MEFO Bills v Recovering Economy: Comparing the German Economic Branches in HOI4 Götterdämmerung
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- Опубліковано 5 лют 2025
- Should you choose the historical Four-Year Plan or go with Prioritize Economic Growth? In this video, I take a deep dive into Germany's new economic branches in Götterdämmerung.
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Your final analysis was spot on. You basically cant do well with 4 year plan if you're going alt history simply because you don't have the time, you're going to start the war weakened instead of at your peak
Actually if you do alt history you achieve autarky by mid 1937 and then you can do whichever path you like.
Imagine a cursed game with democratic Germany+Economy of conquest 💀
@@TasukuMuncha I saw someone played as France and defeated Germany by declining Allies invitation and after the Germans capitulated it become democratic and it still have the Economy of Conquest and the Puppet Germany really suffered from it
you can do it if you capitulate france and UK very early using paratroopers for example
That happens to me every time! Germany just stops being a major power and it sucks
As a "long build up then absolutely demolish everything" enjoyer, I mostly pick prioritize economic growth. I know in MP games that's probably not viable, but eh.
Nope, in MP, economic recovery is better than the 4-year plan
Unless the soviet player is really bad, u wont conquer all of the soviet union before 1942
In MP economic growth actually pulls ahead as most MP games usually call GG once the soviets cap so 4Y gets locked out of "economic miracle"
@@simonnachreiner8380 Ah, interesting to know.
This is the ONLY viable way
Cool video! The amount you get from seizing gold reserve is based on the number of civs, mils, and dockyards in core states of countries in Europe that you capitulate. So more factories = more consumer goods reduction.
Fun fact, releasing every single country at game start results in loads more countries with base focuses trees, which gives overall more factories available in Europe, leading to higher consumer goods reduction from gold reserves!
Wait, cant you just release a country and then invade them to plunder their newly created gold reserves over and over again?
Recovering Economy can also be worth it if you plan to "play the long game" as funny moustache man and let the Soviets be the ones to piss off the Allies first.
Epic strat but I was wondering what causes for the allies to declare on Soviets - is it like a focus?
Yes, both side have a focus tree to declare war on each other
@@AlmightyRNG More often than not it's triggered by Soviets invading Poland while they're guaranteed by the Allies or already in the Allies proper. And Since Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact goes both ways, Germany gets its land off Poland without a fight. It's sometimes surprising how much you can get away with by literally just waiting.
But economy growth give u slow process at early game. u must wait till 1939 to finall get rid of negativ Consumer good
@@duyouc6312 The extra 4 factories to consumer goods won't hurt you when you've built an extra 50.
One factor I like about the Recovering Economy is the increased resource trade. It gives a +1 to all resources per civ traded. By default you get 8 resources per civ when trading, but with that +1 it becomes 9. Effectively it grants your civ factories a +12% bonus when trading.
Actually, the four year plan path is NOT necessarily a MEFO bills path. You can still cancel the MEFO bills at any time before choosing Economy of conquest. It’ll jack up your civgoods temporarily, but in the end you get a much better deal (especially after Totaler Kreig (which by the way grants a whopping extra 20% dockyard construction speed for some reason) and Auturky Achieved)
How long are you making MEFO bill payments and how much are they?
@@carthagegamingstudios Alright, just checked: 40% for 60 days then 75% after the initial repayments, along with -10% to factory output. Though, that 75% does basically nothing. Afterwards I only had 34% consumer goods, and after instituting price controls you can basically just get a weird hybrid of the two paths, The consumer goods of Economic Growth and the other stuff of 4YP, with a nice 15% consumer goods but with all the bonuses of going MEFO.
@@Dedelblute3 is this the same as taking the bottom option when the economy conquest decision pops out? Or you need to specifically cancel the mefo before war?
@ It’s exactly the same.
Didnt they fix that? or plan to in another patch make it so you cant remove the mefo bills and still go autarky and four year plan?
My main strategy with Germany hasn't changed even after the update, I've always gotten rid of MEFO bills asap and focus on economic growth over the military, before quick-warring the Allies before America can bother existing.
That’s what I often do as Germany. Within 1936 go to war with a neighbor, either Poland or Netherlands. Get some land and resources early on while getting rid of MEFO, I prefer going about it that way
My favorite strategy was rushing Netherlands, then Belgium in 1937 in order to take out the allies before 1938.
However that's really difficult on higher difficulties since the patch, so now I like to go Poland and then defeat the Soviet Union in 1938. Which is ironically easier than Defeating Britain in 1940.
