Manpower shortage

[Radagy]

Manpower is the real bottleneck for me.
I’m playing my first real game and at turn 150, I own half the planet (medium size) and I struggle to get the manpower I need to expand my logistic network.
I moved colonist, I raised workers wages, I recruited all available freemen on the map, I mothballed unnecessary buildings, but it’s never enough to properly man my truck and railway stations.
Any hint to get more men?
Thanks

[zgrssd]

We are going need soem real figures:
How much of your population is workers?
How much of your non-worker population has found employment in the private economy?
What are you Worker Salary, Private Salary and Recruitment incentives?
Do you have large amounts of Recruits stored in the SHQ?

[Falke]

Have you created additional SHQ ? With proper planning this will reduce the logistical strain

[zgrssd]

ORIGINAL: Falke

Have you created additional SHQ ? With proper planning this will reduce the logistical strain

I do not think you read the post properly.

There is no indication of a Logistics isssue.

[lloydster4]

If you're short on manpower, then you need to prioritize where it goes. Make sure you're not producing any excess resources. If you need more logistics workers, then you might need to scale back your bureaucracy buildings.

[Radagy]

ORIGINAL: zgrssd

We are going need soem real figures:

Well, my question was less specific than that.
I’m not sure if population is growing by itself in a fast and significant way, so that I can build large number of expanding cities (á la Civilization), or if there is a population cap and it is just a matter of moving fixed number of pops between cities and balancing them between workers and recruits.

[Radagy]

ORIGINAL: lloydster4

If you're short on manpower, then you need to prioritize where it goes. Make sure you're not producing any excess resources. If you need more logistics workers, then you might need to scale back your bureaucracy buildings.

Yes, this is more or less, what I’m trying to do, but it is not enough so I need to fine tune the whole process.

[demiare]

ORIGINAL: Radagy

Well, my question was less specific than that.
I’m not sure if population is growing by itself in a fast and significant way, so that I can build large number of expanding cities (á la Civilization), or if there is a population cap and it is just a matter of moving fixed number of pops between cities and balancing them between workers and recruits.

Growing itself but really slow ~200-400 pops per turn without being lucky with clone stations. So new cities will be usually a net lose in population for a long time.

You should count population as another resource - if your planet have a it low at start then you need to conserve it as much as possible.

[Malevolence]

ORIGINAL: demiare

You should count population as another resource - if your planet have a it low at start then you need to conserve it as much as possible.

Indeed.

[zgrssd]

ORIGINAL: Radagy

ORIGINAL: zgrssd

We are going need soem real figures:

Well, my question was less specific than that.
I’m not sure if population is growing by itself in a fast and significant way, so that I can build large number of expanding cities (á la Civilization), or if there is a population cap and it is just a matter of moving fixed number of pops between cities and balancing them between workers and recruits.

The City Population + Free Folk you can atract is about all you get.
Growth is near to non-existant - and is getting worse with higher civilisation level.
Once you run out of Free Folk to attract, it is one of the scarcest resources in the game.

Hex Assets that produce free population, Recruits or Settlers are worth 10 times their production in Soldier Lives.

[Radagy]

ORIGINAL: zgrssd
Once you run out of Free Folk to attract, it is one of the scarcest resources in the game.

Yes, I had this feeling starting this thread

[Pi2repsilon]

I wouldn't say growth is near non-existent even at high civilization levels, since all your zones will consistently be growing at speeds varying with fertility; say rather that managing that growth, ensuring that the extra population per turn ends up doing what you want is the challenge.

Early game the influx of free folk obscures the importance of husbanding the population, limiting casualties, and ensuring that people are gainfully employed doing the things that are most needful to you - late game, that's another matter, and you will need to look more to recruitment incentives and mothballing manpower-intensive assets if you are in desperate need of more military manpower, or to nationalizing (and possibly mothballing) private assets that are extremely manpower hungry and provide something you don't really need.

As an example, private farming communities take a lot of manpower, but if you've got enough food production empire wide you might want to free up some of that manpower in favour of allowing food handouts in the affected zones. This does erase a major source of private income for the zone (selling excess food), which can be a significant effect for the zone depending on its overall economy, but for freeing up manpower in a hurry it works wonders.

[zgrssd]

ORIGINAL: Pi2repsilon

I wouldn't say growth is near non-existent even at high civilization levels, since all your zones will consistently be growing at speeds varying with fertility; say rather that managing that growth, ensuring that the extra population per turn ends up doing what you want is the challenge.

I got a city of 109.000.
Civilisation Level 17
Growth is 500/turn. That only covers my recruitment.

Most cities will be loosing population, if you try to recruit 500.

