Massive steel shortages and issues with resources

[Sarmatian]

As long as it came with costs, I wouldn't mind this at all.

The problem, though, is how to model the costs. In Vic2, the cost would iron and coal. If there's no iron or coal for a country to import (as many poor steel producers in HOI4 would face), they will pay inflated costs for what little iron and coal they can find, and may not be able to fully run the factories.

How would you model that kind of cost in HOI4? If you just do it with factory slots, everyone will just build up the required steel factories, and then Oprah Winfrey is going to give everyone steel.

I don't see why simply removing (or greatly reducing) steel cost for infantry equipment isn't a viable solution.
Planning around what resources you have is part of the fun, so allowing everyone infinite steel production definitely isn't a good solution. If it becomes as easy as is acquiring rubber and oil now, it would be bad.

Infantry equipment should be available to anyone with with IC to build it. Instead of going 2/3/4, the steel cost could go 0/1/2? Only a few non major countries at the moment could afford 5 MIC producing infantry equipment 3. Off the top of my head, only (unified) China and India.
Entire South America produces around 40 steel. That's 10 MIC producing infantry equipment, with closed economy. With export, only 5 MIC. And nothing else needing steel.

I think I'll try a game with steel cost removed from infantry equipment, just to see how AI performs.

 

[Alex_brunius]

One solution that I would like to see is some kind of "basic goods" resource to model things like access to lumber, stone ( concrete ), coal, fabrics, craftmanship and other misc production & resources not directly related to war.

This could help restore the trade balance by giving minors more of it, and having it replace or mostly replace steel for some of the more basic weapons like infantry equipment. It would also be required by all construction so there is constant and increasing demand of it by majors as well.



This way we would get a much more realistic balance where major powers are responsible for producing the heavy equipment and almost everyone is self sufficient enough to build at least some basic infantry equipment, and have some resource to export that is desirable.

 

[JerkyJerry]

What are your best guess estimates for the month/year that Paradox will be fixing this issue?
If you think it will take a year or two or three to fix; what could be used as a solution until then? Albeit just a temporary fix. Is there anyway we can get sliders, like for difficulty settings, that can be used to increase (or decrease) resource amounts so the game is much more playable until the patch comes out?

 

[mabus81]

So you do not have enough steel as south africa to mass produce stuff. Sounds realistic to me.

 

[mursolini]

As long as it came with costs, I wouldn't mind this at all.

The problem, though, is how to model the costs. In Vic2, the cost would iron and coal. If there's no iron or coal for a country to import (as many poor steel producers in HOI4 would face), they will pay inflated costs for what little iron and coal they can find, and may not be able to fully run the factories.

How would you model that kind of cost in HOI4? If you just do it with factory slots, everyone will just build up the required steel factories, and then Oprah Winfrey is going to give everyone steel.

Well, issue with steel, obviously that there are 3 components to it: iron ore, coal, and smelters.
Smelters can be created relativly fast and easilly. Mines could be expanded, new deposits could be disovered.
I actually don`t mind something along the line of synthetic for steel. Undiscovered/unmined deposits were huge. Small countries would be naturally limited by number of states. Small states would find it hard to build a lot, and imports would still be preferable.

If the cost of steel factory is around 150% cost of CIC, and it produces 7 steel, I think it would be just fine. Trade would be preferable, but nothing would prevent countries that really need resources from ramping up their production. China, USA, India, USSR had enourmous deposits of everything needed for steel industry, still untapped in 1945.

Even if no one is buying the resources available to the market with free trade, you can't buy them yourself from your own civilian industry no matter if your ready to pay 3 times as much for them

+1. Allow bying domestic resources for CIC, like buying imports.

Part of the problem is that basic equipment costs steel, and a lot of it. I would rather have tanks cost steel and remove any resource requirement for guns, just make them require military factories. I find it absurd that tanks cost so much chromium that I am pretty much forced to seize South Africa(!) to secure these resources in order to keep making tanks(!) as France(!). What was important was steel, hence the British operation to disrupt Swedish iron-ore trade with Germany (and the invasion of Denmark and Norway).

Basic equipment should cost steel. Can`t make rifled barrel with poor quality iron.
Medium tank costs 12 production and 3 steel, infantry equipment 1 costs 0.5 and 2 steel. Thus you can equip get 36 pieces of infantry equipment for steel cost of a single tank, effectivly equiping 360 man. It`s not unreasonable.

A single medium armor batallion can require more steel than a (poorly equiped) division.

 

[mabus81]

Smelters can be created relativly fast and easilly.

Well they can be build relatively fast and easy, but it takes a lot of time until they actually start producing steel. Modern smelters take about two years from setting them up until they produce the first steel. The WW2 era were a lot smaller and probably fired up a lot faster; nevertheless, it probably still took a couple of months until they actually produced steel.

However, its all a kind of cosmetical discussion, because a mod which allows you to build steel mills already exists.

 

[amalric de g.]

Yes.

I guess I wasn't clear. How did you arrive at this number: "The german synthetic rubber production peaked in 1943 with 117,000 t, in the same 4 synthetic factories."

