Thoughts on Military Goods

[George Geczy]

As we were playing a recent studio multiplayer game, in the usual manner of us all attacking somebody, Chris made note of the fact that his Soviet forces in 1940 were starved of ammo, and we really should do something about that.

So I've done a close look at the resource output logs while the game is run in various stages, and determined that this is a very complex question.

The fact is that when you look at World War II history over the period of 1939 to mid-1944, there was actually a lot more "hurry up and wait" than there was "battle battle battle!" And in SR1936, when countries are generally in "quiet time", meaning they are producing units but not actually fighting, the production of military goods in the world is about double what the demand is.

Of course, this changes when armies start to toss tons of military metal at each other through every manner possible. During an active whole-front battle, such as Germany-France or Germany-USSR, the usage can exceed production by a factor of 10x.

While this makes for interesting gameplay issues, I really don't think this is wrong. In fact, I tend to think this is very much an accurate historical portrayal.

First, it forces players to stock up on military goods before launching an offensive. (Like in history.) It also tends to favor regions fighting on a single front at once instead of major offensive on every front. And it rewards the "attack - pause" strategy, where a region has a major offensive and then pauses to resupply and rebuild stocks before attacking again.

In 1940, major elements of the Soviet army collapsed and surrendered because they were out of fuel and ammo. While part of the problem was logistics, another part was the simple lack of sufficient stockpiles to mount an effective ongoing battle. There are many other examples to use. So my point is that the tight situation with military goods is an important element of the game, and key to forcing players to consider logistics and resource stocks as part of their overall strategy.

Of course, there are a couple of elements of the game that use ammo a bit a-historically, especially artillery units that will shoot at every tiny recon that skitters by their line of sight; while there were cases when artillery fired nearly nonstop (such as major sieges), it generally wasn't doctrine to fire at everything that moved.

All that being said, the next update is making changes. Overall we'll be doubling the military goods production in the world, which will make it much easier to stockpile military goods between major battles. The output per node is also going up considerably, making it easier to build up military goods capacities. Starting stocks will be a bit higher. And AI regions will build more military goods facilities over time, making later years of the war have a greater supply.

But this won't take away the requirement to stock up before a big battle, and to avoid the "24/7" battle strategy. (It may turn out that the changes make it too easy to "game" the system, but we'll see.)

Open to thoughts on this, both for how it is now and feedback once the next update is posted (expected this weekend).

-- George.

[Hundane]

And AI regions will build more military goods facilities over time, making later years of the war have a greater supply.

Probably not possible but instead of just building MG facilities. Add some sort of "Retooling for War" events where several existing CG facilities are "retooled" into MG and/or IG facilities.

[bluestreak2k5]

I agree the answer isn't simple, the biggest problem I've had as Germany is I never have enough IG or money (at the same time, I usually have 1 or the other), both of which are extremely high demands of military good factories, and then when they are done they take IG production as well, so I have even less IG now. Early game I'm so busy stockpiling MG, Rubber, and Oil (which was historical) but this leaves me spending so much money that I can barely afford to expand MG factories.

I think if you boosted Money income either by looking into Infrastructure spending as I've noted numerous times, or into research spending and slightly modifying those, that this would help solve the issue as well as with your change with significantly increase MG production.

You could also reduce the money cost of MG buildings, IG buildings, and CG buildings by about 20%.

[George Geczy]

Probably not possible but instead of just building MG facilities. Add some sort of "Retooling for War" events where several existing CG facilities are "retooled" into MG and/or IG facilities.

That is an interesting idea.... though a MilGoods plant is much "bigger" than the other two... does raise a number of issues, but it's interesting.

You could also reduce the money cost of MG buildings, IG buildings, and CG buildings by about 20%.

We'll be looking at some of the money issues, offhand I didn't think the cost Finish goods buildings was a big factor, though for tech research it certainly can be. I'll look into your comments on infrastructure as well.

-- George.

[Gonzar]

If there will be shortage of military goods always and the only questions is "when" there will be such shortage, then i think there are two main ways to deal with it:
- The AI learns to deal with it and not collapse. This involves changes in many aspects like mg comsuptiom of military units, learn when to shoot and when not, etc. This all is quite difficult to balance.

- Or much easier the game is designed to minimized such shortages. It seems for me that the easiest and fastest way is just to significantly increase the output of mg per factory and node, like you say you have done for the next patch.

The main point for me is that, if the AI always gets shortages of mg, then there will be no real challenge for the player, because the player will always manage such shortages way better than the AI does.
At the end, this is a strategy game that needs to be challenging or it looses all its appeal.

[Aragos]

IMHO, part of the issue is in the AI overbuilding of military complexes/fabs in the newest patch. It drains MGs from the global economy.

Secondly, the AI tends to hyper-aggressiveness. War will start, AI will send a wave of units to fight. They burn MGs quickly, then more as they repair. This also drains the system of MGs quickly. Unless this is fixed, what will happen is the AI will charge off to war, and have hordes of unsupplied units sitting around in enemy territory very quickly due to lack of MGs.

