Okay guys this is a WIP so it will grow step by step

Lets think about a nice sandbox game but which country should i choose?

Okay i will show you some of the great possibilities you can have!

Hm we have some very easy countrys:
USA, China, South Africa, Brazil

Hard countries
Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Japan

All of them will be forced to WW2, all of em will have many fights and opportunitys so its hard but not impossible to be a great nation!

USA the power monger, heavy industry so you can expand and do what you whant, democracy so a good pop approval is important for the election and not forced in WW2 if you dont whant it, wonderfull! Many tech centers! Excellent!

China, very good industry and pop with plently of tech centers. On the other hand you are forced into a war with Japan and its colonies which you "cannot" win cause you dont have a navy in the beginning, or do you know the timeline and will have a navy ready before you need it?

South Africa isolated and a good manpower pool, can grow nicely.

Brazil my favourite, the power monger from SA
You have tech disadvantage, but you have a wide area of resources, EVERYTHING you whant!
You just need to establish your economy at the beginning!

USSR is a very nice country, if you can get its infrastructure fixed, and get the resources problems in hand.

Okay first of all you should keep the clock paused and "analyze" your country.
Which resources do i have, which opportunities, wich threats.

1. Analyze your resources, do i have enough resources to expand my population? Which direction will be the best for my country?
2. Opportunities, any countries ner me that i can absorb later on that will help making me bedder?
3. Which countries are near me that are a threat. India for example has no real threat next by, only China that can be a problem in the beginning. China for example has only Russia and India as direct great powers as Japan. Japan and india are democracies so even on highest violency they normaly dont attack you.

Okay next question is the question of your government style, a communistic/dictatorship is not so hardly related to its pop approval than a democracy/monarchy. So if you dont need a good approval rate domestic prices can be higher than in democracies. Normaly 50-60% are good. Democracies should have more than 40 %

The last and most important question is, who many pop i have to work. Cause if i have masses of pops its easier to get many industries but getting self sufficiant is hard. On the other hand, exporting in the right masses will make a good coin. We take China again. We can build around 60 consumer goods factories, + all resources we need in our country, it takes time to regenerate the energy but with enough building its doable. But to much is to much, if you build lets say 60 factories so you will export 40k tons of consumers a day, the price will climb normaly to around 10k each unit. But if you build more and try to sell 100k a day it will fall to the ground, so be carefull!

So these steps would be good to solve for a cold war cenario:

1. Expand rubber industries, it will get a key hole!
2. Expand consumer goods so you can earn enough money
3. Expand all the other industries to deliver the goods for consumer production.
4. try to find a good value for your Resear centers. China con keep 10 in line or even 14, south afrika would have problems with 5
5. Build up relations via trades, to your partner you whant to have, Nato or Warsaw.

Diplomacy, warm smile icy heart

Diplomacy means the interactions of your country with others. Lets start with some basics:


Equal Goverments get a "bonus" on each other so a democracy will be much easier to convice in treatys with each others than a dictatorship can do. This is also shown in groth of population oppinions in such countries.
To grow your countrys relations to others you must trade with these countries. Slowly and steady your trust level will grow and more and more treaties are possible. On the other hand, if the countrie starts to like you more, you can get goods from em cheaper, and techs + you get more for your goods and techs. And this is very important in the beginning! Tech trade!

Its a very very simple calculation. If you must pay 300m for a tech, and can sell to 10 other countries that are not in your sphere of influence, so your area you whant to rule, and every of these countries will buy the tech for lets say around 20m from you, you got it for only 100m + your relation with 11 countries is growing. Dont try to trade on resources, normaly countries doent pay what they are worth but sometimes your ministers find equivalent possibilities if you let em watch for em.


Improving your status with a country
"Money makes the world go round"
Everything in the world is cash based. If you trade techs with a nation, or resources you get a small boost in your diplomatic ratings with a nation. Every nation has a "cick" value, a sum of money ou must trade in or out to get that bonus. So what to do to increase the relation? put your wallet out!
buy things a country has on mass and overprice it if necassary, trading for 3.0000.000 makes some countrys very happy if they made a good deal with you, and if your relation is at least cold, they will make own offers to you, and your improving rate can increase slowly and steady.

