Best priority of construction?

[PepticSolid1783]

So what is the best priority of construction?

I've heard that building civilian factories is the highest priority, then military factories, infrastructure etc.

Based on gameplay I've seen of HOI4, I see the order as follows:
1. Civilian Factories
2. Military Factories or Infrastructure
3. Infrastructure & Bases (Air Ports, Harbors, etc.)
4. Everything else (Oil fuel, nuclear plant, etc.)

Only have a few hours under my belt playing HOI 4, so I won't be surprised if construction/building priority is always situational.

Update: Thanks for the responses back. I greatly appreciate it.

[The Pistol Experience]

Whether or not you build mills or civs depends on the situation in my opinion.

Civs are great to build early on generally when you have 3-4 years before war begins. Civs gain value as time goes on so earlier you build them the better.

If you are playing a minor nation. Lets put CZE in this example. It is generally more sensible to build mills from the get go. The earlier you build mills the earlier they gain production efficiency, thus you can make more stuff from each factory.

Generally minor powers dont benefit much from building civs as their industries are too small to benefit from snowballing as the major powers do. Nations like Germany can obtain hundreds of civs in a few years due to snowballing. While minors barely get to build more than 15 by the time war starts.

Generally in these situations i'd say that you should not bother manually building civs unless you know you can benefit from them. Rather you should try getting them from focuses, as they are free then.

Sometimes its better to make more equipment earlier than it is to make more of it later. While building a lot of civs early will lead to a stronger lategame, you might not have time to reach said lategame unless you invest your IC in equipment that you can obtain relatviely quickly.

Afterall you can't use the equipment you create if you are dead.

[wildlifeluvr]

re "Sometimes its better to make more equipment earlier than it is to make more of it later. "

But later equipment is of higher technology and more useful. You won't win wars fighting with Tier 1 planes and tanks in 1943.

Early equipment gets obsolete. A rush to build factories at game start to build war equipment backfires at times because you may not use it; when a serious war starts, you need current technology. An early war, that changes and yes you then need factories for war equipment; Italy e.g. is at war at game start. This is why a smart (non-rigid formula) approach to building is important.

I'll repeat ... it depends. There is no set formula. Things are fluid. Different approaches, different plans, different strategies, different nations, different players. What to build and when to build it is fluid, not rigid.

[✚ Mariel ✚]

It depends, but I'll try to be more helpful than that XD

Civs/mils: There are a few ways you can approach civs. If you are planning on fighting in WW2 and not doing much before that you can build civs til 1938 then switch to mils. The civs do take like half a decade to pay for themselves in construction, but you can also trade them for resources, and you don't get the really good equipment and planes til 1944-ish anyway so thats the time you really want to ramp up that military production, getting those early civs will see you in a good place when 1944-45 comes around.

Some nations will want to fight a lot earlier, or a lot later. There is also the matter of resources, Nations in South America, Africa and East Asia can struggle for a lot of resources and need to trade for them, and for that you need civs. Personally I will balance my civ and mil production if I am planning on fighting early, I need civs to build mils and to buy the resources to run them. I will also likely invest more into mils after I get to about 30 civs since thats enough usually to keep the mils running and let me expand more aggressively and quickly. But I might want to go more towards 45-60 civs otherwise my construction will slow to a crawl and I won't be able to build airports or railways or repair from bombing, so there are things you need to consider. Usually you can't go wrong with a 1:1 ratio, it may not be optimal but its safe, then change your strategy to match the situation as you gain experience

Dockyards: It takes forever to get a navy from scratch, you are usually better off nicking enemy navies when you beat them in a war. You can beat navies with nav bombers too but they need some decent air defense and torpedoes or homing anti ship missiles and those can take til mid 40s to get. Some nations will want to get a navy going because otherwise its really hard to expand e.g. as South Africa you don't want to tangle early with the UK, and if they dont do the anti colonial thing then you will end up needing a navy to go fighting in China or Spain or something. With 10-15 shipyards you can gradually build up a sub fleet to raid convoys but they wont get you naval superiority. A mix of heavy cruisers and light attack destroyers will but that takes a while to make and requires a lot of tech. It's usually better to just expand rapidly over land and use your slots on mils instead to help them, but it depends. Build dockyards at your own risk.

