Agriculture-economy DLC

[vector1]

This pretty much sounds like the Victoria 2 system, which you may or may not have played. In that game, China (and every other country) has hordes of Artisans, who are producers of almost all types of goods in at the start of the game. The production of artisans directly relates to their population size. As countries modernize, they build factories who use craftsmen to produce goods that become more efficient with tech while employing less people, and eventually concentrate wealth in factory owners/workers and put artisans out of work so simulating industrialization. They also have a far more complex basket of goods ranging from liquor to tanks and planes in factories that can be built up to employ more people. This system tends to collapse at some point where production outstrips demand significant and sends the economy into a sustained depression, but that's something for another forum.

Let us imagine if you actually make this system work. Countries that are low tech have workshops, which produce less heavy equipment but are ungimped for infantry kits, and others have factories that have full heavy equipment production rate. Who's going build workshops? Assuming it's locked behind tech, everyone is going to build factories only even after teching to it. Having infra slots that accommodate more workshops won't necessarily make them more attractive given similar costs to a factory if population is the key. With the HOI4 command economy, population will not be a limiting factor for most majors in how much you can build up considering the army age population for factories since it's unlikely any country will have that much industry potential to employ the entire recruitable population with the current buildup.

We come back to the dev's stated reason of scrapping the system of population and infra to determine building slots. Adding population dependency and a 4th production building type isn't going to make it any easier to balance, with minimal gains for gameplay.

In december, we completely revised how you get factory slots in the game, as the previous system of three different caps, depending on hidden formulas for manpower & infrastructure was too obtuse for players, and impossible to balance.
.

Paradox is familiar with this two tier system of high/low tech production and population based production, they just chose not to put such a complicated economy system in HOI4 where it's not really much more immersive to manage complex production. The focus has been on the war, and everything else takes on a supporting role.

 

[jockedahl]

In my opinion, goods should be abstracted in HOI, goods are more for Victoria 3 than HOI.

I'd rather have expansions that focus on making more tech trees for nations. Rebalancing stuff, and adding military functions that they haven't had time to implement etc.

 

[3ishop]

Also issues with it drawing from manpower is thats the avaliable men to serve in the armed forces. It doesn't count teenagers, the old or those with disabilities that aren't able to serve or the women. These can all work in factories, farms and so on.

Last time I saw some of the drafting laws the ones which give the most manpower reduce the production due to taking away more of the well abled/skilled people.

 

[Viktor_Vertex]

Also issues with it drawing from manpower is thats the avaliable men to serve in the armed forces. It doesn't count teenagers, the old or those with disabilities that aren't able to serve or the women. These can all work in factories, farms and so on.

We've mentioned these here, as some no brainer flavor decisions

 

[Nicolas I]

...I want to propose this : Divide production into factories and workshops. Factories have capacity(say, 1 factory employs 5000 people). Factories need to be built using technology and resources. Workshops however, are much cheaper, and require less time and resources to build(if any).
The difference would be in their effectiveness in producing different items...

That strangely resemble Victoria 2, factories vs artisans...

 

[Nicolas I]

Also issues with it drawing from manpower is thats the avaliable men to serve in the armed forces. It doesn't count teenagers, the old or those with disabilities that aren't able to serve or the women. These can all work in factories, farms and so on...

Unless you adopt the Non-Discriminatory Conscription land doctrine where "Even invalids and cripples must be drafted, there is no such thing as a civilian".

The icon with a person in wheelchair and a panzerfaust is one of the best of all pictures of the game !

 

[JerkyJerry]

And we have yet another person trying to turn HOI into something it was not designed to be. Will this ever end?
Another thread that was DOA.
#makefoodgreatagain

 

[Viktor_Vertex]

And we have yet another person trying to turn HOI into something it was not designed to be. Will this ever end?
Another thread that was DOA.
#makefoodgreatagain

A semi-historical WW2 GRAND strategy game in which industry is as important as battlefield ingenuity or diplomacy?

 

[mursolini]

To produce rifles one needs quality steel, and to have something to shot from it, one needs same complicated metallurgy and chemical industry you need to produce tanks.
It isn`t about where you assemble product, it is how you create basic components.

