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WCG

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Mar 1, 2009
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I keep losing my gearing bonus when the bottom part of the production queue turns from green to orange and red. But when this happens, I can never find a reason for it.

I've always got plenty of IC in production. I'm playing the U.S., so I've got an abundance of energy, metals, and raw materials and lots of manpower. I've looked around, but I just can't find any explanation for this.

Even if I do nothing, it almost always goes back to normal the next day (on very rare occasions, it's taken two days). But that's enough to lose my gearing bonus. (Yes, I try to keep long production lines at the top, but at this point in the game, I've got long production queues everywhere, pretty much.)

OK, it's not a big problem, admittedly. I'm not sure how much the gearing bonus matters, anyway. But I'd still like to know why this keeps happening. Any ideas?
 
Are your IC settings on manual? Try putting them on auto and see if that helps. If you have production prioritized then IC should compensate for any change in IC as long as you don't suddenly lose enough IC to fulfill the production queue.

Other than that, you can check the IC sliders everyday and watch for the 'wasted IC' number in the upper right to go up. If it's ever above zero, something is wrong with your IC.

Another tactic is to put production orders that don't benefit from a gearing bonus at the bottom of the queue. For example, building IC in provinces never gives you a gearing bonus, even if you chain it. Keep IC production at the bottom of the list and you'll never lose your gearing bonus on your important builds. Otherwise, you can place orders that you're only building one series of at the bottom.
 
Are your IC settings on manual? Try putting them on auto and see if that helps.

Yes, they're on manual. I might put them on auto just to test this, but it doesn't happen very often. And I've never tried auto. I was always worried that it wouldn't prioritize the way I do.

But I suppose I should test this before I go to war, huh? (It's the summer of 1941, so it won't be long now.)


Other than that, you can check the IC sliders everyday and watch for the 'wasted IC' number in the upper right to go up. If it's ever above zero, something is wrong with your IC.

That number is frequently above zero, for no obvious reason. (Note that, as America, I've got plenty of energy, metals, rare materials, and manpower.) I figured it was just some kind of minor bug. It will usually pop back to zero again later - again, for no obvious reason.

And even when the 'wasted' number is above zero (yet production is where it's supposed to be), all of my production is usually in the green. It's only occasionally that I get a whole bunch of production go red for no obvious reason.


Another tactic is to put production orders that don't benefit from a gearing bonus at the bottom of the queue.

Yes, I did this, but as I'm getting closer and closer to war, I'm not building anything but units.

Even then, it's not a big problem. I try to keep long-term production at the top. And as much research as America can do, I don't rely on the gearing bonus much, anyway. So this has just been annoying, not anything really problematic. (Still, when it happens, a bunch of production goes red, not just a little bit at the bottom.)

I just thought it was funny, especially since the game is so old. I figured these sorts of things would have all been sorted out by now (or that I'd just missed something in the manual).

Thanks for the reply (again), Cally!

Bill
 
Yes, they're on manual.

There's your problem. If you don't pause the game and 'fix' the IC sliders every time the 'wasted IC' number goes above zero, then the production line will suffer. You have a day to correct it, so it means you have to pause it each time. (Yes, this gets tedious, which is why it's usually more convenient to just put it on auto and hope for the best.)

As for what's causing it, well it's hard to just speculate. The most likely culprit would be any dissent you have, which cuts into the overall IC you have available and lowers your IC invested into production automatically. Other than that, it could be slider-moves, minister changes, or anything else that would alter your industry modifiers.

No problem. Enjoy the game. :)
 
This happen in my games to a minor affect. IC values change and the AI doesn't move sliders quickly enough but the way you describe it, it has to be something else. Are you sure you are not just being pushed back a few days and keeping the gearing bonus?

Go ahead and put IC on auto. You can prioritize what you'd like by clicking the checkboxes under the auto selection.

wasted IC can be cntrolled easier with the IC set to auto. Supplies go up and down for various reasons but I beleive it has to do with your trading partners not meeting their end of the deal.

Not sure what the problem I have the last item in the build queue will not get enough IC but not a long list you are talking about. My only guess to what it could be is that you are producing more units than your IC can handle. If you do not have a stockpile of supplies it will take it from your production IC.
 
I like to make sure no IC is wasted, but for countries with huge industrial capacity such as the US, it can be a pain to do so, so I can accept a little. In any case, "wasted" IC means that some resources are unused and go back into your stockpile. The US produces so much resources anyway that even that doesn't matter.

