It seems that IC whoring is no loger useful.

[Nilmerf]

Sorry, I do not agree with this. Why should a smaller nation be more effective is utilizing and learning from their projects than bigger ones? Germany produces 10 infantry divisions and through this process learns how to more efficiently produce future ones. Are smaller nations just that much more clever that they can learn how to be just as efficient with less experience? Germany has twice as many leadership points some minor nation and so German scientists half as clever as their smaller rivals?! Sorry not a cogent agruement for me.

Large nations have many, many advantages over small ones. It may not sound fair but it is reality.

I'm not advocating making minors as strong as majors, but the system right now is broken. It neither makes sense from a historical or gameplay perspective. Can you honestly say Germany building IC at a cost of .5 in one month works within the gameplay mechanics? Compiled with its early conquests and practical/theoretical values, researching and building things becomes ridiculously easy.

On the other end of the spectrum, a nation like Canada underwent massive industrialization during World War II, and outproduced a "major" like Italy in most categories. In-game Italy has more than double the IC, and catching up is not possible given the limitations from weak practical values in construction.

Both of these extremes need to be brought closer to each other to make for better gameplay, both for fun and history's sake.

 

[unmerged(106431)]

Hell, I tried that with my first HOI II game as Estonia...big mistake.

Me too

 

[Moltke]

There is no mechanism for diminishing returns in HoI, as usual, so large economies can grow geometrically while small ones cannot grow at all.

It sounds like there would have to be events or decisions in order to ramp up IC in a minor like Canada, since game mechanics alone cannot accomplish it.

 

[AlanC9]

It's part of their advertisement: Play as one out of over 150 countries!

Ah, but did they say it's actually fun to play all 150?

 

[unmerged(55538)]

Ah, but did they say it's actually fun to play all 150?

Ever heard of something called "irony"? They didn't guarantee you'll having fun playing their games at all... Obviously there are more pressing issues with HoI 3 than to balance every country's potential for world-domination.

Though one of PI's statements in German advertising was: "Do not export this game to China or Tibet. The HoI series is forbidden there. After all, Tibet might conquer the world <-- this smiley is part of the advertisement

 

[plasticpanzers]

I thought playing Italy was depressing til i tried Poland!

 

[unmerged(55538)]

I thought playing Italy was depressing til i tried Poland!

:rofl:

 

[Alerias]

"IC whoring" - I dislike the term - may have been a bit of a no brainer in previous games, and in HoI3 it has to be done more moderately to be worth it - but it still is a viable option and it should be. Its a strategy rather than an exploit as far as Im concerned. To be balanced against manpower and practical knowledge, etc.

This being said, even if you do it heavily - my first Germany 36 game had me at 1150 IC after the fall of the Soviet Union - it is ultimately of limited usefulness compared to HOI2. Leadership is much more critical than the ability to crank out tons of units, and you run into a manpower wall pretty fast.

 

[unmerged(106431)]

I thought playing Italy was depressing til i tried Poland!

Not yet try tinny countries in Asia and tell me how do you feel???

 

[unmerged(55919)]

I agree the new HoI3 system lessens the benefits of IC whoring, first because there is no TC load to increase and second ignoring productions of units decreases their Practicals and makes them more expensive, at least for the first few runs. However, the seeming unlimited Practical benefit makes it still very powerful.

I think the maximum Practical value should be limited. I have not done huge IC builds but, from other posters say, it seems you can get to riduculous reductions. Diminishing returns to a maximum limit, like it seems to work for research, would be one solution.

Also, annexing gets you too much IC, MP, and leadership (thought I read 100% but kinda waiting for 1.2 to really start playing a full game and focusing on the build-up mostly so my occupation/annexation knowledge is limited), which throws the balance off. OT, I know, but it dovetails into the agruement against IC whoring because you will get so much from your conquests that it is not really necessary to build any IC. Build your military up for the first conquests and they will in turn boost your economy for the next ones. Snowball effect.

 

[ComTrav]

I don't think maximum practical should be limited, I think the max BENEFITS should be limited, especially to build/time cost. You could still have more practical then the 'max benefit cap', so you could ignore that particular field for a certain amount of time and then come back to it and retain your expertise.

I admit after seeing some of the things in this thread it seems that at least some IC whoring is the way to go for any major. You'll still be limited by your leadership pool/manpower, but that sets a 'higher ceiling' for unit production then someone who spent 36-9 building units or (or even a more modest amount of IC). This seems especially true for an 'Allied country' not planning a huge campaign of conquest.

 

[mesut]

The maximum practical benefit should definitely be limited.

99% is just game braking and totally unrealistic.

There should be also a restriction on practical for building IC.

