Matrix Games Forums

As we all know, the poor education modifier makes it harder for nations with it to have good crew quality on their ships. Now, supposedly this can be counter by preparing for it such as putting ships under Active Fleet longer and having ships using spacious accommodation to have higher chances of quality crews.

However, as I found out in my Italian game none of that matters. I've had my carriers prepared under active fleet for almost two and a half years but still suffer -1 crew quality. Which proceeded to cost me a CV thanks to multiple disorganized crew events.

I understand that some nations have these traits because of historical reasons but isn't it still ridiculous that the player can take all kinds of precautions only for the game to say "no" when the shooting starts? Something needs to be changed because it is quite bizarre and decidedly unfun.

There's also the issue that the player can lead their nations to be much more successful and rish compared to historically. Why don't these nations have the ability to remove the poor education modifier via reforms? Or better yet, why not pay more for naval academies to reduce or ignore downsides? Just something to give the player more agency.

One thing that is really important, especially with the Italians and Russians, is to have a Fleet Exercise before going to war. Most ships will improve by one level from participating. It is very expensive (I think a year's maintenance) so you can't do it all the time but certainly worth it. You can also have division exercises during wartime, so your carriers could do that. They are out of action for one turn and gain maybe less than the Fleet Exercise ??? but still worth doing.

Basically, the Navy is paying for its own educational system since the civilian government won't.

I think if you choose social programs as an option it might overcome that.

That's WAD - the nations are intended as the difficulty level rather than having a set difficulty level.

Is there any way to accept social welfare investment or some other event that allows you to overcome poor education? I assumed this was the case when playing Italy but I don't think I could confirm it either way.

Not that I know of. Part of the problem is that fixing education isn't something that can be done overnight.

You can make improvements with new methods and techniques, but you'd also need to replace the less capable teachers which might take time to identify and find a suitable replacement.

Let's assume that you can make a significant improvement in 5 years - it still takes another 5-10 years before students will start to come through with sufficiently high enough education levels to allow you to lose the Trait.

But perhaps it could become an option for some nations? China and Russia suffer from physical size - outlying villages are likely to continue with inadequate teachers and resources long after the cities have been upgraded, which may be problematic.

You get the option to support reforming the education system of the nation. You lose 10% of your Base Resources for a period (somewhat random, but a minimum of 120 months). After that time, you lose the Poor Education trait and gain a 12% boost to Base Resources (representing how better education tends to result in more innovations).