what am i doing wrong / what should i do next?

[misterprimus]

Just wondering if someone can take a look at my game and tell me what I'm doing wrong. I've been playing for a few weeks and feel like I have a general hang of the game (though nowhere near mastering it), but I still feel there's one or two things I'm doing wrong that I just don't see due to lack of experience with this. Can someone take a look and let me know what I can improve/change?

https://filebin.ca/5xSpyYMTPpJO/a11.se1

[varangy]

Disclaimer: I only have 80 played hours with this game

After having a quick look, a few things I have noticed (not an exhaustive list, as I had just a few minutes):

- delete excessive roads / road connections as the more Road and Rail branchings you’ll have the more your Logistical Points will be dispersed.
there is even a penalty: If your Logistical Points get split over multiple (Rail)roads that will count as a Branching. After 4 Branchings your Logistical Points will suffer increasingly stiff penalties when they get branched
again.

- You only need a railhead at the end of a rail line. Units will pull logistics from the rail itself then.

- Use OHQs as these will add a combat bonus, currently you are only using independent units. Independent formations don't get the bonus from an OHQ. Only use these if you didn't develop a formation for it.

- Indrus zone: is too small. Increase the size of the zone with the zoning tool. Now all your territory belongs to Cambridge zone, and it is too large for the city to handle, so it suffers a 49% admin strain which is huge. if
you have Rural Assets further away than 6 Hexes from the Zone’s City they will start to give your Zone problems in the form of Administrative Strain. the farther, the worse.

[GuardsmanGary]

Well, let's start with the things that are alright. Your leaders are all more or less well suited for their positions. Some low capability ones here and there but we're not always lucky with getting those cap 4's when we need them. You're not in any disastrous wars so there's time to fix things as well.

Now for the things that need improvement.
It's turn 173 yet your empire is significantly lacking development. Your resourcing infrastructure and BP production is pretty much non-existent, which probably explains the slow progress. None of this is helped by the completely overstretched population with your capital having roughly 290,000 public and private jobs but a population of only 206,000. A big cause of this is the sheer amount of domed farms you've built (or nationalized?), which are incredibly worker intensive. Switching over to hydroponic food factories will eliminate a ton of jobs while producing more food. You could also make use of the slave trader in cambridge to buy population for the city, just call up the governor and select the option from the list.

Another big factor contributing to the lack of development is your logistics network. It's barely functional, stretched over far too much territory, with too many junctions and no traffic sign management at all. Your metal mines aren't producing anything because they can't get any logistics points to them. The far flung truck stations, supply bases, and railheads is causing significant administrative strain in your capital, nearing 50%. Administrative strain is caused by having assets in a zone further than 6 hexes away from the city hex, with each 10% of administrative strain reducing the output of all of your public assets in that zone by 10%. Creating new zones at the far flung edges of your empire will take the strain off your capital zone. Adjusting the borders of your other zones will also help, especially in the far north-east where your third zone only has 2 hexes.

Your treasury and cash flow is not looking too good either with expenses twice that of revenue, mostly due to the fact that your other zones are unincorporated and not being taxed. I cna see in the decision archive your people have been asking for lower taxes, and at 75% sales tax it's not wonder why. I suspect it was raised that high to try and get whatever money you could, if the bottom of the barrel sell prices for food, metal, rare metal and radioactives in the traders is anything to go by.

Your military and airforce research councils were both researching lightweight alloys, a linear tech at 97% progress, meaning they were making absolutely no progress. Linear techs cost progressively more research points the closer they are to completion, but they provide an immediate benefit for every percent of progress. Leaving your councils on linear techs for too long just has them spinning their wheels. Given that your current airforce research council director was appointed on turn 103 means your military research council hasn't had its research changed for at least 70 turns. You've got a lot of techs with drips and drabs of progress that is most likely from your research sharing agreements with the Sizza Republic which points even more to the fact that you have not been keeping up with your research councils tasks.