[Pi2repsilon]

ORIGINAL: zgrssd

ORIGINAL: Pi2repsilon

I wouldn't say growth is near non-existent even at high civilization levels, since all your zones will consistently be growing at speeds varying with fertility; say rather that managing that growth, ensuring that the extra population per turn ends up doing what you want is the challenge.

I got a city of 109.000.
Civilisation Level 17
Growth is 500/turn. That only covers my recruitment.

Most cities will be loosing population, if you try to recruit 500.

As they should.

I think I see where our disconnect arises. I see 500 growth/turn from a population of 109000 and think, "my, that's high growth", based on the idea that the game tries to do a good simulation of population growth, and you think, "my, that's low growth" for some reason best know to you. Possibly because the default starting value for recruitment in the capital is 500? Possibly for some other reason - you tell me.

The reason for my thinking is this. In-game turns are 2 Earth months each. 500 growth/turn is 3000 growth/year. For a population of 109000, that is a 2.8% population growth rate. That's HUGE - population doubles every 25 years - but certainly within the historically possible.

For comparison with current Earth conditions, that would put it in the company of the most terrible places to live.

Countries that are utter failures of governance, where people live short and desperate lives and effectively have only their family, possibly extended family, as social security net, are the ones that see native growth rates that high. (Here discounting countries that have high growth through immigration since you were talking native population growth.)

Yet you are getting it in a highly civilized future society that while it falls short of the utopian civilization once present on that planet is undoubtedly better than that of these countries in the present. (If nothing else, yours will probably have near-full employment and high QOL in most or all categories) If anything, the growth rate in-game may be a bit too high - but concessions must be made to playability and game balancing.

Since the game started out doing a detailed planet creation, I expected as much attention had been paid to population management and showing the devastating impact prolonged warfare has on population figures, making the player husband his manpower and have to make serious tradeoffs between employing people in the military and as workers, and I was pleased that that's exactly what I got.

Which is why when starting the game I happily set the target of recruiting 5000 per turn to rapidly build the manpower to be able to overwhelm one or two minors or one adjacent major in extremely short order, though in practice it is usually 1800 to 2000 people attracted to the military per turn unless there are huge numbers of free folk present, I just set it high enough to take anybody who wants to join - but later set the recruitment target in each zone to either zero or a trickle of a few hundred, when not urgently needing to build more manpower, where I issue new mass recruitment orders for the duration.

500 per turn? That's a recruitment target that holds no meaning at all to be something to aspire to - it is merely the starting default to ensure you get some manpower to play with even if you don't issue orders to your local governor.

[lloydster4]

The best way to free up manpower is to improve the efficiency of your workers. The best way to improve the efficiency of your workers is through Automation and Applied Science. You also get efficiency bonuses from higher level assets.

Technology is key.

[Smidlee]

Do anyone used robot solders even though they have high cost in resources?

p.s I noticed hydroponic food save not only water but workers more than dome farms. It's cost a lot of resource (hi-tech) but are better than domes in the long run.

[lloydster4]

ORIGINAL: Smidlee
I noticed hydroponic food save not only water but workers more than dome farms. It's cost a lot of resource (hi-tech) but are better than domes in the long run.

It's even more than you think. There are two techs that DRAMATICALLY increase the output of hydroponics.

Hydroponics Robotization doubles the output, Food Mass Pool doubles the output. If you have both techs, it QUADRUPLES the output.

You can also research improvements in Cross-fertilization, which provides up to another 100% increase. This increase applies to all farms though.

[zgrssd]

ORIGINAL: lloydster4

ORIGINAL: Smidlee
I noticed hydroponic food save not only water but workers more than dome farms. It's cost a lot of resource (hi-tech) but are better than domes in the long run.

It's even more than you think. There are two techs that DRAMATICALLY increase the output of hydroponics.

Hydroponics Robotization doubles the output, Food Mass Pool doubles the output. If you have both techs, it QUADRUPLES the output.

You can also research improvements in Cross-fertilization, which provides up to another 100% increase. This increase applies to all farms though.

That Cross Fertilisation applied is a bug. The beta fixed it, among others.

[lloydster4]

ORIGINAL: zgrssd
That Cross Fertilisation applied is a bug. The beta fixed it, among others.

Good to know. I think that means an open-air farm with a fully developed areal and 100% researched cross fertilization would be the most effective way to produce food. Very high level hydroponics assets probably still win-out, but idk if the investment to get there would be worth it.

Dome farms are still pretty much garbage though.

[Journier]

ORIGINAL: Radagy

ORIGINAL: zgrssd
Once you run out of Free Folk to attract, it is one of the scarcest resources in the game.

Yes, I had this feeling starting this thread

yup capture the free colonist and military worker compounds asap and set them to give ya those sweet free population.

Semi Modern world and people are like sexual monks. No sex or the slavers will getcha.