Synthetic Oil vs Conquest

[Tomnoddy]

The Axis seems to be severely constrained by Oil and Rubber availability.

Pre-war, their better laws and high IC enable Axis nations to greatly outproduce the Allies, by simply trading for resources. But when the shooting starts, trade sources are cut off leaving much of that IC worthless, unless you just want to make infantry divisions. By contrast , the Allies, with their handicaps removed, suddenly kick into high gear.

So, if you're playing an Axis nation, it seems your choice is either to

1. build synthetic oil
2. change your grand strategy

I've never actually taken the first option, but would be interested to know how the two approaches compare. I always felt that if you're just going to build the resources you lack, it kind of defeats the object of starting a world war in the first place. Besides, in earlier games in the series, and in real life, synthetic plants are pretty limited compared with the real thing.

My "strategic workaround" consists of the following -

1. Pre-war, take advantage of the unlimited capacity to trade for rubber and build big stockpiles of Motorised. This is the only rubber-consuming equipment not to go obsolete.

2. Send volunteers to China. It's a micro hell, i know, but conquered china means Indochina, Malaya and Siam are easier to reach.

3. When the shooting starts, stop the moto spam and keep your remaining rubber supply for current version aircraft.

4. Don't expand the war needlessly in western europe - Denmark & Scandinavia are a waste of time (no oil). Don't attack Benelux - keep them neutral as long as possible so you can buy their resources. It's very easy to take out France just going through the Italian alps.

5. Securing the Med (optional) will make it still possible to trade with Siam etc. if you have a port on the med coast - don't form Vichy. This requires placing a naval battle group in the med before outbreak of hostilities to assist the Regia Marina. Some light mechanised forces in Libya and quickly secure Suez for you.

6. After this I push into Iran and Iraq (oil), then the Raj (oil, rubber) to link up with Japan. This also provides easy access to Malaysian rubber and Caucasus oil fields.

Of course, you could argue i'm badly skewing my grand strategy to pursue these resources. Is it much easier to just build synthetics and focus on conquering the high IC nations close at hand rather than schlepping halfway across the globe?

 

[mar55tin]

In my games i build a lot of refineries and go for russia during their purge. Thanks to that my problem is reduced only to rubber, but since i have the refineries (and still building them) i manage to stay on surplus since malaya and etc.

 

[sionprawn]

Generally building refineries is the way to go, unless you're playing as Japan in which case you've got loads of Oil/Rubber to take in the East indies, + as Japan you can trade a lot of steal with Manchuria for just 1 factory. IMO in Vanilla it's too easy to build your way out of needing any resources.

 

[browd]

As frustrating as it may be to deal with the resource shortage production penalties, they do seem to have injected a "scramble for resources" element into the game that was conspicuously absent at game launch. I recall many pre- and post-launch threads complaining that the game seemed to ignore the fact that resource scarcity and the strategic importance of resources was a significant driver of many WW2 decisions (including Japan's southern expansion and Germany's Fall Blau/Operation Braunschweig). Significant balancing remains to be done (beyond Add More Aluminum in Asia(tm)), but this one change to game mechanics has (IMO) made the game a bit more engaging at a strategic level.

 

[dasaard200]

Refineries are a 'simple' question; trade early for rubber where you can, build what you need for airpower .
Once trade laws are under control; resources become manageable feedstock, > factories > stockpiled items > units . Adjust your economy to fit your perceived needs, within the projected timeframe .

 

[l3ol3o]

You pretty much need refineries since you can't easily take the Netherlands's rubber super early anymore. I start building refineries pretty early as both Germany and the USSR these days.

 

[Gerar_doorlock]

You pretty much need refineries since you can't easily take the Netherlands's rubber super early anymore. I start building refineries pretty early as both Germany and the USSR these days.

Why can't you easily take Netherlands rubber, if you want to?

 

[sterrius]

For germany.

You can easily not attack netherlands and defend its neutrality.

IF its AI they will not join the allies and you can still import from them.

After building enough refinerys you finish the job .

 

[Admiral Piett]

I always spam tons of refineries as Japan. The DEI and Malaya give you more rubber than you will ever need, but still nowhere near enough oil.

 

[RagingJaws]

Synthetics are the way to go.

Just 10 plants, on a major, will give you 70 oil and 40 rubber before extraction techs. With extraction V, you're looking at 105 oil and 60 rubber. That, at least to me, seems pretty good when you consider the cost involved with your CIC. Germany, for example, is a nation that can really invest heavily into synthetics and become self sufficient in regards to oil and rubber. That leaves the player focused on expansion goals targeting Tungsten, Chromium, and MIC.