It doesn't look like your model design council has been doing anything either; it's got 14,000 BP stockpiled into discovery and you've only got 2 iterations of your starting infantry and machine gun models and a handful of others. Your medium and heavy armour designs are also very poorly designed with your heavy and medium tanks and tank destroyer being outright immobile due to their pathetically weak light diesel engines. You've got a high velocity gun on your assault gun model which you should really never do as assault guns get a -50% penalty to their hard attack. Howitzers are much better suited for them. Similarly your light tank is also fitted with a high velocity gun when they lack the caliber to offer sufficient penetration to deal with enemy armour. They too benefit the most from being equipped with howitzers.

Your military consists almost entirely of independent MG regiments. you would have a much more robust and functional military if you instead raised OHQ brigades. You can adjust the size of the formation and whether it is independent or part of an OHQ when you raise it. MG battalions are recommended early on because they are cheap, quick to produce, and durable for their role, but raising entire regiments and building your military out of nothing but them. Regiments/corps are very manpower intensive and are really not even necessary in most situations. Your units on the far edges are also starving to death from lack of supply due to the terrible logistics situation, and I see you're lacking replacements pretty much everywhere. You need to build replacement sub-units in the SHQ for them to be sent out to units requesting them.

I've made adjustments to your national budget and council priorities, set your research councils on a better path, and fixed up your logistics and worker shortages as best I could. I also diplomatically annexed the farmer minor and established a non-aggression pact with Sizza just in case. Your goal should probably be to build up your military to face off against Primafel. I've boosted their relations somewhat but they're still hostile. Make sure to keep checking your research councils to see if they aren't stuck researching a linear tech, as well. I've upgraded your infantry to heavy combat armour and gauss rifles but I'd build up your power infrastructure and switch over to laser rifles sooner rather than later. Also, when you go for another design pass on your tanks try to keep the engine power close to the total weight, there will be a tooltip that tells you the weight of the vehicle when you're selecting parts. You also had a mainframe AI in your capital that I've been getting free discoveries from, but it's reached the point now where talking to it might become a risk.

Here;s the save, turn 180: https://filebin.ca/5xTtiYllB1PC/a11.se1

[zgrssd]

As Logistics seems to be a rather large issue - I wrote a guide on the mater and I think it might help you here:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/ ... 2308877114

[misterprimus]

I thought I'd consolidate my reply so that I can keep my questions together (follow-ups based on the comments).

ORIGINAL: varangy

Disclaimer: I only have 80 played hours with this game

After having a quick look, a few things I have noticed (not an exhaustive list, as I had just a few minutes):

- delete excessive roads / road connections as the more Road and Rail branchings you’ll have the more your Logistical Points will be dispersed.
there is even a penalty: If your Logistical Points get split over multiple (Rail)roads that will count as a Branching. After 4 Branchings your Logistical Points will suffer increasingly stiff penalties when they get branched
again.

- You only need a railhead at the end of a rail line. Units will pull logistics from the rail itself then.

- Use OHQs as these will add a combat bonus, currently you are only using independent units. Independent formations don't get the bonus from an OHQ. Only use these if you didn't develop a formation for it.

- Indrus zone: is too small. Increase the size of the zone with the zoning tool. Now all your territory belongs to Cambridge zone, and it is too large for the city to handle, so it suffers a 49% admin strain which is huge. if
you have Rural Assets further away than 6 Hexes from the Zone’s City they will start to give your Zone problems in the form of Administrative Strain. the farther, the worse.

1. I had no idea about more roads/rail being bad. I thought it could only help (or at least not hurt). So what is the ideal logistics system? Do I just need to make sure there are no redundancies in my roads? So for instance, if I have two parallel roads going to the same location (perhaps because during a war with an independent, a roadway was cut off and I ended up building a now redundant one to bail out those out of supply troops), I need to make sure I delete it after the war is over and the supply issue is gone? I guess I also need to make sure that after sufficient branchings, that I build a new truck station / rail station?

