Strange map a.k.a. where is my oil?

[ColdResponse]

First of all: Hi, just joined the forums. Been playing SRCW for a few weeks. I have not played any Supreme Ruler-games before, but have put hundreds of hours into Hearts of Iron 3. I chose SRCW because I grew up in the final years of the cold war. I grew up to the sound of huge NATO exercises i Northern Norway, so a cold war game was really appealing to me.


I have a few gripes about the game. There are some bugs, the UI is a bit bad and the graphics are surprisingly slow. (On some zoom levels, scrolling is very difficult)... but... Anyhow, I've been around small developers before, so i wasn't terribly surprised there.

Building up large forces of Tu-95s before nuking USA in 1954 was great fun in my first game as USSR. Especially when I realized the filthy capitalist dogs had built hundreds of nukes on their own Good memories




SO: I started a sandbox game with my home country: Norway

My goal: To get a nuclear armed Norway by 1984 and nuke Murmansk (just for the laughs), but otherwise following history as closely as possible.

I am disappointed to see that the landscape in all of northern norway is classified as "tundra" and impossible to build agriculture or timber mills on... Actually living here, I know this is very wrong. Timber, agriculture and fisheries were the main reason people even moved here from the southern part of the country. This leads me to another gripe: Fish is one of the biggest exports for Norway... it's not even harvestable in this game as a resource.

Anyway, the fifties started and I was able to stabilize the economy by slowly building up some industry and lots of mines and timber mills (in the south). then I figured I should follow history and start searching for some offshore oil... Ahistorically in the late fifties with a hope jumpstart the economy (historically we found oil in the sixties... but I highly doubt the resources will magically appear on the map in 1966... If they do, I will be truly happy to stand corrected)

There isn't any oil in the North sea!! I really feel bad for the british as well...

How am I ever going to make any real money if I can't find oil and gas in my region?

Ok. After some frantic searching I concluded that the mapdesigner had ignored that Norway is currently the third largest petroleum exporter in the world. That, combined with ice-free deep-water harbors are the main reasons that the US wanted to deploy tactical nukes in northern Norway to stop the russians from taking this highly important strategic country.



ANYWAY: When the whole "oil fairytale" failed, I decided to follow another historical path: the great buildup of hydroelectric power in the 50s and 60s. Again I was very disappointed to see I couldn't build a single hydroelectric plant on the northern "tundra" where I actually live and can see the huge dams daily... So I started building more hydroelectric power in the western part of the country, which thankfully is realistic.

Now I'm at a loss. My economy is ok, but not oil-ok and playing my country feels very bland and generic.


Simply put: To be able to play Norway with any sense of realism, the map must be improved.
I'm sure there are dozens other nations with similar problems, but I have only played US and USSR before Norway, and I don't know where exactly the russian or american resources are because there are so extremely many of them


PS: I would like some uranium somewhere in this mountaininfested country too. There HAS to be some... at least on Svalbard.
PPS: I would like the north and south pole to be included in the world map. Lots of resources there, and also: Norway owns a big slice of Antarctica that I wanted to put mines on.

[tyler2114]

I'm not certain but I believe it's to reflect the limited knowledge of the location of resources during the Cold War.

[ColdResponse]

Does that mean that the oil will in fact appear later in the game?

Or is there some technology required for it to appear?

[tyler2114]

As far as I have seen, it doesen't appear in the game.

[Fistalis]

How would you suggest building in international waters work? A free for all whoever builds there first gets it?
This isn't limited to the North sea.. and was probably not due to a lack of knowledge.(In sr2020 you started with these rigs built, so they actually removed the oil from the hex when redoing the map for CW )
But probably due to the question of how international waters can be claimed and built on in game terms.

[ColdResponse]

True, international waters could be a problem for the game balance if it was a free-for-all.

But they don't have to add oil in the middle of the north sea if this causes a problem. At least put some oil resources in national waters then. There are oil and gas quite close to the shore, esp. in northern norway. One oil field is so close to land in Lofoten that it has been a lot of political debate whether we should risk putting an oil rig there, in case of leaks destroying the shore line before anyone can act.

There are also some very large gas fields north of Norway that recently have been exploited, like: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sn%C3%B8hvit

Natural resources like oil were VERY important during the cold war, and still very much are. In almost all contexts, Norway is an unimportant country with a small population. What made it important is the huge natural resources of oil and gas along the coast.

The best would be if the map could be dynamic in some way: Either, you have to wait for oil to be discovered on a historical date, or you can research and do test-drilling for oil to find the resources. A static map like the one in the game must be as accurate as possible if this is to be a historical "simulation". If not, there is no reason for calling it "Cold war" and shaping and naming the countries like they are on Earth. If resources are merely placed for "balance" issues, you might as well fight a fictional war on a fictional planet.

[Fistalis]

True, international waters could be a problem for the game balance if it was a free-for-all.

But they don't have to add oil in the middle of the north sea if this causes a problem. At least put some oil resources in national waters then. There are oil and gas quite close to the shore, esp. in northern norway. One oil field is so close to land in Lofoten that it has been a lot of political debate whether we should risk putting an oil rig there, in case of leaks destroying the shore line before anyone can act.

There are also some very large gas fields north of Norway that recently have been exploited, like: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sn%C3%B8hvit

Thats still international waters.

situated 140 kilometres (87 mi) northwest of Hammerfest, Norway

Natural resources like oil were VERY important during the cold war, and still very much are. In almost all contexts, Norway is an unimportant country with a small population. What made it important is the huge natural resources of oil and gas along the coast.

