Germany Buildup - CIC run comparisons

[Zauberelefant]

errr, i forgot agency existed haha. Im still getting used to spending CIC there XD.
but i don´t recommend creating a agency before having all the CIC/MIL you actually need

So if it was me i would create around mid 38. There is no need for a MAjor to create a agency before 38 (Unless you're japan).






on MP you need molotov.
on SP you can easily ignore it, but i still do it because i like to keep this episode of history real . It affect almost nothing either way as you only do it on 39,


on MP you split with hungary, the player there really needs it and its just 2-3 CIC a+ 2-3 MIC.
on SP there is no reason , take it all

Well, since you said you approached this like MP, I figured you would want an Agency for codebreaking and defense at the least.

But that nicely illustrates what opportunity cost an Agency and 4x collab actually is.

Edit: you did not build AA, Radar and airfields as I did, did you?

 

[sterrius]

Well, since you said you approached this like MP, I figured you would want an Agency for codebreaking and defense at the least.

But that nicely illustrates what opportunity cost an Agency and 4x collab actually is.

Edit: you did not build AA, Radar and airfields as I did, did you?

You are right i should have build a Agency, its just im not yet used to create agency (I re-installed the game and got la resistance last month ^^) , so it really went under the radar .

I see no need for AA, Radar and Airfields before mid 39. If you're at peace they serve no purpose and you don´t need this to invade Poland.
To me this process should be done while you're invading france. (Airfield > radars > AA on that order ^^).

With or without Stat. Bombing AA on the coast should be done to give some passive air superiority , those + a few fighters should stop the allies form getting 100% air superiority on D-Day no matter how many planes they place there.

 

[MR2]

Following the two recent CIC v MIC Threads has been very instructive and enlightening. And yet questions remain...

Several have given broad strokes on their Construction method. CIC until '38 then MIC. Then Refinery, Radar, Air Base, AA, etc' starting in '39. Some do Infrastructure first to eek out that extra .1 or .2 %. Some ignore the navy and others nab those two Nat.Focus for those 5 NICs. As examples...

I understand the value of compounded interest or rather CIC in this case and the vast power of % bonuses from Advisors, Focui, etc.

Playing as 1936 Germany, I start with 10 NIC, 32 CIC, 28 MIC, 2Oil, 0Rubber, 4Chrome

?I'm forever losing CIC to trade. Outside of combat, the only way to gain experience is a token from a Focus or exercise (mostly Naval, maybe some Air, and insultingly scant Army). Exercise and Combat takes Oil. Building stuff takes Rubber/Chrome. Can't survive without air cover, can't build FTR w/o Rubber, can't fly w/o Oil... Sending Volunteers requires Oil and Replacements. What are your solutions?

?As specifically as possible - how do you build CIC until 1938 with Export Focus or Free Trade and not lose everything to trade?

?For the Infrastructure folks - when do you start Grobraumwirtschaft and Reichsautobahn? Do you start building infrastructure before Grobraumwirtschaft?

?Starting in 1939, can you build a level 3 Radar in time for Danzig or War?

?For the no navy folk, do you just cancel the ships in que? If not, do you ignore the two battleships until 1940 when some more chrome becomes available...? Has anyone tried disolving the entire navy to recoup manpower?

?For those rushing to get MARM into the game, do you push to get 12 km/h or do you not have any Trucks? How do you insert the Foci and MARM Research into the CIC/MIC 'template'? Oh, got Tungsten?

?My Polish invasion usually involves armies and air forces in Ermland-Masuren. This usually requires Port and Infrastructure expansion to avoid a stalled attack. Thoughts?

No judgements on playing style here - I'm just looking for others solutions. Thank you!

 

[Simon_9732495]

There is no need for a MAjor to create a agency before 38 (Unless you're japan).

What?
The "Collaboration Government" mission to raise compliance before you occupy someone is one of the best things in the game you can do.

As Germany you should do these missions as early as possible. If you do this only in 38 you have just throuwn away many CIVs.

 

[Secret Master]

And yet questions remain...

In a Paradox game? Who would have guessed?

(You're also an old timer around here, so you know how it's been for 15 years.)

I can't answer all of your questions, but I will answer some:

?As specifically as possible - how do you build CIC until 1938 with Export Focus or Free Trade and not lose everything to trade?

