Will northern Africa be as important in the game as it was historically?

[DrZoidberg]

Historically Germany thought Northern Africa was strategically important.
They sent german soldiers and panzers to fight in the desert.

But in Hearts of Iron 2 and 3 Northern Africa is useless.
Egypt has some value with a few IC and resources and the Suez channel.
But the Italian parts of Northern Africa is just a complete wasteland...
Zero resources or IC....
Therefore most people in HoI 2/3 if they were in the Axis just forgott about Africa and focused sole on Europe.

How will you make the desert warfare in Northern Africa meaningful in Hearts of Iron 4?

 

[WSnova]

Its one of my pet peeves with HOI3 too. Almost all land you conquer is mostly empty wasteland, especially Africa, South America and most of Asia.

But well, to be fair strategically important doesn´t necessarily mean lost of resources. Gibraltar was just a rock with little else in it and still was pretty important strategically. One of the things that made me kind of lol is how in HOI3, most Balkan nations have cores on each other. What do this important cores have to offer?Mostly empty wasteland.

 

[RupertTheBear]

What was so important about North Africa that Germany decided to send expeditionary forces?

- Keep Italy from getting stomped by the UK
- Access to the Suez Canal -> cut british supply lines to Sudan, India etc.
- Access to the Middle East -> Oil

Libya itself was economically quite useless to the Germans (oil hadn't been discovered yet), it only served as a bridgehead for the Axis forces and thus was stragegically important.

And what else but wasteland would you expect in the northern Sahara? Desert warfare took place along a very narrow strip along the coast, supplying units with water & fuel was nigh impossible once you got 50 to 100 miles away from the coast. (Same story as with the Anzac forces further east in WWI)

 

[CocoCincinnati]

HIstorically the US wanted to focus on a cross channel invasion of France right away and the Brits were initialy opposed to it. The compromise was to start with Africa and Italy, which in real life, turned out to be a blessing in disguise because the US forces were nowhere near ready for the main event in France. The experience gained in the mediterranean, both in amphibious invasions and combat in general were vital for the success in June 1944 in France. Perhaps the game could simulate this by giving severe penalties to the first couple of amphibious landings a nation makes, which would give the player incentive to do some landings in Africa, or other less defended places first.

 

[Daelyn75]

HIstorically the US wanted to focus on a cross channel invasion of France right away and the Brits were initialy opposed to it. The compromise was to start with Africa and Italy, which in real life, turned out to be a blessing in disguise because the US forces were nowhere near ready for the main event in France. The experience gained in the mediterranean, both in amphibious invasions and combat in general were vital for the success in June 1944 in France. Perhaps the game could simulate this by giving severe penalties to the first couple of amphibious landings a nation makes, which would give the player incentive to do some landings in Africa, or other less defended places first.

I like your thinking.

 

[safe-keeper]

In Europe Engulfed (board game), there was a "Collapse of Italian morale" event that gave Italy some severe maluses if they lost too much ground in Africa and the Med. It gave the Axis player a strong incentive to fight for Africa (along with other objectives like Alexandria, the Suez canal, seizing islands to interdict naval operations, etc.).

HOI4 could have an incentive system like this. Like a "Mare Nostrum" event if the Italians seize Africa and the Med, and a corresponding "reward event" for enemies of Italy if they secure the Med.

 

[George Parr]

The reason why Northern Africa was to some importance to Germany - and it really wasn't a whole lot - was to keep Italy from collapsing. Losing Libya was considered a huge blow to Mussolini's rule and may have created the risk of Italy dropping out of the war, or worse. The Afrika Korps was meant as a purely defensive measure, it was only with Rommel ignoring explicit orders and going with 'offense is the best defense' that this part of the war gained some interest. Getting hold of the Suez canal or anything further for that matter, would have been a nice bonus, but it was never a priority.

Libya itself is relatively meaningless for the war effort, there truly is nothing of importance there. Having something like safe-keeper has mentioned would probably be the best method to give the area some importance.

 

[physics1915]

What was so important about North Africa that Germany decided to send expeditionary forces?

- Keep Italy from getting stomped by the UK
- Access to the Suez Canal -> cut british supply lines to Sudan, India etc.
- Access to the Middle East -> Oil

Libya itself was economically quite useless to the Germans (oil hadn't been discovered yet), it only served as a bridgehead for the Axis forces and thus was stragegically important.

