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Pandrea

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Jun 18, 2013
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Building another industry in a province costs 5 IC for one year. It means roughly 1800 ICxdays, more than an infantry units. After one year you have gained 1 IC, so you need 5 years for paying off your investment.

5 years in this game is a lot! Building 1 IC at the first day in 1936 means I'll have an advantage only in 1941. I cannot see how building IC is useful
 
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sometimes it is sometimes it isnt but it depends on situation. Sometimes the only thing you can build is IC or buildings so its logical to do it. Also you can gain research slots if you are a smaller nation.
 
Building another industry in a province costs 5 IC for one year.
Might be even quite some more if the infrastructure of the region isn't 100%.
In Konstanz, Germany 1936, 50% infra, it takes more than 14 month to produce 1 factory.


But there are also secondary and tertiary advantages of more IC:
# raised TC
# possibly more tech-teams
# role-play
# a general cozy feeling that your country advances and will become one of the leading powers.

On the other hand, the alternative to building factories is building military. The hidden cost of any military unit is its supply which adds up to quite an amount and is usually the true limitation of how many units you can build or rather can afford.

Having said all this, I totally agree that in many situations it is best to just build military units.
 
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Building another industry in a province costs 5 IC for one year. It means roughly 1800 ICxdays, more than an infantry units. After one year you have gained 1 IC, so you need 5 years for paying off your investment.

5 years in this game is a lot! Building 1 IC at the first day in 1936 means I'll have an advantage only in 1941. I cannot see how building IC is useful
It's not that straight forward.

Depends on a lot of factors. Every movement on the mobilisation slider reduces build times. Infrastructure, ministers, any factor that affects build times will affect the return on investment.

Combined with possible extra tech slots, better TC, ability to produce more at the same time, Increased energy to oil conversion, investment horizon - and personal preferences - makes it hard to quantify.

Typical example:

Germany 1933
- building units doesn't make sense from the start - too many upgrades along the way.
- war starts historically in 6½ years
- SU will eat your TC
- what else ar you going to do

So you build IC - most players will probably say until 36 or 37.

In a 36 start,

here's some figures from HOI2 - IC 1936?
 
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I usually find expanding IC useful as nations that either 1) already have a ton of IC and can spare 5 to slowly boost IC even more; or 2) nations that have a significant amount of time before they will be at war. But if your IC is low or moderate and you will be at war in the normal timeframe of WW2, then It is rarely worth it. I have built a ton of IC after initial wars are over in mods like Kaiserreich. Say, after unifying Spain or India as one of the three factions, or after unifying China. In those cases, building a ton of IC before building a proper navy can make a lot of sense.

Edit: It's also worth it if you are only a few IC away from unlocking a new tech team slot. Every tech team slot is precious.
 
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Might be even quite some more if the infrastructure of the region isn't 100%.
In Konstanz, Germany 1936, 50% infra, it takes more than 14 month to produce 1 factory.
Wait wait wait WHAT?!

Are you telling me that the speed of IC building is also dependant on local infraestructure?

Does that go only for IC or other improvements?
 
Wait wait wait WHAT?!

Are you telling me that the speed of IC building is also dependant on local infraestructure?

Does that go only for IC or other improvements?
Yes, of course.
Have you never noticed how long everything takes in low-infra regions?
No wonder people wonder about me buidling infra... perhaps, at some point, I should had mentioned the "other" advantages besides better re-org.

[edit: Read on to the following posts, especially #10 and #11, because it turned out that production times do NOT differ in dependence on infra]

Here a very fast test with Hannover (90% infra) and Tübingen (40% infra):

infra-building-time.png


Land- and coast forts, factories, infra: different building time dependent on infra level.
Airbase, AA: not.
Radar: couldn't be used in this example (1933) but I am quite sure: building time NOT infra dependent.

Rules of thumb:
  • Everything you can put into production within the production menu: same price in every region.
  • Region dependent buildings are, well, region dependent and the length of the building process depends on the infra level of the region.
  • Repair times are very much infra-level dependent (which means an airport to repair after damage or after placing (!) takes an age in a 10%-infra-region).
  • Building factories: minimum of 40% infra necessary (otherwise disabled).
  • Length of time to build things dependent on infra is NOT a linear growth, the lower the infra the much longer it will take.
    It takes 2 years 3 month to build additional 10% infra in Petropavlosk (10% infra), it takes "only" 1 year 8 month to build 10% infra in Yakustk (20% infra)... that's a rocking 7 month difference. But the difference to a 30% infra time is only 2 month 12 days... to give some exemplary figures (from SU 1933, DH full).
  • And then there are various techs which can be researched to speed up building infra, bases, forts... most prominently "construction engineering" but sometimes as hidden as in "combat engineers", "supply"...
 
