Dev Corner | Thermodynamics

[Lord Megatronus]

Very concerning news for playability of minor nations, like you people wanna kill all the ahistorical aspect of the game?

 

[Vengirni]

I have a feeling that the dev corner about carriers is gonna be called "aerodynamics".

 

[Kakori]

While I understand that some people despise the idea of more economic-related stuff in HoI4, I think that Coal and Energy, as described, is a great addition, while remaining relatively simple to manage. That sort of addition is, honestly, the best thing you can do short of a Resource/Economy overhaul (which I don't expect to happen until HoI5 for a variety of reasons).

As for some specifics, I'm assuming factories don't consume coal if they're idle, right? That way, leaving Civ and Dockyards idle to make sure the Mils get the coal they need could be a viable strategy late in the war. Maybe even go a step further and outright trade all your civs away for some extra coal instead of just leaving them idle. Or perhaps, with the limited production capacity imposed by the available resources, you could consider making factory conversion more viable as a strategy.

I hope you include some sort of indication in the UI showing how far you are from exceeding your energy production. If you build a mil and discovery only after you build said mil that now you don't have enough energy to run them at max efficiency, that would not be nice, the UI should give you enough information for you to account for that without having to pull up the spreadsheets.

Are you considering revising the whole "Concentrated or Dispersed" choice dynamic to include energy efficiency? Maybe even having a third path, or a separate branching path on the industry tab tailored for countries with limited coal reserves.

Also, I think it would be important to have alternative energy generation sources that don't require coal. I'm thinking mainly dams and oil, and maybe some technology related to natural gas and biomass (without adding more resources, of course). They would serve the same purpose that refineries do now for oil and rubber. Nuclear energy, as some suggested, would be weird, considering the game's tech tree only goes to 1946 and the first uses of nuclear power for energy generation date from the 50s IIRC, but considering civilian nuclear reactors are already a thing in-game, it could be a option, I guess.

Speaking of refineries, are there any plans to make non-factory builds (like refineries and radar stations) consume energy as well or will the system be limited to only factories?

We may also need to have a look at the balance between Mils and Dockyards if they're going to compete for energy.

As far as trade goes, maybe it's time to consider a auto-trader? Like, personally, I don't think you should be able to start trading for resources and cancel that trade 1 hour later, but short of a complicated (and controversial) trade rework, a auto-trader could make the current system a little bit easier do manager.

Anyway, there's people out there that can probably comment on those things better than I could, but those are some things that sprung to mind. Overall, I think it's a good addition if you can nail down some of the implementation details.

 

[Zwirbaum]

I have a feeling that the dev corner about carriers is gonna be called "aerodynamics".

And here I was sitting and thinking that I run out of ideas of how to name future dev corners. Truly from the depths of my heart, thank you!

 

[styroler]

The problem with that is that, if power is a resource that can be stockpiled, it mitigates the geographic impact of having non-coal sources of power (which, for all practical purposes, is dams and, for those that want to play late-game, nuclear power plants). Power is generally transmitted no further than about 500km (until you get into HVDC lines), so you can't really just store up lake Mead. The Hoover Dam will produce what it produces, pretty much day in and day out, with comparatively little variation, and it all has to be consumed when it is generated, within that radius. There isn't much variability there. Same for a nuclear reactor.

Having power be a convertible and stockpile-able resource actually mitigates the strategic utility of bombing a dam - as the country could stockpile up the excess power that the dam produces that they're not using, and then coast by with that when the dam is damaged.

If the only power producing resource is coal, and there are no other sources of power available, it completely handicaps every nation in the game without large coal sources in a way that just did not happen in real life. As some people have pointed out, a nation like Italy got 94% of its power needs met in the 1940s by Hydroelectric power. For them to be handicapped by coal shortages would be ridiculous. Similarly, nations or regions with large oil deposits but low coal deposits would be similarly arbitrarily handicapped. Not to mention in emergency situations, nations could even switch to charcoal production to replace coal, making coal a much more replaceable resource than other resources in the game such as oil. I agree coal should be modeled in the game, but not making it an aggregated resource just doesn’t work.