In SP, I simply don't. Export Focus or Free Trade cost too much, because your "allies" won't prioritize buying from you until the war starts. And yes, I swear a lot at AI "allies" in SP.

In MP, it's viable (albeit difficult), because you can just call up Italy, Hungary, and Romania in Discord and negotiate quadrilateral trade agreements. (Four power agreements, not agreements to trade quadrilaterals).

?I'm forever losing CIC to trade.

Welcome to Germany's position in the world in 1936. While I think history has shown that autarky is for losers, what you describe does give some superficial credence to German foreign policy goals in the 1930s. If you are dependent on resources X, Y, and Z to run your economy (or military), and other powers hold the strings to those resources, you might want to break out of the web of international trade and just own those resources yourself.

Until you occupy France and build enough synthetic rubber, Germany kind of has to accept the loss of CIC and just mitigate it as best she can. But if you really hate spending CIC on anything outside your own borders, then the correct path of expansion should be: build synthetic rubber to satisfy all possible domestic need, occupy France, force Spain into the Axis or occupy Spain, occupy Portugal, force Romania to become a puppet or occupy Romania, occupy Yugoslavia and Greece (Italy gets nothing), and occupy Norway. That should yield enough tungsten, rubber, oil, chromium, and aluminum to satisfy most of your needs for a long time.

Then you hit the Soviets and fulfill your goal of autarky.

 

[sterrius]

Following the two recent CIC v MIC Threads has been very instructive and enlightening. And yet questions remain...

Several have given broad strokes on their Construction method. CIC until '38 then MIC. Then Refinery, Radar, Air Base, AA, etc' starting in '39. Some do Infrastructure first to eek out that extra .1 or .2 %. Some ignore the navy and others nab those two Nat.Focus for those 5 NICs. As examples...

I understand the value of compounded interest or rather CIC in this case and the vast power of % bonuses from Advisors, Focui, etc.

Playing as 1936 Germany, I start with 10 NIC, 32 CIC, 28 MIC, 2Oil, 0Rubber, 4Chrome

?I'm forever losing CIC to trade. Outside of combat, the only way to gain experience is a token from a Focus or exercise (mostly Naval, maybe some Air, and insultingly scant Army). Exercise and Combat takes Oil. Building stuff takes Rubber/Chrome. Can't survive without air cover, can't build FTR w/o Rubber, can't fly w/o Oil... Sending Volunteers requires Oil and Replacements. What are your solutions?

?As specifically as possible - how do you build CIC until 1938 with Export Focus or Free Trade and not lose everything to trade?

?For the Infrastructure folks - when do you start Grobraumwirtschaft and Reichsautobahn? Do you start building infrastructure before Grobraumwirtschaft?

?Starting in 1939, can you build a level 3 Radar in time for Danzig or War?

?For the no navy folk, do you just cancel the ships in que? If not, do you ignore the two battleships until 1940 when some more chrome becomes available...? Has anyone tried disolving the entire navy to recoup manpower?

?For those rushing to get MARM into the game, do you push to get 12 km/h or do you not have any Trucks? How do you insert the Foci and MARM Research into the CIC/MIC 'template'? Oh, got Tungsten?

?My Polish invasion usually involves armies and air forces in Ermland-Masuren. This usually requires Port and Infrastructure expansion to avoid a stalled attack. Thoughts?

No judgements on playing style here - I'm just looking for others solutions. Thank you!

?I'm forever losing CIC to trade.

i can only talk for myself.

?As specifically as possible - how do you build CIC until 1938 with Export Focus or Free Trade and not lose everything to trade?

Until 38 you just need around 2 factorys on trade. Both on rubber to produce planes.
You can run a little negative value of resources. You will have more than enough time to import later when you start to build MIC. Also later on 38 you have way more CIC to actually import.

On MP germany should never lose a factory. Players will provide them for you.

?For the Infrastructure folks - when do you start Grobraumwirtschaft and Reichsautobahn? Do you start building infrastructure before Grobraumwirtschaft?

Extra research > Anchuluss > Autobahn.
grobaumwirtschaft i only go for it in the 40´s. The +10% infrastructure is not gonna play a big role in the grand scheme of things so you actually need it to save time everytime you decide to improve USSR infrastructure to keep advancing.