And what else but wasteland would you expect in the northern Sahara? Desert warfare took place along a very narrow strip along the coast, supplying units with water & fuel was nigh impossible once you got 50 to 100 miles away from the coast. (Same story as with the Anzac forces further east in WWI)

All shipping was already going around Africa, so taking Suez wouldn't have been a huge strategic blow to Britain due to cutting supply lines, but it would allow the Regia Marina to operate in the Indian Ocean, provided the entire Red Sea was controlled, which could have at least given them an opportunity to threaten the supply lines between Britain and India. This m uch is represented in the game.

The real problem in HOI 3 with the theater is that the Iraqi oil reserves weren't well represented, there wasn't a big incentive to take the middle east as Germany because you didn't get anything out of it. Furthermore, much of the lend-lease to the USSR went through the railroad that connected the USSR to the Persian Gulf through Baghdad. This 'Persian Corridor' represented 25% of the lend lease the USSR received, taking this Corridor should reduce the amount of Lend-Lease the USSR is able to get (as should taking the Soviet Pacific coast or a war between Japan and the USSR, the source of half of all lend-lease).

 

[alanthe]

Also didn't Libya have some oil production during the war? I thought I remembered reading two of the problems for the Axis were, one the British sinking their tankers, and two their troop ships occupying most of the docks so their tankers would have to wait.

 

[physics1915]

Also didn't Libya have some oil production during the war? I thought I remembered reading two of the problems for the Axis were, one the British sinking their tankers, and two their troop ships occupying most of the docks so their tankers would have to wait.

No, oil exploration began in 1955 and the first wells were drilled in 1959. But oil had been discovered in Iraq and Saudi Arabia; however, the amount of oil represented there in HOI 3 was so little that it was hardly worth going after.

 

[alanthe]

No, oil exploration began in 1955 and the first wells were drilled in 1959. But oil had been discovered in Iraq and Saudi Arabia; however, the amount of oil represented there in HOI 3 was so little that it was hardly worth going after.

Oil must have been going the other way then, to supply the Axis in Libya, I had always just assumed it was the other way because Libya now is so rich in oil

 

[Bluestreak2k5]

No, oil exploration began in 1955 and the first wells were drilled in 1959. But oil had been discovered in Iraq and Saudi Arabia; however, the amount of oil represented there in HOI 3 was so little that it was hardly worth going after.

This is one thing that I don't like about HOI.

Due to WWII there was massive investments by the Axis in resource exploration and investment. There should be an ability to unlock more resources especially in the middle east as the Axis because IF they would have captured it, there definitely would have been more production and investment due to the shortages they had. The allies had no such need for investments because the USA was supplying them with all their needs.

I would really like to see 2 things added in HOI4:
1. Infrastructure affects resource production similar to the HOI2 arsenal of Democracy
2. "Hidden resources" can be uncovered at specific infrastructure levels which would represent massive investments in rail/roads/cities in the area, which is ultimately what these resources would need to be exploited.

These hidden resources do not have to be 100% discovered at once, say 6 oil is found in Saudi Arabia at Infrastructure 5, every year for the next 5 years you could get 1.2 oil increase, representing the gradual investment in the resources.

You could also maybe pay a fee, possibly a "build" option to exploit the resources where you pay a certain amount of "building materials" so your free to invest/build as you want. I'm not saying the resources we know about today should be in the game, but there were definitely possibilities of more oil being produced in the middle east under other circumstances.

 

[tommylotto]

No, oil exploration began in 1955 and the first wells were drilled in 1959. But oil had been discovered in Iraq and Saudi Arabia; however, the amount of oil represented there in HOI 3 was so little that it was hardly worth going after.

Actually, some oil was found in Libya in the 30's by an Italian scientist/explorer, Ardito Desio. However, the main deposits were too deep for the technology available to the Italians. Some American experts were contracted to investigate in 1940. Arguably, they had the means to find the Libyan oil, but their efforts were prevented by the outbreak of war. An interesting what if...

 

[Axe99]

This is one thing that I don't like about HOI.

