1. Intel Agency - haven't had much success at all trying to use operatives. I put my operatives on "build network" mission and every single time they either die or get captured before the network reaches 100%. Will it ever reach 100%? Does the network percent affect mission success chance? Should I build networks in more than one area in a country? Should one operative always be set on build network so it doesn't decay? Sadly, the only benefit I've gotten so far is through decrypting.
Start an intel agency on day 1, put 5 upgrades into Blueprint Stealing, Invisible Ink, Suicide Pills, Interrogation Techniques, and Civilian/Economy. You get 5 upgrades for your second operative, and also get your illusive gentleman for the third. When you get your second spy run 2x collaboration government missions on whatever country you plan to conquer first. When you get your 3rd spy, put all 3 in Tibet, infiltrate civilian administration, and then run Steal Industrial Blueprints on repeat. You can get 300% bonuses to industry +1-2 years ahead of time penalty reduction on industrial tech by doing this, provided you're researching Dispersed Industry yourself. It's been in the game since LaR was released and people thought it was working as intended, but new information/data mining by
@bitmode suggests it is actually an oversight/exploit. Use it if you want to minmax, don't use it if exploiting bothers you. It's typically allowed in MP, so do with it what you wish.
If you're not stealing industry blueprints, collaboration governments are the main benefit of the spy system, which you only need two spies to do. The bonus collaboration increases the factories and resources you get from occupation, and reduces resistance. It's very worth it to do in every major country you plan on conquering. Keep in mind, you can only do this BEFORE they capitulate, so you have to plan ahead.
2. Research - can't research everything and I understand that; should be specializing in a few things. But when is it better to research a doctrine rather than researching the next upgrade? Doctrines take so long to research that I usually win the war when I have about 4 individual doctrines researched in each tree (with a major country, even less when I tried playing a minor). I do know about spending xp to speed research, but similar question: when is it better to use xp researching instead of upgrading equipment? Are there any methods to gain more xp besides exercise, combat, expeditionary forces, and sending attachés?
Typically the three things you want to keep up to date as a major regardless of country are Industry (machine tools, construction, dispersed industry), Electronics (research speed), and fighters. If you're playing as any major except Japan and maybe Italy, you also want to be ahead of time in medium tanks.
A rule of thumb for research order is:
1) research things that will help you build up more quickly
2) research important equipment types ahead of time so you can begin producing them in large numbers sooner.
3) research doctrines (land is most important, then air, then sea).
3) research less important equipment types that you will be producing, but aren't as critical
4) research things that provide boosts that are only relevant once at war (techs that don't unlock new equipment types).
The main things to tech rush are fighters, medium tanks, and construction/industry techs. Do this by taking early techs before you unlock relevant research bonuses from your focus tree, so you spend the bonuses on techs that are ahead of time and save more days. Especially save ahead-of-time-penalty reduction bonuses for the latest tech possible, like 1943 tanks and 1944 planes and ships.
Make sure to pick up your design companies before researching 1940+ airplanes, ships, and 1941+ tanks. You have to have the company when you research the techs or they won't get the buffs, and the buffs can make or break an equipment type. ESPECIALLY CRITICAL FOR FIGHTERS. The best design companies are +% Fighter Agility, -% ship cost reduction, +% armor/hard attack for planes, ships, and tanks respectively.
Always be researching a land doctrine from the start of the game until you finish one, unless your country only has two research slots. Use 100 army xp when possible, except when you have a 100% bonus from the focus tree already. Stacking the two bonuses is inefficient because you probably won't always have 100 army xp, so save your army xp for when you don't have another bonus. The best land doctrine for most situations is Superior Firepower, right-left if you build tanks and right-right if you don't.
