C.O.R.E. Resources

[Zerli]

Allright. You are partially right. I am going from end results, engineering things backward to obtain starting conditions. This is to illustrate how we CAN use my model to get Germany going right.

Now, I am not advocating the "start with end, engineer the start" approach. I am just using it to illustrate an example. Lets just take Europe to work with as a beginning. This is what we can do:

Using my 4 resource definitions, we look up all European sources of RARE MATERIALS (ie "rubber"). We give European minors with such sources enough "rubber" to power their economy. We are not doing any math at this point, just arbitrarily giving them enough "rubber" to run their IC. We then take all those sources and find which ones EXPORTED their "rubber" or rare materials. We give them some extra rubber to make up for that trade. To get a ballpark figure how much we add extra, we look up total European IC, compared with European rubber production. We discount countries like UK because their "rubber" sources are not in Europe and they are not likely conquered by Axis. We also ignore all non-continental sources of rubber. The total European "rubber" production should be less then what IC will need, minus IC for UK. The basic idea is to provide about half of what Europe needs in local sources, giving them mostly to minors, using their rare materials as sources.

This way, both Italy and Germany can conquer minors to get some rubber, but not enough to run their economies indefinitely.

At this point we haven't decided on how much of which rare material converts to one "rubber" point in HoI. In fact, we are going to determine these ratios using values that work, not the other way around.

Anyway, we can repeat this procedure for other continents, adjusting how much "rubber" we give the countries. We will probably end with an excess quantity of rubber worldwide (given our "power initial world IC + 20%" benchmark). We can then reduce the "rubber" output in provinces that are originally super-rich in rubber (southeast Asia). We justify this by saying that we are reducing the relative importance of rubber, the actual rubber produced there. We drop the total numbers till we have as much "rubber" as we originally wanted for the world.

We run tests, tweak, till we get the shortages that we want. Then we work those values back into definite rare-material-to-"rubber"-unit ratios.

Does this clarify my thoughts?

Zerli

 

[saintsup]

Perhaps its evident for all you distinguished modders.

You can go to ..\mod-core\config\text.csv ... and you replace any mention of 'rubber' (in the texts NOT in the tags at the beginning of the lines) with 'food' or 'agricultural' or 'rare material' or whatever you want and it changes a lot of things in the interface.

 

[Gwalcmai]

Have you tried it? I mean, is your "changes a lot of things in the interface" positive or negative? Does it break the interface, or just makes it look different?

BTW, @H2O: When you tried the 0.00 conversion rates, did you try giving a shortage to the nation? Did it stop the conversion, or did the AI start "converting" all it's coal into 0 oil?

 

[Mithel]

Zerli, what you're proposing is virtually what I'm doing except for my usage of the term "agriculture" (using "Rubber" as rubber, rare materials and agriculture). The end result is essentially what I'm doing. (and it's coming along nicely)

- Mithel

 

[JRaup]

Well, I see some changes maybe in order to what I've been considering. If we can "redfine," or more accuractely, rename the four resources, that opens up a whole realm of possibilities to us in this project. I'll have to play with this aspect to see how it works.

Now, the problem I fore see with this is that we still have to account for the hard coded requirements. IE even if we rename coal/steel/oil/rubber to something else, we still have to deal with the cost per IC from each. As well as the unit build costs. Even still, we can make this work in a much more intuitive fashion.

There is also the issue of the conversion techs. Again, this will depend on how we define, and rename the resources. Even so, that should fall into place, once the definitions and renaming is done. Another case where being mroe intuitive is better IMO.

I'll review the possibilities of renaming resources, and review again the other threads, and see if I can come up with something more concrete by next week.

 

[saintsup]

Originally posted by Gwalcmai
Have you tried it? I mean, is your "changes a lot of things in the interface" positive or negative? Does it break the interface, or just makes it look different?

Sorry not to be enough specific.

In fact I was not pointing any kind of design solution but I was looking rather if there was a way to implement elegantly in the interface whatever design change this noble assembly would think accurate (rubber = rubber or rubber = agricultural product or rubber = rare material or ... whatever)

Usually when you design a sofware for multi-lingual purpose you use TAGS in the program and there is a file outside the program saying which string should be used for each tag.

