Hearts of Iron IV Mod - The Resource War

To emulate the shortages of the real war, two new resources were added: Grain (used for rations), and Copper (used for various kinds of ammo).

Hearts of Iron IV is a detailed World War II strategy game. To extend the game's resource-oriented mechanics, and the impact of resource shortages, I created a mod that adds grain and copper, as well as new consumable equipment types such as rations, ammunition, and gasoline. If your army runs out of these equipments, their strength will deplete entirely, meaning that it's more possible to starve your enemies in the war by denying them important resources.

My work on the mod included:

• Balancing resource distributions and equipment values via extensive spreadsheet planning, with the aim of placing the Axis (and some Allied powers) a few bombing raids and lost convoys away from starvation.

• Implementation of new resources and equipments using the game's scriptbase.

• Working with my sprite-artist to deliver a presentable visual style, while also creating some art and flavour text of my own.

• Gathering data from playtests to inform balancing efforts relating to resource abundance, vanilla game mechanics, and AI competence with the new features.

In its first week of release, the mod reached the front page of the game's Steam Workshop, and received 10,000 subscribers.

More details on the mod, and a download, are available here.

For some information on how I went about designing this mod, check out my development blog.

Credits

Thomas Slade
Scripter, Designer, and Mod Creator

Matthew Selby
Sprite Artist

The axis begins the game at a serious resource disadvantage; their expansions are now motivated by Russian grain, and Yugoslavian/Scandinavian copper. Britain, too, is vulnerable to starvation.