 

[Van Diemen]

The maximum practical benefit should definitely be limited.

99% is just game braking and totally unrealistic.

There should be also a restriction on practical for building IC.

Well, it is actually quite funny that in real life (maybe not for IC, but certainly for other things) the liberty class merchant vessels could be built within a record time of 4 days (though this was a publicity stunt), while the prototype took 230 days. You can see this as the benefits of essembly line work (good practical knowlegde).

 

[llib]

Well, it is actually quite funny that in real life (maybe not for IC, but certainly for other things) the liberty class merchant vessels could be built within a record time of 4 days (though this was a publicity stunt), while the prototype took 230 days. You can see this as the benefits of essembly line work (good practical knowlegde).

You mean not build but assembled, right?
But it still took about same amount of resources to build it. In HOI, if you reduce production time, you effectively reduce consumption of resources per production, as a result of too great IC "abstraction".

 

[Van Diemen]

You mean not build but assembled, right?
But it still took about same amount of resources to build it. In HOI, if you reduce production time, you effectively reduce consumption of resources per production, as a result of too great IC "abstraction".

Sorry, you are right about that. Indeed I meant assembled and not build. Still it remains a huge feat IMO to assemble an entire ship out of standardized parts within a few days and let's say a few weeks normally (no publicity stunt).

 

[Drake]

The problem IMHO is not with the practical values. While at max it's somewhat unrealistic, mass production is capable of astonishing feats. A liberty class ship in four days is just one of them.

The problem with IC spamming is three fold:
First, air and sea units don't require leadership. Once you correct that fatal flaw in the current system, IC spamming becomes a lot less useful.
Second, there are far too many raw materials. Cut them down to more realistic values, and you'll learn why the major countries didn't build more industry!
Third, factories should have a manpower and leadership cost. People who work in factories can't serve in the military; and the bright lads that manage the factory can't research, spy, make friends, or accumulate military experience.

Any two of these three point would remove the issue completely, and make the game more enjoyable (IMHO at least).

As for minors vs. majors; every country gets 5 IC for free... even most tiny countries have more. How many countries could produce even 5% of the weapons Germany could in 36? And yet they have more IC relative than that!
This more than makes minors playable, and since the 5IC are offmap does without breaking the game when they're overrun, but giving them even more would unbalance the game far too much. There's a reason why minors never managed to stand up to major nations and why they often folded without more than symbolic resistance.

 

[ulmont]

You obviously haven't tried building infrastructure to raise your practical to 99 before starting to build IC

Isn't the speedup effect capped at the equivalent of 60 practical?

 

[Alex_brunius]

Isn't the speedup effect capped at the equivalent of 60 practical?

I haven't seen anything to suggest that. My radars are more expensive to build with 91.6 EE practical then with 99.9

Can you post your numbers?

The maximum practical benefit should definitely be limited.

99% is just game braking and totally unrealistic.

The tooltip is bugged. You never get actually get 99% price reduction even if you get so high practical. The cap for price/buildtime reduction is somewhere around 90-80% depending on game version I think.

 

[ulmont]

I haven't seen anything to suggest that. My radars are more expensive to build with 91.6 EE practical then with 99.9

Can you post your numbers?


The tooltip is bugged. You never get actually get 99% price reduction even if you get so high practical. The cap for price/buildtime reduction is somewhere around 90-80% depending on game version I think.

Didn't you just say what I was asking? See this post: http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showpost.php?p=9983437&postcount=21 (indicating 60% speedup from 99% practical).

 

[Mr. Domino]

Also, annexing gets you too much IC, MP, and leadership (thought I read 100% but kinda waiting for 1.2 to really start playing a full game and focusing on the build-up mostly so my occupation/annexation knowledge is limited), which throws the balance off. OT, I know, but it dovetails into the agruement against IC whoring because you will get so much from your conquests that it is not really necessary to build any IC. Build your military up for the first conquests and they will in turn boost your economy for the next ones. Snowball effect.

I agree with this and I think its important to add to the discussion of "are minors playable." If a minor like hungary conquers yugoslavia it could theoretically get 80-100% of their IC, which is a very viable path instead of "IC whoring."

I do not play Germany from 1936 so I can't speak from personal experience, but I have started up the barbarrossa scenario and if you tinker with the occupational policies you can get 500+ IC from conquered europe so it might not be strictly speaking that important to build IC versus just taking it from poland, france, ect.

My general sense is that you might want to IC whore until you have "enough" IC, and then conquer for leadership and rare materials. You can always build more IC, especially once the practical value is high enough, leadership, mp and resources seem to be the real bottleneck so you want policies and conquests that increase that.