Disintegrating Army?

[Random]

Now Spring 1859 as France in GC started with v102. Economy is strong, over 4000 Money and 10,000 Capital on hand, no major social issues, happiness generally between 50-70% and colonization proceeding well and according to plan. Also on target for national goals, 2nd Largest Army, Navy and Merchant Marine, Greatest Beef and Luxury Goods Production.

So things are rolling along fine and then...

Shortly after getting the Muzzle-Loading Rifles technology however, my military started to disintegrate. I had accumulated what seemed to be sufficient reserves in all areas but within a couple of turns my elements were rapidly reduced to essentially zero strength and now am showing a shortage of -3638 infantry hits, over -250 field artillery hits and similar massive shortfalls in all areas of the Army and Navy.

I far exceeded the maintenance costs required in Money, Manufactured Goods, Coal and Steel but am less sure about supply, having some 79 stockpiled.

I do not recall seeing any message regarding supply issues except in those colonial areas where they were expected and planned for but now the Army is so weak and losses so severe climbing out of this hole is going to be very difficult indeed. Also, do no recall seeing this particular problem anywhere in the assorted Forums.

Any ideas what happened here? Thanks in advance.

[yellow ribbon]

please, answer some short questions (despite i know you play it for months already), just to be precise:

1.) do you describe the need for replacements in F3 or do you describe the currents state of a unit/element (like the right window you can open for units/elements) ?

I mean, you know that the replacements upgrade units to new tech-level and no, you dont need that many replacements points for a couple of units will be refilled from one single bought replacement point.

2.) you had enough men and officers to sustain the units too ?

3.) simply check the level of supply for every unit, if cities are depleted and units down/close to zero

in a worst case, i believe something similar WAS there in past regarding upgrades of troops after technology was researched. Guess is was with Russia...

[Le Ricain]

The Muzzle Loading Rifle tech triggers an upgrade of army units. You will have noticed that you have received messages that various units have been upgraded to 1850-1870 models. As such, your units need to be rebuilt.

Why this rebuilding includes artillery and naval units is a mystery to me. You do need to make sure that you have enough conscripts and officers saved from rebuild chits in order to satisfy maintenance requirements. This may be why your naval and artillery units have been damaged.

[yellow ribbon]

[quote="Le Ricain"]The Muzzle Loading Rifle tech triggers an upgrade of army units. You will have noticed that you have received messages that various units have been upgraded to 1850-1870 models. As such, your units need to be rebuilt.


thats why i asked him whether he means the elements itself or F3

[Random]

Thanks for the response!

1.) do you describe the need for replacements in F3 or do you describe the currents state of a unit/element (like the right window you can open for units/elements) ?

From the F3 screen. Examination of the individual stacks shows the majority of the individual elements all or at least partially in the red.

2.) you had enough men and officers to sustain the units too ?

Up to the turn where I acquired the Muzzle-Loading Rifle technology, I had reserves in ALL categories of replacements (Infantry, Light Infantry, Cavalry, all three Artillery types, supply, command, colonial infantry, naval and merchant ship replacements) including some 30+ regular infantry. These vanished in essentially one turn. I had been buying a couple of replacement types every turn which prevented maintaining a large pool of replacement men although there were plenty of officers remaining each turn.

3.) simply check the level of supply for every unit, if cities are depleted and units down/close to zero

Will do. Haven't fired up the game since this became seemingly uncontrollable as I wanted to find out the "why" before attempting a fix.

I did get very numerous XXX Unit has been trained messages over a number of turns and figure these consumed the existing replacements but then everything else went for a...

I suspect that I might have been operating at the very minimum of my supply requirements before the new tech raised the supply costs and and put my rather large army out of supply.

Before this started Russia was militarily at only 102% of France in the F10 screen with England at 91% and Prussia showing 84%. Suppose it's possible that I allowed military growth to exceed sustainability but the new Military Gear factories I started a couple of turns ago will take some time to come on line.

[yellow ribbon]

"Up to the turn where I acquired the Muzzle-Loading Rifle technology, I had reserves in ALL categories of replacements (Infantry, Light Infantry, Cavalry, all three Artillery types, supply, command, colonial infantry, naval and merchant ship replacements) including some 30+ regular infantry. These vanished in essentially one turn. I had been buying a couple of replacement types every turn which prevented maintaining a large pool of replacement men although there were plenty of officers remaining each turn.

what ever you do, make a copy of the current save to be able to sent it to the devs if it is a bug (what as i said could be, problem was there three months ago in a forum)

ok, in generally looks like the technology. As Le Ricain explained in better words, the new tech will only be used as soon the men are trained, this is described in PON with replacements from F3 dropping into the existing military units.

if you say there were already plenty of replacements, did you get the "ELEMENT XYZ" HAS BEEN TRAINED messages... ???

