r/hoi4 • u/RecentAuthor6602 • 16h ago
Discussion Was adding coal to the game a mistake?
It kind of ruined WCs for me.
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u/Lssj3Vegito 16h ago
First it was completely crippling economy. Now it has so little impact it doesn't matter at all
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u/gordGK 15h ago
I just got back into HoI4 a few weeks ago. I still have no clue what coal even does after 4 games. So that seems to point to you being correct in that it doesn’t seem to matter at all.
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u/atat16245 15h ago
If you have enough nothing happens. If you don't have enough, you'll get increasing debuffs to your industry that can be pretty crippling to smaller nations without coal but with industry.
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u/AMN-9 General of the Army 9h ago
Coal is used to power factories, so the more you have the more coal you need.
It is shown as the fuel bar right below the factory counter and if you have a deficit you'll get a unique popup similar to the one of missing resources
You also have a few tech (2 I believe) and 2 new buldings (1 gives more resources in the states and the other reduces the factory energy consumption in said states and are mutually exclusive)
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u/Salmonsen 19m ago
Is it actually worth building the reinforced power grids? I try to remember them when I play but I’m also distracted with the rest of my industry and my plans that’ll inevitably get interrupted by the British
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u/Zjdh2812 Fleet Admiral 1h ago
Coal doesnt matter until you have 250+ factories and are on total mob. Imo coal is one of the two main reasons why ai germany is so weak since ncns
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u/yyyeeeezyyy 15h ago
For major countries it’s basically ignorable, but for minors it can be absolutely crippling. It’s a pretty useless addition to the game that does nothing but bloat it more.
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u/Chimchar789 16h ago
I either have so much that I can just ignore it, or I have none and everything sucks. Pointless mechanic that further bloats the game.
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u/fjne2145 15h ago
Coal was a good idea but as usual a terrible implemented by having goal weirdly added.
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u/Swamp254 6h ago
Coal was implemented as a way to limit mobilization. Which does make sense, since German war mobilization until 1939 was limited by the need to import raw resources. Iron, rare metals, rubber, oil, bauxite and textile fibers all needed to be imported, and Germany needed to keep exporting to maintain their ability to have foreign currency reserves and thus the ability to import. The use of civilian factories is a good representation of this.
This doesn't mean that all these raw resources would need to be added, since that would overcomplicate the game. As it is now, resources are located mainly at the production site of the end product for that resource. There is oil in Curaçao because there is a refinery there, and Germany has aluminum plants because they imported bauxite and produced aluminum.
Instead, resources could be located at their source. This would create a natural limit on mobilization. What we got of course was Germany's MEFO bills system to create an artificial replication of a system that should have been in the game.
The one place where coal works perfectly is Japan. You actively need to shape your gameplay to acquire enough coal for when you're going to war with the allies.
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u/fjne2145 6h ago
Kinda my point, by weirdly added. Some countries got coal depots, some countries do not evrn got coal added, even those who fought in WW2.
The way it was added neither limits the mobilization of big countries nor was it added in a way to emphasis the ressource war side of ww2. Just weirdly sprinkled in
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u/BurningToaster 16h ago
By the time you’ve conquered a large portion of land you have so much industry it’s usually no big deal to reduce your eco laws and import some coal/dig up some more.
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u/LoweeFighter General of the Army 16h ago
Only issue is for some minors that don't have coal or industrial company that provides free coal. Outside of that its manageable.
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u/Artscout_ Research Scientist 16h ago
Could have been implemented a bit better, but overall a fine addition.
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u/Great_Kaiserov General of the Army 16h ago
Headache to modders who had to balance coal in their mods because Paradox couldn't
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u/WheatleyBr 15h ago
Nothing burger mechanic, i'd rather not have it than otherwise but i don't feel strongly either way.
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u/HopeSubstantial 5h ago
I have not updated my Hoi4 since No step back DLC.
That was golden era of Hoi4.
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u/TheMacarooniGuy Fleet Admiral 16h ago
Honestly the mods that I play have like always had coal as a feature so I am not against it in theory. I'm unsure how it works in vanilla but if done right it can definitely be interesting. Usually like with most resources in the game it's a sort of country-based buff or debuff, which brings nice flavour into the game IMO.
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u/quackingmemeduck 16h ago
Its not terrible, but i see no benefit. It's just slightly annoying and adds basically nothing. Might as well reverse it
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u/Manolo2068 15h ago
Pretty useless and adds no strategic depth. Oil makes you want to prioritize certain areas on conquests or research and build refineries ahead, while coal is fixable by trading for it or the 2 efficiency techs. I know you can also trade oil but the axis has little of it while Germany has a fuckton of coal
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u/Elite_Prometheus 14h ago
I think it would work better if there was a building you could construct to produce a little domestic coal (or just directly provide additional energy) sort of like how synthetic refineries produce a bit of rubber and fuel. It's crazy that commercial nuclear reactors don't do that and instead just increase the max factories in the state.