The best would be if the map could be dynamic in some way: Either, you have to wait for oil to be discovered on a historical date, or you can research and do test-drilling for oil to find the resources. A static map like the one in the game must be as accurate as possible if this is to be a historical "simulation". If not, there is no reason for calling it "Cold war" and shaping and naming the countries like they are on Earth. If resources are merely placed for "balance" issues, you might as well fight a fictional war on a fictional planet.

So they should have left the hexes with oil in international waters even though you can't build on them? Or they should place resources where there are none to balance the world the way you think it should be? It wasn't about balance. It was about a lack of a supporting system. No reason to leave those hexes with oil if the players cannot access them.(Of course I'm just guessing here, I wasn't there for the development discussions )

Don't get me wrong.. I'm all for those hexes being put back and a system of being able to claim build on and use international waters being put in place (I would have to redo some stuff in the modern world mod since I put some faux rigs in to replace them off the coasts of countries).. but the question remains, how does that system work?

Looking at it from simply a north sea perspective may be your issue.. there are many oil rigs in areas that are still claimed by multiple countries such as in the south china sea, and the system has to be able to handle these as well as the more well defined north sea.

Tying it to historical dates sounds good at first, but what happens if Norway falls before they are discovered.. who get the oil fields? What if norway is split between 3 nations? or 5? etc. The system has to be able to handle any situation that may come up.

If someone can suggest a system that works I'll happily join in on bugging the devs to implement it.

[Ragu]

If the UN had a bigger role in the SR series other than random research/resource offers, like being able to commumicate with them, then perhaps you could have say, offshore influences by differing nations and monetary deals could be made with the UN to buy drilling rights to build derricks.
Also you could use this system to create more diplomatic upsets for supposed soverign waters, kida what is happening with China and Japan now. This would increase tensions and belli/provocation.

Apologies for the off-topic wandering...

[Fistalis]

If the UN had a bigger role in the SR series other than random research/resource offers, like being able to commumicate with them, then perhaps you could have say, offshore influences by differing nations and monetary deals could be made with the UN to buy drilling rights to build derricks.
Also you could use this system to create more diplomatic upsets for supposed soverign waters, kida what is happening with China and Japan now. This would increase tensions and belli/provocation.

Apologies for the off-topic wandering...

I like that but we gotta bug them about finishing the U.N first
(There is a UI screen for dealing with the U.N but My guess is they didn't finish the system before release or decided not to use it, you discover odd things when poking around to make UI mods )

[Ragu]

Oooo very nice screenie. Also being able to directly speak to different nations to buy drilling rights in their lands/waters would also be a nice addition. It's not an unheard of concept.

[ColdResponse]

I understand the difficulties with drilling rights in international waters, but if diplomacy and interaction with the UN was more possible, maybe it could be implemented.

I was just sad that the game turned out to be so... limiting.

It's a great idea, but they haven't quite got it yet.

Some of my main gripes after roughly 50 hours of playing time:
- Research needs some serious reworking. Playing the USA in my newest game, I'm launching Ohio-class submarines in 1954... I'm also researching Peacekeeper missiles and F-16s... They should have something like in HOI3 where technology that is ahead of its time is much more expensive and time consuming to research...

- In campaign with standard settings, both the Korean war and the Vietnam war is over by 1952. The world runs out of industrial goods in 1950 (except my country ofcourse) and France declares war on China in 1953, along with Laos, S. Vietnam, S. Korea and whoever happens to be in that region.

- The sheer amount of units on the world map in the mid-fifties make the game slows down to a crawl; framerate is ok, but a day takes much longer in real time to complete. This is especially a problem when the war between China, France, Laos, South Vietnam and South Korea happens.

- Nuclear power plants doesn't seem to work properly.

- Condemning a nations actions doesn't seem to have any effect on the international level.

- Wars ALWAYS continue until one side is completely annihilated. Nobody ever calls for a ceasefire.

- "Strategic pool" is a nice touch, but I would like more options to tell the computer what I want to focus my strategic attack on. I should also be able to use strategic pool as a generic nuclear attack panel. I should be able to use it to perform a tactical strike with a small number of warheads in for example the Korean war. Now I have to manually attach weapons to individual squadrons and then manually control them to the area.

- Land units are... battallions? Brigades/regiments or even divisions would be a much better choice. First of all, you would have much fewer animated things on the battlefield, and second, it might actually be possible to get some kind of overview of your army. Individual ships is a good thing because ships are more... individual. Aircraft squadrons are a bit smallish, but necessary for the smaller nations I guess. It should be possible to link them together in permanent wings or groups if you wanted however.



I really, really, really, want this game to be good, because the concept is so good. I hope future patches and/or mods will tweak the game to be more realistic and... playable (unfortunately).

[ColdResponse]

True, international waters could be a problem for the game balance if it was a free-for-all.

But they don't have to add oil in the middle of the north sea if this causes a problem. At least put some oil resources in national waters then. There are oil and gas quite close to the shore, esp. in northern norway. One oil field is so close to land in Lofoten that it has been a lot of political debate whether we should risk putting an oil rig there, in case of leaks destroying the shore line before anyone can act.

There are also some very large gas fields north of Norway that recently have been exploited, like: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sn%C3%B8hvit

Thats still international waters.

situated 140 kilometres (87 mi) northwest of Hammerfest, Norway

I'm not so sure: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exclusive_economic_zone

There are more than just territorial waters that decide how resources are divided between nations.

This is quite informative: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exclusive_ ... one#Norway

[SGTscuba]

Actually AI will call for peace, Czechoslvakia just sent me a peace offer and I accepted it.

[flashy]

i have never seen the ai offer peace unless imminent death was on their front doorstep, and often times not even then

[SGTscuba]

i have never seen the ai offer peace unless imminent death was on their front doorstep, and often times not even then

I had only taken about a quarter of the country. But they could probably see that I would have destroyed them pretty quickly.