@@jxc1640Does getting rid of MEFO not make getting Autarky Achieved harder?
Note you don't actually have to build up the soviets for tungsten. Capitulating the Allies (preferably BEFORE "A date which will live in infamy") gives you control of British Malaysia which to this day is home to the largest tungsten reserves in the world. If however the Yanks join the allies...Yeah best bet is the soviets.
True. I purposely did not include a capitulated allies into the equation because Germany was unable to do it historically, but you are absolutely correct.
@@carthagegamingstudios or you could just invade portugal O_o,it's just what i do
i would do autarchky before attacking russia, seems kinda weird, take romania and portugal, and you have enough... :/
@@leonardo27630 Portugal puts something in the water to make you forget about them
@@davemiller638 It's the fact that they are hidden between a speedbump that's pretending to be a country
take for historical MP:
left side(recovering economy) outscales past 42 and u can delay barb to late 41 atleast so u will essentially always outscale
if u dont insta die on dday left side becomes unkillable
most servers banned left side for this reason
Would be awesome to see this extended to include IC in detail. Like how many military equipment is ready be 1939 and 1941 with each economic tree?
I did two Games trying to optimize both sides, just producing guns to have a clear result of what gives higher economic output.
By January 1940 I produced:
1.48mio Guns with FYP and
1.32mio Guns with PEG
But by 1940 my daily production was already higher with PEG so it would surpass FYP by mid 1940 in total output.
The main trade off in my opinion is actually that PEG Focusses take longer, so you miss out on many focusses that would buff your Airforce and Army before the War.
Thats the point its a slower build up for a better payoff. If youre fast enough and willing to manually justify to take the baltic states you can extend the benefit of FYP by a year or so. I havent tested it so thats just a theory.
with FYP i managed to build air and tanks to 39. and then switched making oil and rubber factories. Consider I put flame tanks in infantry how much oil i needed. I made alt history. Red germany is super strong. And the only germany i was closed to repeat what i made with hist germany. after 41 all alt germs will catch up. Also you as democratic or red germany you don't need to fight soviets and allies together . so you can first beat soviets using oil and ruber from allies . but it's not so fun as fighting whole world at once
Germany technically doesn't always have to invade USSR to fix the Mefo Bill. You can land England and conquer all Britain/Dutch Far East to get all needed resources. If you cannot land/conquer England, it is still possible to not invade USSR, but a bit more effort: You conquer Spain and Portugal to get all Tungsten needed, then conquer Turkey to get Chromium, then built enough synthetic plant (make sure has some of the resources tech also) to get the rubber and oil needed, tedious I know, but it can work I suppose.
Synths don't give you the oil needed for "autarky" as syths only create fuel not oil as a resource. (Learned this the hard way). However, if you capitulate the allies, or somehow get full control of the Netherlands and it's colonies, you can get all the oil you need. If you don't mind historic accuracy, it would be best to just attack the Netherlands in '36. Or if you want to be cheese and have a player controlling Japan, they can also join the axis and transfer you the Dutch east indies in early '42 if your Barbarossa bogged down.
Everything except the oil can be found in continental European minors. Just don' t be loyal to Hungary, Romania or Spain and don't give any territory to Italy.
@@leoschorberschofskie4628 Romania exists
@@fasoliromanesti7195 in my experience, their oil wasn't enough, even with excavation on max. Maybe with collab and different garrisons though.
Just invade the axis + spain and portugal and wait for the soviet trade treaty
did you completely forget that synths give only fuel and not oil?
close enough, welcome back 71cloak
The lower focuses on the MEFO bill side each increase consumer goods factor by 10 percent. Its usually best to not do the refinery ones until mid to late 1938 when u start producing ur fighters/cas for the rubber, as you dont need much fuel for them. That will save u 20 percent consumer goods for a good amount of time. Also, taking hungary's gold isnt a big thing since they are pretty weak and you can kill them. For that reason, I think MEFO bills is a good focus branch, although I have never tried the recovering economy side of the focus tree.
Other than the fact that you don't have to do the refinery research and rubber production focuses until later on than you showed in your video, I think you did a good job with the analysis. At the start, the MEFO tree will easily reach -20% consumer goods if you know what you are doing.
Alternatively, you can fight the brits head on in 1940 and have autarky achieved by then. Bittersteel's recent guide on how to play as germany would get you going even with only 100 hours or less under your belt
Well, yes, but you're basically saying : "Germany is OP once it has won the war and annexed half of the world."
