Civilian or Infrastructure? Here's my take on it!

[Reverse71]

Hey Guys, its my first thread here.
I've been playing this game for like 450 hours and have started reading the forum for like a month now and some threads said, that building infrastructure before building civilian is not worth it. I took some Ingame numbers, did some maths and made some graphs.
First off i'm Playing the Soviet Union in May 1937, i partially mobilized my country, hired the captain of Industry as advisor, export focus and still have level 1 construction and industry research. This makes for a +20% construction speed bonus + 10% from the advisor.
I took the time it takes for a civilian factory to build from provinces with 1 to 10 infrastructure and the time it takes to construct infrastructure, which is independent of the existing level of infrastructure. This is shown in the Following Table.

Then i had to come up with a formula, that gives me the time gained or lost depending on how much infrastructure i want to build before building Civilian factories. I came up with this:

Where:
-tCiv(IAfter) the time it takes to build a civilian factory after you have built additional infrastructure.
-tCiv(IBase) the time it takes to build a civilian factory before you have built additional infrastructure.
-tInfra the time it takes to build infrastructure.
-Civ the amount of civilian factories you want to build.
-Infra the amount of infrastructure you want to build.

The first term describes how much time is actually gained by building with higher infrastructure. It is multiplied by 1 and then it gets subtracted by itself multiplied with (Civ-1)/(2*15). This is because between the time that the first and last factory have been completed they are producing like any other factory. At last term Adds the time needed to construct the infrastructure.

If we Throw this into a nice graphing software we get this beautiful but incredibly incomprehensible pointcloud:

(I've tried rotating it around, from this angle you can at least make out, that there should be a structure)

Now Instead of this mess i thought a heatmap would do just fine, though we need one for every Infrastructure baselevel.
Here is a quick picture of all of them next to each other, for a more detailed view look inside the spoilers.
to read them correctly you first need to choose how many civilian factories you want to build travel along the dots and search for the dot in the greenest area, then go to the left and read how many Infrastructure the graph recommends you to build before the factories. Every line you cross is equivalent to 15 saved or wasted days.

Spoiler: Baselevel 0

This is more theoretical as there are no provinces without infrastructure, but i choose to include it.

Spoiler: Baselevel 1

Spoiler: Baselevel 2

Spoiler: Baselevel 3

Spoiler: Baselevel 4

Spoiler: Baselevel 5

Spoiler: Baselevel 6

Spoiler: Baselevel 7

Spoiler: Baselevel 8

Spoiler: Baselevel 9

In my game i have not found somewhere where i can place more than 7 factories, though this will get more as i progress with my research. Nonetheless i will use the 7 factories for comparing, as it seems to be a good number to me.
As the graphs show, it is unadvisable to invest in infrastructure if the baselevel is above 5. The graphs below this are more interesting. At baselevel 4 it is worth to invest into one Infrastructure upgrade while at baselevel 3 it the graph recommends you to invest into 3 Infrastructure. This seems weird at first but because the formula also includes how much is produced while constructing this makes sense. (i guess?)
Also all the graphs combined say, that it is not worth to invest in infrastructure if don't plan on building more than 4 factories. This number gets higher the higher the baselevel.

This confirms the belief, that in most cases its not worth investing in Infrastructure, though there are situations where it may scrape of half a month of construction early on. I did not look into the later game, as i felt that minimizing the time needed to construct Civilian factories was inherently an early game issue, as i tend to stop building civilian later in the game and my Industry will be strong enough, so that i don't need to optimize as heavily.

Errors could have been made in the smoothing of the Lines in the Graphs, as i have no idea how this algorithm actually works, but those would probably be negligible and the formula could be wrong, this kind of makes everything calculated here useless. Though i spent most of my time on that formula, so i really hope its not wrong.
Also i don't have taken any data for anything deviating from the +30% construction speed, but i don't think it will change a lot.

The Program i used for graphing and the maths was OriginPro, but i'm shure there is better software for this around.

So that's it i guess. If you have any suggestions or corrections i'd be happy to hear them.
I'll look forward to posting here a bit more often, though i don't think every post will be of this quality.

 

[walt526]

Really good post. I've been using Level 8 as the max that I'll build up to, but good to know that Level 5 is really more of where the break even point.

Goes without saying though that there are reasons for building up infrastructure other than CIC construction speed. Particularly with the new patch coming that ties infrastructure to resource efficiency. If you're able/willing, I'd be curious to see what you find with respect to building infrastructure to support refineries after the patch comes out.