The reason China was chronically under supplied with ammunition and didn`t really had needed artillery, had everything to do with it`s lack of heavy industry, and having a million of workshops would do nothing to alleviate problem.

 

[JerkyJerry]

HOI is about war, battles and more war and battles. This is not some leisure stroll through 400 years of history. We are in, we are out!
We click enough. I'm not in the mood to click the mouse a few more thousand times so my make believe army can eat some make believe cans of spam!
My army eats gunsmoke & explosions! We don't have time for no stinkin rations!

#MakeWarNotMRE'sGreatAgain

 

[Viktor_Vertex]

To produce rifles one needs quality steel, and to have something to shot from it, one needs same complicated metallurgy and chemical industry you need to produce tanks.
It isn`t about where you assemble product, it is how you create basic components.

The reason China was chronically under supplied with ammunition and didn`t really had needed artillery, had everything to do with it`s lack of heavy industry, and having a million of workshops would do nothing to alleviate problem.

Rifles can be and were made by simple tools in workshops. An argument can be made that they didnt have the resources and raw materials, but once you have them, you can turn them into rifles in a garage. Famous example i think is that during WW1 Spain was booming with small family businesses making pistols and selling them to the French. So producing 'basic equipment' can be done without heavy industry, provided you have the materials. It would be interesting though, if later weapons like weapons 2 and 3 get progressively harder to make inside workshops due to supposed increased complexity...

 

[TheOrangeGuy]

Food is something that everybody needs to survive so an argument can be made that agriculture was pretty important during WWII period.
In vanilla HOI4, food is abstracted and the player doesn't have to think much of it. Because of lack of food in the game, it loses one strategic component.
For example, a strategy to defeat the British is to sink food convoys. As it stands, a naval blockade of Great Britain is an annoyance, which negatively impacts your industrial production, but you are still pretty safe on that island with 200 divisions of defenders you can raise relatively quickly. In reality, a successfull blockade of Britain would force it to seek peace, because the island cannot produce enough food to sustain itself. Japan has the same problem.
It has also been recorded that certain military planners deliberately waited or avoided taking population centres(or other areas with high 'concentration' of people) simply because their logistics and supply wouldn't be able to feed the newly occupied population centre.
It would also add weight to choosing some historical decisions ingame, like prioritizing conquest of fertile Ukraine.
Also, nations with developed agricultural technology/land would have more manpower for factories and military.

Now that it is established how adding food would add depth and accuracy to the game, let's discuss HOW would the food mechanic work.
Generally, lack of food effects need to be abstracted so they do not resemble anything not allowed to discuss on the forums. Lack of food would increase dissent, reduce recruitable manpower, increase train time and decrease unit experience, and also reducing industrial production by a percentage(assuming there isn't enough people to work both factories and farms).
I would suggest that food production be 'global' for your empire. Every region produces food(at different productivity ofcourse), which is then put in a 'global' storage for your empire. Every city consumes food from the global storage, unless it gets surrounded on all sides including sea, then after a period of (arbitrary)3 months, the city starts losing its ability to supply its troops, as well as reducing their urban combat defender bonus.
If your nation produces less food than it consumes, and you cannot buy from the world market, you gain manpower and industry malus. This would make it even more historical, as USA giving food to the Soviets would play a factor, if minor, in their performance in the war.
Of course, fighting damages production so Operation Barbarossa would decrease worlds food supply...


About industry.
In this game, any nation can decide to start building heavy tanks, airplanes and aircraft carriers if they want to. However, this was not the case historically. The reason is this;
To make rifles and ammunition, you don't NEED factories, you need workshops. It's 'easy' to produce tons of rifles, even as relatively backwater nations like Persia. Therefore I would argue that your ability to produce infantry equipment is a function of population, not heavy industry.

