Almost every nation switches to Close Economy in the late game.

[him_15]

Which is pretty annoying actually, making later game simply no resources available to trade. I think even close economy should still provide 10% resources to the market.

 

[General Tao]

I presume you mean limited exports which provides 25%?

Only Fascist/Communist countries get access to Closed Economy if they are at War Economy or Total Mob.

 

[Kanitatlan]

I'm not convinced on this. My experience is that the democratic powers stay at higher trade levels than they should and don't trade competently so that late game their economies can be totally screwed up even though relevant missing resources are available to trade by land trade routes. They seem to be heavily dependent on enough major democratic powers to be available to trade and for that trade to not be disrupted. It's really disappointing to see the USA economy collapse due to submarine warfare against the UK when they could still pick up resources elsewhere.

 

[scrublord225]

Tbf I'm pretty sure in 1944 uk wasn't selling half their steel to the us, then buying back us made steel, and the us doing the same.

In fact im pretty sure by 1940 the UK needed every scrap of steel it had, and wasn't selling any of it.

 

[Joshua Happytree]

Tbf I'm pretty sure in 1944 uk wasn't selling half their steel to the us, then buying back us made steel, and the us doing the same.

Obviously it's a pure game mechanics and not a simulation of RL. IMHO it's a quite useful one because it:

1. Forces a choice between higher output, faster research and more CIVs from trade and having more resources available for production. Comparing to some other HOI4 choices pulled out of thin air this one looks plausible AND both paths have tangible benefits so there's no too obvious a decision.
2. Increases the appeal of trade between countries thus making:
   1. Convoys and convoy raiding relevant.
   2. "Resource strangulation" a valid strategy.
3. Stimulates wars as global steel deficit sets in at some point of time so countries need to conquer steel-providing provinces.

 

[scrublord225]

Obviously it's a pure game mechanics and not a simulation of RL. IMHO it's a quite useful one because it:

I personally consider it a super mediocre game mechanic. Free trade shouldn't mean you refuse to use 80% of your steel yourself, even if nobody is buying, it genuinely makes the game feel less realistic.

And on the flip side in feels bad that if an ally goes closed economy due to shortages of 1 or 2 resources, I can't buy their surplus of others.

A system where your surplus goes on the market would feel much better, it feels more like how trade works irl, it still simulates resource scarcity as production ramps up and countries surplus on the market shrink.

Add in another option where you prioritise selling to allies, and another where you only sell to allies, and maybe give those options bonuses similar to current free trade/limited/closed and imo you'd have a vastly better system.

 

[Joshua Happytree]

it genuinely makes the game feel less realistic.

Sure, it'd be hard to imagine someone will say HOI4 resource implementation is "realistic" in any way. But the problem with such discussions are people tend to take ONE aspect of the game and suggest it'd be closer aligned with RL. But firstly these are all GAME mechanics created to do GAME design tasks and not RL simulation, and secondly they're all closely tied together. If you take out something from the game for the sake of "more realism" then you should think how the game would look like without and most probably substitute it with something else. IMHO you can easily mod provinces giving them crazy amount of resources and see how the game plays out.

A system where your surplus goes on the market would feel much better, it feels more like how trade works irl, it still simulates resource scarcity as production ramps up and countries surplus on the market shrink.

With the current system:

1. SOME resources are always on the market even late game, with your suggestion these resources will go away whatever.
2. I'm not sure but I believe one can force AI to stay on higher trade levels thus simulating "trade actors" of WWII like Sweden, Portugal or Turkey. With your system "trade countries" will be impossible in-game as AI will inveitably ramp up production and eat all local resources. You can artificially limit AI production but it seems even more nonsensical.
3. There's a need to research Excavation, with your suggestion it'll become pretty much irrelevant until very late game.
4. Resources slow down snowballing, your system does not do that so it's either put up with it or create another mechanic to do the job.

So what you suggest is not doing the same thing in a bettwe way. You modify trade:

1. You end up with the need to readjust if not invent new mechanics to do the job. And not sure these new mechanics will "seem more realistic".
2. Current trade certainly looks artificial but at the end of the day what really matters is how it affects in-game behavior. Why waste dev resources, go through a painful and rather long rebalance process if all you want is to get to the same point in game strategies?

 

[Kanitatlan]

Stimulates wars as global steel deficit sets in at some point of time so countries need to conquer steel-providing provinces.

The global steel deficit is due to massive escalation in the resource per factory for later technology. In early game you may get as much as 2 tons of tank per steel whereas late game has tanks costing 200+ steel total for a 50+ ton tank. The problem is that the designers add big chunks of resource requirement due to increasing the resources per factory rather than total resource requirement. This is what leads to the late game resource shortages.

A system where your surplus goes on the market would feel much better, it feels more like how trade works irl, it still simulates resource scarcity as production ramps up and countries surplus on the market shrink.

This is sort of correct. The game needs to make sure that all unused resources are available on the market but still needs to penalise you for going for going free trade. Potentially just by making you trade for your own resources so that you can have them but you have to have sufficient trade preference with your own producers to outbid foreign purchases. Whatever is done, the game needs all the unused resources to become available on the market somehow as the AI is much, much worse than the players at handling the problem. For example, when trans-atlantic trade breaks down the AI USA needs to start using its own steel to replace the imports that can't be delivered any more. It doesn't really matter what solution is chosen for this as long as something is done because the USA easily turns into a failed state simply from disrupting a few Atlantic trade routes.