 

[Darth.]

Holy mother of God, thanks for calculating this.

 

[RAF27680]

Dude, how much time did it took you to get all this ? I got almost 500h of game and i'm still like "lets put lvl 10 infra everywhere and we'll be fine".

 

[Lord of Beer]

This will be relevant for about 27 days, then adding infrastructure will increase resources and change everything :-D

 

[davej]

looks great in vitro

 

[Shaka of Carthage]

Sorry, but way too much analyst and detail to answer the question.

I'm with him on this ...

... "lets put lvl 10 infra everywhere and we'll be fine".

 

[Secret Master]

Sorry, but way too much analyst and detail to answer the question.

I'm with him on this ...

Nah.

Remember, time is a factor here. Every day an MIC is in operation is a day it gains efficiency (until it reaches maximum for the tech level).

And every day spent building infrastructure is a day spent not building a CIC, MIC, NIC, or synthetic plant (or RADAR or other stuff you need).

Then there are ministers and national spirits that might change the math.

Blanketing states in 10 infrastructure might be a good idea if we were looking at war in 1950 or so. But we're not. We might be in a war by 1939, or 38, or even 36 if something goes wrong (or goes right...).

This confirms the belief, that in most cases its not worth investing in Infrastructure, though there are situations where it may scrape of half a month of construction early on. I did not look into the later game, as i felt that minimizing the time needed to construct Civilian factories was inherently an early game issue, as i tend to stop building civilian later in the game and my Industry will be strong enough, so that i don't need to optimize as heavily.

Yes, this basically confirms what has been said before. There are some fringe cases where infrastructure construction makes sense, but in most cases, it's not a good strategy.

Choosing to put factories in states with better infrastructure first is a great idea. But building extra infrastructure just to improve factory construction speed is not often worth it.

This will be relevant for about 27 days, then adding infrastructure will increase resources and change everything :-D

Yep.

Oh, and destroying infrastructure will reduce resource output. Occupying Portugal or Sweden for their tungsten might just open them to Allied or Soviet bombing.

 

[swm]

Any ideas how it looks for the USA? They've got a number of +Infrastructure speed buffs available and a rather huge debuff to CIC/MIC construction. I feel like it might be worth it, as them, to build Infra (at least in high level states) until you can mobilize, since higher infra will speed up getting the first new factories online.

 

[walt526]

Any ideas how it looks for the USA? They've got a number of +Infrastructure speed buffs available and a rather huge debuff to CIC/MIC construction. I feel like it might be worth it, as them, to build Infra (at least in high level states) until you can mobilize, since higher infra will speed up getting the first new factories online.

Definitely the calculus has to be different for the US, for the reasons that you stated.

That actually makes me wonder whether tying infrastructure to resource efficiency will make the US too OP in the next patch. Or does the US already have such a significant resource advantages to the point where adding to it doesn't really alter the overall balance?

 

[swm]

Definitely the calculus has to be different for the US, for the reasons that you stated.

That actually makes me wonder whether tying infrastructure to resource efficiency will make the US too OP in the next patch. Or does the US already have such a significant resource advantages to the point where adding to it doesn't really alter the overall balance?

USA being overpowered in the hands of an even remotely competent player is at this point just kind of accepted fact. Resource wise, USA's biggest weakness is still unresolved: no rubber for her air force/motorized units, and no chromium for her heavy/modern tanks. Though the oil/rubber refinery split makes this less destructive. She'll still end up insanely overproducing oil + steel, and still close the economy off because the AI always does that, and waste most of those resources because you can't make effective use of them without others! Being a democracy, you can't just conquer more resources either. I may be slightly less than thrilled about this!

 

[PanzerMan7]

How does long term planning factor into this? A couple +20% factories in a state will mean building 10-15 factories in a province for a couple nations. USA , Germany, and I think UK as well.

 

[Reverse71]

Dude, how much time did it took you to get all this ? I got almost 500h of game and i'm still like "lets put lvl 10 infra everywhere and we'll be fine".

About 10-12 hours in total i guess. I started working on this at about 3 am, so i was not working efficiently at all. Also i had to develop the Method and so on, doing something comparable again would take me less than half the time probably.
Up until this guide i also did upgrade Infrastructure way too much and i will probably still do. In my last game i used the graphs early on and to be honest it did not change the game in a miraculous way. What i did not address, is that if you walk right on the 0 line, like in the following picture, you would have gained 5 infrastructure for "free" compared to only building factories.

