How to make Oil Strategically vital

[Hairog]

Excuse me if I re-post this in it's own thread.

You can make Oil a significant goal in this game. I've done it in WWIII1946 Mod. You reduce all the MPPs from all resources but oil and in my case, mines. Then you boost the MMPs being produced in the mines and oil fields and the modifier significantly.

The Oil fields in WWIII1946 contained in the USSR are producing 240 MPPs out of 680 total MPPs per turn. Add another 90 from Romania and you have 330 out of 680.

This kind of focuses the game on those oil fields. Also the great thing about the game design is that you can bomb the crap out of them and reduce their productions as was historically done.

Manpower can be simulated by limiting the number of units a country can build.

[Robert24]

Yes, a valid method ... increase oil resource production value, or reduce all other resource values.
Makes inviting targets for Allied bombers...[:D]

[HamburgerMeat]

As an alternative, one could also institute a limit in the number of aircraft / tanks one side is able to produce (with the limit dependent on how many oilfields you control).

There was another thread discussing the use of oil as a second resource, next to MPP. I'm not sure how these "oil points" would/should interact with strategic bombing, and I'm not sure if it would go against the game philosophy, but I think it'd be interesting seeing shifting Axis incentives.

I think the Fall Weiss mod also punishes the Axis if they haven't secured the Caucuses by the end of 1942, which I think is very neat (and more forgiving than history; if I recall correctly, Germany was already facing severe oil problems around the beginning of 1942, but I'm not 100% sure)

[KorutZelva]

I like oil field playing with unit cap. You could have thing where you the number of mines and oil resource you hold allow you to increase unit cap of tanks and air unit (you pick it once but can't change it once your industry is choose to gear towards a certain unit type). 1 mines = 1 unit cap increase, oil = 3 mines. Similarly if you start losing these resources, you have to chose where you cut your unit cap accordingly.

[James Taylor]

You could also incorporate a MPP expenditure for each motorize/mechanized, naval/air movement based upon the size of the formation and the number of hexes it traverses.

This wouldn't require any action from the user, just some thought and watching those MPPs melt away, no MPPs, no movement(its called a fuel reserve). Might be a troublesome to code.

[Ktonos]

This (replying to the original post) would need extensive playtesting to ensure the current production balance isn't awfully disturbed. Something I doubt the game can have so late in it's development. I bet all big changes, will be based on the current core mechanics. Event's and national decisions are part of these core mechanics.

The objective is "make oilfields important so players will slaughter each other for them". As I said in the other thread, I firmly believe that having a chain of events humbering German MPPs when they do not control enough oilfields is both easier to playtest and in line with it's core mechanics.

[PvtBenjamin]

Increasing the oil component would certainly add to the strategic value of the game. I think Hamburger & KV 's ideas are the most interesting.

Probably won't see this until the much needed and popular improvements of 12.02 are fully implemented.

It would be good to see oil importance increased in v 14.

[Hairog]

ORIGINAL: Ktonos

This (replying to the original post) would need extensive playtesting to ensure the current production balance isn't awfully disturbed. Something I doubt the game can have so late in it's development. I bet all big changes, will be based on the current core mechanics. Event's and national decisions are part of these core mechanics.

The objective is "make oilfields important so players will slaughter each other for them". As I said in the other thread, I firmly believe that having a chain of events humbering German MPPs when they do not control enough oilfields is both easier to playtest and in line with it's core mechanics.

We're trying to play test now.

The overall MPPs wouldn't change unless you lost an oil field or it got bombed to hell. My point being that the game balance, core mechanics should not shift just because a greater emphasis is put on Oil based MPPs. If you hold onto your oil you get the same number of resources.

Historically the little villages and small towns were a huge drain on the Russian economy as were the bombed out cities of Poland and Germany. IMHO you shouldn't get much if any economic gain from a small village in the middle of nowhere that has been overrun by both sides multiple times. In fact it should reduce your MPPs if anything.

In addition a blockaded port or surrounded city or besieged fort should not earn any MPPS as well.

Now moral wise this is totally reversed. capturing a small town should reap you moral points, a port that becomes open again should get you a big jump in moral points, a heroic stand of a fortress that withstands the enemies relentless attacks should bolster the population's moral etc..

Whereas losing oil production would not compute in most people's minds until the lines got longer at the gas pumps.

[sPzAbt653]

Yeah, I didn't ever understand in my mind why all the towns and villages added up to MPP's. It never felt right while I was playing. Maybe it is just me but I am much happier now that I have also removed all of those values and left the MPP's to be dependent on Industry, Mines, Oil and Major Ports. Capturing Brest-Litovsk gets you nothing, but capture Kiev and you get a little bit of MPP's. Lose Stuttgart, Mannheim and Mainz - no big deal ... lose Dusseldorf, Essen and Dortmund and you are hurt.

[Hairog]

I concur.

One more tidbit of information I gleamed from my research for the books...

The winter of 1947 was brutal for Europe. The USSR reportedly lost millions to starvation. It seems that there was enough food to go around, but Stalin kept it all in the bigger cities. This kept them from rioting or worse yet rebelling. Only big population centers can topple a government or in this case a dictator.

