Matrix Games Forums

I’ve just received the game and I’ve started reading the manual, so this might be a stupid question and it might be in the wrong forum.
In the standard un-modified game, will I the player, have the ability to increase the level of Japanese industrial output and guide technological advancements to give them a better shot at victory? If I can’t can you recommend a Mod that accomplishes this?
Thanks

Yes, you can. But you have to be VERY careful. Overexpansion of Japanese Industry is a sure path to disaster. IMHO expansion should be dictated by the undamaged resources you take.

Can you explain why? What would the negative implications be? I'm a total newb on this subject.

It would start sucking up resources and then you'd find yourself unable to expand production of war material, which sucks on the same teat as HI.

I'm confused (no surprise there) Maybe I asked the wrong question. From my brief reading of the manual and some forum posts it seems like you are historically bound to Japan's lack of industry. Is it possible to increase the industrial output of weapons in the standard game, and if it is how do you do it? Do you have to just conquer more cities or can you say build additional factories. I guess I don't understand the production system. Thanks

You CAN expand your industries, but the point is that you have to keep an EAGLE EYE on your resources, and conquer resource areas like the DEI quickly. There are buttons you can click next to the various factories on the industry screen that do the actual duty.

You can expand industry in order to prepare to increase production of armaments, aircraft, and build ships faster. But, as the posts above have warned, you can crash your economy if you don't have the necessary fuel and resources to keep your industry going.

To put it in a more understandable way:

If you increase your industry too much, it will reqiure more resources than you can possibly supply. So in the end, too big of an increase = total crash of the economy.

My Tips:

Engines = base on what you need and expand very slowly
aircraft = expand a bit, but don't over do it, each frame costs 18 times the number of engines. H6K for example costs you 72 HI each plane. You will have to increase some of them, just be very careful.
Refineries = I don't expand these, you will capture big refineries in the DEI and you can transport fuel in AKs and Oil in your TKs.
Shipyards = Increase Naval, leave Merchant alone (or even convert a couple of small merchants to naval).
Repair Shipyards = Increase the one at Tokyo to 100...you won't be able to convert the CS types to CVLs if you don't. And more repair is always a good thing.
HI = very little if any increase
Light Industry = NEVER, EVER INCREASE OR REPAIR THESE. You can't turn them off (after the latest official patch) and each LI point sucks up 15 resource points.

Read Mike Solli's AAR.  Mike is the IJ economy guru.  Has a lot of tips for the economy.

Many Thanks to all, you have definitely answered my questions. This is by far the best forum I have ever encountered. I think this game will be great, big learning curve..huh?

Hi, you can read this tm.asp?m=2933397 ; download the .pdf
and read the document, you'll find a lot of useful things about japanese economy.

Thanks very much I downloaded it this morning.