Synthetic Refineries: Takes about half the construction time of a nuclear reactor (a lot) and you need a lot of time consuming tech to really make them work for you. If you cant trade for oil or rubber or capture sources of those things then you might need to make some to keep your airforce running, be sure to plan ahead you do not want to be spending valuable construction time in a war trying to make these will the luftwaffe is bombing the crap out of you

Nuclear reactors: Late game can turn into a bit of a deadlock, there are thousands of planes in the sky, no one has enough fuel, there are 20+ divisions on every tile and no one can do anything. Nukes remedy that situation. If you end up in a game going past the 50s then setting 50+ mils on fighters and start building lots of these, save hundreds of nukes and then just nuke your way to victory. Extremely boring but basically guaranteed achievements, especially if you nuke the enemy airfields first so they cant defend themselves. In any other situation fighters and cas will solve the problem much faster and less destructively

Fuel Silo: Don't.

[The Pistol Experience]

Re: But later equipment is of higher technology and more useful. You won't win wars fighting with Tier 1 planes and tanks in 1943."

Dunno why you think that one cant just switch out production lines with newer equipment as the game progresses.

Re: Early equipment gets obsolete. A rush to build factories at game start to build war equipment backfires at times because you may not use it; when a serious war starts, you need current technology. An early war, that changes and yes you then need factories for war equipment; Italy e.g. is at war at game start. This is why a smart (non-rigid formula) approach to building is important.

The games timeline is inherently rigid. If you are playing as Austria you know for a fact that Germany will do Anschluss within the start of 1938. Unless you are playing ahistorical but thats a totally different topic. Point here is: It is easy to predict what equipment will be used or not used. And if you are constantly expanding your army all equipment you make will be used. Old or not mire equipment = more units. Doesnt matter if you are using 36 arty in 1940. Its still far better than a low strength unit with insufficient equipment instead.

Re: I'll repeat ... it depends. There is no set formula. Things are fluid. Different approaches, different plans, different strategies, different nations, different players. What to build and when to build it is fluid, not rigid. [/quote]

If you bothered to read my entire post before picking an arbritrary sentence. Youd realize im literally saying that factory building depends on the nation you are playing and the time you have to prepare for the war. I never called it "rigid".

[TasteDasRainbow]

Publicado originalmente por Single Pistol Enjoyer:

Re: But later equipment is of higher technology and more useful. You won't win wars fighting with Tier 1 planes and tanks in 1943."

Dunno why you think that one cant just switch out production lines with newer equipment as the game progresses.

Re: Early equipment gets obsolete. A rush to build factories at game start to build war equipment backfires at times because you may not use it; when a serious war starts, you need current technology. An early war, that changes and yes you then need factories for war equipment; Italy e.g. is at war at game start. This is why a smart (non-rigid formula) approach to building is important.

The games timeline is inherently rigid. If you are playing as Austria you know for a fact that Germany will do Anschluss within the start of 1938. Unless you are playing ahistorical but thats a totally different topic. Point here is: It is easy to predict what equipment will be used or not used. And if you are constantly expanding your army all equipment you make will be used. Old or not mire equipment = more units. Doesnt matter if you are using 36 arty in 1940. Its still far better than a low strength unit with insufficient equipment instead.

Re: I'll repeat ... it depends. There is no set formula. Things are fluid. Different approaches, different plans, different strategies, different nations, different players. What to build and when to build it is fluid, not rigid.

If you bothered to read my entire post before picking an arbritrary sentence. Youd realize im literally saying that factory building depends on the nation you are playing and the time you have to prepare for the war. I never called it "rigid".

He has a tendency to make rather broad and vague claims without really responding to what you say and assuming he's right. Nothing wrong with that, but I wouldn't take it all that seriously. He's the same guy that talked about how impossible to beat ethiopia is, so ya know.

As you well pointed out, any major nation in historical play has extremely rigid optimization before their wars come up, and after that its still fairly straightforward save for the occasional mistake a player might make and have to catch up on.

[TasteDasRainbow]

Publicado originalmente por drewbstar:

This basically covers it. Civs at the start, mils before the war.

It takes quite a few civs built to break even on IC cost when it comes to making civs vs upgrading infra first. So I generally reserve it for the few, high-capacity-but-empty-slots regions that some countries get. (As they often also have large resource pools too)

There are some other things to consider though when it comes to the math, and that is non-civ buildings like refineries and nuclear reactors.
https://hoi4.paradoxwikis.com/Construction
Infra costs 6000 to build. Civs cost 10800. At a rate of 20% of 10800 vs a cost of 6000 you can see it takes a while.
However, notably refineries cost 14500 and nuclear reactors cost 30000. Each being capped at 3/1 per state reduces the infra advantage, but is still noteworthy. The other big ones include RADAR, AA, ports, and suppy hubs. (See link above for respective IC requirements.)