2. You mean there's one in Indrus and later one at a supply depot? That's because I conquered Indurs first, build the railhead before expanding further, then build one at the end of my expansion. Are you saying that's hurting my efficiency? I was thinking of leaving it in case the furthest one gets cut off. Then at least my supply line from the capital to Indrus still works instead of the entire rail line breaking down. Am I misunderstanding the rail system?

3. So basically I should divide my territory roughly equally (distance-wise) and consider building a new town if I have assets more than 6 hexes away from any town I already have? Is there a rule of thumb anyone follows as to when to create a new town for these purposes?

ORIGINAL: GuardsmanGary

Well, let's start with the things that are alright. Your leaders are all more or less well suited for their positions. Some low capability ones here and there but we're not always lucky with getting those cap 4's when we need them. You're not in any disastrous wars so there's time to fix things as well.

Now for the things that need improvement.
It's turn 173 yet your empire is significantly lacking development. Your resourcing infrastructure and BP production is pretty much non-existent, which probably explains the slow progress. None of this is helped by the completely overstretched population with your capital having roughly 290,000 public and private jobs but a population of only 206,000. A big cause of this is the sheer amount of domed farms you've built (or nationalized?), which are incredibly worker intensive. Switching over to hydroponic food factories will eliminate a ton of jobs while producing more food. You could also make use of the slave trader in cambridge to buy population for the city, just call up the governor and select the option from the list.

1. Correct, I built them when I was running out of food (in the red). I should mention re: BP that I am playing with slow research speed. I'm not sure why else it would be slow. Most of my Bureau offices are maxed out as it is. I've also only recently gotten the advanced farms (due to slow research speed settings). Is the game not optimized for anything but the default research speed?

Another big factor contributing to the lack of development is your logistics network. It's barely functional, stretched over far too much territory, with too many junctions and no traffic sign management at all. Your metal mines aren't producing anything because they can't get any logistics points to them. The far flung truck stations, supply bases, and railheads is causing significant administrative strain in your capital, nearing 50%. Administrative strain is caused by having assets in a zone further than 6 hexes away from the city hex, with each 10% of administrative strain reducing the output of all of your public assets in that zone by 10%. Creating new zones at the far flung edges of your empire will take the strain off your capital zone. Adjusting the borders of your other zones will also help, especially in the far north-east where your third zone only has 2 hexes.

The 6-hex admin penalty aside, how far apart should towns be for logistics purposes? 15 hexes apart with each town having a rail station and truck station?

Your treasury and cash flow is not looking too good either with expenses twice that of revenue, mostly due to the fact that your other zones are unincorporated and not being taxed. I cna see in the decision archive your people have been asking for lower taxes, and at 75% sales tax it's not wonder why. I suspect it was raised that high to try and get whatever money you could, if the bottom of the barrel sell prices for food, metal, rare metal and radioactives in the traders is anything to go by.

Yes, I raised it after having cash flow troubles. What do you mean by zones being "unincorporated?" How do I incorporate zones? Also, what's a good tax rate and what are the downsides of high taxes besides occasional unrest events?

Your military and airforce research councils were both researching lightweight alloys, a linear tech at 97% progress, meaning they were making absolutely no progress. Linear techs cost progressively more research points the closer they are to completion, but they provide an immediate benefit for every percent of progress. Leaving your councils on linear techs for too long just has them spinning their wheels. Given that your current airforce research council director was appointed on turn 103 means your military research council hasn't had its research changed for at least 70 turns. You've got a lot of techs with drips and drabs of progress that is most likely from your research sharing agreements with the Sizza Republic which points even more to the fact that you have not been keeping up with your research councils tasks.

Which councils research linear techs? I want to make a list so I can check them every few turns to avoid this in the future.