@ChibiNyan well, yes, exactly. If you wanna play the game historically then go for it. I just prefer beating the allies first.
I mean it's better than bogging myself down with the soviets
@@Oliver.Alverize Of course, you play how you want. If that's your thing, go for it.
Just... if this is a video talking about the strengths and weaknesses of some choices/builds, adding the condition "just win WW2 early" is not pertinent. Anything is strong enough at that point.
@@ChibiNyan nope not really. He also takes into account some strategy into it, not just talk about builds. Basically how to micro it and the things I need to do prior to the war. Germany is strong, yes, but it's in a ticking time bomb with the mefo bills so you need to be careful on how you'll manage your army, navy, and air force. His builds on tanks and fighters/cas do help but overall strategy is very important. Prior to watching the guide, I messed up sealion and lost a division's worth of manpower and for certain I ain't getting them back.
Love to see more
What I’ve ended up doing is taking the expanding claims on Baltics focus which also gives you a war goal on Poland and then you conquer them all at once take their goal and land which allows you to get down the economic focus tree faster.
The thing is allies scale much much better than axis. So waiting for any reason isn’t really a option while playing historical.
the AI doesnt scale at all
Good video! One minor correction though: The whole building up infrastructure part to get tungsten is actually unnecessary. While the Soviets do not have enough tungsten for you to achieve Autarkie, if you've conquered Norway you can take a focus to force Sweden to give up resource rights to it's own tungsten. With the additional tungsten from Sweden you will have enough ressources to achieve Autarky basically the moment you have reached the caucasus and taken the soviet oil fields there.
theres actually this thing i do where i rush down to price controls then cancel mefo bills and take all the price control decisions. it ends up with an economic recovery modifier with -5% consumer goods factor and -5% military and dockyard construction speed. However you get access to the totaler krieg branch which not only gets rid of the military and dockyard debuff but also gives you totaler krieg, which is ofcourse extremely op. It is a bit cheesy but i just wanted to point it out. (P.S. I recommend you take price controls after cancelling mefo bills as it changes the 0.5 consumer goods decrease factor per month to a flat -10% consumer goods, also i tend to complete the other mefo bill focuses too before doing this as they will add consumer goods to your recovering economy. I tend to cancel mefo bills by early 1937 which is in my opinion reasonable for the mid to late game buffs you get)
There is an exploit, if you activate conquest economy before doing the focus "The four-year plan" and then instead of it go to the "Prioritize economic growth" path, you receive all the reduction bonuses in consumer factories but without receiving the "recovering economy" debuff, it is an exploit, but it is something that works, at least in version 1.15.0
I think I'd only go MEFO if I wanted a historical game but even then I think I'd always pick Recovering Economy because I often play into late game. That 15% construction bonus and research speed just seems too good, especially for late game.
The MEFO as their are implemented are super ahistorical and overestimate the "economy of conquest" post war meme.
@@coot33Not really? Tooze shows that the German economy would basically collapse if they didn't conquer anything.
I guess they made PEG OP though rather than MEFO UP
@@totalwar1793 >Tooze
Good video, very clear and supported by facts.
I looked at the code and the consumer effect of seizing the gold reserve seem to be (Number of factories/200))*-1. So for every civ/mil/dockyard the country you captured has, it increase the effect by -0.5% consummer good factor.
I think it's more of a long vs short game preference. Plus the puppets germany can create do have resource boost stuff and still count for autarky, in fact it's probably better to do so as have less non core territory slows down the rate at which MEFO bills and later eco of conquest scale (it does affect both as you can core Austria, and create a bohemian puppet in non core land with the Rosenberg office) that would give you more time to get the total amount of resources needed
The long buildup with recovering eco isn't even long, by mid 1938 you're stronger than mefo bills, without the downfall, it's dumb
Another thing (multiplayer) that’s really nice about prioritize economic growth is the fact that you have export focus so your allies can buy rubber and produce planes for you so you can focus more on tanks and get more trade. The axis has a tonne of mils but not a lot of rubber. In the early game you as a faction can get 60 mils or over on air while Germany has 35 mils on tanks while being rubber sufficient and having collabs.
The HOI4 video we all needed.
I am carthage studios and I enjoyed this video
You sound like Kumma out of Harrold and Kumma lol 😅.....love your content 😊
Played HOI4 again for the first time in a long time and the MEFO bills took all my factories :O, never an issue before lol
@4:00 no they didnt. They honestly believed no war would start by going in on poland. There are countless ways you can see they are unready to prosecute this war.
