I’m still testing build orders with this. One advantage building rural industry first is that you can build recruiting centers in your cities. What I usually do is pick one resource to build industry in a rural province first while building recruiting centers in the city with that resource. You have to take several things into consideration such as which resources you have at the province level, which resources are close to boarders that will be hostile or by allies. Plus I usually prioritize industries on resources that are necessary for building more industry, but you also have to consider which resources you’ll need to build the military units you want to fight with. Just don’t forget to build recruiting centers otherwise you run into manpower problems too.

don’t build industry’s focus on your military and make new units and expand

You need to do both. By ignoring your industry, you'll run into resource issues in the mid and late game. Conquered provinces only produce 25% of the resources as a core province.

I build one industry on each resource on day one and try to upgrade two of them a day. I build a recruiting center in a city up to level two on day one and improve it to level three on day two, then try to upgrade my cities one at a time getting the recruiting center to level three.

Expanding is critical as well. I usually take a small AI on day one for the morale boost capturing a capital gives. Continuous expansions is key but sometimes you can get yourself into trouble trying to expand too rapidly. Focus on slow and steady with minimal casualties.

I only build industry’s on the resources I need. If I’m axis I build it in metal, allies I build it in rare materials

Start with industrial resources (metal, oil, rares) so you can continue to snowball your industry.
You should try to be maxed out at level 5 by around day 4 or 5.
Same goes for rural provinces with industrial resources, max those to level 3 by day 3 or 4.

With this strategy, you will have the biggest economy, often 50% bigger than the next person.
Once you have this kind of production, you can super charge everything.
Catch up on research, level up your factories, build more advanced units.

You don't really need factories for the first few days (just 1 barracks and 1 cannon factory).
This and some basic infantry, AT, and artillery research will keep you safe and growing early.
And you definitely do not need recruitment centers in the early game.
You don't need to build so many units, because you're not losing them, right?
Are you losing a lot of units? Well then learn to fight better

There you go. Three fairly different approaches. You’ll just have to experiment and see what works for you.

I always check out my neighbor’s profiles to see how much of a challenge to expect. The weaker they are, the more aggressive I’ll go after industry.

It is looking like I'll be hitting level 5s for first time with Xinjiang. Long past day 5 though. I was at war with china, japan, mongolia and com china on second day so didn't have a lot of resources to spare.

Still pretty good though. I have never developed all the way before. Had level 3 recruitment in all cities, all provinces to level 3 and cities at lvl 1 and 2 ( It starts out with a few industries in cities ). built all cities to level 3 by day 6 or 7. should have all level 5s done by day 12 or 13. On day 10 now. Just two more to build.

Had to spend a lot. Dozen lvl 4 Tac, Dozen lvl 4 Navy Bombers. 18 lvl 4 militia and 9 lvl 1 inf. 7 mechs and 11 medium tanks lvl 1. Less then day away from upgrading 23 artillery to lvl 5 and 26 rocket artillery to lvl 3. Also have 12 lvl 4 ACs and 6 lvl 3 light tanks. Also have 22 level 4 subs.

By focusing too much on building first sacrifices time. Tibet and I thought it game over with the allied coalition grabbing 1000 points in first week and china and japan attacking us but a week later there's possibilities. I captured 290 provinces and we should soon have the middle east, Japan and Russia. Might have a game here.

This is golding though. Using the 2750 a day to fill in some resources and speed research up here and there. Pedal to the metal.

With 300 victory points so far even with moral low I'm making 8 times my countries resources from conquering. Full economic development to the hilt might get you to 2 1/2 times. Plus the looting is really lucrative. I can't remember looting being so rewarding a couple years ago. Even a province will bag you a thousand. And gotta love those supply drops.

You need to consider if building industry is still worthwhile so late in the game. It takes 5-7 days to get the investment back, and the resource inflation (the longer the game lasts, the less valuable res becomes) makes that even longer in relative terms. Is the game really gonna last long enough to make a profit?

I'm an aggressive industrialist as well, pretty much like z00mz00m describes, sacrificing research and unit production. I do build early recruiting centers as well though, probably because I keep three factories running in the early game (usually militia, artillery, AC's). Finishing the core cities around day 5-6 (L5 industry, L3 RC's) sounds familiar.

One thing I notice in recent games is that pillaging is not as productive as it used to be. Especially AI countries, which are often broke. Are they over paying for resources on the market? Active human players are a crap shoot. Sometimes you find a player with a ton of money, maybe because they don't know how to use it, or they're out of one resource and they can't build anything. That will happen to people who build factories everywhere right away. They're out of metal and oil, and it's game over. Those players will yield nice rewards, if you catch them at the right time. But you can't plan an economy on maybe getting lucky against a neighbor who may have large stockpiles. It's a safer bet to skip the early tank factories and build industry that produces guaranteed income all game.

I'm always on the lookout for people who lose a lot of troops early on and are easy takeovers. You do need the AC's for the grab though, and the initial 2 just aren't enough. I believe it is worth the investment if you are alert enough to take the chances that always come along.

You're not wrong. I probably do that about half the time, depending on the terrain. With lots of plains to zoom through, it can be fun pillaging all the resource tiles, and sometimes you can find undefended cities. But if the terrain is rough, I prefer to stick with infantry.

I understand, but I've switched to militia instead of infantry, even in doctrines where they're not buffed. They're really too slow in a quick grabbing role, though they can do a decent job taking land on a broad front.

Interesting!

Is this because of stealth, or the lower goods consumption?

Several reasons:
- Firepower-to-price ratio is better in many circumstances, for reduced research time;
- Goods are often a problem resource, only half the cost for militia;
- Stealth;
- More small units which can perform all kinds of actions including scouting on statics fronts, taking remote provinces, bluffing (pretending to be a serious unit in the secondary enemy view circle), etc

Fascinating.

How do you deal with the lack of speed? For example, how do you escort your artillery?

I'm using militia as an auxiliary unit, because it's cheap and fast to build, even in recently conquered cities. I've never used militia as a front line unit. Researching them to high enough levels to make them viable in that role would negate the fast build advantage, so they can no longer be used in that emergency unit role. But perhaps infantry could play that role, if left at level 1. Food for thought.

level 3 militia is ok. 4 is not that far away. They are handy trailing a pack behind the army. With Xiang in HWW I didn't start with many infantry so didn't bother. I've never used infantry to escort artillery. If it works out I just go with half anti air and half rocket artillery upgraded together for speed and upgraded armored cars. I then spam artillery a week later and get them up to level 5 as rocket 3 is upgraded. Anti air is the next best to anti tank against armor ( about half ). The militia are off doing their own thing as would infantry.

I think 2/3 of our kills are not armored and in the first week probably 80% so artillery for me is a second week upgrade.

Finally found a country ( turkey ) that upgraded a foundry to level 5. Foundries are rare. Just scored 3 level 5 bunkers in Japan though. Spammed 16 commandos that will be ready for lvl 3 once they hit canada. Just wondering how a computer player will handle 10 of them going from city to city. If level 3 armored cars around they could be in trouble. I never used commandos before. Stealth everywhere has to be handy.

When you're active enough, the artillery can rush ahead and start shelling non-artillery positions. When the enemy tries to rush them and engage them in melee, the artillery retreats scoot and shooting - at which point, the militia catches up, can pin down the enemy pursuit force, while the artillery stops behind them and starts shelling again. Works like a charm.


They are still much faster to build at higher levels than other units at those levels. Otherwise, it depends - either there is NO emergency builds (temporarily give back the ground you just took), or you keep AT at L1 for a while. I usually don't research even L1 of infantry anymore, so you'll have to figure out if they work for that yourself))