Treatries

Embassy - The most basic treaty recognizing the sovereignty of the other nation. Provides a relationship boost.

Criminal Extradition - Provides a relationship boost.

Land Transit and Supply Treaty - This allows you to send units into and across their territory. It also allows them to keep in supply so they do not run of of fuel or supplies whilst doing this.

Sea Transit and Supply Treaty - This allows the nation to send ships through its waters and resupply them there. All nations start the game with this treaty with Egypt (Suez canal) and Turkey (Daradnelles) so that you are able to use there waterways to take shortcuts.

Air Transit treaty - This allows you to fly air units over their territory, as well as using their airports/airbases to refuel or base your planes.

Full Transit Treaty - Just a compilation of the three transit treaties.

Line of Sight Treaty - This allows both of you to see what each others units are seeing.

Free Trade - Increases your relationship with the nation you sign with. Also increases your UN rating. Provides a Minor economic Benefit.

Free Flow of Labour Force - Provides a Minor economic Benefit.

Missile Defence Treaty - As of Supreme Ruler: Cold War this treaty only increases relations between the two nations that sign this treaty. Best used as a stepping stone to other treaties.

Mutual defence treaty - Creates an agreement between the two nations that if one is attacked then the other will come to its defence. Does not actually force the player into war, just provides Casus Beli against the invader and causes a loss in relations if this treaty is ignored. Works well to dissuade nations from declaring war on the signatories.

Non-Aggression Pact - A formal agreement that neither nation will attack the other. Breaking this causes a large loss of relations internationally.

Formal Alliance - A compilation of the following treaties - Embassy, Full transit, Non-Aggression, Line of Sight and Mutual defense.


Tretry Integrity
This means the fact how trusted you are and how long treatis will be offered, for example in the beginnign you get normaly only 7 day treaties, but if you pay and keep your treaty, and the other also your trust grows, and so possibilities of other treaties like non agression or longer termed treatries for 30 and 90 day trades!

There are some key questions for every country:

How can i earn money? What are my resources avaible.
Most countrys will earn their money with goods and resources so lets have a look at em:
We beginn in the year 1937

*Agricular
Agricular is cheap to build and can earn a good bunch of money, if your GDP is low

Rubber
Essential for your industry but most countrys dont have resources avaible until the research of Synthetic Rubber

*Timber
Much avaible on the world market, even with low GDP nerby no money to make, only domestic sales bring a bit of money

*Coal
Yes a tiny bunch of money possible

Iron
Normaly no money possible because its overproduced like coal

Uranium
Strategical resource later on it gets interesting when the world needs it

*Oil
Cheap and normaly avaible for many countries, synth possible

*Power
Yes absolutly necassary and absolutly good money!

*Consumer Goods
VERY VERY VERY good money

Industrial Goods
Strategical Resources, good money possible

Military Goods
Strategical resources, in times of war, money making possible


I have marked the Domestical goods with a *
Domestical goods mean that your Population needs em, if they get em, they will be happy. The other side is that you can change the domestic rate, what means you can "tax" it. So if you can buy/produce timber for 4 Dollar each, and use a domestic rate of 50% your people must pay 6 Dollar to get it. 2 Dollar for you. That doesnt sounds great but when your pop needs 100k m³ a day ist 200k extra cash for you! Sure its not Consumer Goods but its also a bit of money.

The best "cashcrops" so goods to export and earn money for undeveloped countrys are agricular, and oil. Yes rubber has a good cashvalue but you only produce around 100 per farm. An Agricular farm produces much more.

in the Cold War Area we have some changes:

Coal is no longer domestic, and all other goods get a boost in the production outcome. For example Petrol goes up from around 3k Barrel to around 300k Barrel

First of all two things:

1. Avoid overbuilding! Dont expand beyound your budget or resource trade abilitys!
2. Avoid underproduction! Yeah it doesnt sounds hard to have a lack of lets say petroleum, okay my countrys demand is 2.5m Barre and i produce 700k no problem i can buy the rest, wrong! First of all the world market is not endless. Secound, lets say we have missing 1.8m Barrel a day, Worl♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ price is 9, production cost 6. Hm lets calculate 1.8m * 3 5.400.000 Dollar lost.


