WWW Production Observations

[Devout]

Added SP Artillery information

 

[Raventhefuhrer]

Planes Built =( 15 factories x 5 IC per factory x 0.80 gearing x 1.65 bonus x 1.0 resource) / (22 IC per plane) = 4.5 planes per day

Are you sure that the gearing bonus isn't 1.80? That would seem more intuitive, but I didn't watch the stream in exhaustive detail.

 

[Razor]

Thanks for the compilation @Devout! This kind of effort really increase our knowledge about the game.

 

[chemonaut]

Are you sure that the gearing bonus isn't 1.80? That would seem more intuitive, but I didn't watch the stream in exhaustive detail.

Changing the .8 to 1.8 would throw all the numbers off, they'd be 1.8/.8 times too high. The production bonus is the intuitive part, that 65% get placed as a 1.65 in the equation. The gearing makes a HUGE difference in the output of the game right now though, and since you mention it, it almost seams more intuitive for it to be as you suggest, but at the moment it is not.

 

[Raventhefuhrer]

Well if the gearing bonus is represented as multiplied by (.x) then it's not a bonus at all, it's a malus. So it would be more intuitive if gearing bonus multiplied production by 1.(x)

Because right now, if OP is correct, saying you have an '80% gearing bonus' doesn't increase production by 80%. It reduces the amount your previous gearing bonus decreased base production by.

 

[Alexander Suvorov]

Brilliant post.

4. Cost decrease over time: It appears that some older technology gets cheaper over time. Infantry weapons 1 costs 0.75 in 1936. When infantry weapons 2 is researched, it costs 0.75, but level 1 decreased to 0.5. German heavy tanks decreased from 50 to 25. Light tanks decreased from 11 to 9 when medium tanks roll out.

this is a very large incentive for temporarily maintaining the old production line until a new production line making the current tech builds up a bit of industrial efficiency.

These aren't super jumbo jets with luxurious seating, along with champagne and steak and lobster served to the airborne forces going along for the ride!

They aren't??

I apologize if this has been asked before and answered, but does efficiency go up faster if you assign more factories to the line?

Wouldn't It would make sense if it did?

I think that you gain industrial efficiency on a production line based on how many units of that thing have been built, so more factories would increase the rate at which a new production lines builds this up.

there are also some switches in production which don't completely wipe out efficiency back to zero like the example given by the OP where the player switched from tanks to planes and lost all the efficiency. ( @OP did I mention this is a brilliant post?)

 

[Antediluvian Monster]

edit: wouldn´t make much sense if td cost the same as tanks, they were produced because they were cheaper ( at least the Stug-types ) and many were converted from existing chassis.

StuG would presumably be SPAT on 1939 medium tank chassis and hence fairly cheap in comparison to 1941/43 medium tanks.

 

[dav77-b]

Seems like gearing is the most important bonus.
Forceing your opponent to switch his production seems like a good move.
Johanns Bombers did not only hurt Jakobs Industry directly, but also forced him to switch production towards more fighter, hurting his efficency.

 

[chemonaut]

Because right now, if OP is correct, saying you have an '80% gearing bonus' doesn't increase production by 80%. It reduces the amount your previous gearing bonus decreased base production by.

Your right, the increase is actually larger than the percentage says because it starts at less than 100%, but I don't think they'll use the word malus over bonus. Anyways you seem to have a good grasp on how this works.

 

[shri]

i personally think HOI4 gearing and other ratios are being used well to showcase the war as it happened in RL.
Just because Tiger Tanks were researched, did not mean your whole Panzer forces became Tigers in 3 months. That was the main issue with HOI3 and previous variants.

Also, pre-war stockpiling followed by up-gradation in 1940 method, done by many players will backfire. Eg: Johann built a lot of "Useless fighters" in early game before reaching the "Spitfire" and hence, he had more fighters in game, but not necessarily better ones and thus did not gain air superiority.
The Germans have the Bf-109 from 1936 on-wards and can keep producing the same (with upgraded variants of level 5 say) till end of the War and still have a decent fighter in 1944-45 (as it was in RL).

Again, Germany starts with the Lousy PzII and needs to research PzIII fast and mass produce it, however, i am not sure if i am really going to mass produce PzIV if i get it in 1941, as i need more tanks for barbarossa, not necessarily better ones. Again, a level 5 variant of PzIII maybe a better bet than a slowly produced PzIV (as i may end up on the gates of Moscow with no Tank reserves).

Infantry Weapons 1,2,3 also have these extremely useful Push Me- Pull You situations. This is what makes a great and interesting game. Now, if Balance issues are worked out, HOI4 will turn out to be an excellent game.

Again, Johan was good to pull out the BEF in time, as if the BEF had suffered heavy casualties, his armies may have ended up becoming foot infantry due to lack of TRUCKS! (as it happened in the aftermath of Dunkirk). Having a "Abandon Weapons and Run for your life button" will make the game even more realistic.
Then, we can actually see troops breaking out of "Encirclement" with nothing but the "Experienced men" and having no weapons except pistols and a few rifles. This happened twice to the British in Dunkirk and then again in Greece/Crete.
The Russians did this time and again in 1941-42 and the Germans did this in 1942-44 period several times.

 

[fellaz007]

I don't quite understand why PDS is still making transport planes hideously expensive! Three times the cost of a heavy bomber? Come on. These aren't super jumbo jets with luxurious seating, along with champagne and steak and lobster served to the airborne forces going along for the ride! Even then, they would be cheaper than three times a heavy bomber! I think if anything, transports would be cheaper than a medium bomber since few were armed or armored, and they didn't carry bombs unless transporting them to an airbase.