Its more of paradox learning history from the back of a cereal box. They even included the anti-historical soviet research treaty in the patch still.
What do you even mean by anti historical soviet research?
cereal boxes would be nice... wer are living now in the timeline of tiktok...
Yeah exactly. Germany's military spending didn't start ramping up until early-mid 1939. Using HOI4 as a serious method of understanding history when there are ZERO primary sources provided for what is going on in the game will only stunt your academic growth and understanding of history.
@@GigaNietzsche yep most people to this day dont understand germany was on a piece of paper inferior on every level to the allies at the outbreak of the war.
So true!11!1
I loved this analysis, but I've got a slight bone to pick. Your spreadsheet numbers don't account for the unique trade law (Autarky) or the unique economy law (Totaler Krieg) that you only get by going down Four-Year Plan. Autarky is mostly a worse version of Export Focus, but gives you 15% resources to market, which is lower than Limited Exports. Totaler Krieg is a sidegrade of Total Mobilization that costs less manpower, gives a 20% bonus to mils and dockyards instead of 30% to mils only, and gives 5% factory and dockyard output.
I'd love to hear some commentary on whether those make any difference to your conclusions. I have trouble interpreting them myself.
Great discussion
interesting. i have been searching for this since even before last DLC
Hey Carthage, don't you feel like that if in a historical game Britain goes absolutist and aligns with Germany, Italy and France would band together to fight them off, perhaps even calling the Soviets? Because if I do that path as Britain I always see Italy doing nothing, as France protects Czechoslovakia and Germany, with my help, wins against those 2 and then Italy and others just stand there and watch it happen
I eventually plan to do a "The Problem with A-history" video and talk about things like this.
Reactive ai, that's what we need so this doesn't happen, at least when historical ai is turned off, the problem is paradox tried to fake reactives countries (Like the commonwealth leaving when britain turns fascist) instead of actually making a system for it
@carthagegamingstudios Nice! You're doing a great job. Keep on cooking
I used to just cancel MEFO bills immediately at start but this was before this last update .. the longer you use them the worse it gets later
I have this issue where after I capitulate France I can't seize their gold.
But I can seize the Polish, Dutch, Belgian, and Luxenbourg's gold.
Do you know why?
I decided to play the new germany dlc for the first time and despite already seeing what potential problems the mefo bill might have i still decided to choose them for historical accuracy. In order to make a challenge for myself i buffed the allies in the settings to the max and did not invade Britain. Unfortunately i wasnt paying that much attention to the game and made some mistakes which got myself into an Endsieg scenario by 1944. Unfortunately i did not achieve autarky by like only 30 tungsten. I am now in 1949 and well, i havent had a higher amount of civs actually working that over 20 for 7 long long years. Adds to the challenge fighting the entire world without an economy😅(the allies and soviet union are on an combined amount of 100 Million casualties already)
How are you still alive!?! lol
@@carthagegamingstudiosSteiner counterattacked.
I love the new dlc-less German focus tree, but I have an issue with it: a part of the naval tree is locked behind ship component research, something that doesn't belong in base game.
Aka there are some focus you cannot gain without dlcs
You should try conquer Turkey (For chromium), Spain+Portugal (For Tungsten), Romania (for Oil), and usually Rubber will have plenty synthetic plant to produce, German itself (or conquered French and central Europe) should have plenty of steel and aluminium, then you can click Autaky
@@carthagegamingstudiosWell, after a couple reloads and lost braincells once i stopped the allies one tile away from berlin i just played the waiting game and let them run into me. After like 3 long years of barely holding on the soviets finally atacked the allies. I managed to retake most of germany and am actually retook poland and Czechia. Rn i am at the gates of Leningrad.
I LOVE this channel
You can achieve Autarky without beating the USSR. By conquering the UK and doing the German France cheese to bypass the Vichy France you will have enough ressources. But any alt history you should go recovering economy. Great video btw!
