Hi all,

Manpower mechanic is a great ES2 addition (somehow similar on EuropaUniversalis4 manpower mechanic) 

• Attackers : each fleet has manpower value (crew and, most important, ground invasion forces)
• Defenders : each planet has manpower value (defending troops)

Perfect : this gives war an additional cost and another resource to manage

Yes but in fact not really ; there is a major problem for now : current implementation and associated values make this resource infinite.

How can i ever run out of manpower ?

• Empire-wide : thousands limits (increasing each time a planet is captured)
• Attacker perspective : hundreds (replenish only when in a friendly system, which require a few turns or an invasion .... in the mean time, empire reserves are replenished)
• Defender perspective : hundreds (replenished when attacking fleet is destroyed ... during siege, defending reserves keeps growing). No  specific defending structure available in research tree to improve this.

So, whatever the situation, i never take into account manpower when planning attacks nor defense ==> this make this resource virtually infinite, hence useless

The best manpower management mechanic yet is .... force truced  !!!!

Suggested solutions 

• Increasing values for defending and attacking parties to really make empire-wide manpower generation usefull
• Giving defenders system improvments (which would counter attacker's invasion module available through research)
• Giving players opportunity to stop manpower automatic generation (based on food supplies) ; taking risks is coherent (lore perspective) and fun (gameplay perspective)
• Use manpower for way more purposes :
  • On rebellion systems
  • To impact elections
  • For empire-wide resource transfers (a planet needs food when another is in excedent ? use the army to transfer resources)
  • Implement quests to use this resource