How do you know that 117,000 tons of rubber equals 4 synthetic plants?

Germany had only the four factories, I.G. Farbenindustrie was the owner of all four factories (Buna in Schkopau 1935, Chemische Werke Hüls in Linz 1938, I.G. Farben in Ludwigshafen 1940 and Buna in Morrowitz 1941).

 

[DrinkingHeavily]

Having free trade still makes it impossible for you to control your resources. You want a 15% boost to IC output? Pay for it via free trade, you cheapskate.

I disagree with the framing of this. No matter how "free" an economy is... a government contract remains a desirable acquisition because it's much more consistent than anything else the market has to offer. The government can and should use its monopsony power to demand exactly those efficiencies in its military acquisitions - or set up their own if the acquisition is deemed a matter of national significance, which in this game those factories are.

The US Army owns the entirety of the factory in Lima, Ohio which is [and will remain] the only facility in the world producing the Abrams tank. All those raw materials contracts.. are direct .gov purchases.

WalMart is not the only entity who has the ability to constantly squeeze its suppliers because they are the only game in town and the suppliers would go out of business without them. This game both can and should allow governments to do exactly that with their industrial conglomerates. Those companies would still be making money - just not as much as they thought they could. So sad - life is hard. It's not as though Krupp has stacks of "other" work to do with their dies for producing artillery pieces... nope, they're tied at the hip with the government. Contracts are a negotiation, and it amuses me that there seems to be an assumption that any government has no power to bring to the table.

I think that increasing the output from factories would be perceived as a BENEFIT to the government [and something they should have pushed for earlier] because it would be framed as "eliminating wasteful corruption".


Resource discussions.. Even if they're closed to businesses, I'd think Sweden [or whatever organization is negotiating on their behalf] would be more willing to sell to Germany or other nations pre-war. So that could actually work in their favor as the nations possessing the desired resources begin to close borders.

 

[Anaraxes]

Technically, we should be easilly able to expand steel production, after all, WW2 nations did just that..

Excavation techs do expand steel production.

The disadvantage {of free trade} is that you can't force industries to give up their resources to the government at a reduced price/free in many cases;... As there is no way to pay yourself CIC in the game, your non-IC economic sectors either sell to the outside, generating revenue, or just let the resources sit in the ground.

Not quite. The general point is sound, but the phrasing here illustrates one problem I think a lot of people have when they're visualizing the situation, which then causes confusion when they try to literally apply their imagined meaning to the part of the game they see.

The resources you're not using in a closed economy aren't "sitting in the ground" or "wasted". They're used in the vast part of the economy you don't see in the game, because it's not directly related to the military toys that you're building to play with. Germany or the US didn't build up that mighty steel industry, sitting idle all through the 20s and 30s, in hopes that one day someone would start a world war that let them use it. There was already a use for all that steel. It was produced in response to a demand that wasn't for tanks and rifles. Building military equipment is taking the resources away from those uses.

If you like, you can in fact imagine paying yourself CIC for those resources in the greater economy. It's just such a system would have no net effect. It costs you 1 CIC to buy 8 resources from yourself, so you lose 1 CIC. But you sold 8 resources, so you gain 1 CIC. So there's no net change in your CIC total. (And as with the resource production, most of the civilian economy isn't directly represented in-game, either.)

The Hoi4 economy isn't a representation of a totally closed system with double-entry bookkeeping balancing every input and output so that it's all accounted for. Many things simply appear from outside the represented system, and also disappear back outside the system. Certainly, the players are selfish, and might well think of any resource or action that's not devoted immediately to satisfying their personal whim in the game as "wasted" or "idle" -- but that doesn't mean that viewpoint is correct, and so conclusions drawn by starting from that viewpoint are also likely to be in error.

 

[mursolini]

Excavation techs do expand steel production.

You do know you`re just talking about different thins, don`t you?
What I was talking was SU metallurgy growth in 1928-1934, where over 6 years production of steel and other iron allowys trippled.
It wasn`t improvement in tech, it was blunt build up of more extraction and smelters (not saying new smelters weren`t pretty decent tech thoug).
In game, player can replicate such grow with oil and rubbler production, but strangely not with steel and aluminium, deposits of which were pretty plentiful.

 

[Brucesim2003]

What I would propose is this:

Having free trade still makes it impossible for you to control your resources. You want a 15% boost to IC output? Pay for it via free trade, you cheapskate. You get the boost, but most of your resources are beyond your control.

But if you restrict your trade, the resources are placed under your control like the are now. Except that any resources you are not currently consuming are put on the market only for your faction members to purchase. The resources go on the market only after Speer allocates resources to factories, so your own factories get priority. But Germany's extra steel can be bought by her allies, bringing in much needed CIC to Germany and helping out her allies.

You'd still want to prefer freer trade laws due to the production boost, but you wouldn't screw allies by closing trade.