It doesn't look like your model design council has been doing anything either; it's got 14,000 BP stockpiled into discovery and you've only got 2 iterations of your starting infantry and machine gun models and a handful of others. Your medium and heavy armour designs are also very poorly designed with your heavy and medium tanks and tank destroyer being outright immobile due to their pathetically weak light diesel engines. You've got a high velocity gun on your assault gun model which you should really never do as assault guns get a -50% penalty to their hard attack. Howitzers are much better suited for them. Similarly your light tank is also fitted with a high velocity gun when they lack the caliber to offer sufficient penetration to deal with enemy armour. They too benefit the most from being equipped with howitzers.

I see. I thought lower, to the right meant "better." The engines I picked were small because I wanted to save on gas. Wanted the heavy tanks only for breakthroughs, not encirclements.

Your military consists almost entirely of independent MG regiments. you would have a much more robust and functional military if you instead raised OHQ brigades. You can adjust the size of the formation and whether it is independent or part of an OHQ when you raise it. MG battalions are recommended early on because they are cheap, quick to produce, and durable for their role, but raising entire regiments and building your military out of nothing but them. Regiments/corps are very manpower intensive and are really not even necessary in most situations. Your units on the far edges are also starving to death from lack of supply due to the terrible logistics situation, and I see you're lacking replacements pretty much everywhere. You need to build replacement sub-units in the SHQ for them to be sent out to units requesting them.

Could you elaborate on this? So I have the main strategic HQ and then the operational HQs under it (though I have none of the latter). Is there a way to convert existing brigades to larger unit size?

The reason I was going for the brigades is because I needed lots of individual units to expand outwards early on. And then I just kept them from that point forward.

I've made adjustments to your national budget and council priorities, set your research councils on a better path, and fixed up your logistics and worker shortages as best I could. I also diplomatically annexed the farmer minor and established a non-aggression pact with Sizza just in case. Your goal should probably be to build up your military to face off against Primafel. I've boosted their relations somewhat but they're still hostile. Make sure to keep checking your research councils to see if they aren't stuck researching a linear tech, as well. I've upgraded your infantry to heavy combat armour and gauss rifles but I'd build up your power infrastructure and switch over to laser rifles sooner rather than later. Also, when you go for another design pass on your tanks try to keep the engine power close to the total weight, there will be a tooltip that tells you the weight of the vehicle when you're selecting parts. You also had a mainframe AI in your capital that I've been getting free discoveries from, but it's reached the point now where talking to it might become a risk.

Here;s the save, turn 180: https://filebin.ca/5xTtiYllB1PC/a11.se1

You got to gauss rifles in just 7 turns? What did you do?

[zgrssd]

Also gathering the answers in one place

1. I had no idea about more roads/rail being bad. I thought it could only help (or at least not hurt). So what is the ideal logistics system?

Splits are bad. However they only apply if >2 direcitons actually have Logistics on them. A unused or blocked fork does nothing.
However it is also the number of Hexes with Forks that count, not the actual Forks. I always contain my splits in the road to the hexes where the is already a logistics asset (including a city).

2. You mean there's one in Indrus and later one at a supply depot? That's because I conquered Indurs first, build the railhead before expanding further, then build one at the end of my expansion. Are you saying that's hurting my efficiency?

For roads or rails with heavy traffic (like a main supply aorta), you want actuall logistics producers on both ends/every stop.
The refocussing rule can cost you a lot of capacity, even if all it hit was a railhead.

3. So basically I should divide my territory roughly equally (distance-wise) and consider building a new town if I have assets more than 6 hexes away from any town I already have?

All assets greater then 6 Hexes away from a city, cause admin strain.
The values depends on the distance and the summed level of outside vs insisde range assets.

Generally you want to found cities where there are lgostics assets or vice versa, ideally also covering (future) Hex assets. Consider placing a two 2 Logistics Stops over - the one in the middle will not cause a lot of strain to either of the cities, compared ot all the further away stuff.
I also heard that if you settle directly on a Free Folk Town, you automatically retreive all the population of the town - but I never got to test it yet.