As to losing the gearing bonus, I can't think of any reason that your IC would go down suddenly, besides dissent hits from changing ministers or from events. In this case, maybe you could try setting the amount of IC allocated to production slightly above what's actually required? That way, even if your IC drops suddenly, there will still be enough allocated to production that you won't lose the gearing bonus. Of course, any IC above what's required will count as "wasted".
 
There's your problem. If you don't pause the game and 'fix' the IC sliders every time the 'wasted IC' number goes above zero, then the production line will suffer

'Wasted IC' means that I have too much assigned to production, not too little, right? So I don't understand how that could lose my gearing bonus. In fact, the 'wasted IC' number doesn't seem to be accurate all the time (or maybe that's just because it doesn't change until the end of the day).

As for what's causing it, well it's hard to just speculate. The most likely culprit would be any dissent you have, which cuts into the overall IC you have available and lowers your IC invested into production automatically. Other than that, it could be slider-moves, minister changes, or anything else that would alter your industry modifiers.

Nope, no dissent (this is America), and I haven't changed ministers, moved sliders, or had an event occur when this happens. I've really tried to figure this out, but I can't see any reason for it to happen even once, let alone periodically.

At any rate, I turned the production on auto, and that seems to work quite well - better than I expected, frankly. I haven't played it that way too long, so I don't know if it fixed the problem (but the 'wasted IC' number now seems accurate all the time). Clearly, this is something I didn't need on manual! :)


Zorro said:
Are you sure you are not just being pushed back a few days and keeping the gearing bonus?

I'm sure.

My only guess to what it could be is that you are producing more units than your IC can handle. If you do not have a stockpile of supplies it will take it from your production IC.

No, I've got tons of supplies. This is America, and I've got more than I need of everything right now (while we're at peace, at least). And I've checked all of that whenever this happens.

Supplies go up and down for various reasons but I believe it has to do with your trading partners not meeting their end of the deal.

I wondered about that. Thanks. I've got a big stockpile of supplies, but the number needed seems to fluctuate like crazy. I can see now that I was foolish to leave that on manual. Auto production control seems to work really well, so far.


Black Watch said:
In this case, maybe you could try setting the amount of IC allocated to production slightly above what's actually required? That way, even if your IC drops suddenly, there will still be enough allocated to production that you won't lose the gearing bonus.

I've tried that. However, when my production queue goes red, it's not just a little bit at the bottom. It's a lot of production, far more than I'd ever want to keep as 'wasted IC'!

Still, this isn't a huge problem. I was just curious about what was causing it (still am). It's not going to affect anything seriously, and now that I've put production on automatic, it might not happen again anyway.

Thanks for the replies!
 
Wasted IC is IC your not using so it means your using too little IC not too much. If you have 100 IC total and your using 10 on consumer goods, 20 on supplies, 50 on production, 0 on reinforcements, and 10 on upgrades your wasted IC should be at 10 which means that you could be using 10 more IC.

I wouldn't worry about the auto feature acting up its great. Only time I ever have to take it off is if I'm playing as the Soviet Union and I need supplies for an offensive.

So it is not doing it anymore with it on auto? I'm not sure what it was then, it has been forever since I played before the auto feature was introduced can't remember what it could have been. If you could post any pictures or the save file I could take a look.

How is your manpower btw perhaps that is the issue?
 
Wasted IC is IC you're not using so it means you're using too little IC not too much.

Yes, using too little or producing too much. Either way you put it, that wouldn't make my production queue stop (which would be the opposite problem).

So it is not doing it anymore with it on auto?

Nope, not so far. (And no, it wasn't a problem with manpower, since I've got tons of that - again, I'm playing America.)

At any rate, something finally happened. :) Japan declared war, right on schedule (well, a month ahead of time). So now I'll find out what I've been doing wrong!

I am enjoying the game, so far. For some reason, I struggled to stay interested in Europa Universalis III. That's an incredible game, really impressive. But I never played it much. I just had a hard time maintaining my interest.
 
Nice blog. The only thing I'd have done differently is protect Guam. I will max out airfield, coastal forts, AA, infrastructure, and naval bases. I use it as my main base to attack Japan.

Here is somethings you might find useful in response to your blog:

About the surprise attack on pearl it gives a bonus to the Japanese Fleets for several months, they will preform better in combat. If you have carriers I wouldn't worry about it.

Your allied with the allies so you have military access to their provs you can transport your forces to Great Britain if you want and rebase them at their naval ports. That should give you the range to get to Africa if you want.

The AI has unlimited naval range meaning there ships can go anywhere from anywhere take that into account with your war against Japan.

