Pinned

Detailed Economy&Military Management Guide

27 Apr 2021, 13:36

Important

Not that important

(doesn't apply to the list of units)

Country management

Provinces

Your country is divided into provinces. All provinces produce money and manpower; provinces with a resource icon under their name also produce that resource. The provinces with an urban texture and their name highlighted on the map are cities (each playable country has 5 of them) and each city produces one of the 5 resources.

When clicking a province on PC a bar displays at the bottom with “Construction” and “Production” at the left side. On mobile, there is a circle around the selected province with a few icons, Construction and Production are there.

In Construction, you can build, upgrade and repair buildings; in Production, you can produce units. Only cities can produce units.

Economy

Growing your economy allows you to produce more units in the future. Every country starts with its core provinces which aren’t striped on the map and produce 4x more resources if owned by that country. It’s key to upgrade core provinces, therefore. To boost a resource, build and upgrade Industry/Local Industry in all your core provinces that produce that resource.

Leaving the industry at level 1 isn’t the worst idea. However, normally players will either invest in army a lot to take territory and gain resources to build industry later, or invest in industry early and limit the production of units. So, it’s not recommended to leave all the industry at lv1 for a longer time (better upgrade to lv2-3 and then invest in military, or go for the maximum level straight away).

Infrastructure does not boost resource production.

A core city with no Industry and 100% morale produces 6.000 of its resource per day. A core non-city (=rural) province with resource production only produces 1.500 of its resource per day.

Local Industry at level 3 increases the resource production by +200% and Industry lv5 by +100%. This means Industry lv5 in a 100% morale core city means an extra +6.000 resources per day;

Local Industry lv3 in a 100% morale core rural province is an extra +3.000 resources per day.

As Industry lv5 is 2x more expensive and long to build, Industry and Local Industry is about equally cost-effective. Normally, players build more Local Industry as their cities are busy with other construction. (Industry and Local Industry also boosts money at the same rate, but not manpower.)

All units in the game cost manpower. If you have a very good economic balance (produce the right units to make sure you don’t have tons of a resource and lack another) and/or boost economy the right way, you will be able to produce a lot of units, causing you to run out of manpower.

If you see your manpower is decreasing (like it goes from 20k to 15k in one day), you need to boost it. It’s important as manpower can only be bought for gold and all units need it.

Do that by building recruiting stations and upgrading them to level 3 in core provinces. Start with core cities (if they aren’t busy with other buildings) and core provinces that don’t produce a resource. The non-city provinces that don’t produce a resource produce 3x more manpower.

You gain the resources continuously in 1’s; day is just the rate.

The market is where all players can sell or buy resources or create their own trade offers. Most of the offers are usually made by AI players.

Morale

You can build propaganda offices in all core cities except the capital (which has +10 target morale already) to boost morale.

Occasionally build them in conquered cities if you need faster construction and production.

What propaganda offices do is increase target morale. Each province has its own target morale which depends on many influences:

How far it is from the capital, the size of your country, if you’re short of resources, bad morale neighbours, enemy neighbours or enemy armies on the territory (negative);

If there is a propaganda office (and at what level), if it’s the country’s capital, good morale neighbours (positive).

The factors have values like -5 and those are added and subtracted from 102 to make the target morale. So, if the influences are +12 for good morale neighbours, +10 for a lv1 propaganda office and -2 for Expansion (the size of your country), the target morale of the province will be 122.

Every daychange, the morale of the province rises towards its target morale by about 22% (in my tests it always is 20%-25%).

Lower morale in a province causes slower construction and production, lower resource production and if it’s under 31%, also a revolt chance.

Daychange happens in 24-hour intervals at the time the game started.

Revolts

If a province has less than 31% morale, it has a chance to revoltat daychange; the lower the morale, the higher the chance. If the owner has an army in the central point of the province, the chance of a successful revolt is decreased (and, if the army is strong enough, eliminated). If there is no army and the revolt happens it will always be successful.

A successful revolt shifts the province to another country. It may be the country it was taken from (if the province was recently conquered), or a country that has high individual popularity with the owner – so the owner’s allies usually. (High individual popularity means the owner has good relations and shares the same allies or enemies with that country, or trades with them often).

