trading resources

[blue_yonder]

Now that we have a worldwide free market in resources, I hope and think that purchases will no longer be capped by our objective shortages – by what we actually need. If this turns out to be the case then we can develop economic aid packages, indirectly helping under-developed allies and potential partners to grow. If for example you want to help a backward country like Albania, tanks and equipment via LL aren't what they need.

If however you are free to buy their tungsten even though you have plenty of tungsten yourself, your factories will in effect be building their roads and their IC. The tungsten they send you just gets tipped into the sea of course, but that’s neither here nor there. If we have two ways to assist another country, LL and trade, then it opens up a whole new way for the major powers to win friends and influence people.

 

[MajorHeartfire]

This thread brings up two questions I didn't realize:

1) No resource stockpiles whatsoever?
2) You can only trade for the exact amount that your currently need?

I guess if #1 is true, then #2 makes sense... I just like the idea of stockpiling resources on top of stockpiling equipment (which I know we can stockpile based on the WWW videos...)

 

[Vidkjaer]

I am not sure i understand your post?
Depending on the trade law Albania has set ,a portion of her resources is on the market (and lost - she cant use them). You will be able to buy an amount of the resources with Civilian factories (1 factory for 4 resources). How big a portion of the available resources you can buy is depending on your relation with Albania.

You can always buy resources even though you have planty of it yourself.

What i would like to know is how it is handled if player A has a relation with Albania causing Player A to buy - lets say - 60% of her oil resources. What happens when Player B later comes with a relation high enough to buy 70% of the resources? Is it then 70% of whats is left or will player A get a reduction in the already made trade agreement?

 

[LordOfWar16]

This thread brings up two questions I didn't realize:

1) No resource stockpiles whatsoever?
2) You can only trade for the exact amount that your currently need?

I guess if #1 is true, then #2 makes sense... I just like the idea of stockpiling resources on top of stockpiling equipment (which I know we can stockpile based on the WWW videos...)

For 1) If you run out of resources you will see an more suttle decrease rather than an instant drop. There are tiny hidden stockpiles.

it averages it out actually so there are no quick jumps, you slowly start drainign the resource (so there is a slight hidden stockpile actually behind the scenes)

For 2) You can buy as much as you want from the availabel pool as long as you can affort it, as seen in WWW. There is an button, which set the amount to buy to exactly how much you need for your industry tho. Trade is only really limited by your civilian factories (as an currency basicly), convois and trading reputation.

Sure, Brazil has 10 rubber for sale. Both Germany and USA want to buy ALL of it

(reason/value)
Germany has good relations with Brazil: 200
Germany is fascist, Brazil is democratic: -50
Germany has been trading for a year already: +10
Total: 160

USA has ok relations with brazil: 100
USA is democratic, like brazil: +50
Brazil is under influence from monroe doctrine: +10
Total: 160

they have the same end value, so end up being allowed to buy 50% of the exports. if there was no competition and only one buyer they could buy 100%, but with this particular competition case they are guaranteed 50% at least.

 

[blue_yonder]

I am not sure i understand your post?

Okay – I’ll try and explain a bit better.. )

We’ll say that Albania has set a free trade policy – she would be mad not to, as she is in poverty – and ‘free trade’ means 80% of her resources go to market to be sold or lost. From the map, it looks like the only thing she has to offer the world is tungsten. In a DD, podcat gave an example of two countries who both wanted to buy all of a country’s output; as you say, their share was duly apportioned by their respective relationships, so if Italy and France both want to buy all of Albania’s 20 tungsten, but Albania likes Italy 10% more than she likes France, then Italy gets 12 and France gets 8.

But suppose Italy only wants to buy 4 but France wants all 20? Italy would be entitled to 60% of 4, but that is not a factories-worth and therefore not enough to make a deal. France would get the lot, and the axis would have to look elsewhere for their tungsten, much as the UK tried to do IRL with Turkey. After a year (podcat said that trade deals have to be ongoing for a year before they have a big effect on relations) Albania would like France more than anyone, and look to her first when buying steel or rubber or aluminium – the things she doesn’t have but France does. This is one reason the US does aid packages, building up a country to create a market in the long-term.

