Observations: German Campaign twice with new Patch 28

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bluestreak2k5
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Observations: German Campaign twice with new Patch 28

Post by bluestreak2k5 »

Things noticed:
1. Industrial goods problem is pretty much solved, The world didn't seem to ever run out of Industrial goods up until 1941 when I stopped playing. I even built about 200 Large industrial factories during this time, giving me about 6,000 production before the war even started.

2. Military goods is still a major problem. In order for Germany to keep up with Allied production I had about 25 land production and 12 air production before the war started late 1939. I was even buying 64,000 every month or so, stockpiled about 900,000 before the war started, and it was all nearly gone within a few months. During the war I was getting about 15,000 demand a day from damage to units fighting Poland and France simultaneously, but my production was less then 1,000, and that's with building about 40 more plants. How could I ever fight a sustained conflict with USSR at that rate?

3. Money is also a big problem for Germany after the war starts. This is probably due to the issue where everyone hates you for declaring war on someone. No one wants to trade with you anymore, your tourism drops, and your income plummets.
3.1 Another issue is social spending seems broken in several areas. 1936 I can build about 80 large industrial factories and my GDP doubles to about 900. However, my social spending also doubles keeping up with my Income, even the 15% inflation doesn't really explain a nearly 100 million increase in social spending in a few months, when I haven't actually built roads, or my population has barely gone up. Yes I set several things to 100% rating, but the spending shouldn't go up massively simply because I'm earning more money.
3.2 Infrastructure spending needs to be addressed. After conquering Yugoslavia, Greece, Poland my infrastructure spending was 51 million per day for a 81% rating, when my income was 302 million with a tax rate of 68%. I had a army of 2.7 million and its total spending was 86 million. I was almost spending the same amount of money on INF as health care and education combined and they had above 100% rating.
3.3 Research costs also need to come down. ( I know this is on your list for the far future)

4. Approval ratings seem even more broken then spending. After about 6 months I had built enough Agriculture, Timber and Consumer goods to subsidize Power, Coal, Agriculture, Timber, and Consumer goods at -20% for domestic price. YET my approval rating was only at 36%??? And since approval rating affects production, there is no real gain. I checked the charts, and no other nation was getting above 40% approval. Am I missing something? I might as well keep all prices at 200% because I had an approval rating of 30% before that and was making more money!!

5. I don't think supply is working as well as it should from supply depots. From the wiki on 2020 and CW, 2 supply depots should be 40% and roads, rails add to this as well. I was building supply depots all over the place and yet for anywhere except near my capital supply was staying at around 70%. My infrastrucutre rating was around 80-100 the entire time. I don't build roads because INF already takes up about 1/6 of my income as it is, and I only build rails to connect areas more. Even cities with 2 supply depots were getting the very light blue overlay, but the supply % in the bottom left was sitting around 70% constantly.

6. There are a few nations that break the GDP figures, all mostly British colonies. Kuwait ends up with a 5,000 GDP in 1936 and a few other British colonies are in the 1000's.

7. Japan and China end up in a stalemate now, with little to none land taken. Japan launched an invasion on the very southern most island near Shanghai and that's all that is captured.

8. Even AI Colonies refuse to repair buildings... apparently it thinks that clicking on every single hex and repairing all buildings is annoying too. Hungary, Italy, Romania, Bulgaria I all colonized and I even sent them several hundred thousand Industrial goods and hundreds of millions and never repaired, so their economies fall apart after colonization.

9. Engineers Construction order speeds up buildings in adjacent hexs as well apparently. I tested this multiple times and a stack of 7 engineers on 1 hex would finish within about 1 day or on the same day as adjacent hexs with the same building. I even went as far as building 4 hexs all with 6 Large Industrial factories at the same time and all but 1 hex finished on the same day. I'm not complaining, I like it, this is just an observation. I'm going to use this more in the future.

10. AI auto build prioritizes Pioneers very heavily, even though I had infantry units that were twice as good. This needs to be adjusted.
Last edited by bluestreak2k5 on Feb 02 2014, edited 1 time in total.
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Zuikaku
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Re: Observations: German Campaign twice with new Patch 28

Post by Zuikaku »

#10 is universal problem....
Please teach AI everything!
geminif4ucorsair
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Re: Observations: German Campaign twice with new Patch 28

Post by geminif4ucorsair »

Great summary!

7. Japan and China end up in a stalemate now, with little to none land taken. Japan launched an invasion on the very southern most island near Shanghai and that's all that is captured.

This is probably the result of the imbalance in Air / Sea / Land production for Japan....that should be corrected in upcoming Update :D - China will have to have several Land production locations, just to represent its infantry-recuitment ability, though it will have minimal vehicles it can production early on. Until Japan's big push in 1944, that was enough to keep Japan moving slowly across the big Chinese landscape.
Aragos
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Re: Observations: German Campaign twice with new Patch 28

Post by Aragos »

I had the Japanese take over China in my newest game. Playing USA, I sold Japan about 10-15 infantry and engineer (leg) units; apparently that was enough to kick them into over-run mode with China.

It is better than my last long game--Japan conquered by China by mid-1941.
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Ruges
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Re: Observations: German Campaign twice with new Patch 28

Post by Ruges »

9) This has always been this way. using 7 stacks of 7 units to speed up 1 hex works very well.
bluestreak2k5
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Re: Observations: German Campaign twice with new Patch 28

Post by bluestreak2k5 »

Ruges wrote:9) This has always been this way. using 7 stacks of 7 units to speed up 1 hex works very well.
The observation wasn't about the 1 hex being sped up, it was its 6 surrounding hexs being sped up as well, which was surprising. This means I can increase the speed of a maximum of 42 buildings at once.
Aragos
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Re: Observations: German Campaign twice with new Patch 28

Post by Aragos »

Yep, that's what I do. Build 49 engineers and plop them on a hex. You can get a cluster of large IG factories going in 10 days.
bluestreak2k5
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Re: Observations: German Campaign twice with new Patch 28

Post by bluestreak2k5 »

Aragos wrote:Yep, that's what I do. Build 49 engineers and plop them on a hex. You can get a cluster of large IG factories going in 10 days.
Oh I actually didn't even think about that.