Don't forget that to progress in certain focusses require you to have certain lvl 3 industry tech. Idk if this counters into it, and you can min max it (from what I've been able to do at least) but there's usually around a 100 days between completing a focus & having to wait for a tech to finish researching. If you play it smart you can make sure you don't have to wait to long in between getting both tech's, but again I usually have a little down time inbetween the focus finishing & the tech being ready to start the next focus
(this is done from the top of my head though so idk if a 100 days is accurate, it just feels like thats the average time I have to wait)
(idk if this is factored into the vid already I might have missed it)
Come for the knowledge. Stay for the voice.
nicely done
another thing to helps PEG of these focuses if you try and get war economy as fast as possible as well takes a way alot of consumer goods
I find them to be about even with the number of military factories you get but I feel economic growth can be better becuase you are less locked into a particular playstyle than you are with the four year plan becuase of the resource requirements
idk i feel like left side is better anyways cuz sure i dont have the mil construction bonuses but i have more factories to build with(early) cuz i have 10 % from late 36 and onwards and late im gonna have more industry since i had more factories no ?
i wouldve really like an overview of how many factories one would have by start of the war if u build civ to the same date (lets say 1939 jan) and then go mil only to prove / disprove my point
This is an amazing analysis.
Just one question: Did you factor in the bonuses of Totaler Krieg in the 4YP side of the Spreadsheet?
Great analysis! But with proper planning, operation sealion is still very feasible and doable. Caputilating the allies hence achieving the Autarky before capping soviets is also pretty much possible, at least normal mode on iron man
You can finish Autarky Achieved in early 40 if u annex all of the axis minors + spain and portugal and get the trade treaty thing with the soviets
You can get autarky achieved if you have the Benelux, Spain and Portugal. If your still low on chromium go for Scandinavia
Does the spreadsheet account for the reduction from Vichy occupation costs? Also why not end gombas trade deal? Hungary can join axis anyway
The mefo bills new modifer under the four year plan can go negative after its set to zero for the autarky focus. So if you are able to get autarky fast you can get up to -80% consumer goods factor permanently. Alternatively you do four year plan and price controls, but choose after going to war not to do the MEFO bills. You then get recovering economy modfier which price contrtols can still apply to without any increasing consumer goods factor. So until you take autarky path you can get -80% consumer goods factor.
I feel economic growth is far better for a quick scaleable civilian economy. The initial debuff can be quickly reduced with short focusses and it also sets the stage for a world conquest.
If only Paradox would add a more advanced diplomacy system where we can end wars diplomatically with negotiations instead of total capitulation...
I like mefo bills cuz its easier to get more focuses done i like to fully do the army one for example maybe grab some for airforce and navy (i like navy)
Tungsten can be get via Sweden and some from Greece / Yugoslavia - extraction tech helps as well; the tough part is the oil requirement. Maybe play a little ahistorical and declare on Romania
Nah, with focus you get to subjugate Romania and if you care to build oil refineries you have a okayish amount of oil in Germany
@@pancytryna9378refineries don't produce oil though. They produce rubber and fuel. They haven't produced oil since some dlc patch probably 6 years ago. Unless you are playing some mod I guess.
@@RabbiJochanan
Uh... I know that?
Even German Reich gets capitulated and you signed the Yalta conference both West and East Germany still have the Economy of Conquest modifier
Not sure if you included it, but having vichy france setup lowers your economy of conquest increase each month by a little bit.
Personally when i play MEFO i like to take over the balkans, potentially also portugal and turkey. You get keep your consumer goods low for longer and you can bascially get everything you need for autarky except the oil before even going in on the sovjets.
Good video could you have a section on what happens if say, a Germany comes across a good France player who either delays the fall of France till 1941-2 or actually holds out (I'm actually a France main in MP and routienely hand Germany players their asses on plates. It would be intresting to see the full effects on an economy of being forcibly dragged into a WW1 esq stalemate)
What I like to do: At January 1st, 1936, I pay the MeFo Bills and do "Prioritize Economic Growth". I switch to Partial Mobilization and begin its succeding focuses.
I still think economic growth is best in all situations and it really just comes down to the fact the AI is very incompetent so those early buffs are not as important as simply having more civs to build with. Being stuck on 30 civs trying to build up a military industry and trade in 1939 is more punishing in SP than having 10% more factory output. What I produce will still be better quality and in good enough quantity to achieve any war objective.
Also for me the fact they actually nerfed the best part of MEFO bills (25% mil construction speed vs now it being 10%) has further turned me off. The intelligence protection makes little difference for AI and you can achieve the same level of protection by staying on limited exports and just boosting your counter intel for 5 civs/month.