You will be able to build in captured provs so you can built air fields if you wish.
 
Strange. I can't think of anything at the moment that would cause such a large drop in your IC. I haven't played the US yet, so there might be things I'm not aware of.

By the way, I read in your blog entry that you've decided not to defend the Philippines. Don't leave my homeland alone! :(

Just kidding. Yes, without American help, Japan will surely annex an AI-controlled Philippines. But when I play the Philippines, things go differently. In fact, in my very best Philippines game (which I might post a screenshot of), I actually annexed Japan! :D
 
Nice blog. The only thing I'd have done differently is protect Guam. I will max out airfield, coastal forts, AA, infrastructure, and naval bases.

Thanks! I guess I figured I wouldn't be able to keep Guam supplied, given that it's right in the middle of Japanese possessions. And I didn't want to build up its defenses just to hand them to the Japanese (since that would make it harder for me when I needed to take it back).

About the surprise attack on pearl it gives a bonus to the Japanese Fleets for several months, they will preform better in combat.

Thanks for the info. That's a neat way of doing it.

You're allied with the allies so you have military access to their provs you can transport your forces to Great Britain if you want and rebase them at their naval ports. That should give you the range to get to Africa if you want.

I don't know. It doesn't look like it, right now, but I'm no longer allied with the Allies. :)

Here's the deal: I was still on the same day that Japan had declared war (trying to decide on a new plan for the Atlantic), when I heard about the event which will cause Vichy France to choose sides. I wasn't sure how that would work, and I didn't want to screw it up, so I reloaded my save which was immediately after Japan's declaration of war. And this time, I didn't ask the Allies to let me join them.

I figured that they would ask me pretty soon (and that it might be the event needed for the Vichy France decision). I hadn't done anything else, so it wasn't really backtracking much. As I say, I was still on the same day. Anyway, I set about my war plans, making all sorts of changes,... but before I got to the end of the month, the game crashed and I lost everything I'd done.

That's the first time I've had the game crash, but I didn't feel like doing it all over again, so I put it aside for awhile. I'll be getting back to it this afternoon. But right now, I'm not much further along than when I wrote that blog posting (the big difference being that I'm not allied with the Allies yet).

I was, however, just given Greenland and Iceland, yet I can't get troops even to Iceland. It's far more than my transport range. So I don't know how I'd get them to Great Britain, even if I were allied with them.

The AI has unlimited naval range meaning there ships can go anywhere from anywhere take that into account with your war against Japan.

Oh, that's something I didn't know. I figured that I didn't have to worry about enemy submarines - along either coast - because they wouldn't have nearly the range to get there (and that they certainly wouldn't be able to haul troops there).

Thanks for the heads up!


Black Watch said:
Strange. I can't think of anything at the moment that would cause such a large drop in your IC. I haven't played the US yet, so there might be things I'm not aware of.

That's OK. Ever since I set production to automatic, I haven't had that problem.

By the way, I read in your blog entry that you've decided not to defend the Philippines. Don't leave my homeland alone! :(

Heh, heh. Partly, that's because I like the idea of starting the war as it happened in real life. I knew that the Japanese would make a surprise attack, and I even knew approximately when they'd do it, but I didn't want to game that too much.

So I left some ships at Pearl Harbor (expecting to lose some of them, which, of course, didn't happen) and some at the Philippines, and I didn't try to make the Philippines impregnable. Admittedly, I did build up most of my Pacific holdings (not Guam), but I was more interested in role-playing the game a bit than using any omniscience.

But when I play the Philippines, things go differently. In fact, in my very best Philippines game (which I might post a screenshot of), I actually annexed Japan! :D

I'm impressed!

That's why I don't play multiplayer games. I have enough trouble against an inept AI! :)
 
That's a nice attitude to have, not using our "omniscience" as players (re: knowing how history will play out).

That unlimited range for AI ships is one of the handicaps given to them to make up for their lack of ability in certain areas. I am not sure, however, that the AI takes advantage of it very often.

Not only that, the AI has no fog of war, again as a handicap for them. Yet it sometimes doesn't seem as though it makes the AI perform any better...

I'm impressed!

That's why I don't play multiplayer games. I have enough trouble against an inept AI!

Thank you!

I'll put up a screenshot of that PH game. Not to brag or anything, of course. I just think a result like that is rare enough (mostly since no one plays the Philippines) that it has to be recorded for posterity. I'd like to do a Philippine AAR as well, although I'll have to finish my current one first.