1936 real world steel production vs HoI4 steel production

[billcorr]

1936 real world steel ingot production does not closely align with the distribution of steel resources in HoI4.

• There are 4,301 units of steel in HoI4's 1936 starting scenario.
• In 1936, there were 122,000,000 long tons of steel produced globally (see 1st spoiler).
• Using the real world data, one can determine the distribution of steel production in real world 1936. (Please see 2d spoiler)
• Multiplying the real world percentage by 4,301 units of steel gives an idea what the steel production would have been if the HoI4 designers had solely relied on real world steel data.

Spoiler: The Mineral Industry of the British Empire and Foreign Countries Statistical Summary (Production, Imports, and Exports) 1936-1938, His Majesty's Stationery Office, London, 1939, page 189

Note the absence of data from China.

Spoiler: Distribution of steel in HoI4 compared to real-world distribution

Discussion: As mentioned on other forums, the resources in HoI4 sometimes represent a sole real world commodity (e.g. crude oil, natural rubber). Other HoI4 resources appear to represent a variety of real-world resources.

In the case of steel, other metals or resources are also counted as "steel." I ran the numbers for pig-iron and the results were similar, but not the same as steel. Also, looking at the 24 units of "steel" in Chile suggests that copper is counted as "steel" in HoI4. Chile has vast copper deposits, but in 1936 did not produce steel on an industrial basis.

Alternatively, the designers may have exercised artistic license and put steel in countries without a history of producing steel in 1936. This allows minors to have some starting amounts of resources for their factories. Also, placing large amounts of resources in ahistorical locations serves to drive the game towards conflict. Greece appears to have a large amount of ahistorical steel (and tungsten and perhaps other resources). The abnormally large amount of resources in Greece can motivate neighboring players to attack and get the game going. This bait helps put "war" in this wargame.

What other minerals could steel in HoI4 represent? What other reasons to place steel in locations that historically did not have a steel manufacturing capability?

Looking forward to hearing your ideas.

 

[Secret Master]

The whole steel, tungsten, and chromium thing is a bit... abstract in HOI4.

All three things represent multiple resources and multiple ways of mixing those resources. Sweden's "tungsten" is a great example. Is it really tungsten, or just high quality Swedish iron ore? Then there's the whole US steel thing. Why does the US have less steel in HOI4 than she does historically? And no chromium for use in shipbuilding despite a healthy shipbuilding industry historically? I'm not sure.

I'm really not sure whether messing with the distribution is a good idea, because I'm not even sure what assumptions about alloys and whatnot are going into it.

EDIT: And France? I know she had a decent steel industry in real life, but her numbers in HOI4 seem really out there. Is that more for Germany's benefit?

And would the game be more fun if steel was scarcer?

 

[Gamer_1745]

Are you willing to relocate to Stockholm? You should join the HOI IV team!!!! They are hiring Link.

I am fine with cooper being counted as steel as it can be used for the same uses (not rifle barrels, but many of the other parts of fire arms can be made out of it (look at early Maxim Guns it was cheaper at the time to use brass for many parts)) in some cases. The only real reason I can see giving resources to a country is if it is land locked & can't trade well (which it could trade IRL). Also because of the quality of Sweden's steel it has been changed to tungsten so that is why the Swedish steel is off so much.

 

[QuakeRiley]

Consider that there is only two things that resources in-game do: make arms and be traded. There is no civilian requirement on the resources.

 

[hkrommel]

EDIT: And France? I know she had a decent steel industry in real life, but her numbers in HOI4 seem really out there. Is that more for Germany's benefit?

Maybe the devs felt bad for nerfing France so badly

 

[Kliwarrior]

Steel is not a raw material, so it's not easy to "distribute" its production among the countries (as crude oil or rubber production , for examples)
Steel is made of
- Coal
- Iron
- Industrial capacity to transform the previous two into steel

As the OP says, the Steel production of USA was 1/4 of France , but in game they have a similar resources (920 vs. 888 )

BUT in '36 The production of Iron was

USA - 25078 (K metric tons)
France - 16670 (K metric tons)

And production of Coal (Anthracite, not lignite and other bituminous coals )

USA - 49514 (K metric tons)
France - 46200 (K metric tons)

So it makes completely sense for me to simulate in game a somewhat similar production of "steel" resources

(source BR Mitchel and all the data I still have since HOI2 time... )

 

[Black_Shade]

To me the biggest outlier on that list is Japan, who can't even afford to run 1/3 of it's factories at the start of the game without trading, yet should be rolling in a surplus if it had historical production. Japan is already a weak as it is, seems like they could use some more steel to bring the numbers more in line with their historical production. And that's not even touching the complete lack of aluminum in all of Asia, making aircraft production for Japan impossible when it shouldn't be.

