HOI4 Dev Diary - Fuel

[Dalwin]

The addition you want is motorised artillery... towed by trucks.

I'd welcome this.

The mod we use adds these as unit types. It is called the Alex MP Mod. It does a lot of other things as well that change the game to be more suitable for the style that our MP group plays. As such, though I use it for SP, many players might not like some of those changes. For example, instead of a 5x5 grid for division template, we only use a 3x4 grid. This avoids some of the issues with large units that stack multiple bonuses getting outrageous stats.

 

[Olanov]

The mod we use adds these as unit types. It is called the Alex MP Mod. It does a lot of other things as well that change the game to be more suitable for the style that our MP group plays. As such, though I use it for SP, many players might not like some of those changes. For example, instead of a 5x5 grid for division template, we only use a 3x4 grid. This avoids some of the issues with large units that stack multiple bonuses getting outrageous stats.

Thanks for the tip, I'll be sure to check that out! Sounds promising.

 

[Shaka of Carthage]

The mod we use adds these as unit types. It is called the Alex MP Mod. It does a lot of other things as well that change the game to be more suitable for the style that our MP group plays. As such, though I use it for SP, many players might not like some of those changes. For example, instead of a 5x5 grid for division template, we only use a 3x4 grid. This avoids some of the issues with large units that stack multiple bonuses getting outrageous stats.

We'll since you mentioned yours ... Authentic Units - Historical Divisions (see signature below) also has motorized unit types. Along with a rework of the artillery sizes (12 guns vs 36) and combat width of the AA (zero). I went with a division designer grid of 4x4, for the same reasons Alex MP mod went 3x4. And there are other changes to make it more historical.

 

[Zachary Filion]

can you make it so that you can split trade with the same country, for example if you're the UK and you're missing 4 steel and 3 aluminum, you can give one civilian factory to the USA and get 4 steel and 4 aluminum, reducing wasted resources.

 

[Zachary Filion]

can you make it so that you can split trade with the same country, for example if you're the UK and you're missing 4 steel and 3 aluminum, you can give one civilian factory to the USA and get 4 steel and 4 aluminum, reducing wasted resources.

Or better yet, put money in the game, and make it so that you buy resources with it.

You could also have a salary for soldiers, which could reduce infantry spam.

Money could be generated by how many consumer goods factories you have, giving people a reason to get off of war economy when not at war. Truth be told I think the whole economy system needs a look at.

 

[Porkman]

Or better yet, put money in the game, and make it so that you buy resources with it.

You could also have a salary for soldiers, which could reduce infantry spam.

Money could be generated by how many consumer goods factories you have, giving people a reason to get off of war economy when not at war. Truth be told I think the whole economy system needs a look at.

There was an older game called Arsenal of Democracy which was essentially a perfected version of HOI2. Paradox licensed the HOI2 engine and two complete games were made out it. AOD was one of them.

It did all of this.

See this picture

See the top right where there is production?

Shifting IC into consumer goods generated money.

See the bottom right corner where there are "expenses?"

You could spend the money on Civil expenditures which kept dissent down, (that's what the "needs 70.57" means. If Germany spends less than that, dissent will tick up.)

You could spend it on Military salaries.

It was an absolutely beautiful game with so so many good ideas for how to make a WW2 game.

Which Paradox neglected entirely when it came time to do HOI3 and HOI4. Sometimes they had similar ideas, but they have always been executed much more poorly. @Alex_brunius can tell you how much worse the synthetic plant system in HOI4 is than the one in AOD.

 

[Alex_brunius]

Which Paradox neglected entirely when it came time to do HOI3 and HOI4. Sometimes they had similar ideas, but they have always been executed much more poorly. @Alex_brunius can tell you how much worse the synthetic plant system in HOI4 is than the one in AOD.

The main advantage of the synthetic plant system used in AoD is that it has reasonable limits, not in the cost of building the plants ( which wasn't a historical limit either ), but in that you needed to input energy (coal) resources in very very large amounts to get small amounts of oil out of it ( like historically ).

So while it could help a bit and produce some oil, it was no magical solution that could conjure up oil from no where and make Germany one of the worlds leading oil ( and rubber known in AoD as a part of rare materials ) producers.

 

[seattle]

The main advantage of the synthetic plant system used in AoD is that it has reasonable limits, not in the cost of building the plants ( which wasn't a historical limit either ), but in that you needed to input energy (coal) resources in very very large amounts to get small amounts of oil out of it ( like historically ).

So while it could help a bit and produce some oil, it was no magical solution that could conjure up oil from no where and make Germany one of the worlds leading oil ( and rubber known in AoD as a part of rare materials ) producers.

You mean something like this? Germany 1943, about 550 oil coming from synth factories. I didn't even try to reach absurd numbers, just enough to match production needs. Germany can easily produce 1000 or even 2000 oil. That's one of the great problems in HoI4. While tungsten and chromium remain key resources, oil and rubber become as rare as wood.

 

[Tavior]

I often find myself running out of steel. But not oil and rubber because most of the time I play as neutral which have no natural steel to speak of.

In a recent game, I re-created Gran Colombia (My boat don't lie achievement) and I had to import every single freaking steel. Due to a slight hiccup on my part I manage to lose half of the oil due to puppet demand by USSR.... But I still manage to finish it off because I was still Gran Colombia minus Venezuela oil. Just took longer without oil exports.

