Victoria 3 - Dev Diary #66 - Patch 1.1 (part 2)

[Xeiki]

I can already tell you that doubling the oil supply isn't going to be enough. In my last game as Germany, I wasn't even using all of the PMs utilizing oil, and with the US in my customs union and them actually building Oil Rigs, plus owning Borneo and Iraq, I still didn't have enough to fuel one economy. And that's with the current AI which builds only very meager economies - I had a GDP of 4 billion in 1910, while the runner up (France, I think) had ~250 Million, so there wasn't even any competition going on.

If the AI gets better at building, oil (and rubber, too) will still be heavily, heavily bottlenecked. Same goes for multiplayer games where multiple human players will push GDPs in the billions. There are other shortages happening, too: lead especially is pretty scarce. From looking at the map, Germany already has a pretty huge supply of it (could be wrong about that) and I maxed out my lead in 1900, and now the prices just keep rising. Even if the AI gets better at building stuff, it will also consume more, so supply needs to be increased. I think all reasource availability will need an overhaul eventually.

Also, please don't make whaling more productive regarding oil - it's already hugely overproductive comparatively. If anything, the Whaling Industry should fill a different niche than crude oil, given that Whale Oil was only partially used for the same things. Only lighting, really - the rest of the industry (and the thing which kept whaling profitable even when crude oil dwarfed it in raw output) was focused on luxury products like perfume, etc.

Regarding synthetic rubber: yes, that's a great idea, at least for the very late game, since it would allow more diverse playstyles of not having to conquer half the world just to fuel your economy. Maybe just a quarter

 

[fc gog]

Are you making any progress on the migration bug? everygame external migration becomes broken by 1880. https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/victoria-iii-migration-target-stuck-in-a-loop.1550878/

 

[DominusNovus]

I don't see that it's unique to micromanagement of industry or such like - EU has the same issue with the location and form of the New World, for example, and CK with the possibility of supernatural events. The only way you can get away from it altogether is to have every country, including the players', acting on a set historical script - which would be little fun as a game at all.

The player has far more hands-on control over colonization in EU4 than they should, not to mention that growth rates are too fast, and success is all but guaranteed. It isn’t that the player knows where to colonize. Its the player knows to park a full regiment on each developing colony *and* can easily garrison them until they’re secure.

 

[grommile]

Its the player knows to park a full regiment on each developing colony *and* can easily garrison them until they’re secure.

EU4 has a button that turns off native uprisings. (The AI always pushes it.)

 

[alexander_24031987]

What is factor - WAR_EXHAUSTION_KIA_FACTOR ??? What is it mean?

 

[adil3tr]

Can we have this screen again? It was really excellent and ahead of its time, only missing a couple things. It's so much harder to get useful info about pops now with the small UI that basically makes you look at just one demo in one province at a time or get almost no aggregate information for a whole culture.

 

[zhenystanchin]

It would be nice to add a screen with all needs generated by pops. For example, take Luxury drinks. It is better to see all needs in basic units, then distribution/breakdown of goods in the market (substitutes such as wine, tea, coffee). With that the player could understand what he can produce more. RIght now you see, for example, that there is some small demand for wine and you would not increase production without uderstanding that having wine cheaper some pops interchange tea for wine.
The same with other needs like heating, clothing, etc.

 

[DominusNovus]

EU4 has a button that turns off native uprisings. (The AI always pushes it.)

Exactly my point. You can have risk-free colonization, its just a question of whether you spend colony growth speed or military force to attain it.

 

[Kapowsky]

Maybe the correct path for the whole "late game" oil driven economy for combustion engines and piston ignition engines is not focusing on Oil, but alternatives.

Yes, Oil and Petroleum became wide-spread for their potential and versatility, but most of the world used biodiesel and ethanol way earlier in the 1800s, and to a larger extent before petroleum became the de-facto fuel of the world. Instead of breaking immersion by "inventing" oil on the map, maybe dig into technology versatility in terms of fuel usage.

Most of the engines before the 1910s were using ethanol (methanol in some cases), while most agricultural vehicles used either coal dust or coke, wood gas or ethanol. Most of the first cars produced and half the first flight motored projects also used ethanol based engines. Interestingly, almost 3% of cars were made in the early 1900-1910 also experimented with electric batteries and If the western world didn't agree "dark gold is the way to go", we could be in a whole different world now.

 

[Lionbari]

Its been considered and is in the arsenal of "future ideas." I want to see how coal balances out with more Oil avaiability since right now its being used more than expected since economies don't make that much of an Oil Transfer.