For exemple, in english version you have RUBBER = 'rubber' and when you build the french version you just change for RUBBER = 'caoutchouc' and tadaa every string in the interface (buttons, messages, ...) which used the tag RUBBER is now with 'caoutchouc'.

The good point is if a modder can gain access to this (these?) files he can change for exempls for RUBBER = 'food' IN THE INTERFACE (no change in internal mechanism, its just data presentation).

IMHO, the file I pointed out is one of those. I just made one quick test. I change the RESSOURCE_RUBBER='rubber' for RESSOURCE_RUBBER='food' and in the pop-up text under the small tires for rubber stockpile now appears 'food'.

Well in fact its just very secondary:if we decide what are coal, rubber and so on, and we redesign the whole province resource repartition and we redesign the whole tech tree and supply consumption and lots of events and ... and ... THEN there is a chance we can change the 'texts' in the interface accordingly.

 

[unmerged(20364)]

Originally posted by Gwalcmai
BTW, @H2O: When you tried the 0.00 conversion rates, did you try giving a shortage to the nation? Did it stop the conversion, or did the AI start "converting" all it's coal into 0 oil?

yes, no conversion was made



H2O

 

[unmerged(15066)]

Zerli's suggestions are impressive and pass two key tests in being both realistic and implementable. In terms of understanding a world IC capacity of about 4000 and putting the mechanism in place to reach about 6000 by 1947, I am in complete agreement.

I have a question about the German Implementation however.

Zerli:

What do we get here? By the 1942, or middle of the war, Germany has a serious fuel problem. Her own sources, plus conquered countries, give perhaps 50 oil per day. She needs 200 or more. The best conversion technology, if researched, will give her another 100. That still leaves Germany about 50 oil short, in best case scenario. Not short enough to cripple Germans, but short enough to limit their options and ensure their eventual defeat.

If the German oil requirement is 250 and the economy needs 200 of that, will the armed forces really only need 50 IC? True, the KM is pretty small, but by late 1942, the Germans had upwards of 40+ panzer and motorized divisions plus the Luftwaffe. This is minor quibble, research and tweaking can answer the question in a straightforward manner.

The bigger question is what broke the German Economy? That 1944 was a bad year for the Germans is an understatment, but here's a short list of the differences between Jan 1 and Dec 31 in 1944:
- Soviet occupation of Rumania
- No land line of communication to Iberia
- An Allied Strategic Bomber Offensive that had switched from industrial targets (like ball bearing and aircraft factories) to oil facilities and transportation infrastructure.
- Reduced food rations for German workers
- Territorially, loss of France, most of the Low Countries, and virtually all of the east.

This is something of a chicken and the egg question. At the end of the discussion, Zerli had suggested a reading of WW2 that put the resource shortages first and German defeat second (my apologies in advance if I misunderstood you).

I think there is room for an alternative interpretation (and perhaps it is just your thesis phrased a different way):
1) The historical German conquests gave them a maximum raw oil/strategic resource base of X units a day.
2) Cut off from world market, the Germans had to invest in industrial technology for synthetics and managed to boost that to Y units a day.
3) As a practical matter, the Germans had a cap on the level of mechanization they could afford in their military since eventually the fuel requirements would begin to draw down the industrial requires (make a virtue of the HOI requirement to fuel units first). In that sense each incremental technological increase in coal/rubber conversion, made it possible to increase the mechanization of the Wehrmacht.
4) German war production peaked in the summer of 1944 so it is hard for me to argue that there were insuperable problems resource wise before that (though it is certainly arguable that resource limitations prevented even higher levels of production).
5) The turn in German production correlates with the direct loss or the access loss of key resource areas and with the revised Allied strategic bombing targeting strategy.
6) German collapse in 1945 was consequent to an economic melt-down in the German economy in the winter of 1944-1945 as German factories were unable to keep functioning when they started running out of feed stocks due to the combination of resource shortages and infrastructure destruction.

This reading would put the Soviet/Allied field victories first that denied resource access, followed by a melt-down in the German economy within six months as stockpiles were exhausted, then collapse of the German Wehrmacht.

 

[MateDow]

Originally posted by Engineer
The bigger question is what broke the German Economy? That 1944 was a bad year for the Germans is an understatment, but here's a short list of the differences between Jan 1 and Dec 31 in 1944:
- Soviet occupation of Rumania
- No land line of communication to Iberia
- An Allied Strategic Bomber Offensive that had switched from industrial targets (like ball bearing and aircraft factories) to oil facilities and transportation infrastructure.
- Reduced food rations for German workers
- Territorially, loss of France, most of the Low Countries, and virtually all of the east.

