the trade system in HOI4 absolutely make more sense, than a currency based trade system.
To import steel from Sweden, Germany must export something else to Sweden in order to pay for the steel.
And that is what this new trade system simulates better than a generic currency called "Money".
While I agree with the simplification of trade, this is a bit too much of a stretch.
In HOI3, trade was either something you ignored, using AI control, or would micro you to death with constant offers to trade, cancellations of perfectly good trade agreements. For those who could withstand this torrent of hell by the game, then gamey diplomatic results could be brought about, that were entirely unrealistic. And either way, stockpiles were out of control.
So something needed to be done.
But it's not more realistic to do it the way the devs have decided.
IRL Germany didn't buy iron ore from Sweden. This is the first issue. German capitalists bought iron ore from Swedish capitalists. Pre-war the two governments had little impact in this trade. There is a free market, German capitalists can buy iron ore anywhere they want, but presumably bought largely from Sweden because it was cheaper to ship it from the port (in Norway), than say buy it from the Soviet Union. This is not represented in HOI3 where artificial trades could be created (or refused) that didn't make any economic sense to the people who would have conducted them.
So I agree with the idea that there should be a free market. But I'm not even clear that your relations with the other country should matter. If Sweden (the government) had said to the owners of the mines, "We prefer you not to trade with German steel plant owners, they have been supporting the Nazis" would that have been agreed? The "sanctity" of the free market would have been raised immediately. But even if they could drum up the support in Parliament to place legal restrictions in place, then what would have happened is the Swedish iron ore producer would sell iron ore to a Norwegian shipping fleet, who would transport it to a Danish port to sell to a Danish entrepreneur, who would transport it by rail over the German border to sell to the German steel plant owner.
Even during the 1914-18 war, Germany was using that sort of indirect trade to get round military embargo, shipping goods to Holland (who was neutral) for instance. The UK government had to extend the trade embargo to stop ships travelling to Holland and some other European countries, and confiscate their goods, if they thought that they would be sold on to Germany. That was not really such an issue after 1940, as nearly all ships bound for North European ports were suspect, but I guess Sweden and Vichy France was subject to those restrictions in terms of anything they might try to import on behalf of Germany.
Anyway, only at war can foreign trade be truly controlled by governments, except perhaps with the Soviets, where all production was centrally controlled.
But we have the Swedish capitalist selling his iron ore to Germany, by what stretch of the imagination does he get a chunk of German factories to produce goods with instead of money? Even if you abstract out the individual capitalists, the presumption has to be made that there are
always bilateral agreements where "we sell you our resources, you buy our manufactured goods". When in fact Sweden would have got money (in some form through foreign exchange rates) and was then free to spend that money on importing coal from UK, fish from Norway etc.
The IC you gain from foreign trade means that Sweden can produce infrastructure, fortifications, air bases, and other factories, including (if they choose) to use for military and naval production,
built by factories in Germany.
Even if you argue that Germany produces civilian goods, which then frees up the factories in Sweden to produce infra etc then the problem is that those civilian goods teleport to Sweden - there is no requirement for Sweden to use it's convoys to carry these from Germany to Sweden.
[Which might have been the case in HOI3 anyway, if they were on the same continental landmass? Another unrealistic abstraction that meant Japan could buy resources from Nepal without using convoys, and even if railways would have to pass through a war zone.]
I'm not advocating the devs change the system - we are not playing an economic simulator. But it is hardly more realistic than HOI3. That would have required setting realistic limits on the stockpiles allowed, such as restricted by your infra or IC. And having custom duties and things like that, with a system which is only indirectly influenced by governments pre-war.
The trade system is a huge compromise which can be justified only if the game is accepted as a war game, not a long-term nation builder like EU4 or Victoria. As long as it has the end result that forces Japan and Germany to go looking for resources by conquest, rather than just buying huge stockpiles pre-war, and an embargo against Japan in particular matters, then I'm OKish with the new system.
