There's a wishlist thread here for requests, which is probably the best place to put it (as it's monitored for requests).
HOI4 Dev Diary - Patch 1.3.3 Update #1
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There's a wishlist thread here for requests, which is probably the best place to put it (as it's monitored for requests).
Not quite what I meant. Both of these are technically possible already but what I really need is separate AI priorities for each ship class in the first case and in the second case a certain bug fixed. The first one is already on the request list and the second one I have reported multiple times so there's nothing else to do about it but wait.
Really great work lads, this stuff and some of the other posts show you're all working really hard. Hopefully this will be a good patch.
As an economist, I thought I'd chip in on the productive efficiency point.
This is very interesting, as is your current graph. It's much more accurate than the previous formula you had. It's not a linear process and the rate at which efficiency is gained should begin very rapidly then exponentially slow down.
I would question the need for a cap at all. It definitely really does not make sense in a roleplay sense ("Boss! We've made our final improvement to the efficiency of tank production!" "Excellent, the Minister will be delighted to hear that tank production is now stunted."), but also in a gameplay sense - that certain industrial zones and production lines become incredibly efficient over the war did definitely happen, and this is why the Zero, the T-34, and the Panzer IV were all produced right up until the end of the war, to take only the most famous examples.
There is an elegant solution to both of these problems, and happily it emerges from a paper written about military aeroplane manufacture from 1936. The full article is here (currently behind an annoying paywall sadly, but you can google the title to find references to it) and the jist of it is that as aggregate production of the factory line doubles, the marginal cost of each aeroplane falls by a constant 10-15%. So, assuming the constant is 10, your second aeroplane is 10% more efficient to build than the first one, the fourth is 10% more efficient than the second etc. This is clearly a logarithmic process, and it is known as experience curve theory.
For the maths behind it, check this paper out, specifically Fig. 3. The constant doesn't have to be the same for each process, and you would need to twiddle around with it with different laws, techs, and products - which provides opportunities for different strategies and fun! This would provide an historically accurate and economics-based model for production. No idea about game balance though, and I'd be interested to see how the game handles it if you do give it a go!
Incidentally, the model is cute for business management types, but the really useful economic stuff is implicitly because the constant is constant for any given tech, it allows us to predict the future efficiency and therefore adoption of technologies. For example, given aggregate output of solar power, you can predict at which point the $ per kW/h of solar energy is equal to things like coal - currently we're on track for that by 2030, so fingers crossed...
As an economist, I thought I'd chip in on the productive efficiency point.
This is very interesting, as is your current graph. It's much more accurate than the previous formula you had. It's not a linear process and the rate at which efficiency is gained should begin very rapidly then exponentially slow down.
I would question the need for a cap at all. It definitely really does not make sense in a roleplay sense ("Boss! We've made our final improvement to the efficiency of tank production!" "Excellent, the Minister will be delighted to hear that tank production is now stunted."), but also in a gameplay sense - that certain industrial zones and production lines become incredibly efficient over the war did definitely happen, and this is why the Zero, the T-34, and the Panzer IV were all produced right up until the end of the war, to take only the most famous examples.
There is an elegant solution to both of these problems, and happily it emerges from a paper written about military aeroplane manufacture from 1936. The full article is here (currently behind an annoying paywall sadly, but you can google the title to find references to it) and the jist of it is that as aggregate production of the factory line doubles, the marginal cost of each aeroplane falls by a constant 10-15%. So, assuming the constant is 10, your second aeroplane is 10% more efficient to build than the first one, the fourth is 10% more efficient than the second etc. This is clearly a logarithmic process, and it is known as experience curve theory.
For the maths behind it, check this paper out, specifically Fig. 3. The constant doesn't have to be the same for each process, and you would need to twiddle around with it with different laws, techs, and products - which provides opportunities for different strategies and fun! This would provide an historically accurate and economics-based model for production. No idea about game balance though, and I'd be interested to see how the game handles it if you do give it a go!
Incidentally, the model is cute for business management types, but the really useful economic stuff is implicitly because the constant is constant for any given tech, it allows us to predict the future efficiency and therefore adoption of technologies. For example, given aggregate output of solar power, you can predict at which point the $ per kW/h of solar energy is equal to things like coal - currently we're on track for that by 2030, so fingers crossed...
I've been gone for a few weeks so haven't been keeping up to date on the new changes.
I'm happy to see changes that make infrastructure more valuable to building factories and also how efficiency works.
Since we are changing production, I'd like to put a plea in for a very early suggestion I had which is to make switching production work to how it was originally designed/discussed.
The earliest documentation developer notes/ and wiki had the following penalties.
Switching to a new variant 10% of efficiency lost.
Switching to the same chassis 50% efficiency lost eg. switching from a PZ III to StuG III
Switching to a new model PZIII to PZ IV 70%
Same archetype 80%
Instead, the chassis and new model efficiency lost was switched and so there was 50% reduction for a new model but 70% lost for a new chassis.
I think from both a realism perspective (both the Russian and the Germans did convert their tank factories to producing tank destroyer) and from a game play perspective it makes sense to go back to the way the came was originally designed. I always convert all of my PZ III to PZ IV and then to PZ V. but if the penalty was larger for switching to new models, I might switch instead to TD or SPA version
I'm happy to see changes that make infrastructure more valuable to building factories and also how efficiency works.