For air doctrine, you have two good choices and one situational choice. Strategic Destruction and Operational Integrity provide +10% fighter agility, which is the most important stat for planes in the game. Of these two, I prefer Strategic Destruction because you get the fighter agility and air superiority efficiency doctrines earlier in the tree. Battlefield Support can be good if you're a country that will always have a numbers advantage in the air due to heavy investment or only fighting weak enemies. Japan can go Battlefield Support and still have equivalent agility fighters to other nations because of the Mitsubishi designer giving +20% agility instead of the 10% offered by other countries, or they can go SD to have the best fighters in the game and stomp the air war.
For land tech, if you're not building tanks you want to have the most up-to-date infantry equipment and artillery possible. If you're not making planes(and you should be unless you absolutely cannot afford to), keep anti-air tech up to date as well.
Support companies are important to research by the time you're at war, but can be left for last since they have no impact until you go to war.
If you don't need to engage in the naval war, ignore naval tech and doctrines entirely (USSR, minors, etc).
If you're a naval power, the best build is either 1940/44 submarine spam with full torpedoes and radar or snorkel, or light cruisers with as much light attack as possible supported by "naked" destroyers of 1 light battery, a basic engine, and nothing else. 1940 ships with the cost reduction designer is the best for a surface fleet using these designs. Ignore capital ships and carriers completely, they're too expensive to build for too little payoff. Naval battles in the open sea are won by sinking the enemy screens and following up with torpedoes and critical hits to sink the enemy capitals. Naval bombers are the best counter to a navy if you can get coverage, and the biggest weakness of player navies. Try to only fight naval battles in waters where you can maintain air superiority.
If you're playing a navy heavy major (US, UK, Japan), it's important to research some surface ship techs. Damage control, transport ships, and upgraded float planes and sonar are pretty universal. If you're making a submarine build as any country, take the torpedo damage techs.
The best naval doctrine for any fleet is Trade Interdiction, except for carrier-heavy strategies which are sub-optimal in my opinion. The visibility reduction is the most impactful stat given by any naval doctrine, and will make your ships much more survivable.
3. Construction - nearly every game I've played, all I do is build factories/dockyards (and never run out of build room) because equipment/ship production seems so much more important. By the time I build a facility on the front line, I've already pushed far enough ahead that the new facility is not needed any more. For example, instead of building another airport or port, I just take the next one that the enemy has and use it. Building enough ports and infrastructure to increase supply takes way too long, so I just keep alternating fresh troops to the front and don't worry about it. Should I be building more facilities? When is it better to spend time building something rather than building another factory/dockyard? (I do build some nuclear reactors once they're available)
The general rule of thumb is build Civilian Factories until one year before you expect to go to war, then build only military factories. About 2-3 months before you plan to go to war, start building up RADAR and air bases in important theaters so they are ready to go by the time you declare war. If you're a European Axis member, it's important to build some synthetic refineries after your Civilian Factories and before you start building military factories, or you'll risk running out of fuel and rubber.
4. Production - is there a general rule of thumb to how much extra equipment should be in the stockpiles before sending units into battle? When fighting, I go into negative production in a lot of production lines and when the stockpile runs runs out I'm not able to reinforce; this is happening to me often. Also, on some games I will have red military factories that can be assigned but don't provide any production value. Sometimes they just need repaired, but other times nothing appears in the construction window as needing to be repaired and I can't figure out why they are red or where they are located. All territories will have access to at least one port and aren't surrounded by enemy territory, and the factories are red during peace time too so it isnt a land battle stopping production either. Can someone list every possible reason a factory turns red so I can try to fix them?
As long as you have fully equipped divisions, you don't need to worry about your stockpiles. Attack exclusively with tanks and you won't take many casualties. Make sure to keep reliability at 100% on your tanks though, or attrition will destroy more tanks than your enemies will. Red factories in the production window does indeed mean the factories are damaged, I don't know why you wouldn't be able to see them in the construction window. Are you sure you're not confusing it with a critical resource shortage? Regional supply status has nothing to do with whether military factories work or not.
