AGEOD Forums

[v1.13] As the CSA I'm trying to get the right balance between industrialisation and blockade running, can't find answers to these in the manual or forum...

1) Industrialisation creates new "points" of common goods etc, how do these points relate to the production of Dollars and War Supplies (WS)? If I have for example just created "+19 General Supply points/turn", how much extra WS will I be generating in future? Or do they convert into extra supply wagon and ammo crate output?

2) What are the percent chances governing getting increased "points" for the various types of Industrialization Potential?

3) Output for each state is expressed in supply wagons and ammo crates, how do these convert into WS?

4) Is it true that if the Dollar balance at the end of a turn is 0 or less, the chances of getting new factories is minimal, regardless of the investment level?

5) Do industries function independently of the blockade, so that if the Union have achieved a complete blockade the industries are still running normally?

6) Does the CSA get any benefit from putting transports into the Atlantic Shipping box? I have put one in there as an experiment, but my naval supply capacity is still 0.

7) [Edit] And... how much does it cost to operate and repair a ship? I'm wondering how much the repairs to my damaged runners are costing vs what they bring home.

I suspect the answer is that blockade running is very much more effective until the Union has mastery of the seas and ports.

And apologies if these qs have already been aed elsewhere.

Hi
Let's try some answers

1) Those represent normal supply (food etc) and ammo that the units consume each turn. It's different form the War supplies you use for building stuff. Indutralization give you two benefits: normal supply that eases feeding the troops and (if you are lucky) normal WS points.

2) Sorry, don't understand the question (and probably woudln't knew the answer if i did )

3) As per 1). They don't convert to WS in any form. They are different things: food and ammo consumed by the units on the field.

4) I guess the answer is yes. If you can't pay the investment you order they will not have any effect. Never let your $, conscripts and WS pools go down to zero.

5). No. Everything a region produces is affected by the % blockade the USA have on the blockade box. The actual reduction is half the % on the box (so a total 100% on the blockade box will reduce the TOTAL CSA production of WS, money, food, ammo...(not sure if conscripts too) by 50%).
Besides, individually blocked coastal regions (brown water blockade) also have their production reduced (i think to 50%, but not sure).

6) No, that box is only for the USA. The CSA can only send raiders there to attack USA transports. The CSA cannot have naval transport capacity.

7) Don't know I guess it will cost the % damage of the cost of the element when you buy it. So repairing a 50% damaged brig will cost 50% of what you have to pay for a new one.

Regards

Thank you! These are hyper-nerdy questions, but as the CSA player I get the feeling it is essential to understand the game's economic-financial model in detail, the CSA can't afford to mismanage resources.

Part of my puzzlement is about the three sets of units units involved:
a) the extra "points" of common goods, ammo etc generated by industrial investment;
b) the supply wagons and ammo crates output by the states;
c) the Dollars and WS received each turn (hopefully).

I'm not clear how exactly a) converts to b), or where exactly the Dollars and WS come from - industrial investment increases them, but how and by how much?

Question 2), different states have Average, Good, Fair etc Industrialization Potential but I don't understand what this means precisely - is Fair better than Average, or worse, or a whole lot worse? I was wondering if anyone knew the calculations that are behind these general ratings.

Chertio wrote:[v1.13]2) What are the percent chances governing getting increased "points" for the various types of Industrialization Potential?

Every level of investment gives you a chance to increase something. (So, 0-3 chances) And each city tests once for each city level it has per level of investment. So a size 6 city will test 6 times for each degree of industrialization. This happens for all cities in a given state. The output figure that it gives you in the economics screen is a rough measure of what you can expect out of investing in that state based on the number of cities and their average level in a given state.

Chertio wrote:Thank you! These are hyper-nerdy questions, but as the CSA player I get the feeling it is essential to understand the game's economic-financial model in detail, the CSA can't afford to mismanage resources.

Part of my puzzlement is about the three sets of units units involved:
a) the extra "points" of common goods, ammo etc generated by industrial investment;
b) the supply wagons and ammo crates output by the states;
c) the Dollars and WS received each turn (hopefully).

I'm not clear how exactly a) converts to b), or where exactly the Dollars and WS come from - industrial investment increases them, but how and by how much?

Those points are applied to a specific city if your industrialization is successful. So if Nashville was giving you 2 WS every turn and a new factory built there produces an additional 2, Nashville now gives you 4. The same applies for general supply and ammo.

Supply wagons are a very specific unit that you have to buy, though you do get a number of free ones as well. They will receive supply/ammo from your depots and can hold a large amount, allowing you to sustain offensives or travel long distances without needing to stay in supply the whole time. (The supply forwarding/management is another whole line of questions answered in detail in other threads.)

Many of your cities do produce ammo/gs on their own. These are all added every turn to your nation's total, just like $, WS and conscript companies.

Chertio wrote:Question 2), different states have Average, Good, Fair etc Industrialization Potential but I don't understand what this means precisely - is Fair better than Average, or worse, or a whole lot worse? I was wondering if anyone knew the calculations that are behind these general ratings.

