Hi everyone, I am Zwirbaum, and I want to give an update on the coal feature we added to the base game with the release of No Compromise, No Surrender.
We’ve seen the feedback on coal, and the various opinions players have about it. Our intention with coal was to limit the infinite growth of military factories and create meaningful late-game choices. While we did succeed in introducing a limiting factor, we agree that we haven’t yet hit the sweet spot we were aiming for.
We also understand the mixed feedback. Coal does provide a limiting mechanism for expansion, and it does give militarized nations a tangible incentive to expand. But coal does not yet add enough gameplay depth or meaningful choices, and its balance and pacing can be improved.
There are also concerns about not having enough coal in the world. This is intentional: coal is meant to be a finite resource, and running out of it is acceptable within the scope of the game.
That said, below is an outline of what we intend to add in upcoming patches.
Energy Consumption
In the current live version, there is an endless scaling for energy consumption per factory, causing energy demand to escalate quite dramatically. To address those problems, and have a bit more control over the scaling, we will be introducing an Energy Consumption Cap per Factory. At a certain factory count, your energy consumption per factory will stop growing and remain at a constant value. This will be a moddable define.
Civilian Nuclear Reactor - Buff
We will be making a buff to the Civilian Nuclear Reactors state modifier. Currently it reduces local energy consumption from factories by 25%. We are intending to adjust it to a 50% reduction to add a more significant impact to your choices when it comes to late-game specialization. We’re relatively happy with this remaining a synergetic state modifier to local factories rather than a flat energy gain - since the intention for energy is to create a tangible need for expansion to support a militarized economy, this would create the wrong gameplay dynamic by encouraging the player to transition their economy away from coal in the endgame.
Industrial Technology Adjustments
The next step is that we are going to make some adjustments to Industrial Technologies.
First of all, we will be rolling the Equipment Conversion Speed modifiers from the Improved and Advanced Equipment Conversion Technologies into the first four Machine Tool Technologies, and replace those two technologies with a new Coal & Energy related effect.
That new effect is called Energy Gain per Coal (similarly to Fuel Gain per Oil), which will increase how much energy is gained from each unit of coal, making whether traded or excavated coal more efficient in fuelling your industry.
Non-final numbers are non-final and placeholder art is a placeholder art.
Industrial Concern and Electronics Concern Update
Another set of the things that we are thinking about updating, is to introduce some changes to the Industrial and Electronics Concerns, to make them a bit more interesting choices, and make them interact with the new system a bit more. The current intention is that one of them would provide increased coal gain efficiency or coal amount, while the other would provide a global reduction to Factory Energy Consumption. This could potentially make those two picks more interesting, and also make them stronger at different stages of the game or in different circumstances.
Please do not pay too much attention to the numbers here yet. One of the possible options.
Likewise here, numbers shown here may get further adjustment.
Trading and Double Dipping
We have seen reports that trading essentially causes a double dipping, as both the country paying up with a factory, as well as the one that receives the factory from trading have to pay the ‘energy tax’, thus creating a system where energy consumption goes up. We’re leaning towards having factories received from trade being exempt, but are keen to hear opinions from the community.
Other Sources
There’s been a lot of robust discussion around other sources of energy, particularly oil. As things currently stand, oil fulfills an existing game function and we intended to keep this separation for now.
And That's All Folks!
That is all from this relatively short message about our upcoming plans to adjust the coal. I am interested to hear, read and reply to all your questions, ideas and suggestions. But otherwise, until next time, farewell!
/Zwirbaum
Original Forum post: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/ncns-upcoming-coal-adjustments.1881893/
Merging the conversion into the general production techs, and adding an energy per coal technology is a great idea. Good change
Yeah, I never take those techs because I have more important things to be doing. Now I’ll feel more incentivized to try equipment conversion, which is fun and opens up more options.
They’re actually decent if you do the conversion trick. It’s a cheese tactic but it works
It's also just a decent choice because of MIOs, yours will generally be further ahead than the AI's, so converting captured equipment is just a pretty efficient decision at that point, since it's not like you'd want their inferior guns/trucks/rubber ducks distributed if you still have a stockpile at all.
its a real production tactic!
It's how japanese cars or something were made cheaper than american ones for a while idk i forgot
They're very strong for running conversion lines on tanks and planes. You can save half the rubber cost on planes and most of the gun resource cost on tanks by using conversion lines. Highly recommend using the feature.
Interesting to see a buff to production efficiency cap techs. They were already the strongest industry tech, didn't really need a buff.