It can be worth it to build infrastructure if you're going to be investing a significant amount of IC in the zone. Maxing out your state AA, RADAR, airports, forts, etc.
In terms of straight updating your economy in 1936, it's almost always better to build civs.

-
I'll also add that I mostly play modded runs now, so I'll also note that many mods touch on this further than vanilla does. Base game tips the scales as (e.g USA's new deal, Germany's economy focuses, etc.) with buffs to things like infra build speed. Some mods take it much further, so bear that in mind when deciding your path, check your focus tree for any upcoming buffs/etc.
(Or use meta knowledge. E.g build infra on states you know you'll get in a civil war)

One last thing to factor in is time. I've played some KR runs where a few days could make all the difference in hitting a certain event. Having the 20% build speed in a zone helped me build a few things that you'd otherwise be limited by your standard 15 factor build rate. (Though the process of getting a state then quickly needing to fight for if is far less common in Vanilla than my KR experience.)


This also applies to repairing damaged infrastructure. As an example that works for both: making a naval invasion on a zone that doesn't have a port. If you're building a new port, you want that done ASAP. If you have two construction lines running, move the damage infrastructure repair order up so you can build the port faster and get your troops the supplies they need.

Thanks for bringing up the math on that, I haven't checked it in a couple years to remember the numbers very well. And I think that compounded with what mk11 said about US focuses is a good point for their situational construction pathing vs other majors allotting for a bit more infra early on to be profitable, granted only in states with plenty of open slots.

[velvetcrabman]

Just a couple of thoughts on infrastructure:

60% seems to be the golden number, creates enough supply and reasonable bonus to build time without eating too much production.

From memory building to 100% only pays for itself if you have 5+ free building slots to fill

Build orders:

As above, very situational and depends on a huge amount of factors. Furball seems to use a similar system to my generic one and for similar reasons. (I'd rather start a war with heaps of troops capable of making do than fewer but more capable ones, plus the efficiency rates being maxed out earlier is a great help. Russia in particular seems to benefit from this as it allows you to tarpit Barbarossa)

The best method is always the one that works for you and the style you like to play tho', try a few things and have fun, sometimes the disasters are the most fun.....

[✚ Mariel ✚]

Publicado originalmente por velvetcrabman:

Just a couple of thoughts on infrastructure:

60% seems to be the golden number, creates enough supply and reasonable bonus to build time without eating too much production.

From memory building to 100% only pays for itself if you have 5+ free building slots to fill

Build orders:

As above, very situational and depends on a huge amount of factors. Furball seems to use a similar system to my generic one and for similar reasons. (I'd rather start a war with heaps of troops capable of making do than fewer but more capable ones, plus the efficiency rates being maxed out earlier is a great help. Russia in particular seems to benefit from this as it allows you to tarpit Barbarossa)

The best method is always the one that works for you and the style you like to play tho', try a few things and have fun, sometimes the disasters are the most fun.....

IMO the main value for infastructure is for improving resource yields. Not only can you use them in your own mils but a lot will get traded for civs as well. It may also be worthwhile to build infastructure in an area where you are planning to build forts, nuclear reactors, synthetic refineries, high level dockyards, supply hubs. If factories are the only concern then I believe its 5 for civs or 7 for mils. to get a return on the time you invested. I mostly just use them for resources.

[velvetcrabman]

I actually forgot to add a little note about how useful low infra can be to form a defensive breakwater, sometimes letting the enemy take a region with low lvl and then laughing as they try to breakout against your well supplied and dug in defensive line can be an absolute gut wrenching giggle....

[wildlifeluvr]

Publicado originalmente por Single Pistol Enjoyer:

Re: But later equipment is of higher technology and more useful. You won't win wars fighting with Tier 1 planes and tanks in 1943."

Dunno why you think that one cant just switch out production lines with newer equipment as the game progresses.

re ur "dunno why ..."
Dunno why you missed my clear point. I was responding to those pounding the table to build factories almost exclusively ... my point being you build mil factories to produce war equipment and in the early years that war equipment often a) is never used in the early years OR b) if used such equipment could be obsolete compared to the enemy.

