Increasing the percentage of the Soldiers' POP

[iliekater]

Hi ; I had played this game years ago and I remember I had faced the same problem : I could not create army brigades . Some kind guy here offered me some tips , but unfortunatelly i didn't save the webpage and so I can't remember what he had adviced me . So I am here again asking for help ...
I tried anything I could remember :
- Researched Medicine and all of its technologies in order to get the general population growth .
- I used National Focus in order to promote the soldiers' POP .
- I maximized the salaries of the soldiers/officers .
I still can't get enough soldiers ... In most of the provinces their percentage is of 0.0 , 0.1 or 0.2% ! ! ! . . .
What I am doing wrong ? My economy seems to be fine . I am taxing the maximum of all 3 stratas , but I have also tried combinations of them . Still nothing ... I even loaded some save games I had kept from years ago , but I couldn't find any major difference ...
If it's important : I am playing with the greeks . At the begining they can support 11 brigades , but quickly the drop down to 2 and then to 0 !

[AN]

Are you getting the goods they need to promote to and continue being soldiers?

[iliekater]

I think yes , but just in case let me specify these things :
a) I look in the Population tab and I see that their needs are fulfilled . Even their luxury ones . Their glasses are full of water and wine !
b) I have let to automatic (with the green AI symbol) the management of all the products (in the Production tab) so normally all me needs should me automatically bought when I need them . Also my economy is quite well (is constantly increasing) .

[iliekater]

I've noticed something that might be useful . In the Trade main tab , I see that all of the military goods (ammunition , small arms , canned food) have a symbol at their bottom left corner , indicating : "Buying up stockpile" . And I also noticed that every good in the market has 0.00 availability . Does this show something ?
Nevertheless , I look at my remaining armies and see that all of them at the upper left corner say that the received all of their need supplies ...

If it's helpful I could upload the save file .

[Varainger]

So you don't have enough potential soldier POPs to start building a unit, right ?
Then missing military goods is not your problem.

Rather you are not having enough population or they are too rich or simply have better work and earn enough, while also being able to buy all ressources they need (you said "their glasses are full of water and wine" LOL) and hence don't demote to soldiers. You might have too many subsidised factory jobs available. Many different culture and religion soldier POPs can also be an issue.

So for getting soldier POPs it's actually counterproductive if your nations POPs are generally happy and well fed. There is a need for the poor class to do the dirty work.
Just like in real life.

[iliekater]

I don't have any factories at all !
Also this is the situation that's being going from the beginning of the game ... And I have already tried it three times ... There must be something I am doing wrong .
I uploaded here a save file :
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_yW_3BDckxEXXp8_1JGGLFa5AVl9xxXu/view?usp=sharing

[Varainger]

Originally posted by iliekater:

I don't have any factories at all !
...

So ? That was just one point i mentioned,

[iliekater]

I believe you . I already wrote it along my others notes that I had kept about Victoria II .
------
As far as concerning the current problem , is there - maybe - a specific reform that I should do ? Maybe a political party that should be ruling ? In my case it's the conservative that are ruling , but I didn't change that . I mean they were there at the top from the beginning of the game .

[Butterlord]

weird

[bri]

What sort of population numbers do your provinces have? An individual soldier pop needs to have at least 1000 population to form a single brigade so if your nation is low population and/or very religiously and culturally diverse you can have a fair bit of trouble getting individual pops that size and instead of 6-8 smaller pops in each province since each combination of culture and religion forms a different pop.

[Dray Prescot]

It has been awhile since I played V2. I thought it was possible to convert a Pop in some province into Soldiers.

So pick a large Pop, they can grow up to 100,000 before splitting into 2 Pop, that is close to 100,000 in size, and tell it to convert to being a Soldier and pay the cost in goods and luxury goods. Find out the cost to convert a Craftsman (or another low level Pop type) into a Soldier and make sure that you have the goods and luxury goods needed, Also make sure that you are supplying enough goods and luxury goods to support your old Soldier Pops and Leader Pops.

If your existing Soldier Pops were used to form military units, then those units will continue to draw on those Pops for replacements, which will make it hard for those Pops to keep growing in size, and if your units are actively fighting, the old Soldier Pops they were formed from may actually start shrinking in size.

So to build and support more military units in combat you need them to draw from some new Soldier Pops rather than your old Soldier Pops.

You will also need Officer Pops to supply Officers when you build/form a new military unit.

Do this in a new province that has not been used to form military units in the past, otherwise you may end up with multiple military units drawing on the same Soldier Pops for replacements, and those Soldier Pops may start shrinking in size.

This way you are spreading the burden of maintaining your military units around in your country.

[steve]

Originally posted by Dray Prescot:

So pick a large Pop, they can grow up to 100,000 before splitting into 2 Pop, that is close to 100,000 in size, and tell it to convert to being a Soldier and pay the cost in goods and luxury goods. Find out the cost to convert a Craftsman (or another low level Pop type) into a Soldier and make sure that you have the goods and luxury goods needed, Also make sure that you are supplying enough goods and luxury goods to support your old Soldier Pops and Leader Pops.

For the record, this paragraph is describing Vicky 1 mechanics, rather than Vicky 2 ones.

Generally speaking I find that the easiest way to acquire soldier POPs outside of the very early game is to conquer some states which have relatively large populations, since the AI tends to be better at creating soldier POPs than I am.

In your specific case as the Greeks, it might be worth relying on your British allies to do the fighting for you. Yes, calling them in loses you control of the war, but as long as you aren't fighting the Ottomans, you don't have to worry much about being attacked by superior forces.