I agree that economically, Germany was in bad shape by the end of 1944. I don't agree that the economic situation was the downfall. I think that by January of 1944, the handwriting was on the wall. Germany had misused their military strength in attacks in well known places like Stalingrad and Kursk. Those defeats were the root of the downfall as the Wehrmacht couldn't defend their gains. Once the Red Army was able to force the Germans to retreat, it was a matter of time before Romania and other crutcial resources were captured. If you want to look at the cause of the German fall look at the top of their government. MDow

 

[unmerged(15066)]

Separating the threads of cause and effect here can be challenging. I'm looking to narrow the focus to the interaction of the German economy (and the appropriate resource/industrial model) and their collapse. I would agree with Mdow that the trend in the war had turned much earlier (my own pick would be the winter of 1942/43 where the Germans lost at Stalingrad, had to evacuate their conquests in the Cacausus, El Alamein, had Operation Torch clear most of French North Africa, and, at the just past the end of the period, saw the Allies get the upper hand in the Battle of the Atlantic).

What I was reading in Zerli's discussion was a notion that there is a sort of "soft stop" in the German economy that once pre-war reserves are exhausted then the raw IC production drops. My understanding of the German economy reflects growth through the middle of 1944, decline in the second half of 1944, and collapse of the economy in 1945.

Now the point that I would argue is in the hypothetical, that if the Germans had managed to stabilize the Reich's boundaries at virtually anytime prior to July 1944, then I think German industrial production would have most likely continued to increase under the influence of increased industrial technologies, minus the effects of the Allied strategic bomber offensive.

In light of the resource discussion, I would suggest that this means the model ought to allow the historical German strategy to match historical weapons production of growing output through mid-1944.

While German military strength was declining through much of 1944 that was due to the ability of the Soviets (and to a lesser degree the Western Allies) to destroy the Wehrmacht and the Luftwaffe faster than they could rebuild with the output of German industry. The collapse of German military power in 1945 represents the continuation of attrition in combat but also the drying up of replacements as the economy imploded under the combined weight of resource starvation and infrastructure disruption.

 

[MateDow]

I have seen studies that say that German production actually increased toward the end of the war. This was a study of the effectiveness of strategic bombing in ending the war. I don't know the context, so I can't vouch for whether it looks at strategic issues like oil production and such, or just looked at pure numbers of units produced.

I know that Germany developed a lot of technologies to use alternatives which saved vital resources toward the end of the war. Maybe a tech that would change the ratios for IC production (don't know if this is even possible) taking advantage of the alternative materials, but would reduce the effectiveness of the units involved. You can build aircraft out of wood, but they wouldn't be as effective as the aluminum frames. MDow

 

[unmerged(15066)]

US Strategic Bombing Survey

Did a quick Google and found the US Strategic Bombing Survey on-line at http://www.angelfire.com/super/ussbs/index.html . Just the chapter on the German oil industry is a must read for this thread if only for the technical details on technologies used (in the detail it also had the conversion ratios for the various processes in terms of tons of coal to tons of gasoline) as well as the historical statistical data on production and direct testimony from interrogation of the German principals in Allied custody.

The narrative shows oil production actually peaked in 1943, it was about 20% lower in 1944 (whole year) and much lower toward the end of the year. AFV production peaked in 1944 and hardly dropped off at all until the very end. Truck production peaked in 1943 and dropped about 20% in 1944 with a significant fall off in the 2nd half.

 

[Zerli]

At this point I need people with access to historical sources of information. Since our 1st goal is to model German economy correctly, this is what we need:

1. Data on German GDP, 1936-1945, preferably by quarter.

2. Data on German oil production, 1936-1945.

3. Data on German oil consumption, or supply situation in their armed forces, 1936-1945.

4. Data on German production and consumption of key resources such as rubber, tunsten, chrome.

5. Data on composition and numbers of German divisions, 1936-1945.

Basically, I put a lot of guessing in my model. Using that kind of thinking as a guideline, we should now research actual historical numbers, and work from there.

