GAME MANUAL - Steam

HEARTS OF IRON DARKEST HOUR“fuel consumption” value.Land units consume only halfthis amount if they arestationary and aren’t involvedin combat. Aircraft and shipsthat are “resting” at theirassigned base will consumeonly a tiny fraction of the oilthey require when they areengaged in military operations.MetalThis resource represents avariety of common metals,with iron ore being thepredominant one. Metal isused by your factories on adaily basis and is thus amandatory component forgenerating industrial capacity.One unit of allocated ICconsumes one unit of metalevery day, and failure to havesufficient supply in yournational reserve will limit youravailable IC.EnergyThe energy resourcerepresents a number ofdifferent materials that areused to generate the powerthat your factories require tooperate. Historically, thispredominantly came from coalfire generation as well ashydro-electric facilities, woodburningplants, and severalother sources. Energy mayalso be converted into oil ifyour stockpile of the latter islow, although the rate of thisconversion will be poor unlessyour scientists havediscovered improved methodsof synthesis. Your factories willdemand a healthy supply ofpower, each one consumingtwo units of energy for everyunit of IC that it produces daily.As with metal, a lack of energywill reduce your available IC.Rare MaterialsThis might be thought of asDH’s “catch-all” for materialsthat were consumed on a dailybasis but don’t belong to themetal or power categories.These are natural resourcesor materials derived orsynthesised from naturalreserves that are relativelyrare or were consumed only inlimited quantities. Examplesmight include rubber,tungsten, sulphates, gold,potash, and other suchresources. Rare materialswere used for variouscomponents in a large numberof manufacturing processesduring this era and a reasonablesupply will be vital tokeep your factories running.Each factory will consume oneunit of rare materials for everytwo units of IC it produces.SuppliesSupplies aren’t a naturalresource that you will find lyingaround in a province. Instead,these are manufactured byallocating IC to the productionof basic allotments of food andammunition that your militaryforces will need to survive.Each unit has differentrequirements, which can beseen by referring to the unitdetails’ supply consumptionrate, and failure to meet theseneeds will result in very poororganisation values and a highrate of attrition. Also, the lackof supplies will make themEach day,1 IC requires2 energy + 1 metal+ 1/2 rare materials.Unused (not allocated)IC does not consumethese resources.suffer combat penalties if theyare engaged by the enemy.Although the details arepresented later in the manual,I’ll remind you here that simplyhaving supplies does notensure that they will reachyour troops. You will need toestablish supply chains forthat purpose and havesufficient transport capacityand infrastructure to shipgoods along them. Unlike fuel,supplies are always consumedat their full daily rate.MoneyThis is cold hard cash…and itdoesn’t grow on trees.Fortunately, there are severalways of increasing your cashreserves. Any IC allocated tothe manufacture of consumergoods will generate someamount of money, and excessallocations are treated as asurplus and converted directlyinto cash. You may alsoreceive money as part of adiplomatic transaction whenyou negotiate either a onetimeexchange or a tradeagreement.Money’s four most crucialfunctions in your nation are tofinance projects for yourresearch teams, to sustainyour espionage network andfinance its missions, for themultitude of diplomatic actionsthat have a cash costassociated with them and forsome generic decisionsavailable to every country.Money may also be usedduring negotiations with othernations to purchase otherresources. If you have nonational cash reserve, yourtechnological progress willgrind to a halt and there will bemany common intelligenceoperations and diplomaticoptions that you won’t be ableto initiate.ManpowerManpower is a resource that istreated somewhat differentlythan the others. Yourprovinces with a large enoughpopulation contribute56