However, tanks and aircraft carriers cannot be made without heavy industry, so smaller countries like Greece could not make and maintain any number of tanks on their own.
I want to propose this : Divide production into factories and workshops. Factories have capacity(say, 1 factory employs 5000 people). Factories need to be built using technology and resources. Workshops however, are much cheaper, and require less time and resources to build(if any).
The difference would be in their effectiveness in producing different items. For example
Building a medium tank-assigned a full factory gives 1 production point per day, while assigned a full workshop(same number of people) gives 0.1 point a day. Therefore producing tanks with the same amount of manpower in workshops is 10 times less efficient for tanks, prohibitively so for nations without heavy industry.
However, producing support equipment in factories gives a *2 modifier, but producing it in workshops has no bonuses nor maluses. Therefore workshop is 2 times less efficient per manpower for support equipment. This would make you have to use workshops for 'simple' items while your factories are busy making more complex items.
This would add depth to the industrial part of the game, since for example China would not be limited in their ability to produce infantry weapons, but would be SEVERELY limited in their ability to produce armor.
Basically, it would split industry into 'light industry' and 'heavy industry' with varying ability to produce different goods.

Vanilla HOI4 allows you to set your conscription law, where more extensive conscription gives you a flat % penalty to industrial production. This is a simple, but inferior solution i believe.
If you change your conscription law to all adults serve, but then do not enlist those men in the army, leaving them in their agriculture/industry/commerce jobs, it should not really affect your production. Instead, it gives you the ability to take people away from agriculture/industry and put them into uniform, thus incurring a penalty in empty workshop slots(if you get to that point). There is also an opportunity to add some 'flavor' decisions as massively employing women in factories and agriculture therefore letting you enlist more men without losing industrial ability...


Take this with a grain of salt, this is just a suggestion for a future DLC, since i believe these changes would add enough depth, value and change to the game to 'deserve' their DLC, if the community here wants an industrial centered DLC.

I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure I saw in a documentary that Britain had tons of reserved land for farming, if the need was there. They started preparing that after the u-boat threat in WW1, I think.

 

[Denkt]

Each state have a development level which decide how many factories that state can support, so the Indian and Chinese states will likely have very low development compared to the European and American states.

Tanks are significant more expensive to produce then infantry equipment which mean tanks are pretty much limited to nations who have alot of factories as tank cost for cost lose to infantry.

I don't know what you would call a workshop and what you would call a factory.

 

[Viktor_Vertex]

Each state have a development level which decide how many factories that state can support, so the Indian and Chinese states will likely have very low development compared to the European and American states.

Tanks are significant more expensive to produce then infantry equipment which mean tanks are pretty much limited to nations who have alot of factories as tank cost for cost lose to infantry.

I don't know what you would call a workshop and what you would call a factory.

Again, just because it costs 10 times more does not mean you should be able to produce it at a 10 times (linear) slower rate.

Let me use an extreme example. Lets say you are from the future, have a time machine and want to experiment with WW2. You go to China and give them blueprints of an AK 47. You also go to France and give them an AK 47 blueprint. Next you tell them that whoever makes more kalasnikhovs gets a death star. Kalashnikhov is a fairly simple weapon, so any chinese 'workshop' can start producing them in a relatively short time. The French will have a more industrialized approach, with proper factories, so a single French worker will outproduce a chinese one... but in the end there is just so much more chinese workers that China will win that contest. Here we can conclude that China industry is better than France industry.

Now do the same thing but instead of a 'simple' blueprint like a kalashnikhov rifle, give them a F-16 fighting falcon blueprint with detailed instructions on how to build every single component of the plane. France will be able organize production of all the tiny components, and will eventually have a 'production line' churning out F-16's however slowly. China however, has no chance whatsoever to do that. You just can't make jet engines in anything but highly specialized chains of factories. Maaaaybe if they mobilize all the academic genious in their country they will be able to put together one or two... but not more than that. So we can conclude that France industry is better than China ?

So yeah, China doesn't have better industry than France but France doesn't have better industry than China. What's the case ?
See, in terms of 'simple' items, China wins(infantry equipment)
in terms of complex items, France wins(tanks,ships)
Its not just the difference in cost. If a tank costs the same as 10 000 rifles, that does not mean that China can produce (rifle number/10 000) tanks.
I'm not suggesting a million different types of factories, just two, workshops and 'real factories', with workshops having varying penalty depending on the item produced...


