Supply costs shouldn't double during war-time

[NikkTheTrick]

And how do you avoid expensive brigades with this new battle system? Just vanilla infantry is utterly destroyed no matter what. Only losing a war is more expensive than waging war in this game.

Do not fight against countries capable of fielding expensive brigades if you cannot afford them yourself. Or, save up money before the war, train the brigades, fight the war, disband the brigades and spend next 10 years recovering from that. Think twice before getting into war and give up land in crisis if you have to avoid a war.

 

[Sunaj]

And in the same WWI, nobody was training and producing new tank and stormtrooper brigades well into 1917 as well, right? Because the game is like that currently.

Or you can pull back for a few months, set up a line, then turn down the military supply sliders, so your construction can start, cuz I mean, the GP's in WW1 totally went balls to the wall every day, never ever sat back and built up for an offensive.

 

[Cymsdale]

Also, it's possible that your world economy in that game simply was weaker than the norm. The strength of the world economy is not always the same every game, and a player superpower can have huge effects on its health.

 

[kingsword]

I very much doubt that. I personally laid down rail in every province that produced iron, coal, timber and the like that I could. I had all of Africa that produced those and had maxed RGO output and rail techs. I was #1 in most raw materials and had an overwhelming lead on intermediary goods like steel, at times more than half of world production. The rest of the great powers had maximum rail save for Russia as well. Iron demand was double the production and canned food triple. Not like world was crippled in anyway.

I said this before, but RGO production is not the problem (as neither military consumption doubling is). Increasing the production of RGOs just means the bottleneck kicks in when you have a higher number of soldiers. This presumably would just give you a bigger army and make the game easier for the big powers.

Yes, you said that and I disagreed. Raw materials aren't enough to support great wars. It's as simple as that. I have 2.2% soldiers and I'm not using half of those. #2 Britain has 50% more brigades than me. Everyone mobilizes of course and that pushes the demand over the edge. What are you proposing, great wars without mobilization?

Do not fight against countries capable of fielding expensive brigades if you cannot afford them yourself. Or, save up money before the war, train the brigades, fight the war, disband the brigades and spend next 10 years recovering from that. Think twice before getting into war and give up land in crisis if you have to avoid a war.

Good luck playing Ottomans like that, game is trying to enforce Sevres treaty by 1850 if you just let them be. I wasn't bothered with the costs as Germany but I totally dominated world industry and most of the raw materials as well. War time was still making me lose double the rate what I was earning peace-time with 0 military slider. I can expect what smaller countries are going through.

Or you can pull back for a few months, set up a line, then turn down the military supply sliders, so your construction can start, cuz I mean, the GP's in WW1 totally went balls to the wall every day, never ever sat back and built up for an offensive.

Yeah, they pulled back, turned down the canned food they gave to soldiers on the front, then trained their tank brigades. That's what happened in WWI, right?

"General Allenby, you're required to pull back from Jerusalem to Sinai since we'll be training some tank brigades for the offensive on the western front."

 

[NikkTheTrick]

Good luck playing Ottomans like that, game is trying to enforce Sevres treaty by 1850 if you just let them be. I wasn't bothered with the costs as Germany but I totally dominated world industry and most of the raw materials as well. War time was still making me lose double the rate what I was earning peace-time with 0 military slider. I can expect what smaller countries are going through.

As Ottomans, you are the sick man of Europe, it is supposed to be hard. Secure whatever alliances you can and if that does not work, than you might need to either give up some land to live another day or suffer from bankruptcy. You should not be able to afford both numbers and quality that Russia and Austria have. You need other GPs' assistance to survive.

 

[kingsword]

And it was already hard to begin with, now that you have crisis system, you have to fight or die. Other GP's joining the fight doesn't mean the fight gets cheaper.

 

[NikkTheTrick]

Other GPs joining crisis on your side means fight can be avoided. Or, if the fight does happen, you can win and hurt your opponents, which may give you some breathing space.

Finally, you can give up land and get breathing time. Once again, you may need to make hard choices as opposed to the usual "hurr durr. I am a player and I deserve to win against richer and more populous enemies just because I am a player. AI cannot get my land, I am the one who is supposed to beat AI!".

