Russian Timber Industry

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way2co0l
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Russian Timber Industry

Post by way2co0l »

So I'm a bit iffy on exact economics of the time, but I'm pretty sure Russia had a fairly prosperous timber industry at this point in time which isn't reflected in their actual production at game start. In fact, they actually begin the game producing at a significant deficit when in fact they were supposed to be one of the larger exporters in the world, primarily to England and Germany. At least according to the source below.

Something to look into perhaps. :)

https://books.google.com/books?id=uoUlD ... 14&f=false
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Balthagor
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Re: Russian Timber Industry

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way2co0l
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Re: Russian Timber Industry

Post by way2co0l »

Bumping this because I see from the changelogs that this was adjusted recently, but I argue that it wasn't changed enough.

Currently Russia is producing about half of what its current demand is (34k production and 70k demand). As I had pointed out before, Russia at the time was one of the world's largest timber exporters, exporting primarily to England and Germany. Nearly half of the timber they exported actually came from their Finnish possession which was said to be heavily forested at the time. Russia also had tremendously large and relatively untapped forest reserves along its arctic circle territories. These reserves were more difficult to exploit, but efforts were actively being made to tap into them. Neither of these facts are represented in game however.

I'd argue that Russia's timber production should be quadrupled at least to be double its current demand (140k production to 70k demand). I don't think this would be entirely accurate, but close enough without actually flooding the entire world market. I also believe the number of potential timber tiles (red hexes without timber buildings) needs to be increased by a large margin all along its northern territories for future exploitation (but also providing a passive increase the way timber and food hexes do). I believe most of the timber mills should be especially concentrated in Finland to account for the fact that it was actively exploited and made up a huge percentage of Russia's actual timber exports. When looking at the potential timber hexes in Finland now( and in fact all of northern Russia), there are barely any at all and nothing better than light red. In fact, throughout the entirety of Russia, there are only a handful of locations that are better than light red which is odd for one of the largest timber producers and exporters in the world.
Buzzbrad
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Re: Russian Timber Industry

Post by Buzzbrad »

way2co0l wrote: Jun 20 2018 Bumping this because I see from the changelogs that this was adjusted recently, but I argue that it wasn't changed enough.

Currently Russia is producing about half of what its current demand is (34k production and 70k demand). As I had pointed out before, Russia at the time was one of the world's largest timber exporters, exporting primarily to England and Germany. Nearly half of the timber they exported actually came from their Finnish possession which was said to be heavily forested at the time. Russia also had tremendously large and relatively untapped forest reserves along its arctic circle territories. These reserves were more difficult to exploit, but efforts were actively being made to tap into them. Neither of these facts are represented in game however.

I'd argue that Russia's timber production should be quadrupled at least to be double its current demand (140k production to 70k demand). I don't think this would be entirely accurate, but close enough without actually flooding the entire world market. I also believe the number of potential timber tiles (red hexes without timber buildings) needs to be increased by a large margin all along its northern territories for future exploitation (but also providing a passive increase the way timber and food hexes do). I believe most of the timber mills should be especially concentrated in Finland to account for the fact that it was actively exploited and made up a huge percentage of Russia's actual timber exports. When looking at the potential timber hexes in Finland now( and in fact all of northern Russia), there are barely any at all and nothing better than light red. In fact, throughout the entirety of Russia, there are only a handful of locations that are better than light red which is odd for one of the largest timber producers and exporters in the world.
I will look into adding more timber facilities and resources. Thanks!
way2co0l
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Re: Russian Timber Industry

Post by way2co0l »

Buzzbrad wrote: Jun 20 2018 I will look into adding more timber facilities and resources. Thanks!
I appreciate it! Looking at it further, it looks like part of it is very similar to a problem you guys have had with other resources such as oil, where facilities are present on the map but the hex itself doesn't have enough production for them to actually operate so they do nothing.

If you look near Petragrad, there are 2 hexes which have 6 timber mills each, and yet neither of those hexes has any actual production despite having 12 timber mills between them. The reason for that is that when you click on the resource display to show where resources are, denoted with varying degrees of red to reflect it, those hexes would need to be dark red to enable 6 timber mills to be placed there and yet each of them is green so none will ever work there. Therefor those timber mills are completely useless and serve only to be a minor drain on the Russian economy. They have no benefit whatsoever.

