Iron Shortages in 1.03b
Derek Pullem said:
I've had temp. iron shortages - they pass. Unless you are declaring war all the time and losing prestige. But if you are doing that then you don't understand the game
Agreed, but we are talking about a case where you are NOT the number one position in prestige... Your comment is still true, but I think you want to say the economic dynamic has definitely changed from the early versions, and other things can be done beside being number one in prestige (which is a good thing if you are playing, say, Ionia!).
Clearly all of the following depend heavily upon whether you are playing SP or MP...
I have played 7 GCs using the 1.03b patch with no mods, and this was definitely a recurring item in 5 of the 7 in the early years. I actually have played 3 (SPs) as the US in the last few days simply because the cash/raw material challenges were so severe, I needed to see if I was just stupid or there should be a bug/playability report. Even with very careful pop selection within iron producing states, and very aggressive rail activity, it is impossible to meet internal iron demand in the early years within the US (let alone, usually, the world) without practicing predatory behavior on neighboring Mexico, OR a massive expansion of the iron RGOs with deliberate unemployment of other labor groups. (If you don't want to or can't do either of those, depending on what country you are playing you have to resort to my 'Big-Buy' manipulation and have some serious patience). As Germany it was much harder because the option for Mexico and the power vacuum within which it resides were not available. As a small country with low pop and little growth or without iron deposits, you pretty much are limited to the Big-Buy. The rail development aspect is also hogtied by the aggressive cash-reduction that comes with the enhancements of patches up to and through 1.03b.
If one or two of the major iron producing/using countries which may also be ahead of you in prestige, either: industrialize in a fashion that uses a great deal of iron continuously; or decide to stockpile in a big way; or use the iron pops to put into factories; or worse, use a lot of iron WITH iron prov. pops going into the factories at the same time, the shortage is both severe AND prolonged...BUT
Since there are (emulated) market forces that should eventually correct this if there is significant demand, in theory it should be auto-correcting in the long run. Clearly, as Lord Keynes wrote in 1923, "In the long run we are all dead", so the player should definitely try to influence their own fate either politically or militarily if possible if the economic forces are completely outside the player's sphere of influence!