So what is the key to expand wisely, its always the right expanding order:

Industry Goods, cause you need em so first of all try to expand that industry

Power, doenst sounds important but power can get nasty if you have to less of it, and it can be hard to get because you cannot hoard it like petroleum and the rest.

Rubber, your indy needs it!

Consumer goods, you need the money and your people whant to get it, so they stay happy. Normaly it has a very good price if you dont overproduce it and you can make a 500 to 1.000 Dollar per unit.

Agricular, no comment necassary or? Later on it can be wise to shutdown your production, NOT DECONSTRUCT, and use food from the world market.

Oil/Petroleum yes you need it in large masses. Your people get richer and use more petroleum, so be carefull.

Military Goods, in times of war you need em, and than they get very rare normaly...so a good basic production and trade partners will help you. On the other hand, in times of war you can make around 4k Dollar per unit, at the world market and even more from direct trade.

These goods are less important cause normaly they are easier to get!
Coal
Timber
Iron ore
Uranium


Agricular, Coal, Iron Ore, Rubber and Uranium Timber i would produce via "Produce 101% Demand " Slider, so you have a bit more than you need but you dont horde it when you dont use it.

Petroleum, Industry Goods, Consumer Goods and Military Goods, i would always produce at 100% because you can make a good stack of cash with em.

Okay lets start with your countrys economy

Imports and exports are based on two facts, your worlds oppinion + your cash. If you have cash but
your worlds apporval bad, you wouldnt get enough resources even if you can pay, with direct trade you must pay horrendours prices. So in the beginning be a nice guy, play softly and grow your economy! on the other hand the worl♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ is not infinite, so if you expand to fast it can be that the resources are not avaible, this means the prices climb, which means it kills your income.

First of all you should note some important facts:
1937 are goods quite cheap, so industry goods are cheap to import and use, energy, coal oil and ammunition are very affordable. this is the time to expand your industry production, because when the game will go into the beginning 40 years, goods will normaly double there prices, until that time the avaiblatiy will drop rapidly for indy goods, consumers and ammunition! So you have around 3 years to start an own production.
Your first step should be industrial production, cause these goods are good for exports and your country needs it for building. Energy and consumers can wait for the next years. Start to build your indy good economy but try to maintan a positive cashflow!
When your energy production is around 10k less than needed start splitting your industrial construction and coal power plants. Coal? Yes! Cheap and fast to build, one coal power plant uses half the resources of an indy good keep that in mind.

Fact 2.
You can have an taxation or domestic income, or you become an exporter.
The domestic producer tries to get the taxation as low as possible, and make his cash via selling his goods to the people. But your pop base must be of good GDP for that.
The Taxator just tries to grab as much taxes as possible, th edomestics are also an income but not the main ones.

The Exporteur is a guy producing valuable goods and selling em to the worl♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ or direct trade. You need normaly a hard hitting first investment but than you are playing with the market and selling your goods. But why shouldn`t you buy lets say goods that are worth around 1b and you must pay 300m why shouldnt you sell it to the world market for 700m for you?

Another way of economics is the diplomatic ones, if your relation is at least coordinal, you can make some cash, an easy example:

The USA produce military goods in WW2, but dont participate in the beginning. Russia will be drained of mil goods quite fast. So if you buy 5000 tons mil goods in the usa for 72m you can sell it, in Russia for 162m or something like that, so a nice surplus of cash. just watch opportunitys, when they produce much bt dont demand much, you have a chance for a good deal! Important here is that you watch the market prices. if the worl♥♥♥♥♥♥♥price climbs all day, you know something is hardly underproduced, so investing here and selling it can help a lot. on the other hand, if you have some cash why not dry out the market, so that the price climbs, and than selling a whole bunch of goods? That is like at the "Wall Street"


Fact 3.
Many Nations dont have the GDP and Pop to be a good taxation partner.
China has a very high Population, but a GDP of only 100 Bucks. So if you Tax away 50% you earn with 500m People 500 * 50 so 2500m a day.
The US with 150m People and10k GDP earn with 50% Taxation 150 * 5000.....

