France non-aligned focus efficiency question

[AscendedAlteran]

France non-aligned focus efficiency question

so i've been trying to get second times the charm achievement for a few months most “guides” and such are either vague on details most flash with little substance or require gimmicks such as one division training which is no longer a thing. So I’ve been taking bits and pieces and trying to cobble together something that works for me.

Anyways to cut a long story short the most confusing thing is figuring out the order in the focus tree some argue to do banned communism but with limited time before war I feel minimizing focuses before revise the constitution

So my order is revive the national bloc, utilize the leagues, the council of rambouillet, revise the constitution to get that timer started, next is laissez-faire to get that timer started, then my next is devalue the franc to get that timer out the way and to be a partial early mobilization



Now comes the first of several questions, should fixing the inefficient economy be my next priority? Or getting a research slot? I feel manpower is less of a concern because I can use puppet indies manpower instead whereas all my runs I’m usually needing supplies (I don’t conquer UK after Netherlands)



If so then my primary question is which is better for economic next +5 stability (protect the rights of man and/or develop the metropole) or economic devolution? I do eventually take both stability focuses its just about timing

Then how important is promote entrepreneurship and stimulate the dynamic market? Should I do it next or work on other aspects of the tree?

One of the reasons why I don’t ban communism is because when I do the blum-viollette proposal I want protests descend into violence so I can pick an extra boost to non-aligned because that is the only other boost to my party other than council of rambouillet and the decision press censorship which is very expensive for very little change.

My current order after devalue the franc is economic devolution, promote entrepreneurship, stimulate the dynamic market wait till October 7 repeal the law of exile, proclaim the third empire avenge Waterloo, (declare war on belgium than netherlands) protect the rights of man then the blum-viollette proposal, develop the metropole, then invest in metro, invest is Algiers which is now a core and can be effected by industrial expansion do to recent changes than support the grandes ecoles then work down to army reform.

i pick begin rearmament as soon as i can fit it in depending on war support and world tension as each game is different.

Another question is how great is the -10% production cost because i don’t notice a major difference when I’m playing?

Since my army is purely infantry my choices are between firepower kills only for the production cost reduction on artillery and infantry equipment, the methodical battle only for the 2 extra 200% land doctrine as I don’t use forts, or my new favorite the air dominance for the boost to ground support, cas research plus two air doctrines and production cost reduction to fighters and cas.

When it comes to air doctrine, I have questions.

how important is air support mission efficiency? Because the current “meta” strategic destruction has none, of course battlefield support has the most but lacks the fighter agility bonus while operational integrity has it but its further down the tree.

which would help me the most against German air and ground forces? With limited production and manpower?

 

[CantGetNoSleep]

Now comes the first of several questions, should fixing the inefficient economy be my next priority? Or getting a research slot?

Getting that fourth research slot is indeed important, but even more important are those 8 civs in the three focuses before it - you're increasing your industrial base over 20%.

Then how important is promote entrepreneurship and stimulate the dynamic market? Should I do it next or work on other aspects of the tree?

stimulate the dynamic market is insanely powerful. BUT... it only really becomes useful once you have enough mils, so you don't need to rush it.

Mathematically, increasing your production efficiency cap and the growth of that cap means you're producing more, always. Increasing your cap by 10% in fact more than 10% increase in production. With 1937 techs, your efficiency cap is 70%. Increasing that cap to 80% is a 14% boost. The higher cap will mean higher production efficiency growth too (and that gets a further 10% boost), so it's more like a 15% boost - for zero extra resources. Now if you have 7 mils, that's barely 1 mil extra. But it starts to make a big difference at 30 mils (more like 35, etc).

One of the reasons why I don’t ban communism is because when I do the blum-viollette proposal I want protests descend into violence so I can pick an extra boost to non-aligned because that is the only other boost to my party other than council of rambouillet and the decision press censorship which is very expensive for very little change.

Don't ever bother banning it. For the reason you say, and because it goes away when stability > 70%. I'd however consider doing communist (and fascists if it gets high enough) raids. That gives you a stability boost of about 2.5% (overall, despite the initial hit), and will increase the non-aligned a smidgen.

My current order after devalue the franc is economic devolution, promote entrepreneurship, stimulate the dynamic market wait till October 7 repeal the law of exile, proclaim the third empire avenge Waterloo, (declare war on belgium than netherlands) protect the rights of man then the blum-viollette proposal, develop the metropole, then invest in metro, invest is Algiers which is now a core and can be effected by industrial expansion do to recent changes than support the grandes ecoles then work down to army reform.

