Manpower question

A question

I know it's too late to change something as dramatic as this at this point in the games life cycle but...

Why were armies not balanced against one another by having differing manpower incomes?

People complained that axis was too strong and allies were too weak (in the beginning) so why were manpower incomes not varied from army to army in order to give a better asymmetrical balance?

It's a pretty complex stat in practice, I wouldn't be surprised if any thought of it was quickly responded with "How about no". The Manpower resource affects literally every unit in the game. A manpower income disparity is much like the higher side getting a (manpower) free infantry unit at a given point in time regardless of the enemy's efforts. We can all look back and think of times when a lost unit probably sealed a match's results.

This advantage would also persist to some extent to later in the game, when a full population makes reinforcing your individual infantrymen manpower harder and probably turns manpower into the primary resource for replacing tanks.

...though doing this in some way as an upgrade is definitely a good bit more feasible. This was essentially what CoH1's Americans' Supply Yard's upgrades reducing upkeep did.

It's a pretty complex stat in practice, I wouldn't be surprised if any thought of it was quickly responded with "How about no". The Manpower resource affects literally every unit in the game. A manpower income disparity is much like the higher side getting a (manpower) free infantry unit at a given point in time regardless of the enemy's efforts. We can all look back and think of times when a lost unit probably sealed a match's results.

This advantage would also persist to some extent to later in the game, when a full population makes reinforcing your individual infantrymen manpower harder and probably turns manpower into the primary resource for replacing tanks.

...though doing this in some way as an upgrade is definitely a good bit more feasible. This was essentially what CoH1's Americans' Supply Yard's upgrades reducing upkeep did.

Yeah but you also had Zombie Armies there, especially the Wehr, they could turn dead Volks and Pioneers into Grenadiers even without the Tier 2 building.

That's one thing I really miss about coh1, that wasn't carried into coh2, the wehrmacht zombie armies. Not to mention the Bergetiger, so on rare occasions you could get TWO Tigers up and running for the Wehrmacht teammate.

Believe me, as someone who pretty much only plays Ostheer, if I had access to zombie grens, I'd abuse the fck out of it.

They are.
Grenadier have a Pop of 7 Pg of 9.
Conscripts have a pop of 6 Penal of 7.

A PzIV has a pop of 12.
A T-34/76 has a pop of 10.

Yeah but you also had Zombie Armies there, especially the Wehr, they could turn dead Volks and Pioneers into Grenadiers even without the Tier 2 building.

Certainly true, but Wehrmacht also had to buy their veterancy for a significant price for a limited amount of units at once as well back then, so arguably the theoretical issue "One side is a bit underpowered, let's add manpower upgrades for later in the game" would be still a relatively simple one if it were needed. If one faction had scaling issues with their infantry, an upgrade allowing them to make themselves have more manpower income later on could theoretically alleviate the problem as it would be expected said infantry will regularly lose fights and have to be reinforced more often, though this would enforce a bit of a micro tax since that means this faction would be expected to reinforce much more often than their opponents to stay in the game which is a whole other can of worms.

Annnndddd the ultimate Supply Yard upgrade also made Rifles vet faster in CoH1 for additional ammunition against my point since the upkeep reduction was definitely not the only thing fighting back against tougher tanks and Volksgrenadiers back from Hell.

...pls no zombie Grens

They are.
Grenadier have a Pop of 7 Pg of 9.
Conscripts have a pop of 6 Penal of 7.

A PzIV has a pop of 12.
A T-34/76 has a pop of 10.

There's a little bit difference there still though, since being delayed by 18 manpower per minute from getting 6 Grens instead of 6 Scripts is a less insurmountable deficiency than, uhhhhhh...only being able to have 3 Pak 88s while the other side has 4 HM-38s (...in a population sense, I know none of you would ever want to get Pak 88s against literally-only-infantry) because the first side bought 10 Grens while the other got 10 Scripts. A manpower income advantage would allow a player to get the same quantity of units faster, a population advantage would allow a player to always have a greater quantity of units without losing them like Vance Stubbs on Baneblades more often so the others' units better kick proportionately more ass.

They are.
Grenadier have a Pop of 7 Pg of 9.
Conscripts have a pop of 6 Penal of 7.

A PzIV has a pop of 12.
A T-34/76 has a pop of 10.

Manpower question

Combine lower upkeep and lower reinforcement cost and ones end up with more manpower available.

Manpower question

he is just ...

Manpower question

Manpower INCOME question

Manpower INCOME question

Manpower income= Default Manpower (200)-Upkeep. Upkeep is related to pop.

Manpower income= Default Manpower (200)-Upkeep. Upkeep is related to pop.

That's what I'm saying.

That's what I'm saying.

Sorry my mistake...

Sorry my mistake...

It's cool

It's cool

Actually I apologized to ElSlayer who seem to agree with me. Pop difference is an indirect away to change manpower income.

Why were armies not balanced against one another by having differing manpower incomes?

Changing the default manpower income would be necessary if units did not have an upkeep or the upkeep was the same across the board.

Since units have different pop/upkeep and different reinforcement cost faction actually do have different effective manpower income and manpower available.

No need to justify it mate. Keep it cool!

Vipper is right obviously, there are huge differences between armies manpower simply hidden in their unit cost, reinforcement cost and upkeep. The most obvious ones are USF who has everything more costly manpower wise across the board but also powerful.