I am definitely going to do this with research centers for Germany next patch, as well as large building areas. However, I don't build more engineers, I already start with 18, and I just group those into 3 battlegroups and move them to building areas.

Hmm, that's going to be quite interesting. I still see a massive issue with military goods, but if I can produce enough industrial goods, and consumer goods doing this, I could possibly solve some of the money issues before the war starts. Doesn't solve the late game issues though.
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Ruges
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Re: Observations: German Campaign twice with new Patch 28

Post by Ruges »

bluestreak2k5 wrote:
Ruges wrote:9) This has always been this way. using 7 stacks of 7 units to speed up 1 hex works very well.
The observation wasn't about the 1 hex being sped up, it was its 6 surrounding hexs being sped up as well, which was surprising. This means I can increase the speed of a maximum of 42 buildings at once.
Well if you have the IG's to build 42 at once. then you might as well have 133 engineers assist them over the 19 surrounding hexes.
Aragos
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Re: Observations: German Campaign twice with new Patch 28

Post by Aragos »

What Ruges said. At a certain point you'll have enough IGs to still increase inventory when you are building a full cluster of 7 MG factories. After that point, you can quickly build up MGs. When I play USA, I try to get my IGs up to 20,000, then shift to MG building. You can quickly get over 2000 MG a day that way.
bluestreak2k5
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Re: Observations: German Campaign twice with new Patch 28

Post by bluestreak2k5 »

Aragos wrote:What Ruges said. At a certain point you'll have enough IGs to still increase inventory when you are building a full cluster of 7 MG factories. After that point, you can quickly build up MGs. When I play USA, I try to get my IGs up to 20,000, then shift to MG building. You can quickly get over 2000 MG a day that way.
This is exactly what I think will end up breaking this game and I am trying to address here:
http://www.bgforums.com/forums/viewtopi ... 70&t=22248

You cannot have the US and USSR being able to build at those rates even before the war starts... it makes the game as the Axis COMPLETELY impossible. If the US can at the start of the war in December 1941 drop 400+ aircraft units on England because they have been able to build Military and Industry as if they were at war the entire time... then Germany has no chance. If the US has been able to build 30+ carriers and Battleships before 1941 then Japan has no chance.

And this all goes back to the ability to build Industry such that your describing.

In HOI this was done as % based modifiers, where all countries had % less Industry points to spend while at peace. Germany gets to use 100% after Anchluss, and this event also triggers higher % for USA (50% from 35% I think), France(80% from 50%), UK(80% from 50%). Then there was also war modifiers which brought this up to like 150% after war had started, which affected all countries.
Aragos
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Re: Observations: German Campaign twice with new Patch 28

Post by Aragos »

Right. HOI took the "gearing" concept from board games like World In Flames (still, IMHO, the best single global strategic game of WWII). I agree that in the construction of units, there should be adjustments, like below:

--Peace (50% increased build time)
--Democracy (50% increased build time)
--Dictatorship (-25% build time)
--Communism (-50% build time)

This would reflect the resistance from privately owned industries to churn out tanks instead of autos during peacetime. Communism--you do what Comrade Stalin says, or else, so there is no change to their peacetime building.

You could have events that change this, based on DEFCON level (e.g., the USA would get a 25% boost on 1 Sept 39, Germany would get a boost after Czecholovakia, et al).
bluestreak2k5
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Re: Observations: German Campaign twice with new Patch 28

Post by bluestreak2k5 »

The gearing concept is completely different then what I'm talking about. You can still get gearing bonuses from building units of the same type, but be at 100% build time increase modifiers from peace and being a democracy.

It would look something like: build time * (gearing bonus) * (peace time modifier/wartime modifier) * (government modifier)

That's why I have ti as a separate issue.
http://www.bgforums.com/forums/viewtopi ... 70&t=22249

There are multiple reasons why a peactime country shouldn't be able to build out massive amounts of things like they are at war. If FDR would have tried to start building a fleet of 121 carriers in 1939 after the invasion of Poland the public resistance would have been huge. A lot of Americans were in support of Germany, not to mention that most Americans wanted to stay out of the war altogether.
lanceabunch
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Re: Observations: German Campaign twice with new Patch 28

Post by lanceabunch »

Great input by everyone on here, I have been thinking along the same lines. I didn't want to be the one to say, "but HOI did it this way." They did have some great concepts that could be borrowed or modified to make this great start of a game, epic.
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Chesehead
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Re: Observations: German Campaign twice with new Patch 28

Post by Chesehead »

Aragos wrote:Right. HOI took the "gearing" concept from board games like World In Flames (still, IMHO, the best single global strategic game of WWII). I agree that in the construction of units, there should be adjustments, like below:

--Peace (50% increased build time)
--Democracy (50% increased build time)
--Dictatorship (-25% build time)
--Communism (-50% build time)

This would reflect the resistance from privately owned industries to churn out tanks instead of autos during peacetime. Communism--you do what Comrade Stalin says, or else, so there is no change to their peacetime building.

You could have events that change this, based on DEFCON level (e.g., the USA would get a 25% boost on 1 Sept 39, Germany would get a boost after Czecholovakia, et al).
I believe that there is a unit production speed bonus tied to the global DEFCON level. It's been that way since SR2020 and I doubt its changed. Only problem is now its controlled globally by the AI and you can't change it like SR2020.
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