I understand that they were previously abstracted to mean that there were several hundred in a unit of Air Transport, so that one unit could load up an entire airborne unit, but now we are counting them individually in HOI IV. The only thing I can think of, is if they abstract each transport plane the same way they do with infantry weapons. Which is 1000 = enough for a division. So each transport plane would equal many more than they represent.

FYI...
I do not know how paradrops are organized in HOI4 (what ratio is being needed between Transport Planes and Para Bt), but the 101st and 82nd Airborne Divisions which dropped into Normandy were supported by the IX Troop Carrier Command, which needed to field some 1000 C-47 Transport and some 500 Gliders (Wacos and Horsas) in order to deploy both Divisions during a single drop. Both Divisions numbered some 24 combat Battalions and 18 support Battalions (counting the Airborne and Glider artillery as support units).

 

[EntropyAvatar]

I'm curious why they would have base IC of 5 per factory and starting max gearing of 50%. It would seem more natural to have both factories and shipyards be 2.5 IC per day, and starting max gearing of 100% (with shipyards always at 100%).

Also, since they are using real numbers anyway, just move both to one IC per day and scale the IC costs down proportionately. So instead of a battlecruiser being 10,000 IC and shipyards putting out 2.5 IC per day, just make a BC 4,000 shipyard-days.

 

[Devout]

Are you sure that the gearing bonus isn't 1.80? That would seem more intuitive, but I didn't watch the stream in exhaustive detail.

I agree it is more intuitive. That is exactly what I assumed at first. Typical Paradox games show these numbers in that way. But when I watched the videos, the numbers just didn't add up. So that started my quest to figure it out. You can check my equation against the videos (I double checked it on all 4 videos before posting).

I'm curious why they would have base IC of 5 per factory and starting max gearing of 50%. It would seem more natural to have both factories and shipyards be 2.5 IC per day, and starting max gearing of 100% (with shipyards always at 100%).

Also, since they are using real numbers anyway, just move both to one IC per day and scale the IC costs down proportionately. So instead of a battlecruiser being 10,000 IC and shipyards putting out 2.5 IC per day, just make a BC 4,000 shipyard-days.

I can't say I disagree with you, but I think it is just an outcome of the development process by Paradox. They probably started with a 10 IC max value for 100% gearing and 100% bonus. Then wanted to match the shipyards to the factories and used the factory starting position as baseline (50% gearing and 0 bonus). I think it makes sense to scale ships and shipyards by a factor of 10.

 

[Devout]

The resource situation is also very interesting in how it impacts production. Both Germany and Italy will need to get Tungston to support Medium Tanks. Germany is probably not that difficult as Sweden was showing 42 units (if my memory is correct). In addition, Norway has 12 units. So they can probably support a 30 factory line of medium tanks. Italy appears to be in a tough situation as they will need to go through Portugal for Tungston which is probably blocked by Gibralter. Turkey was not showing excessive Tungston (had lots of chromium). So Italy may be forced to rely on light tanks for armored units.

 

[Devout]

A quick look at cost (assumes 100% gear and 50% bonus for resource use). Resource listed as unit-days. First column is total IC (independent of production gearing and bonus). You can see the 1900 Tungston demand for the medium tanks is pretty significant. Likewise, you can see that the support companies add up and may not be the right selection for cheap infantry units (Germany was probably right to not add the signal company to infantry to save resources)

9x inf (inf weapons 2)= 675 450 st
9x mot (inf weapons 2)= 1125 450 st 75 oil 75 ru
9x Light tanks (60per) = 4860 1620 st 810 oil
9x Med Tanks (50 per) = 5400 1800 st 900 oil 1800 tu
art+ hosp+ rec+sign+eng = 689 217 st 12.5oil 16tu 12.5 ru 80 al

 

[EntropyAvatar]

3. Also forgot to mention that there is a tool tip saying that gearing rate does not increase without resources. So starting a 1936 fighter line at game start without rubber doesn't accomplish much. You not only produce little, you don't increase over time. So the challenge early game is figuring out how to use your civilian factories. Keep them producing factories or trade them for resources?

This seems like a very significant rule, and also a bit strange. So if I get my aircraft line running at full tilt, and then lose access to rubber, I can keep going for years at a moderate reduction to efficiency. If I lose access to rubber a few months earlier, the line will never be able to produce in significant quantities.

 

[Devout]

Some additional comments based on WWW #5
1. The equation on first post still holds true and matches production values seen in the video.
2. I think the concept of no gearing w/o resources is not correct. I am not sure if this was a change or just a misunderstanding on my part. Germany is not having any difficulty getting gearing bonus on planes with 0 rubber in the entire country. So I'm considering this concept dead.
3. If you look carefully, you will see that the picture of the Transport planes has 3 planes in the window instead of 1. Pretty clear that the 180 IC cost is for a group of transport planes, not a single plane.
4. Looks like they made some changes to airplane costs. A number of planes require more resources (added aluminum and added oil for some models). Looks like Fighters got a major change to stop spamming with a slight cost increase (22 vs 24) and added aluminum.
5. Tank Destroyers are looking as more expensive than base medium tanks. Cost is the same, but Tungston doubled from 2 to 4. Germany and Italy have Tungston shortage so this is a pretty significant difference that will most likely benefit the allies.

 

[EntropyAvatar]

Thanks again for your analysis!

I wonder if having the transports represent 3 planes is a way of making them even more vulnerable in the air. A fighter might not have time to shoot down 3 bombers, even if they have minimal defenses, but can take out one unit of transports with has the cost and carrying capacity of 3 transports. I think that would be fairly historical, as I remember reading accounts of horrific transport losses if the fighters got in among them.

 

[panzerzombie]

I hope this thread doesn´t fade into obscurity...its quite useful

 

[EntropyAvatar]

If we want to make sure it lives forever, we have to tie it into the counters debate somehow.