Also it was good to factor in the effects of having Hjalmar Schacht, but Ludwig Erhard provides the economic growth branch with an objectively better advisor. -15% consumer goods while being able to save PP on going war economy and possibly even cheaper access to free trade boosts is amazing compared to -10% consumer goods and +10% mil construction speed. Interesting to consider that MEFO bills Germany needs to take those focuses and hire Schact just to still get a worse spirit than pre-patch.
I'm fairly certain you're able to complete the prereqs for "Autarky Achieved" when you capitulate the UK and take their puppets, which I was able to do almost immediately after I cap'd France. Not sure if you'd say that's easier than defeating the USSR now that the UK will actually defend its beaches.
MEFO is usefull if you prepare for the civil war by building mills and refineries in states you control epically if you take Either Begum or the Netherlands at the start then you switch to prioritize economic growth during the civil war.
The difference between the 2 is very simple.
Historical/late war vs early war.
Alt path makes you weak early on but strong at the historical start fate and only getting stronger from there.
Historical path makes you strong for an early war, but leaves you crippled for a historical war & later.
In regards to the MEFO bills price control decisions to lower consumer goods. If you can hold off on clicking those until you reach autarky, you can gain a huge -consumer goods output. Basically zero. Granted at that point it really doesn't matter much and paradox will likely patch it sometime. But it's something interesting to know.
You don't need it. consumer goods cap is 10%, with war economy and autarky you can easily achieve 10%.
I will sit on the MEFO bills without touching the economic tree until almost 1937 and start building mils in the 2 provinces that start with dams. Then try and time getting off MEFO with prioritize economic to land around the same time as the standard early game Netherlands war declare.
I always pick Economic growth and then rush the economic techs needed, using the 100% research bonus on construction 3 to get to excavation 3 quicker. You have enough research slots for that, so you can achieve Wirtschaftswunder in the first quarter of 1939.
That’s ape, you should research tools 3 just for the extra cap first, you don’t really have focus time to get the focus as soon as you research excav 3 if you use the 100% on construction I’ve noticed
Some notes.
1. taking Austria and Checkoslovakia also lowers MEFO bills somewhat. Cant remember how much likely based on factory coint.
2. Getting Swedish resource right gives you most of the tungsten and chromium you need.
3. Alterniteve way to get Autarcy achieved is to sea lion and take malaya, DIE and Curacao.
1 is in the excel sheet I just didn't mention it in the video for time.
@@carthagegamingstudios but at 3:30 You literally say and I quote "Once you have taken those initial prica control decisions there is really nothing you can really do to stop this number." I belive my interpertation of you not having noted them is understandable.
Also no. 4. Doesnt 4 year plan give you more rubber per refinery? Thats not in the spreadsheet as far as I can see. If memory serves 4YP gives you +2 rubber while Eco growth only gives +1. That is pretty big for germany and should propably be added.
Sorry for the confusion. I record these whole videos in one take and edit out my mistakes and awkward pauses and content I think isn't necessary. I meant outside of conquest, there is no other way to reduce the factor. For your fourth point, yes. MEFO gives you one extra rubber per refinery which is excellent. It's in the Excel sheet if you download it, but maybe not visible in the screenshot from the video. I also list out the differences in free factories and research bonuses in the spreadsheet.
kinda disagree with some ppl, recently ended my run with germany and i did the recovery economy with historical mode on, i did started the war abt half a year later than whats its supposed to start but it paid off big time, ik its not the usual but i actually went full on building civs and then begin building mils abt a year before the war i planned , i couldntb es topped bc i could keep building anything the allies bombed and build bunkers or anything didnt took long aswell as having projects working and oil extractors building, so yea on the long run that was the most op thing (allies had almost complete air supremacy at the start) ofc im not expert but is just my experience
honestly, I worried over the MEFO bills when I first played the DLC but collab gov'ts and stacking civ factories made it hardly a concern. Oh no, 100% consumer good factories factor! that's!!... only like 30 factories of my 120+
2 rubber bonus instead of 1 during war time as Germany is big enough deal to always go MEFO if I want clean playthrough.
You can achieve Autarky before Barbarossa by conquering Romanian Oil and getting Tungsten from ressource rights in Sweden.
4YP - if you wanna roleplay as Moustache Man
PEG - every other ideology
Here's the thing: It's reasonably easy to get Autarky as early as 1940, if you can annex France, Iraq, Iran, and either Puppet spain and annex portugal, or annex sweden. With the latest DLC, the Mefo bills can be pushed off even further if you invade Hungary, too, lol
Could you do a video on the ideal way of rushing 1939 industrial tech to get the best out of the left side economic branch?