 

[Carroarmato-P40]

The owner loses the storage space, but it is not captured until capitulation.



yeah thats the goal

To encourage a little of the 'pillage' aspect of war (and also, taking into account real world objectives. ie: The German capture of Allied fuel depots during the Wacht am Rhein offensive of late 44). Why not permit say a percentage of it to be instantaneously seized by the new province controller, with the remainder being withheld in the 'national' stockpile, which is thereafter relinquished following capitulation to the victor.

 

[Foxman8472]

That's great and all but I'm willing to make a hard bet here and now that the addition of fuel will cripple naval AI. Expect AI to waste its fuel on useless patrols that will either just be spammed because programming is hard or will be easy to bait out, then you can naval invade when they run dry.

 

[Shaka of Carthage]

That's great and all but I'm willing to make a hard bet here and now that the addition of fuel will cripple naval AI. Expect AI to waste its fuel on useless patrols that will either just be spammed because programming is hard or will be easy to bait out, then you can naval invade when they run dry.

I'm sure your vote of confidence will inspire the developers to work much harder.

 

[Commissar Yossarian]

they produce oil. which is then coverted using conversion techs to fuel. so its a more expensive less efficient way compared to holding wells and trading

While I appreciate that you're dealing with a game balance and a game structure that already exists, this is asinine in the extreme. Synthetic plants directly produce a single hydrocarbon or an incredibly narrow cut fuel if you're good/lucky. There is no way you would refine synthetic fuel to produce fuel. You generally have to add other hydrocarbons back into the fuel to get your desired properties.

If anything with the introduction of fuel you should have synth plants only outputting fuel and add in refineries (since you're adding fuel storage [new building] anyways to the map and refining tech). Then you can make on map resource oil into Crude Oil, and have your refineries output fuel and rubber (representing the byproducts since one cannot add too many different resources) which should be bombable. Without out getting into the weeds (lubricating oil, fuel oil vs light distillates, petroleum byproducts for synthetics [rubber, plastics, etc]) differentiating between fuel for ships, planes, tanks etc this would still provide the necessary balance to make refining Crude much more attractive, but also not have as much of a false choice between pursuing Crude vs Synth. Finally it would prevent Germany and Japan from instantly benefiting from foreign captured oil fields as they currently do since they lack the refining capacity/infrastructure.

I'd personally love to see lubricants (oil) stick around as a resource but that is a little pedantic: though it would force Germany to worry about its crude supply along with the synths for fuel production. There was a neat report I read about the German's review of American vehicles like the Jeep and Trucks. They generally considered them excellent, but impractical for their own use since they burnt too much lubricating oil. It's nuts that Germany had to build their engines tighter, and therefore harder to build and less reliable, since they didn't have enough lubricants to keep their fleets running otherwise.

 

[DocDesastro]

I would also like to see produceable unit 'rations' i.e. consumables for units to keep them up. This covers everything the field kitchens and the field techs need to keep the army in fighting shape. Introduce agricultural factories to depict this part of industry sector. Military Factories cover heavy industry mostly, while civillian cover construction works and light industries - they produce the well-received toasters and toasters for export. Agrarian industry will produce 'rations' for your military - likewise refineries will produce fuel for mechanized units. A high-tech army has higher demands of a country fielding it. Infantry just needs food and billets unless they fights and trains. A tank platoon needs spare parts, lubricants, fuel AND rations for the soft parts. No fuel? Unit cannot move + penalty. Unit has no rations? Attrition of manpower!
So...spamming your provinces with MIL might not be a good option anymore. You now need refineries and agrarian factories to pay for your army's upkeep. This will change the strategy of some players gravely and might limit the factions to their actual capabilities.

BTW: Ship engines can use almost crude oil in an emergency. Tanks will run on heavy fuel as well unless you have gas turbines installed. Planes will not fly on diesel.
Important feature and I really like to implement that: I want to be in control on how many CIV factories are assigned on one project. For instance, I want to build infra or fortifications. Currently, I don't want to because...it is more important to make MIL and the game does not let me allocate 1 CIV for building the bunker simultaneously, while the rest work on other stuff. If I have 16 factories, I want to chose what they do. The interface is already there! Look at producing stuff. Just add 0-15 factories and off you go. Object vanishes again when ready and game tells you 'free CIV factories available'. Why making this so stupid?

 

[pnt]

Fuel sounds interesting! I am looking forward to seeing how it will work in practice!

Speaking of China, however, it seems to me that the various early penalties are not applied to volunteers, making Axis light armor nearly invincible.

 

[Keisok]

I'm still iffy on the addition of a fuel component, or any resource components like ammo or food to be honest; part of the reason I like 4 so much out of the lot was its simplicity after all.

I imagine it'll be interesting to patch the AI to prevent themselves from starving to death.

 

[DocDesastro]

Should be the same algorithm to prevent it from running out of fuel...

 

[CheeseTVs]

What if you dont have fuel tanks ships and planes ? Will they stop and cant go?
3

 

[Broletariat90]

Does anyone have an idea of fuel will effect division spam? That would be great if it did.

 

[seattle]

Does anyone have an idea of fuel will effect division spam? That would be great if it did.

Should only affect:
1. units with fuel consuming equipment like inf with hospital that requires trucks.
2. said units are either moving or in combat.

It most likely won't affect China (pure inf) or fuel heavy nations like US and Russia.

Will be interesting how the ai deals with it. Took the devs a long time to make it stop training new units when low on equipment.