As for ‘Player B coming along later with a higher relationship to buy 70%’, he would be buying 70% of nothing because it's already sold, not to mention the impossibility of suddenly making himself even more popular amongst Albanians than France. But that should be qualified by saying he’d get 70% of nothing if resource output is solid-state, and I think that’s a safe assumption. I doubt the game allows for Albania finding a new seam of tungsten, or Texas suddenly discovering a new oil field, with the resource map constantly changing accordingly; you’d only expect that level of detail in an economic sim game, not hoi.

You say ‘you can always buy resources even if you don’t need them’ as though it were obvious and a given, but it was never that way in hoi3. A genuine free trade policy means that if it is a buyer’s market, then you sell to whoever has the means to pay and can’t be choosy. But if demand exceeds supply, then you can decide who gets what and in what proportion. I hope very much that being in the same faction means a big automatic jump in trade relations between all the countries in it, because that will allow all sorts of subtle manoeuvrings in the way we play the game.

 

[Vidkjaer]

For 1) If you run out of resources you will see an more suttle decrease rather than an instant drop. There are tiny hidden stockpiles.

"Your qoute that PodCat said regarding the relation depending on how much they could buy"

Yes, i know. But PodCat´s statement i take as if they buy at the same time. What if Germany is the only buyer in january and buys 100% and then US comes in february with the same relation value. Can US then buy 0 or 50% (and will Germany then get a 50% reduction)?
If the first is true US can from day one nearly deplete the market - so i hope the second is true. But then i foresee a whole lot of daily changing of imported resources and exported Civilian Factories (CF). Would it be confusing that on day 1 you have perfect balance of your factories and imports and then someone with a high relation buys some resources that changes the amount you get from the current deal . resulting in lack of resources for you -> Daily trade micromanagement?

 

[Vidkjaer]

Okay – I’ll try and explain a bit better.. )

We’ll say that Albania has set a free trade policy – she would be mad not to, as she is in poverty – and ‘free trade’ means 80% of her goods go to market to be sold or lost. From the map, it looks like the only thing she has to offer the world is tungsten. In a DD, podcat gave an example of two countries who both wanted to buy all of a country’s output; as you say, their share was duly apportioned by their respective relationships, so if Italy and France both want to buy all of Albania’s 20 tungsten, but Albania likes Italy 10% more than she likes France, then Italy gets 12 and France gets 8.

But suppose Italy only wants to buy 4 but France wants all 20? Italy would be entitled to 60% of 4, but that is not a factories-worth and therefore not enough to make a deal.

Oh, you mean that you get 4 resources pr factory, so you assume you cant make a deal lesser than 4 resourses? I see your point and i agree. We lack some information regarding the trade system (see also my previous post). I kind of hope that Civilian factories could be split up so you could buy 2 resoursce for 0,5 factory. Civilian factories arent used like militray factories where you need 1 and 1 and 1. My guess is that CF can be comma divided or i hope so.
I cant remember the slider from the #2 WWW video. Did it tick in 4 resources or could you select fx 6 resources?

EDIT: It ticks in 4 :-(

 

[LordOfWar16]

Yes, i know. But PodCat´s statement i take as if they buy at the same time. What if Germany is the only buyer in january and buys 100% and then US comes in february with the same relation value. Can US then buy 0 or 50% (and will Germany then get a 50% reduction)?
If the first is true US can from day one nearly deplete the market - so i hope the second is true. But then i foresee a whole lot of daily changing of imported resources and exported Civilian Factories (CF). Would it be confusing that on day 1 you have perfect balance of your factories and imports and then someone with a high relation buys some resources that changes the amount you get from the current deal . resulting in lack of resources for you -> Daily trade micromanagement?

That example required that only those 2 nations being on the market for resoruces. Resources are reserved for each nation no matter if they are actively buying or not. The US might have something like 1100 steel to export, but you cant buy more than those 120.

Trading relations increase over time, so the amount you can buy increases, which in return of course means that other nations could potentially get less. Long term trading partners get more of it, so it is wise to choose those early on, rather than picking the soviet union and USA as long term partner for germany for obvious reasons.