?Starting in 1939, can you build a level 3 Radar in time for Danzig or War?

I can safely confirm at least lv2 radar. Lv3 might be under construction
but you only need them for France. Not Poland.

?For the no navy folk, do you just cancel the ships in que? If not, do you ignore the two battleships until 1940 when some more chrome becomes available...? Has anyone tried disolving the entire navy to recoup manpower?

I delete every single ship outside of the Panzerchiff + Submarines. Enough to do something while i farm 17 naval XP.
I get as fast as possible 17naval XP.
After 17xp Make a "Naked Panzerchiff" with just Engine II + Armor II. (And fire control)

This removes a huge amount of Naval IC cost from the ship. Basically you're kicking the equipment cost to 39-40 after you research Industry III.
Them you reform the ship to something like this costing only 133 days. (With 25-30 dockyards you can reform 5-6 of them at same time).

After reforming them you have a ship that is hard to locate, fast to hunt convoys, and strong enough to kill DD´s and Convoy. (And the focus is to kill the DD´s escorts).
After UK finally finishes most of them you bring the Cruiser / Sub III´s to hunt on convoys as eng now is too busy replenishing them.

and now it becomes a cat & mouse game where you transit beetween subs and surface ships keeping UK and US spending resources in the atlantic, a lot of them .
With some luck the US will have to remove units from pacific to the atlantic, helping japan.

?For those rushing to get MARM into the game, do you push to get 12 km/h or do you not have any Trucks? How do you insert the Foci and MARM Research into the CIC/MIC 'template'? Oh, got Tungsten?

MARM is mostly for USSR and 90%+ of its production start in 39-40.
Don´t count on it to take france and poland.
if you rush Marm for france you have to sacrifice something and even with that you will have less ARM divisions.

 

[blahmaster6k]

What?
The "Collaboration Government" mission to raise compliance before you occupy someone is one of the best things in the game you can do.

As Germany you should do these missions as early as possible. If you do this only in 38 you have just throuwn away many CIVs.

Actually, by far the best thing you can do with spies in vanilla is steal industrial blueprints on minors without enough CIC to form an agency for defense against it. Get two spies with the safe cracker trait(reroll until you have them, it shouldn't take long), the upgrades for blueprint stealing and invisible ink, and you can chain run "Steal Industrial Blueprints" with a 100% chance of the bonus outcome every 120 days. The bonus outcome guarantees that you won't lose the civilian intel, and gives you a 1 or 2 year ahead of time penalty reduction for the tech of your choice, on top of the 300% research bonus that you normally get. You can max out your entire industry tree by 1940 by doing this.

 

[MR2]

I delete every single ship outside of the Panzerchiff + Submarines. Enough to do something while i farm 17 naval XP.
I get as fast as possible 17naval XP.
After 17xp Make a "Naked Panzerchiff" with just Engine II + Armor II. (And fire control)

This removes a huge amount of Naval IC cost from the ship. Basically you're kicking the equipment cost to 39-40 after you research Industry III.
Them you reform the ship to something like this costing only 133 days. (With 25-30 dockyards you can reform 5-6 of them at same time).

After reforming them you have a ship that is hard to locate, fast to hunt convoys, and strong enough to kill DD´s and Convoy. (And the focus is to kill the DD´s escorts).
After UK finally finishes most of them you bring the Cruiser / Sub III´s to hunt on convoys as eng now is too busy replenishing them.

and now it becomes a cat & mouse game where you transit beetween subs and surface ships keeping UK and US spending resources in the atlantic, a lot of them .
With some luck the US will have to remove units from pacific to the atlantic, helping japan.

