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I am struggling to understand how investments work to achieve advancements. I started a '39 Campaign as the Axis vs AI. Then I just ended the first few turns and looked at advancements.
Germany
Field Investment Game Start 2 Weeks Later 4 Weeks Later 6 Weeks Later
Assault 4 275 261 233 219
Anti-tank 4 275 275 247 233
Breakthrough 4 275 261 233 205
Heavy Armor 2 275 261 247 247
Interceptors 4 275 261 247 233
Fighter Bombers 3 275 275 261 261
Close Support 4 275 261 261 233
Naval Air Training 2 275 261 261 261

Italy
Field Investment Game Start 2 Weeks Later 4 Weeks Later 6 Weeks Later
Assault 3 275 261 247 233
Anti-tank 3 275 275 261 261
Interceptors 3 275 275 275 261
Escort Fighters 2 275 275 261 261
Close Support 2 275 275 275 261
Naval Air Training 3 275 275 261 247
Warships 2 275 261 247 247
Convoy Escorts 2 275 261 261 247
Attack Submarines 1 275 261 247 247

If you look through the data, you will see there isn't a clear connection between Investment and Advancement. Can anyone illuminate how investment works?

I don't know the formula myself, but my sense is this: 4 investments per tech is ideal. Any investments past that in a tech area will yield diminishing results.

Each investment point in an area has a chance (and I don't know what it is) to advance that tech by X number of days.

I'm guessing the base chance is 10% per point invested to advance the tech by 5 days. That chance goes down for every point past the 4th. 9% for the 5th point, 8% for the sixth, etc. Whenever you hit that chance, the tech advance by the 5 days.

This is just a guess.

Each point has a chance to advance it in days
Each higher level is a lower level of success to advance it
but you can put more points.

But I think there is a hard limit of 4 points per research category. I had an extra point to spend at one point but I was not allowed to add it to a category that already had 4 points in it.

1939 = 4 points
1940 = 5 points
1941 = 6 points

you get the picture.

Thank you. This makes sense.

I did a test where I started a '39 hotseat, set all the '39 advancements to invest of 1, then clicked end turn until 8/16/40 (24 turns) and checked how many weeks each had advanced.

This creates a sample size of 2112 turns and, on average, the tech advanced a week 58.6% of the time.

Then I did the same for level 2 investment. On average the tech advanced 57.8% of the time (sample size was 1824 turns, less because ran out of available invest for some countries).

I thought this was odd, and figured I messed up somewhere so I repeated the test... got about the same result. Is this what is expected?

IF it works as depicted above... it seems there is a HUGE problem. Or maybe a coding bug.

Repeated the test for Level 3: sample size = 1272 turns... 57.6% chance of advancing 1 increment per turn

Level 4: sample size = 858 turns... 124.2% chance (which means on average it advances 1.24 increments per turn)

So it appears Level 1,2,3 are all about the same, then Level 4 is a big increase in odds... I guess I'll be using either 1 or 4 and not 2 or 3.

Might be a rounding issue. I will check. Thanks.

Is there an effect for learning from more advanced enemies or allies like the Panther and Tiger from T34 and KV and HellCat from Zero. As well as doctrinal imitation> And I know that there was cultural resistance to adopting enemy or even ally technology like the British 17 pdr for the US. I'm wondering if a country falls behind in an area where another is way ahead you can close the gap somewhat.

What areas are people putting advancements into ?? You seeing any effects changing from what game starts with ??

ORIGINAL: GibClaret80

What areas are people putting advancements into ?? You seeing any effects changing from what game starts with ??

Yes, the advancements I concentrated on maxed out (reached 1945 levels) before the others. As an example I had breakthrough maxed out. So I had 1945 breakthrough technology in early 1944 IIRC. I like breakthrough and close support for panzers and Stukas. [:)]

Thank you. Very helpful.

ORIGINAL: MOS96B2P

ORIGINAL: GibClaret80

What areas are people putting advancements into ?? You seeing any effects changing from what game starts with ??

Yes, the advancements I concentrated on maxed out (reached 1945 levels) before the others. As an example I had breakthrough maxed out. So I had 1945 breakthrough technology in early 1944 IIRC. I like breakthrough and close support for panzers and Stukas. [:)]

Yes indeed

Did you sense or do you think there is an effect for learning from more advanced enemies or allies like the Panther and Tiger from T34 and KV and HellCat from Zero. As well as doctrinal imitation for something like Breakthrough? And I know that there was cultural resistance to adopting enemy or even ally technology like the British 17 pdr for the US. If one country is ahead in one area and you battle that country is there a learning or imitation effect in the advancement probabilities or is that why you get additional researchers?

ORIGINAL: dks1122

Repeated the test for Level 3: sample size = 1272 turns... 57.6% chance of advancing 1 increment per turn

Level 4: sample size = 858 turns... 124.2% chance (which means on average it advances 1.24 increments per turn)

So it appears Level 1,2,3 are all about the same, then Level 4 is a big increase in odds... I guess I'll be using either 1 or 4 and not 2 or 3.

Wow! Thanks so much for the experiment and posting the data! Evidence-based gaming.

It's been fixed in .31 There was a rounding error.

So now each level works correctly.