I'd recommend doing promote entrepeneurship then start going down the devalue the franc (4 focuses, stop just before industrial expansion). Then wait for 15 days as you do and repeal laws of exile, then get the 8 civs. My personal choice. I love CIVs. Then the research slot, then may be grab those 8 mils early and ignore the colonies focus entirely (it's a lot of time you could be doing more useful things like army reform). Then finish the bloc focuses, then army reform - though you won't finish it in time for the German onslaught/your own attacks. And yes, grab the first 4 mils of army reform as soon as you can in that process.

i pick begin rearmament as soon as i can fit it in depending on war support and world tension as each game is different.

Yup. But get the civs first IMHO. Also, once you've done the laws of exile, I'd seriously consider intervention in Spain. Select a couple of decisions once you've done the focus to get your war support, then change your economic laws to partial mob, then do the "ban" decisions to reverse the war support but regain stability. Then you'll have 120 days to demobilise. 119 days later, redo the same thing. It's expensive in PP terms, but partial mob is huge. Once China has kicked off, improve relations and send an attache there (give them back Guanwanghzou for a shorter improve relations if needed - it has zero strategic or economic value - you spend more garrisoning the place than you get back in manpower). That should reduce or even stop the need to do Spanish intervention decisions.

Another question is how great is the -10% production cost because i don’t notice a major difference when I’m playing?

Well, it's 10%. So like having 10 mils on something instead of 9. It's not huge, but it's not bad either.

Since my army is purely infantry my choices are between firepower kills only for the production cost reduction on artillery and infantry equipment, the methodical battle only for the 2 extra 200% land doctrine as I don’t use forts, or my new favorite the air dominance for the boost to ground support, cas research plus two air doctrines and production cost reduction to fighters and cas.

When it comes to air doctrine, I have questions.

how important is air support mission efficiency? Because the current “meta” strategic destruction has none, of course battlefield support has the most but lacks the fighter agility bonus while operational integrity has it but its further down the tree.

The meta is based on trying to achieve air superiority, which if you have it, and have it by a reasonable margin, basically means nothing else really matters. And in order to get all the boosts from the tree, you need to go all the way down, which only really makes sense if you're air controller (and then you also need a slot on land doctrines to get to the bottom of the LHS of superior firepower to get an extra boost). So it's very specialised.

In single player, as France, I'd recommend battlefield support with air dominance - combined with the other (often forgotten) air focuses on the right, means you can be 1 tech ahead of your enemies in almost all air stuff. You'll need the CAS support to withstand the German onslaught.

The 10% boost to agility of the doctrine is, in single player, easily compensated by spending some air XPs upgrading your fighters and/or being 1 tech ahead.

 

[AscendedAlteran]

thank you for your feedback

though i'm confused. you said "I'd recommend doing promote entrepreneurship then start going down the devalue the franc (4 focuses, stop just before industrial expansion). Then wait for 15 days as you do and repeal laws of exile, then get the 8 civs."

but that's 6/7 focuses before i take "repeal laws of exile" depending on whether or not i also invest in algeria.

are you suggesting that after revise the constitution i should take Laissez-Faire, Economic Devolution, promote entrepreneurship, devalue the frank, then develop the metropole than invest in metropolitan France

are you suggesting i don't take repeal laws of exile asap?

after "revise the constitution" i have a 5 focuses plus a couple of days till repeal the law of exile can be taken

what should they be?

also i probably wasn't clear. from an production/pp point if i'm going Laissez-Faire right after revise the constitution then devaule the franc that means i have a -15 stab hit with its production/pp malus is it better to get the +5 or +10 stability boost first or Economic Devolution

promote entrepreneurship just give +5 construction speed to military and dockyard so it sounds like i can hold off on promote entrepreneurship and stimulate the dynamic till later on

i should replace them with two others the question is whether they should be both +5 stability (develop the metropole and rights of man) or one of them develop the Metropole and invest in metropolitan

 

[CantGetNoSleep]

thank you for your feedback

though i'm confused. you said "I'd recommend doing promote entrepreneurship then start going down the devalue the franc (4 focuses, stop just before industrial expansion). Then wait for 15 days as you do and repeal laws of exile, then get the 8 civs."