 

[Alex_brunius]

What other minerals could steel in HoI4 represent? What other reasons to place steel in locations that historically did not have a steel manufacturing capability?

Given nations like Swedens production I'm pretty sure that HoI4s steel also includes iron ore + quality of iron ore in the balancing. The reason the Germans wanted Swedish iron ore was due to it's high quality.

Another case to support this is Japan+Korea/Manchucko. Historically the iron ore was produced in Korea/Manchucko mostly, and the steel in Japan. In game Japan has less steel production while Korea/Manchucko have more (including their iron ore).

A 3:ed case is Germany, which Imported iron ore to make steel ( and thus have higher steel production in reality then in the game ).

Steel is not a raw material, so it's not easy to "distribute" its production among the countries (as crude oil or rubber production , for examples)
Steel is made of
- Coal
- Iron
- Industrial capacity to transform the previous two into steel

Since coal was so common by WW2 I suspect the HoI4 steel is mostly made up of the latter two ( iron ore and steel mill capacity )

 

[billcorr]

Given nations like Swedens production I'm pretty sure that HoI4s steel also includes iron ore + quality of iron ore in the balancing.

Good point. Perhaps the designers used 1936 iron ore production values and not steel production values (?). I'll check.

The only real reason I can see giving resources to a country is if it is land locked & can't trade well (which it could trade IRL).

That makes sense about land locked countries. Alternatively, editing the trade laws might help, too (both land locked countries and micro countries). One change might be to allow the use of fractions of factories. "Pieces of eight"

EDIT: And France? I know she had a decent steel industry in real life, but her numbers in HOI4 seem really out there. Is that more for Germany's benefit?

France might have big numbers because the designers used 1936 iron ore production values and not steel production (?) I'll run the numbers using 1936 iron ore production values. I think that will give a better fit.

To me the biggest outlier on that list is Japan,

I might have been barking up the wrong tree looking at steel production. Understanding might be gained by looking at Iron ore.

(source BR Mitchel and all the data I still have since HOI2 time... )

Good source. The HoI2 wiki is still pertinent. It might be useful to resurrect those "knowledge base" pages. I think BR Mitchel was one of the contributors to the Minerals yearbooks review of 1940 United States Government Printing Office, 1941

 

[Alex_brunius]

Good point. Perhaps the designers used 1936 iron ore production values and not steel production values (?). I'll check.

Maybe also check a 50/50 distribution weight of iron & steel, and see if that comes closer. It does seem like both are used.

 

[billcorr]

• Steel values for 5 out of 52 countries in HoI4 correlate closely with real-life 1936 iron ore production values.

Chart 1 is a comparison of percent distribution of steel in HoI4 (based on 4,301 units of steel within the game), percent real world iron ore production in 1936, percent real world pig iron production in 1936, and percent real world steel ingots + steel castings production in 1936.

Spoiler: Chart 1: Percent distribution of in-game and real world (1936) iron ore, pig iron, steel

Multiplying the percent distribution with 4,301 units of steel results in the amount of HoI4 steel by country if real life distribution percentages were used. Real world distribution percentages in 1936 for iron ore, pig iron, or steel ingots/castings were multiplied by 4,301.

Spoiler: Chart 2: Percent distribution converted into HoI4 values by multiplying each nation's percentage by 4,301

12 out of the 52 HoI4 steel values are correlated with the average of HoI4 steel values derived from of real world Iron Ore and Steel Ingots world percent distribution. (Nod to Alex Brunius for this suggestion.)

Spoiler: Chart 3: Estimating HoI4 steel values by averaging HoI4 values based on of real world iron ore distribution and real world steel production

The same method was done for pig iron and steel

Spoiler: Chart 4: Estimating HoI4 steel values by averaging HoI4 values based on of real world pig iron distribution and real world steel production

Here are the above analyses done, but in percentage form. That is to say, percent distribution of steel based on in-game values, 1936 iron ore & pig iron & steel ingot production values.