Now that is bold and IIRC a tactic from HOI2. So you halt production of all but Panzerchiff + Submarines AND demobilize all but Panzerchiff + Submarines?
What about converting the Light Cruisers to Panzerchiff? 3944 cost with Industry II researched...
Do you notice a return of manpower to the pool?
Your plan would also require researching Advance Catapult (39d). Researching Sub tech, Damage Control, Fire Control, Shells & Torpedoes over time would be prudent.
You like the Cruiser Subs? How do you configure them? Long range?
Speaking of subs... are you a snorkel or a radar guy?
Start w 10 Dockyards; NR, NE & U-Boot gives you 7 more. EDF gives 4 more, but Trade Interdiction would be the priority I think.
Exercising just the existing submarines will give around 50 NE in just the first year plus 50 for NE & U-Boots while using minimal Oil.
Prowl the Iberian Coast to the Denmark Strait to avoid Naval Air? Maintain Air Supremacy over the Bay of Biscay?
Set for Convoy Raiding with Engage at Low Risk to put the Brits on a tea free diet?
Key is getting Landing Craft before conducting Sealion.

Do you start building a naval invasion fleet for Sealion - and when?


Of course I'm going to try it.

 

[sterrius]

Ok went back to perfect some other things so im gonna post here.
I went a bit over infrastructure to see where it was really worth it. Made the calculations and here is the Optimal Start.

Need to be in this order when you start for optimal performance.
You will likely be able to fill Rhineland and Moselland with 10 CIV´s before 1938 and pay the investment.
But its not worth starting the infrastructure day 1. Better to wait extra civs from Focus and start on mid 36.

There are 5 provinces worth of improving infrastructure for CIV´s and/or Refinerys before the war start. You can see them below.
With 4 of those provinces also having resources you can even run a little deficit and still call it a worth investment.

For a province to be worth the investment of infrastructure you need to spend around 110k IC. This can be done with....
10 Civs or
5 civs + 3 refinerys or
8 MIC´s + 3 refinerys or
9 Dockyards + 3 refinerys.

Other 2 provinces have potential. Sachsen (below brandeburg) and Hessen can realistic have the Mils + Refinerys to pay for this with 1941-44 Factoy tech slots.
Avoid building on them and go for infra +Mils/Refinerys after the war start to get a little extra before facing the USSR.

All other provinces fail to have 10+ free slots and after 39. So at least for building factories its not worth it. (But you usually do want infra to help supply in the uSSR).

i made this because before Poland you Just until End 37- Early 38. So i had to take into account this "small" detail and see how much was really worth it.
Something i failed to do in the last run.

The 4 provinces from the first screenshot + 4 provinces from autobahn should give you plenty of room to build all CIvs you need until 37.
Even if you fail at this you still have refinerys to build in 39. And even more in 1940+.

 

[sterrius]

Now that is bold and IIRC a tactic from HOI2. So you halt production of all but Panzerchiff + Submarines AND demobilize all but Panzerchiff + Submarines?
What about converting the Light Cruisers to Panzerchiff? 3944 cost with Industry II researched...
Do you notice a return of manpower to the pool?
Your plan would also require researching Advance Catapult (39d). Researching Sub tech, Damage Control, Fire Control, Shells & Torpedoes over time would be prudent.
You like the Cruiser Subs? How do you configure them? Long range?
Speaking of subs... are you a snorkel or a radar guy?
Start w 10 Dockyards; NR, NE & U-Boot gives you 7 more. EDF gives 4 more, but Trade Interdiction would be the priority I think.
Exercising just the existing submarines will give around 50 NE in just the first year plus 50 for NE & U-Boots while using minimal Oil.
Prowl the Iberian Coast to the Denmark Strait to avoid Naval Air? Maintain Air Supremacy over the Bay of Biscay?
Set for Convoy Raiding with Engage at Low Risk to put the Brits on a tea free diet?
Key is getting Landing Craft before conducting Sealion.

Do you start building a naval invasion fleet for Sealion - and when?


Of course I'm going to try it.

edit: Small corrections, lights went off yesterday. (lighting strikes ^^).

sorry for the delay. First the forum failed to warn me of your post .
But this kind helped because im coming back to the game and had to run a few more runs to refine the strategy.

What im doing right now after a few runs to perfect the research order, etc.
Below is 1936 start order. The Subs and DD´s go straight for training.

After that i go for.
-> The "naked" panzerchiff i told you. 5 dockyards.
-> Sub II. Classic engine 2 + torpedos II. 5 dockyards. ANd you keep this until 1939.
Should give you around 40 subs to play around and 4 Naked PAnzerchiffs.

