My general rule of thumb across the board is to increase Factories Pre-1939 if they are below 10. 10 is such a nice pretty number. But really as Germany its inconsquential. Upgrading Factories is most effective with large countries with low industrial density. If you have 10 1 IC provinces, upgrading them cost you next to nothing and earns you 10 ICs the next year. If you have 4 10 IC provinces, upgrading them cost you 5 ICs each (20 total) for a net gain of 4.
As you can see, high density but relatively few in provinces like Germany and Britain, it rarely pays to upgrade. There still are some areas you can, Scotland for Britain or Prussia and Bavaria for Germany, but you are talking 5 or 6 IC gain a year. Its a gain, but not really enough to stress out about.
Fourtantly, Germany doesnt have to worry about it. It gains Austria and Czech as National provinces, thats a decent hunk, and before 1939 is out add most of Industralized France and all of Poland as annexed territory, again not to shabby. Plus as mentioned Germany has some excellent Ministers. All of which should combine to give you more IC then Russia and Britain combined. Not as much as America alone, but hey, thats America for you. Besides all youll ever see out of them is some strategic bombers, so who cares.
So anyways, no, dont upgrade factories in a province unless its IC is around 5 or below. After you start your big military buildup dont even bother with that.
Maybe little AA here and there
Typically with Germany I avoid AA. Afterall the only provinces worth AA'ing are the Rhur and Berlin, and that costs you 5 IC a pop for 90 days. Since you have to go to level 4 or 5 to make it effective at all, thats virtually 4 or 5 infantry divisions there.
Better strategy is to just get Interceptors and stage them around key areas and along entry points into Europe. I usually tech hard before I build up so I can get FW190's pretty quickly. A few of those spread around is more then suffecient, and can be scrambled to met emergencies if need by.
Ok, i llok at crissimans AAR and are baffled how he could afford all that for Germany by -39 im not anywhere near that. Even though that seem allittle too much it would be nice with some more
I dont know how much he had, but if you tech hard as you seem imply you are, then you wont have a huge army by then August 30 War Start. I dont even build a single unit until 1938 usually. Ill tech hard as possible and get Panzer IV's and FW190's before I begin building. Typically around the invasion of Poland im running around 100 divisions. But of course my unit stats are otherworldly. So I spend the majority of the war outnumbered. Ill invade a 350 division Russia with 200-250, but they are Panther V's (80mm) and Tiger I's. Usually makes for an easy game. It seems this is a bit unusual though from looking around the board. Most people seem willing to invade France with PzIII's and their starting PzI's, albeit with some 150 total divisions or so.
My problem is the opposite. I find that after Germany takes the usual suspects, by 1940 it is impossible to maintain enough material for production. Consequently, all production suffers when rubber runs out.
Never had a problem with it. But imake it a point to begin Industrial Research from Day1 and never stop it. By 1940 ive got top synthetic techs, so its never an issue. Besides, if you pre-war stockpiled to 99999 across the board (including Rubber) you shouldnt even come close to running out by 1940.
You're just not trying. I have easily run the US resource stocks into the ground. I find that by mid game I have so many production enhancements, plus upgrading the lower production provinces in the early years, that I can run out even with the best conversion techs.
Again not sure how the hell thats happening. Unless you are mass upgrading all the US provinces despite nearly all having 10+ IC, and even if you did that you are only raising the IC from like 950 to 1100 (not counting Production techs). Its much more profitable to use that IC to get Production techs which get you up to 1100 anyways. And with it come Synthetics, not that ive ever even needed the Synthetics. Its next to impossible to run the US Oil down, even with 0 rubber, no Synthetic Rubber techs, and a 300 ship fleet.
I think you are the one not trying enough....trying to conquer, that is. By mid game I have generally already grabbed the Japanese home isles and am preparing to bumrush Italy. The extra coal and steel from Japan gives me a very comfortable margin, even though at this point I am researching literally every tech available and spending about 1200 IC on unit production. I imagine if I sat back and stayed out of the fighting til '42 or '43 that I would run into resource shortfalls, but I just can't bring myself to do it.
Thats just kind of overkill. US is way to easy because of the sick production advantage. Ive got the game over within a few months of my entry. Italy and France fall from the first 100 divisions I bring over, and Japan Home Island take all of 20 Marine divisions (no joke) to conquer. Ill enter mid-1941, spend Christmas in Paris, Rome, and Tokyo, and by next Spring im in Germany meeting up with the Russians across the Elbe. Thats when the real fun begins as the US =)
