Building new factories - does it pay off?

[unmerged(2037)]

I could spare only two hours yesterday to play the game (UK 1936 campaign) and I encountered a dilemma: Does it make any sense to expand your ICs by building new factories?

The new factory costs 5 ICs for about a year, regardless the IC of the province where it is built. Thus IC wise even if I decide to build a factory in January 1936, I will not get back invested ICs before 1943, which seems quite a long time to me.
However, ICs directly influence also Transport Efficiecy so perhaps expanding it can prevent future supply problems.

Any comments or ideas?

 

[boromir]

Haven't played the game much yet, only for about 3 hours as Poland, but expanding factories did help me by increasing my IC so that I was able to field a 3 research team ...

 

[nwinther]

I could spare only two hours yesterday to play the game (UK 1936 campaign) and I encountered a dilemma: Does it make any sense to expand your ICs by building new factories?

The new factory costs 5 ICs for about a year, regardless the IC of the province where it is built. Thus IC wise even if I decide to build a factory in January 1936, I will not get back invested ICs before 1943, which seems quite a long time to me.
However, ICs directly influence also Transport Efficiecy so perhaps expanding it can prevent future supply problems.

Any comments or ideas?

If you play a country that can evade war for several years (USA or some SAmi country - or perhaps Sweden), factories can be a good idea. if not - stay away.

 

[Darkrenown]

Starting in 36 just about everyone evades the war for 3 years...

Also, remember base IC isn't effective IC, with techs and ministers you can get somewhere between 1.5 and 2 IC for every one base IC you have. And even if your IC spend on factories won't have time to pay itsself back, more IC = more TC.

 

[J.J.E.]

For countries like USSR, USA (although the peace effect on IC make IC scarce) with lots of ressources to spare building something like 2-4 factories a year seems worthwhile to me.

 

[King]

If I was thinking I might be conquering some IC soon I wouldn't bother building any. If on the other had I wasn't then I would build some IC. You can never have too much.

 

[Grosshaus]

You must note that in the start democracies can only utilize a fraction of their IC, when war starts you'll see the difference.

 

[unmerged(2037)]

Thanks for all input.
I find the Darkrenown's reminder of effective IC modifier especially important as it means much shorter return of investment than 5 years and thus it makes factory building much more attractive for me.

 

[d0mbo]

Buiding factories as sweden is certainly worthwhile IMHO. Alright they cost about 5 IC for 12-12 months (depends on infra) but you can almost immediately field a 2nd research team.

Not to mention the extra TC and bonus effects given by ministers and research.

So build more industries and conqueror the world!

 

[Kriegsspieler]

In the main, I agree, but here's the other side of the argument. If you are playing Japan, a country which needs both extra ground strength early on (to operate against China starting in the second half of 1937) and to build up your navy (for the eventual confrontation against the US), then you face a difficult decision. Factories are a good investment, but they clog up your production lines for a good bit of time, preventing you from building other stuff. To me, it presents a difficult choice.

 

[unmerged(2037)]

In the main, I agree, but here's the other side of the argument. If you are playing Japan, a country which needs both extra ground strength early on (to operate against China starting in the second half of 1937) and to build up your navy (for the eventual confrontation against the US), then you face a difficult decision. Factories are a good investment, but they clog up your production lines for a good bit of time, preventing you from building other stuff. To me, it presents a difficult choice.

I seriously doubt that building factories pays off if you are on the early attacking side unless you think your military is more than adequate. ICs spent on military will probably have faster investment return.
My original question was for the UK which will have to do without Conquest gain much later and the relative safety of isles provide a possibility to postpone military buildup with impunity.

 

[Grosshaus]

For countries like Japan and Italy building factories has an extra downside: you don't have the resources for them. You'll still need to conquer resources so it might be better to use your early IC for units, while conquering those resources you'll also get some IC

 

[Orthank]

I'd like to add that if u have large army u need more Transport Capacity(if u exceed it u'll get ESE penalty) - and TC is based directly on IC(+some tech bonuses) - so here is the balance issue. One thing is good, u can start building industry, and if u decide after several months that it is better to switch to units u can do that any time (industry production will not be scrapped ).

 

[Steel]

Producing IC is highly worthwhile if you have long-term, large-scale conquests planned. Occupied territory maintenance, partisan activity and a large army all combine to make your army slow and ineffective and one of the most effective ways of off-setting that is IC production in national provinces.

 

[Kriegsspieler]

For countries like Japan and Italy building factories has an extra downside: you don't have the resources for them. You'll still need to conquer resources so it might be better to use your early IC for units, while conquering those resources you'll also get some IC

That's certainly true, especially for Italy. Japan can get resources at reasonable "prices" (because of the favorable effects of the existing trade agreements) from the US for quite a while. But they face a pretty severe resource problem too.

 

[Ghost_dk]

If I was thinking I might be conquering some IC soon I wouldn't bother building any. If on the other had I wasn't then I would build some IC. You can never have too much.

I believe your thinking too much HoI 1 IC here, and you will probably have to adopt some changes to that strategy if you want to succeed as say germany later in the war. Couple of reasons for that:

1. as in HoI 1 you only get a fraction of IC in controlled/annexed provinces and there is not as much of that around as in HoI 1.

2. and probably most importent. controlling non-core provinces costs transport capacity and moving too far into enemy territory without expanding your transportcapacity will lead to bad supply efficiency and thus units that figth poorly.

 

[Peter Ebbesen]

Any comments or ideas?

As others have noted, there are many situations where it pays to produce IC - and some where it does not. I would add to that, that like any other province improvement, the price heavily depends on your dp-sliders.

Unlike units, which get both time&cost modifiers to production from certain sliders, province improvements only get the time modifier, but that is worth a lot by itself if you are e.g. running a free market or hawk lobby nation, or both. On the other hand, constructing more IC in peaceful or planned economy countries cost you relatively more.

For long-term games starting in a strong position, it nearly always pays [in SP]to mass-produce IC to widen your industrial base the first year (and perhaps the second, if you do not expect an immediate onslaught).

 

[Johnny Canuck]

My original question was for the UK which will have to do without Conquest gain much later and the relative safety of isles provide a possibility to postpone military buildup with impunity.

When I play the UK in '36, I usually try to build 2 new factories in each of my 100% infra provinces. I find that I am able to get them done by the time I need to start producing military units in late '37/early '38.