He purposefully withheld food from the rural areas who had given him trouble in the past. He picked and choose who was going to starve to death. The people in these areas knew about the famine and they assumed everyone else was starving to death as well. They thought everyone was in the same situation.

Well, they weren't. The city folks were doing just fine. Yes, they were hungry but nowhere near starving. The last couple of years after WWII were hell for the people of Europe Talk. about post apocalyptic eras.

[Ktonos]

MPPs do not represent mere industrial capacity. It's an add up of not only industry, but also of manpower, capital, oil reserves and even political influence. So when a town contributes 3 or 4 mpps you can translate it as manpower. When I am losing late in the game while playing Germany, the enemy marches deeper and deeper and my Mpps drop to the low hundreds, I get that feeling of drained manpower reserves. But never in the game do I get the urgency of acquiring oil fields and that's why I also believe that oil must be somehow further implemented ad have a special role.

[Guderian1940]

The oil issue is a complex one. It is not only oilfields. Germany manufactured synthetic oil from coal and I believe used coal powered vehicles. They adapted. Romania was a source of 1/3rd and was increasing. Most of Geramny's transport was still horse driven. Later in the war when the Oilfields were overrun it created the massive military issues in late 44. In 44 it was not only an Oil problem!!!

Oil is important so are ball bearings. No ball bearing no industry.

MPP's reflect manpower and industrial capabilities. Build restriction as well.

Something that could be done to reflect the oil issues is to increase the cost of mobility. This would reflect the cost of using oil as well as the production of vehicles. Not perfect. If you include the oil captured with MPP's gained this might give oil more importance but not an oil game.

An increase in mobility upgrade might be sufficient. However there are more pressing issues in the game I think.

The overall supply system is poor. Has been improved but is not working well too many holes. A city/town should not provide the supply level it does when no supply net is available. Supply should go to 0 much more quickly and have a biggest effect. Surrounded out of supply unit last too long and take too much effort to eliminate. The current supply rules create the Mass air and mas units in areas that should not be able to handle. Where is the supply issues in NA. Malta has random effect and Egypt for the Allies is woefully under supplied. HQ should go to 0 when un supplied. Why 3 sitting in the middle of the desert? If a city is surrounded and only has a port. The port supply should reflect the town supply. HQ's are also supply depots, I get it, but in perpetuity. The HQ supply increase should at least be eliminated when surrounded. This creates all kinds of weir issues.

I understand that the game has to balance the combat system and supply system to function well.

Just my thoughts people.

[Taxman66]

What if you approached it a different way?

Lets say there was an 'oil maintenance' cost.
Every naval unit costs 2 MPP/turn.
Every air and tank unit costs 1 MPP/turn.
Every mechanized unit costs 0.5 MPP/turn.
Every unit upgraded with Mobility costs 0.5 MPP/turn (inclusive with above, so a Tank with motorized would cost 1.5 MPP/turn)
Every level of extended range on an air or paratrooper unit costs 0.33 MPP/turn.

Double the value of all Oil resources.
Provide Germany some Synthetic Oil resources (that increase at the beginning of certain years. I don't have enough background on that subject to conjecture an amount)
Provide a DE that lends some German oil to Italy (Italy received some of the Romanian oil from before Romanian joined and through to Italy's surrender).
Perhaps slightly increase Italy's MPP/turn somehow (Additionally: Did they have any synthetic plants?)
Remove the Mobilization upgrade cost penalty for German (and Italy if they have it).

* Adjust numeric values above as result of play testing *

[Hairog]

ORIGINAL: Ktonos

MPPs do not represent mere industrial capacity. It's an add up of not only industry, but also of manpower, capital, oil reserves and even political influence. So when a town contributes 3 or 4 mpps you can translate it as manpower. When I am losing late in the game while playing Germany, the enemy marches deeper and deeper and my Mpps drop to the low hundreds, I get that feeling of drained manpower reserves. But never in the game do I get the urgency of acquiring oil fields and that's why I also believe that oil must be somehow further implemented ad have a special role.

It's hard to capture the importance of oil and manpower. Much of the population migrated to avoid or be captured by one country or the other late in the war.

That being said I don't believe I ever heard of a strategist who advocated taking a city to assist the country with manpower shortages. Population centers were more of a moral and political goal and the game can easily reflect that.

Currently without a major rewrite you can

1. give oil/fuel/energy/industry/mines etc. collectively known as resources, a much higher strategic priority. I suggest that this models the choices the real commanders had to make.

2. The cities and towns can also be tweaked to reflect their importance to moral.

3. increase the cost of MPPS for Operation movement by increasing the production cost of selected units that use more energy to move, ie. planes, tanks, mechanized, arty etc.

4. You could then compensate for this increased cost of production by using the Production Queue for countries as deemed fit at certain times in the scenario.

5. You can already reduce the places that aircraft can Operate to by upping the minimum needed city or town supply level. Hubert mentioned that they reduced this amount in the last couple of builds due to suggestions of players. I suggest that it once again be increased to make it harder to gather large air fleets in unlikely places.

I have done all of these in the WWIII1946 Mod update and we are testing it now.

Thanks again to Hubert and Bill for making this game so flexible.