Manpower as a tribe

[Bai]

How? i get 79 people per month i usually loose more to attrition?! i tried getting good amounts of tribes and freeman and give them training camps but they are not worth a damn you only get like 3 more manpower per month, 3?!

[Owlcoholic]

Keep your armies split up so they don't die of attrition. During peace build up a surplus of manpower before going to war to allow replenishment

[Bai]

Originally posted by Owlcoholic:

Keep your armies split up so they don't die of attrition. During peace build up a surplus of manpower before going to war to allow replenishment

how the hell am i supposed to build a surplus when i get 85 per month and need 1k to build a single unit? Also in winter you loose units regardless

[Solitus]

Originally posted by Yoda Bai:

Originally posted by Owlcoholic:

Keep your armies split up so they don't die of attrition. During peace build up a surplus of manpower before going to war to allow replenishment

how the hell am i supposed to build a surplus when i get 85 per month and need 1k to build a single unit? Also in winter you loose units regardless

This. Playing as a Saxony; you gain such a tiny amount of manpower per month; barely eating past your attrition. I can't split the armies up because they are clan chief retinues that are higher than the supply limit for the cities.

It is super easy to go to war; but once you blow through your limited manpower pools you are stuck at peace for decades. I thought this game would work like EU4 where the higher your manpower cap is; the more manpower you would recover. NOPE! Meaning Freemen are almost useless; better to keep them all as tribes/slaves/citizens.

*EDIT* I am pretty sure my earlier statement is wrong; I am very confused with this. It feels likely currently; no matter what you do, it will take 25 years to recover your manpower.

So if you raise your manpower cap; that lessens the time it takes for you to get to, say, 5k manpower pool. Which in theory should make your cohorts refill faster (as long as you keep your standing army the same size)

What screwed me over was after a big war; two clan chiefs dueled each other to the death; both dying, leaving me with their two 10k stacks and no way to pay for/fire them. yaaay. So I went to war and got a bunch of them killed off.

[curtadamsCA]

I'm curious whether this was intentional or not. Manpower degradation was a big, big issue in the ancient world. Both Athens and Sparta were eventually brought down by having their military manpower wiped out (in the sense that the soldier class was mostly dead), although in Sparta's case concentration of wealth played a role too. A similar process in Rome drove the Marian reforms, which in turn played a big role in destabilizing the Republic.

[☭ Calabresa ☭]

As a tribe, you must use your Clan Chiefs Retinues as the front line of your armies! As Dobunnia in Britain, I only ever used my regular troops when I was faced against a bigger alliance, cuz most wars I only used the Retinues to fight it for me, being maxed on manpower for a long time. At one point I even changed the laws to have an additional Clan Chief and get a 12-20k manpower-free army. And they also costs less than regular cohorts.

[TimThomasCrown]

Use the clan, they will build a army say of 7 cohorts which uses no manpower (uses manpower to replenish). When the general dies those units fall to your control and that clan will build a new army

[☭ Calabresa ☭]

Originally posted by TimThomasCrown:

Use the clan, they will build a army say of 7 cohorts which uses no manpower (uses manpower to replenish). When the general dies those units fall to your control and that clan will build a new army

They actually don't use your manpower to replenish, like I said, I was maxed on manpower because I only used Clan armies. And when they died and the control was put under me, I just disbanded them and waited for the next Chief to recreate his army.

[Solitus]

This is going to be real hard to get used to. Inheriting troops and then just disbanding them feels so wrong. But it's the only way to not go massively in debt/have no manpower I guess.

[☭ Calabresa ☭]

Originally posted by Solitus:

This is going to be real hard to get used to. Inheriting troops and then just disbanding them feels so wrong. But it's the only way to not go massively in debt/have no manpower I guess.

I'd prefer if when the Clan Chief dies his army either passes to his heir or just disbands automatically

[bri]

It's intentionally slower than the other PDS games (25 year replenishment vs 10 for EU IV and even faster for CK 2). Use your men sparingly while burning mercs and clan retinues...

[Bai]

If it was intentional then why does the ai get to cheat and not worry about this issue at all? i only use mercs at this point essentially just playing with money cuz even after getting a huge kingdom i do no not get enough manpower to sustain more then 10k troops in a meaningfull way.

[☭ Calabresa ☭]

Originally posted by Yoda Bai:

If it was intentional then why does the ai get to cheat and not worry about this issue at all? i only use mercs at this point essentially just playing with money cuz even after getting a huge kingdom i do no not get enough manpower to sustain more then 10k troops in a meaningfull way.

Then I must say you are playing it wrong. I started as Dobunnia and formed Albion, I have over 350k manpower and I'm fielding 156 cohorts. As a tribe, use your Retinues and save your manpower. By the time you reform into a Republic or a Monarchy, you'll have thousands of manpower saved.

[Bai]

especially annoying considering how littel of a diffrence unit types make it's all about the who has the biggest army and better dice luck. generals can be good but really it's just rng and army size i have tech 9 and they have 2 and i still loose equal number battles while using heavy infantry and some heavy cav..

[☭ Calabresa ☭]

Originally posted by Yoda Bai:

especially annoying considering how littel of a diffrence unit types make it's all about the who has the biggest army and better dice luck. generals can be good but really it's just rng and army size i have tech 9 and they have 2 and i still loose equal number battles while using heavy infantry and some heavy cav..

You must be using a worse battle formation. I'm having no trouble whatsoever fighting stacks sometimes 70% bigger than mines. Only time I had trouble winning battles is because I had 107% Discipline and the enemy had 127%

[Bai]

no battle formation sometimes even in my favor and mostly neutral the reason i did not mention it is because it's again just rng what they pick