Also as for hydroelectricity, Dams do not produce a constant rate of power. Dams are used in real life as power storage devices while other power sources are shut down. Go to lake mead and ask any park ranger and they will explain that Hoover Dam is shut down most of the time and only used when they need extra power because the main point of a dam is to manage lake levels and flow rates of rivers vary throughout the year. Typically in a modern power grid, primary power would be supplied by fluctuating renewables first (wind and solar), then dams when those power sources are down (during the night or on bad weather days) and only then are fossil fuel plants turned on. In the 1940s it was a little different, but since it’s impossible for a region to be powered on hydroelectricity alone (since power isn’t produced when the reservoir is being filled up) it simply means that it allows your regional coal plants to power down while coal is distributed to other parts of the country. So thus hydroelectricity is increasing your fuel reserves by letting your fossil fuel plants shut down.

 

[Balesir]

Maybe the idea has been in the air and I'm not the only one modding this in, but I'm still amazed at how aligned we are here:

View attachment 1326089

Yes, the idea has been discussed before, but it still can't be applied to CIVs, which is where the real benefits lie, I think. And it could be really simple for the player - you need X many, you have Y many; import more or cut down CIVs if you don't have enough. Wartime reduction in consumer goods need will cut down the demand in wartime, and swapping CIVs to MILs instead of just building more MILs has a point.

 

[Dimmie_Dumm]

Yes, the idea has been discussed before, but it still can't be applied to CIVs, which is where the real benefits lie, I think. And it could be really simple for the player - you need X many, you have Y many; import more or cut down CIVs if you don't have enough. Wartime reduction in consumer goods need will cut down the demand in wartime, and swapping CIVs to MILs instead of just building more MILs has a point.

Are you sure of that? I still need to update and redo some stuff as the code and what it supports do change over the patches, but just last year the following did work just fine in the buildings.txt (albeit cluttered the UI with many entries) :

    industrial_complex = {
        show_on_map = 6
        base_cost = 10800
        base_cost_conversion = 9000
        general_production = 1
        icon_frame = 1
        local_resources_commodities = 2    
        refinery = yes                    
        country_resource_cost_rations = 1 # !!
        max_level = 20
        shares_slots = yes
        value = 5
        infrastructure_construction_effect = yes
    }

Edit: right, the lack of required inputs didn't shut anything down per se, but caused production penalties to military lines requiring the same resources, which was more or less acceptable for my case.

 

[FORMICARIUS]

ATM equal distribution

Energy consumption could be prioritized in a standard way through economic laws: so players for example are incentivated to turn "back" from war economy if energy will be diverted more on civilian construction. The current system is not rewarding each economy laws in the same way, nobody wants to stay in civilian economy because it offers only debuffs.

 

[FORMICARIUS]

I hope the focus trees will be updated with this new resource, but considering how HOI4 works, I doubt.

 

[Averath]

Are there any plans to introduce alternative buildings? As of right now, if I am taking my time and doing a world conquest run, there will be a point where I have way too many factories to properly manage.

I often need to just spam random construction to avoid being told my civilian factories are not being used. If there will be a soft cap, it would be ideal to give us an alternative use for them when building more factories is no longer ideal, and we do not need infrastructure, air ports, or defenses.

 

[DominusNovus]

If the only power producing resource is coal, and there are no other sources of power available, it completely handicaps every nation in the game without large coal sources in a way that just did not happen in real life. As some people have pointed out, a nation like Italy got 94% of its power needs met in the 1940s by Hydroelectric power. For them to be handicapped by coal shortages would be ridiculous. Similarly, nations or regions with large oil deposits but low coal deposits would be similarly arbitrarily handicapped. Not to mention in emergency situations, nations could even switch to charcoal production to replace coal, making coal a much more replaceable resource than other resources in the game such as oil. I agree coal should be modeled in the game, but not making it an aggregated resource just doesn’t work.

Also as for hydroelectricity, Dams do not produce a constant rate of power. Dams are used in real life as power storage devices while other power sources are shut down. Go to lake mead and ask any park ranger and they will explain that Hoover Dam is shut down most of the time and only used when they need extra power because the main point of a dam is to manage lake levels and flow rates of rivers vary throughout the year. Typically in a modern power grid, primary power would be supplied by fluctuating renewables first (wind and solar), then dams when those power sources are down (during the night or on bad weather days) and only then are fossil fuel plants turned on. In the 1940s it was a little different, but since it’s impossible for a region to be powered on hydroelectricity alone (since power isn’t produced when the reservoir is being filled up) it simply means that it allows your regional coal plants to power down while coal is distributed to other parts of the country. So thus hydroelectricity is increasing your fuel reserves by letting your fossil fuel plants shut down.

