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quote:
ORIGINAL: geofflambert
The only things that should ever be increased are LI (on Hokkaido and the mainland and some in the DEI) aircraft factories and engines and some players do armaments/vehicles. Refineries never, ever. HI never. Shipyards no.
IJA will require 120k Veh points for production of new units alone (and you need some more to replace losses, and for upgrades). You start with 72 Vehicle factories, giving an annual output of 26k Vehicle points. So, you NEED to increase Vehicle factories, and increasing by 50 is IMHO the least you should do (increasing daily HI needs by 300).
Regarding HI, it actually is more profitable to expand those, rather than LI, on the long term, as they turn a profit (read : produce more supplies than they costed to build/repair) in 18 months, compared to LI’s three years. Up to a point, at least, and that’s the point where you use too much fuel for your industry, as this is the primary limiting factor (Oil/Fuel). HI built at start will bring profit in mid-43, and Honshu is safe from bombardments at least until mid-44 (so, you get a minimum « benefit » of 60% of the invested supply). LI won’t turn a profit before the end of ‘44, or even early ‘45 ; by that point, it won’t matter much.
Japan starts with 224 Oil centers, and can conquer around 2800 more with the historic conquests (and depending on how far you conquer in China : Sian+Lanchow is worth over a 100 more). So, take a 3000 baseline, this gives you a Fuel production of 27.000 per day. You start with slightly under 7k HI, which will require half your Fuel production to work, and add some 4000 Fuel for your convoys and ASW operations, leaving you with a net extra of 9k/day. Your conquests will net you under 200 more HI (or twice that if you take Chungking), unless you go for a full India or Oz conquest. Unless you’re really very active with your IJN, you can safely build an extra 500-1000 HI, or even more* if ambitious and really willing to be conservative with the IJN (or if you lost KB - fueling KB once per month costs as much Fuel as 600 HI would consume).
So, most of your HI is in the HI ( ), but every Fuel point you bring home costs Fuel to transport (unless you use the Magic Railway), maybe as much as 10-20% of what you transport. Expanding HI in Java or Singapore will give you a net benefit starting in mid-43 (and those areas are still safe well past that point, in most games - if they aren’t, you have more serious problems than where your HI is built). Supply produced there can be used there, or shipped to Burma or Timor/Moluccas (NG is actually not much closer to the HI than to Java, and the Philippines are at the same distance). You also have far more excess xAK than TK, so don’t need to increase your TK fleet as much as you would if you shipped all Fuel/Oil to the HI.
Same reasoning goes for HI in Thailand, Indochina, China... those are usually safe from Allied bombing for at least as long as the Home Islands. Well, maybe not Bangkok if your opponent goes for a heavy offensive in Burma in late ‘42 or early ‘43.
So, I would beg to differ with your assessment : HI should be expanded. LI, maybe, depending on where and when you expect confrontations. But if you expand LI some places that doesn’t see combat, it’s as good as useless ; if you expand LI somewhere being fought over before the end of ‘44, it’s useless. You also need supply on hand to expand LI, and this will strain your early ‘42 shipping abilities for a ROI much lower than expanding HI in other places.
* but remember the risk of running short on supplies during ‘42. By the way, supply spent on HI expansion in December ‘41 will already have brought back half your investment by September ‘42, so the risk of running short is much lower than investing that supply on LI expansion, which will only have « reimbursed » 25% of the investment by the same point.
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