Apologies - I was doing from memory rather than checking what each focus was called with the screen in front of me. Now I have it all in front of me. Bee-line the Revise the Constitution, then do these 5 focuses:
- Laissez faire,
- devalue the franc,
- develop the metropole,
- invest in algerian france,
- invest in metropolitan france
At that point, yes you wait a few days (or cheekily sneak in Intervention in Spain which is only 35 days). Also get an agency about now, and work up to 5 slots (2 on anti-partisan) for 2 spies - one goes to Belgium and one to Holland. Then:
- repeal the law of exiles
Then
- industrial expansion

Then it's a bit up to you, but I'd do things in the following order
- Proclaim third empire
- Revenge for Waterloo and go to war with Belgium and Netherlands simultaneously - world tension should be low enough they don't join allies and your starting army is more than strong enough to take both at this point. Grind a bit in Holland for XPs so you can then upgrade your division - but not too long, your stability can't be too low for too long or your production will suck. You'll likely get a draft dodge event, choose to spend the PP to make an example for a 5% boost to stability (85% chance if I recall well). Use spies to help reduce rebellion for now (start with Secret Police and work down slowly so rebellion is always near but < 20%, use your cavalry division for garrison, you should have captured enough equipment for it not to be an issue, but if it is, remove the recon unit).

After that
- Colonial Industry (4 more civs - yes it "wastes" 6 potential civs, but the focuses to do those take nearly a year which is time you don't have)
- Grandes ecole
- Military factories ("only" 8 mils out of a potential 14 you could get, but again, time is not on your side)

You could then go and get 1 more research slot, but at that point I'd go down the rest of the Reform the Block (Economic Devolution, Promote Entrepeneurship, Stimulate the Dynamic Market and may be protect right of man after that, but it can wait) - your industry should be purring by now so it's time to give it those boosts. And after all that, army reform (though you can sneak in first focus for 4 mils earlier, as previously discussed).

PS: satellite dutch east indies, and use their (huge) manpower to fix all your manpower problems, pretty much forever.

 

[Swamperino]

I would say that your focus order is quite good until repeal the law of exile. I personally prefer to get the 8 civilians factories after that. As soon as you unlock the Napoleonic tree, however, make full use of it.
Plan a naval invasion on Britain through Wales and add a single division naval invasion on all of the British dominions except South Africa.
Put your entire fleet at sea with naval invasion support in the appropriate regions, and since the British can't instantly put their fleet at sea, you can launch your invasion. Manually control your army and rush into every open gap.
Right after your army has landed, split off parts of your fleet and sail them to your naval invasions in Canada, the Raj, Australia and New Zealand. Don't worry about the British invasion of Africa, you will get it all back when they capitulate. All your single divisions have to do is land and take a fight with the dominions so they're included in the peace conference.
If Britain is close to surrendering, hold your army in place so you can execute the other naval invasions.
After this invasion, invade the Netherlands and Belgium and build level 4-5 forts along the river Rhine and Meuse and field as much manpower as you can with simple 20 width infantry divisions. My personal flavour for support battalions is generally engineers and support artillery.
The Germans will initially be stronger and you will probably have to retreat behind a different river a couple of times, but with the industry of Britain you'll be able to quickly build up your army and some 40 width medium tank divisions.
As for air doctrine, I would strongly recommend strategic destruction. It provides the most air combat bonuses and an agility focus, which battlefield support doesn't. You will only be building fighters until about a year after the Germans have invaded anyways, since they will have a much larger force of fighters. This makes CAS completely useless and the battlefield support doctrine with it.

 

[AscendedAlteran]

interesting thank you both for your thoughts i guess i thought that inefficient economy was a bigger problem it certainly looks it when you start the game with dockyards and factories producing -10% output and by the time of Laissez-Faire its at roughly -5% thanks to dispersed industry 1 and communist event.

i'm trying your focus line up cantgetnosleep it only gets to 10% output after i research develop the metropole

i guess the questions are:
how much does production output actually impact production?
Which is more important, it, or number of factories assigned to a line?

but then you have to factor in production efficiency which decreases with the addition of new factories to the line

