CORE newbie looking for starting advice

[harrymanback]

Mod looks awesome, just started a game as US. Could someone give some suggestions on what I should be doing early on though? I can't build factories yet because of tech limitations, and I don't have the manpower to do any reinforcements. It seems to early to be building military units, plus the manpower shortage, so what else is there to do with my production? I'm building infra in provinces with over 10 factories, but this still leaves a lot of spare capacity.

I do have upgrade needs, but I've moved the advanced sliders up and its sticking at zero expenditure. Any reason for this? It could be my error, but I couldn't see what I was doing wrong.

 

[Denniss]

Start building up your navy. Don't upgrade units until you have researched better techs, makes the initial upgrades cheaper and faster. If you hav spare IC and want to upgrade, move the green upgrade slider to the right.
Another option would be to build airfields in valuable provinces.

 

[harrymanback]

Thanks for advice. What's the deal with improvements to pacific islands? I can't add air or naval facilities to Guam for example. Do I have to have troops stationed there before I can do construction work?

 

[Denniss]

I didn't play USA for a long time but AFAIR you need to have some supplies on these islands to be able to build anything there. If there's no supply arriving via autoconvoy try to manually create a supply convoy or move a land unit over there.
Please be always careful by improving such a small islands. If you can't defend it you prepare these islands for use by a possible enemy.

 

[Blecky]

Thanks for advice. What's the deal with improvements to pacific islands? I can't add air or naval facilities to Guam for example. Do I have to have troops stationed there before I can do construction work?

It´s usually enough to send some ships from the Philippines to Guam. Ground troops in the early stages of the scenario aren´t available due to lack of manpower, and your existing forces cannot move before 1938 or 1939. It´s sometimes quite difficult to get troops there in time, but if you´ve fortified the island and have expanded airfield and port you should be able to hold this outpost against the Japs.

 

[Tegetthoff]

On a historical note, remember that both Japan and the USA had agreed not to fortify any Pacific islands, so it should be hard to do so.

 

[HistoryMan]

Much as a historical USA, your pre-war focus should largely be on the Navy (low MP, high IC units). Whilst the naval construction events will produce some of the early vessels, everything that was started from about 1937 onwards will need to be built manually, so you will probably need to spend a fair bit of IC in this area.

Tim