Those are the major questions I have, but any related information would be very helpful also! Thank you very much!
The most important piece of general advice I can give to a new player is to make sure you use good division templates. Template design can be the difference between winning a war and losing one. If you use good templates, the AI will basically not be able to touch you in singleplayer.
The meta for template design is more or less 10/0(20w) or 20-0 (40w) defensive infantry divisions with engineers, support artillery. and support AA. Put other support companies if you want to, it's based on personal preference. I like adding Rocket Artillery once I can. Maintenance can be great for reducing equipment loss, but isn't very good until you get at least the second tech.
For offensive infantry in singleplayer, a 14-4 (infantry/artillery) is fairly standard but if you have tanks as an option, use those instead. 14-4 infantry won't win against enemy 40w infantry that you'll see in MP or with the Expert AI mod. If you want to pierce tanks, be nearly invincible, and meme the AI, replace one infantry battalion with one heavy tank destroyer. This is easily countered by a human opponent using support AT in their divisions but the AI doesn't bother most of the time. Early game you can add a light tank recon support battalion to a standard 14-4 for the same effect, but it falls off around 1939.
Mountaineers are better than regular infantry in mountains, research those if you're going to be fighting in regions with lots of those. If you're planning on doing lots of naval invasions or fighting in marshes and over rivers, research marines and use those in a 14-4 template. Make sure to research all the special forces techs if you do this, they'll be much stronger that way.
The best tank template is 40w with whatever mixture of medium or heavy tanks and motorized/mechanized that maximizes the number of tanks while staying above 30 organization. Any less than 30 org and your tanks might not be able to fight for as long as you want them to. It's kind of an arbitrary cutoff, but a good rule of thumb to work with. Generally speaking, if you're running Mobile Warfare you can afford to have more tanks in the template than if you're running superior firepower. 13/7 with SF and 15-5 with MW left-right, or even 17/3 with MW right-right is what you can expect to see once the doctrine tree is maxed out. The more tanks you have the more expensive the division will be, but the higher its offensive stats will be. Make sure to research at least Mechanized I, even if you're not planning on using mechanized. This is due to the hardness boost for motorized that Mech I gives. For support companies on tanks, I typically use Engineers, Logistics, Artillery, Rocket Artillery, and Maintenance. In MP, you may want to hold off on most support battalions for heavy tanks, because they reduce the average armor value of the division and make them easier to pierce. Leave at least the Engineers and Logistics though, they're a must-have for every tank division.
Don't mix multiple types of tanks (light, medium, heavy). They will be slowed down to the slowest tank in the division, which defeats the purpose of lighter tanks being fast. If you want breakthrough divisions that barely go faster than infantry, use only heavy tanks. If you want to make quick encirclements and overrun your enemies, use medium tanks. Light tanks are only good early game for volunteers or rushing down someone with an early war, they are obsoleted by mediums when they come online. LTs are useful in their recon battalion the entire game though, so it's good to have 1 factory on them the entire game even if only for that.
If you want to use tanks for naval invasions, don't use amphibious tanks. They have pretty terrible stats, equivalent to 1939 medium tanks at the best level. Instead, use amtrac battalions combined with regular medium or heavy tanks.
Another good general tip is to make sure you have green air if possible. Whichever side has air superiority will have a big advantage on the ground as well, so keeping on top of the air war is crucial to victory for almost every country. The key to wining the air war is having more and better fighters than your opponent, everything else is secondary. Agility is the most important stat for fighters, as the difference in agility between two planes in combat is the biggest determinant of which one shoots down the other one. You maximize agility by putting +5 engine on your fighters ASAP, using the light air designer for extra agility, and researching an air doctrine that gives +10% fighter agility.
Lastly, feel free to check out my post history, if you dig deep enough I have a few posts explaining in detail strategies for minmaxing division templates, grinding general traits, and probably more things I can't remember anymore.
Hope this helped, feel free to ask any more questions you might have.
