilization reduces your recruitable population by 3%, depending on your conscription law this might go all the way to 0%. Go to decisions and click women in the workforce if you can or raise your conscription law or lower back to war economy.

[Das_Daw]

Yes I do have that, but since I have limited conscription (2.5%) and mobilization of the mind (or whatever it is called in english which gives another 2.5%), i should have 2.5%+2.5%= 5% - 3% = 2%. So I still come out ahead. (I know I should up my subscription law etc,, but I still need to save political power for that.)
So this is definetly something to watch on the "income" side.

But Still I wonder on the "expense" side: If 95% of my soldiers are not dying, are not drafted into garrisons etc. but seem to be "wounded" and not dead - do they filter back into the manpower pool? Is there such a thing as wounded soldiers?

[Bored Peon]

Originally posted by Das_Daw:

But Still I wonder on the "expense" side: If 95% of my soldiers are not dying, are not drafted into garrisons etc. but seem to be "wounded" and not dead - do they filter back into the manpower pool? Is there such a thing as wounded soldiers?

Yes, that is what hospital supports do, it is under trickle back. Meaning a percentage of your killed are returned to action. The same as downed pilots over your territory trickle back.

Originally posted by Das_Daw:

So I might have encountered a bug last time. Since I am playing ironman deleting will not be an option, but I will try restarting the game if manpowerlosses seem fishy again.

You can cheese ironman by saving a copy of the save through file management. Which I suggest doing it at least once per day for any games that take you days to finish. Nothing worse than being 3 days in on a game then have the game encounter some idiotic bug or a decision without fair warning and losing it.

[HugsAndSnuggles]

Originally posted by Das_Daw:

Yes I do have that, but since I have limited conscription (2.5%) and mobilization of the mind (or whatever it is called in english which gives another 2.5%), i should have 2.5%+2.5%= 5% - 3% = 2%. So I still come out ahead.

Not really: you started with 2.5%, ended up with 2% - that's 0.5% loss. Although, considering Japan's manpower pool, it should account only like half a million.

[johnknott]

Sounds like Total Mobilisation is the problem. That -3% has caught me out a few times. You can even run out of manpower as China (I have) if you're not careful.

[Das_Daw]

Originally posted by Bored Peon:

You can cheese ironman by saving a copy of the save through file management. Which I suggest doing it at least once per day for any games that take you days to finish. Nothing worse than being 3 days in on a game then have the game encounter some idiotic bug or a decision without fair warning and losing it.

Thanks for the hint. I might just do that with Germany, because I pretty much quit playing it after my third Operation Sealion botched my playthrough. It is just really tough on Elite. Not the landing operation itself, but the AI always rolls me back at some point and then it's pretty much game over.


Concerning the trickle back:
If I have 5% casualties and 15% trickle back, then I have 80% of people so badly wounded that they are not returning to the manpower pool? That's brutal