Allow me to clarify: I don't mean to suggest that dams cannot be dialed up and down at all. That said, it is pretty much a constant matter (especially in earlier eras). Also, the fact that the dam is used less is a pretty recent phenomenon and not relavant to the game's time period. The way renewables are integrated in a modern grid is not just 'a little' different, but entirely different. Renewables effectively require an entire redundant back-up grid at this point, but that is not relevant for the game.

I also absolutely think that we need to model non-coal power in some fashion. I just don't think that treating power as a resource similar to other resources is the way to do it. Whatever the case with power is, the fact is that it is consumed when it is produced - and near where it is produced - needs to be incorporated.

 

[Sourlol]

Slowly but consistently the developers turn Ultra History Mod into the base game

 

[Clark0000006]

If you missed the previous Dev Corner, check it out here!


Briefing: Thermodynamics
Author: @Zwirbaum

Hello everyone!

It has been eight days since the last dev corner, which means it is time for another one. Last time, I was talking about some of the new naval concepts and changes coming to the Hearts of Iron IV. Today I will be talking about the introduction of Coal and Energy into the game. As a casual reminder keep in mind that everything discussed here is in a relatively early stage, and as such is subject to change.I also want to add that not every dev corner will be a long one, and some may end up on a rather short side. But without further ado, let’s keep this lump of coal rolling.

For the first time since the launch of the game we will be adding a new resource to the game, as every other resource, Steel, Rubber, Tungsten, Chromium, Aluminium and Oil were since day 1 in-game (with Oil getting Facelift in Man the Guns to be used for Fuel production instead of equipment production). This resource is Coal - to put it very briefly it will be serving as a ‘fuel’ in the form of Energy for your industry to keep it running efficiently.

Core Concept​

What are some of the goals when it comes to adding Coal & Energy, and what do we want to achieve with it?

• We want to introduce a potential soft-limit on the current almost limitless industrial expansion.
• Increase importance on expanding and securing a resource base for your needs.
• Provide a bit more interesting choices when it comes to economic laws, give some incentive for a player to consider ‘demobilize’ at some point during the gameplay, and that War Economy / Total Mobilization is not always the one and the only one right choice.
• We are not aiming at creating a super complicated or overly complex system for energy/economy model

What is all the fuse about?

View attachment 1324163
Sardinia starts with 2 units of Coal at the beginning of the game. As usual, numbers are subject to change, so please do not despair yet.

Base Concept​

So the system works like this: Coal is excavated just like every other resource in-game. Each unit of Coal that you have for your own use (so not traded away) will produce a set amount of Energy, which then in turn is used to power up your industry - your civilian, military factories and naval dockyards, which for the ease I’ll be later calling them in this dev corner as ‘factory’. Each Factory, regardless of the type, has the same base Energy demand, so what you are seeing in the top bar as your industry size should also give you a very rough estimate of the demand.

View attachment 1324164
This totally mysterious country, that is totally unrelated to Sardinia from the previous screenshot starts with 56 factories, and now has a mysterious bar under the factory count.

Economy of the Scale​

However the base Energy demand is not everything, as each Factory you own will also introduce a little extra scaling cost to the demand per factory, so a small, undeveloped minor country will be able to sustain their few factories with a rather small amount of coal, while historically accurate Luxembourg spanning across Eurasia will require much more energy in order to effectively satisfy the ever hungry maw of their Industry.

Lower Mobilization Law is your friend?​

Most, if not all, economic laws will also have factory energy consumption modifiers, which will essentially either increase or decrease how much each factory (including the ‘scaled’ portion from ‘size’ of the industry) will demand energy. Higher mobilization laws will have higher energy demand, to represent longer working hours, more shifts etc.

View attachment 1324165
Economy Law picker will also now proudly display the energy consumption modifier at the first glance, so that you do not need to scour through the tooltip to find the modifier. Before you start going crazy with guessing what is the second number, it is just the expected amount of consumer goods - the icon is currently placeholderish, as we haven’t adjusted the previous icon yet.

How does it work though?​

I will start with a quick reminder how the Civilian, Naval and Military Industry operate in-game currently. Essentially each of the ‘factories’ have a specific base amount of output valued in points that they contribute daily to. (5, 2.5 and 4.5 respectively). And that was further modified by all the technologies, laws, ideas, ministers, national spirits with various ‘Construction Speed’ or ‘Dockyard/Factory outputs’ modifiers. I am not mentioning Production Efficiency, as that was unique to the Military Factories.