Couldn't you make state traits dynamic so they only appear once the resource has been discovered?

 

[PedroLuiz]

Exactly my point. You can have risk-free colonization, its just a question of whether you spend colony growth speed or military force to attain it.

you can always just kill the natives as well

 

[PedroLuiz]

If the western world didn't agree "dark gold is the way to go", we could be in a whole different world now.

they didn't agree on anything, it's just that the EROI of oil is 16x that of ethanol

 

[Raven100]

Rubber plantation change looks good but oil field spread looks a bit too alt history

 

[Raven100]

Can you please add the debug mode to the normal game rather than starting debug mode in launcher in non iron man modes like eu4

 

[DominusNovus]

you can always just kill the natives as well

That too. Really a subset of using your regiments, though.

 

[Amorenkaire]

Rubber plantation change looks good but oil field spread looks a bit too alt history

Which I don't think would be a bad thing if all the factors to explain that alt history were modeled (e.g., oil avaliability vs. technology and discoverability chance). Which aren't exactly modeled, and there's hardly a barrier to building oil so... Very alt history every game I guess.

 

[God Emperor Dave]

This is really great

 

[PedroLuiz]

Rubber plantation change looks good but oil field spread looks a bit too alt history

Which I don't think would be a bad thing if all the factors to explain that alt history were modeled (e.g., oil avaliability vs. technology and discoverability chance). Which aren't exactly modeled, and there's hardly a barrier to building oil so... Very alt history every game I guess.

The most alt history thing about oil in this game (even with the new update) is how little oil there actually is

 

[Wooden]

I am not really a forum type of person but this topic encompass both my favourite type of games and my job so I feel that I can bring something to the table.
My first source will be "The prize epic quest for oil money and power" of Daniel Yergin which is an incredible read on the history of oil from the 19th century to the late 80s (the book is really amazing and I recommend it to everyone), and my second source will be myself as someone who works in Oil&Gas exploration/development of oil or gas fields. Some of the information might lack precision but I threw the book when I moved out so I won't be able to exactly source them

• The first map is the most accurate and should be the one used assuming we want any kind of historical accuracy aside from the fact that there was no significant oil field in Japan. In Russia most of the oil was produced in the Baku area.
• Oil started to find production and wide use in the 1860s not as a combustible for electricity or cars, but as a combustible for kerosene lamps. Before that, most people used the sun and candles as a source of light and the one that could afford it used whale oil as a combustible. The Oil industry killed the whaling one and brought affordable light to millions of house hold across the world. --> In the game oil fields start appearing much later into the game.
• For most part of the time period depicted in the game oil was used mostly for light rather than vehicles. --> It doesn't look like this is depicted in the game and imo it should, as it would give a reason for both AI and the player to develop whaling and oil industry early on.
• Oil fields reached at that time peak production quickly and fell hard just as quickly. The reason is that in the US, at that time at least, nobody owned the underground below a certain depth. This meant that if you discovered oil somewhere, bought a plot of land and started drilling and producing, someone could come, buy the plot next to yours and start drilling the same oil reservoir as you so everybody had to produce as fast as possible to prevent others from "stealing their oil". This led to reservoir being mismanaged and quickly losing production. --> I don't recall seing an event telling me that an oil field has depleted like we have for gold ones.
• Oil was not a major concern for most countries until the first World War for these reasons:
  • Bringing troops to the front was a nightmare logistically. France had to requisition all the horses and cars they could and at that time that meant not a lot. This led to scenes where you had Parisian taxi bringing troops to the front.
  • Logistics could rely on railways but only to a certain extent as there was no train station next to the trenches plus artillery. Vehicles had to be used to supply the front lines and vehicles needed oil.
  • The introduction on the front line of a new game changer, the tank. Countries quickly realized that tanks and vehicles were going to be key in the next confrontation and they both needed oil and a lot of it.
  • Coal powered military boat would stand no chance against diesel/Oil ones
  • Airplanes
• Post WW1 countries that understood the value of oil but had no oil field at hand started developing technologies to make synthetic oil. Germany was a precursor in this field. As for japan If I remember well they started extracting oil from coal but the output was of mediocre quality. --> I don't recall seeing this the game.
• The lack of natural oil of both Japan and Germany was the main friction reason between them and the US pre-WW2. Japanese-US relation went cold when the US embargoed Japan and prevented them specifically from buying oil. This is a very interesting topic as lack oil availability explains a lot of the pre-war moves or/and even the war itself ( at least on the pacific theatre).
• Last one for the courageous ones. One of Japanese first move after Pearl harbor was to seize Dutch Indonesia to secure an oil supply. The dutch knowing this blew up and plugged wells which slowed down the Japanese a lot but also cost their lives. One if not the main reason for the defeat of the German on the Russian front was that they tried to get to Baku no matter what, both to secure an oil source and to cut the USSR from their main one. This led to overextending their supply line encirclement and eventual defeat.