If the revolt is not successful, it may damage the army in the province centre, the buildings or morale, but won’t shift the province. If there is an army in the centre and the revolt is still successful, the army gets destroyed or shifted to the target country with the province.

Provinces you capture from other nations always have 25% morale. If a province has X% morale in your hands and gets conquered it will also be at 25% morale, but will return to a bit under X% when you recapture it. The buildings are also damaged whenever the province is captured, and the size of the conqueror’s army does not matter.

Provinces with a chance of a successful revolt flash red on the map.

A good way to get rid of revolts is attack just after daychange and take all provinces till next daychange. The opponent’s capital has to be the last province you take; if you capture a capital all your provinces receive +10% morale, so all your provinces at 25% will go to 35% and won’t have a revolt chance anymore.

As the morale of provinces rises/falls towards target morale at daychange, the provinces that didn’t revolt the first time after being captured won’t usually still be under 31% morale. However, there is a chance for 31%-35% morale provinces to lose morale at daychange, and then they can revolt again later. That can be sometimes annoying but isn’t a big issue.

Propaganda offices shouldn’t have any effect on revolts, except that if the province does not revolt first daychange it will gain more morale. However, I’ve heard propaganda offices now decrease revolt chances.

As the provinces you conquer are non-core anyway and propaganda offices cost a considerable amount of food and goods (goods are important for artillery and bombers, food sells well at the market), I only recommend building propaganda offices in the core cities and occasionally core non-city provinces with resource production (if they already have local industry lv3 and you have enough food and goods, or you lack oil and metal for industry).

Building propaganda offices in non-core territory is highly unrecommended.

This does not include building propaganda offices in captured cities to boost the morale and fasten the unit production, or building economy in lategame (sometimes it makes sense, especially as small countries in the All-in event).

Diplomacy

On PC, there is a flag at the top left and a row of 4 icons under it. The 2nd from the left in the row is Diplomacy. The list of countries is there.

For each country there is a player icon on the right. A black player icon with a green dot is an active player; active players

become inactive and get replaced by AI when they’re gone the third daychange (if the minimum activity period is 2 days as usual).

A black player icon with a red dot is an inactive player; a white icon means an AI by default or a not yet picked country.

On mobile, Diplomacy is at the lower left and a green dot on the flag means an active player, red dot an inactive player or AI by default.

If you have above 10k manpower, you're not investing properly. A good player never has many resources.
Larger armies destroy enemies faster without taking damage from them.
Build only: 1 military building in each city, airstrips, and recruiting stations to boost manpower.
Minimize research, 2 unit types early, 6 types in late game. Upgrade old units, but: artillery lv1 to lv2 is a waste, only lv1 to lv4 is worth it.
Enjoy
Hornetkeeper

3 Replies

27 Apr 2021, 13:40 (edited)

You can change relations with the other countries in Diplomacy. War is embargo and your units fight the enemy automatically; trade embargo is peace, but you cannot trade at the market; peace is the standard neutral relation. By giving Right of Way to someone you allow them to pass your country without triggering war; Share Map is the same but you also share your map with them. Shared Intelligence also shares the reveals of your spies and planes.

Players can form coalitions – teams of countries. If you’re part of a coalition,you cannot have good relations with members of other coalitions and cannot join another coalition for 3 days after leaving (1 day if you got kicked).

If your coalition owns 65% or more of the cities at daychange, you win as a coalition. (you need 45% and not to be in a coalition for solo).

Your popularity affects how AI countries behave to you. Bad popularity causes a lot of AI players to embargo you or even attack you. As AI make the most market offers, your market offers may become terrible.

To boost popularity set share map with all AI by default at the start.

You can also set Share Map with inactive players. Check the newspaper day after day and search for the name of their country. If they declared war on a lot of nations, or – even worse – attacked them without warning, don’t set the share map.

Before attacking, always set War with that country in Diplomacy first. It’s still a surprise if you set it a while before attack.

It’s not good to attack too many small bots. It can be a good kickstarter for new players, but don’t rely on it greatly. Inactive players have more territory and cost less popularity to attack.

