Questions about zero building productivity and losing tons of soldiers in wars

[parashar91]

I apologize if these questions have already been answered, but I can't find the answers I'm looking for on google or reddit so I'm here

Recently formed the Soviet Union and had a lot of fun doing it. But I have 2 issues:

1. I have noticed that many of the factories/buildings have 0 productivity. Its says "this building doesn't have the funds to hire employees", so I switched to Interventionism and started subsidizing them. Now some of the buildings hired employees and became productive, but a majority of buildings despite subsidies and having full employment have 0 productivity. I checked the input goods, there are no shortages and the price of input goods are reasonably medium/low, same for the output goods. How do I make these buildings productive?
2. Warfare. I have trench infantry, mobile artillery, bicycle messengers, field hospitals but a war against Kongo saw me lose 600,000 troops with 1.2 million wounded while Kongo lost 5,000 soldiers and had 10,000 wounded. I'm very confused about this. There is no shortage of arms/ammunition. I think I lost most of my troops to attrition. Why is this happening and how do I prevent such huge casualties?

 

[Gui10]

1. I think productivity is the average value added by pops in the building, so 0 productivity is hit when the value of inputs is higher than outputs (or there are no employees in the building).
Generally, you can increase productivity with automation methods and economy of scales, but improving 0 productivity is usually achieved by changing production methods, decreasing the price of inputs or the amount of buildings of that category. For example, Food Industries can use fish to produce more groceries, but that would consume iron and glass (which are often scarce and expensive), so turning that off can increase productivity; steel industries consume iron/coal, so when those increase in price you have to increase the supply or build as many as needed (without running into shortages) while subsidizing them to make sure the high prices don't filter to the rest of your economy; and if you overbuilt motor industries and the price of engines hits -40% they probably will be unprofitable regarless if the price of inputs is at -10%.

Remember that buildings that are being built have 0 employees and thus 0 productivity, so you have to wait until they have hired people to see how productive they are.

Regarding warfare, a portion of the troops you mobilize and deploy will die to attrition. Always. Don't mobilize more troops than you will use and don't deploy more troops than needed. If the trops were mobilized, but are no longer needed, send them back to headquarters so they don't die to attrition (not sure if that removes attrition or just reduces it) with the stand-by button.

Also, you didn't mention it, so remember to not change military production methods a year before the war, because chaging then gives a decaying -75% debuff for a year.

 

[MfgLuckbot]

There is no shortage of arms/ammunition. I think I lost most of my troops to attrition. Why is this happening and how do I prevent such huge casualties?

Did you maybe have supply issues? If you don't have enough convoys then troops across the sea suffer greatly. (For colonial conflicts you can avoid that by training local soldiers in your colony and mobilizing only them)

In general mobilizing just enough soldiers to win the war is a good idea. Having double their power is absolutely enough, if you go for more you only increase losses for no gain.