Is Germany way too strong?

[Secret Master]

To my mind, only the US

Nah, I've run production tests with the US. Aside from the fact that there's not enough aluminum on the entire planet to reach a 1:1 ratio of in game plane production versus historical production, she can pull reach her historical production targets across the board (including substantial amounts of Lend-Lease to everyone).

And the plane issue isn't a US problem. It's just a weird mismatch between HOI4 mechanics and real plane production (tons of discussions about it, but the short version is that we can't make as many planes are our historical counterparts, but we end up with more in operation at any one time than they ever did).

 

[Praetori]

So I started a game with the USA with the mod Expert AI 2.0 so I disabled ironman because achievements are disabled with that mod anyway. I played well until late 1942 when I decided to invade western Europe. However I couldn't get air superiority even with 5,000 planes because Germany somehow had 6,000 despite fighting the USSR for over a year. Out of sheer curiosity I decided to go "tag GER" and see just how many factories they had. And I saw 600 factories. I as the USA who was in world war 2 the largest industrial power have a little over 370. I don't know if I maybe did something wrong, but if I didn't then I think Germany is a bit op without a doubt. Germany could barely keep up with the USSR's industry let alone the industrial might of the United States. Not to mention the huge oil shortages which heavily limited their tank and aircraft use. What do you guys think ? Is it me or is it the game ? I'd love to hear your opinions, thanks in advance.

I've played around some with that mod and you really need to wage a strategic war with all assets to wear Germany down. Air superiority is best gained with superior numbers in one select air-zone at a time and in conjunction with strat-bombing. Those strats will kill aircraft on the ground (as long as the target aircraft are flying missions), hurt the enemy efficiency as well as wear down the industrial base. Once enemy efficiency and numbers wears down you'll stop losing your own aircraft and it turns pretty lopsided. Once the numbers are down you can switch to a new air-zone, it's the first one that's tricky.

 

[Antediluvian Monster]

Nah, I've run production tests with the US. Aside from the fact that there's not enough aluminum on the entire planet to reach a 1:1 ratio of in game plane production versus historical production, she can pull reach her historical production targets across the board (including substantial amounts of Lend-Lease to everyone).

And the plane issue isn't a US problem. It's just a weird mismatch between HOI4 mechanics and real plane production (tons of discussions about it, but the short version is that we can't make as many planes are our historical counterparts, but we end up with more in operation at any one time than they ever did).

To be fair US does have comparatively little aluminium when pegged to peak historical production as I pointed out in the Manchurian aluminium thread. Compared to Europe the western hemisphere could have nearly 7 times more.

But mostly US "weakness" is padded by the fact that the areas where US did particularly well, mainly naval production, are either relatively easy or abstracted away. Compare the in-game steel expenditure of a (10,000+ ton?) convoy to a 30 ton tank for example. Granted this also functions as a buff to most other countries if they want to take a stab at navy.

On the other hand US does not suffer from the historical bloat of rear area manpower and can consequently field more troops in the game if they wish to (applies to everyone of course, but felt the most as US).

 

[Secret Master]

To be fair US does have comparatively little aluminium when pegged to peak historical production as I pointed out in the Manchurian aluminium thread. Compared to Europe the western hemisphere could have nearly 7 times more.

No, I mean there is not enough aluminum in the entire world for the US to reach just her historical production numbers; if everyone tried to reach their numbers, it would be even worse.

Trust me. I checked. And it was under an older patch when you could still produce planes without any aluminum at all (at a huge penalty). Now? You'd never get enough production lines in action.

 

[Antediluvian Monster]

No, I mean there is not enough aluminum in the entire world for the US to reach just her historical production numbers; if everyone tried to reach their numbers, it would be even worse.

Yeah I know you meant that. Just pointing out that US has comparatively little aluminium regardless.

Though hypothetically if western hemisphere were actually given more than 3000 extra aluminium that would more than double the global aluminium supply. But that wouldn't be for sake of allowing US to reach exact historical production but rather for sake of normalizing relative availability of aluminium in Americas compared to Europe.