Matrix Games Forums

hello,

I have some questions towards manpower and replacement of manpower loss =

- does a certain city or state produce limited amounts of brigades ?
- can you recruit brigades in vanquished territories - like the Confederacy drafting troops in Kentucky or Maryland ?
- is it so - that replenishing casualties for existing brigades is free of manpower cost ?
- and just a little question - are replacements tied to a certain county - or state - or just a global pool of manpower ?

by the way - this game seems to me the most promising game I've seen during the last 3 years. It's good to know that some people are involved with real computer games ... [:)]

ORIGINAL: spruce

hello,

I have some questions towards manpower and replacement of manpower loss =

- does a certain city or state produce limited amounts of brigades ?
the "city" has manpower, so many icons of them, units cost manpower (Inf 2, Cav 1, arty 1, each time you build or concripts a new unit, it uses up that number of manpower from the City, some cities only have a 1 manpower, some of the northern cities are huge !

- can you recruit brigades in vanquished territories - like the Confederacy drafting troops in Kentucky or Maryland ?
I believe the rule is you have to own, the State, to recuit troops from the state, so, if the CSA takes Cinci, but not Ohio, they can build things there but not recuit from there

if you own the state, you will have a new Govenor for the state

- is it so - that replenishing casualties for existing brigades is free of manpower cost ?
it still cost manpower, but in a different way, you have so many Camps (and can build Camps) and Camps make the manpower to replace losses (so it may be me or you are just using the same term to mean different things with in the game ?)
- and just a little question - are replacements tied to a certain county - or state - or just a global pool of manpower ?

by the way - this game seems to me the most promising game I've seen during the last 3 years. It's good to know that some people are involved with real computer games ... [:)]

hope that answers your questions, if I misunderstood or misstated, ask again

sorry, missed the last one

for building units, the Manpower is from with in that City, for replacement of troops for units already built, then it is from a global pool

Hard Sarge, thanks for the answers.[:)]
 
so basicly camps are doing replacements for lost troops ... if the CSA has many brigades and many camps they can still have a big army and virtually unlimited manpower ... of course the Union goes by the same adagio ... and lost brigades to be rebuild anyhow.

with in reason, there are some limits and supply and sickness can kick in also

at the start of the game, the CSA is going to need around 220000 men to fill out it's Bdes, not counting any units you do build, or any losses you take, and you do not have many camps to start with !

so, to be honest, it is going to take you a long time before you can replace your losses, let alone rebuild your depleted units

and then there is a upgrade, that lets you enlarge your Bdes

and again, all the stuff you need to buy and build, Troops a lot of times are something you just can not afford (you can muster or Concript troops if the need is great enough, but it is dangerous)

the CSA has horses, but never enough of them, the Union has Iron, but not many Horses, so it is always a trade off

Let me add a few points here...
 
First, as Hard Sarge indicated, manpower is available in each city.  As you build units, you "consume" manpower.  In the advanced game, the reduction of manpower impacts your economy.  As the population is being siphoned to fight, they are no longer available for resource production and therefore economic output decline.  So it isn't wise to recruit all available manpower or you may not be able to effectively support and equip your massive army.
 
The next important point is that manpower does not represent the entire population but the subset available for recruitment.  Each year, manpower is refreshed based on national will, and the popularity of that state's governor.  Essentially, if the war is going well and you have properly managed the political environment, there will be more people willing to sign up and fight (or work harder to produce additional economic benefit for the war effort).  That said, the refresh will replace a small portion of your manpower - not the entire pool.  Managing manpower remains one of the critical strategic success factors in the game.
 
As current brigades are reduced to extremely low numbers, they are disbanded and removed.  When brigades are captured in combat, they are removed.  The units produced add new brigades to the game.  So, over the course of the war, the total number of brigades in the army can ebb and flow.
 
Independent of the number of brigades is the number of troops within each brigade.  As Hard Sarge indicated, Camps refill the ranks of existing brigades.  That refilling does not reduce the manpower within cities that is used to purchase brigades (or enhance resource productivity).  Most troop losses in the army did not come from actual combat.  As has been discussed on these boards, there are various forms of attrition.  Whenever an army moves, it loses a portion of its troops.  You can almost think of camps as the efficiency of each nation's capability in finding those "lost" troops and returning them to their units.  For simplicity's sake, the game does attempt to reconcile between attrition and camp replacement so it is possible that the total number of replacements will surpass the attrition losses, but I don't think that additional layer of complexity would add anything to the game.  And in the games I have played, I really don't think replacements have surpassed attrition losses anyway.  If you've been watching the troop levels in the AARs posted, you'll see that brigades at their full compliment of troops are pretty rare.
 
 

Also, I'd add that if you're playing with upkeep rules (an advanced rule that most of you will choose) there is a cost to maintaining your brigades, forts, etc. So the more you build up your army, the less money (and other resources) you will have to build new units or arm them. If you're not building up your economy to keep pace with the increase in your army size, you'll be in trouble... (This statement does not apply to the basic game. People who just want to have armies and fight with them can disable these economic limitations.)

Can the Player disband Brigrades?

Yes. And "container units" such as divisions.