 

[D Inqu]

Yes, you said that and I disagreed. Raw materials aren't enough to support great wars. It's as simple as that. I have 2.2% soldiers and I'm not using half of those. #2 Britain has 50% more brigades than me. Everyone mobilizes of course and that pushes the demand over the edge. What are you proposing, great wars without mobilization?

Ehm. That's a good thing. Raw materials aren't enough to support great wars. The Great War took advantage up pretty much the entire planet's resources and it still wasn't enough by a long shot. Recovery from the war took a good couple of decades "victors". Even the UK, despite being at the heigh of it's power and avoiding the devastation of its lands, continued rationing some food for a couple of years after the war. And the great screw up of the world economy by all these mobilisations directly led to the Great Depression.


So I don't see what's bad about historically expensive choices being expensive in-game. The game's mobilisation system has issues, but not the ones you mentioned. They are:
1. Early game (low industry tech) mobilisation potential should be significantly lower.
2. The mobilisation pool should have a peace-time maintenance.

 

[Pugman]

I've noticed money is much tighter than before but I haven't encountered anything unmanageable in any of my games. Of course there is more constraint now that money is not limitless but as far as I'm concerned that's a good thing.

 

[kingsword]

Eh, other GP's don't really care about the Ottomans totally disintegrating or not. The historical Anglo-French interest in having the Ottomans afloat isn't there. England personally leads the Balkan people's side every time. As Germany, 80% of the wars that I did including the great war I have been talking about just due to crisis arising from Ottoman lands. Opposition doesn't give up pre-war unless you ridiculously outnumber them militarily, like 2:1.

And current situation is supposed to portray, what? "HERP all of my soldiers are malnourished, this is such a historical game DERP"? It's not like I'm demanding world conquest here, but nobody is even able to afford luxury stuff in #1 world economy. There are dozens of provinces to hold a front, it's not medieval times. You have to mobilize for that. Everyone does that anyway, so demand implodes. It's not really rocket science to notice something absurd is taking place when demands triple production merely 6 months into war, not 4 years.

 

[grommile]

Eh, other GP's don't really care about the Ottomans totally disintegrating or not.

So far, the only time I've seen the Ottomans lose their Serbian provinces is when I marched in there myself and knocked them loose.

 

[NikkTheTrick]

Eh, other GP's don't really care about the Ottomans totally disintegrating or not. The historical Anglo-French interest in having the Ottomans afloat isn't there. England personally leads the Balkan people's side every time. As Germany, 80% of the wars that I did including the great war I have been talking about just due to crisis arising from Ottoman lands. Opposition doesn't give up pre-war unless you ridiculously outnumber them militarily, like 2:1.

From what I've seen, Ottomans tend to do reasonably fine under AI control. Look at "Post Your Heart of Darkness Empire!" thread: people play countries like Brazil (who would not have much impact on what happens to Ottomans) and OE still exists in close to its original borders late-game.

And current situation is supposed to portray, what? "HERP all of my soldiers are malnourished, this is such a historical game DERP"?

My army is somehow supplied and reinforcing and fine.

It's not like I'm demanding world conquest here, but nobody is even able to afford luxury stuff in #1 world economy.

???
I have people buy luxuries all the time.

There are dozens of provinces to hold a front, it's not medieval times. You have to mobilize for that. Everyone does that anyway, so demand implodes.

If you avoid the war, you don't have to mobilize.

It's not really rocket science to notice something absurd is taking place when demands triple production merely 6 months into war, not 4 years.

Make stockpiles before the war. Although I agree that having a way to perform industrial mobilization (which should be very expensive and force a country into debt) would be nice.

 

[Chamboozer]

So far, the only time I've seen the Ottomans lose their Serbian provinces is when I marched in there myself and knocked them loose.

He said, 'or not', which is the problem. The AI doesn't have a foreign policy, they haphazardly choose to defend one side or the other based on short-term relationships. Britan will support Greece against the Ottomans, then turn around to defend the Ottomans against Serbia, instead of having a set goal "keep the Ottomans afload, because otherwise Russia will expand".

