Help me understand production, population

[rasnell]

I've read the manual thoroughly and studied this great forum, but I'm still not clear about the fundamentals of unit production. I'm on my third game in two days, so that's how new I am to this game.

Question #1. If I understand other threads on this forum, the key to understanding how many production points are available is by combining resource points with factory points. For example, I have 54 resource points and 25 factories. That means my maximum of total production is 25, right?

Question #2. When I set my unit production, I make sure each province's production drops to 0 in resources available and 0 in factory points. The list shows what units I'll be getting in the next turn. However, I always get less than this in reality when the turn comes up. Does this have anything to do with damaged units rippling through the production schedule or a minus score on population points? For example, what does this score mean in the production summary when it shows population at 10/-16.

Question #3. Assuming that I have 54 resource points and 25 factories, I assume my offensive strategy should be to capture more factories or to build factories to get full use of my resources. Is this correct?

Question #4. Is it important to capture other provinces to gain population? I just don't understand the population, pop pools, and how a negative pop score could affect production. Please help me understand.

Question #5. The production screen shows me with 54 resources and 25 factories. But the other summary screen shows that I have 24 resource centers and 59 resource pools (all properly linked). I just don't understand the difference between the center and the pool and I've read the manual and threads repeatedly and still don't get it.

Sorry for so many questions, but these strike to the fundamentals of what appears to be a very fun game. If I can understand the basics, this looks like a decent war strategy game.

Thanks in advance for any help. Forums and actual players are always far better than any manual.

[JanSorensen]

Q1: Yes (though actually you probably do not have 25 factories. Rather you have less factories but when you multiply each factory by its PM (production multiple) you end up with 25. The PM goes up for some nations during the war.

Q2: The 10/-16 means that you have 10 population ready to use - but that you are using 26 which is 16 more than you have. Keep in mind that each unit that you try to finish will cost you 2 population points while units that are in production but will not finish this turn use no population. To decide which of all those units you actually want to finish you can right click on the ones you want to pause (they will remain paused on the following turns as well - so right click again next turn if you want to finish the unit by then):

You probably should spent more on tech and less on building units you do not have the manpower to finish

Q3: As time passes your PM will go up meaning you have less use for new factories. But basically, yes. Often other things dictate strategy than merely capturing production facilities. I am guessing you are seeing 54 res and 25 fact for Germany - in that case you have to remember that the 54 res are the total number that needs to be shared with your production in Italy, Rumania, France, Vichy and whatever part of Russia you have.

Q4: No, you can only use population in friendly areas. So as the Germans you are restricted to those 10 population in the home areas (along with the Rumanian and Italian population for their units).

Q5: Resource centers are the physical mines etc on the map. The 59 includes the ones you have not repaired and the ones you only just captured this turn - so those do not produce anything. Resource pool is whatever you have available in store to use right now. This includes any resources that you did not use last turn + the resources from resource centers you controlled and had repaired at the start of the present turn.

[rasnell]

Thanks, Jan, you've been very helpful on my two posts of the day. Actually, I was playing Japan and captured quite a good number of resources. Now I understand how much I wasted without progressing with research.

If I understand correctly about population, I can never capture or add to whatever my starting home population is, which, in the case of Japan, is 10? Am I understanding correctly?

If yes, then that means 5 units from this 10 pop is the most I could ever produce in one turn? I'm assuming that supplies and research don't count against population, just military units. Am I right?

[JanSorensen]

Aye, you are correct.

When you have a unit damaged you get 1 population back - so sometimes you will have some extra population from that. You can also save up population from turn to turn to a certain degree - so on some turns you can finish more units than 5. But, the overall ide is that population is a limiting factor (more for some nations than others).

[simpeter]

ORIGINAL: JanSorensen

You can also save up population from turn to turn to a certain degree

Can you elaborate on this? I'm also curious. Germany has 4 unused pop on the 1st turn. Do they carry over to turn 2, or will they be lost unless I build MIL? And what about when there is 1 pop available?

[JanSorensen]

You can carry over as much as 1 full turns worth of production. So, any Germany you can carry over 10 population but anything in excess of that is lost. You cannot use 1 population for anything - but as have units damaged you another pop to finish a unit.

[rasnell]

Many thanks, Jan. I followed your advice and won my first marginal victory as the Axis in Game 4. I controlled Japan and cheated in the game settings by giving myself enough extra supplies that I never had to use up production for that.

Also found on this fourth try what an enormous boost it is for Germany when Japan focuses on the Russians only. Axis was able to hold just long enough for the marginal win. We both would have been crushed in about two more Allied turns.

I really had to cheat on supplies to even come close to this squeaker win. What a challenge and what a neat game.

Focusing on subs and sub technology allowed me to keep killing transports and reinforcements in the Pacific. Amazing how the Allies can crank out one or two carriers every turn. I don't feel so bad about cheating on supplies.

Game 5: I think I'll control Japan and Germany, still cheat a little on supplies, and see if I can push harder on the transports in the Atlantic and Pacific.

How in the world does Japan or German win this on normal settings, without the cheats. I loved to know the strategies -- I'll check after action reports for that, but welcome any comments here.

[JanSorensen]

Once you get more experience playing you will be giving the AI Allies +100 supply each per turn with none to yourself and winning easily. The AI works great to learn the game but as a player you can beat it any which way you please once you have some experience. Just keep playing - there is much more to learn