Military management

Producing units

In Research units are divided in sections according to the building they require to be produced.

All units in the Infantry section in Research require a Barracks; Ordnance requires an ordnance foundry, tanks tank plant, planes aircraft factory, ships naval base, secret weapons secret lab. Those buildings are called production buildings or factories.

Units can only be produced in cities.

Every unit has its “base” production time and its minimum production time. The base production time is how long the unit takes to produce in a 100% morale city with a lv1 production building. The unit cannot be produced under its minimum production time.

Level 1 units are usually produced at their minimum production time even with a lv1 factory. Units that are researchable later or higher level usually don’t have the same base and minimum production time, though. Instead, the minimum is 2x, 4x, 8x or 16x smaller than the base. As each level of a factory doubles the production speed, a certain level of the factory always perfectly matches with the minimum production time of the unit. For example a lv4 factory works 8x faster than lv1, so any unit that has the minimum 8x smaller than the base will be produced at its minimum production time in a lv4 factory.

So, remember to upgrade your factories as you research more advanced units. I’ve seen many players lose because of not knowing this and having to deal with 6 day production times.

When you research the higher levels you have to upgrade the units.

The upgrade cost is half the production cost of the target level, the upgrade time is half the minimum production time of the target level.This means upgrading across multiple levels (like lv1 to lv4) is more effective.

Managing units

There are 3 types of units – ranged, close combat and planes.

Ranged units have a circle around them andcan attack targets within that circlewithout receiving damage. However, if the target is 5km or closer, the target will defend against the ranged attack using its defensive values and the ranged unit will engage in close combat.

Close combat units don’t have a circle around them and can only attack at the distance of 5km (1/10 Artillery range). They can’t attack without receiving defensive damage from the target and cannot retreat once engaged in a fight.

Planes have a range, but they are rather close combat units. They cannot deal damage to their target without receiving the defensive damage back. However, they have a large range and aren’t locked in the fight (unless they’re attacked in close combat on the ground). You can direct attack or patrol with planes. Direct attack means your plane flies to the target, hits and then returns to the airport to refuel (cannot change orders while returning and refuelling). Patrol deals and receives 1/2 damage from all enemy units within the blue circle every 15 minutes and saves the units within view as intelligence reveals.

Always withdraw planes when going away for a longer time. Upgrade forward airports to make sniping them harder.

In close combat, stacking units is an advantage. Two tanks in a single army can survive 2x longer than a single tank and have 2x more damage. Dealing 2x more damage per hit and having 2x more time to hit means they are 4x stronger than a single tank. However, as damaged units have reduced damage, the tanks will get damaged as they defeat enemies and won’t actually defeat 4 single tanks. Stacking units is still a large advantage, though.

An army moves at the speed of its slowest unit.

In close combat, you cannot attack with multiple stacks without increasing the damage you receive – armies just defend whenever they’re attacked from 5km or less.

If 2 armies attack one the one defends against both of them, sosplitting your close combat army into X groups makes your units receive X times more damage.

However, if you split your army into stacks of 10 or more units, you’re basically speeding up the fight. Splitting 20 tanks into two groups of 10 doubles their damage, but also doubles the damage they receive from the target.

Planes cannot be attacked by land or naval units while in the air (can only receive damage from them defensively), sothey can choose the smallest army to attack. As having a stronger army makes you so much more effective, a group of enemy bombers will be devastating to anyone who has his military spread out in single units or small armies.

Tactical bombers are best against infantry, attack against tanks, strategic against buildings and naval against planes.

In ranged combat (with Artillery), same applies, except keeping the Arty stacked is not as important (even though it’s still better, you prevent the enemy from focusing the Arties down).

It’s important to learn how the research stats work. Once you do, you can tell the role of a unit without even trying it out.

Any nation that you have peace with is neutral.

If any of your units passes a centre of a neutral province, it will trigger war inevitably.

An exception is if another neutral nation has its units there but the owner hasn’t, in which case your units will just pass.

This also applies to stealth units like commandos. You just can’t sneak into enemy or neutral territory with stealth units. They are hidden, but they cannot pass an empty neutral province centre or a neutral unit on its own territory without fighting.