This is where ahistorical comes in. FYP/MEFO is technically easier IF, *IF* you don't do what mustache man did. Rush down conquest, grab the 'smaller' countries and go south before going east means getting Autarky is viable in 1940, before going for the soviets. It does mean that you have to give up on the house keeping you'd normally do, but largely means you're sitting on a bigger pile before trying to punch at the soviets.
I always thought mefo bills is super good. Just conquer minors you have the greatest continenatal army. Conquer sweden which gives - 45 consumer goods. (You have to repair their op mines )Conquer turkey or spain for sweet tungsten and chromium. Be a warlord minors are weak but you will need special units for spain and turkey terrain is mostly mountains thus have 24 units of good 25 width mountaineers with a heavy tank aa . and you will destroy them. Also establishing vichy decreases mefo bills cost.
I play with expert ai and it was doable
I agree with everything except the part with tungsten, you can get it easily from iberia.
Historical AI can deal with MEFO or AI on historical was build to fall?
Ever since Götterdämmerung dropped, whenever I do a historical Germany run, I get snagged in the Benelux because they're fully reinforced with French and British troops (this is still mid-1939ish). Has anyone else had this problem?
in my first game of this DLC I was doing a non-aligned Germany and and austral hungry I just remembered four-year plan being good I doomed us both with a German economic collapse RIP I had a perfect Civil War as well no cheese
A problem : prioritize economic growth is fairly bad in non historical game. I tried a non-historical kaiser Germany with economic growth and the problem is : is the minor countries in central Europe refuses to be annexed, you're cooked. You don't have an economy to go to war early (especially since taking economic growth, you're more likely to build civ first while with MEFO, you pump out mil immediately) so if, let's say, Poland says no, you're cooked.
Also, if you wait a bit for your economy, world tension already jumped up because of all the small wars, and everyone is already in a big faction.
Do your calculations include seizing gold from Austria and Czechia? Not a lot but it helps till 39. Did not notice them in the spreadsheet
Austria, yes. I didn't see a reduction after Czechia (even though the focus says that's supposed to happen) though so i didn't include it. You can see the dip in consumer goods factory factor where it says the Anschluss occurs.
@@carthagegamingstudiosYes, and Memel also gives you -0,5. The rule is simple. Every factory you conquer gives -0,5 Consumer Goods Factor. So waiting for Anschluss reduces the consumer goods more as you conquer more factories. Same with taking all of Czechoslovakia instead of splitting it up.
For the MEFO path, I dont think you mentioned the Austrian and Czech gold, only the western democracies and USSR's gold, no? They also help reduce the consumer goods factor
It not works with new DLC. Only occupied countries gold can be stolen.
You can basically hit autarky very quickly if you cheese the game and naval invade Britain instantly, as long as Britain is not at war it doesn't deploy its fleet and as long as you have ships on escort and patrol in the area, the naval invasion can go ahead and you can capitulate Poland and Britain at the same time, then go through the Benelux to kill France OR, you can put all of your ships in the channel and naval invade from Britain into France.
Another trick to do if France is in a faction with the Czechs or something is to do the same trick but naval invade Calais, because France never backs this up. If you struggle there (you will need to land tanks to make it work, easy tho) you can withdraw your troops off the Rhine and the AI will run out of supplies when they enter Germany in those regions, this makes it slower for them to re-deploy to that front before your troops hit Paris.
If you decide to do either of these tricks, doing the recovery economy part will make you way more op, but, at that point its no longer fun to play lol
9:10
Why are all the buffs for economic growth are at 5? The requirements to get it all to 15 is being at war with a major, and by the fall of France you should have already done those focuses.
Если правильно построить Германию, то векселя MEFO не будут поднимать процент фабрик народного потребления выше 12%. По факту, лучшей механикой экономической усталости является таковая из мода World Ablaze. А чтобы выполнить фокус на полную автаркию, достаточно захватить Румынию, вместо того, чтобы принимать ее в адьянс. Также, чтобы выполнить требование фокуса по вольфраму, нужно захватить Югославию до того, как вы примите Италию в альянс, и также не принимайте требования Болгарии по претензиям на территории Югославии.
You don't need to capitulate the Soviets for Autarky Achieved, you can just take Romania+Portugal(+Sweden potentially)
One of the bigest problem of MEFO is German AI is becoming preaty weak by late 1941 early 1942. If you play as USSR for example, Germany can only last for couple of mounths before they run out of preaty much from every type of equipment. In 3 of my games Germany even strugle to cap Yougoslavia. I notice a long time ago that German AI became veaker and veaker every patch.