1. Correct, I built them when I was running out of food (in the red).

You generally want to try to come out with the Free Food you got from Private Food assets.
They cost you no upkeep, need to be around to feed population anyway and can feed okay amounts of workers.
But failing that, it is cheaper to transport water rather then food to a city - just be aware that Farms cost a lot of workers, so you might be spending a lot more food and money on workers. And any excess has to be brought back to the SHQ.

The 6-hex admin penalty aside, how far apart should towns be for logistics purposes? 15 hexes apart with each town having a rail station and truck station?

You want to have a new Logistics aseet, just before your existing lines run out of AP. That way the full capacity is refocussed.
And where you place the logistics assets, is where your cities should go and vice versa.

Yes, I raised it after having cash flow troubles. What do you mean by zones being "unincorporated?" How do I incorporate zones? Also, what's a good tax rate and what are the downsides of high taxes besides occasional unrest events?

Unincorporated means Zones do not pay any Tax - not even production of Public Resources from Private assets - with the sole exception fo Service Tax.
The advantage is that Loyalty and Happiness go up quickly, so it is a nessesity after conquering a city or severe Happiness issues.
You change it with the Governor -> Zone Orders -> lower right corner

Which councils research linear techs? I want to make a list so I can check them every few turns to avoid this in the future.

The Applied Science council is exclusively Linear techs. But all others can have some as well. They really need a better indicaiton.

I see. I thought lower, to the right meant "better." The engines I picked were small because I wanted to save on gas. Wanted the heavy tanks only for breakthroughs, not encirclements.

We just last week figured out the fuel formula.
It turns out it is 99% weight. The engine has no impact - unless it is a doubel or tripple engine, in that case it doubles or tripples the weight based consumption.
The stated engine consumption is a footnoote.

Could you elaborate on this? So I have the main strategic HQ and then the operational HQs under it (though I have none of the latter). Is there a way to convert existing brigades to larger unit size?

You have to raise Troops "with OHQ". In that case you get a Formation of 1 OHQ and 5 "Combat Units" (what I call them).
OHQ can get a leader, and can be assigned a Posture. While leaders were debuffed a bit recently, they are still fully worth it. Keep them out of fight to avoid leader death (but high heroism might have them lead from the front anyway).
You can also attach 2 Independant units to a OHQ to also benefit from the bonus.
You can also change the size and even Template of a existing OHQ Formatio.

Existing Independant units can not be turned into OHQ formations. At best you can disband the Independant Units, wait for the troops to return to the SHQ, then raise a New Formation "Using SHQ troops".
You loose any unit feats in that process, however.

You got to gauss rifles in just 7 turns? What did you do?

You propably already had it unlocked, just needed it researched - but your Council was stuck on a Linear tech.

Note that there is a penalty if any one Council Budget entry is given more then 100 BP. It will still be faster, just no longer lineary faster.

[GuardsmanGary]

ORIGINAL: misterprimus

1. I had no idea about more roads/rail being bad. I thought it could only help (or at least not hurt). So what is the ideal logistics system?

Ideally you want a single main supply route (MSR) connecting your cities to your front lines that the vast majority of your logistics flows down. It should have as few branches as possible to limit branching penalties. Splitting off the occasional road to supply rural assets or smaller areas of the front is fine but the flow of logistics down these secondary routes should be tightly controlled with traffic signs.

1. Correct, I built them when I was running out of food (in the red). I've also only recently gotten the advanced farms (due to slow research speed settings).

You should first look at upgrading existing assets instead of building new instances of them, as upgrading is often more worker efficient. Hydroponics is one of those key technologies that you should focus on getting as quickly as possible. Hydroponics are strictly better than any other farming method in terms of worker efficiency, even when pitted against open farming with maximum areal bonuses and high governor skill bonuses.

The 6-hex admin penalty aside, how far apart should towns be for logistics purposes? 15 hexes apart with each town having a rail station and truck station?