On the double dipping, if I’m getting trade from the AI because say I’m USA and everyone is buying my oil.
It doesn’t make sense that I would pay coal cost on received civs, the country buying the goods has already paid the coal cost. So the factory doesn’t need 2x the coal for no reason.
I think that’s how it works right now but yeah I don’t think double dipping should exist it doesn’t make sense
And that is the solution that we are more leaning towards, it makes a more 'positive interaction'. Alternative solution (where the sender doesn't pay for energy) could lead to a potentially weird situation where they feel encouraged to buy all the resources to just lower their energy consumption.
Gameplay wise, I think it should be the other way around. This way currently means that the coal shortage magically goes away if you are giving civs to people who can use them. It would be different if coal affected trade or trade was affected by construction speed modifiers
In this case, both solutions (whether payer, or receiver of payment) gets free pass on that factory, it will always have some upsides and downsides. And well, while the receiver doesn't need to pay energy for that specific factory, they will still get that civilian factory working according to their current Energy Ratio%, which I think is reasonable abstraction.
Plus, while speaking of "what is this abstraction representing?" is a bit of a silly question in general, I would find it harder to believe that the intent is to represent a physical transfer of the factory rather than a transfer of its output. And trading the output without also passing the energy cost to the receiver sounds to me like how a deal would likely be done if factories aren't changing ownership directly.
are you going to make it so that unused factories don’t consume energy?
This is the real question. Currently it doesn’t make sense and just feels bad - you conquer a country -> your production plummets off a clip while not even having the new factories assigned to anything
yeah mills should only use coal when assigned on the line.
Should be really easy to fix
Seriously, this was one of the biggest complaints and they aren’t even addressing it…
It probably won’t matter as much with the scaling cap implemented.
Paradox is owned by fossil fuel industry shills confirmed
"this would create the wrong gameplay dynamic by encouraging the player to transition their economy away from coal in the endgame."
Life imitates HOI4
Hoi4 Timeline would be a couple decades early
Nuclear energy absolutely SHOULD encourage players to move away from coal in the late game, I mean, that's the whole point of nuclear energy. That's a whole building slot wasted as it stands, for 35,000 IC at that. If I have a state with 24 factories and one nuclear plant, yeah, it MIGHT be worth it, but only if I'm not using the other 24 building slots for anything else at all besides factories. No launch sites(so no SAMs), no refineries, no fuel storage, certainly not those newfangled defensive fortifications, which I might really want to have in a state that has something that should be valuable like a nuclear reactor. Enemy captures my nuclear reactor? Oh well lol I'm a lot more concerned with all those factories. I mean, a nuclear reactor should be a strategic resource unto itself. Yeah it makes nukes, at an individual rate of like one per 3.5 years. Which then take 14-30 days to use in any capacity, so I think we can manage without it. it should hurt to lose a nuclear reactor, and right now it's just whatever
But was it the point of nuclear energy in the 1940s? I'd say no, it was all about making the material to make bombs. The ability to produce power was just a happy coincidence, at the time. It wasn't until the 50's that nuclear as an energy source took off (and again, that energy was made in such a way we could use the products to make more bombs).
I do think it would be kinda silly to have a Fallout type timeline in a game about WW2. One of WW2's root causes was competition over limited resources, like coal, and it would be awfully silly to remove that aspect of the conflict of the game.
Oil to energy is likely going to be the content coming soon.
Has there been any thought on a better system for reducing factories and dockyards being powered? Right now you would have to go to each province and delete them one by one which is just tedious. A system to choose what is power would be a great addition to coal imo.
Unused factories simply shouldn’t be using coal. That seems so fucking obvious I don’t understand why that change hasn’t been made.
I agree I just would also like a way to prevent civs from also using coal.
Rather think the best way at this point is to allow an option to earn achievements with coal just turned off.
Or remove this feature period, if they had done it now, there would be less recrimination. The longer it keeps on, the lower morale among the player base will be for anything else released in future.
We are aware that the ux it destroying buildings isn't great. It's not something that was ever relevant at a large scale. We'll look into this more in the future
at least nuclear energy should substitute the use of coal in some states
this idea would be better if we had a "energy" resource, just like oil turns into fuel, coal and nuclear energy should turn into energy
Yeah, a nuclear power plant in a Siberian province with no factories just provides 0 energy benefit with no factories to offset. Power lines exist, energy isn’t consumed at the point it’s generated, it’s distributed in nationwide grids. Nuclear plants only benefitting local power needs makes no sense, they should have a way to export that energy.