So how will that operate in the brave new world? We will now have a base output for each of the industry types - which means that regardless of the energy, you will always have at least this much output from your factories. And there will be ‘fully powered’ output values for the industry. Depending on the energy ratio you are providing, you will end up somewhere on that scale, e.g. If you have 50% energy - you will be getting output that is ‘50%’ way from the base output to the fully powered up. All the previously mentioned Construction Speed, Dockyard/Factory Output modifiers will also be scaled accordingly to the % of the energy you have.

View attachment 1324166
This is the current debug display that allows us to see energy demand & consumption, and how much it impacts the industry. In this case we have 26.7% energy needs satisfied, and it means that each of our CICs provide 4.2 IC daily, MIC provides 3.7 IC daily and NIC provides 2.1 IC daily. Of course as usual, reminder that all values are subject to change.

Wrapping Up​

And that is all from this dev corner. While this post is one the shorter side, impact from adding this ‘system’ could of course be quite big - however thanks to covering only this one matter, feedback, opinions, suggestions from you dear readers, should be laser-focused and allow us to get a much clearer picture of what you are thinking. Anyways, that is all from me for this week, and next week Thomas will be back with more things to say about the Factions.

Thanks for reading, and until next time, farewell!

/Zwirbaum

Will there be some way to choose to prioritize energy resources for mils, civs, or dockyards if you run short of energy (especially during a war)?

 

[styroler]

Are there any plans to introduce alternative buildings? As of right now, if I am taking my time and doing a world conquest run, there will be a point where I have way too many factories to properly manage.

I often need to just spam random construction to avoid being told my civilian factories are not being used. If there will be a soft cap, it would be ideal to give us an alternative use for them when building more factories is no longer ideal, and we do not need infrastructure, air ports, or defenses.

The best solution for this would still probably be to buff civilian economy so that you choose to switch to it when you’re not constructing stuff. The way the devs are implementing it though through power is not the way I would approach that though. This feels like it’s going to lead to weird situations where you produce military equipment faster on civilian economy than on military economy (which makes no sense, you’re spending less on your military and you’re producing more) while constructing your civilian economy is faster on military economy and vice versa (again, you’re in the middle of a war, how do you have the labor and resources to devote to setting up Coca Cola factories?)

I would change the mechanics of civilian and military economy around. Civilian economy should have a boost to civilian infrastructure, while military economy should give a boost to military infrastructure. Also, civilian economy should give a ticking stability boost (since your population is at normal consumption levels) while military economy gives ticking negative stability or war support (since your forcing your pop to go through unpopular rationing). This would cause players to fluctuate back and forth between the two laws depending on what they’re doing rather than just stick to one law or the other, and make a sort of balanced in the middle approach best when you are not rushing military buildup or growing your economy.

This would also mean building civilian economy would be more difficult, but I think that’s a good thing. Basically civilian economy would boost the construction of the factories (because regulations and working conditions are more relaxed and therefore easier to set up a new industry), but still increase the overall civilian factory consumption. Military economy would lower consumption, but lower the build rate of civilian factories (because wartime measures limit the capital which can be tied up in civilian construction projects), so there’s no way to rush a civilian economy anymore.

 

[Secret Master]

so you can get more Coal out of Coal.

(I'm not proud of myself, but it was the first thing that came to mind when you explained it.)

 

[styroler]

Allow me to clarify: I don't mean to suggest that dams cannot be dialed up and down at all. That said, it is pretty much a constant matter (especially in earlier eras). Also, the fact that the dam is used less is a pretty recent phenomenon and not relavant to the game's time period. The way renewables are integrated in a modern grid is not just 'a little' different, but entirely different. Renewables effectively require an entire redundant back-up grid at this point, but that is not relevant for the game.

I also absolutely think that we need to model non-coal power in some fashion. I just don't think that treating power as a resource similar to other resources is the way to do it. Whatever the case with power is, the fact is that it is consumed when it is produced - and near where it is produced - needs to be incorporated.

Again I fundamentally disagree with your argument that hydroelectricity has completely changed. The main reason hydroelectric dams cannot run all the time is because of water flow rate, not because of the addition of renewables. The physics and water flow rates of rivers have not fundamentally changed in 80 years. Every single region which relies on hydroelectric power was still required to have a backup fossil fuel generation capacity in the 1940s just as it is today. That’s why Italy was at 96% hydroelectric in WW2 and not 100%, because that 4% was the back up fossil fuel plants they had for when the hydroelectric dams had to be shut down.