Spoiler: Chart 5: Each nation's percentage of total steel. In game percent distribution, real world iron ore & pig iron & steel percentages per nation

Here is the entire spreadsheet.

Spoiler: Chart 6: Entire spreadsheet

Reference for Iron Ore production

Spoiler: Iron ore reference

The Mineral Industry of the British Empire and Foreign Countries Statistical Summary (Production, Imports, and Exports) 1936-1938, His Majesty's Stationery Office, London, 1939, pages 176-177

Edit: I'll post the reference for pig iron in a follow on posting. The reference for steel production is in the original post.

 

[billcorr]

Spoiler: Reference: World production of pig iron in 1936

http://images.library.wisc.edu/EcoN.../reference/econatres.minyb1940.rridgway02.pdf
page 558

 

[fmsell]

Simulation of resources is woefully inadequate. Planes, ships, tanks, mechanized, truck running on air? Unlimited ammo? No cost to continually provide for active units? This is where HOI 4 failed miserably. Other mechanics are marginal- aerial, naval warfare - hope they improve on this than just more eye candy and nifty interfaces.

 

[Gamer_1745]

@billcorr

First I love your work in adding better real world stats to the game. And my criticism is more at HOI IV than your great work. So I am going to poke a big hole in all of it. Often production is based on need not reserves available. This is not just with Steel but all of the resources in HOI IV. I know there are tech to expand resources by 10% and that helps a bit. The only ones to address this is the BICE team to add building that when built increase resources in the provinces (and states in HOI IV).

I do want the starting resources to be what they were in 1936 and I want a non-exploitable way to expand them in a realistic manner.

 

[Kozer]

Game balance will always come before realism

 

[SchwarzKatze]

Game balance will always come before realism

Nerfing Japan makes game balance worse.

 

[Alex_brunius]

12 out of the 52 HoI4 steel values are correlated with the average of HoI4 steel values derived from of real world Iron Ore and Steel Ingots world percent distribution. (Nod to Alex Brunius for this suggestion.)

Awesome work! Very impressive to see several of the important majors land in fairly close correlation ( like Soviet, Germany, UK )

When we factor in some additional balancing factors used in previous games by PDX and that some additional resources ( good suggestion about copper in OP ), I think most important producers end up fairly close to where they "are supposed" to be!

Examples of balancing factors:

• USA is generally nerfed in HoI to not be historically able of crushing everyone else on their own ( motivates 1426 -> 920 or -36% )
• Paradox is Swedish + Swedish iron ore was historically important and of quite high quality ( motivates 155 -> 202 or +30% )
• Italy needs a bit of a boost to be fun to play and be able to achieve something, boosting Italy/Japan baseline is normal in HoI game balancing ( motivates 46 -> 96 or +107%)
• Luxembourg, quite obviously you don't want Luxembourg gaining 10+ factories from trading away steel and building themself up as a "big" minor, would be silly.

But, there are still two "big" producers/nations that don't quite fit. Japan and France.
Could France's production of other materials (copper or similar) motivate their very high values?
Could The extra steel in some of the Chinese minors be the cause for Japans lacking? ( To provide more of a challenge in China, and to motivate you into attacking China as Japan ).

Most of the minor nations that got <20 steel and were not producing any ore or steel historically I wouldn't worry so much about. Steel is a good generic abstraction of having some domestic resources that can be bartered for resources used to build simple weapons with.[/spoiler]

 

[Kliwarrior]

Spoiler: Reference: World production of pig iron in 1936

http://images.library.wisc.edu/EcoN.../reference/econatres.minyb1940.rridgway02.pdf
page 558
View attachment 231679

Bilcorr, do you mind uploading your charts (the excel file, not just the images)
TIA

 

[billcorr]

Bilcorr, do you mind uploading your charts (the excel file, not just the images)
TIA

Hmmm...when I select the excel file, I get the following reply from the forum software:



Edit: The file is now attached. Kudos to TinyWiking who completed the proper rituals to allow .xlsx files to be ported back and forth from the Microsoft Dimension to the XenForo universe.

 

[Ringwraith_JP]

I have a problem with the fact that production does not change over time (unless there's scripted NF) as it happened IRL. As war was going on in Europe, peripheral countries increased their production of raw materials. billcorr's post shows this: Brazil, Mexico and Spain doubled their iron production from 1936 to 1940. It may be harder to balance, but that's a integral part of the whole "world" thing in "world war".