Industry discussion: flexible vs. streamlined, concentrated vs. dispersed

[seattle]

I'm a complete sucker for the economical part of war games. In HoI4 the tech tree has some interesting choices that offer more depth than the previous installments of the series.

1. Flexible vs. Streamlined
Flexible offers less penalty for production line switches while streamlined raises the maximum bonus that occurs the longer a production line is running. In other words: it rewards you for planning long-term and benefits from predictability.
Germany is prone to take the flexible route due to the complexity of their efforts and the diversity and quantity of her enemies. Barbarossa complete success? Will have to switch from land to naval quickly. US enters early? Better switch to interceptors... plus the flexibility will benefit from the research power of Germany as it will enable utilizing the constant tech upgrades.
The Soviets on the other hand will do very well with maxing production line efficiency. They won't need the most modern equipment nor will they face any surprises. They can churn out infantry and tanks forever.

2. Concentrated vs. Dispersed
Concentrated offers more factory output per state while dispersed will halve output gains while decreasing bombing damages.
Germany is the prime candidate for the dispersed route. No other nation in the game is expected to suffer from heavier bombing raids. Contrary to Japan, Germany will also have the space to effectively disperse her industry.
The US would be the exact counterpart. They won't get bombed, period. It'd be foolish for the US not to concentrate her industry.

--------------------------------------
That said, what are your personal preferences?

I'll start with some examples:

- US (streamlined, concentrated)

- UK (streamlined, concentrated)
Streamlined because you need surface navy, infantry, bombers, interceptors for the entire game. Concentrated because you can easily win an air defence of attrition against Germany with radar, AA, interceptors.

- Germany brain (flexible, dispersed)

- Germany heart (streamlined, concentrated)
This one defies logic, but I will at least try it once. As a long-term planner I love the streamlined focus. Especially when long-term planning becomes such a complex task as Germany definitely will be. You will need to predict uncertain campaigns accurately which in itself will lead to wonderful outcomes and stories that range from masterpiece to disaster.
Concentrated focus is the real hero on this one. I always took pride in my uber-air defence in previous HoI games with only Darkest Hour really making it worthwhile. Who doesn't enjoy constructing a gazillion AA and interceptors to annihilate the Allied bomber squadrons. Now that we finally have a casualty counter, that attrition might finally lead to dissent penalties for the Allies.

-------------------------------
What are your ideas for the new industry techs?

 

[shri]

Japan - Streamlined, Concentrated.

China- Streamlined, Dispersed

USSR- Streamlined, Concentrated

Italy- Flexible, Dispersed.

 

[shri]

I'm a complete sucker for the economical part of war games. In HoI4 the tech tree has some interesting choices that offer more depth than the previous installments of the series.

1. Flexible vs. Streamlined
Flexible offers less penalty for production line switches while streamlined raises the maximum bonus that occurs the longer a production line is running. In other words: it rewards you for planning long-term and benefits from predictability.
Germany is prone to take the flexible route due to the complexity of their efforts and the diversity and quantity of her enemies. Barbarossa complete success? Will have to switch from land to naval quickly. US enters early? Better switch to interceptors... plus the flexibility will benefit from the research power of Germany as it will enable utilizing the constant tech upgrades.
The Soviets on the other hand will do very well with maxing production line efficiency. They won't need the most modern equipment nor will they face any surprises. They can churn out infantry and tanks forever.

2. Concentrated vs. Dispersed
Concentrated offers more factory output per state while dispersed will halve output gains while decreasing bombing damages.
Germany is the prime candidate for the dispersed route. No other nation in the game is expected to suffer from heavier bombing raids. Contrary to Japan, Germany will also have the space to effectively disperse her industry.
The US would be the exact counterpart. They won't get bombed, period. It'd be foolish for the US not to concentrate her industry.

--------------------------------------
That said, what are your personal preferences?