And as for your argument about power range, your argument falls apart when you actually look at the real life examples. Hoover dam is within 500 KM of Los Angeles, and was part of the California power grid even at the time. NYC received a significant portion of its power from the Adams plant at Niagara Falls. The TVA was built to supply power to not just Tennessee, but the entire Appalachian mountain region including Kentucky, West Virginia, North Carolina, Alabama, and Georgia. Making Dams only state based would diminish their impact .

Also your argument for local power grids just doesn’t hold true. In terms of national grids the UK had a fully interconnected power grid by 1935, most of the German Grid was interconnected by 1942 (with over 24,000 of High Voltage Electrical Wires out of 34,000 today), and many nations like the U.S., the Soviet Union, and France had large regional power grids (the TVA being one of the largest). And by having the base power good be coal, then you would have to say that all power grids could easily be interconnected, because coal and other power producing fuels could be transported everywhere by road and rail, not just used in single regions. Maybe you could argue that dams themselves should get some intermediary treatment, acting as storage devices rather than producing the power good, but there’s no way you can argue that they weren’t part of the fossil fuel power infrastructure when they were integrated components of these vast multiple state (and in some cases fully national) power networks.

Again, I’m not arguing that power should be aggregated as a resource itself, but power fuel, which was absolutely aggregated by the 1940s and not reliant on small regional supplies, should be. Leaving it vague allows you to explain away things like how both coal and oil (hell even natural gas was introduced during the war when supplies of the other two main fuel sources ran low) can be converted into it and how hydroelectricity can contribute too, because your infrastructure is disrupting the resources through direct and indirect means all over the place (this isn’t coal network simulator after all).

 

[man0lo]

Most amazing news we could have. A feature that should be in base game.

 

[Krey_Lollipop]

ATM equal distribution

For what it's worth it might be too complex, but it could be tied to laws to make those even more impactful. So civilian or maybe free market keeps the even distribution, whereas with "harder" laws military production is allowed to start eating into civilian energy for better or for worse if demand isn't met. So countries that have these laws would arm quicker with less energy, as well as maintain that potential throughout the game. But their construction and repair would instead struggle to keep up and also crumble a lot sooner.

And while I'm really not familiar with Japanese history, having modifiers for which industry gets the most energy feels like something you could see as part of their branch rivalry mechanic. So that's another potential use for a feature like that.

 

[WindingArc]

Base Concept​

So the system works like this: Coal is excavated just like every other resource in-game. Each unit of Coal that you have for your own use (so not traded away) will produce a set amount of Energy, which then in turn is used to power up your industry - your civilian, military factories and naval dockyards, which for the ease I’ll be later calling them in this dev corner as ‘factory’. Each Factory, regardless of the type, has the same base Energy demand, so what you are seeing in the top bar as your industry size should also give you a very rough estimate of the demand.

Base energy demand per factory type should be different. At minimum, make it three separate defines instead of one so that it's moddable.

Ideally, equipment and ships would have variable energy costs associated with them so that, for instance, it costs more energy to produce battleships than it does to produce infantry equipment, just as it currently costs more steel to do so.

Economy of the Scale​

However the base Energy demand is not everything, as each Factory you own will also introduce a little extra scaling cost to the demand per factory, so a small, undeveloped minor country will be able to sustain their few factories with a rather small amount of coal, while historically accurate Luxembourg spanning across Eurasia will require much more energy in order to effectively satisfy the ever hungry maw of their Industry.

That's the opposite of economies of scale. Under economies of scale, factories would consume less energy as their number increases, not more.

It also makes little gameplay sense. Small countries are already buffed by having ahistorically large starting industries and focus trees that expand their industries by ahistorically large amounts.

The only good reason for scaling energy demand in this way is to not force small countries to trade for 8 coal before they need to. A better solution would be to allow resources to be traded in increments smaller than 8, and in exchange for Economic Capacity Surplus (the currency of the International Market) instead of civilian factories.

Core Concept​

What are some of the goals when it comes to adding Coal & Energy, and what do we want to achieve with it?