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Yes, of course.
Have you never noticed how long everything takes in low-infra regions?
No wonder people wonder about me buidling infra... perhaps, at some point, I should had mentioned the "other" advantages besides better re-org.

Here a very fast test with Hannover (90% infra) and Tübingen (40% infra):

View attachment 716066

Land- and coast forts, factories, infra: different building time dependent on infra level.
Airbase, AA: not.
Radar: couldn't be used in this example (1933) but I am quite sure: building time NOT infra dependent.

Rules of thumb:
  • Everything you can put into production within the production menu: same price in every region.
  • Region dependent buildings are, well, region dependent and the length of the building process depends on the infra level of the region.
  • Repair times are very much infra-level dependent (which means an airport to repair after damage or after placing (!) takes an age in a 10%-infra-region).
  • Building factories: minimum of 40% infra necessary (otherwise disabled).
  • Length of time to build things dependent on infra is NOT a linear growth, the lower the infra the much longer it will take.
    It takes 2 years 3 month to build additional 10% infra in Petropavlosk (10% infra), it takes "only" 1 year 8 month to build 10% infra in Yakustk (20% infra)... that's a rocking 7 month difference. But the difference to a 30% infra time is only 2 month 12 days... to give some exemplary figures (from SU 1933, DH full).
  • And then there are various techs which can be researched to speed up building infra, bases, forts... most prominently "construction engineering" but sometimes as hidden as in "combat engineers", "supply"...
Excuse me sir, but, ahem, I got to say...

WHAT THE FUCK!

I have been playing HOI2 and DH for YEARS, and I had no idea about this!
I'm floored. What the hell.
I tested on my end and it is totally true. Wow, so building infra THEN IC is the real meta all this time and I never knew about it. My IC just goes up so faster...

Wow, how come the game says absolutely not a single word about this?
How many mechanics of this game I am ignorant about?
 
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Wow, how come the game says absolutely not a single word about this?
How many mechanics of this game I am ignorant about?
Is this or is this not basically the Paradox Interactive experience? Certainly with most of their grand strategy games, especially the old school ones, the learning curve is almost endless. I just learned about this particular effect only a few months ago and I have been playing HoI2 and its iterations on and off since release. It's the same story with Victoria 2 and also newer games like EU4 (especially with all the feature creep from endless DLC).
 
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hmm i tested this with DH Full and also with the TRP Mod and i got these results for factory and infra.. I see no difference between build times factory and infra level. In both province they will be ready at the same time. Do i do something wrong?
Mmh, what is the infra-level of Berlin and Tübingen in your game?

Just to be sure I've retested it with DH full (1.05.1, checksum:YEXY), 1933 Germany (my checksum differs from vanilla DH, perhaps due to images or whatever, so I also retested with a new install with the approbiate vanilla checksum: KVZZ... there was no difference, though):
100% infra: Berlin => 487 days
90%: Potsdam => 492 days (+5)
80%: Aachen => 499 days (+12)
70%: Erfurt => 507 days (+20)
60%: Rostock => 519 days (+32)
50%: Konstanz => 535 days (+48)
40%: Tübingen => 559 days (+72)

And I got this:
ic-buildtime.png


So, I am not sure why your results differ.

... some time later...

I kept on testing... and I also noticed that your production image shows some progress already done and thus I did the same: let the game run for a bit and:

You are right! I am wrong.

What happend...
Initially production times differ according to the infra-level (espcially if you stop the game, as can be clearly seen in above image) but after you restart the game, latest after the midnight tick, all production times change and get aligned with each other. Then infra doesn't matter anymore and building eg 1 IC takes the same time in a 100% or 40% infra region. Perhaps different production times according to the regional infra level were once intended but then either not fully implemented or even overwritten again. Or the other way arund, it was intended but not properly implemented and some old code overwrites it.

Now I need to change my building patterns and behaviour because I've never noticed that the production times rechange again.
Actually kind of a pity that it doesn't work as i thought (and is initially shown), it would had put some some more meaning and importance to infrastructure.
 