This will be relevant for about 27 days, then adding infrastructure will increase resources and change everything :-D

This was focused on the topic of time gained/lost if you build Infrastructure only for the sake of speeding up Construction. There are already many situations where it is highly advisable to invest in Infrastructure past level 5. Those situations are a lot harder to put into number though, also i don't really like throwing too much math at the game, as i dislike the idea of Min/Maxing (which to be honest, this guide is the pinnacle of) .

Sorry, but way too much analyst and detail to answer the question.

I'm with him on this ...

I was procrastinating learning for an exam, i felt better doing something "productive" rather than completing my 5th playthrough with Russia.

Any ideas how it looks for the USA? They've got a number of +Infrastructure speed buffs available and a rather huge debuff to CIC/MIC construction. I feel like it might be worth it, as them, to build Infra (at least in high level states) until you can mobilize, since higher infra will speed up getting the first new factories online.

If i'm right the debuffs are the same as a country starting with Civilian Economy just a lot worse. Maybe I'll take a look at this with the USA as a special case.
This made me realize i forgot that some Factories are used for Consumer Goods. After quickly correcting for this the lines moved a little bit in favor of building infrastructure, but i will take a deeper look at this before ill reupload all the graphs.
The biggest difference is, that the efficiency of investing in the highest levels of Infrastructure doesn't drop of as sharply when you plan on building a high amount of Factories.

Spoiler: Quick and dirty Update

It's a very interesting question though! This will probably be quite tricky to work out, as i think there will be more strategies to consider.
I would first take the approach of this guide, then try to work out if it's worth to invest more heavily in Infrastructure a certain time before the debuffs will be removed.

... Particularly with the new patch coming that ties infrastructure to resource efficiency. If you're able/willing, I'd be curious to see what you find with respect to building infrastructure to support refineries after the patch comes out.

I'm not sure if the resource output of the refineries will be affected by infrastructure. If yes my head will probably explode trying to get this into Diagrams, if not this should be kind of the same math as for the civilian factories without the bits that account for what is built by the constructed factories while the others are finishing up. That formula would then also be usable for anything else you want to build.

 

[Reverse71]

How does long term planning factor into this? A couple +20% factories in a state will mean building 10-15 factories in a province for a couple nations. USA , Germany, and I think UK as well.

Good point!
My current understanding is, that you first proceed as i lined out in the first post, then when those new building slots become available you take another look at the now corresponding graph and act according to that.
The idea of investing in Infrastructure that becomes worth it only after speeding up buildings that are constructed later is faced with the problem, that building this Infrastructure is at first not worth it. Losing those Production days early on matters much more than the time you will save later, as those early production days will have more time to compound.

 

[Retry]

I'm not sure if the resource output of the refineries will be affected by infrastructure. If yes my head will probably explode trying to get this into Diagrams, if not this should be kind of the same math as for the civilian factories without the bits that account for what is built by the constructed factories while the others are finishing up. That formula would then also be usable for anything else you want to build.

Don't quote me on this but I'm pretty sure the Devs said refinery resource output will not be affected by infrastructure. IIRC Refineries are getting a bit of a rework and will increase their resource output via research.

 

[PanzerMan7]

This is really good though! Next step is to generalize it to accept different inputs. For ex: How would New Deal, civilian economy, construction engineering, and other modifiers effect these results? Should be easy enough to simulate. I'll try if I have tomorrow.

 

[Galbaatorix]

Thanks for the post

 

[Daddl]

Thank you, I once tried to calculate this myself but gave up somewhere along the lines. Though I'll still continue with my habit to build up infrastructure to 7 in every province with more than 5 free building slots. If its lower than 7 the green colour on the infrastructure map is just too dark and ugly. Priorities are important

And since infrastructure affects ressources with the next patch it will be worthwhile anyway.

 

[NickMart]

Doesn't infrastructure also increase the construction speed of military factories too? In which case you should consider the TOTAL number of factories that you will be building in a province to determine the optimal amount of infrastructure to build. And since these factories don't increase production speed like civilian factories do, it tilts the advantage towards infrastructure more

 

[walt526]

Doesn't infrastructure also increase the construction speed of military factories too? In which case you should consider the TOTAL number of factories that you will be building in a province to determine the optimal amount of infrastructure to build. And since these factories don't increase production speed like civilian factories do, it tilts the advantage towards infrastructure more

According to the HOI IV wiki, it increase the construction speed of all shared buildings: MIC, NIC, refineries, nuclear reactors, and rocket sites.

https://hoi4.paradoxwikis.com/Construction#State_buildings