I will add the ways to improve it and make the system better at the end. With that out of the way lets jump into the meat of the issues. When they were designed they were supposed to be a way for smaller countries, or members of the same alliance to focus on specific research without lagging too badly in military department. Think China for example, with limited research slots and not a lot of leeway to go galivanting about. Or, think Yugoslavia, Spain, Finland. Countries in an interesting position that may have greater concern than researching Tanks or Bombers.
However with the way they are implemented in the game there are several problems. The greatest of which is the tech difference malus to accepting licence production. I will use an example from my game.
I am China. It is May 1941 and I have just kicked Japan out of Asian mainland. I am recovering from the war, looking for ways to modernize my armed forces and with plenty of money to throw around (or IC in games terms). You'd think that countries would be throwing themselves at me in an effort to modernize my forces, both for the sake of money and gaining foothold in Asia trough friendly and indebted regime. The entire war I was stuck with 2 research slots and used them to keep my small arms up to date and advance Industrially. I now want to licence tanks, aircraft and submarines. Yet no one will so much as even consider it. Let's use America as an example.
I just seriously weakened their main rival in the pacific. I am offering good money for P-40 Warhawk, an outdated plane. They have a -35 malus on acceptance due to technological advantage. Trying to get the modern plane they also have, the P-39 nets me a -55 malus. I even go back to P-1 Hawk, maybe I liked King Kong and wanted to do a Chinese remake with said planes. Heck no, -20 for that. do note I have 95 relation with US. I am paying in good factories. I go over to Shipbuilding, looking at the outdated 1936 sub, -90 acceptance.
I think I made my point here. What pray tell is the purpose of licensing when you yourself need to research the damn thing in order to lose civilian factories and to produce it at lower efficiency when you can just build a domestic design? Minor countries or local powers should be able to licence weapons as long as the relationship between countries are positive. It's economy after all.
Second problem is the cost. And not just the cost but the permanence of it.
I want to licence from Germany the following items:
Basic Scout car, modern artillery and AT guns, Panzer IV and a Hummel as well as outdated JU87 and ME109 aircraft and Type VII Submarine. Total cost is 25 factories, for as long as I have licences. I'll also skip over the -90 malus for accepting because it's too advanced for me, apparently.
Supposing I get all of that I am now looking down at -35% production malus for daring to use foreign technology. It's permament, my people are incapable of figuring out how to produce the mysterious ME109 even if given 10 years to do so, even if thet produced 10 000 of them etc. I would understand a temporary malus as tooling machines are reconfigured, I'd understand a bigger efficiency drop if you have a domestic production set up and now want to produce a foreign design. But a permanent malus and a malus that persists even if you replace the ME109 with FW190 for example is insane.
I'd suggest the following changes:
Make AI willing to licence their products to anyone with a positive relationship. Make AI willing to licence their top tier designs after a year has passed since their invention. It's no longer a secret, there's no point holding out on it. Change the cost of licensing from permanent to temporary. I suggest for example 1 Civilian factory for 90 days and 25 political points per licensed design for simple weapon, 3 for tanks and armor, 5 for aircraft and 10 for ships. After 90 days the factory is back with you. The seller country gets the IC and PP. The benefit of this is that it allows smaller countries to do what they historically did, buy foreign designs for their forces. It also does not cripple smaller states to do so. Developing an aircraft program of your own should be more expensive than buying already made foreign ones. The downside is that you are not controlling the technological development of said equipment.
Remove the production malus. They should start with a lower production efficiency but said efficiency should not be forever gimped. Eventually the locals will figure it out and adapt. And when they do transitioning from making ME109 to FW190 is no harder for them than for the Germans themselves.
An extra, amazing, perfect bonus that is not required to fix the game feature that Paradox currently made impossible to use would be if your models would change on the map depending on what equipment you use. Licencing German tanks should give you German tank model for said design. Licencing German infantry equipment should make your infantry units look German. It was literally the case for China, Bulgaria and even Finland.
However with the way they are implemented in the game there are several problems. The greatest of which is the tech difference malus to accepting licence production. I will use an example from my game.
I am China. It is May 1941 and I have just kicked Japan out of Asian mainland. I am recovering from the war, looking for ways to modernize my armed forces and with plenty of money to throw around (or IC in games terms). You'd think that countries would be throwing themselves at me in an effort to modernize my forces, both for the sake of money and gaining foothold in Asia trough friendly and indebted regime. The entire war I was stuck with 2 research slots and used them to keep my small arms up to date and advance Industrially. I now want to licence tanks, aircraft and submarines. Yet no one will so much as even consider it. Let's use America as an example.
I just seriously weakened their main rival in the pacific. I am offering good money for P-40 Warhawk, an outdated plane. They have a -35 malus on acceptance due to technological advantage. Trying to get the modern plane they also have, the P-39 nets me a -55 malus. I even go back to P-1 Hawk, maybe I liked King Kong and wanted to do a Chinese remake with said planes. Heck no, -20 for that. do note I have 95 relation with US. I am paying in good factories. I go over to Shipbuilding, looking at the outdated 1936 sub, -90 acceptance.
I think I made my point here. What pray tell is the purpose of licensing when you yourself need to research the damn thing in order to lose civilian factories and to produce it at lower efficiency when you can just build a domestic design? Minor countries or local powers should be able to licence weapons as long as the relationship between countries are positive. It's economy after all.
Second problem is the cost. And not just the cost but the permanence of it.
I want to licence from Germany the following items:
Basic Scout car, modern artillery and AT guns, Panzer IV and a Hummel as well as outdated JU87 and ME109 aircraft and Type VII Submarine. Total cost is 25 factories, for as long as I have licences. I'll also skip over the -90 malus for accepting because it's too advanced for me, apparently.
Supposing I get all of that I am now looking down at -35% production malus for daring to use foreign technology. It's permament, my people are incapable of figuring out how to produce the mysterious ME109 even if given 10 years to do so, even if thet produced 10 000 of them etc. I would understand a temporary malus as tooling machines are reconfigured, I'd understand a bigger efficiency drop if you have a domestic production set up and now want to produce a foreign design. But a permanent malus and a malus that persists even if you replace the ME109 with FW190 for example is insane.
I'd suggest the following changes:
Make AI willing to licence their products to anyone with a positive relationship. Make AI willing to licence their top tier designs after a year has passed since their invention. It's no longer a secret, there's no point holding out on it. Change the cost of licensing from permanent to temporary. I suggest for example 1 Civilian factory for 90 days and 25 political points per licensed design for simple weapon, 3 for tanks and armor, 5 for aircraft and 10 for ships. After 90 days the factory is back with you. The seller country gets the IC and PP. The benefit of this is that it allows smaller countries to do what they historically did, buy foreign designs for their forces. It also does not cripple smaller states to do so. Developing an aircraft program of your own should be more expensive than buying already made foreign ones. The downside is that you are not controlling the technological development of said equipment.
Remove the production malus. They should start with a lower production efficiency but said efficiency should not be forever gimped. Eventually the locals will figure it out and adapt. And when they do transitioning from making ME109 to FW190 is no harder for them than for the Germans themselves.
An extra, amazing, perfect bonus that is not required to fix the game feature that Paradox currently made impossible to use would be if your models would change on the map depending on what equipment you use. Licencing German tanks should give you German tank model for said design. Licencing German infantry equipment should make your infantry units look German. It was literally the case for China, Bulgaria and even Finland.
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