When last we left the story, remember I had obviously reached a decision point, but we weren’t sure quite what I’d decided. I had been suddenly completing and deploying my “Production Reserve” – the units which I didn’t want to complete and deploy because they would raise my Threat with the Allies. Now I’m deploying a tremendous number of units, all of a sudden. I continue to do so…
Two of my new constructs – motorized infantry divisions – go to fill my holes along the Western Front, just in case France decides to feel threatened by all of my sudden activity. I would have used regular infantry, but this was all I had right now. I’ll replace them and move them east when I complete new regular infantry. For all our flurry and hurry, the French don’t seem to be greatly concerned – Threat from Germany to France has gone up only to 7.8 now. I plan more deployments, but I relax a little because the Soviet Threat against France is 31 now. If I go to war, I expect my Threat against everyone to go up some. Deal with that when it happens…
We deploy another airwing of medium/tactical bombers to Oppeln, so they’ll be ready to operate over Poland. The rest of our forces there are already in place.
Our Light Tank technology improves in all categories during the month of July, 1943. We’re also improve the Morale of our ground crews for Fighters and Light Bombers (CAS) – this will help them recover from combat damage and operational disorganization.
We see the Soviets choose Firepower Infantry Doctrine and Combined Arms Tank Doctrine. Interesting choices.
I’m still having serious difficulties in my second round of the Resource Crisis. My low point, as I recall, was about 21,000 Energy in my stockpile. I’d gone back up to about 55,000 before the storaging problems (HPP event) hit me again and started forcing my stockpile lower again. Trading with the Soviets helped some, but I’m losing nearly 1,000 Metal every month (that leftmost tooltip is for Metal, the rightmost is for Rares), and 500 Rares per month. The Rares are the most critical – almost emergency levels! I would be completely out of Rares by the beginning of 1945 at that rate, but even sooner if I went to war and increased my IC consumption.
An interesting event comes up. It’s an option of whether to press my claims upon Belgium – the town of Eupen is a German core. Obviously, I’m trying to keep good relations with the western powers, and so I decide to ignore this claim and give up our rights.
This causes some Dissent among our people, but nothing unbearable. We gain 2 in Neutrality, which is meaningless, really, because we could declare war upon those we want to at any time… IF we wanted to.
We set up another trade with the Soviet Union. They’re being more careful about what they agree to, but this will help somewhat. We deploy another 2 Transports – not that we really need them, but I’m clearing out my Production Reserve…
We continue improving our Infantry techs, and our Tank techs. I’m really glad HPP allows you to improve techs for all your tanks at once in some areas, such as crew training (org & morale). The Bridging tech of level 3 now is going to be really helpful if we go to war.
Deployments continue. The light cruiser KMS Mannheim is sent to sea, and KMS Gneisenau is almost ready. Even with all these deployments, our Threat (under HPP rules – vanilla HOI3/SF would be different) is still only up to 8.3.
The tooltip above shows our current Metal stockpile situation – remember we were losing Metal quite quickly before. Now we’re gaining Metal stockpiles again, and not necessarily because of trade. If you haven’t noticed yet – it’s been in most of the screenshots so far, and if you noticed it you either had an epiphany and went “Ah!”, or else you’ve been wondering “What the hell…?” – my unused IC has been increasing gradually. We started this update in July, 1943, with 11 unused IC. Now, in September it’s up to 74 unused IC. Why?
With 74 unused IC, my daily consumption of Metal has gone down from 371 to 297. This allows me a daily stockpile increase of nearly 9 units of Metal, compared to a daily loss of 27 before. The lower my IC usage drops, the less strain there is upon my stockpiles, and even without adequate production or trade, I can rebuild my stockpiles more easily. It wasn’t easy for me to decide to give up my Production Reserve – that’s a long-term HOI 3 habit I’ve gotten into. But when I really sized up my stockpile crisis, there were only two apparent solutions – conquer more Resources (assuming I couldn’t trade for more, which I couldn’t), or drop my IC usage. The sacrifice means less IC-construction, and fewer units being constructed. But honestly, I’d come to consider the stockpile crisis the greater national emergency. We continue building IC, and now I don’t even have to worry about more IC making my stockpile situation worse – new IC construction goes straight into the unused IC!
Maybe I should have done this a long time ago, but I begin sharing Infantry technology with Poland to better enable her to stand up against the USSR should she come knocking. There’s not much point in sharing any other type of technology, because Poland’s military is so heavily infantry-focused, and they don’t have a lot of room for aircraft – they’d get knocked out of the sky quickly anyway. Our Threat to Poland is less than 6, whereas the Soviet Threat is felt to be around 140. Seriously concerning!