At the other end, make it so that free trade means that domestic factories can use whatever resources are not sold on the market. So instead of a resources for us/them decision, it's more of a 'who has priority' decision. The only real hiccup with the idea would be that there would need to be some sort of incentive for closed economy, else everyone would go open economy for the production bonus. Though I guess the 'MINE!' ability may be enough for the producers of steel and aluminium.

 

[lpremus]

I am pretty sure guns cost steel in real life. how much is the real debate here. you need to prioritize your builds. you can't built every item at 15 max factory in game at full capacity if you don't have the full stock of resources except for the majors and even those are pushing it. the developers build it that way so that you have to plan out and prioritize what you want to be successful. It has been that way in every HOI game before. even if you max out your production and mining efficiency they aren't enough resources in the game if you don't conquer.

 

[Secret Master]

The only real hiccup with the idea would be that there would need to be some sort of incentive for closed economy, else everyone would go open economy for the production bonus.

Wouldn't the benefit be that under a closed economy, you can access more of the resources?

Or did I screw up my post?

 

[aono]

Actually I'm beliving we're approaching the problem wrong way.
Yes, minors can't produce a lot of modern firearms and artillery in-game. And yes, they couldn't produce it IRL. There was a big weapon market, where big industrial powers sold their equipment. So I believe we don't need to improve steel manufactoring in minors but some kind of trading model for equipment.
I'm thinking about allowance for majors to throw some of their stockpiled/producing equipment (such as obsolete weaponary) to "willing customer", for some kind of production bonus (maybe an extension for lend-lease). As every item of equipment in-game have production cost in industrial points, it shouldn't be SO hard to create a cost formula (not so easy as well, I understand). Then minors should prioritize domestic factories and use such factories for buying equipment, not building military factions to produce their own.

 

[egslim]

Basic equipment should cost steel. Can`t make rifled barrel with poor quality iron.
Medium tank costs 12 production and 3 steel, infantry equipment 1 costs 0.5 and 2 steel. Thus you can equip get 36 pieces of infantry equipment for steel cost of a single tank, effectivly equiping 360 man. It`s not unreasonable.

An M1 Garand weighs 4.3 kg.

360 x 4.3 kg = 1548 kg steel.

An early medium tank weighs 10 times more. (Panzer III ~22 000 kg.)

So in comparison, you should be able to equip ten times the number of men with rifles for the steel cost of a single tank, than is currently the case.

 

[aono]

So in comparison, you should be able to equip ten times the number of men with rifles for the steel cost of a single tank, than is currently the case.

Just in case, include ammo, spare parts and non-rifle parts of infantry equipment.
Not as I can't see virtue in your arguement, sure, but I'm kinda pedantic.

 

[mursolini]

An M1 Garand weighs 4.3 kg.

360 x 4.3 kg = 1548 kg steel.

An early medium tank weighs 10 times more. (Panzer III ~22 000 kg.)

So in comparison, you should be able to equip ten times the number of men with rifles for the steel cost of a single tank, than is currently the case.

Add in several kg of ammo per soldier, other equipment from knife to tents, also at least a dozen mgs, mortars, and a few pieces of light artillery, probably a pack of grenades for soldier as well.
a single infantry support gun can go up to 1800kg (15 cm sIG 33).
At best, you can probably argue for 3 times. Really depends on numbers of support guns and other equipment.

 

[aono]

It's actually offtopic, but I was curious and made some brief research.
Take German .39 infantry platoon. It's:
1 platoon commander armed with a pistol
1 platoon leader, a NCO armed with a rifle (he would normally command the mortar section)
3 messengers armed with rifles.
2 soldiers armed with rifles and equipped with a 5 cm mortar.

The platoon would have 3 squads each with:
1 squad leader, a NCO armed with a rifle.
1 assistant leader, a NCO armed with a rifle.
7 soldiers armed with rifles.
4 soldiers manning one MG34 with pistols and one rifle.

It's simple infantry, so everything they carry is Infantry Equipment.
It's 36 rifles, 3 MG34, 5cm mortar, 46 stahlheims.
One Karabiner 98K weights 4.1 kg, so it's 147 kg.
One MG34 weights 19.2 kg with tripod, so it's 57 kg.
One 5 cm leichter Granatwerfer 36 weights 14 kg.
Stahlheim weights about 1 kg, so it's 46 kg.
Let's ignore pistol.

So to equip one german platoon in 1936, you'll need 309 kg of steel, not including ammo.
Taking Panzer III as 23 tonnes, it's 75 platoons.
75*36=2700. So it's 2700 soldiers.
Not 360, sure. But not 3600 as well.

And 15 cm sIG 33 would be Integrated Artillery, so it's not fair to include it here.

 

[Sarmatian]

If we're taking into account ammo and support equipment for infantry, it should also be done for tanks. Not just the cost of tank, but cost of ammo, spare parts and so on.

Infantry equipment is too expensive in terms of steel cost.

 

[aono]

If we're taking into account ammo and support equipment for infantry, it should also be done for tanks. Not just the cost of tank, but cost of ammo, spare parts and so on.

Medium tanks shoots tungsten, don't they?