Originally posted by: Hadsus
Yup, I visit the Paradox forums regularly and have begun wading through the manual. Looked at gamefaqs for some help but none there. If you know of any links that could be useful I'd like to see them. So maybe you can help with a few questions I have right off the bat. What's some of the most important 'first moves' of the game. Do you try to address any resource shortfalls through trade agreements? With regard to research, I understand you shouldn't begin researching things too early. But are there general areas of research that are important to do. I figure that each country is different so it might not be easy to generalize. Also, when you choose your research teams, what does it mean when their research expertise icons are shaded red? And those that have green boxes around them (maybe that info is in the manual and have missed it). How do you form your military research strategies? There seems like there are so many options. Seems like the more I learn about the game the more questions come up.:shocked:
Some good questions. XBoxLPU has done a good job answering your question about research.
As for first moves, yes you should get resource shortages addressed ASAP, and most of the time you won't have enough of other resources to maintain a balance. What is more effective is to trade supplies. The key to mastering trade and maintaining a balance of resources in time of peace for most countries is to export supplies. Keep in mind not all countries value goods the same. In some situations you can get more from country A than country B, even if country A has worse relations. USA is one of the best to trade with no matter who you are. Soviet Union and Netherlands are other good ones too. Usually the minor countries demand more for their resources, so only use them as a last resort. Also, don't just trade enough to maintain a balance, especially if you're Germany preparing for war. After you do maintain a good balance you will want to work on getting a surplus for key resources like oil and rare materials so you build up a stockpile. But it may be wise to first improve relations a bit before you work on those surplus trades.
Don't forget your ministers, every new year may bring new ministers, so in January take a look and see if anyone really good is available. Look for people with bonus to IC, supplies consumption, research... But don't switch ministers carelessly because you take 1 dissent hit for each time you switch.
Dissent has an effect on your IC production so you will want to keep it at 0, if it's over 0 don't go crazy putting everything into consumer goods, just put enough to make it go down gradually, the other IC is better off going in building more factories or producing a few extra supplies for trade.