All nations that are connected in some way with the USA for example would get atleast some resources, while Nepal might has a hard time getting much if any since technically they arent connected to the USA. I am sure that you atleast need an land or sea connection in order to be able to trade with nations.

 

[Axe99]

Very astute thinking blue_yonder - say as the US you could help the Brits immensely by buying up the excess resources they have early on. Not sure if it'll be exploitable or not, but at the very worst it'll just require us not doing silly things and exercising some self-control.

 

[LordOfWar16]

Very astute thinking blue_yonder - say as the US you could help the Brits immensely by buying up the excess resources they have early on. Not sure if it'll be exploitable or not, but at the very worst it'll just require us not doing silly things and exercising some self-control.

resources available on the market arent useable by the countries themself. An set percentage, depending on your trading policies, is taken from your availabel resource pool and can only be traded with and not used for production. That way it isnt really exploitable. Lets say you produce 100 steel and use 80 in production, you cant sell the excess 20 steel on the market.

Choosing an more open trading policy has major benefits, so going limited or closed economy (which only facist and communists at war can do) is not something you want to do, but rather have to do when things go south really quickly and you need all the resources you have.

Law - Resource to Market - Factory Output - Research Speed - Prerequisities (left to right)

• Free Trade 80% +15% +15% none
• Export Focus 50% +10% +10% none
• Limited Export 25% +5% +5% none
• Closed Economy 0% 0% 0% At war, Facist or Communist and War Economy or Total Economic Mobilization active.

 

[blue_yonder]

resources available on the market arent useable by the countries themself. An set percentage, depending on your trading policies, is taken from your availabel resource pool and can only be traded with and not used for production. That way it isnt really exploitable. Lets say you produce 100 steel and use 80 in production, you cant sell the excess 20 steel on the market.

exactly- it's all in quarantine at the docks unless or until it's sold, so you can't have your cake and eat it too. It's a very elegant system and not exploitable in any gamey sense, only through skill and good decisions.

 

[Axe99]

Ahh, cheers for the deets @LordOfWar16. I guess where I was coming from was if you the US, so might have a little flexibility with your production (as you know you're going to be a monster later in the game), you could make sure the UK's excess resources (of which there are likely to be quite a few) are all bought up, even if you don't need them, effectively giving them a bit of a civilian factory boost early in the game. I'm a bit muddle-headed this evening, but the way you explain things doesn't seem to preclude that, or have I missed something? It'd basically be two countries min-maxing the system, and couldn't it potentially give the UK a bit of a jump start in civilian factories if the US player (or someone else, but that's the only sensible situation I could see it working with) so chose?

 

[LordOfWar16]

@Axe99 Of course cou can help out other countires with that system, sure. Thats actually one of the points of the system, for smaller countries to be able to build up their economy a bit quicker by trading away their resources. What i meant was that if an country produces, lets say, 200 steel it only can use 40 of that for production, while the other 160 go to the world market, depending on your trade laws of course. The US and UK will most likely be long term trading partners anyway, unless of course you choose to actually fight against them.

I wouldnt say that you can exploit the system, since other countries will trade with each other aswell. It might not the best idea to buy from the USA because that requires more convois and also makes them harder to protect. Overall the UK can only build an set amount of factories anyway, so it wont get completly out of controll. Even tho you can build some in the colonies, they simply dont have the infrastructure or population to support more than 1 to 4 factories at max.

Other than that those factories you get cant be turned into military ones aswell and the more factories you got, the more civilian consumer goods you need to produce, which limits the amount of factories you can use aswell.

Consumer Goods = (M+C)xG
M= Military factories
C= Civilian Factories
G= Consumer Good need

Lets say you have 35 civilian factories and 50 military factories. And you have partial mobilization, which sets the consumer goods need to 20%

(35+50)0.2=17

That means that 17 out of your 35 civilian factories need to produce civilian goods and only 18 can be used for other stuff. That prevents people from simply only building military factories at some point or converting all of their factories into military ones.