The only research you need to actually do before 1939 is The Double Purpose Secondary gun (around 100-150days on 1939), Radar III (90 days), Catapult II (20-60 days) and Firecontrol II 1939 (70 days). Everything very easy techs that you can squeeze in 1939 so you can start the upgrades around mid-end of 1939.
Sub III and Cruiser Subs can also wait mid/end of 1939. No need to rush.
You do need 1 slot for doctrine for all 1940. You should have XP + Discounts to get everything you need, but still gonna take until early 41 to take them all if you avoided doing them before the war.

I realized i don´t need the full 7500km. So i changed my aim for 1940 surface fleets to this composition.

4 Panzerchiffs. (Planes to scout and plenty of light double purpose guns for high AA and Light attack, plus the heavy gun).
2 CL´s (Some anti-sub charges plus tons of light attack and AA)
4 Submarines (With luck 1940 sub III with radar´s).
PS: You can add +1 or 2 CL´s if you get the +10% Naval Range Military Staff.

You can make 1 of those teams every 15 months with 29 Dockyards! (3 on subs, 6 on CL´s, 5(x4) on each CA) Yeah, its expensive, it takes time but its something that actually gives a headache.
And you don´t need much more than 10-15 dockyards to spam Cruiser subs (5 dockyards) and/or Sub´s III´s (10 dockyards). With acess to torpedo III + 3 slots you can one shot convoys (66dmg, convoys have 60hp). So no need for groups of 10+.

smaller teams of 5 subs is more than enough.

After taking france, Belgium + Holland + Polland its not hard to have 40-50 dockyards, also not expensive. So not really advocating to forget your main objective, the USSR.
Aim is just to keep US and Canada away from Europe and delay UK from preparing the D-Day by taking Resources from them.
And later stopping any land lease to the USSR.


This combination is very deadly to Surface vessels and their escorts.
They will die if they find a good Strike force so you do need to keep an eye and keep this on the move, strike a region for some weeks and back to port. The idea is to actually hunt DD`s and sink them. Submarines alone can deal with convoys that have 0 escorts.

With espionage now its kind easy to do this.

But this surface fleet also open a new path for conquest and a way to break the normal naval game.
As you can see on the photo. I added my real 3 objectives.

-> Ascension Island -> South Atlantic is now free for DD´s and CL´s to hunt. South Africa is vulnerable.
And if you're VERY CRAZY and have a very god naval co-op you can pull Falklands -> Pitcairn islands -> New Zeland and make history in a MP game with germany really having a grudge against New Zeland. Make history in a MP game with a asiatic german aproach haha.

-> Trinidad -> You can´t use that for much oil but you can at least stop britain from using it.

-> South AMerica -> Aluminum the Allies actually need. If they lose it its gonna hurt a lot.

-> Bermuda -> From there you can take Iceland, NEwfound Land and the Artic. Also USA, Canada and Panama become Vulnerable for Attacks forcing them to put garrisons there.
Bermuda, Artic and ICeland can have Airfields. If you manage to take one of them. Radar + TAc´s is gonna make passing convoys in the atlantic a nightmare.

Light fighters are useless on those atlantic regions. A Fighter II without range upgrades have -81% efficiency on labrador sea for example. (Newfound island airfield)
TAC I have only -10%. Also you don´t need a absurd amount of MIC here. Just 10 should be more than enough to replenish losses and distract hundreds of fighters and make them waste XP on range to do something.

You also have a focus that can easily get you 1940 Heavy Fighters in 1940-41. 5 factorys should be more than enough to keep a small team that you can replenish any losses and still give escort for the tac´s. (Take those 5 from the 10 MIC you use for tac´s, i don´t think its worth going crazy here ^^).

Also if you're bold. You can try to take a province or two from the US/Canada. Don´t try to take the country. Invade, take a province like New York that have multiple factorys and dig-in. With occupation this kind lost some strenght but removing factorys from a enemy for months is still a very good strategy.


Basically by having extra range and something with teeth i have options and actually can force the Allies to spread a little more or ignore me and hope i don´t get ideas.
You will be quite surprised by the amount of players that don´t bother to defend those places because no one ever tried it before.



