Question: Viablility of Manpower Attrition

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    • Question: Viablility of Manpower Attrition

      Hello, I joined Call of War this year and this is my 3rd match. Because I am new to the game there are certain things I dont know about and can't find on the internet. This is one of those questions and I would be greatful if a discussion takes place and I get your opinions on the same.
      Feel free to skip the context and go straight to my question if you are in a hurry. :)

      Context
      1) Currently playing as British India. Japan has gobbled up the whole East Asia till Xinjiang, including TIbet and remains at Peace with me. Japan is a very experienced player and I will find it difficult to defend against them. I have set up heavy defenses against the tibetan border in the north and north east.

      2) Apart from China, Australia too has expanded heavily and is in a Share Map relation with China. Australia has reached till Rangoon in Malaysia. I am in a War with Australia. So far, Australia has been extremely reckless in their expansion. They send troops which are picked by my air units and keep losing huge amount of their army units. I have sunk at least 10 Naval units of their so far. I have only sustained damages of 4 naval bombers and some infantry units from Australia.

      3) So far, I have not expanded heavily into the Australian territory as there is a looming threat from Japan in the North. I do not wish to spread my troops too much. (Got beat up by Soviet Union in previous map, played as British India)

      Question
      Australia has faced huge manpower losses. Check Attachment for the same.
      1) Is it Viable for me to use a guerilla type strategy where I make Australia suffer huge Manpower losses and then withdraw my troops?
      2) What happens when Australia runs out of manpower? Does Manpower go negative?
      3) What is the best way to inflict manpower damages on a country.

      Thank you in advance. Look forward for a discussion.



      Also why do we have to make a different account for the forum and the game lol.
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    • Nice job

      you can attrition him until he gives up

      but he will never run out of manpower, though his army will shrink a lot

      but guerilla warfare , How would you do it
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    • Femto02 wrote:

      1) Is it Viable for me to use a guerilla type strategy where I make Australia suffer huge Manpower losses and then withdraw my troops?
      Hey Femto02, welcome to the game. I am glad that you have been hoping to reference some historic tactics into this game. I would, however, discourage guerilla warfare, at least until you have experience in this game and know what you are doing. Withdrawing isn't an option when you are stuck in melee combat (combat between units where they may not retreat until one of the belligerents is eliminated), so sending in "small amounts of outnumbered troops" as per definition of guerilla warefare and not being able to pull them out is suicide. Furthermore, you have ranged weapons like artillery and a strong airforce that you could use to deal damage without inflicting huge damage on yourself instead of sending in troops when you are outnumbered. As long as you are able to continue to fight and inflict damages on the enemy, they will eventually lose troops and ground to bring you to victory, you seem to be doing very well seeing the casualty amount and there is no need change things too much and risk your current position.


      Femto02 wrote:

      2) What happens when Australia runs out of manpower? Does Manpower go negative?
      The numbers you saw from the newspaper is casualty, they are somewhat different from your manpower resources. This is normally a measure of how good you are doing and inflicting damages on the enemy, from this, you can tell that you are doing a decent job fighting them, inflicting much more damage to them than to yourself. Unless a country is really running to the ground (losing land, troops everything), they will not go negative on production of manpower. However, building too many troops and not having enough production will decrease the nations ability to produce more units, hindering its ability to replenish troops on the frontline.


      Femto02 wrote:

      3) What is the best way to inflict manpower damages on a country.
      You can always damage their provinces through ranged/airforce bombardment, especially their capitol, core cities, core non resource producing provinces etc. in that order (which in turn decreases their morale and decrease manpower production). Other ways to decrease morale like gold usage is always an option, but I would rather focus on eliminating more of their troops and directly destroy their ability to fight instead of finding indirect ways to do that.

      Femto02 wrote:

      Also why do we have to make a different account for the forum and the game lol.
      I believe that is because this is a third-party platform that is separate from the game. It is sometimes easier when the Forum is already set up so managing the site is easier, just a little trouble for some people to figure that out sometimes :).