If there is no scout unit able to reveal the stealth unit in a plane army, the plane army cannot damage the stealth unit with patrol, even if the stealth is visible (revealed by other units).

Sabotage

Especially for active players, it’s very beneficial to find a way to mess up the enemy’s plans – destroy the buildings he’s using to produce, his economy, or make him into retreating to deal with your annoying forward units, so you can comfortably take the land on the front.

27 Apr 2021, 13:44 (edited)

Spies is what we probably think of as “sabotage”. Spies can be assigned to one of the tasks in a province:

Economic Sabotage – destroys morale, prop offices/recruiting stations/industry and steals resources.

Military Sabotage – destroys all other buildings and if there are no buildings it’s likely to reveal all the country’s armies.

Intelligence – reveals nearby armies, buildings, resources, diplomatic relations, market trades, spy positions and messages.

Counter-Espionage: only available in own provinces. Reveals and catches foreign spies; may, but may not identify what country they belong to.

A spy has a chance of about 50% to succeed at daychange and do a bit of the job it’s been assigned to.

Success rates don’t stack, 3 spies just don’t have a 150% success rate.

Spies also take their daily upkeep at daychange, unlike units, whose upkeep is just subtracted from your resource income.

The second form of “messing up plans” is strategic warfare, which is a very good option if you’re active (able to check in most of the day at least every 30 minutes). Motorized infantry and armoured cars are the best for raiding. You sneak a stack of 10+ high level raiding units behind the enemy lines. Then you pick off enemy reinforcements. If you had a few spies on Intelligence in a city, they probably revealed all the buildings. So, you find out where the enemy has the most important buildings (high level factories and the core territory) and then go there to capture them. Let the enemy recapture and capture it again – the more times you do it, the more the buildings and morale will be damaged. If the enemy sends his army home to deal with you, continue raiding, but don’t die – you’re getting time to advance on the front.

Courageous and risky strat below (usually works against players using rocket fighters). Don't try at home.

Paratroopers are a plane that turns into an infantry unit when it attacks. Attack a province centre to turn the plane into infantry paratroopers there – they will have to mobilize for 12 hours, but will instantly take the province if it’s unprotected.

Rocket fighters only have 300km range. If your enemy uses high level airports to transfer them (Intelligence spies will tell) you can use paratroops. Drop one on the nearest enemy airport, land the others, then split out another one to drop on the next airport and the others will land on it again. And so on.

You’ve hopefully prepared a lot of strategic bombers. You send them to the most forward airport you stole and destroy all the important buildings.

Strategic bombers are a great weapon for destroying enemy buildings. You need to direct attack the province centre to deal damage. As strategic bombers are high health they can resist quite a lot of damage, but still better to first use a few to destroy airports.

If the enemy direct attacks you with planes, wait for them to refuel and then attack the airport.

If the airport is lv1 but there are many buildings in the province, use multiple small groups of strategic bombers; if it’s high level but 'the only building, use them all together. If you take down the airport all the planes will turn into trucks which prevents them from doing any harm.

However, if you destroy the airport while the planes are on patrol or heading to attack, and there is an airport within x km of the current position of the planes (where x is their range), they will just shift to that airport (if it’s friendly for them).

Doctrines

Each country in the game has one of the four doctrines (Comintern, Axis, Allies, Pan-Asian). Each doctrine has overall bonuses and also many bonuses for certain units. The doctrine is default and cannot be changed.

The doctrines will be mentioned in the unit list below.

Unit List

Militia

Slow infantry unit. Fast and cheap to produce, can be used as “surprise defence”; best defending against infantry, vulnerable to tactical bombers. Better in mountains; hidden on all terrain except plains. Better terrain bonuses as Comintern.

Infantry

Versatile unit, best in cities. Used for early game attacks, but is best for defence against infantry units. Decent defensive damage against planes and does pretty well against light tanks. Cheaper as Comintern, larger terrain bonus as Pan Asian.

Motorized Infantry

Fastest land unit in the game; very high view range and large offensive value against other infantry. Somewhat vulnerable to tanks and armoured cars but still can take them out with numbers advantage. Have to take out airports to avoid tactical bombers. Best at raiding, scouting and destroying reinforcements. Reveals hidden land units of the same or lower level. Decent defensive damage against planes. Stronger and faster as Axis.

