One of the longest debates in the Hearts of Iron 4 community is how many Civilian Factories you should build before moving on to Military Factories.
Though many will attest that being greedy with your Civilian Factories won’t really be profitable, they are usually wrong. The real question when you’re building Civilian Factories is when do you actually want to go to war?
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There is no clear number of Civilian Factories that you should build, but rather a date when you stop building them and start building Military Factories.
Though there isn’t an exact number, major powers should be able to use at least 45 Civilian Factories for Construction and minor power 15. In general, it’s best to only build Civilian Factories in Hearts of Iron 4 until 2 and a half years before the war starts and then only build Military Factories.
Table of Contents
- How Many Civilian Factories Should You Build in HOI4?
- When to Stop Building Civs and Start Building Mils
- Civs vs Mils – Why Not Build Only Military Factories?
How Many Civilian Factories Should You Build in HOI4?
Most major powers should have enough Civilian Factories to build three things at the same time at maximum capacity, which would mean you’d need 45 free Civilian Factories.
Depending on the country you play, you can either get a lot of them for free through conquest or you’ll have to build them before the war starts.
Minor countries will sometimes never reach such a high Civilian Factories count, so the goal for them would usually be to have 15 to 20 available for construction.
Still, generally, you shouldn’t think about the exact number of Civilian Factories that you have since that varies from country to country, and think more about when to build them.
The normal strategy is to build only Civilian Factories at the start of the game and then only Military Factories once the overall number of Civs is good enough.
When to Stop Building Civs and Start Building Mils
Usually, the best time to stop building Civilian Factories and start building only Military is 2.5 years before joining your most important war.
For example, Germany would have to stop construction of Civs in 1937, since Danzig or War generally happens in 1939.
However, countries like the UK can postpone the transition since they only actually start fighting the war in 1941-42.
Countries like Japan, on the other hand, don’t really have time to build Civilian Factories and would generally do a better job just building Mils and taking the Civs from China.
It all depends on your country, but usually, 2.5 years before fighting is the best time to stop with the Civ greed and start the nonstop construction of Mils.
Civs vs Mils – Why Not Build Only Military Factories?
Though there are many players that recommend only building Military Factories the whole game, they don’t really take into consideration Consumer Goods and the need for other buildings besides the factories themselves.
First of all, Consumer Goods is a number of Civilian Factories that you can’t use for Construction, based on the total number of factories you have, both Civs and Mils.
This means that a country with 20 Civs and 200 Mils will lose all of its Civs on Consumer Goods, not being able to build anything for the whole game.
Second of all, there are many other buildings besides Mils that players might want to build, depending on their circumstances: Forts, Dockyards, Ports, and Railways are just some of the very important constructions that you’ll need to make to win it all, especially in multiplayer.
Without a decent Civilian economy, players won’t be able to build anything, not to mention the inability to repair all of their bombed or destroyed Infrastructure and Factories.
So, as long as you don’t start with a huge Civilian Factories count, like the USA, always build some Civs!
That’s everything you need to know about how many Civilian Factories you should build in Hearts of Iron 4!
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