It depends on your roads, your truck stations, and your supply bases. Generally speaking though truck logistics can travel roughly 15 hexes over sealed roads before reaching their maximum action points and a maximum level supply base can extend this by another 14 hexes (again, over sealed roads) provided it is a sufficient distance from the truck station to grant its full allotment of extension points. You don't necessarily want to chain truck stations one after another either, since every time logistics points from one truck station meets another truck station they are refocused, refreshing their action points but diminishing the total logistics points available to be sent forward by how far they've already traveled combined with a flat penalty. Maximize the range of your logistics points with supply bases before building new truck stations.

Which councils research linear techs? I want to make a list so I can check them every few turns to avoid this in the future.

Economic, Military, and airforce research councils have linear techs in their fields. Applied science exclusively researches linear techs. Every tech contained in the applied chemistry, applied engineering, or applied management fields are linear.

I see. I thought lower, to the right meant "better." The engines I picked were small because I wanted to save on gas. Wanted the heavy tanks only for breakthroughs, not encirclements.

Tanks can't make breakthroughs if they are literally immobile. With 82% progress in fuel efficiency all of your vehicles will consume 54% less fuel, and your planet has an excess of oil, so don't be afraid to choose more powerful but thirstier engines.

The reason I was going for the brigades is because I needed lots of individual units to expand outwards early on. And then I just kept them from that point forward.

You were recruiting independent regiments, which make up corps. Battalions and brigades are smaller than regiments and corps and should be your go to size for almost every situation, but especially early on. Independent MG battalions cost only 500 manpower, your MG regiments costed 1800.

I should mention re: BP that I am playing with slow research speed. I'm not sure why else it would be slow. Most of my Bureau offices are maxed out as it is.
You got to gauss rifles in just 7 turns? What did you do?

Your research was slow because you had severe worker shortages, meaning your BP producing assets were operating at very limited capacity. I've doubled your BP production almost entirely by fixing your worker situation. Adjusting budget and council priorities also helped increase research speed. At the current rate laser rifles will be complete in 6 turns.

[misterprimus]

ORIGINAL: GuardsmanGary

ORIGINAL: misterprimus

1. I had no idea about more roads/rail being bad. I thought it could only help (or at least not hurt). So what is the ideal logistics system?

Ideally you want a single main supply route (MSR) connecting your cities to your front lines that the vast majority of your logistics flows down. It should have as few branches as possible to limit branching penalties. Splitting off the occasional road to supply rural assets or smaller areas of the front is fine but the flow of logistics down these secondary routes should be tightly controlled with traffic signs.

1. Correct, I built them when I was running out of food (in the red). I've also only recently gotten the advanced farms (due to slow research speed settings).

You should first look at upgrading existing assets instead of building new instances of them, as upgrading is often more worker efficient. Hydroponics is one of those key technologies that you should focus on getting as quickly as possible. Hydroponics are strictly better than any other farming method in terms of worker efficiency, even when pitted against open farming with maximum areal bonuses and high governor skill bonuses.

The 6-hex admin penalty aside, how far apart should towns be for logistics purposes? 15 hexes apart with each town having a rail station and truck station?

It depends on your roads, your truck stations, and your supply bases. Generally speaking though truck logistics can travel roughly 15 hexes over sealed roads before reaching their maximum action points and a maximum level supply base can extend this by another 14 hexes (again, over sealed roads) provided it is a sufficient distance from the truck station to grant its full allotment of extension points. You don't necessarily want to chain truck stations one after another either, since every time logistics points from one truck station meets another truck station they are refocused, refreshing their action points but diminishing the total logistics points available to be sent forward by how far they've already traveled combined with a flat penalty. Maximize the range of your logistics points with supply bases before building new truck stations.

Which councils research linear techs? I want to make a list so I can check them every few turns to avoid this in the future.

Economic, Military, and airforce research councils have linear techs in their fields. Applied science exclusively researches linear techs. Every tech contained in the applied chemistry, applied engineering, or applied management fields are linear.

I see. I thought lower, to the right meant "better." The engines I picked were small because I wanted to save on gas. Wanted the heavy tanks only for breakthroughs, not encirclements.