This isn't wrong per se, but the point at which this level of interconnection developed was during and as a result of war needs in many countries. It was by no means a given, and there was absolutely a locality to energy production, especially as regards geographically limited power sources like hydro energy.
My main issue with coal as it is now is it harshly penalized many minor nations with no ways to reasonably expand, as the expansion targets are often also minor nations that have no coal either. Making a build up far more difficult.
I don’t understand how so many people say that coal is especially Bad for minors. When you don’t need any coal pretty much at all as long as you are under 100 factories. Coal is pretty much only a problem for Majors.
Coal isn't the problem for minors. Nearly all of it being controlled by Majors is the issue though. People are complaining about Majors and their expansion issues. With access to virtually 0 coal as many minors, even with aggressive expansion, it makes some of them much harder to play than before, even when taking steps that would have at least been historically plausible.
It essentially just means that as a minor nation you get a minor production and construction debuff you can't do anything about, or you lose 1-2 factories. which for nations like say Lithuania, which have no natural coal and start off with few factories, is not a worthwhile trade.
Maybe just have a baseline amount of coal that all countries start with, in addition to what’s on the map? Enough that any minor’s first few factories are covered.
Every country already has a base of 10 energy. The problem is not a minor nation's industry. The problem is that the exact thing the game is about, war and expansion, is detrimental to minors because doing so gains you no aditional energy and only more maluses.
My suggestion would to give each state a base energy value. That way expansion even for minors can handle at least moderate expansion without it being counterproductive.
Yeah I realized the flaw in what I wrote after I sent it. But yes, good point on expansion… just make coal more plentiful on the map then.
Solid ideas, respectfully though I disagree on the civilian nuclear reactors, currently the tech is borderline useless for most players, I think having it be more impactful in the lategame would be nice for the very few players who enjoy playing that long.
50% is absolutely huge. What are you yapping about.
In local state doesn't matter though? A big industrial center would have what, 20 factories? late game industries easily go into a thousand mils alone, and as I said civi reactors is already a tech that rarely gets takes, let alone built. 50 percent isn't enough to make them matter. Also who pissed in your cereal buddy?
I mean it should just be removed if it's whole point was to act as a limiting factor for military factories in the late game since other resources already were that limiting factor already. You can have 20 billion military factories but if you don't have enough steel for tanks or guns then you can't use them anyways.
Honestly I think it would still be better to have a certain amount of energy produced by dams and nuclear reactors instead of a energy reduction modifier.
I like what coal brings but I think it would be better if coal, dams, and nuclear reactors all provided a set energy amount. Because it would really make nuclear reactors worth the investment. Also steam turbine upgrades for coal power plants would also apply to nuclear reactors since they also use steam turbines.
I know you guys said in the post that you don't want reactors to produce energy but I think having coal, dams, and reactors all generating electricity would make them more straightforward instead of providing an energy reduction.
how about you add some more sources of coal to the map no way germany has more coal than the rest of the old world combined, take some inspiration from vic 3 or something
Germany had a functionally infinite amount of coal during the war. Coal was attempted (often unsuccessfully) to be used as a substitute for almost anything because of its extreme abundance.
The wiki hasn't been updated yet to include coal numbers but Germany was only behind the United States in coal production and should be in a very comfortable spot regarding that.
The rest of the Axis powers combined should really have issues with coal and need to rely on Germany for some. France should have some but should be in a position where they also need to import too (most of France lacks coal) while the UK should also be fine...though I'd argue if they ever get another DLC pass some issues actually employing people should be represented.
I'd argue that coal as a whole is in an awkward place because it's just a resource tied to controlling an area that you just gain automatically rather than attached to infrastructure (say, with factories). So that makes it hard to model how the Soviet Union lost 60% of it's coal production during the initial German invasion but was able to recoup that with moving men and equipment to the east, exploiting other deposits.
For the Soviets they could add more resource prospecting decisions to Siberia and tell the AI to take them if they lose certain areas (such as the Donbas).
That's an idea! I'd like more prospecting decisions overall.
I haven't really looked at other countries and their coal situations yet. I did start a Japan campaign but only put in an hour of play this week as it has been rather rough, so hopefully I have time tomorrow to finally experience the update properly.
I don't really mind if the buyer or seller gets "charged" the coal cost of the factory in trade, but it's good to hear you are aware of the double dipping problem and will make a choice one way or the other.
What about the issue with minor nations becoming unplayable?