• We want to introduce a potential soft-limit on the current almost limitless industrial expansion.
• Increase importance on expanding and securing a resource base for your needs.
• Provide a bit more interesting choices when it comes to economic laws, give some incentive for a player to consider ‘demobilize’ at some point during the gameplay, and that War Economy / Total Mobilization is not always the one and the only one right choice.
• We are not aiming at creating a super complicated or overly complex system for energy/economy model

A better design goal would be to buy as much depth and choice and possible for as little complexity as possible. HOI4 doesn't get mechanical overhauls very often. It would be real disappointment if you didn't use this opportunity to fix as many of the fundamental shortcoming's of HOI4's economy as you can.

Wrapping Up​

And that is all from this dev corner. While this post is one the shorter side, impact from adding this ‘system’ could of course be quite big - however thanks to covering only this one matter, feedback, opinions, suggestions from you dear readers, should be laser-focused and allow us to get a much clearer picture of what you are thinking.

This suggestion is based on states, but I think it could easily be based on regions instead to increase performance.


Building suggestions:

• Synthetic refineries should consume coal and require energy to operate
• Dams should produce flat amounts of energy, not percentage reductions in local energy usage
  • Since dams can't be manually constructed, these amounts can be customized and vary from dam to dam
• Energy demand should be assessed by production line, not by factory
  • Unassigned factories don't require energy
  • Production lines can be prioritized to receive energy in the same way they receive resources

Vehicle suggestions:

• Some ships should consume energy instead of fuel
  • Without Man the Guns, probably Pre-Dreadnoughts and Coastal Defense Ships
  • With Man the Guns, a coal-fired engine module, based on pre-1936 tech and included in the relevant historical ship designs
• Convoys should consume either energy or fuel
  • Convoys unlocked by a pre-1936 tech should consume energy
  • Convoys unlocked by a 1936 tech should consume fuel
    • These should have a higher base speed than pre-1936 convoys to make them harder to hit
    • They should probably have a higher production/resource cost, just like armored trains do compared with civilian trains
  • Newer convoys should automatically be used when available in the same way armored trains are used as soon as they're available
• Trains (and rivers) should consume energy
  • More on this below

State-based industrial logistics:

• Add a state attribute to all production lines, representing where the factories in that line are
  • A state's production lines can only have as many total factories as their state does
  • Dockyards can only be built in states with at least one port, and ships will deploy in the state in which they are built
  • User interface
    • Add equipment icons corresponding to a state's active production lines to the state info panel, possibly in what is now the State Modifiers panel
    • Add equipment icons corresponding to a state's active production lines to the state map mode
    • Add equipment icons corresponding to a state's active production lines to the economy Civilian Intel view
• Calculate each state's net energy and net resource usage
  • Energy comes from local coal, minus coal exports, plus local dams; it is consumed by local production lines and synthetic refineries
  • Other resource surpluses and deficits are calculated similarly
    • Fuel/oil obviously isn't used by production lines, so a state's net fuel output will be based only on its non-exported oil production
• Add each state's net energy and net resources to the national pool
  • States that don't have a supply hub connected to the capital via sea or railroad are excluded
  • If a country has a national deficit of energy or any resource, production lines suffer the penalties associated with their local deficits
  • If a country has a national surplus of energy or any resource, production lines will attempt to "import" their required energy and resources from the capital until the national surplus is depleted
• State-based "imports"
  • Each production line in a state that has a supply hub connected to the capital can attempt to take energy and resources from the national surplus to cover its deficits
  • If done by sea, the required convoys and energy/fuel are calculated as if the state was an independent country trading with the capital
  • If done by rail, the required trains and energy are calculated based on the number of tiles of railroad connecting the state's hub to the capital

Trade:

• The same calculations for energy, fuel, and trains apply to trade between countries

Because this system would be agnostic as to where resources in the national pool were extracted, it hopefully wouldn't be too taxing on game performance. As I said above, production line, energy and extracted resources could also be grouped by region if this state-based version proves too granular.

I don't think having several lines producing the same equipment would be a hardship for players, especially since that's how ships are already produced.

 

[Trans_Atlantic_Drawl]

I really like the look of this. A simple, elegant way to add depth to the economic game. As bonus, if you remember to add coal to Nova Scotia I'll finally have a reason to invade my hometown!

Uranium would be a resource that probably does not matter at all until ~1942/1943, and it's importance only increase (or even skyrocket) after that date, making it a resource that is completely ignored for the first half of the game. I'm not a fan of adding a resource that could matter only in some runs.

That's fair, but would you consider bringing back the strategic resources feature from HOI3? It was a great feature that represented rare materials and gave you a good reason to fight over certain areas.