Tanks can't make breakthroughs if they are literally immobile. With 82% progress in fuel efficiency all of your vehicles will consume 54% less fuel, and your planet has an excess of oil, so don't be afraid to choose more powerful but thirstier engines.

The reason I was going for the brigades is because I needed lots of individual units to expand outwards early on. And then I just kept them from that point forward.

You were recruiting independent regiments, which make up corps. Battalions and brigades are smaller than regiments and corps and should be your go to size for almost every situation, but especially early on. Independent MG battalions cost only 500 manpower, your MG regiments costed 1800.

I should mention re: BP that I am playing with slow research speed. I'm not sure why else it would be slow. Most of my Bureau offices are maxed out as it is.
You got to gauss rifles in just 7 turns? What did you do?

Your research was slow because you had severe worker shortages, meaning your BP producing assets were operating at very limited capacity. I've doubled your BP production almost entirely by fixing your worker situation. Adjusting budget and council priorities also helped increase research speed. At the current rate laser rifles will be complete in 6 turns.

How did you fix the worker situation? Simply by using a few upgraded hydroponics for food instead of numerous unupgraded domes/open air farming units?

[Uemon]

Lacking economy can be fixed; your biggest issue i wanna say is military.

First, youre using MG mostly which is kinda meh; infantry in general is not supposed to be assaulting force (unless you have a yuge technological advantage), its supposed to be area denier / blocking force. Your main attacking force should be tanks. Tanks are absolutely devastating to minor regimes and you can conquer them with 3 or 4 independent light tank battalions.

Also you are using brigades; thats kinda not a good idea because this game does not support WW1 like static warfare with large stacks, but more like WW2 maneuver warfare where youre supposed to go around enemies, surround them, cut them off from supply (majors, this doesnt work on minors) and annihilate them in one go. Brigades are more powerful, but they can only be in one hex at the time. 3 battalions are less powerful, but they can be in 3 different hexes.

So essentially mass infantry battalions to hold the land and create a front facing enemy; and then tanks to actually fight, penetrate, go behind enemies, surround them and wipe them out. Some motorized infantry doesnt hurt either.

[Soar_Slitherine]

ORIGINAL: Uemon
Also you are using brigades; thats kinda not a good idea because this game does not support WW1 like static warfare with large stacks, but more like WW2 maneuver warfare where youre supposed to go around enemies, surround them, cut them off from supply (majors, this doesnt work on minors) and annihilate them in one go. Brigades are more powerful, but they can only be in one hex at the time. 3 battalions are less powerful, but they can be in 3 different hexes.

I think you've got your terminology confused here. Brigades are the smallest size of OHQ-based formation. Using OHQs is highly recommended (at least once you unlock some decent OOBs and have access to some spare leaders that don't suck) because the combat bonuses from OHQ commander skills can be very powerful (even in the latest beta patches, where their effect was nerfed to half). Size-wise, OHQs go Brigade -> Corps -> Army and independent formations Battalion -> Regiment -> Division.

I do agree with the general point that the added flexibility of having the same troops spread across a greater number of unit counters is usually better than what you gain from having them concentrated. Exceptions can include formations under excellent OHQ commanders, narrow-front combat and attacking encircled, but heavily defended enemy strongpoints.

[zgrssd]

First, youre using MG mostly which is kinda meh; infantry in general is not supposed to be assaulting force (unless you have a yuge technological advantage), its supposed to be area denier / blocking force. Your main attacking force should be tanks. Tanks are absolutely devastating to minor regimes and you can conquer them with 3 or 4 independent light tank battalions.

To elaborate a bit (more detail here):
Yes, infantry is primarily a defensive unit. No question about that.
However they are often numerous and cheap enough to replace that you can use them for attack. Just do not expect them to perform overly well.