I never indicated you can't "switch out production lines" but a) that comes at a cost of efficiency and b) does not address my main point that you might be better off with some infrastructure, rail, naval yard, etc. as you prepare your strategies on an upcoming war.
Attempting to build these items during a war can cost you big in a number of ways.

There are downsides to the "all factories" suggestions.

[TasteDasRainbow]

Publicado originalmente por wildlifeluvr:

re ur "dunno why ..."
Dunno why you missed my clear point. I was responding to those pounding the table to build factories almost exclusively ... my point being you build mil factories to produce war equipment and in the early years that war equipment often a) is never used in the early years OR b) if used such equipment could be obsolete compared to the enemy.

I never indicated you can't "switch out production lines" but a) that comes at a cost of efficiency and b) does not address my main point that you might be better off with some infrastructure, rail, naval yard, etc. as you prepare your strategies on an upcoming war.
Attempting to build these items during a war can cost you big in a number of ways.

There are downsides to the "all factories" suggestions.

except infrastructure, rails, naval yards, etc. provide absolutely 0 benefit while not directly being used, whether at war or not. The one exception being the small construction and resource buff provided by infra.

It then stands to reason that you should wait until the *last feasible moment* to construct such things, and only do so in quantities that are *absolutely necessary*. You are simply hindering your own industrial value by not doing so.

Perhaps I am misinterpreting, but if you're suggesting that building things like ports in 1936 when you don't plan on going to war until 1939 is beneficial, I have to say that's absolutely incorrect.

That does not mean you can't do so a few months leading up to war if you presume its necessity for the war, but doing so any earlier than that is losing value.

You assume that production in older equipment is less worthy because the 'equipment could be obsolete'. The pure fact is that obsolete equipment is better than no equipment, and that in a hypothetical situation of industrial parity with your enemy, you will overtly be able to field more units/equipment than them if you build your factories earlier when they themselves are building inf or ports earlier as you support.

Furthermore, there is plenty of equipment that can be invested in more early that will not become obsolete at any point. Trucks, support equipment, transport planes, etc. all being examples of tech that is never outdated because there will never be a better version of it.

While I appreciate you wanting to help, you are overtly misleading other players as to optimal construction by suggesting that constructing things that do not provide cumulative value earlier than absolutely necessary is somehow better than building factories that do in fact provide extra value for every single extra day they exist.

[wildlifeluvr]

You are wrong on so many levels I'm not wasting my time again.

To the OP and to other reasonable players ... re construction "order" ...

No such thing. There is no formula. Numerous variables to consider. It depends. Things are fluid.

Once you are experienced, your construction priorities will never be by a formula as some indicated but by smart thinking on how to be your best in a fluid situation.

[✚ Mariel ✚]

Publicado originalmente por wildlifeluvr:

You are wrong on so many levels I'm not wasting my time again.

To the OP and to other reasonable players ... re construction "order" ...

No such thing. There is no formula. Numerous variables to consider. It depends. Things are fluid.

Once you are experienced, your construction priorities will never be by a formula as some indicated but by smart thinking on how to be your best in a fluid situation.

While its true that there is no absolute formula, new players have to start somewhere, and this game can seem quite daunting to new players. It's helpful to have some basic guidelines to start with and then adapt as you gain experience. 1:1 mils/civs is pretty safe in most situations.

[mcdas]

No one seems to have mentioned Mobilisation level. The Democracies (US, UK, etc) start with some serious penalties to construction - e.g. I think infrastructure (if only for the resource bonus) is worth considering for US with undisturbed isolationism, as an investment. Equally, when the UK has Civilian economy, Naval Shipyards may be a good option. Then as World Tension (and thus mobilisation levels) increases then you move to more Mil and Civ building. My vice is building a fort just before a focus gives me 5 more, just because it's cheaper than building it afterwards... even though I know it makes no real difference... but who can resist a bargain? :)

[Megarboh]

Publicado originalmente por wildlifeluvr:

You are wrong on so many levels I'm not wasting my time again.

To the OP and to other reasonable players ... re construction "order" ...

No such thing. There is no formula. Numerous variables to consider. It depends. Things are fluid.

Once you are experienced, your construction priorities will never be by a formula as some indicated but by smart thinking on how to be your best in a fluid situation.

there is an order
1. civ until 2.5-3 years before main war/moment you want to have lots of military output
2. mils
3. supply/refineries etc. after mils + before war to optimize production efficiency growth