PS: IF a Naval Invasion is impossible from france (because of Western Aproach). You can NAval Invade any dock on the coast of africa and start operations from there.
if all docks are defended a city north of daakar have 1VP. You can easily take it and build a dock there.
Players and sometimes even the AI never bother to defend them. Should just take 1 single unit.

Even if they run to remove you, the distance is so great you will have months to launch your real invasion.

 

[Zauberelefant]

Actually, by far the best thing you can do with spies in vanilla is steal industrial blueprints on minors without enough CIC to form an agency for defense against it. Get two spies with the safe cracker trait(reroll until you have them, it shouldn't take long), the upgrades for blueprint stealing and invisible ink, and you can chain run "Steal Industrial Blueprints" with a 100% chance of the bonus outcome every 120 days. The bonus outcome guarantees that you won't lose the civilian intel, and gives you a 1 or 2 year ahead of time penalty reduction for the tech of your choice, on top of the 300% research bonus that you normally get. You can max out your entire industry tree by 1940 by doing this.

Tried it Yesterday with brazil as the victim and it's quite powerful, but opportunity cost is that you don't get compliance in poland/France.
But maybe concentrated effort both in espionage and collaboration in poland would be more beneficial?

 

[MR2]

Thanks @sterrius What I want to know is how you went from 69 factories to 80 in four days and to 122 in thirty seven days?

 

[sterrius]

Thanks @sterrius What I want to know is how you went from 69 factories to 80 in four days and to 122 in thirty seven days?

those on page 5? Those pictures are just made to create a better visualization of the information. You will see they where all in 1936 and have like 500xp on all 3 slots .
For example, the one with naval routes you will see i conquered france in Feb of 36. "A miracle" .
Those subs where also SUB III´s ^^. (That you will have in 40).

hmmm.. in fact you're reminding me that i can trade sub III´s for cruiser Subs with 1 Fuel tank.
Might allow my formation to have more CL`s and even play a little with other ships.

Now i know im gonna spend the night trying too see how far a Cruiser sub can increase the range of other ships ^^.

 

[porta80]

For a province to be worth the investment of infrastructure you need to spend around 100k IC.

more like 110k...

 

[RELee]

I love reading these as well because I suck at HOI4. I wish I were only half as good with HOI4 as I am with Vicky2.

 

[sterrius]

more like 110k...

true and my mistake.

still the calculation itself is fine. .
made a edit on that post.

 

[MR2]

Now i know im gonna spend the night trying too see how far a Cruiser sub can increase the range of other ships ^^.

Take a gander at this mod: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2124082035

 

[porta80]

true and my mistake.

still the calculation itself is fine. .
made a edit on that post.

only the first one is correct.

10 Civs or
6 civs + 3 refinerys or
9 MIC´s + 3 refinerys or
10 Dockyards + 3 refinerys.
4 civ + 9 mils
6 civ + 6 mils
15 mic
17 dockyards
just to complete the list. and this is only to get to even out the investment.

this means you need at least 9 free building slots to get your investment back, so at least 10 to get an advantage, if not building any synth you need 11 free slots focusing on cic for the investment to be worth it.

there are 3 states that have potential, but its very small and you need to focus on cic and refinieries.

Moselland 13 free building slots with 39 tech 17 with 43 tech
Rheinland 11 free building slots with 39 tech 15 with 43 tech
Niederschlesien 11 free building slot with 39 tech 15 with 41

moselland is best choice, its always worth it, the other 2 are ok, but not a very significant advantage construcion wise, talking about resources and supplies it makes them a viable choice also especially niederschlesien as it has Aluminium, as Moselland also.

5 more provinces only with 43 tech only and only when building mainly cic and refinieries but that late you normally build more mils, so only hessen maybe worth it. i wouldnt go for them.
Hessen with 13 free slots
Westfahlen with 12 Free slots
Niederbayern 12 free slots
Oberschlesien with 12 free slots
Sachsen with 11 free slots

Uk has 4 States on 43 tech:
London 17 free slots
West Midlands 15 free slots
Lancashire 15 free slots
Yorkshire 15 free slots

Soviet Union on 43 tech:
Moskau 14 free slots

Usa has 2 States on 43 tech maybe in combination with the resources but not for building speed only:
Ohio and Michigan both with 13 free slot.