My personal research into the matter gives me a feeling that we should put Germany into a bind, resource-wise, by early 1944. My contention is that Romanian oil, plus all other captured sources, was insufficient to supply Wermacht's needs. I also contend that various captured supplies and pre-war oil reserves would last till the end of 1943.

As far as rare materials are concerned, particularly tungsten, rubber, and chrome, by mid-1944 Germany had lost land contact with Iberian peninsula (tungsten), lost land control of most of Balkans (chrome, bauxite, iron ore from Balkans and tungsten from Turkey), and was suffering heavily from strategic bombing.

At this point, about mid-1944, Germany should suffer from simultaneous shortage of "rubber", aka rare materials, plus a shortage of fuel. This of course assumes a generally historical course of the war up to that point.

Anyway, that is what I assumed in building my model.

Engineer, as you said, Germany produces 250 points of oil, and economy needs 200 to make up the shortage of "rubber". However, because armed forces are supplied first from available oil reserves, Wermacht will take as much oil as it needs from those 250 points per day. Whatever is left will be converted into "rubber" for ICs. This means that ICs will most likely take a hit, and the economy will start a meltdown.

Basically, the speed of the meltdown at this point depends on the composition of German armed forces. If they are heavily motorized, they will need more oil, less will be left for rubber conversion, and economy will meltdown faster.

Zerli

P.S. I am going to test out my model ASAP, as soon as I figure out province.inc and province.csv format.

 

[JRaup]

There is a big problem in trying to recreate a German economic crisis in 1944. Actually there are several. First off, by that point in the game, we will have no effective control over what has gone before. We won't know what has been built, or what techs have been reserached, or what the over all situation in general is. I think it flawed to base the model on the German situation in 1944. second, we can't control the strategic bombing aspect, try as we might. We can't control, or even predict with accuracy, how well the bombing campaign will go, let alone if it will happen. Also, with the diplomatic engine being the way it is, we can't know what minors have joined the Axis, and if they are supplying the Germans with resources or not. We also won't know who is, and is not a puppet of Germany. To my mind, this is not a good approach to the situation.

I do agree that if everything goes hostorically, Germany should be facing some major resource crunches come 1944. But to base a model around that concept is flawed. Start with 1936 numbers, and adjust to have a 33% increase in production (world wide) by 1946.

From what I gather from reading various posts and such, is that there may be an over abundance of certain resources, mainly oil. As I mentioned before, there is no civilian sector drain on resources at all, and no, CG demand doesn't covere it at all. Given that, we will need to adjust from the raw numbers down wards, to represent the civilian aspects of the economies. This should produce a shortage of oil by 1942 (rationing here we come), and put some dents into coal and steel stockpiles.

Resource distribution is going to be one of the key aspects of this project, followed by coversions. I've been running around doing tests for other things as several minor nations, and teh IC levels there are generally in line with where they should be. I thik we will have to tone down the US somewhat (10-15IC minimum), and readjust a few other significant nations (major and minor).

I think people are a bit too hung up on the German situation really. They weren't in the same boat as Japan, where they were nearly totally dependant on imported oil and steel to power their economy. Not that it should be ignored as an aspect when modelling, just that it shouldn't be the be all end all of the model.

Major nations to be looked at: UK, USA, Germany, USSR, Japan, Romania, S.Africa. Right now, Japan, USA, and UK are all effectively broken. All three have resources that exceed what they should (the UK is a resource hoarder), and doesn't reflect the realities that faced them. Let's keep these all in mind, and not just focus on one or two.

The fact that we cannot mod the resource production in game is also a factor. If we could, we wouldn't have nearly as many problems. We would be able to reduce starting production of certain resources arund the world, and increase them as time progressed in game. Oil discoveries alone would change things. We could have the expansion of oil fields, or wild cat strikes, or just improved wells. Rubber would also be able to be fixed, as we could have events that give rubber production to provinces, providing the tech is discovered (man made rubber factories). But we can't.

and we still need general agreement on the definitions...

 

[Steel]

Originally posted by JRaup
and we still need general agreement on the definitions...

Agreeing to definitions would limit our options in finding solutions No point in getting consensus for a set of definitions if they don't work...

 

[unmerged(18218)]

Originally posted by JRaup
I do agree that if everything goes hostorically, Germany should be facing some major resource crunches come 1944. But to base a model around that concept is flawed. Start with 1936 numbers, and adjust to have a 33% increase in production (world wide) by 1946.