And most essential, look into the bar in the main screen for recruits/officers. few men lacking there, but need to sustain the army will be harm ALL units.
if nothing was changed, the lack of recruits will spread out evenly to a lack of conscripts in all elements and can lead (in my observations) to up to 25% lowered unit strength...

[Random]

OK I have copied a save but as I return to the game I suspect that it is not at all a bug but rather related to my mishandling the upgrade. there were numerous "ELEMENT XYZ HAS BEEN TRAINED" messages as I noted above.

After returning to the game and trying some things this appears that initially it might have been a problem between the chair and keyboard and a misunderstanding of the way PON manages military supply.

In anticipation of a war with Piedmont and or Prussia (France intends to oppose the unification of both Italy and Germany and so has worked to cultivate good relations with Austria) I used a booming economy to greatly expand the Army and the Navy without building any additional supply or ammunition capacity. What I expect might have happened was that I had been operating on the very margins of my supply requirements and was thrown far into the red when the upgrade came along and increased the cost of doing military business. Failing to recognize this I allowed the situation to deteriorate as I attempted to just buy replacements without addressing the basic cause of the attrition. Just finished a couple of turns with extensive purchases of supply from off shore sellers and additional losses seem to have ended and last turn made some inroads on the shortfalls.

If this is the case, military planning should include careful attention to the infrastructure necessary to support the new requirements, something I neglected to do as I did not correctly identify the problem until it ran out of control.

Does this sound plausible?

I have attached a save but it is well into the crisis and so may not be of help if there is a bug in there somewhere.

[Jamitar]

I didnt read everything cause im in a hurry but ive got a solution instead of explanation. quickly go to saves and go back a few turns to before this happened. if you understood by now why it happened you might be able to prevent it ( go to saves roll mouse over and tooltip shows. press home to go back 1 turn. 12 turns max!)
hopefully you know what to do or your toast

[Random]

Thanks for the suggestion Jamitar but I'm only toast if there's a war in Europe before I can rebuild. I would far rather fix the problem now that it has occurred than roll back the game to before it happened.

[sagji]

As a general rule of thumb when you get a unit upgrade it will consume about 1 replacement for every 10 elements affected.
Muzzle loading Rifle is often worse as you can easily get the needle gun tech before it, so when you get MLR a lot of units get two upgrades one after another so you get a double hit and need 1 replacement for every 5 elements.
You can see the number of elements you have as that's the maximum number of replacements, but not all upgrades apply to all element grouped together under the F3.

[Le Ricain]

Thanks for the suggestion Jamitar but I'm only toast if there's a war in Europe before I can rebuild. I would far rather fix the problem now that it has occurred than roll back the game to before it happened.

It is a similar challenge for Britain. It was a race to get the British and Indian Armies back up full strength before the Indian Mutiny erupts. It is pretty exciting.

[StephenT]

Same thing happened to me as Prussia, but it did NOT affect my ships or artillery. Only my infantry and cavalry units.

I suspect that if you did need ship or cannon replacements as well, it was just a coincidence.

[Le Ricain]

Same thing happened to me as Prussia, but it did NOT affect my ships or artillery. Only my infantry and cavalry units.

I suspect that if you did need ship or cannon replacements as well, it was just a coincidence.

It has happened to me when I created so many replacement chits, that I did not leave enough conscript companies to take care of maintenance. In such cases all unit types take a hit including ships and artillery. You only have to make this mistake once in order to learn the lesson.

[yellow ribbon]

oh, its enough to run into a scripted event... minus 300 conscripts while starting the ACW in the 1850 GC but due to restrictions and low population barely higher than 300 conscripts possible (minus needed for sustaining the army and navy (the latter one is supposed to be extended)...
so, ACW triggers too early and BAAAAAAAAAAAANG!

however, folks you are mixing it completely now (having experienced all the same effect):

1.) lack of supply by too large army/navy (i already described it, would be better to substract a medium sized unit for every couple of brigades and so on). here numbers in F4 are misleading, to get the nominal use you need to disable the conversion of goods in stocks to goods on the map function and start planing from that number.
once supply is converted into any depot, units may lack supply for no supply in the F4, but cant pull it from a far away depot. large forces however can deplete closer depots completely and suffer from too few supply either

2.) only the replacements needed for techs, while the number of RP-points is, as Sagji wrote, to be divided through a value X and numbers in F3 highly misleading

3.) the lack of money, officers, recruits to sustain the army, if you lack even only two recruits, damage will be spread evenly to ALL outfits and ships, even if full equipped before.
the replacements in F3 also are highly misleading, for one single RP-point will be splitted to refill dozens of units if necessary.
a drawback of the fact, that attrition is a describing variable of cohesion in PON and only weather/climate effect is added.