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Do you ever play with "no units" enabled? I think its pretty fun how the game pretty much becomes one massive arms race the moment it starts because everybody starts with no units.

Discuss!

Never done it.

Most of the countries dont have any fabrication plants. So they cannot produce anything except garrisons. Also only 4 or so countries have heavy production, which means they will be your only challange. However they are not going to focus primairly on cranking out as many units like you the player will. So you will easily always be able to outpase the AI in production.

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I sort of agree ruges...I notice that those countries you mention as having no land fabs, usually are not a country i really worry about even when I choose to play with units. I like playing without most of the time so I can build what I want and it forces me to get the economy right in the begining because I cant sell units to make money. plus the game moves faster for longer. I still sell tech though...only when I am having a hard time in the begining to get the economy right...lol. I have started to toy with the no units after you take a country over for added difficulty/ force me to make better choices as far as units and "throwing them away" if you know what I mean

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Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.
- Napoleon Bonaparte

What? Why not? Then why do they start out with lots of units in a normal game? How did they make them?

Also, won't the AI just create fabrication plants then?

Many countries around the world do not produce any type of military units. Most of them buy secound hand equipment off the major countries that are phasing out the older equipment. And in some cases even negotiate purchasing new equipment. Although in many of these cases the new stuff they buy is still infirior to what the selling nation can produce. Russia and the US are famous for this.

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Well, that's quite interesting. After purchasing the game recently I started as Brazil, and chose "no units," mainly because I want to familiarize myself with the economic and diplomatic aspects of the game without worrying about immediate war. I must say that I'm really enjoying just trading commodities, improving relations with various countries and building a better Brazilian society.

The only unit I have built so far is an engineer battalion, to help speed up my construction.

I didn't know that most nations don't have fabrication plants. I assume, then, that it will be quite easy for me to conquer most of South America, should I choose to do so.

If you begin with units on, and most countries don't produce units, do you simply win most wars by waging a battle of attrition? Or do countries without fabrication plants simply purchase units from their allies? I'm very curious about this.

I have played with this option, but do not prefer it. The game will become even more dominated by the powers thna before, at least that's the way it plays out for me.

If they don't have Land Fabs, they most likely will not win wars. These guys will pretty much be cannon fodder for you and the stronger AI. If you do start the game with units, I guess it depends on the country and their neighbors, but I'm pretty sure they will not win wars either.

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I always start with no units because of how much they slow down the game. With no units in the beginning I have about ten years before the game is to slow to play. With units on, the turn duration is about three times longer, about 30s/day, and since everybody keeps building I have only two or three years before everything slows down to ~60s/day. 365 minutes makes six hours of realtime for a year of gameplay, which is totally unacceptable when you are trying to go high-tech. It helps to conquer Europe early, since that's where most of the unit building happens. Then there's just US, China, India, South Korea, and Japan that have a lot. The other countries always have a decent military by the time I get around to invading them, although most do not build ships or much aircraft. Basically, unless you can get to Europe in 7 years, you may as well give up. Naturally, this is not an issue if you only want to play a few military engagements with what you've got and don't care about tech or the economy.

I prefer to start with no units. If you want a real challenge its the way to go. Russia build over 100 air fabs while I've seen the US have as many as 170 land fabs on very hard military. The AI will build fabs and all their units are better. I also like building my army from scratch. Save Europe till the end for a good fight. Most countries do have land fabs. Let them build long enough and even 2 land fabs will produce a sizeable force.

I never play with no units. Because there are many countries that have no military build capability. This means automatically every country with fabs has an advantage. EVen small african regional wars are at the whim of the trade ai in these situations, not good
.

Could someone perhaps clarify this issue?

Does the AI build fabs or not?

The AI does build fabrication facilities if there is space in a military complex and it chooses to expand.

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Chris Latour
BattleGoat Studios
chris@battlegoat.com

Antonin, do yourself a test, start a game as a small nation, like Trinidad and Tobago. Let it run at max speed while you sleep or are at work. At no point will they build military fabs. Another good example is Guyana in S. America. They will never build any either.

The point I am making, there are many nations in the game that will not build any fabs. They have to rely on the units they start the game with or are sold throughout the game.

It is true that the US, Russia, China etc will build more fabs, but that is not what I was referring to in my original post.

Now I'm confused again.