Answered above.

soloswolf wrote:Supply wagons are a very specific unit that you have to buy, though you do get a number of free ones as well. They will receive supply/ammo from your depots and can hold a large amount, allowing you to sustain offensives or travel long distances without needing to stay in supply the whole time. (The supply forwarding/management is another whole line of questions answered in detail in other threads.)

I think what Chertio means by supply wagons & ammo crates is the one written in the industrialisation screen. I think it should be written as "ammo and supply points" instead (i guess it was mentioned some months ago).

Solowolf answers your doubts better than i could

About the supply/money/WS... generation.
They are generated on a region by region basis.
While you pass your mouse over any region, check the black panel on the top and you will see how much of this assets every region produces each turn.
This production is added to the CSA/USA pool (in the case of WS and money) or stocked on the region and distributed around the supply network to feed the units (in the case of general supply and ammo). This are the crates and balls you see when you use the supply filter.
Most regions just produce some food, many some ammo, but only the regions with historical industries and the big towns will produce WS.
Monthly money comes mainly from the capital, big cities or special places like California (gold mines).
When your industry investment is successful the message on the log will tell you how many new food, ammo or WS per turn you gain and in what region (using some flavour text like "A new foundry was constructed on Macon..."). T
his new assets will be recived on your stocks every turn from then on, modified by the blockade percentage, looting status of the region etc.

Regards

I've just discovered the de-activate AI option so I'll try some testing on what industrialisation is doing.

Chertio wrote:I've just discovered the de-activate AI option so I'll try some testing on what industrialisation is doing.

Please share your data if you find anything useful. I am also quite curious to know more about industrialization.

I'll share a couple of thoughts of my own on the subject --

Regions with low potential also cost much less to industrialize. There's a huge difference between the cost of industrializing George versus Texas.

It seems like the payback time on industrialization investment is a long one, so it makes sense to do it earlier in the game to get maximum benefit over time.

Blockade runners seem like the best way to generate extra war supply and money, but they will not bring you general supply or ammo. To increase those, you need industrialization. But, I'm not sure there's that much of a problem with general supply and ammo production -- probably more of a distribution problem, which is best improved by investing in rail and river transport.

Industrialization is a way to target increased supply production to specific states, where it will be closer to where it's needed. (but, again, it might be more efficient to invest in river and rail to facilitate getting supply to your front lines). And remember that produciton improvements are most likely to happen in the larger cities in each state and those cities near the front lines are vulnerable. If you lose the city you lose the extra production.

I've seen a lot of posts from experienced players who say they never invest in industrialization because the CSA can't afford it and the USA doesn't need it. I always try to do a little bit early in the game, because I love getting those little messages, like Farmer John in Podunk setting up a forge in his barn to make +1 ammo supply point per turn.

Major Tom wrote:I've seen a lot of posts from experienced players who say they never invest in industrialization because the CSA can't afford it and the USA doesn't need it. I always try to do a little bit early in the game, because I love getting those little messages, like Farmer John in Podunk setting up a forge in his barn to make +1 ammo supply point per turn.

I've read those opinions also but in my experience, after July '61 the only constraint on CSA war-effort is manpower. When I'm not using the $ and WS for anything else, it seems pointless not to industrialize. In other words, in my experience (only playing vs AI), it's just not true that the CSA can't afford to industrialize - on the contrary, what I can't afford is the manpower to build brigs for blockade running.

A similar issue is whether to raid Yankee commerce - the customary advice is not to bother. But in my last campaign vs. AI, using only the freebies (Semmes, Alabama, Florida & the two frigates you start with) in the shipping box, I was usually accounting for c. 48/12 per turn - maybe it's not going to bring Union industry to its knees, but that's not chickenfeed either, considering I invested nothing in those ships anyway. No doubt a human opponent would soon show me the error of this strategy?

Major Tom wrote: and the USA doesn't need it.

That's my experience in playing USA.

squarian wrote:A similar issue is whether to raid Yankee commerce - the customary advice is not to bother. But in my last campaign vs. AI, using only the freebies (Semmes, Alabama, Florida & the two frigates you start with) in the shipping box, I was usually accounting for c. 48/12 per turn - maybe it's not going to bring Union industry to its knees, but that's not chickenfeed either, considering I invested nothing in those ships anyway. No doubt a human opponent would soon show me the error of this strategy?

Playing as the Union I think that these losses are not obvious. You notice a decrease after a while in what your transports in the shipping box are producing but you're not getting a message that "CSA raiders snapped up $48 and 12 WS that you would otherwise have gotten" or USA players would sure as hell be more energetic about chasing those CSA raiders away. The only message is the occasional "CSA raiders have sunk one of your merchant ships". I only realized this after playing a few games against the AI as the CSA. Now as the USA I always send a very significant force to the shipping box and they get rid of those free CSA raiders pretty quickly.

But against a Union AI I think a CSA player is well-advised to build a few frigates to send to the shipping box. There's probably a point of diminishing returns, though, I wouldn't put too much money in here. If you want to build major naval combatants, river ironclads are the way to go.