Below you’ll see more or less my entire Production Queue (there are several ICs and a couple radars cut off at the end, but showing them would be even more redundant). I’ve got jet fighters almost ready! I keep building Tirpitz and Bismarck because there’s nowhere to put them. I’ll be glad to have them eventually, but now that my Production Reserve is gone I have no choices but to continue building them or to cancel construction and lose my build progress (obviously an unwise choice, militarily and financially).
You can see how our stockpiles are booming now, just one month after we last looked. Rares are still dropping slowly, but considering the 4:2:1 ratio used by IC the Rares and Energy ratios are approximately correct. If I can correct the Rares soon, they’ll be able to keep up with my building Energy stockpile. I’m earning nearly 50 units of both Energy and Metal every day – now gaining these stockpiles at a faster rate than I was losing them before. We now have more than 100 unused IC.
Once we’re gaining a sufficient amount of our stockpiles each day, I consider our “crisis” resolved. I feel free to start throwing measured amounts of production back into the Queue, including 3 new regular Infantry divisions to watch the western border while we shift those Motorized divisions east. We deploy another fighter airwing (pretty sure it was a Heavy Fighter wing).
In November, we achieve production advances for Rares and Steel – the tooltips are before and after. Our daily domestic production of Metal increases by 3 (nearly 1,000 per year), and Rares production by 2. That’s very helpful, in the long-term. By November, we’ve more than doubled our stockpile increases over the month before, and unused IC is up to 165, meaning only 210 IC are being used. That is still better than most European countries – probably better than all European countries, now that I think about it – because of my focus on building more IC. If we go to war, we’ll be in good shape to ramp up our production – 376 possible, so far, which would increase to 564 with full economic mobilization (using the HPP model, which allows a 50% increase).
We continue to improve our Light Tank and Infantry techs. Level 9 now, for Small Arms – practically the top of the pack! By the end of the year, we have only 107 IC worth of items in our Production Queue, which means we’re stockpiling at a tremendous rate. Back up to 41,000 Energy, now, and Rares are increasing well now too. The effective stockpile ratio is now 29600:14800:7400 (i.e. because of the 4:2:1 ratio of resource use by IC, I essentially have less than 30,000 of useable Energy, though my stockpile is higher – this will improve as I improve our Rares acquisition).
And so, Christmas 1943 passes peacefully, and we enter the year 1944 with no combat in Europe, and a surprisingly low level of tension! What will the new year bring? Will we reach 1945 without a war starting? Has the Soviet Union been surfeited? Or will they grow hungry again, after digesting parts of Finland and the Baltic States? Will they look to Poland or Romania for expansion? Or even decide to take on Germany directly?
Only time will tell….
Two of my new constructs – motorized infantry divisions – go to fill my holes along the Western Front, just in case France decides to feel threatened by all of my sudden activity. I would have used regular infantry, but this was all I had right now. I’ll replace them and move them east when I complete new regular infantry. For all our flurry and hurry, the French don’t seem to be greatly concerned – Threat from Germany to France has gone up only to 7.8 now. I plan more deployments, but I relax a little because the Soviet Threat against France is 31 now. If I go to war, I expect my Threat against everyone to go up some. Deal with that when it happens…
We deploy another airwing of medium/tactical bombers to Oppeln, so they’ll be ready to operate over Poland. The rest of our forces there are already in place.
Our Light Tank technology improves in all categories during the month of July, 1943. We’re also improve the Morale of our ground crews for Fighters and Light Bombers (CAS) – this will help them recover from combat damage and operational disorganization.
We see the Soviets choose Firepower Infantry Doctrine and Combined Arms Tank Doctrine. Interesting choices.
I’m still having serious difficulties in my second round of the Resource Crisis. My low point, as I recall, was about 21,000 Energy in my stockpile. I’d gone back up to about 55,000 before the storaging problems (HPP event) hit me again and started forcing my stockpile lower again. Trading with the Soviets helped some, but I’m losing nearly 1,000 Metal every month (that leftmost tooltip is for Metal, the rightmost is for Rares), and 500 Rares per month. The Rares are the most critical – almost emergency levels! I would be completely out of Rares by the beginning of 1945 at that rate, but even sooner if I went to war and increased my IC consumption.
An interesting event comes up. It’s an option of whether to press my claims upon Belgium – the town of Eupen is a German core. Obviously, I’m trying to keep good relations with the western powers, and so I decide to ignore this claim and give up our rights.
This causes some Dissent among our people, but nothing unbearable. We gain 2 in Neutrality, which is meaningless, really, because we could declare war upon those we want to at any time… IF we wanted to.
We set up another trade with the Soviet Union. They’re being more careful about what they agree to, but this will help somewhat. We deploy another 2 Transports – not that we really need them, but I’m clearing out my Production Reserve…
We continue improving our Infantry techs, and our Tank techs. I’m really glad HPP allows you to improve techs for all your tanks at once in some areas, such as crew training (org & morale). The Bridging tech of level 3 now is going to be really helpful if we go to war.