Not that Russia expands anyway, that's another problem all on its own.

 

[kingsword]

In my game, they lost several states due to crisis and only after I decided to intervene on their behalf every single time that they were able to keep any provinces. I was able to thwart 4-5 crisis like that with several wars, England, France, Russia and Austria constantly allied against Ottomans. Once I had to fight them all with just Italy on my side.

And my army is under-supplied as I explained thoroughly multiple times on this thread. You might want to check those messages out. I also cannot build any new ones mid-war.

My people cannot buy luxuries unless they're mining iron or something super-inflated in price. 20% effective taxes.

Yeah well, you cannot always avoid war and why would you have to constantly avoid war? Wars happened in the period often enough without hardly a bankruptcy.

Stockpiles? That's a stopgap measure for short wars maybe, I very much doubt that they were using 1913-made canned food in 1917 though. How about we advocate an economic system that can sustain the great wars like it happened in history?

 

[NikkTheTrick]

I guess Ottomans were just unlucky in your game. In my games they tend to do fine, as they do in most late-game screen shots I see posted around. Is it possible that England, France, Russia and Austria aligned against Ottomans simply because they hate you, not Ottomans?

As for luxuries, do you mean that no one can afford their luxury needs or that majority cannot afford their luxury needs. This is a big difference. In the game time frame, most people could not afford luxuries even in the best-performing economies.

And I agree that being able to expand military production during wartime would be nice. However, that should come at a price and have a good chance of bankrupting nations.

 

[1alexey]

And it was already hard to begin with, now that you have crisis system, you have to fight or die. Other GP's joining the fight doesn't mean the fight gets cheaper.

My people cannot buy luxuries unless they're mining iron or something super-inflated in price. 20% effective taxes.

Yeah well, you cannot always avoid war and why would you have to constantly avoid war? Wars happened in the period often enough without hardly a bankruptcy.

Well, I`m sorry to be blunt but it is more your play then anything else.
Here, for example how player controlled Ottomans could look like, N2 Industry, N4 military, N2 overall.

 

[kingsword]

I guess Ottomans were just unlucky in your game. In my games they tend to do fine, as they do in most late-game screen shots I see posted around. Is it possible that England, France, Russia and Austria aligned against Ottomans simply because they hate you, not Ottomans?

As for luxuries, do you mean that no one can afford their luxury needs or that majority cannot afford their luxury needs. This is a big difference. In the game time frame, most people could not afford luxuries even in the best-performing economies.

And I agree that being able to expand military production during wartime would be nice. However, that should come at a price and have a good chance of bankrupting nations.

I wasn't taking their side at first until very late in the crisis, same situation. They actually lost land 2-3 times, dropped out of GP. After that I began to actively lead their cause. A crisis dies off, the next one is from OE. Afterwards, OE again. 70% of them were about OE.

The people who buy luxuries are only the ones that literally make a killing out of what they produce. Like, something that's demanded 2-3 times more than it's produced. And probably only if it's no cost to produce, like iron miners.

My factories shift production but input material icons are constantly red and it's mostly iron.

Well, I`m sorry to be blunt but it is more your play then anything else.
Here, for example how player controlled Ottomans could look like, N2 Industry, N4 military, N2 overall.

I'm not playing Ottomans, someone else did. I'm just talking about how I can understand their woes if being really filthy rich and #1 in everything with overwhelming leads is still tight.

 

[EUnderhill]

There will always be something short in the late game; if not iron, then coal, if not coal, then sulfur...yadayadayada. Just something inherent to the model. Either flood the game early with easy money and unchallenging play and let the clock run out before the market or accept that there will be something in short supply later on.

 

[kingsword]

AI being forced to disbanding starting armies and navies, then having to release dominions etc is showing that budget tightness at the very start is wrong in the first place.

 

[NikkTheTrick]

AI being forced to disbanding starting armies and navies, then having to release dominions etc is showing that budget tightness at the very start is wrong in the first place.

Dominions: that is completely unrelated to budget. Dominions are released to free up colonial points.

Armies disbanding: haven't seen it happen too much outside of either soldiers wiped out or forced disarmament.