Due to WWII there was massive investments by the Axis in resource exploration and investment. There should be an ability to unlock more resources especially in the middle east as the Axis because IF they would have captured it, there definitely would have been more production and investment due to the shortages they had. The allies had no such need for investments because the USA was supplying them with all their needs.

I would really like to see 2 things added in HOI4:
1. Infrastructure affects resource production similar to the HOI2 arsenal of Democracy
2. "Hidden resources" can be uncovered at specific infrastructure levels which would represent massive investments in rail/roads/cities in the area, which is ultimately what these resources would need to be exploited.

These hidden resources do not have to be 100% discovered at once, say 6 oil is found in Saudi Arabia at Infrastructure 5, every year for the next 5 years you could get 1.2 oil increase, representing the gradual investment in the resources.

You could also maybe pay a fee, possibly a "build" option to exploit the resources where you pay a certain amount of "building materials" so your free to invest/build as you want. I'm not saying the resources we know about today should be in the game, but there were definitely possibilities of more oil being produced in the middle east under other circumstances.

It depends a bit on how much of an economic/resource development game you want to have, but if it was possible to discover resources (for example, in the time period there's masses of oil and gas in the USSR waiting to be discovered), it might make more sense to have a screen somewhere, where you can allocate IC/PP/whatever in-game resource makes the most sense to doing a 'prospecting mission' in a region, that may or may not find something. If it finds something, then you build a plant and infrastructure for it. If you had infrastructure as the 'prospecting' stage, but didn't know where these would be, you'd end up with rather odd-looking infra levels floating about the place (and while there were improvements in infra around refineries, its not like the Persion oil refineries meant that part of Persia was suddenly infra 10 or something like that).

So - prospecting mission, then build plant and required infra for it to work. There's already buildings and infra in the game, so that should be easy enough to do, it'd just be a question of the prospecting (and as long as you could add resources to a region via an event, you could mod in prospecting events with a choice of spending IC or something to achieve this).

 

[CocoCincinnati]

I've recently been playing the Fox and Lion mod on HOI3 and it does have an event chain for Italy where you can search for oil in Libya that costs a percentage hit to IC, after a while you do find oil and eventually can build a refinery there. It's very nicely done and definitely would make Africa important for a German player to protect that source of tradable oil and the strategic resource to boot if for some reason they haven't got Romania in the Axis. Of course that is for HOI3 and may not work at all for HOI4.

 

[Big Nev]

No, oil exploration began in 1955 and the first wells were drilled in 1959. But oil had been discovered in Iraq and Saudi Arabia; however, the amount of oil represented there in HOI 3 was so little that it was hardly worth going after.

Agreed.

Kicking the Brit’s out of North Africa would have closed-off that end of the Med’.

This would put pressure on Turkey. A relatively under-developed country with huge manpower.

It would also have opened the way for the Axis in to the Middle East. Persia (Iran) was already grumbling, if not actually causing trouble. Capture of the Persian oilfields and the refinery at Abadan would have completely solved Germany’s fuel problems at a stroke.

 

[RupertTheBear]

... completely ... at a stroke.

I wouldn't put it THAT boldly

 

[Big Nev]

Serviced by 90+ tankers, it was one of the largest refineries in the world.

This refinery supplied the RN in the Med' (by overland pipleline, IIRC) the fuel for the British Eastern Fleet and even av'gas for US bombers operating over the Japanese mainland.

OK, the Axis may have struggled to get the fuel to where it was needed, due to a lack of tankers, but the trip from Haifa (the delivery end of the pipeline) to Italy wouldn't be that problematic with the Brit's kicked out of the Med'.

 

[Wyrm]

Most of the war in North Africa was about control of the Mediterranean sea. Had the British kicked Italy out it would have left southern Europe exposed to invasion. Well, it did actually become invaded after the allies kicked Italy out in '43

The real issue game-play wise here would be to make the AI take more advantage of such strategic advantages. I really hope that the AI will be able to launch organized amphibious operations that can truly threaten mainland europe one way or another. In all my games as Germany in HOI1, 2 and 3 I've never had any AI excep russia pose a threat to me. This even when not doing Sealion.

 

[Big Nev]

Well, yes. The AI is a major problem but I understand that they've got their top guy on it.