Need for Trade

[Northgrinder]

I just started a game as Germany in 1936. Looking at the beginning resources (26.7k Energy, 13.5k Metal, and 46.6k Rare Material), I calculated how much time I'd have before I'd run out at current IC of 201. With the IC/day consuming 2 Energy, 1 Metal, and .5 resources, I have 36 YEARS before I run into issues with energy and metal, 255 YEARS before running out of rare materials.

Do I even need to worry about trade agreements to balance these out or acquiring additional resources to keep the war machine going? Is there something likely to occur wherein I'll start consuming the resources at a much faster pace? I can't see how I'll ever run out before 1945!

 

[EllisDee]

As your neutrality drops (and various other effects, mostly to do with political party power and war), you unlock new policies: they can affect how much IC you output. On top of that, there's IC tech that'll increase resource usage, and you'll often want to build factories of your own before war breaks out. You'll find that your supplies won't last more than a year or two of war. Metal you should be ok with, both from occupation and from trade with the evil Swedes. But Rares...stock up on Rares. Get to max Rares if you can. Once war breaks out, you can't trade for rares with anyone without getting your convoys destroyed.

You might also find yourself needing fuel, but that stuff's crazy expensive. The only thing Germany has plenty of is Energy.

 

[Kovax]

Germany has enough coal to supply half the world, at least until everyone ramps up production. Once that "effective" IC grows to far outstrip base IC, you'll find that your surplus is only moderate, not enormous. Metal can become a serious concern, but becomes less of one as you annex or puppet a couple of countries that have sizable stockpiles and their own sources. Rares, despite the huge starting stockpile, can vanish surprisingly fast once you hit full stride. Remember, you can get a significantly higher percentage of "effective" IC from annexed or occupied territory than what you can get from their resources. Each step of the Industrial Production tech will consume more resources to gain more "effective" IC. It can also pay off in the long run to build another 10-40 IC as Germany, but more than around 20 will require more aggressive trading to supply the needed resources.

Note that trade can be a valuable diplomatic weapon as well, providing a small but significant amount of political "drift" in your faction's direction with no further expenditure of Influence. While that drift has been increasingly reduced in almost every expansion, and the effects of diplomacy in general have been rendered relatively impotent, it's still a good way of keeping potential enemies out of the opposing faction for as long as possible without burning a ton of leadership on brute-force Influence. A little care in who you trade with can work wonders, while turning it over to the AI essentially throws most of that effect away.

 

[marxianTJ]

Trading a bit with the USA (a great supplier of things), Belgium, but ESPECIALLY the Netherlands can make your life *much* easier.

If you get the USA to 200 relations they'll drift naturally to the Axis (slightly), which is really handy if you meant to keep them out of the war until Japan attacks them - or if you're trying to get the fascists to win their elections .

Having good relations with Belgium and the Netherlands mainly ensures that they don't end up joining the Allies too soon and causing you to have to fight a not phony war with France in the winter of 1939.

Your trade policy as Germany is mainly going to come down to 2 things. Do you intend to run out of resources on purpose? Do you intend to be super efficient with production?

In the first case, you will simply trade as many supplies to the UK, USA, and USSR as they will let you, just keep jacking up the trade to make a lot of money - and then buy as much Metal and Rares as you possibly can Italy, Netherlands, USSR, USA - will supply a bunch. Then build as much IC as you please until 1938 - you will not be able to attain enough resources to feed your industrial machine, and you'll eventually lose IC - but in the mean time you'll have somewhere in the ballpark of 360 IC in 1938 - which should be *more* than enough to build whatever nonsense you want - and for most of 1939 and 1940 you'll have over 400 IC as well until the pump runs dry and you start losing IC to shut down - but by then you should have an army, air force, and Navy more than capable of defeating anybody silly enough to take you on.

If you intend to be more efficient, you will want to limit the amount of supplies you sell to maximize your IC in the here and now, and limit the amount of IC you build so that you wont run yourself out with a minimal amount of trade - the easiest way to achieve this is to build your relations to 200 with ONLY the USA and USSR - and have a minimal amount of relations with the Netherlands (just to keep them from screwing you up down the road) - once you get them to 185 relations, make a very large deal with them - you may want that very large deal to the FIRST deal you make so that they won't haul off and sell all those goodies to somebody else first. Then once you get to 185, cancel that really awful deal you made on jan 1st, and remake it now with a tremendous savings

 

[Kovax]

The "optimum" method is to sell a heap of Energy to Netherlands and Belgium as early as possible, which will boost relations. They'll pay top price for that Energy because the deal was made at 0 Relations, and near top price for the small second round or even third. At that point, with Relations in the 45 range, you can buy Rares at a much better price, a few at a time, so your BIG purchases will be at 100+ relations and bargain prices. All those trade deals and relations will help slow or stop their drift toward the Allies, or at least make it easy to influence them away.

 

[ichitori]

As Germany you will probably run out of rare materials and maybe metal later on. In my current game I haven't run out of metal, I have 8,000 or maybe 20,000 in 1946. I know I ran out of rare materials though.

Heres a trick I learned. Just build a lot of convoys and continue to build convoys, as many as you need. Japan should offer you 3 trade deals for 50 raw materials each when you run out, take the deals. The allies will sink around 33-50% of your convoys, that be damned, some raw materials will get through though. I went from 0 raw materials to around 4,800. I don't think there is a penaly for sacrificing convoys. Although my national unity has gone to 83% lately so I don't know if sunk convoys add to strategic war but I doubt it and that is the method I use.

I trade with the Soviet Union before war starts with them for rare materials and metal.

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I think your math is off OP. Since 2 tanks 2 motorised division cost around 16 IC the day you opt to build them, not to mention the infantry, and fighters you plan on building. You will be over spending 1IC a day.

I know I run out of rare materials always, and sometimes metal. Everything else I have enough of.

I think your math went 365 x 36 years = 13,140 metals, that is 1IC a day. You forgot to multiple again by 201 which would give you 2,641,140 metal in 36 years.

 

[marxianTJ]

Losing convoys *does* lower your NU - it's based on how many convoys you already have though, so if you have oodles and oodles, losing a few won't hurt you - but if you only have say 20, and 50% get sunk, your NU will drop like a rock.

Assuming you go for a "historical" Germany you should get a nice infusion of Rares and Metal from conquering Norway, Denmark, France, Yugoslavia, and possibly Greece - as you'll get their stockpile when you take the capital - unless you went super hard on building IC you should be OK to last until the war starts with the USSR, and then as long as you're in Moscow by Christmas all your problems will be solved