Surplus resources/factories/supplies ...

[Nats]

What happens to the surplus resources? The dev diary on trade said that there are no stockpiles and that all resources are assumed to be used everyday. Are they automatically put out for trade then onto the world market? If there are no stockpiles how do you build up for war? Or is that not necessary anymore?

There is no fuel just supplies. How do you create supplies? Do you convert some or your production into supplies then?

There seems to be a very quick way of adding factories by clicking on provinces. Does it matter where these are? For example saw Johan clicking on all his provinces abroad in Africa creating factories. Surely this would be very inefficient - creating factories in desert area or areas of little infrastructure? Is it not more sensible to create factories in well developed provinces with good supply of resources? What do factories actually require to work - they dont seem to require resources anymore as they are only used for creating units?

What about province buildings? What building developments are there available? I assume mainly war related ones like HOI3 eg AA, radar, forts etc? Anything else?

Obviously much of the game is focused on being at war and fighting WW2 - are there any fun thing to do when at peace? Or is it a matter of all you can do is build up for war? I know this game is far narrower in focus than games like EU4 but can you play the whole game at peace?

 

[Denkt]

• Resources exist only for a day, if not used they are lost. How many resources that are put on the market is completely dependent on your trade law which you can always change but it do cost political points.
• See supplies as your ability to transport stuff while the equipment are the true supplies. Supplies are generated automatically by stuff like cities and can not be produced
• Well factories are stuck to the province they are built in which mean if that provinces is captured those factories are lost. Then you may have to transport resources to each factory and transport equipment from each factory. Military factories and dockyard need strategic resources then they produce stuff, how much and of which stuff depend on what stuff they produce.
• http://www.hoi4wiki.com/Construction
  
• The game is focused on war so you should not stay at peace for to long. Use your time at peace to prepare for war.

 

[LordOfWar16]

It is also worth mentioning that production only completly stops if you dont have any strategic resource for that production line available. If you have 1 out of 3 you produce at 1/3 the efficiency, 2 out of 3 2/3 etc. If you lack all 3 you wont produce anything of course.

To add up what @Denkt said, factories are located in states and if those are occupied you loose them and the enemy will gain them, but can only use an percentage of them depending on their occupation rules i.e harsh treatment, gentle treatment etc.

Strategic resources need to be shipped to the mainland where the capital is located in order to be useable. In theory germany could cut off the UK's colonies entirely and preventing them from using any of their resources.

As Denkt said supply is automaticly generated by regions, depending on the region type and gets increased by cities and overspill from neighboring zones. Supply not only determins how well you can supply equipment to your troops, but out of supply troops will also suffer very heavy manpower attrition from starving etc.

Coastal forts, and land forts are the only buildings that you build on an provincial level. Everything else gets built on an state level as seen in WWW. AA guns affect the whole strategic air zone they are in and not only the state they are built in, tho.

There is no point in playing the game in peace the whole time whatsoever. It is an wargame and that is what it is built to be. You can of course decide to delay the war and plot your strategy and build up in an specific way beforehand, but in the end you do it to conquer land and fight the enemy. You build up your civilian and military industry, build radar, AA, (naval/land) forts, dockyards etc to build up equipment stockpiles for your army.

You could of course instead of being an imperialistic player try to play the world police as an democratic nation or turn communist/fascist nations democratic and try to keep peace in the world even if it means to join defensive wars. For example turning germany democratic, dismantling the Axis and joining the allies and defending europe against the communist.

 

[Axe99]

Obviously much of the game is focused on being at war and fighting WW2 - are there any fun thing to do when at peace? Or is it a matter of all you can do is build up for war? I know this game is far narrower in focus than games like EU4 but can you play the whole game at peace?

As LordofWar16 said, the point of Hearts of Iron is global conflict during 1936-48. Depending on the political side of things, there may be an interesting game trying to politic everyone out of going to war, but the main thrust of HoI is preparing for war then getting into it. Peacetime is a build-up to war, and trying to get the war you want with the military you want to fight it with. Vicky 2 and CK2 are probably the two best 'peacetime' games in the current PDS roster, if you're looking for more varied play.

That said, the complexities of the factory system could perhaps lead to some quite interesting peacetime mods, you never know .

 

[LordOfWar16]

As LordofWar16 said, the point of Hearts of Iron is global conflict during 1936-48. Depending on the political side of things, there may be an interesting game trying to politic everyone out of going to war, but the main thrust of HoI is preparing for war then getting into it. Peacetime is a build-up to war, and trying to get the war you want with the military you want to fight it with. Vicky 2 and CK2 are probably the two best 'peacetime' games in the current PDS roster, if you're looking for more varied play.

