I've been thinking a lot lately about how people seem to misunderstand the heart of the game, the economy. The economy touches every aspect of the game. In my opinion, economy decides games more than units or tactics. I'd like to take a minute to explain the theory behind economic play in Call of War and how that theory should guide your strategy and tactics.
First, you need resources to build units and structures and to research things. It should be obvious how important this is to victory, but I'll say it anyway. Resources are the most important thing to your country, without them you are useless. Of course you need an army to defend your wealth, but resources come first. You need resources to build units to defend your resource generation engine, your economy.
Second, destroying armies is meaningless if your opponent still has a robust economy. They will return and in greater numbers.
Third, when two nations or coalitions are at war with each other, the winner will usually be the nation/coalition with the larger economic output, all other things being equal. They are more able to replace losses and continue the fight longer and are less likely to lose valuable territory.
In the long term, the larger economy will have more units and higher tech levels. Of course it is possible through superior play to even a deficit and I'm sure there are plenty of stories of it happening. However, you have to do more economic damage to the opponent over time than the economic deficit you are at. That's it, that's the game.
Here's how to use that understanding to your benefit to win wars:
1. Always aim to do more economic damage to your opponent in every engagement. This is a hard, fast rule. You don't have to do the math. Seek favorable engagement, avoid unfavorable engagement. If I can shell your huge artillery force with battleships, I take no return damage. Artillery against forces without artillery, again no return damage. Air strikes against forces with limited air defense are another example. Sometimes engaging a force with an overwhelmingly superior force is a favorable exchange. In general, using appropriate counters should result in favorable economic exchanges. Also in general, regular infantry/AA/AT are cheap units that tend to result in favorable exchanges. This is only situation though, attacking with AA is stupid, but they do a ton of damage to planes which are expensive to replace.
2. Build tons of industry or expand like crazy. These should be done in some combination. The expansion type player still benefits from building their five core double provinces up early. For an economic oriented player, you can build city industry to level 5 and local industry to level 3. It takes a good number of days before you hit a limit here and you can grow your economy very well without angering every AI country. Take capitals whenever possible and do it toward the end of the day to lock in territory gains and improve the economy of recently claimed land.
Here's an example, I'm on day 7 with the US in historic world war, I have the Japanese mainland but it's not contributing much to my economy yet. Almost all of this is homegrown:
3. Attempt to occupy the enemy's core. You don't need to take all the non-core territory your opponent has right away. It isn't contributing much to their economy. Your objective should be to take and hold their core until they can be completely eliminated. Usually people defend their core territory poorly if they're attempting to rapidly expand. Their armies are usually off on adventures toward the fringe of their territory. Some players will even expect you to fight them for non-core territory first for some reason because it's closer to you; don't.
First, you need resources to build units and structures and to research things. It should be obvious how important this is to victory, but I'll say it anyway. Resources are the most important thing to your country, without them you are useless. Of course you need an army to defend your wealth, but resources come first. You need resources to build units to defend your resource generation engine, your economy.
Second, destroying armies is meaningless if your opponent still has a robust economy. They will return and in greater numbers.
Third, when two nations or coalitions are at war with each other, the winner will usually be the nation/coalition with the larger economic output, all other things being equal. They are more able to replace losses and continue the fight longer and are less likely to lose valuable territory.
In the long term, the larger economy will have more units and higher tech levels. Of course it is possible through superior play to even a deficit and I'm sure there are plenty of stories of it happening. However, you have to do more economic damage to the opponent over time than the economic deficit you are at. That's it, that's the game.
Here's how to use that understanding to your benefit to win wars:
1. Always aim to do more economic damage to your opponent in every engagement. This is a hard, fast rule. You don't have to do the math. Seek favorable engagement, avoid unfavorable engagement. If I can shell your huge artillery force with battleships, I take no return damage. Artillery against forces without artillery, again no return damage. Air strikes against forces with limited air defense are another example. Sometimes engaging a force with an overwhelmingly superior force is a favorable exchange. In general, using appropriate counters should result in favorable economic exchanges. Also in general, regular infantry/AA/AT are cheap units that tend to result in favorable exchanges. This is only situation though, attacking with AA is stupid, but they do a ton of damage to planes which are expensive to replace.
2. Build tons of industry or expand like crazy. These should be done in some combination. The expansion type player still benefits from building their five core double provinces up early. For an economic oriented player, you can build city industry to level 5 and local industry to level 3. It takes a good number of days before you hit a limit here and you can grow your economy very well without angering every AI country. Take capitals whenever possible and do it toward the end of the day to lock in territory gains and improve the economy of recently claimed land.
Here's an example, I'm on day 7 with the US in historic world war, I have the Japanese mainland but it's not contributing much to my economy yet. Almost all of this is homegrown:
3. Attempt to occupy the enemy's core. You don't need to take all the non-core territory your opponent has right away. It isn't contributing much to their economy. Your objective should be to take and hold their core until they can be completely eliminated. Usually people defend their core territory poorly if they're attempting to rapidly expand. Their armies are usually off on adventures toward the fringe of their territory. Some players will even expect you to fight them for non-core territory first for some reason because it's closer to you; don't.