Mechanized Infantry

Slower, stronger and more expensive than motorized infantry. Doesn’t have a large view range. Best at breaking through blockades of infantry or rocket artillery or accompanying tanks, but very vulnerable to tanks and somewhat to bombers.

Paratroopers

The plane turns into the paratroopers when it attacks, but they have to mobilize for multiple hours. If dropped at a province centre they instantly take the province. Can be used to jump behind a very stable front of slow units. Paratroopers are a strong infantry unit, but very vulnerable to mech infantry and tactical bombers. Hidden in forests. Paratrooper planes can’t use aircraft carriers.

Commandos

Strong infantry unit. Hidden on all terrain. Especially good against tank destroyers and heavy tanks and on mountains, but vulnerable to tactical bombers and mot or mech infantry. Also good for destroying railroadgun stacks. Stronger as Allies.

Artillery

Strong unit used to fire from behind other units. If the players are using 10-stacks, the artillery can change a lot by increasing the damage. It’s also not affected by close combat fights - stays at full health - so its damage output gets more important over time. Useful for forcing the opponent into attacking if you’re both using defensive units.

Very vulnerable to fast units and tactical bombers if it doesn’t have good protection. Good at destroying tanks (especially heavy as it can hit and run away). Cheaper and better against infantry as Pan Asian, cheaper as Comintern.

SP Artillery

Way longer to build and more expensive than regular artillery. Faster and stronger on plains, better lategame. Vulnerable to bombers, hidden commandos and very fast units (mot infantry especially). Stronger as Allies.

Anti Tank

Slow and cheap infantry unit. Best defensively against heavy tanks and tank destroyers; hidden in forests and cities. Stronger as Comintern.

Anti Air

Slow and cheap infantry unit. Very high defensive damage against planes. Cannot attack planes in the air (can only deal damage to them defensively). Stronger as Axis; strong against tank destroyers, defensively not bad against heavy tanks.

SP Anti Air

Similar to Anti Air but faster and more versatile. Not bad against armoured cars, especially defensively.

Armoured Car

2nd fastest land unit in the game; very high view range. Less vulnerable to bombers, but more to tanks than mot infantry; better defensively and against infantry. Good for arriving to hold important provinces before the main army can arrive to defend, also good for raiding. Reveals hidden land units of the same or lower level. Stronger as Pan-Asian.

Light Tank

Fast with decent offensive value and average view range. Good for breaking through weak spots in the enemy defence (possibly to open the way for armoured cars). Decent at chasing down fast units. Vulnerable to other tanks and anti tanks. Stronger as Pan-Asian.

Medium Tank

Fast with large offensive value. Best at breaking through enemy lines but vulnerable to tank destroyers, heavy tanks, commandos and attack bombers. Stronger as Axis.

Heavy Tank

Slow but strong. Good at holding positions and destroying close combat unit stacks (put railroadguns behind and escort with anti air). Vulnerable to artillery, attack bombers and anti tanks; HT reinforcements are easy to pick off. Stronger as Comintern.

Tank Destroyer

Good at defending against tanks and light armour units. Vulnerable to attack bombers and infantry, especially bad against commandos and anti-tanks. Hidden in forests. Faster and cheaper as Allies.

Truck Convoy

Slow light armour unit; very vulnerable with almost no damage and 10 hp. Used to transport planes when they cannot move to the asssigned location using airports. Refuelling planes also count as truck convoys.

27 Apr 2021, 13:48

Interceptor

Cheap plane with decent range and high damage against other planes; poor against other units. Used to scout and attack other planes. Not as cost effective as rocket fighters (unless rare materials is the concern) but has a larger range, making it easier to use on unstable fronts. Reveals hidden land units of the same or lower level. Stronger and longer ranged as Pan-Asian.

Tactical Bomber

Wide ranged, used to destroy infantry units. Good at sniping small armies before they merge into larger ones. Vulnerable to interceptors and not good against anti air, especially not SP.

Stronger vs. light armour and longer ranged as Allies.