33% where does this number come from? For the US, Growth rates of per-capita GDP have grown about 2-3% consistently in the post-war period. Using this it would be a 34% increases. However, this can not be applied to every country. France had negative growth rates after being occupied. The US had much higher than 3% growth from 1939 to 1944 and then negative GDP growth in 1945. Almost every occuppied country had negative growth. Probably due to capital destruction not being replaced but perhaps also due to technical no imports or exports.

I do not think a world wide percentage to shoot for is applicable. It tells us nothing about individual countries.

 

[unmerged(15066)]

German Data

Hi, all.

Germany or Not: I think there is merit in looking at one economy first to see if we can make it work as a prototype. Then what we learn there can be fanned out into the other major economies and modified appropriately for their circumstances.

German Data: I can get the oil and rubber data out of the USSBS. I'll put it into a spreadsheet over on the Wiki.

German Rubber Digression: The German rubber situation was pretty fascinating, too. They had about four major synthetic factories that doubled their pre-war requirements. They were always hand to mouth on rubber and were scared to death the allies would bomb them out. What they spent their rubber production on was #1 Aircraft tires, #2 truck tires, #3 everything else. Rubber production collapsed in 1944 as a consequence of the bombing damage to the associated synthetic oil plants that provided the feedstock.

Force 1944 German Crisis or Not: I agree with JRaup on this one. A lot of the German economy was hand to mouth through the war, but my reading leads me to the preponderance of the crisis in 1944 was due to Allied-Soviet action rather than some sort of exhaustion of pre-war stocks.

Strategic Bombing as a tool: My observation is that the HOI engine actually simulates early Allied strategic bombing pretty well. You smash factories and a month later production is going full bore again. There is a playtestable question whether the historical mix of bombers and long range fighters can do enough damage to trigger a meltdown in the German economy. This would involve hitting the coal provinces in order to deny the Germans the feedstock resource to convert into oil. IRL the Allies spent an enormous level of resources that this would work and a lot of HOI players don't do this. That suggests that a Germany without the stress of strategic bombing ought to be a lot stronger than not.
(I hate to keep coming back to this point and hijacking this thread into this topic, but I don't think you can understand the German resource situation in the late war period without taking it into account).

 

[Mithel]

Don't forget that if economies get a little out of balance the nations can start doing really absurd cyclic trading on the World Market and melt down an economy that had no reason for a meltdown!

I think it's important to add in trade between Germany and Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and Italy. This both helps balance a historic resource production and it gives incentive to keep Germany's allies as allies rather than just conquering them.

- Mithel

 

[JRaup]

Originally posted by tristam509
33% where does this number come from? For the US, Growth rates of per-capita GDP have grown about 2-3% consistently in the post-war period. Using this it would be a 34% increases. However, this can not be applied to every country. France had negative growth rates after being occupied. The US had much higher than 3% growth from 1939 to 1944 and then negative GDP growth in 1945. Almost every occuppied country had negative growth. Probably due to capital destruction not being replaced but perhaps also due to technical no imports or exports.

I do not think a world wide percentage to shoot for is applicable. It tells us nothing about individual countries.

It was a general world wide comment. And, I was not referring to the specifics of each nation, but more to the general level of resources. As for occupied countries, getting data for 39-45 is problematic, as such information is probably included in the occupiers statistics. Thus from 1940-45, Luxemburg for example, had a GDP of 0 effectively for those years, as it was incorporated into the German stats.

What you do is take note of the over all levels in 1936 (the baseline), and 1946 ("end" result). This in itself is flawed, but gives a generalized over view of what sort of progress should be anticipated in terms of resource levels and availability. The 33% is more of a cushion for IC growth than anything else. As previously stated, once the game begins, we have little to no control over what transpires. and each game should go in a variant direction each time.

 

[JRaup]

Originally posted by Steel
Agreeing to definitions would limit our options in finding solutions No point in getting consensus for a set of definitions if they don't work...

Well yes and no. It doesn't make much sense to create a model that only causes more problems, or is broken and has to have forced fixes via event. IMO, definitions are the building block, from there we build a model that is more intuitive, and makes "sense." That and I'm not a fan of the backwards engineering concept.