Only Majors get impacted by coal. You will litteraly only need one or maybe two civs important coal as minors
For double dipping, I propose we can use a factory to economic surplus conversion to circumvent it: The importer pays with factory, and the exporter receive payment without counting in the coal system (kinda like the international market mechanic but for resources)
I'd like to see Surplus have either some benefit or go into a stockpile, i think that would add some more depth that is currently lacking to coal. Though ig that could also make it a bit too similar to fuel.
And if it does have a benefit and i'm just not aware of it that's my bad.
Hey, when is the next patch?
It's great to see constructive fixes, but it does make you wonder - wouldn't there be good use for, say, open betas here rather than just dropping expansions half-tuned like this?
I think it's a bit more of an indictment and evidence of another rushed release.
I love Paradox games, but the studio/shareholders are completely in control of the release schedule (even if Devs aren't) - they decide to release coal in half baked state that falls apart in the late game.
I haven't purchased the DLC or played on the new patch but came to the same conclusions as what has been posted in this Dev diary, simply from reading a post yesterday.
They shouldn't be releasing stuff with such obvious flaws with obvious fixes.
Open betas probably aren't commercially attractive but would go a long way to fixing this stuff.
I never expect updates and blog posts on thanksgiving but I forget not every dev studio is in America lol
Sad Polish-in-Sweden noises :(
The way you talk about different energy sources like it's an arcade game is concerning.
All said and done I believe a solid DLC, some thoughts for improvements.
Faction rankings seem pointless, either remove or make them mean something; ranked one faction you get bonuses to war support and stability and resistance growth etc, ranked last you get penalties.
Bring back strategic resources from HOI3, aluminum and tungsten, give me America and its high octane fuel for boosts to fighter aircraft speed and agility etc once they join.
Strategic control like HOI3, control more states in Mediterranean coastline or you control say Gibraltar and Alexandria and Malta you get bonuses to naval spotting sorties etc.
Heavy weapons support company, new support company replicating machine gun battalions, a lot small arms and support equipment like a lot big soft attack and defense etc, researching support weapons and anti tank weapons has outsized effect on making company punch above its weight
Medium tanks, if advanced light air frame gets an extra slot over basic light air frame and all air frames do, why doesn’t it apply to tanks? Why can’t my advanced medium being historically bigger and heavier not have an extra module slot? Why still limited to 3 even with modern chassis?
HQ support company, it combines maintenance, logistics, signal etc at a fraction of the rate, so HQ company gives 3% reinforce, supply, trickle back etc, can be truck, armoured or mech with bonuses to org, attack, hardness, uses a lot of vehicles and support equipment but worth it for elite divisions.
I like the idea of personalizing your tactics and doctrines, however I only get one of each and then that’s it? Let me have three of each max, sliding scale to learn them of course but absurd to say pick one infantry tactic and that’s it, if I’m China I want my irregulars and mounted infantry and large scale assault. If I’m Germany I want my fighter escorts and air dominance shouldn’t have to unlearn everything for homeland defense because things haven’t necessarily developed to my advantage. Because there’s some really cool ones in there that would be nice to build upon or build up to. Ideally you do a mastery track in infantry, you choose another track however you lose half the benefits of the old one still keeping the bonuses at reduced rate and the new track learns slower. I think the mastery would work better building on the track before it rather than one and done.
Let me send lend lease with my convoys. Let me bury the Soviet Union in tins of spam and trucks.
Lend lease for faction members should be in faction tab. Use it to gain influence in faction.
Coal surplus should be able to converted into fuel via refineries or make it a thing that it uses coal.
The new theatre HQ’s in factions are good and new naval HQ’s too, perhaps expand to other branches and gain small mastery boosts. Will we ever get air Marshall’s and their HQ?
Branch specialisms for special forces, if I have two million man army and only allowed two branches to be unlocked?
More faction buffs, if Germany controls say x amount territory or axis have so many states reduction to resistance and garrison damage ie simulating people believe resistance is futile they are going to win, similarly they lose territory people become emboldened to fight back.
Allies should have shared focus tree once America joins and they just become OP as fuck, like as Germany you want to finish the war quickly or the allies get insane buffs to everything, strategic bombing, convoy protection to naval to factory output. Just unstoppable as they recapture more and more territory it scales.
Overall I really like the depth being added to the game and mechanics.
Edit to add;
Strategic airlift, if a division contains infantry and paradrop compatible support companies I should be able to move it from airfield to airfield, can’t parachute obviously but I can move light divisions by air.
Also feels like air supply does nothing.