Now, just in case you weren't aware, food and timber have a special mechanic in game where every hex provides a passive amount of resources. I believe this is to represent subsistence economies. Water had it too, but was obviously replaced by rubber which does not have it. Electricity does as well, but only in cities. But back to the point. You can confirm this passive bonus and in fact determine the production from any hex by simply clicking on the building type that uses that resource type, and hover over the hex on the map. The tooltip that pops up will tell you exactly how much that hex is producing whether it be from the passive bonus, from facilities present, current supply, ect. I believe the passive bonus is also influenced by GDP or inflation, but that's another topic altogether. You can confirm what I'm saying about the passive bonus by again going back to petragrad, bringing up the option to build a timber mill, and then hovering the mouse over one of the light red hexes. You will see that at game start, it produces 8-10 m3 depending on that hexes actual supply. This will of course change throughout the game, but at game start it is very predictable for the area surrounding petragrad. Now hover the mouse over one of those hexes where 6 timber mills have already been placed, and you'll see that they are each producing 0. To confirm that this display actual shows building production in addition to the passive bonus, you'd need to find a building placed in a valid location. Looking through the 42 timber mills currently placed by Russia, I only found 1 that was actually valid which is in Poland just 2 hexes north of Katowice. By hovering over this hex, you'll see that the light red hex is producing 155 m3. Looking at the other light red hexes in the area, they seem to only be producing 7, which is due to having lower supply in the area than Petragrad had. That means this single facility is producing 148 m3 per day. Of the 42 facilities currently placed, that is the only one actually producing anything. The rest of Russia's starting producing is based entirely on the passive bonus it is receiving from all those red hexes throughout its massive empire.

I'm sharing this because I want my solution to make sense. This obviously isn't a very huge problem and if it's going to take a lot of time and effort then I believe it should be low priority. But if you do find the time to work on it, then I would advise you to either scrap each and every one of the other 41 timber facilities or increase the hexes they are located in to dark red so that they will actually operate the way they should. Personally, I would encourage you to add MANY more dark red hexes throughout Finland and the heavily forested areas of northern Russia, and allow the passive bonus to account for most of Russia's production, with maybe a dozen timber mills in Finland and the more densely populated areas of western Russia. There really shouldn't be very many timber mills, most of them being in Finland and only a handful elsewhere, and then the passive bonus should account for everything else. But the passive bonus won't be enough when Russia has nothing better than light red hexes, (only a handful of darker ones and only in occupied territories like Poland) and those light red hexes far sparser than they probably should be in Russia period. Nearly every hex in that northern portion of the country should be at least light red, with a heck of a lot of darker reds as well. If you place enough of them, then Russia will be able to achieve a more realistic timber production without needing any timber mills at all. It's all about the poor quality hexes that's the issue here more than anything else and trying to resolve it by putting down a bunch of timber mills in hexes which can't support them won't actually resolve the issue.

I appreciate you taking the time. Again, I know it's a very minor issue in the grand scheme of things but I appreciate you considering it. :)

Correction: After looking more closely, I found 3 more valid timber mills. 1 in western Ukraine, and 2 out of a hex of 6 northeast of Perm. Better than the 1 I claimed earlier but still 38 invalid timber mills. Just as an FYI, I also found 1 invalid gas field and 2 invalid ore mines that were simply too many in a hex which didn't support more but that's pretty insignificant and I just scrapped them for my playthrough.
Last edited by way2co0l on Jun 20 2018, edited 1 time in total.
way2co0l
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Re: Russian Timber Industry

Post by way2co0l »

I'd argue that Russia's agriculture is in nearly as bad shape. While it's true that Russia's agricultural system was less refined than most of its western competitors, that is pretty adequately represented by the fact that they only have 4 actual agriculture buildings in the entire empire at game start. They are producing nearly as much as they need to meet demand at game start with 130k production vs 160k demand. However with a large population of 170 million, and a GDP that is smaller than those western counterparts, things will start looking worse for them pretty quickly once their GDP starts to skyrocket. Demand will increase as a result, and as I've observed in the past, the passive bonus will be reduced significantly once their GDP begins to grow. In reality, Russia had large swaths of highly fertile farmlands, especially within their Ukrainian territories and that whole general vicinity around the black sea for Russia proper as well. This fertile land is represented on other more modern maps, but is completely ignored for this one. Russia needs more ambient farmlands, primarily in their south western European territories. Focused primarily in the Ukraine, but also to the east a fair bit. I'd say, enough extra to double their production would make sense as the Russians never struggled for farmland. It was simply that they had different priorities for guns and sending men to die in swarms rather than taking advantage of those farmlands which led to the food shortages and revolutionary movements. This will already be represented as Russia's GDP begins to rise and the passive bonus will decrease resulting in shortages if farms aren't built to replace what is lost.