Deployments continue. The light cruiser KMS Mannheim is sent to sea, and KMS Gneisenau is almost ready. Even with all these deployments, our Threat (under HPP rules – vanilla HOI3/SF would be different) is still only up to 8.3.
The tooltip above shows our current Metal stockpile situation – remember we were losing Metal quite quickly before. Now we’re gaining Metal stockpiles again, and not necessarily because of trade. If you haven’t noticed yet – it’s been in most of the screenshots so far, and if you noticed it you either had an epiphany and went “Ah!”, or else you’ve been wondering “What the hell…?” – my unused IC has been increasing gradually. We started this update in July, 1943, with 11 unused IC. Now, in September it’s up to 74 unused IC. Why?
With 74 unused IC, my daily consumption of Metal has gone down from 371 to 297. This allows me a daily stockpile increase of nearly 9 units of Metal, compared to a daily loss of 27 before. The lower my IC usage drops, the less strain there is upon my stockpiles, and even without adequate production or trade, I can rebuild my stockpiles more easily. It wasn’t easy for me to decide to give up my Production Reserve – that’s a long-term HOI 3 habit I’ve gotten into. But when I really sized up my stockpile crisis, there were only two apparent solutions – conquer more Resources (assuming I couldn’t trade for more, which I couldn’t), or drop my IC usage. The sacrifice means less IC-construction, and fewer units being constructed. But honestly, I’d come to consider the stockpile crisis the greater national emergency. We continue building IC, and now I don’t even have to worry about more IC making my stockpile situation worse – new IC construction goes straight into the unused IC!
Maybe I should have done this a long time ago, but I begin sharing Infantry technology with Poland to better enable her to stand up against the USSR should she come knocking. There’s not much point in sharing any other type of technology, because Poland’s military is so heavily infantry-focused, and they don’t have a lot of room for aircraft – they’d get knocked out of the sky quickly anyway. Our Threat to Poland is less than 6, whereas the Soviet Threat is felt to be around 140. Seriously concerning!
Below you’ll see more or less my entire Production Queue (there are several ICs and a couple radars cut off at the end, but showing them would be even more redundant). I’ve got jet fighters almost ready! I keep building Tirpitz and Bismarck because there’s nowhere to put them. I’ll be glad to have them eventually, but now that my Production Reserve is gone I have no choices but to continue building them or to cancel construction and lose my build progress (obviously an unwise choice, militarily and financially).
You can see how our stockpiles are booming now, just one month after we last looked. Rares are still dropping slowly, but considering the 4:2:1 ratio used by IC the Rares and Energy ratios are approximately correct. If I can correct the Rares soon, they’ll be able to keep up with my building Energy stockpile. I’m earning nearly 50 units of both Energy and Metal every day – now gaining these stockpiles at a faster rate than I was losing them before. We now have more than 100 unused IC.
Once we’re gaining a sufficient amount of our stockpiles each day, I consider our “crisis” resolved. I feel free to start throwing measured amounts of production back into the Queue, including 3 new regular Infantry divisions to watch the western border while we shift those Motorized divisions east. We deploy another fighter airwing (pretty sure it was a Heavy Fighter wing).
In November, we achieve production advances for Rares and Steel – the tooltips are before and after. Our daily domestic production of Metal increases by 3 (nearly 1,000 per year), and Rares production by 2. That’s very helpful, in the long-term. By November, we’ve more than doubled our stockpile increases over the month before, and unused IC is up to 165, meaning only 210 IC are being used. That is still better than most European countries – probably better than all European countries, now that I think about it – because of my focus on building more IC. If we go to war, we’ll be in good shape to ramp up our production – 376 possible, so far, which would increase to 564 with full economic mobilization (using the HPP model, which allows a 50% increase).
We continue to improve our Light Tank and Infantry techs. Level 9 now, for Small Arms – practically the top of the pack! By the end of the year, we have only 107 IC worth of items in our Production Queue, which means we’re stockpiling at a tremendous rate. Back up to 41,000 Energy, now, and Rares are increasing well now too. The effective stockpile ratio is now 29600:14800:7400 (i.e. because of the 4:2:1 ratio of resource use by IC, I essentially have less than 30,000 of useable Energy, though my stockpile is higher – this will improve as I improve our Rares acquisition).
And so, Christmas 1943 passes peacefully, and we enter the year 1944 with no combat in Europe, and a surprisingly low level of tension! What will the new year bring? Will we reach 1945 without a war starting? Has the Soviet Union been surfeited? Or will they grow hungry again, after digesting parts of Finland and the Baltic States? Will they look to Poland or Romania for expansion? Or even decide to take on Germany directly?
Only time will tell….