I'll start with some examples:

- US (streamlined, concentrated)

- UK (streamlined, concentrated)
Streamlined because you need surface navy, infantry, bombers, interceptors for the entire game. Concentrated because you can easily win an air defence of attrition against Germany with radar, AA, interceptors.

- Germany brain (flexible, dispersed)

- Germany heart (streamlined, concentrated)
This one defies logic, but I will at least try it once. As a long-term planner I love the streamlined focus. Especially when long-term planning becomes such a complex task as Germany definitely will be. You will need to predict uncertain campaigns accurately which in itself will lead to wonderful outcomes and stories that range from masterpiece to disaster.
Concentrated focus is the real hero on this one. I always took pride in my uber-air defence in previous HoI games with only Darkest Hour really making it worthwhile. Who doesn't enjoy constructing a gazillion AA and interceptors to annihilate the Allied bomber squadrons. Now that we finally have a casualty counter, that attrition might finally lead to dissent penalties for the Allies.

-------------------------------
What are your ideas for the new industry techs?

Germany going for = Streamlined & Concentrated is ok as AI but with a player is a disaster as Johan showed in WWW with his insane bombing runs.

 

[Devout]

I see three options

(1) Streamlined + Concentrated is the best combination. It assumes that you have a pretty clear vision of what your military forces are going to look like and follow the plan. The majority of changes should be just shifting from one tech level to the next or adding variants. Assumes minimal bombing.

(2) Flexible + Dispersed: If you expect to get bombed, you want to consider this combination. The dispersed selection minimizes factories hit. From WWW7, I am under the impression that damaged factories lose theie gearing. So the flexible selection allows those factories to get back up to speed producing equipment quicker.

(3) Flexible + Concentrated: for the players that like to micromanage and fine tune the factories output. I see this less as country specific and more in the playstyle of the player.

 

[Denkt]

Flexible seems to good for:

• minors who have very few factories to work with
• for some specfic strategies that require major switches (like massed jets)
• for counter play (change production to counter your enemy).

Otherwise I would say streamlined is better as extra production is always useful.

Concentrated seems to be nearly a no brainer as it is always good while dispersed is only good in a very very specific situation and even then the extra production power from concentrated will repair your factories faster and build more aircrafts so even in that situation concentrated may be better.

Basically the simple choice of extra production power seems to be better in my opinion.

 

[Vidkjaer]

Have they changed the statistics for concentrated and disperses industry?

To my knowledge they both produce the same efficiency. Concentrated industry just gives you more factory unlocks pr. state while dispersed doesnt and give you 20% factory defense. Has this changed?

 

[Axe99]

I'm also a sucker for the economics of things, and a big fan of the extra depth in HoI4. I reckon I'll generally go for concentrated and flexible where I have the chance in most circumstances, unless there are resource constraints that mean idle factories (in which case, dispersed and flexible), but hope there's a good incentive for me to have to adapt in the face of the enemy.

 

[Otto of england]

To me it seems that flexible is superior if you plan to go a high quality route as you will be switching to the newest tank, the newest variant, etc all the time so you will rarely be able to reach the the cap of production efficiency.

Streamlined however looks like the focus for someone who plan to out build their opponent with equipment that is 'good enough'.

 

[seattle]

To me it seems that flexible is superior if you plan to go a high quality route as you will be switching to the newest tank, the newest variant, etc all the time so you will rarely be able to reach the the cap of production efficiency.

Streamlined however looks like the focus for someone who plan to out build their opponent with equipment that is 'good enough'.

Not only the "latest tech" thing, but also the adapting to changing situations. Let's take historical summer of 1940. Hitler had no idea what to do next. Peace with the UK would mean full focus on land units against Russia. No peace with the UK could mean an amphibious invasion. Beating the Soviets will mean an immediate shift towards naval production and so forth.
Thus nations like Germany will benefit most from "flexible", especially when you also take the powerful tech teams into account for the aforementioned upgrades.