These are just the 2 biggest issues I have with Russia's start. Everything else I can more or less agree with, but these just seems like mistakes to me. I don't actually expect them to be corrected due to their low priority, but I figure you can't fix something you don't know about so I might as well try bringing it to your attention! :)

Edit: The link to the thread where I first discovered the connection between GDP and the passive bonus tiles get. I discovered that as my GDP rose from constructing buildings, the passive bonus from each tile would decrease. This resulted in a situation where I had built 100 new farms and actually wound up producing LESS than I was producing before building any in the first place. This was due to the fact that those constructions heated my economy, increased my GDP as well as my inflation, and I assume resulted in more people moving away from the agrarian economy into the organized farms. Basically more of a restructuring of the Russian economy than anything else. It confused me at first, but the more I thought about it and understood what was happening, the more I liked it. Anyway, again, that thread is here. http://www.bgforums.com/forums/viewtopi ... re#p178559

2nd Edit: I also wanted to add another point to this whole topic, and that's to point out how Russia's massive infrastructure costs balance this whole mechanic. I had forgotten just how insane that infrastructure cost can be honestly, but in my newest playthrough I'm finding that it is accounting for nearly 70% of my total social spending. I'm not complaining about that at all. lol. Russia is a large country and that infrastructure cost should be higher than pretty much anyone else. But that's one of the reasons why having these passive agri and timber resources are so important. They scale based on your local supply, so those earlier examples where timber was between 8-10 m3 per day around Petragrad. If you compare them to the more desolate areas deep within siberia that have no supply at all, they produce at most 1 m3 per day. That's what keeps this mechanic balanced. Russia is insanely large and has access to an incredibly large number of resources, but it comes at a cost. I've played modern world games where my infrastructure spending was easily in excess of 1 trillion, and it is ALWAYS my most expensive social spending category. Healthcare just doesn't even compare. lol. I just wanted to point this out for when you're how to handle these resources. I can understand a reluctance to want to give them too much. I just want to remind you that it's balanced around that infrastructure cost, and that for previous maps (cold war and modern world maps at least, it changed for the WW2 map for some reason and the 1914 map used that as a base) timber and food was in much greater abundance. If you decide to look into this, I'd encourage you to use the cold war or modern world maps as a frame of reference. :)
Buzzbrad
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Re: Russian Timber Industry

Post by Buzzbrad »

I have gone back and fixed the facilities missing timber resources along with adding additional Timber mills. At game start they now produce more than they are consuming. Hopefully this will go with the next update. If I get the time I will look into the agriculture next.

Edit: This is live now.
way2co0l
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Re: Russian Timber Industry

Post by way2co0l »

Awesome! Loaded in to take a look. It's definitely a big improvement and I feel a little bad pointing out that it creates some new issues as well. I know my previous messages were a big wall of text, but it's important because a lot of the new timber yards that were added won't actually function. It does look like you fixed the previous 42 that were there, but a lot of the new ones have 6 placed in hexes that are only light red and will only allow 2 to operate. It looks like they have 312 timber mills now but I'd guess that at least half of them aren't actually functioning. Perhaps as many as 200 aren't actually working. When you put a resource building, the hex has to be red enough to support it. For a group of 6, the hex must be dark red otherwise the extra buildings will have no production.

Honestly, I know I'm being a pain over something trivial and I hope you know I don't intend to be. :) This game has been in development for a long time and has so many complex mechanics that even Chris and George have forgotten tons of parts of their game. Honestly, I feel like this is an aspect of the game that very few people seem to actually be aware of at all. I'd say that the changes you made are a definite improvement, outside of the ineffective timbermills anyway. I would personally like to see fewer timber mills anyway and even more natural hexes. I really do appreciate you taking this time to look into these things regardless! :)
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