Focus trees are getting bigger, totally fine with that as it adds more to a play through however the time taken to get meaningful focuses means that by the time you get to them the game is done. My thought is more 14/21 day focuses or you switch 70/35 to 60/30 days. That way you get an extra 70 day and two 35 day focuses per in game year.
I mean they should do something meaningful about tanks because staying on earlier chassis is lot of time better than switching to the new one which is bullshit.
It’s kind of pointless to research beyond a certain level of anything and ruin your production or waste a research slot for minimal benefits. Should be more powerful items in later research tech to make it worthwhile to go down a branch.
I think the later techs that influence efficiency cap and growth could take a slight buff, or even just having one extra efficiency growth tech or two, at the same slower base rate that oil efficiency techs have, to allow for late-game equipment to catch up.
I don't think equipment stats need to change that much or at all really. It's just the catching up that makes them unviable.
Then still later chassises are just useless. They should limit the slots for extra equipment on earlier chassises and add even more on the later ones. Also they should block adding certain guns on early chassis.
Fuck they're fast with their updates.
I will admit I am impressed this DLC that within the first week we have gotten 2 patches and an outline to fix a major pain point. Usually it takes them 3-6 weeks to get this level of subsistence.
We try, it's hard to please everyone with the amount of players we have. The team is working very hard!
You have very low standards if it’s impressive to you that they’re bothering to fix the glaring problems with their $30 expansion.
Well, yeah. It's Paradox we're talking about
Looks very nice.
Synthetic fuel refineries should use coal too, not make fuel from air.
These are really good changes
Buildings that make charcoal maybe?
Dams really should be made into a regular building that can be constructed by the player. Statistics aren't well kept but it's estimated roughly 40% of the world's power during the Interwar period came from hydroelectric power.
Dams at game start and through focuses are a start, but it really doesn't reflect the energy economy well to make it solely reliant on coal. And making dams more ubiquitous in game would still encourage expansion, for example the Hoover Dam could be very desirable to a coal-poor Mexico or Japan.
And for those that say dams take too long to build irl, well the game makes sacrifices for balance sake in regards to everything else. I mean railways depending on the level literally take maybe a week to build. I promise you railways took much longer to build than that. The smallest dam in the world according to Google is Colorado's Inks Dam, which started construction in 1936 and opened in 1938. Based on that you could tweak the construction time to be a little less. Maybe make them take as long as supply hubs?
And on an unrelated note, Japan really should have the option to white peace the Allies if they occupy their targets in East Asia, like their white peace option with the USSR.
Dams and oil will be included in a future DLC locked behind a $30 paywall. Oil to energy likely will be some DLC gimmick soon.
As soon as I read this I thought of a question- Will be there a new chest command to make coal and energy infinite? 😅
I personally really enjoy managing coal and I think these changes look great!
Yup, while there will always be design choices that are debatable, like particular specific distributions or the energy ratios being too weak/strong, the actual impact of it is good, imo. I would have like to see the US suffer a bit more from it, regardless of historical accuracy, since it's also the biggest benefactor of factory spam, but not a LOT, just enough that coal is an issue for them at least if the player factory greeds.
choosing to directly ignore the most common community suggestions regarding energy... just, wow. not a super competent development team rn.
I’m just gonna keep using a mod to disable coal requirements because I hate it
And it is perfectly fine, mods are there to customize/tailor your gameplay to what you find is the most fitting to your personal taste :)
<3
Will large conquests in the late game (with a civilian economy!) also increase the coal shortage due to factories in the conquered countries?
Does anyone know if Coordinated Strike - Port Strike was fixed?
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/coordinated-strike-not-working-for-port-strike.1613498/#post-29432081
Good intentions, but without a date, it remains a pipe dream. The coal and the mess of the naval forces that do not attack. In any serious company, it would be a priority. Let's say it will be solved in two weeks.
In mine, heads would roll if it weren't so.
Regarding double dipping who pays the coal for the factories to overlord?
Eso pa ....cuando
Coal liquefaction going to be added now for Synthetic Fuel?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_liquefaction
Also Trains used Coal.
That’s what synthetic refineries are.
They don't use Coal.
Yes but they “use coal”.
I guess they could have refineries require coal too, but then they’d only be useful for countries with no oil but tons of coal.
Погнали в хойку, я не знаю кто ты но я хочу пойти с тобой в хойку
The latest DLC and coal implementation has been an abject failure. The feedback speaks for itself. Make it right Paradox, or continue losing loyal supporters.