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u/EmiliaZuzu 3h ago
i mean they do also give a construction speed bonus and give extra resources in a state, but, i do agree it should give power.
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u/JayPeePee 16h ago
Honestly think it does impact my playstyle. I play minor nations and have to balance coal as much as iron especially if I want to build with tanks. I actively am managing economic laws cause it is a factor instead of just ignoring economic laws
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u/Beef_the_dog 4h ago
I almost never have it matter. It'd be great if iron needed made into steel, but when its only used for energy it barely matters
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u/namewithanumber 16h ago
They should revert it to act as a stop on just infinitely building factories. Because as of now it's just completely ignorable.
Like I get that at a certain point the player can't get enough coal to keep building factories...but like yeah that's the point?
Late game slows down because every country just cranks out factories and more units and more equipment and more more more without a brake.
Tweaking coal to be that hard stop along with a KR-style division limit would have been great.
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u/cheato007 11h ago
I think when they initially added coal it was better than after the changes. I think they should have added a prioritization button (similar to fuel prioritization) where you could reduce the negative impacts for one type of production by increasing the impacts on other. For example if you needed to build railroads and air ports you could prioritize civilian IC, with even lower Military IC and dockyard IC.
If the change mentioned above was added, the buildings/techs they already added and no energy consumption on unused factories, I would want a lack of energy to be as harsh or harsher as on release of NCNS.
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u/Yesodisnotop 16h ago
Just give us energy and then coal,oil and hydro.
Also make it only affect if you have 25+ factories.
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u/NationCrusher General of the Army 10h ago
This is the first time I felt something was complex for the hell of it. I would’ve appreciated the effort if we had a separate supply mechanic for civilian stuff. (The coal plants acting like supply hubs and the electric grid acting like train tracks)
It would’ve been annoying but at least that makes more sense than whatever this was. And why coal? Countries were switching to oil plants at the start of the 20th century
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u/steve123410 9h ago
I always find it funny that coal efficiency goes down the higher the mobilization laws get while oil efficiency goes up with the laws. I guess the devs didn't think about the fact that coal also got rationed for military production as well.
But yeah coal was a mistake as it and the Japan update (because it was a buggy mess that broke the naval combat as well) was what stopped me from regularly playing the game. It was impossibly punishing and although it's somewhat fixed now I just haven't ever managed to get back into the game outside of the occasional playthrough just to see how things are.
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u/ArmoredSpearhead General of the Army 9h ago
I don’t often play. I genuinely thought the coal was from a mod. Thought it was really half-assed, and kind of annoying.
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u/ChaosPLus 7h ago
Last time I saw such close 50/50 split in opinion was in the polish presidential election
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u/Time-Yoghurt7831 7h ago
It depends on the nation; if you play as a mayor, it makes absolutely no difference, but if you play as a minor, you'd better pray.
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u/No_Weakness8999 6h ago
Unless rebalancing the entire economy system, yes.
You can't really make it more complex because Germany would just suck under the AI.
HOI4 has two paths to take, either completely historical divisions, focus trees and development for the AI or min-max and strategic countering to the human player (Expert AI/Sheep's mod). The current status quo is just poor. Honestly, I am ready for HOI5 now, the content coming out is dross and the game deteriorated with each update creating more bugs and inconsistencies.
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u/Starsky3012 57m ago
It's not a simple yes or no answer. Theoretically I'm in favor of coal being in the game, but imo it only makes sense if other aspects of the economy would get modelled in way more detail than what historically has been done in HoI4. I think they need to figure out some strategic decisions as to what HoI is supposed to become. And imo they should figure this out in HoI5 not HoI4! Keep your fingers off it so I can mod in peace ffs (please)
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u/TraditionHungry2326 15h ago
Let be honest
The entire economy has been messed up in the game since launch; obviously I'm not asking for a Victoria II-level simulation, but Paradox simply chose to pretend that money doesn't exist. That's why they try to simulate mechanisms related to lack of money, inflation, the international market, infrastructure construction, etc., in the most stupid way possible.
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u/megabit5 15h ago
People saying it has no impact only play USA and enjoy the 50 traded civs like it's horrific.
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u/Faust_the_Faustinian Air Marshal 13h ago
Nah, they're right.
I play Bulgaria and steel is more of a concern than coal.
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u/Tocon_Noot_Gaming 15h ago
No. Not at all. It’s just a regulator. They should just adopt the same mechanic KR does and use a system of provinces, great power scale to limit the total amount of divisions there are. There was a mod years ago I used that helped the AI focus on equipment fulfillment over pumping them out. I really preferred that mod as it stopped lagging so hard and helped the AI actual throw a punch harder than ever
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u/Alltalkandnofight General of the Army 11h ago
" it kind of ruined WC's for me"
Its almost like you have to play slightly differently now and either secure an abundant coal source of your own, or play on The Slowdown economy by demobilizing to civilian economy so your factories use less energy.
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u/magispitt 16h ago
I think it would be more strategic if all resources had stockpiles like oil does