Making sure my military and economy setups are decent

I'm a player new to the game, been on for about 4-5 days now. My country is Khorsun on White Giant.

I've done the basic first war and conquered the empty neighboring country and I basically want to ensure that I'll be ready to survive once I'm out of protected mode. This is on White Giant, not Fearless Blue, so that is one less worry.

I've added to my military:
- A defensive division to the attacking ones you start out with
- Some additional fortifications
- A couple more helicopter defense wings
- Another small supply unit and an airbase construction crew
- A few more radar planes and some air transport capability
- A navy with a helicopter carrier, a fleet command, a few offensive and defensive destroyers, and a bunch of attack boats with SEALs
- A remote depot in my new puppet country

I've been eying the neighboring country and his defense index just to have something to peg mine against, his is higher but he seems to be reaching it by fort-spamming (by the way, is this actually a decent strategy?).

How much further would I want to expand before protection mode passes, and are there any sectors of the defense forces that I'm leaving gaps in?


And then onto corporations, I set up one or two new ones each of the first few days and now have nineteen running. As of now, I haven't privatized any, as I'm approaching all the economy stuff I don't understand with caution.

I'd very much like to hear any advice on getting the economy running strong and on policies to help the new corporations grow and keeping the old ones from getting sluggish as time goes on.

Thanks to anyone who's read this far and has any advice to give.

UNless I misunderstood something, you can keep protection mode for your first country as long as you want.

So there's basically nothing you have to invest in military for defensive purposes. Worst case, you will lose your slave nation, but for a decade it is going to be an economic burden anyway, so big deal.

I've played some gameyears now and I can tell you that the biggest concern you should have is to have your nations economy balance once your beginner boosts run out.

Buying military is not part of achieveing that balance - on the contrary.

So if I were you, I'd stop investing in military right away and maybe even scrap some of it. In any case deactivate as many weapons as you can and don't activate or build anything again untill your population is at least 20 million.

My best advice on corporations is to start one at the time. Check your unemployment and education priorities. Starting new corporations if hiring of all existing corporations isn't allready at 100% will be a waste. Only start new corporations if you can fully staff them (or nearly fully).

If you're allready in a situation where a lot of corporations are way below 100% hiring and with no chance of being fully staffed in near future, close down some corporations. Close those that have a green market situations since they are likely to be less profitable.

I hope this helps.

You can't judge the effectivity of a defense by the index, so dont compare with your neighbour. For example, you could buy 20,000 missile interceptor batteries and nothing else and get a high index, but just MIBs wont do much to defend a country. So thats very misleading, but can be useful if your just trying to get up the levels without going up war-levels. MIBs being the most cost effective way of just raising your index.

(I presume you can still level up with def index instead of war levels?)

But, as Mr. nastytastingvegetable says, you dont need any defense in your main country, not even forts.

As for privatising corps, I, personally, wouldn't start worrying about that until you are a bit more sure of the way it works and you have your own enterprise. All you will be doing really is selling a part of your corp for a one time payment with that percent of profit lost every month to whoever buys it (the shares). Thats why its best to have your own enterprise buy the shares of that corp. And you have to lose over 50% of the corp before it gets the benefit of further upgrades. Just my outlook on it, check it out before you regret IPOing them.

Regards, Crafty.

Thanks for the responses. I do not intend to keep the secured mode on past the 2 week expiration date, so military is something I will have to invest in. I have started deactivating my arsenal for the rest of the secured period, however, to save costs.

Why? Why on earth would you not keep the protection mode?

If you want to be a warmonger, fine. But you'll want to be a strong warmonger. Not a pre-schooler with a peashooter.

Because it seems fun and I'm not afraid of starting again with a new country if I get stomped. It's a learning experience.

Now, is there something you're trying to tell me about practicality here? Like, if the first two weeks are not enough time, nowhere near enough time, to prepare enough defense to survive without it, I'd understand the concern. How long would it take to build enough capability for basic defense and survival? A month or two under protected mode? That's the kind of stuff I can't read in the game documentation but an experienced player could help me out with.

And giving me some idea of what level of defense is needed to survive more than ten minutes without the magical protection mode on would also be appreciated. What forces would the typical warmongering player bring? I don't have much for frame of reference.

Is my biggest defense concern against an enemy air force bombing everything and landing special forces, is it against their navy bringing amphibious invasion, or do people just flat out nuke each other right away, requiring me to prioritize deterrance capability and missile/bomber interception? What are the typical strategies people use? Are forts a good investment or a waste of money? Which types of targets are essential to garrison and what are the better blueprints I'd need to make if the default ones are as inadequate as I suspect?

If anyone can point me in the direction of an After Action Report or other example, I think it'd probably be great for helping me get a picture of what to expect.

There's no ideal defense. There are many ways to attack, so whatever defense you chose will have weaknesses. Its a matter of mixing. And attack is the best defense, any defense will always be breached, its just how much you can make it cost the attacker and how much time you can buy to attack back.

Youre not going to be ready to fight a real player for several months. First off you'll need to get to war level 3. So fight a few C3s, get experience. Look at how many points you get for each target you destroy. That way you'll understand the main targets to focus on and the ones you need to defend.

There's tons of discussions about war tactics if you trawl through the forums. Also read the war documents - weapons to see what weapon is most effective against what. There's too much to teach someone in the forum. It'll take ages to get good at it, so dont run before you can walk.

Flayer, the main problem is that going on the war path as a new player will sack your economy.

If your goal is to battle with other players, then you should build up a strong economy before you expand much into other countries.

I conquered 2 C3 countries and nearly regret it. The cost of building two countries up from the bottom while my primary country is also running a deficit, means I have a looming bankruptcy.

If it wasn't for the beginner booster, I'd be losing about 6B per month.

So everything as far as I'm concerned, is focused on trying to break even by the time the beginner boost runs out.

Conquering new countries which needs to build tons of expensive schools, universities and hospitals does not fit into that plan