Lets take a look
Going to defend my own points then.
Technology is much more even in HOI4 then is predecessor like Italy will be as strong as Germany then it comes to tech with about 4-5 tech slots each and the minimum number of tech slot a country can have is 1. Better tech is better and so should it be. We don't know if late tech stuff however need more resources, like chromium have been stated to be for the most advanced tanks. Again you base your oil need around losses instead of production, yes a country that lose alot would need alot of production to recover these losses but as equipment have no base resource cost you don't know who need more oil because if Soviet is able to produce twice as many tanks for the same resources as Germany, Soviet can take twice the losses for the same investment.
Well, if Italy is going to have as technologically advanced equipment as Germany, the game will be historically flawed in that sense too. Nonetheless, assuming that there are in fact technological differences between countries, and that the less technologically advanced force will have higher causalities, more oil will be consumed by less technologically advanced countries.
Yes, Soviet might produce twice as much oil as German, but will Hungary, Finland, Italy or China produce twice as much oil as their enemies? Is Poland producing twice as much oil as Germany? You got to try to see the whole picture here.
What you are saying is very risk, tech rushing is expansive and basing everything around a doubtful resources is like putting a foot in the grave from day one. Yes this gamble can work but then I don't you will be in deep trouble. I would rather tech rush something I know I always have good access to because that way Im risking less.
If oil really is to be a scarce resource with the new system, it means that countries like Japan and Germany at some point no longer will be able to produce much equipment. The cost of tech-rushing compared to the cost of not being able to produce any equipment is peanuts.
More or less the same as if fuel was a resource because you would then need to conserve fuel.
While conserving fuel in previous HOI games generally meant not using your whole armed forces offensively at the same time, conserving fuel in HOI4 will mean not taking cassulties. Thus, the consequences of not micromanaging oil consuming forces in HOI4 will now be much higher. Moreover, while not consuming oil was impossible in HOI 1, 2 and 3. it will technically be possible to not consume oil in HOI4.
Again, if oil really is to be a scarce resource with the new system, the prospect of not having to consume oil, combined with the prospect of not being able to replace losses because of lack of oil,
will take micro management to a whole new level.
You underestimate the power of attrition. If you base your army around oil equipment you will need oil because you can not afford the production slowdown for lacking oil. If you are unable to supply the army with equipment the army will collapse and doing a transition into a non oil army will be extreamly painful and sure loss in a large war.
You underestimate most players. Sure, if you lack oil in this new system, you are in big trouble, and I've repeatedly mentioned some of the more flawed reasons for that. However, most players will never get to that point. A decent player playing as Germany or Japan will easily avoid oil shortages by:
- Stockpiling equipment
- Superstacking navies and the aircraft
- Tech rushing the oil consuming forces that typically take high losses
- Micro managing the most oil consuming units such as tanks
- Taking relatively few losses against the AI
If you read the DD you will see that you can still hurt armies by qutting them off. Aircrafts and Ships are vulnerable because they need a supply line to operate.
A far as I know, they don't need supplies to operate, but they need supplies to operate optimally. In the previous HOI games, an air force or tank division could literally not operate without oil. Tanks would be trapped wherever they were located and aircraft would not be able to take off.
You don't have much control over who your resources are exported to because trade work on the principe of the free market. You can still produce equipment that wan't oil even without access to oil but as said many times before production of such equipment will not be effective. These countries can atleast build
synthetic plants to get atleast some oil. We don't know how the game will play out yet because so much have been changed
Sure, but if this game will portray the historical and realistic oil shortages that Germany and Japan suffered, this would in HOI4 terms mean that the German and Japanese AI will be rendered unable to produce tanks and aircraft from 1944 and onward. Unless Podcat goes even more a-historical and gives Germany and Japan massive deposits of oil, the German and Japanese AI are officially screwed.
We don't know how it will play out yet but HOI3 stockpiles was more or less unlimited which don't seems to be the case in HOI4
The stockpiles will not be unlimited but they will most likely be big enough to effectively stop any oil shortages. So it's pointless anyways.