Since we are changing production, I'd like to put a plea in for a very early suggestion I had which is to make switching production work to how it was originally designed/discussed.
The earliest documentation developer notes/ and wiki had the following penalties.
Switching to a new variant 10% of efficiency lost.
Switching to the same chassis 50% efficiency lost eg. switching from a PZ III to StuG III
Switching to a new model PZIII to PZ IV 70%
Same archetype 80%
Instead, the chassis and new model efficiency lost was switched and so there was 50% reduction for a new model but 70% lost for a new chassis.
I think from both a realism perspective (both the Russian and the Germans did convert their tank factories to producing tank destroyer) and from a game play perspective it makes sense to go back to the way the came was originally designed. I always convert all of my PZ III to PZ IV and then to PZ V. but if the penalty was larger for switching to new models, I might switch instead to TD or SPA version
Yes. I also really want to be able to retrofit surplus equipment. Those 1k PzII/Pz35/Pz38 when you finish switching to PzIII would be great as TDs and SPGs. Combine that with switching obsolete lines to TD/SPG/SPART and it'd be nice to manage.
It'd also be good to treat light/medium/heavy models as upwards compatible. Reinforcing with a crappy spare TD in for a destroyed StuG would get a lot of eq diversity in the game.
Or for that matter, sidegrades. TDs in place of the main thing. The description text of the StuG in the game itself says the Germans used them as MBTs. I'm not sure this works for SPAA, but why not? The stats would reflect its poor fit.
As it is, any use of any eq type pretty much requires a multi year build in order to distribute even numbers across e.g. all armoured. Unless people designate and maintain adhoc division templates? I sure don't. Keeping everything at veteran xp level is already too much for my OCD.
It take something like 500 days or so to go from min to max efficiency so you may not want to keep upgrading your tanks to the next tech level (which also cost alot of research). Instead you can use variants to maintain your efficiency while still improving your stuff.
I mean USA was building Shermans in 1944 which in the game is the 1941 medium tank. Now you may want to do so instead of simply going straight to the 1943 tank.
Bf109 was built during the whole games time frame in many different variants however the game don't allow you to upgrade it as much as it was in real life. The k version for example was competitive in 1945 which in the game is atleats 1940 tech aircraft if not even 1944 tech.
Maybe they could change the game so each tech level allow you to add an extra 5 points on variants for the previous tech level. The experience cost is a huge deal anyway but it would be a nice way to maintain old production lines.
So if you have 1940 plane you can upgrade 1936 plane to 10 in everything and with 1944 plane you can upgrade 1936 plane to 15 in everything.
I mean USA was building Shermans in 1944 which in the game is the 1941 medium tank. Now you may want to do so instead of simply going straight to the 1943 tank.
Bf109 was built during the whole games time frame in many different variants however the game don't allow you to upgrade it as much as it was in real life. The k version for example was competitive in 1945 which in the game is atleats 1940 tech aircraft if not even 1944 tech.
Maybe they could change the game so each tech level allow you to add an extra 5 points on variants for the previous tech level. The experience cost is a huge deal anyway but it would be a nice way to maintain old production lines.
So if you have 1940 plane you can upgrade 1936 plane to 10 in everything and with 1944 plane you can upgrade 1936 plane to 15 in everything.
Well they could have the cost go down depending how many equipment you have built. For example let say that fighter 1936 start at a cost of 50. The second one may then cost 49.5 or something and so on and the price drop down eventually to a very low level.
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Yes, this is my point. The tricky thing would be how you manage variants and upgrades, but there's plenty of scope for different strategies of industrial mobilisation (Do you start producing now to get an industrial lead early on, or do you invest in capacity so you can have huge amounts of industrial tech in late game? Do you keep old models with very high industrial efficiency or switch to new ones? Do you choose a doctrine which has a faster increase in efficiency or a high base?) with this model.
Retrofitting old models would also be very cool, though I'm not sure how you would model that.
I like this idea (or something similar - but 'upgrade' slots increasing over time - in some way a lot. The Matilda II was in production until '43, and the Spitfire until at least '44 as well.
Production UI could probably do with a little adjusting to better suit this style of production would be the only thing I'd want if the game's heading this way. Not essential, but would be nice
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The marginal cost per unit (airplanes) of that factory will keep going down until someone where the cost per unit will actually start climbing for each new unit produced. While hoi team doesn't necessarily have a "real" production curve I do think they choose to end it in the correct spot.
This is because if we continue to expand production on a line that had reached efficiency this will happen. We will increase quatitiy output and ever increasing cost per unit. So to get one more plane it'll cost you say 10. The next one 12. The next 20. Basically in production economic theory a firm should stop producing more once they hit a certain capital+labour=output. (If your interested it occures when marginal cost=marginal benefit). Anyways I think a cap actually does make sense economically!
Tldr- an effeciency cap that is currently in game can actually represent real world economics theory.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Production_function?wprov=sfla1
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It's like we are producing at B and Y in the graph. A firm would not produce more then this. And this is where our 100% efficiency is taking us.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e8/Stages_of_production_small.png
Although just saying the more economics hoi has the happier I am!
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e8/Stages_of_production_small.png
Although just saying the more economics hoi has the happier I am!
I would argue though that HoI factories don't represent individual production lines but physical capital stock, which can be improved on micro-scale with buying an additional set of machine tools, switching generators etc.
But yes, I hope Paradox are thinking carefully about the economics here and are experimenting with new methods.