Thats exactly the problem. When i play Soviet Union, i tag to Germany and auto complete the prioritize growth focus. İ add 320 Pp and 20 war support and immeadiatly go to war economy and pick the advisor that gives -15% consumer goods. After a few months when the other focuses are available i again tag do Germany and auto complete every possible focus under the growth economy focus tree. Now it becomes %25 and with the -15% guy it basically is %10. With War economy it means just %2 consumer goods more wich is nothing. İ left the rest for ai. But in 1 game i auto researched the needed research and auto completed every focuses wich gave Germany the Wunder industry thing. With this DLC i cant play Ironman Soviets anymore. You have to play Germany a little bit yourself😃
>you slowly recover it with economic growth
I wouldn't say going from 75% consumer goods to 25% (well 10% if you take a advisor) in like what? 105 days (3 focuses) is that slow just rush the left most branch of the tree and continue it in 1939 once you get exploitation 3 and advanced machine tools.
Also there is also a third a bit wacky path of going to war (like for example with britian in 1936 with sneaky naval invasion) and going for 4 year plan capping uk skipping most of focuses with meeting autarky requirments and doing autarky in like late 1937 or early 1938 (or maybe faster) that one is a real fast path. esp it would be good to not take any price control decisions (except hungary one cos it's time limited) and reduce you consurmer goods to 0% and then below that with price control stuff giving you like dunno -40% consumer goods? still need to test that but sneaky invasion into uk is very much still possible.
I played 20 games as Germany. 19 games i took mefo bills and lost. 1 time i took reform the economy and took over the world.
It’s not even close.
Does this account for compounding though? A civ in 1936 is so much more valuable than one in 1941 because can spend 5 years building more civs and mills
I really want mefos to be legitimately useful especially in mp because it’s such an interesting, unique and dynamic economy system that feels much more authentic to how Germany’s economy was actually a tall tower built on flimsy foundations. I think if they just tweaked a few numbers here and there, made achieving autarky feasible sooner than “you already won the game” timeframe, and slowed down the speed at which your eco gets screwed, or at least give yourself options to mitigate the worst of the eco debuffs at least for a few years. Most times I see mefos hit max factor it’s in 1939 when an early war started that Germany couldn’t properly exploit. This should barely be able to happen. It should happen later in the game at like 1942-43 if Germany has stalled on the russian front
It's incredulous to me how common cancelling the MEFO bills on game start seems to be in the HoI4 community. I get why, but "it's easier" just seems like a copout for someone to not explore a game feature. You can get some ridiculous benefits from the MEFO bills in the short term and they only ever go bad on you if you fail to invade the Soviets in time, as stated in the video.
If you are playing historical MP germany MUST go recovery or you dont have air, you can do no air build but well thats not a good idea.
The MUST of recovery for germany is because of trade, italy will not have access to rubber and alu limiting the air production close to 30 mils
I also dont really understand the taking of gold reserves. I once took crimea in late 41 and it only gave me -0.5% consumer goods, same with leningrad. Is there a focus the ussr can do to move the gold reserves east?
This is exactly why I didn't factor that into the spreadsheet. Very minimal.
And to answer your question ... maybe? The Soviets do a focus called "Move Factories to the Urals." But I'm not really sure how the gold amount is determined. If it's based on factories, that would make sense.
it's hard to almost impossible playing four year plan in unhistorical mode
>beating the Soviets
Laughs in early SeaLion
A comment on how you adjust your math for how the economy of conquest civ goods factor increases over the course of the game: I'm not certain, but it seems as though the civ factor increases month to month in your spreadsheet reflect playing as Germany and NOT releasing any of the puppets/komissarats. While you might get some extra resources by doing this, the optimal strategy is to take the gold, then release the puppets to decrease the inflation of the tick up per month in civ goods. Otherwise you start to eat massive increases per month that drastically reduce the amount of time you have left before total economic collapse, compared to a scenario where the monthly increases remain lower for longer. Most of the territories that the puppets annex are less useful anyways, besides for just increasing raw factory count.
I think if you compared a scenario where Germany capitulates these countries, takes their gold, then releases any puppets, it would show a bit more favorable than your current comparison. However, if you have already included the puppet mechanics, then all of this is moot. I just don't remember hearing you say either way in the video. Both systems work and are worth using during different style campaigns.