I'm hesitant about attack UK i struggle with naval invasions and fleet management and don't want to deal with the commonwealth, too complicated plus I've needed their help up til now in staying alive against Germany and Italy and yet every time I've capitulated or been driven out of Europe because I've made one stupid mistake or another
(marched into Berlin only to see Italians march into Paris, or joined the allies only to see them declare war on USSR before they declared on Germany and Spain joined the soviet sphere. my last game yesterday saw England join the Nazis i held off the British for awhile but the game was a stalemate, but i knew i was going to loose eventually)

plus i don't micro manage that much i rely on battle planner to do most of the work and micro when needed

I'm still trying to figure out which land doctrine i like more GBP or SFP. Paradoxically enough i find SFP great on the defense, do to its flexibility tactics and soft attack, but weak on the offense do to its lack of breakthrough. Whereas GBP to be poor on the defense, due to its rigidity, but great on the offense due to its breakthrough.

i can stalemate Germany and Italy holding half of mainland France for a long time under SFP but i can't push, yet with GBP i can push into Berlin with ease yet due to its flaw one hole in my line and its game over within seconds.

 

[AscendedAlteran]

thank you very much
i managed to easily defeat Germany with the help of Poland and Czechoslovakia when Germany declared war on them. Italy took twice as long but i got there now its onto Moscow

 

[Longshanks51]

Hi, I've been trying to get the Second Time’s the Charm achievement as well. But I can't get past Germany.
This has given me a lot of good advice, so thank you.
But I've still got a few issue's that i need help on.

First is what build of division is best used against Germany? What build did you use?
Should you have front line artillery and anti-tank or just support companies?

Second is when is the best time to go to war against Germany?
Do you attack when they've declared on Poland or do you wait for them to declare on you first?

 

[AscendedAlteran]

so here is what i did, you don't necessarily have to do them all, but i will give my reasons for doing them

turned off historical AI. i tried historical on because of its predictability, but decided to try to turn it off to allow more options. hoping that this allowed the formation of new teams, hoping Germany and Italy didn't form an alliance, hoping it took longer for Germany to do important conquering events. you can also make certain countries like UK stick to historical paths in custom rules as long as you change them to historical it doesn't break ironman. funnily enough i forget and so on one of my achievement run tries they joined axis. but not the one i got it on

start of the game research:
Electronic Mechanical Engineering
Basic Machine Tools
Construction I
once EME is done switch to mechanical Computing
once BMT is done concentrated/dispersed I. (i picked Dispersed)
now you should move all three slots into construction II, your chosen Industry II and improved Machine tools so that the three 150% bonus from Laissez-Faire apply to construction III Industry III and Advanced Machine tools which i held off researching till it was below 200 days focus your research slots on radio, support weapons I and Interwar Artillery followed by support weapons II, improved infantry equipment and fighter I now back to industry III.

construction: (fair warning i'm OCD)
i got all infrastructure above 50% so that's 6 of them two in savoy and alpines and one in two provinces in the middle of the south followed by at least i civilian factory in each mainland province, then the same for military factories after that i make sure at least 2 civilian factories in each province followed by 2 military factories. i figure between trading, building intelligence agency and repairing conquered territory you gonna need at least two sets of 15

production:
Infantry Equipment 3
Support Equipment 1
Artillery 1
Anti Air 1
Fighter 1
Close Air Support 1

intelligence Agency:
don't build anything till you have more than 30 factories on construction

army:
shift click army icon on top move into one army split into four armies 18/18/19/19 switch them to Division d'Infanterie start to shift train them. generals are de Gaulle, Alphonse Juin, Henri Giraud and Philippe Leclerc avoid all old guards. Jean de Lattre de Tassigny becomes your new field commander as soon as you have enough CP give him Aggressive Assaulter, Offensive Doctrine and Organization First

Air:
move them to the big airbase near the border with Belgium shift all fighter wings to 100 set them to air superiority and close air support

Navy:
move them into two fleets. one of subs and one of everything else ( i'm horrible at navy) direct production into the two appropriate fleets. subs on convoy raiding the Mediterranean connecting all your holdings from Syria to morocco the rest on base strike.