Mmh, what is the infra-level of Berlin and Tübingen in your game?

Just to be sure I've retested it with DH full (1.05.1, checksum:YEXY), 1933 Germany (my checksum differs from vanilla DH, perhaps due to images or whatever, so I also retested with a new install with the approbiate vanilla checksum: KVZZ... there was no difference, though):
100% infra: Berlin => 487 days
90%: Potsdam => 492 days (+5)
80%: Aachen => 499 days (+12)
70%: Erfurt => 507 days (+20)
60%: Rostock => 519 days (+32)
50%: Konstanz => 535 days (+48)
40%: Tübingen => 559 days (+72)

And I got this:
View attachment 731711

So, I am not sure why your results differ.

... some time later...

I kept on testing... and I also noticed that your production image shows some progress already done and thus I did the same: let the game run for a bit and:

You are right! I am wrong.

What happend...
Initially production times differ according to the infra-level (espcially if you stop the game, as can be clearly seen in above image) but after you restart the game, latest after the midnight tick, all production times change and get aligned with each other. Then infra doesn't matter anymore and building eg 1 IC takes the same time in a 100% or 40% infra region. Perhaps different production times according to the regional infra level were once intended but then either not fully implemented or even overwritten again. Or the other way arund, it was intended but not properly implemented and some old code overwrites it.

Now I need to change my building patterns and behaviour because I've never noticed that the production times rechange again.
Actually kind of a pity that it doesn't work as i thought (and is initially shown), it would had put some some more meaning and importance to infrastructure.
I remember this being answered by the developers many many years ago on here, but I didn't want to chime in because the game may have changed since then. From what I recall, infrastructure only affects the amount of time a factory is "deployed" on the map. That is to say, from the time it is manufactured to the time the IC is increased. So we're only talking a difference of only a few days between low and high infrastructure, -- nothing vital. It affects other structures too like AA, forts, radar, etc.
 
I was about to step in and point out that infra does not affect build time, only 'ingame' construction time but i got Emu'd.

In regards to should you do it, yes, but its a very careful balance.
To give you an idea, Germany can build up a decent military in about 2 years time accounting after IC growth. So, say as Germany '33 you go building as many IC as you can for 4 years and as soon as you finish them, start to mass build units in serials (i go for 6 inf with arty/engineer or arty/AA, 9 motorized, 9 Armored, 1 or 2 serials of interceptors, maybe 1 TAC serial as well and the rest is for a double run of garrisons with MP/AA and submarines). This gives you enough of a force to quickly crush Poland and, assuming an earlier war start, can net you about 4 extra months if you strike the M/R pact with SU quickly enough, AKA dont wait until historical september to invade poland, you can invade as soon as May if you want.

The opposite point is also about balance. Say you build IC from '33 to '35 only and then start building up. The net result will be that you will have a bigger army by '39 due to having 4 years of longer term production, potentially theoretically doubling or tripling your armed force. However, and as it was mentioned above, your IC for supplies as well as your TC will suffer tremendously. In addition to this, any long term high IC investment, like navy, airforce or a nuclear/rocket plant, will be left in the cooker. Finally, due to the lack of upgrades, your units will be fighting with significantly older equipment, not to mention that upgrading units from the production tab slows down the serial build bonus.

This is why, as a rule of thumb, you want to go for a balance of building IC until '36 tops, maybe early '37, then get to building a balanced force.
 
Initially production times differ according to the infra-level (espcially if you stop the game, as can be clearly seen in above image) but after you restart the game, latest after the midnight tick, all production times change and get aligned with each other. Then infra doesn't matter anymore and building eg 1 IC takes the same time in a 100% or 40% infra region. Perhaps different production times according to the regional infra level were once intended but then either not fully implemented or even overwritten again. Or the other way arund, it was intended but not properly implemented and some old code overwrites it.
This looks like a bug to me. There's no reason for something to change like that at midnight.

Too bad nobody the devs rarely, if ever, pop up anymore. It would be nice to see their opinion.
 
This is not a bug, this used to be a feature in Iron Cross, which was a 'super mod' official release that went even more hardcore realistic than DH. IC could go up to 200%, the buildings in the city with it would increase their output based on the infra level. Thus, building 1 factory in a place with 40% infra meant you only received 0.4 effective IC, whereas if you built it in a location with 200%, the 1 factory would produce 2 effective IC.
 
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