China:
Shanghai 14 free slots on 43 tech, but you have other prioritys then that as china i guess, just to complete the list of states with potential.

personnally anything lower then 13 free slots is not to consider at all, if it doesnt have resources needed or supply needed.
because 6 civ + 6 mils means atleast 13 free slots to get an advantage and this is how you play, build some civs first later then mils.

There is also the tactical aspect, you normally have a buildup phase for civs which lasts until somewhere until 38, after that you normally do not build any additional civs anymore, maybe some synth like germany, but most country's don't, so overall the building of infra only for construction is a very niche thing you can do in like
Moskau and London as they are also the capital and 6 other provinces out of the nearly 2k provinces available, and even then the effect is very minor in total not really much more then 4 civs in total 2 for uk 2 for Germany.

If you build infra do it for resources or supply, building speed is just a small side benefit.

 

[sterrius]

@porta80 do remember that infrastructure do benefit a little from each construction bonuses.

Because bonuses, specially the ones germany have can and will change the calculations a little bit, but enough to push the calculation to make it worth.

Infra = 3000 IC

at 1jan 36 15 civs = 78.5/d = 39 days
After bonuses = 116.6/d = 26 days. THis is part of the reason in defending to delay infra cost to mid/end of 36. You save quite a bit of days by doing that making it easier to pay the investment.

Using Rhineland as example.

Infra = 3000 IC / 116,6 = 26 days.
52 for 2 infra.

1 CIV at 80% infra = 222,75/day = 49 days
1 civ at 90 infra = 235.12 / day = 46 days (-3 days) = 9 CIVS to pay for the investment. (-3 x 9 = -27days > 26 from 1lv of infra)
1 civ at 100 infra = 247.5/day = 44 days (-5 days compared to 80) = 7 civ + 3 ref ( -21 days from refs plus -35 from civs save you a total of 4 days).

Those bonuses would be almost useless and not worth pursuing if you stopped there. but with 13 slots in 41 you are still with 3 free slots).
Saving a little more days for the 3 MIL´s you're gonna put there.
If you for some reason reach 1944 you get even more slots.

The refinery calculation is below.

1Ref at 80% infra = 229.5/day = 64
90 infra = 242.25/day = 60 (-4 days)
100 infra = 255/day = 57 (-7 compared to 80 infra)


bonuses used
Free trade
construction I + II ( also III for refinery as they come in 39)
Autarky
Schact (only for civs, he is gone in 39)
War Economy


Below the pictures of the regions with 39 and 41 slots. (To help further discussion, not counting the +1 slot decision for pp).
PS: I did took resources into consideration when i recommended the provinces in my first post about infra. Losing less than 10 days to get a little bit of aluminum is worth it.

Specially in Ostmark and Nierderchlesien provinces that are already pretty close to be profitable.

39 factory slots.

41 factory slots. (Everyone is gonna go for this, even if you win early game).

 

[porta80]

Sorry to tell you but you are missing out one thing... also all other buildings profit from construction bonuses it does not matter...they are cutting costs as long as you build.
What do you buidl if your not buidling infra? Additional civs!
Taking rheinland as example:
The thing is i can build 2 infra in the same time i can build 1 civ at game start, but then i have 1 more cic available to build more stuff, while the extra infra first has to pay of, this will happen exactly after i did build 10 civs on the lvl 10 as the speed diffrence is 11,11%, in the same time in a lvl 8 i will build 9 civs so now both have 10 extra civs.
So those 5 extra slots in 43 in rheinland are worth half a civ, add half a civ for the second place in Niederschlesien and 0,7 for the moselland this is all you get, if you put refinerys its worth together 2 additional civs until 43 you can build in the same time not more.
Same goes for the UK.
Btw. Autarky makes it even worse as it doesnt count for infra only for civs, so if you go for infra in the few states I mentioned in the last psot do it early!

Just went ingame, building 10 civ in a lvl 10 infra with construciton IV, Autakry Free trade, schacht takes 420 days building 9 of them in a lvl 8 infra takes 414 days, so even after 10 civs your still not even...on costruction 3 its 440 vs 441 hell yeah you safed 1 day...(still not counting the 44 days i had this 1 civ in the lvl 8 earlier that brought me extra cic output)

I stick to my word, just forget about it.