For those who like to be "historical", Nazi Germany by 1944 had a production number of 124k barrels a day of synthetic oil out of 25 plants. You probably don't need that many in game. That'd be 265 oil and 150 rubber by 1945.

 

[QuakeRiley]

You pretty much need refineries since you can't easily take the Netherlands's rubber super early anymore. I start building refineries pretty early as both Germany and the USSR these days.

Invade, satellite the East Indies, build infrastructure there to keep autonomy down, enjoy a free source of a few million manpower.

 

[Dalwin]

For germany.

You can easily not attack netherlands and defend its neutrality.

IF its AI they will not join the allies and you can still import from them.

After building enough refinerys you finish the job .

I wish one could count on that, but it is not always true. In my current MP game as Germany, Benelux joined the Allies the instant the Danzig ultimatum was refused. They joined even before Poland did and declared against Germany immediately. I had only a thin force on that border and had to transfer troops from Poland to keep them from pushing into the Ruhr. By the time my main army moved west, the bulk of the French army (also AI in our games) was sitting on the double rivers in the south of Holland. They also got to occupy Luxemburg heavily before I could attack it.

This was catastrophic and will probably result in a loss for the Axis. Yes we eventually defeated France anyway (mostly from the south) but the losses in both equipment and time put me well behind schedule. My opponents swear they did nothing political to bring this about and that it was just RNG. WT was also in a reasonable place having been below 40 before the Danzig ultimatum was delivered. We have the historical NF option set to ON.

 

[sterrius]

I wish one could count on that, but it is not always true. In my current MP game as Germany, Benelux joined the Allies the instant the Danzig ultimatum was refused. They joined even before Poland did and declared against Germany immediately. I had only a thin force on that border and had to transfer troops from Poland to keep them from pushing into the Ruhr. By the time my main army moved west, the bulk of the French army (also AI in our games) was sitting on the double rivers in the south of Holland. They also got to occupy Luxemburg heavily before I could attack it.

This was catastrophic and will probably result in a loss for the Axis. Yes we eventually defeated France anyway (mostly from the south) but the losses in both equipment and time put me well behind schedule. My opponents swear they did nothing political to bring this about and that it was just RNG. WT was also in a reasonable place having been below 40 before the Danzig ultimatum was delivered. We have the historical NF option set to ON.

really interesting, i never saw that happening. What a bad rng luck :/.
Maybe it would be good to test this sometimes even in SP. By using for example Opinion to see if it got below 0 or 100.

something must have triggered this.

 

[Ironside121]

As Germany your best bet is to Justify War Goal on Netherlands immediately, capitulate them and take over the East Indies, there's your rubber problem 90% solved.

 

[Secret Master]

My opponents swear they did nothing political to bring this about and that it was just RNG.

I promise we didn't do anything.

In fact, you know how you can tell we didn't cause it to happen? There weren't 24 British divisions waiting to seize the Rhineland the moment Benelux entered the war.

The Axis seems to be severely constrained by Oil and Rubber availability.

The problem is defined by how historical you want it to be.

If you want to be somewhat historical, then you will need to build synthetic plants, as you can't occupy Romania or ninja DEI or take out the Soviets early. It's either that, or cut air and tank production.

If you intend to do ahistorical things, leaving the Dutch neutral has value. The best move, though, is probably to annex Hungary and Romania. It doesn't solve the rubber problem, but that's enough oil to fuel a substantial number of production lines for tanks.

 

[l3ol3o]

As Germany your best bet is to Justify War Goal on Netherlands immediately, capitulate them and take over the East Indies, there's your rubber problem 90% solved.

Wasn't this changed? I used to do this. The last time I tried this I didn't have the war score to take the East Indies after the Netherlands capitulated.

 

[Dalwin]

Wasn't this changed? I used to do this. The last time I tried this I didn't have the war score to take the East Indies after the Netherlands capitulated.

Couldn't you just pass several times to get the war score to annex or better still puppet DEI? I say puppet because you would still get a big discount on the resources. You would not be forced to run convoys there in wartime if you did not want to, and they would build a few defenses of their own. It would also keep WT a bit lower.

 

[browd]

The last time I tried this I didn't have the war score to take the East Indies after the Netherlands capitulated

Just "Pass" enough times to build the required warscore to both puppet DEI and annex the rest of the Netherlands.