Infrastructure

Every land province has an Infrastructure value from 0% to 100%: how well railroads and roads connect it. It is the physical network that both the economy and the army run on. It changes over the campaign: countries build it, wars wreck it, and countries repair it.

Where it starts

The 1946 value comes from the map itself: the density of the railroads and roads inside each province relative to its land area. Railroads and roads count for half each, and each reaches its full share only at a density the best-connected provinces achieve. Most of the world starts poorly connected; most provinces have no railroad at all, and their value comes from roads alone.

Building

A country builds infrastructure by spending on it, through the Public Works law:

The spending appears in the budget as Infrastructure Spending. Spending beyond 5% of GDP builds nothing more.

Each month every province the country owns, and no enemy occupies, closes part of its remaining gap to full infrastructure. The share scales with spending, so a poorly connected province gains quickly at first and a well-connected one slowly. Building is slow: at 1% of GDP, a typical poorly connected province takes about 25 years to go from 5% to 40%.

Building speed, shown as Infrastructure Build Speed, rises or falls with:

• Terrain: plains and steppe are quick to connect; forests, deserts and wetlands slower; tundra and mountains slowest of all.
• Research: Gravel Roads, Asphalt Roads, Railway Electrification and National Highway Systems each speed construction (see Technology Trees).
• Law: the two largest Public Works programmes.
• Regional effects: postwar reconstruction works in a region speed building there by 25%.

Under fiscal flex, construction programmes are among the most discretionary spending: a surplus funds them above 100% and a deficit cuts them first (see Debt).

War damage and repair

Whatever devastates a province also wrecks its railroads and roads: battles, strategic bombing and forceful repression destroy about half a point of infrastructure for every point of devastation they cause. Recovering from devastation does not rebuild it.

A province remembers the highest infrastructure it has had, and rebuilding up to that level is repair: four times faster than new building, and some repair happens each month even with no spending at all. Bombing a rail hub therefore slows an enemy for months, and a country that keeps spending recovers from a war far sooner than one that does not.

What it does

• Economy: connected provinces grow faster. A fully connected province gains up to +60% Economic Growth, shown in its growth tooltip. See Provincial Economy.
• Supply: a province can keep more troops supplied the better connected it is. See Supply.
• Marching: Brigades march up to 50% faster between well-connected provinces; the weaker end of each leg sets the pace.
• Strategic redeployment: up to twice as fast between fully connected provinces.
• Reinforcement: replacements and equipment reach a brigade only as fast as the infrastructure where it stands carries them: half the normal pace in a province with none.
• Ports: separately from the value, a province whose coast has a harbour can base and build fleets (see Air and Naval Warfare).

Related articles

• Provincial Economy: growth and development.
• Devastation: the war damage that wrecks infrastructure.
• Supply: how infrastructure keeps armies fed.