A potential fix would be to lower the cost to build MG factories. IIRC, they are one of the most expensive at start to build. Why, I'm not really sure--many CGs are just as expensive as bullets, tires, parts, etc. In general, I can see IGs being the most expensive (representing heavy industry, tool & die factories, etc. that represent a major investement of capital), while CG and MG are about the same (many of their products--uniforms for military or clothing for civilians, for example--are exactly the same production process, or are dual use, like truck tires or batteries).

Another option would be to keep costs the same but to raise MG production in all three building sizes, and lower cost-to-produce (e.g., lower the need for rubber, oil, etc.).

A third option would be to reduce or eliminate the production penalty for captured/non-loyal territory. For the AI, this would give it a good boost in production overall.

[bluestreak2k5]

We'll be looking at some of the money issues, offhand I didn't think the cost Finish goods buildings was a big factor, though for tech research it certainly can be. I'll look into your comments on infrastructure as well.
-- George.

My main comments are that infrastructure ends up taking the most ridiculous amount of money to maintain as your empire grows.
See 3.2 http://www.bgforums.com/forums/viewtopi ... 74&t=22277
3.1 would also be a good place.

It seems rather unbelievable that you would be spending more on roads/rails then your entire military spending at the peak of the war??? Or that your spending more on maintain roads then healthcare and education combined?

And yes reducing the costs of the buildings for IG/CG/MG would have quite an impact considering how much you build of them in a game. I've easily built 300 IG, 100 CG, and 50-100 MG before 1941 as Germany... a 10% reduction on that is billions.

[George Geczy]

Thanks for the comments and feedback. It should be interesting to see how Military goods changes/improve after the weekend update.

The AI has learned a few related tricks - for example, aggressive regions (Germany, Italy, Japan in particular) will start stockpiling military-related resources much earlier.

There is still a requirement to make the AI more historical in some of the other areas mentioned - less aggressive at times, and more of a "resting" phase between launching major offensives (instead of the "full time battles" that happen now). This is on the work list.

-- George.

[SGTscuba]

Thanks for the comments and feedback. It should be interesting to see how Military goods changes/improve after the weekend update.

The AI has learned a few related tricks - for example, aggressive regions (Germany, Italy, Japan in particular) will start stockpiling military-related resources much earlier.

There is still a requirement to make the AI more historical in some of the other areas mentioned - less aggressive at times, and more of a "resting" phase between launching major offensives (instead of the "full time battles" that happen now). This is on the work list.

-- George.

Very nice to hear this. OP Crusader will be better off now

[chome]

I totally agree that we do not want too many MG's that it's like metal ore which seems to have an infinite supply. It just needs to be balanced where nations are not already out of MG''s by the fall of Poland. I think the changes you are talking about might fix the problem.

In my game playing as Germany, it seemed that Japan was eating up all the resources before even one bullet was fired in Europe. They defeated China and then the world supply of IG's and MG's dropped like a brick.

[George Geczy]

So I was testing the potential update yesterday and today, and it's quickly clear that the changes have gone way too far in the other direction. Military Goods were flowing like candy in a candy store made of candy. While major regions experienced demand-over-supply for brief periods, the ministers and AI were able to very easily work around this by stocking up and buying off the market.

Proof of the fact that resource balance is a very delicate thing, and is very easily tipped one way or the other.

So we'll make a few more tweaks and hopefully get the update out on Monday.

-- George.

[Fistalis]

So I was testing the potential update yesterday and today, and it's quickly clear that the changes have gone way too far in the other direction. Military Goods were flowing like candy in a candy store made of candy. While major regions experienced demand-over-supply for brief periods, the ministers and AI were able to very easily work around this by stocking up and buying off the market.

Proof of the fact that resource balance is a very delicate thing, and is very easily tipped one way or the other.

So we'll make a few more tweaks and hopefully get the update out on Monday.

-- George.

small increments george.. small..

If it takes a few updates to get it right thats fine but its better to do small increments and let it go into the wild to see how it works than to try to get it right in one huge swoop.

[George Geczy]

If it takes a few updates to get it right thats fine but its better to do small increments and let it go into the wild to see how it works than to try to get it right in one huge swoop.

I know, I know... I got carried away. It looked good on paper.

[Fistalis]

If it takes a few updates to get it right thats fine but its better to do small increments and let it go into the wild to see how it works than to try to get it right in one huge swoop.

I know, I know... I got carried away. It looked good on paper.

I understand, but we both know with so many inter-dependencies its easy to fix it and then break it at the same time, and it becomes harder to know what you broke and what you fixed when you make so many changes at once.
(also was that candy store located in candy land?)

[C64]

Hello ..sorry my english is not very well... so

i played as yugoslavia . i have big problems with my military goods my Minister build permanently military facilities. I scrap them but he build them up new..and i have no chance to repair my conquered facilities.. iam out of military goods and cant figure it out.

what can i do?

thx