Another example. If France sinks all its production into rifles, they should be able to make a million in a few months. If China does that, they should be able to make two million.
If France sinks all its production into heavy tanks, they should be able to build 10 000 of them. If China does that, they should be able to make two thousand...

 

[Denkt]

Are not most rifles produced in a few industries in massive quantities and what you call workshop production stands for a relative smal part of the weapon production.

In HOI4 China can produce tanks but each tank battalion cost about as much as a whole infantry division. If you play as USA your infantry equipment industry is maybe at most 30 factories because infantry equipment is so cheap and these 30 factories can supply several divisions with infantry equipment per month anyway.

 

[Viktor_Vertex]

In HOI4 China can produce tanks but each tank battalion cost about as much as a whole infantry division. If you play as USA your infantry equipment industry is maybe at most 30 factories because infantry equipment is so cheap and these 30 factories can supply several divisions with infantry equipment per month anyway.

Another example. If France sinks all its production into rifles, they should be able to make a million in a few months. If China does that, they should be able to make two million.
If France sinks all its production into heavy tanks, they should be able to build 10 000 of them. If China does that, they should be able to make two thousand...
Cost should NOT BE LINEAR for different degrees of industrialization versus product complexity

 

[mursolini]

Rifles can be and were made by simple tools in workshops. An argument can be made that they didnt have the resources and raw materials, but once you have them, you can turn them into rifles in a garage. Famous example i think is that during WW1 Spain was booming with small family businesses making pistols and selling them to the French. So producing 'basic equipment' can be done without heavy industry, provided you have the materials. It would be interesting though, if later weapons like weapons 2 and 3 get progressively harder to make inside workshops due to supposed increased complexity...

Remind us, what the percentage of French arms was manufactured that way, and how much of Spanish metallurgy output did all this consume

But here is the fundamental problem, your example is mostly about assembly of mostly ready parts. It`s like car "manufacturing" where you order all necessary components and just assemble cars. Yes, this is simple and is done around the world. But, the need for basic components production doesn`t go anywhere.

I mean, how exactly much was the same assembly process mechanized in "factories" anyway? Were tools all that much more efficient? Didn`t major countries used absolutely the same small factories to shore up their production of small arms and other easy to manufacture equipment? Wasn`t that what economic mobilization was supposed to achieve?

I really don`t get why you think the game needs this complication.

Another example. If France sinks all its production into rifles, they should be able to make a million in a few months. If China does that, they should be able to make two million.
If France sinks all its production into heavy tanks, they should be able to build 10 000 of them. If China does that, they should be able to make two thousand...
Cost should NOT BE LINEAR for different degrees of industrialization versus product complexity

Err? China will not be able to produce 2k working heavy tanks, because the fundamental investments into metallurgy and precise machining of components would be huge, so efficient assembly process would be easily achieved, since it is the least costly one.

You again, just assume that getting basic materials is easy and cheap. That, is not true at all. Assembly is easy and cheap, creating basic components of needed quality is very expensive.

It is like smartphones, where there are at most 6-8 countries that are capable of creating and manufacturing the electronic components of it, but almost every country can assemble them, if it can purchase the components.

Even something as simple as tanks whose treads don`t break after 100km ride, took decades of research and investment into quality alloys, there was a good reason there were weeled tanks in 20s, but they were extinct in 30s, threads started to be able to withstand thousands of km, so there was no need for weels to save threads resource.

So a Chinese "heavy tank" in reality, will not be able to work, since you can`t manufacture gearboxes for them, it proved too hard even for Germany to produce them in numbers, hence all the problems with Panther`s drive train, it will not be able to aim due to lack of good optics (something that took Soviets a lot of time to get production up and running), it`s armor will not be able to withstand shells due to poor steel, it`s gun will be substandard due to inability to manufacture quality explosives and quality steel, and it will break constantly, and it`s treads will break constantly. At this point, it would be useless as a weapon of war. China will end up with 2000 useless piles of metal, not 2000 heavy tanks.

 

[adil3tr]

Agriculture improvements as a way of increasing manpower is a useful mechanic. So if you're starved out more people have to leave the labor pool to work the farms or something. If you improve infrastructure, research, etc, then you get a bit more.