AI and Focus priority - Question and Feedback

[xsmilingbanditx]

Hi all,

See title I will put a short Info/Introduction ahead.

It's been a while since I played HoI4 and thus, a buddy and I decided to do a CoOp Axis Game. Because I wanted to try Japan again and he is fairly new to Germany, we split that way.
Remark: We play Vanilla+

For starters, I advised him to take Poland early, because the MIC and CIC buff is just too good. I went for Guanqxi (southern China) asap to get China into a triple-Sandwich war. South, north and naval invasions - took about 8 Months still after the focus. I annexed them because puppet China is too lulz imho
We founded the Anti-Comintern pact including Finland. SU declared, long story short Sandwich for SU and we split it between us to avoid bordergore.

What I realized as Japan is:
a) He still has double to triple the factories
b) despite me getting a big chunk of Russia with good resources and owning a huge part of the world, he still got way more...

Now I know this is due to the fact that Japan fights against mostly underdeveloped countries. Another effect is the problem with Infrastructure. Even IF you do not use mech/arm, your units tend to starve...
So for the land war, you gotta spend years for Infrastructure instead of dockyards.
Honestly, it's 1942 and just now started to build a proper Navy (way too late imho) because there simply is nothing I could dedicate in terms of resources to it.

Now, this shall not be a complaint. I am not inclining to buff Japan in any regard. It is ok'ish and interesting enough. What I realized and what propably would help Japan indirectly is a "proper" use of the Focuses by AI nations. It is rather underwhelming that a country like the combined China does have an industrial power like...Austria (hyperbole of course).
Why the heck does the AI of Shanxi use "Aviation Effort" way before any Industrial ones? Any sane Person (I guess) would go Industrial focus first with those countries.
I checked the use of the current focus for countries I wanna conquer ona regular basis and I honestly can not make any sense out of it.
I think goinga little more industry by the AI would make (the pacific)

a) less of a roflstomp for Japan
b) China et al more interesting to conquer and help Japan in the long run (if they conquer)
c) would reduce the necessity to put 2 years of Infrastructure buildup into China if you want to help Germany..

As it stands, from a gamey (and RoI) point of view it would be better and easier to go for the US in early '36.

Maybe that's just me, maybe it gets better with the WtT.
Thoughts guys?

 

[basun]

In vanilla+ I usually don't have any issues with my industrial capacity as Japan.

You will face your enemies in the worst kind of environment where half the time you just use 12 width (since its vanilla +) pure infantry w a little support due to the supply situation. Research wise and industry wise you can focus on fewer areas and get excess so you can recruit 100 divisions from reorganized China, you dont need the factories like germany to face the brunt of soviets/allies with tanks, strat bombers, million fighters etc. You get to fight their crap units and fewer of everything.

The only real issue I have as Japan is the boring island hopping/defence. To plan 20-42 days to take a crap island is just a drag. Especially when you need to do it 40 times.

 

[xsmilingbanditx]

Well I love my 7/2 setup and beating up russians was hard enough even with this 20/40 width units EVEN with good Infrastructure. Because those tons of units...and sooner or later, there will be proper enemies for the glorious empire

Like I said, my major Intention was that the focus the AI choses at a given time seems...idiotic at best even for the minors.

 

[basun]

Well I love my 7/2 setup and beating up russians was hard enough even with this 20/40 width units EVEN with good Infrastructure. Because those tons of units...and sooner or later, there will be proper enemies for the glorious empire

Like I said, my major Intention was that the focus the AI choses at a given time seems...idiotic at best even for the minors.

It's made so that smaller nations dont gear up too fast. So that a really small nation dont surpass mediums that easily.

 

[Alex_brunius]

HoI4 actually makes Japan ( and Germany/Italy as well ), significantly stronger then they were historically, I presume mainly for game balance reasons and to keep the game interesting.

Here is a good initial rundown of the historical comparison for people who don't realize just how badly outclassed Japan was economically:
http://www.combinedfleet.com/economic.htm

 

[xsmilingbanditx]

Well there is more to it than the number (there is a nice article about the beef between the several branches of the military in Japan).
There is no doubt in terms of industrial Power. The US is like the SU - lots of space, lots of people, lots of resources. That helps alot in any war, especially in a war of attrition.
The asian countries were (partially still are) underdeveloped in comparison to western countries.
That discrepancy was the main reason for Japan to go to war (if I remember correctly they had Oil reserves for about 80 days?).
The problem was, the stuff they conquered just was no real help in comparison to the effort.
And i am only part time talking about history here because this just is a game where alternatives should ne possible (otherwise I could just watch a movie).
Many "Russia stronk" people even until today (nationalists) still cannot accept that 90% of the food conserves for their soldier came from the US as well as nearly 100% of wheeled transports.
The Problem for the US was mit building the weapons, it was ultilizing (and manning) them. Huge parts of their production went to the russians, the Canadians (I think...), the British, Chinese and so on.
In HoI4, every country is basically self sufficient with some exceptions and no major really has manpower problems in the end.
I also always read those articles with a grain of salt, because they more often than not try to glorify things about the home country (like I said above, it only tells half the truth and production isn't the be all end all). This goes for the Russians, the Polish, French, British and Germans all the same.

Again, I am not talking "Buff Japan". It is reasonably well modeled to mirror the decisions and problems the country had IRL. All I'm saying is, give some more reason to conquer stuff instead of "it's there"

 

[Alex_brunius]

Again, I am not talking "Buff Japan". It is reasonably well modeled to mirror the decisions and problems the country had IRL. All I'm saying is, give some more reason to conquer stuff instead of "it's there"

So you think places like Malaya need more resources that Japan can conquer?

 

[xsmilingbanditx]

So you think places like Malaya need more resources that Japan can conquer?

Nah...getting resources is the "drive" behind Axis wars. I'm talking about the AI using their focus reasonable like People would do. As it is now (imho) conquering China is just a big, fat waste of resources unless you use it as a vassal which is cheesy x10 imho It should just serve as an example because I recently played them again and asked myself the question "Why???"

 

[mjb2k]

The reason the Chinas all do their non-industrial focuses is because when they combine China use to (when their minors did those focuses) beat Japan because China would have more industry, at least an a AI on AI battle. In MP assuming China and Japan are both players and the minor Chinas did their focuses then a player China would have more industry than the Japan player, which obviously isn't good. Japan vs China but China is AI isn't much of a fight, more of a massacre as you can't possibly lose to the AI as Japan.

 

[xsmilingbanditx]

The reason the Chinas all do their non-industrial focuses is because when they combine China use to (when their minors did those focuses) beat Japan because China would have more industry, at least an a AI on AI battle. In MP assuming China and Japan are both players and the minor Chinas did their focuses then a player China would have more industry than the Japan player, which obviously isn't good. Japan vs China but China is AI isn't much of a fight, more of a massacre as you can't possibly lose to the AI as Japan.

That makes sense, thank you. I still think there are ways to improve that (even if it os just a focus tree when having beaten China). There are always Infinite possibilities with degrading Probability of success