So increasing your GDP is important but who? Jobs! If you establish a balanced economy, and your Pop has an unemployment rate below 3% the GDP starts to climb. But whatch out, dont rise it to fast, because GDP has a counterpart called inflation, and the inflation can eat up your money very fast, so in that case, slow and steady wins the race!

Okay now whe come to or bottlenecks!

Supply and infrastructure

Supply is needed by your units, it also indicats how well your area is supplyed what is necassary for your industry. Also a fact is that you need a minimum supply of 4% in an area to build there something.

We have roads and railroads, cities and supply depots, supplytrucks, transportplanes and cargoships.

Cities and supplydepots generate an area of supply circulary around themselves where they offer supply. Cause of the fact that you cannot found a city but build military complexes with supplydepots everywhere, you are stuck to these depots when you whant to wage war and offer supply areas in nowwhere regions.

Roads and railroads offer supply around themselves so its a bit like a supplypipeline. Roads have a wider area of supply they grand than railroads, and a higher max supply possibility.

Trucks, planes and cargoships offer supplies for specific units, so these units call for supply if needed and the supply units try to deliver it there.

The supply around a city or road is no static thing, a unit that is consuming supply also depleates the supply avaiable in the area. These supply flows from cities and roads so its building up hex by hex. If an area has a supply of 8% the nex area can get 4% supply and so on.

Your production outcome of your structures is also linked to the supply lane.

Okay guys lets talk about unit types

Navy

Battleships, are divided in fire support and close quarter classes. Fire support ones you can see by the "indirect fire" ability they have. These are the guys to clean out a port for your infantry to move in, lay waste on the shores and just kill garrisons and infantry. They can handle well against nerby any threat, exclude submarines. So dont let em be alone without some PT boats, cause submarines can be a nasty problem.

Destroyer, same as Battleships but this time they are more allrounded, not so good in any point but can handle normaly every situation well. Later on they can carry missiles and get a real hard hitting anti airplane, anti ground ability.

PT Boats, everything that is a patrol ship. Fast, tiny ships, not good in firing on destroyer, battleships or carryers but well against submarines.

Submarines, the killer, they sneak around and fire their torpedos, if not detected in time they can deal a great ammount of damage to other ships. Beware for ubmarine hunter classes like the PT boat and anti sub destroyer!

Carrier ships are divided into Short and Long Deck. First ones are mainly for helicopter and a rare number of airplanes, the last ones are for regular fighter and bomer missions

Merchant Marine and landingships
They are used by your land based units to get around, no real threat so make a safe rout for em. Landing ships öloaded with troops can unload their cargo at any coastline without a harbour!

Transport ships are the supply ships. They are no "Frighter" for goods, they just need to be next to a ship and can resupply them tha with ammunitions and fuel, excellent!

The airforce needs two things, a landing spot and a target
if you tansfer your Airforce, they unload all their cargo and get as much fuel as possibile so keep that in mind if you send em around and calculate their route, or they will crash!


We have at first the:

Interceptor, theyre job is simple kill other planes, and a bit ground support. Normaly with very short range compared to AWACS or bomber

Tactical bombers are the guys who use their bombs to harras ground based units or ships, they can do a nice bunch but that is normaly only as support.

Strategical Bombers, these guys are long range, bomb carriers, attacking structures, or stacks of units. Later on they can carry around your nukes.....

Transport planes, have to jobs, first of all they can deliver supply to land based units, its just a tiny supply but sometims its the difference between winning and loosing. Their secound job is to carry around loaded paratroopers and drop em off where they are needed.

Last but not least, tanker. They are mobile planes to resupply your airforce, if you have planes with that ability.

Or guys on the ground, seperated in MANY MANY diffferent types, but okay lets try to sort em a bit.

Recons, Fast units that have good range and are quite fast, good range of vision but no real combat units. A group of em, at all, is able to kill garrisons or outnumbered infantry.