Attack Bomber

Faster with less range than tactical bombers. Used to destroy armoured targets; not good against infantry, especially if not having the numbers advantage. Stronger as Axis.

Strategic Bomber

Very long range and high health, but poor against enemy units. Used to destroy buildings (important factories, economy or airports). Stronger, longer ranged as Allies. Can’t use aircraft carriers.

Naval Bomber

Used to destroy ships; best against destroyers and submarines, good against battleships, but bad against cruisers. Excels at defending large shorelines as it can arrive anywhere quickly to defend. Reveals submarines of the same or lower level. Stronger as Pan-Asian.

Submarine

Fast naval stealth unit. Used to sink transport ships or battleships/carriers. Somewhat vulnerable to destroyers, very vulnerable to naval bombers. Also used to secretly track movements of coastal or island countries. Stronger as Axis.

Destroyer

Fastest naval unit. Used to find and destroy submarines, but is close combat, so cannot avoid receiving damage back. Occasionally used to raid transport ships or scout ahead of the main fleet. Stronger vs. submarines and faster as Allies.

Cruiser

About as fast as a submarine. Strong ranged ship; used to raid transport ships and sometimes replaces battleships (10 cruiser + 1 destroyer in hands of an active player is very hard to beat). Cheaper and faster than a battleship, high damage against planes and decent against submarines. Can be outranged by a battleship and destroyed while the owner isn’t online. Stronger as Comintern.

Battleship

Slow, expensive ship with large range and firepower. Good at bombarding shorelines and destroying large fleets, but very vulnerable to submarines and somewhat to naval bombers. Stronger as Pan-Asian.

Aircraft Carrier

Slow ship with large hitpoints but poor damage. Used to allow planes to operate where they cannot use normal airports. With naval bombers on board cruisers or battleships are the biggest worry.

Transport Ship

Vulnerable to other navy; independent on what it’s transporting. Higher levels increase speed, health and damage.

Rocket Artillery

Similar to Artillery, but costs rare materials and is better against infantry, worse against tanks. Often used as Comintern as it’s available at day 1 for them.

SP Rocket Artillery

Equivalent of SP Artillery. Costs rare materials, better against infantry, worse against tanks. Faster and stronger as Comintern.

Railroadgun

Very slow and expensive artillery unit. Has twice the range of other artillery and large firepower; is heavy armour class. Used to hold important positions and destroy large armies, but very vulnerable to attack bombers (needs anti air escort). Better escorted by many other units to absorb the damage. Needs a scout unit to prevent surprise commando attacks.

Flying Bomb

Joke secret weapon. Can be dangerous when massed, but is only cost-effective at destroying enemy economy or factories early game. Has to move between airports on truck, making it very vulnerable; receives defensive damage from the target before dealing its own, so it can die to the defence of its target and do no damage. Can be shot down by planes. If the target moves 5km away after the bomb’s been launched, it’ll miss. Stronger as Pan-Asian; can’t use carriers.

Rocket

Stronger, more effective than a flying bomb. Doesn’t receive defensive damage before dealing its own; can’t be shot down by planes once launched. Can miss and moves on truck. Very good for destroying fortified positions defended by Anti Air, sniping airports to disable planes, destroying factories and economy in core cities. Stronger as Axis; can’t use carriers.

Rocket Fighter

Short-ranged plane with very high damage against other planes. Costs a lot of rare materials. Difficult to use on unstable fronts due to the short range; doesn’t reveal hidden units and can’t use carriers. Stronger as Axis.

Nuclear Bomber

Very expensive plane with enormous damage; suicide weapon. Receives defensive damage from the target before dealing its own, making it ineffective against large stacks (can die to the damage f the target and deal no damage). Can be shot down by other planes.Due to the enormous research costs nuclear bombers are rarely worth it.

Nuclear Rocket

A rocket with enormous damage. Can’t be shot down once launched, not even by the defensive damage of its target. Requires thinking 3 times before clicking; effective vs. huge stacks but extremely expensive and long to get to.

Hope you liked the guide It was supposed to be 3 threads 9k characters each, but as it kept telling me it's over 10k characters, I gave up on that.

3 Replies

Post a Reply