TLDR:
Oil was used as combustible for kerosene lamps for most of the span of the game. Countries only realized its importance post WW1 but while it was available in lots of quantity it was only located in specific spots across the world which led to diplomatic spat and eventually war.

 

[PedroLuiz]

I am not really a forum type of person but this topic encompass both my favourite type of games and my job so I feel that I can bring something to the table.
My first source will be "The prize epic quest for oil money and power" of Daniel Yergin which is an incredible read on the history of oil from the 19th century to the late 80s (the book is really amazing and I recommend it to everyone), and my second source will be myself as someone who works in Oil&Gas exploration/development of oil or gas fields. Some of the information might lack precision but I threw the book when I moved out so I won't be able to exactly source them

• The first map is the most accurate and should be the one used assuming we want any kind of historical accuracy aside from the fact that there was no significant oil field in Japan. In Russia most of the oil was produced in the Baku area.
• Oil started to find production and wide use in the 1860s not as a combustible for electricity or cars, but as a combustible for kerosene lamps. Before that, most people used the sun and candles as a source of light and the one that could afford it used whale oil as a combustible. The Oil industry killed the whaling one and brought affordable light to millions of house hold across the world. --> In the game oil fields start appearing much later into the game.
• For most part of the time period depicted in the game oil was used mostly for light rather than vehicles. --> It doesn't look like this is depicted in the game and imo it should, as it would give a reason for both AI and the player to develop whaling and oil industry early on.
• Oil fields reached at that time peak production quickly and fell hard just as quickly. The reason is that in the US, at that time at least, nobody owned the underground below a certain depth. This meant that if you discovered oil somewhere, bought a plot of land and started drilling and producing, someone could come, buy the plot next to yours and start drilling the same oil reservoir as you so everybody had to produce as fast as possible to prevent others from "stealing their oil". This led to reservoir being mismanaged and quickly losing production. --> I don't recall seing an event telling me that an oil field has depleted like we have for gold ones.
• Oil was not a major concern for most countries until the first World War for these reasons:
  • Bringing troops to the front was a nightmare logistically. France had to requisition all the horses and cars they could and at that time that meant not a lot. This led to scenes where you had Parisian taxi bringing troops to the front.
  • Logistics could rely on railways but only to a certain extent as there was no train station next to the trenches plus artillery. Vehicles had to be used to supply the front lines and vehicles needed oil.
  • The introduction on the front line of a new game changer, the tank. Countries quickly realized that tanks and vehicles were going to be key in the next confrontation and they both needed oil and a lot of it.
  • Coal powered military boat would stand no chance against diesel/Oil ones
  • Airplanes
• Post WW1 countries that understood the value of oil but had no oil field at hand started developing technologies to make synthetic oil. Germany was a precursor in this field. As for japan If I remember well they started extracting oil from coal but the output was of mediocre quality. --> I don't recall seeing this the game.
• The lack of natural oil of both Japan and Germany was the main friction reason between them and the US pre-WW2. Japanese-US relation went cold when the US embargoed Japan and prevented them specifically from buying oil. This is a very interesting topic as lack oil availability explains a lot of the pre-war moves or/and even the war itself ( at least on the pacific theatre).
• Last one for the courageous ones. One of Japanese first move after Pearl harbor was to seize Dutch Indonesia to secure an oil supply. The dutch knowing this blew up and plugged wells which slowed down the Japanese a lot but also cost their lives. One if not the main reason for the defeat of the German on the Russian front was that they tried to get to Baku no matter what, both to secure an oil source and to cut the USSR from their main one. This led to overextending their supply line encirclement and eventual defeat.

TLDR:
Oil was used as combustible for kerosene lamps for most of the span of the game. Countries only realized its importance post WW1 but while it was available in lots of quantity it was only located in specific spots across the world which led to diplomatic spat and eventually war.

Kerosene is somewhat represented by population buying it for heating purposes
But that's currently bugged