Matrix Games Forums

I've been favoring strategy games for more than 20 years, and I don't like to start a game until I understand everything I can see about the interface. One thing about GGWAW that has been driving me nuts for two days is an apparent discrepancy between the Strategic Map (F9) and the Region Map (F10). For instance, in a game as Germany, the Strat Map says I have 19 factories, but the Region Map says I have 17 factories. There are similar discrepancies for most of the other World Powers, but not all (for instance, the number for China is 4 on both displays).

I've read and reread the manual, and searched this forum, till I'm about to just quit and go back to World of Warcraft. The description of the Strategic Map in the manual is poorly written. It starts talking about Production Points, and then switches confusingly to factories. But it does seem to say clearly that the numbers on the map are FACTORIES, and that number doesn't match what's on the Region Map (nor the numbers from the infrastructure display on the regular map).

So what am I overlooking?

The region display lists the actual number of factories you own in your territories. The strategic map (and the production summary screen) lists the amount of production for your factories tied to the resources you own. Most of the factories in the game with the exception of a few such as the Chinese can support more than one production per factory. So usually the determining factor is the number of resources you have. As an example, at the beginning of the game Germany has 19 resources in it and its aligned countries. Its factories can support production well in excess of this (for example factories in Germany proper can support two production per factory at the beginning of the game). If you move transports to connect Germany with its additional resources in Finland, North Africa, or Sardinia - you will notice the "factory" number, i.e., the production number, increase accordingly.

What is sometimes also confusing is that this number does not actually represent your true production because it does not include free trade from neutral countries. But the production number displayed in the summary is important for auto-victory purposes.

I hope this helps! It's a good game, you should give it a try. [8D]

Oh! Thank you. That's a clear explanation. THAT should be in the manual. I had considered this idea, but was thrown off by the fact that the Resource Centers number in the Region Map didn't match the number on the Strategic Map; I hadn't had the wits to realize that that was due to the isolated resources, which don't count for production, as shown on the Production display.

The manual really should be edited to state that the Strategic Map numbers are really Production Point numbers, not Factories. But I suppose it's only dull people like me who get hung up on that. Thanks for your answer!

Forwarn gave good answer. This issue is brought up from time to time.

In my opinion manual is "clear enough" about this, but additional explanation or "game dictionary", which would clearly describe difference between "factory", "factory point", "production point" and such, would be welcome.

Cordelayne, you can see this issue being discussed recently in this thread:

tm.asp?m=901821

Oleg