MG is a odd unit. On the one hand, firepower is at least twice that of a comparable infantry gun.
On the other hand, it suffers a additional -50% to everything but soft defense. So the bonus for offense is marginal at best, but the bonus for soft defense is overwhelming.
There are the kind of unit you should not be wasting in attack, yet not so valuable that you can not have them be dragged into a attack that is happening anyway. Not your 2nd choice of assault forces, but not so valuable that they most be kept from offenses no mater the cost.

Basically your somewhat viable choices for attack are:
1. Tanks
2. Basic Infantry
3. Machineguns
4. Artillery
5. everything else infantry based

[Uemon]

ORIGINAL: Soar_Slitherine

ORIGINAL: Uemon
Also you are using brigades; thats kinda not a good idea because this game does not support WW1 like static warfare with large stacks, but more like WW2 maneuver warfare where youre supposed to go around enemies, surround them, cut them off from supply (majors, this doesnt work on minors) and annihilate them in one go. Brigades are more powerful, but they can only be in one hex at the time. 3 battalions are less powerful, but they can be in 3 different hexes.

I think you've got your terminology confused here. Brigades are the smallest size of OHQ-based formation. Using OHQs is highly recommended (at least once you unlock some decent OOBs and have access to some spare leaders that don't suck) because the combat bonuses from OHQ commander skills can be very powerful (even in the latest beta patches, where their effect was nerfed to half). Size-wise, OHQs go Brigade -> Corps -> Army and independent formations Battalion -> Regiment -> Division.

I do agree with the general point that the added flexibility of having the same troops spread across a greater number of unit counters is usually better than what you gain from having them concentrated. Exceptions can include formations under excellent OHQ commanders, narrow-front combat and attacking encircled, but heavily defended enemy strongpoints.

Correct, i meant to say regiment, not brigade.

[Uemon]

ORIGINAL: zgrssd

First, youre using MG mostly which is kinda meh; infantry in general is not supposed to be assaulting force (unless you have a yuge technological advantage), its supposed to be area denier / blocking force. Your main attacking force should be tanks. Tanks are absolutely devastating to minor regimes and you can conquer them with 3 or 4 independent light tank battalions.

To elaborate a bit (more detail here):
Yes, infantry is primarily a defensive unit. No question about that.
However they are often numerous and cheap enough to replace that you can use them for attack. Just do not expect them to perform overly well.

MG is a odd unit. On the one hand, firepower is at least twice that of a comparable infantry gun.
On the other hand, it suffers a additional -50% to everything but soft defense. So the bonus for offense is marginal at best, but the bonus for soft defense is overwhelming.
There are the kind of unit you should not be wasting in attack, yet not so valuable that you can not have them be dragged into a attack that is happening anyway. Not your 2nd choice of assault forces, but not so valuable that they most be kept from offenses no mater the cost.

Thats basically something im experiment with right now. I have figured out ways of both bum rushing minors with tons of independent infantry battalions - it absolutely works - and playing 1 city economy build up to rush tanks - it absolutely works as well. Which one is better? Difficult to tell. One thing im noticing is, if i go infantry heavy for bum rushes, my economy development definitely slows down (especially early on) to the point where im questioning myself whether thats a good idea in exchange for conquering 1 or 2 30-50k sized cities (which will probably end up neighboring other minor regimes, meaning youll have spread yourself pretty thin etc). I think this is a testament to Vic's design.

[GuardsmanGary]

ORIGINAL: misterprimus
How did you fix the worker situation? Simply by using a few upgraded hydroponics for food instead of numerous unupgraded domes/open air farming units?

Pretty much. I cannot stress enough how worker intensive and inefficient domed farming is. Just one hydroponics food factory will be enough to produce all the food you'll ever need once hydroponics robotization is finished and you research mass food pool later down the line. At this point you could start phasing out the remaining domed and open farms that you have left. That open farm next to cambridge, for example, is currently set to 25% production and could stand to be closed outright.

I also canceled some construction projects and mothballled/closed unneeded assets. There's no point in upgrading or building new assets if you lack the people to fill the jobs, doing so will only drag down the productivity of all your other assets and harm you more than help.