I am new to Endspace 2.  I am fighting my 1st ground battle and it is going on for many turns.  I am the attacker.  WHat I don't understand is how a bunch of guys get killed and the next turn both me and the defender get X number of reinforcements.  I check the manpower left on my fleets after one of the attacks and its 0.  The replenish rate is 0.  But each turn I get more guys.  I can check the "manpower" screen for my empire and it sats 0 for "FLeet/systems" use.  I don't get it.

For the  defneder I know can he do "draft" and use pops for his army too but I think its more than that where he gets the guys.

Can anyone explain?

Thanks.

The manpower on your fleets reads 0 because all of it was dumped into the system the moment you clicked "Invade". From this manpower, you get to deploy a number per turn equal to your deployment limit (this increases with some techs), while the remainder is put into "Reserve". Example: my deployment limit is 1200 + Blitz bonus = 1560. The Lumeris' limit is 1125.

Since the invading fleet had more than 1560 manpower, it has a "Reserve" pool to draw from each turn which it uses refill up to the deployment limit for the next turn (1860 in the image). The defender gets the same reinforcements from their reserves (unless you besieged it all to 0 before invading), but they can keep padding it with Draft/Conscription as long as they have spare pops. The guys you were getting as reinforcements were the extra guys from your fleet that didn't get to deploy on the first invasion turn because of deployment limit. Draft just gives +175 manpower to the defender and higher deployment limit  to the defender , no other hidden bonuses there. Neither side gets manpower refills from their empire pools during the invasion.

Thanks.  This helps a lot but does that mean that the reserves would start out at a number (the extra guys on my ships that couldn't dpeloy) and slowly go down each turn?  Because I swear that number sometimes goes up.  I wrote down a few turns's numbers.  Next time I'll get screen shots but here is what I wrote:

Turn 1:  Before attack:  875 deployed, 335 in reserved.  Attacked with Guerrilla.  After:  850/875, 335 in reserve.  25 killed

Turn 2:  Before attack, 875 deployed, 310 in reserve (makes sense here, 25 less guys in reserve since they got killed before).  Attacked Guerilla again.  After attack:  850/875, 310 in reserve.  25 killed again

Turn 3:  Before attack:  1138 of 1138.  I chose blitzkrieg, higher deploy but why is reserve 323???  13 more than last round and a bunch of extra guys to make 1138 from where?

Turn 3 is an exmaple of my problem.  Where do all these guys come from?

Did you park a new fleet there at the end of turn 2? Or moved a fleet in at turn 3, saved the game, then loaded the save? New ships that enter the system can get their manpower added to the ongoing invasion. I've often moved fleets into my invaded systems a few turns after the intial invasion to save the defenders with new manpower.

Hmm, you know... maybe I added ships.  It took like 10 turns to finally end (he did tactical surrender).  Next time I will pay much closer attention.  I'll write down the total MP before the battle starts and see what happens.  Thanks.