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podcat

Game Director <unannounced>
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Jul 23, 2007
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Modern warfare is not just about men but material. To win you need to get the right equipment to the right places. This diary looks at what we are doing about the production of the right equipment. Hearts of Iron 3 is not at its core an economic game; it is a war game. However, we cannot escape the link between industrial strength and military strength. Still, in sticking to our core design philosophy we are looking at ways to add depth to the economic system without adding complexity.

With this is mind we began to think of what we could do to make the economic game more interesting and try to make historical choices more interesting for players. So we began to think about the famous and not so famous little facts of World War II, like Black Thursday (14th October 1943 for those who are interested) when the USAAF took heavy casualties in the second raid on the ball bearing factories at Schweinfurt, and the Norwegian partisan raids on the heavy water plant in Norway. These are two examples of when certain resources had a great deal of importance for specific purposes that our IC system doesn’t capture.

Enter the idea of strategic resources. We have a number of resources in the game that provide bonuses for your country. We assume that countries would always be able to cope without access to these resources, just look at the German synthetic rubber industry, for example, but life would be easier if you had them. Some of these are research bonuses, like Heavy Water/Uranium for Nuclear technologies. We are also looking at making Nukes more expensive to research; basically if you don’t have these don’t do it. Some are production bonuses, like Aluminium for planes. Others are combat bonuses, like increased Hard Attack if you have Tungsten.

belgian_congo_uranium.jpg

If a faction member controls a resource then all major faction members (countries with large IC) receive the bonus in addition to the owner. I know this creates a strange quirk that Japan and Germany share resources, so we have added a special rule for the Axis where they only share if the capitals are on the same continent. In addition, neutral countries that are ‘close’ to a faction will supply their strategic resources to that faction. If you as Britain want to prevent countries shipping goods to the Axis then you need to use diplomacy to do this. Historically, the Allies didn’t have a formal blockade but did do things like buy up entire countries' production of certain resources. We also have Switzerland, for example, importing huge amounts of Portuguese tungsten, which everyone knew was a fiction and the tungsten was going to Germany. This has the rather neat consequence that diplomacy doesn’t end just because war has begun. You are looking at what you can do to keep resources out of the hands of your enemies and into yours.

However, sometimes diplomacy won’t do the job and you don’t have the troops to take the province. Here, strategic warfare comes into play, and just like the real Schweinfurt raids you can use Strategic Warfare to target enemy strategic resources. The overall boost you get from a Strategic resource is linked to the infrastructure in a province. Large-scale raids will temporarily knock out this resource for the enemy's arsenal, leading to economic disruption.
 
I dunno. This might be cool. It sounds more like a shiny new feature rather than something that makes the game better. Besides, this is already quite possible too do with current modding tools, although less visible. Just look at the HPPs German-Swedish iron ore through Norway.

I'm looking forward to FTM anyway.
 
The part where the bonus is related to infrastructure in the province is especially promising! :)

Besides, this is already quite possible too do with current modding tools, although less visible. Just look at the HPPs German-Swedish iron ore through Norway.

You can't provide a bonus to Nuke research right now, so if I get this correctly, it will introduce new possible modifiers to use. IF it will be moddable, that is :)
 
bonus to Nuke research right now, so if I get this correctly, it will introduce new possible modifiers to use. IF it will be moddable, that is :)

it will be moddable of course :)
 
That sounds great, but will the easy-to-fix (or easy-to-copy-existing-fix-from-a-mod) bugs like
- German surrender
- infamous Dennis Lawrence
- some tech tree options (cavalry small arms / infantry small arms being two different things for one)
- etc
be fixed?
 
The part where the bonus is related to infrastructure in the province is especially promising! :)

You can't provide a bonus to Nuke research right now, so if I get this correctly, it will introduce new possible modifiers to use.
I must admit, I love new modifiers to use! The mods out there really makes Hearts of Iron reach its full potential.

So, I withdraw my previous positon and insist on the opposit. More shiny new features, especially moddable such!
 