 

[mdw1985]

@Axe99 Of course cou can help out other countires with that system, sure. Thats actually one of the points of the system, for smaller countries to be able to build up their economy a bit quicker by trading away their resources. What i meant was that if an country produces, lets say, 200 steel it only can use 40 of that for production, while the other 160 go to the world market, depending on your trade laws of course. The US and UK will most likely be long term trading partners anyway, unless of course you choose to actually fight against them.

I wouldnt say that you can exploit the system, since other countries will trade with each other aswell. It might not the best idea to buy from the USA because that requires more convois and also makes them harder to protect. Overall the UK can only built an set amount of factories anyway, so it wont get completly out of controll. Even tho you can build some in the colonies, they simply dont have the infrastructure or population to support more than 1 to 4 factories at max.

Other than that those factories you get cant be turned into military ones aswell and the more factories you got, the more civilian consumer goods you need to produce, which limits the amount of factories you can use aswell.

Consumer Goods = (M+C)xG
M= Military factories
C= Civilian Factories
G= Consumer Good need

Lets say 35 civilian factories and 50 military factories. And have partial mobilization, which sets the consumer goods need to 20%

(35+50)0.2=17

That means that 17 out of your 35 civilian factories need to produce civilian goods and only 18 can be used for other stuff. That prevents people from simply only building military factories at some point or converting all of their factories into military ones.

Sounds pretty logical...so everything is a tradeoff...

 

[Denkt]

Im pretty sure you can purchase more resources then you need which is basically another form of lend lease. Can be useful in some situations because the reciver can use these factories to build fortifications.

A good strategy can be to purchase resources from countries you plan to conquer because they can use these factories to build up things that you will then be able to use.

 

[Axe99]

@Axe99 Of course cou can help out other countires with that system, sure. Thats actually one of the points of the system, for smaller countries to be able to build up their economy a bit quicker by trading away their resources. What i meant was that if an country produces, lets say, 200 steel it only can use 40 of that for production, while the other 160 go to the world market, depending on your trade laws of course. The US and UK will most likely be long term trading partners anyway, unless of course you choose to actually fight against them.

I wouldnt say that you can exploit the system, since other countries will trade with each other aswell. It might not the best idea to buy from the USA because that requires more convois and also makes them harder to protect. Overall the UK can only build an set amount of factories anyway, so it wont get completly out of controll. Even tho you can build some in the colonies, they simply dont have the infrastructure or population to support more than 1 to 4 factories at max.

Other than that those factories you get cant be turned into military ones aswell and the more factories you got, the more civilian consumer goods you need to produce, which limits the amount of factories you can use aswell.

Consumer Goods = (M+C)xG
M= Military factories
C= Civilian Factories
G= Consumer Good need

Lets say you have 35 civilian factories and 50 military factories. And you have partial mobilization, which sets the consumer goods need to 20%

(35+50)0.2=17

That means that 17 out of your 35 civilian factories need to produce civilian goods and only 18 can be used for other stuff. That prevents people from simply only building military factories at some point or converting all of their factories into military ones.

Cheers again for the info . It does sound that what I was saying was accurate though - the US can buy more than it needs, enabling the UK to build up its industry base (and civilian factories don't just build factories - they could pop level 10 forts in Hong Kong and Singapore instead, say, or build rocket sites, or infrastructure or what-have-you, so there would be benefit in it). I agree that a set percentage will be used for civilian goods, but at the end of the day, if the UK gets 10 extra civilian factories through the US buying its steel and dumping it in the sea, even if 50% are used on consumer goods, it'll still have five more factories to build stuff with.

Also, on the UK's population, even with the Raj as a separate nation, the population the the UK plus British Empire that's counted as UK (which includes Egypt in HoI4, although it shouldn't from an economic perspective) outstrips that of Germany and Italy combined, comfortably, and much of their areas are low infrastructure and low development, so arguably more potential to use civilian factories to 'spruce up the place' than most other countries.

I don't think it's a biggy, but it looks like there's the potential for a savvy US player to give the UK (and maybe the dominions) a bit more of a helping hand pre-way than happened historically (or, as Denkt points out, for Germany to pump resources into Polish industry, for it to take over when it conquers the place, lol, although I'd expect that wouldn't be the best use for Germany). China would be another contender for US 'pre-Marshall plan' aid.