Infantry is splitted in normal forces, anti air forces and anti tank forces. They are your backbone in every army. Dont make the mistake to motorize em all, sometimes slow walking guys are faster than motorized ones, supplys and so ;)

Engeniers are the guys that can move across rivers, and can be used as mobil ebridges, very important, more expansive than normal infantry but you realy need em from time to time. They can also use demolition charges to destroy bridges and buildings but this takes a long time, so plan ahead.
A special note is, that engineers are able to be unloaded via th enormal merchant marine on any shores.

Artillery have indirect fire, to kill enemies, best used for stacked guys, ölate ron they will get replaced by missile trucks. Weak in close combat, are they excellent to weaken your enemie positions.

Tanks, yes i like em hard hitting infantry, artillery killer but weak in citty attacks. They need a lot of supplys so dont use to much of em!

AT Guns, yes short range tank killers, good vs tanks but thats it, and in my opinion, infantry does a bedder job.

AA Guns, are your favourite in killing the enemies airforce, they have a real hard hitting punch on planes and bombers. They can also, depanding on the stats, beeing realy good infantry killer. Some are also able to kill tanks, german ones in special.

AT Tanks, like they are decribed even bedder in killing tanks that tanks themselved, but they are getting away later on.

Resupply Trucks, are used to, like the name says, resupply your units in areas where supply is low. Be carefull they are very weak but very necassary if there are not enough roads in the area.

Para Trooper, are able to be loaded into an airplane and jump out of it, behind the enemie lines, very usefull to disturbe him!

Okay whe had a nice war, and now its over, we won and now?

First of all keep two things in mind:
1. The new population needs a while before they start to grab demandings, so keep that in mind.
2. If you deconstruct industry you get a good part of the resources back


Now we have three options, annex, liberate colonize and every of that option has different effects:

Annex, you get the country, and this is good. But if your people dislike you, like in many dictatorships, you get a domestic approval hit, and if it gets to low, you get partisans. That means you get stress. On the other hand, if the enemy country has no colonies so will be erredicted, they cannot get a capital for long, and so partisans wont be a problem. And if they are in connection with your main land, what do you need to think about? You have new people, resources and industries, nice! Rebuild the country! Industry first than power, than the rest. DONT rebuild everything at onece always one by one. Dont overstrech your own industry whith rebuilding! Also keep in mind to rebuild the infrastructure.

Colonize, they will get your "vassal" send you money from time to time, and trade with you...thats okay for far away countries or island nations like Taiwan. You are able to forcetrade with them, build and build order in their country, and its possible to annex them via order. a nice thing isnt it?

Liberate, hm some times a country will have stress with other ones. Like Peru, Bolivia etc. So if you know your colony will have wars, and you dont whant to participate, yes than...
Klick annex at first. Deconstruct their whole industry, grab everything from agricular to ore mines even the complexes. After that is finished, liberate them. Who? Easy as pie, in the country overview, first button left side, klick theyre tiny flag with the skulls on it double, after you have done that, switch to the diplomacy tap, and there war declaration, and you see an area to make theyre land independand, with no industry :D no problem any longer....

Science is splitted in some core facts:

Budget, effectiviness, research centers, time


Budget ever project eats a fixed sum of money, this sum is at 100% effectivness so if you have a science rate of 40% you need much more money than planed, or a 100.000.000 object you will spend around 60% more cash. So buying techs is often cheaper than researching yourself!

Choke points some techs are non tradable, so these techs, you must research yourself! So try to research these first and try to buy the rest. this saves time and money+ you can sell techs to countrys without interest to build up relationship and tradepartners, if you are brazil why sould you care about europe, or asia? Sell em your techs, wait until they have at least 200 Million cash, sell as much as possible.
If you are on top of the tech board, than research techs based on your country, so if you need military a bit military and so on.

Targetting!
It is important to look what you need. If you are "underdeveloped" some techs are from much greater importance than other. As example "Power Grid". Also Sozial Techs and Industrial Techs for democracys. On the other hand, it is also a nice idea to plan ahead, example:
Double klick the Power Grid tech and Double klick it to Power Grid Tech IV. Now your minister puts all necassary techs into the que to reach that goal, simple or?