How exactly is this related to this again? There was a Dev. Diary about miscalenous stuff two weeks ago...
 
These strategic resources are a good idea. :)

Gives a bit Civilization Feeling to HoI3.
Now you have finally a reason why to conquer Norway as Germany, or the Dutch East Indies as Japan.

I hope the AI knows the value of these resources well and tries hard to get them asap. Japan didnt invaded always in the Dutch East Indies before. Hopefully with the Addon it tries much harder to do so.
 
That sounds great, but will the easy-to-fix (or easy-to-copy-existing-fix-from-a-mod) bugs like
- German surrender
- infamous Dennis Lawrence
- some tech tree options (cavalry small arms / infantry small arms being two different things for one)
- etc
be fixed?

The German surrender event is going the way of the dodo, along with all the others, since we're changing to a wargoal/peace system rather than pre-scripted surrender events.

Minor stuff like Dennis should be fixed.

Seperate cav and inf tech is entirely WAD and will not be changed.
 
will you receive money in exchange for sharing these resources with a faction? will Portugal get paid for giving tungsten to Germany?

no, thats abstracted away. We want these resources to be more about diplomatic influence and actually conquering territory other than a way to make money. You will still be trading with rare materials etc the regular way for money though.
 
I was hoping for something else than: get province X and you´ll get this or that boost to your IC, or attack or… but, well, perhaps it will be a nice feature. At least they can be bombed. By the way, what resource is that potato looking thing?
 
By the way, what resource is that potato looking thing?

Hover over the Picture and you will find:
"Uranium ore in Congo"


I was hoping for something else than: get province X and you´ll get this or that boost to your IC, or attack or….
What you thought/hoped it would be?
 
By the way, what resource is that potato looking thing?
It's a poisonous potato, obviously. It's how Italy lost the war.

X_MasterDave_X said:
Now you have finally a reason why to conquer Norway as Germany
Although I realize that mods is not everyones coup of tea, check out the HPP if you want a reason to invade Norway as Germany.
 
I was hoping for something else than: get province X and you´ll get this or that boost to your IC, or attack or… but, well, perhaps it will be a nice feature. At least they can be bombed. By the way, what resource is that potato looking thing?

uranium ore mine in Congo, it was imported to US and used for the Manhattan Project. Some info here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belgian_Congo#Colonial_economic_policy

If you read the diary again you should see that there is more to it than "get province x" - that is one way, but there is also the diplomacy angle mentioned: "In addition, neutral countries that are ‘close’ to a faction will supply their strategic resources to that faction" etc
 
Minor stuff like Dennis should be fixed.

Risking to bring this a bit off-topic here, how do you want to fix that problem? It is caused by two things simultaneously. First, the parties of the ministers of the USA are mostly messed up. That should be pretty easy to straighten out. Second, when an election gets a new government into power, the Head of State and Head of Government are selected in a wierd way, usually resulting in people getting into office with fitting ideology but no trait for that office at all. This Dennis Lawrence is one of these problematic people. (Also, I have no idea who he is supposed to be in the first place...) IMO the engine should look for trait first and ideology second, prefering the current ruling party's ideology, but still allowing different ideology ministers with the proper trait over right-ideology people with no trait at all. Currently it chooses the first available minister with the right ideology regardless of anything else :(
 
I like what I know so far about these strategic resources. They're pretty much what I'd expected, though the diplomacy and faction-sharing angle comes as a pleasant surprise.

So for confirmed strategic resources we've got:

- heavy water
- uranium
- tungsten
- aluminium
- ball bearings?

I assume there are others too and that there may be changes in the line-up still?

Will the bauxite mines in Suriname be represented by giving the relevant province the aluminium strategic resource? Will the province's metal output remain the same?

EDIT: Are there any new spy actions planned that affect strategic resources?
 
And still no food?
 
And still no food?

If there can be food in-game, there's the possibility of a lack of food too. That would imply starvation for the civilian population, and I doubt Paradox would want to include something potentially so controversial.