That said, the complexities of the factory system could perhaps lead to some quite interesting peacetime mods, you never know .

well, in theory you could even play the world's arms dealer without ever being actively involved into the conflict, but that is really the only thing that would remotely come close to staying at "peace". You'd basicly do the same thing as the "neutral" countries of WW2 like Sweden and Switzerland did and simply sell to both sides of the conflict. Swedish steel and swiss weapons and ammunition helped out the german reich more than you might think.

But again, yes. I dont really see how you could really play HoI IV passively without taking any aggressive steps in any direction. Whats the point in raising the worlds most powerfull and technologicly advanced army in the worlds most industrialized high tech country if you would simply park them outside your capital for parades and stuff.

 

[Axe99]

well, in theory you could even play the world's arms dealer without ever being actively involved into the conflict, but that is really the only thing that would remotely come close to staying at "peace". You'd basicly do the same thing as the "neutral" countries of WW2 like Sweden and Switzerland did and simply sell to both sides of the conflict. Swedish steel and swiss weapons and ammunition helped out the german reich more than you might think.

But again, yes. I dont really see how you could really play HoI IV passively without taking any aggressive steps in any direction. Whats the point in raising the worlds most powerfull and technologicly advanced army in the worlds most industrialized high tech country if you would simply park them outside your capital for parades and stuff.

Aye, except there's no arms trading in the game, only lend-lease to allies (unless that's changed).

As for the large, powerful unused military, IRL it not having to fight is generally a pretty good thing - peace FTW! In HoI4 though, it's quite another matter .

 

[Nats]

I think this is the issue with many strategy games that there is very little to do when not at war or building up for war. But I suppose its less an issue with this game as this is primarily a wargame. Still lend lease is interesting and perhaps there will be peacetime events such as the Wall Street Crash etc to keep things interesting when not at war.

 

[Praetori]

What happens to the surplus resources? The dev diary on trade said that there are no stockpiles and that all resources are assumed to be used everyday. Are they automatically put out for trade then onto the world market? If there are no stockpiles how do you build up for war? Or is that not necessary anymore?

There is no fuel just supplies. How do you create supplies? Do you convert some or your production into supplies then?

Resources are abstracted into maximum potential capacity. Surplus resources are assumed to be unprocessed, or rather not exploited, per day. It's not like you let your steel miners work overtime if there's no demand for steel. Capacity meets demand up to the point where you use more resources than are available.
You could of course increase the demand by trading the excess capacity and thus have full utilization all the time. Otherwise it's assumed that all excess capacity goes either to "other" stuff in the civilian sector or that production of the resources are not att full-slave-labor-pace.

Supplies are not created per-se but are abstracted as capacity per geographical area. Surplus capacity in one area can spill over into another area and thus add to the base local capacity. From what we know the game doesn't track supplies as such but instead the effects of having and not having enough supply. It's assumed that you'll always want to feed and fuel your units according to demand (just like resources for production) and thus the actual numbers are not visibly there since we're essentially talking about a function.

 

[Shayson]

Some people might find playing without fighting fun, though I wouldn't count myself among them! Resources definitely can't be stockpiled, so if you aren't using them then allowing them to be traded away seems best.

A related question to the original topic, after reading dev diaries I'm not entirely sure but i think you trade for resources by essentially "outsourcing" civilian factories to the country in return. Is this true, and does it mean that countries like Netherlands that are resource-rich but may have few civilian factories can use a large amount of civilian factories to their advantage by trading resources away?

 

[Praetori]

A related question to the original topic, after reading dev diaries I'm not entirely sure but i think you trade for resources by essentially "outsourcing" civilian factories to the country in return. Is this true, and does it mean that countries like Netherlands that are resource-rich but may have few civilian factories can use a large amount of civilian factories to their advantage by trading resources away?

Well we haven't been shown how minors make due but in theory yes. Resource rich nations with good international relations and trade can/will have a large share of their stuff produced abroad (technically speaking).

 

[Starisc]

Not sure I like the idea of abandoning stockpiles. It removes a strategic layer, which was very present in WWII: The abundance or lack of resources and consequential need to have sufficient stockpiles. E.g. Japan was forced to attack after the US embargoed oil, as they only had stockpiles for a couple of months. Germany was incentivized in HOI3 to stockpile certain resources during the build up or potentially face disaster in a protracted war. On the other hand resource rich countries like US are now forced to trade away all surplus and adjust trade everytime they expand their production capacities.