Focus:
revive the national bloc
utilize the leagues
the council of Rambouillet
revise the constitution
Laissez-Faire
Devalue the franc
develop the metropole
invest in Algerian France
invest in metropolitan France
either wait 15 days or take intervention in spain to cripple your stability and gain enough war support to take early mobilization/partial depending on if you got the early mobilization to fire i never got it to fire with historical off despite several times the Ethiopia war going beyond the date the event fires
repeal the law of exile
industrial expansion
support the grandes ecoles
military factories
begin rearmament
proclaim the third empire
avenge Waterloo
next focus on removing victors of the great war i went down air focus

pp spending
should be silent workhorse
Free market
Light Aircraft Designer (before you research fighter I, i might have got it second)
early mobilization/partial (after intervention in Spain or as soon as you can)
Military Theorist (after the rest, i got it just before i declared war on Holland)
Decisions either improve workers conditions democratic, communist and fascist raids all to keep your stability as high as possible. to improve factory output, reduce rebellionand increase PP output the rest is up to you.

research should be keeping your already researched up to date with the priority being
computing, than industry, than infantry, than artillery than anti air, than new plane models than air doctrine. than land doctrine keeping tech lower than 200 days with electronics being the exception.

air doctrine i used was Battlefield Support

land doctrine i didn't get to till after i got 100 army xp while i was close to or researching army reform focus. and that was grand battle plan. since i don't micro.

as soon as you have produced CAS take all produced split them into four increase their numbers to 100 this should be done before you attack Holland.

as soon as you have more than 30 civilian factories
build an intelligence agency
important researchers are
Invisible ink,
Suicide pills,
Form Department (immediately decrypting Holland, than Netherlands. Only do one at a time otherwise it doubles the time to decrypt)
then Radio Interception Group twice,
than Machine-Assisted Decryption twice.
than all the intelligence branches and send your first agent to Holland and the second to Netherlands so that it increases the speed that you capitulate them.
than Interrogation techniques
than Passive defense all four,
than anti partisan twice.
the rest is optional

Commando training should be first, if it does what it says it does (it doesn't seem to work),


attack Holland than attack Netherlands don't finish till they call in dutch indies
annex all but the dutch indies which you puppet for me this happened during anschluss

copy their closest division to yours use army XP to modify the template to yours exactly but add in recon and anti-air support and one more infantry to make 20.
switch over all your existing divisions to the new one spit the last one into two assign René Olry to the new army. general plan assign René Olry to protect the alps Henri Giraud assigned to the Maginot line the general with the most logistics to the African theater and then assign Jean de Lattre de Tassigny to the German Benelux border. then start producing your new puppet divisions to fill all 5 armies to 24 while shift army training your existing divisions.

this means that your division is 20w all infantry with engineer, recon cavalry, support artillery and support anti-air.



after you have taken out the Benelux region assign your tactical bombers to bomb forts on the alpine and Maginot German and Italian sides. at least 100 CAS and 100 Fighters are either assigned to your troops directly or manually along all fronts. double it if you can.

for me the next major event was Germany declaring on Czechoslovakia i was given a choice, stability hit or join so i joined. this allowed Retribution for Sedan focus to bypass. and went on the offensive, Germany immediately called in Italy. the army in Africa used aggressive the Benelux on balanced and the Maginot on careful as soon as your troops connect with the Maginot delete and put the new three armies under field marshal and draw new one through all of Germany the tactical should have cleared most or all the forts and Germany focusing on Czechoslovakia should be easier i got lucky in that Poland wanted to join in as well. we formed the interregnum faction. once Germany capitulated i used my northern army to come at Italy from the German side and used my African army to try to naval invade from the south eventually i got Italy to capitulate. i took most of the German and Italian provinces and most important is make sure you have a corridor to USSR i made one by declaring on the remaining axis who didn't got to war with me Romania and Bulgaria

now in my game Spain was a soviet puppet and Britain got converted to communism and joined the soviet sphere. So i assigned René Olry to the Spanish front my African guy spread his army's around Africa to take out Spanish holdings the other two defended the french occupied Romanian border. i produced new troops to guard my coast and assigned my subs to raid around Spain and the English channel started a naval bomber line got 100 to guard all my coast. researched the next one down the napoleon tree then declared war on Russia called in Poland. you need to have a direct line to USSR otherwise your ally gets all your new conquered provinces. i didn't manage to conquer moscow directly as it was too north and i was buys elsewhere but i had taken the whole USSR land just south of the city of moscow lukily they were also in a war with japan so they capitulated shortly after Moscow and st petersberg fell i think stalingrad fell to i don't remember anyways up until then i couldn't get Poland to give me control of Moscow however as soon as USSR fell while we were still at war with UK and Spain i asked for it and they gave it to me then i got the achievement and left the game mission completed.