Steel Mills should be added as a building

[TheMeInTeam]

I am not 'failing to understand' the point - I'm rejecting the point.

Said rejection is self-inconsistent, however. You are invoking history in a game that intentionally and drastically deviates from it in numerous other ways involving resources and accrual of factories.

HOI 4 allows for the complete conquest and control (with high compliance) of China. That even the most modernized + powerful nation in the world, one that surpasses any nation managed historically, STILL can't set up steel mills there 5-10 years after conquest is NONSENSE. Even more so when that same country can trivially setup up more synthetic rubber production than the natural resources in the game combined in the same timeframe.

I don't know what pan south-American nation that also holds the UK would look like in history and neither does anybody else here. But the game allows it, and allows it to have more IC than the USA. Yet that nation still can't extract existing iron ore not already in the game, anywhere.

You can't cite history as a refutation that such a nation should be capable of extracting more iron ore and be coherent. That's not how causality works and it's now how the game's mechanical design works.

What is the German players reason for the Norwegian campaign, if they could just build more steel mills in Bavaria ?

If this is a serious question, time is a finite resource in the game. More regular factories + conquered steel = more output than building steel mills rather than production factories.

 

[Quantum_AI]

Making Steel out of thin air is magic.

It is already made out of thin air in the game. I am, in fact, asking for at least a steel mill to be used.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

^ Yes resources in the game are already arbitrary if compared against history, done intentionally to make the game's modeling of WW2 more interesting to play. Like historical army sizes etc historical resource distributions and issues would make Axis a long shot, and by extension WW2 uninteresting to most starts. Devs reasonably deviated from history on purpose in that regard, and numerous others.

Also note that the road to '56 mode allows for steel mills, and having played that with numerous different people of various skills nobody is falling over themselves to build steel mills rather than standard IC, unless the situation is unorthodox. This is not something an optimized Germany/USA/etc should be doing even if it's in the game, and without heavy conquest most non-majors couldn't produce enough mills to make a difference. So it functions as a reward for nations that beat the odds, similarly to how you can take a focus for another tech slot if you have >50 IC.

 

[Metz]

They could add coal and iron mines and have steel mills consuming 1 unit of iron and 3 units of coal to make steel. Most countries do not have a problem with coal mining. Historically, Germany forced Sweden to sell to them iron ore and to accept coal in exchange. This could be simulated via national decision. Sweden refusing would give Germany a CB over them.

Additionally, civilian factories should create a certain amount of consumer goods which are needed to keep stability up as well as army equipment up. Trucks should be built to increase the efficiency of these consumer goods reaching the public as well as reaching armies at the front. This would give another reason to build AA as strategic/CAS bombing should take out trucks that are on route.

 

[mpop]

Playing as a minor is a nice addition to able to build steel mill because there's no way for me to get more steel due to various reasons. I can keep building civs but theres no more steel to trade with anyone later in game.

 

[Vlad123]

As Germany you save the 300% research bonus for the 1943 rubber tech. Perfectly viable to have it in 1940/41.

Yes, this for germany (300% bonus, and +2 rubber via focus), and the other 99,99% of countries?

 

[squid_hills]

Also note that the road to '56 mode allows for steel mills, and having played that with numerous different people of various skills nobody is falling over themselves to build steel mills rather than standard IC, unless the situation is unorthodox. This is not something an optimized Germany/USA/etc should be doing even if it's in the game, and without heavy conquest most non-majors couldn't produce enough mills to make a difference. So it functions as a reward for nations that beat the odds, similarly to how you can take a focus for another tech slot if you have >50 IC.

Yeah, I was going to mention Road to 56. Their expanded tech tree (which used to be available as a stand-alone mod... might still be, I dunno) has both steel and aluminum mills. Each adds +4 units of their respective resource (so on Export Focus you actually gain +2 units per building) and only one of each type of building can be built in a province. You can only spam as many steel mills as you have provinces, so Bhutan isn't going to wish itself into becoming the world's leading steel producing nation. The benefit that comes from the buildings is that extremely low-resource minors (Ethiopia), or minors who have resources that nobody trades for in the early game (Iran, Iraq) can get enough steel to build rifles for their army without having to trade away their already limited IC. This allows low-resource minors to grab a little bit of land and bulk up industrially before the main war kicks off. I've never encountered a situation where one of the majors needed to build these, because majors either have a ton of steel/aluminum available in their territory, or they are setup to be able to obtain a bunch of steel through early game conquest.

TL;DR Steel mills (ala Rt56) have no effect on the game for majors. They are a quality of life option for minors. Are they realistic? No. But I'll wager if you're playing a SP game as Bhutan you aren't too concerned with realism to begin with...

 

[Alpha2518]

I, personally, do not want Steel Mills to be put in the game. It adds an extra layer of historic/realism to the game I like. If you need steel, you gonna have to trade for it or in the case of need, conquer a country to take their steel. Thats how it was done and is still being done. Those without resources will take countries that have the resources.

If I remember right, WW2 Germany would disagree. Sure they conqured a lot of territory, but I remember specifically a huge sticking point was Germany's own ore deposites that were not being used because of how acidic the ore was and how it needed extra processing. And once that was done steel production went up. But I need to double check this in Wages of Destruction.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Playing as a minor is a nice addition to able to build steel mill because there's no way for me to get more steel due to various reasons. I can keep building civs but theres no more steel to trade with anyone later in game.

For now you're on a timer to conquer nations that have a lot. Usually this means beating Japan for a little, or one of USSR/Germany/UK for decent quantities.

Sneak landing UK and farming enough war score to reach top 2 before Japan declares on Philippines is a path for minors. You can also beat Japan with sneak landing. Germany/USSR require more oomph. USA has lots of steel too but conquering them early as a minor is impractical unless you're Mexico or Canada due to their navy.

 

[billcorr]

In my opinion, ideally iron ore should be on the map, and it should be turned into steel at refinery buildings.

The HoI4 design team has provided a precedence with:

Oil ----> Fuel​

Perhaps the same could be done for:

Iron ----> Steel​

 

[Caeric]

No matter what happens in the future, I certainly reckon that the resource prospecting decisions can and should be expanded a bit to help minors that may be badly starved of resources harvest a bit extra if they have the requisite extraction tech and can pay a bigger factory cost for just getting a bit more rather than needing to trade quite so extensively just to get by.