      Hope it helps!
      BeaveRyan
      Moderator
      EN Community Support | Bytro Labs Gmbh


      Training Alliance United Leader
    • Hey Ryan04px2025, Thanks for the advice. Will keep your answers in mind.


      TheZhukov wrote:

      Nice job

      you can attrition him until he gives up

      but he will never run out of manpower, though his army will shrink a lot

      but guerilla warfare , How would you do it
      Hello TheZhukov, I think I used the wrong term. I plan to use something akin to that. Use of air units to bomb their troops and using artilleries for defensive ranged attacks if they get too close to my borders. I have dropped 9 flying bombs on their cities so far. I use to armoured cars to quickly capture cities and leave as soon as enemy troops arrive, which I bomb from air units. In case of Naval units, the enemy is pretty balanced so my naval hitpoints has taken a hit, but their naval units have been destroyed.
      So, basically its is ranged attack - capture - retreat - ranged attack - capture - retreat.......
    • As Ryan pointed out, the term manpower is used to indicate the manpower resource in the game that is required for troop production and upkeep. The values you showed from the newspaper is a separate measure of unit losses/deaths/casualties.

      Losing units in this way doesn't decrease your manpower resource, which a completely separate variable. In fact, losing troops will cause your manpower daily production to increase since living troops require a daily manpower resource upkeep.

      Contrary to withdrawing your troops, when you have the advantage, as implied by your relative casualties, that is the time to keep up the pressure and conquer the whole country. If you delay, it gives the enemy time to rebuild units, reposition, fortify, etc.
    • As far as I know, the newspaper casualty numbers actually represent the lost manpower from units.

      If I defeat a unit that required 1000 manpower to produce, the newspaper will show my opponent with 1000 casualties. If I then do 50% damage to a unit that required 1500 MP to produce, the newspaper will show 1750 casualties.

      I've tested this with complete unit losses and have confirmed it (unless it was a strange coincidence). I'm speculating about the prorated calculation but assume it has to work that way so that a later death of that unit still sums up to the complete unit loss.

      You can test this yourself against an AI in early game, when they've got single infantry units sitting around. Defeat one and then compare the casualty numbers to the manpower required to produce an infantry of that doctrine.
    • jubjub bird wrote:

      As far as I know, the newspaper casualty numbers actually represent the lost manpower from units.
      Even if that is how they quantify casualties, it is probably not a good idea for a new player to think of it that way. I had the impression the OP was thinking that killing enemy units would reduce their pool of manpower surplus, which isn't the case.

      That being said, it does make sense to quantify casualties in terms manpower resource required for production since that is the one of the resources (along with time and cash) all units require and it tends to be scaled to the value of the unit. Cash cost could also be used as it's almost perfectly correlated with manpower cost.
    • DxC wrote:

      Losing units in this way doesn't decrease your manpower resource, which a completely separate variable. In fact, losing troops will cause your manpower daily production to increase since living troops require a daily manpower resource upkeep.
      Oh yes, I did not think of it that way. I will have to keep that in mind. So, basically the plan to suck up the manpower resource of a country by attacking troops is not really viable.


      DxC wrote:

      Contrary to withdrawing your troops, when you have the advantage, as implied by your relative casualties, that is the time to keep up the pressure and conquer the whole country. If you delay, it gives the enemy time to rebuild units, reposition, fortify, etc.
      I am afraid I cannot do that. Have to partake in a huge defensive operation across the whole northern, north-eastern and north western border against Japan. Japan has the largest and the most technologically army in the world, so I will have to prepare for that.
      Thanks for the advice DxC.
    • @Femto02 I think you are on a good way. Manpower is not easy to compensate.

      You can steal money, ressources, .... trade em .... but not manpower ... this one is a little bit special! Only gold can help you with manpower. But who can afford all that 'golden boys'?

      Beside that topic I can only wish you the best of luck and maybe you can find out, who is playing together. Normally nobody with experience will interfere with your Aussi battle. So you can take over Australia's cities as you are able to.
      Hier könnt Ihr ein Support-Ticket erstellen. :00000450:

      The post was edited 1 time, last by Hurbala ().