The Wiki recommends that the German player should attack Luxembourg as early as possible, in order to incorporate that 5 IC core province into the Reich... even if no early war is intended.
I have always been very sceptical of this advice, for a number of reasons:
1) The violated French GoI on Luxembourg will give them a two-point slider shift to Interventionism, which reduces their Consumer Goods demand and... in effect... gives them more disposable ICs with which to prepare for the coming war. It also reduces their Belligerence DoW threshold (by 41%, from 49 points to 29), reduces their DoW Dissent cost (by the same margin, from 5.6% to 3.3%) and reduces the costs of their Diplomatic activities.
2) The extension of the German front into Luxembourg will require a fairly strong garrison, since it is adjacent to the French Maginot Line positions in Metz and Strasbourg. Since the security of the German Panzer thrust into northern France would be jeapordized by a fall-back defense in this area... not to mention the economic results of allowing the French to push into the Ruhr valley... a static defense is more or less required. The cost of the defending units must be allowed for in calculating the German "profit margin" in taking Luxembourg early.
3) In the early game, the German Interventionism slider is more or less centered, resulting in a high Dissent hit (+5.6%) on any DoW. This Dissent must then be eliminated by overproducing Consumer Goods... delaying Factory production and thus eroding any German IC profits gained from the conquest of Luxembourg.
4) The extra German belligerence from the DoW and annexation will compromise trade agreements (as will the resulting Relations hit on annexation)... perhaps requiring more ICs to be spent on producing Supplies for export in order to maintain imports at the desired level.
5) A very real danger exists that the extra belligerence, combined with the 2-point French slider shift to Interventionism and the free French casus belli will result in an early French DoW against Germany... quite possibly preventing them from gaining all of their scripted cores, which would cost Germany far more ICs (in lost cores) than they gained by taking Luxembourg. After annexing Luxembourg, the German belligerence will already be 16 points... the Anschluss of Austria may well push them over the DoW line.
Up until now, I have always avoided any premature move against Luxembourg, since I felt that the extra ICs gained were not proper compensation for this formidable array of drawbacks. Recently, I have tried an early conquest of Luxembourg... just as an experiment... and I have made a surprising discovery, which casts further doubt on the whole idea of grabbing this core early:
There are no extra ICs!
Germany gains effectively nothing by taking Luxembourg early.
My results:
An early Dow against Luxembourg (in my game, January 19th, 1936) gives Germany +5.6% Dissent... and requires a full focus on Consumer Goods for about 32 days in order to eliminate the Dissent. This costs Germany about 3200 IC-days... not counting the normal day-to-day allocation of Consumer Goods.
By diverting all ICs to Consumer Goods in order to remove the Dissent, this will also delay all three runs of Factory builds (1936, '37 and '38) by 32 days each... including the additional Factories that would have been built using these newly constructed ICs. This delay costs Germany an additional 2016 IC-days... pro-rated to 1613 IC-days after deducting the share that would have normally gone to additional day-to-day Consumer Goods.
These two deductions alone will soak up all of the IC-day "profits" obtained by Luxembourg's conquest, from January 1936 right through to May of 1939 (!), by which time you could have attacked Luxembourg ANYWAY without ever risking your event-driven cores... the "End of Czecheslovakia" event in March 1939 is the last signifigant addition to Germany's national cores, since the Polish cores only really count for Partisan control... very little IC or Resources are involved.
Note that the IC-day (and Manpower) cost of the German Luxembourg defenders has not even been included in this calculation. Nor has the fact that the violation of France's GoI (and the resulting 2-point Interventionism slider shift) increases France's disposable ICs by +9% for three and a half years, while giving Germany virtually nothing in return.
It look to me that an early attack on Luxembourg runs great risks, for absolutely no pay-off. Germany gains nothing at all by doing this.
Comments?
I have always been very sceptical of this advice, for a number of reasons:
1) The violated French GoI on Luxembourg will give them a two-point slider shift to Interventionism, which reduces their Consumer Goods demand and... in effect... gives them more disposable ICs with which to prepare for the coming war. It also reduces their Belligerence DoW threshold (by 41%, from 49 points to 29), reduces their DoW Dissent cost (by the same margin, from 5.6% to 3.3%) and reduces the costs of their Diplomatic activities.
2) The extension of the German front into Luxembourg will require a fairly strong garrison, since it is adjacent to the French Maginot Line positions in Metz and Strasbourg. Since the security of the German Panzer thrust into northern France would be jeapordized by a fall-back defense in this area... not to mention the economic results of allowing the French to push into the Ruhr valley... a static defense is more or less required. The cost of the defending units must be allowed for in calculating the German "profit margin" in taking Luxembourg early.
3) In the early game, the German Interventionism slider is more or less centered, resulting in a high Dissent hit (+5.6%) on any DoW. This Dissent must then be eliminated by overproducing Consumer Goods... delaying Factory production and thus eroding any German IC profits gained from the conquest of Luxembourg.
4) The extra German belligerence from the DoW and annexation will compromise trade agreements (as will the resulting Relations hit on annexation)... perhaps requiring more ICs to be spent on producing Supplies for export in order to maintain imports at the desired level.
5) A very real danger exists that the extra belligerence, combined with the 2-point French slider shift to Interventionism and the free French casus belli will result in an early French DoW against Germany... quite possibly preventing them from gaining all of their scripted cores, which would cost Germany far more ICs (in lost cores) than they gained by taking Luxembourg. After annexing Luxembourg, the German belligerence will already be 16 points... the Anschluss of Austria may well push them over the DoW line.
Up until now, I have always avoided any premature move against Luxembourg, since I felt that the extra ICs gained were not proper compensation for this formidable array of drawbacks. Recently, I have tried an early conquest of Luxembourg... just as an experiment... and I have made a surprising discovery, which casts further doubt on the whole idea of grabbing this core early:
There are no extra ICs!
Germany gains effectively nothing by taking Luxembourg early.
My results:
An early Dow against Luxembourg (in my game, January 19th, 1936) gives Germany +5.6% Dissent... and requires a full focus on Consumer Goods for about 32 days in order to eliminate the Dissent. This costs Germany about 3200 IC-days... not counting the normal day-to-day allocation of Consumer Goods.
By diverting all ICs to Consumer Goods in order to remove the Dissent, this will also delay all three runs of Factory builds (1936, '37 and '38) by 32 days each... including the additional Factories that would have been built using these newly constructed ICs. This delay costs Germany an additional 2016 IC-days... pro-rated to 1613 IC-days after deducting the share that would have normally gone to additional day-to-day Consumer Goods.
These two deductions alone will soak up all of the IC-day "profits" obtained by Luxembourg's conquest, from January 1936 right through to May of 1939 (!), by which time you could have attacked Luxembourg ANYWAY without ever risking your event-driven cores... the "End of Czecheslovakia" event in March 1939 is the last signifigant addition to Germany's national cores, since the Polish cores only really count for Partisan control... very little IC or Resources are involved.
Note that the IC-day (and Manpower) cost of the German Luxembourg defenders has not even been included in this calculation. Nor has the fact that the violation of France's GoI (and the resulting 2-point Interventionism slider shift) increases France's disposable ICs by +9% for three and a half years, while giving Germany virtually nothing in return.
It look to me that an early attack on Luxembourg runs great risks, for absolutely no pay-off. Germany gains nothing at all by doing this.
Comments?
o 
