Hello again! After a lot of reactions last week, we’ve made some changes. We are still not sure if we should release this or not, but based on the reactions we also decided to make this an open beta.

Changes since last dev corner:

• Power plants now fulfill a state slot instead of the shared factory slots
  
• You can build up to 3 levels of power plants in a single state
  
• Research has been added, allowing you to gain more energy from the plants
  
• Oil now also impacts energy generation. We still want to keep oil focused on being fuel for your army, and coal focused on being fuel for your industry.
  
• Introduced a bonus for having spare capacity
  
• Added 2 new MIO policies, reducing power cost or increasing power cost of production with those MIO’s

Let’s take a look at Germany’s state in early 1940.

They are producing a significant amount of energy through their power plants, though their Dams are helping them as well. As you can see, they also researched “Hydrogen-Cooled Generators”, raising the total energy production by 10%.

They require a total of 897.5 energy, and 100% is supplied. They generate 1130.3 energy, out of 1130.3 so there is no headroom available. Why is more generated than demand? That is because of the spare capacity! All of this gives them a spare capacity of 100%. The amount of spare capacity you need to reach is based on the number of factories you have in total, making it much easier to hit spare capacity early on in your playthrough.

If we look at the production screen and we collapse their entries, we can see how the energy cost is distributed. We can see air taking on the majority of cost, besides tanks as well as pure gun production.

What if we enable one of the new MIO policies. We raise the power cost, but for that we gain some nice bonuses, mainly additional efficiency gain compared to the (quite strong) assembly line optimisers.

Well it makes the MP 38 production line the most costly one.​

Power plants are also more susceptible to strategic bombing, allowing you to target your enemy's industry more than ever. Though if they are able to maintain enough spare capacity, they are able to repair quicker than before.

The Tech Tree

I know many of you want to able to burn Oil for energy, and this is possible due to mods. We discussed a bit back and forth between allowing it in vanilla and not, and in the end we decided that it’s probably better for the vanilla experience to not confuse players too much. As mentioned at the start, we want to keep oil focused on being fuel for your army, and coal focused on being fuel for your industry. That said, oil fields now positively affect power plants, and power plants in those regions generate more power because of natural oil resources.

Oil provides a +30 energy source

To have energy feel like a real thing, it’s produced & consumed in places where you expect it to be. Smaller countries should still feel as if they are able to contribute, but perhaps they need to specialize instead of going wide. Competing with the majors in advanced equipment is still hard, as it should be, but it is now a question of investment and priorities rather. It does help with unlimited growth, and for smaller countries such as Hungary stepping to War Economy means you have to invest in power plants before being able to do so.

This Open Beta is not translated, and does not contain any new art assets. Please give it a try and share an AAR on how it went, let us know any balancing or other concerns!

• Added a country power pool: demand comes from production line power draw, supply from factories and power plants; the supply/demand ratio drives the factory energy buff & debuff
  
• Added Power Plants as an upgradeable state-level building. Output depends on the state (terrain, oil, dams)
  
• Dockyards, civilian and military factories now generate some power
  
• Dams now matter for power generation, and were reassigned dam types. Added new massive dams
  
• Spare power now grants a surplus bonus, and oil states boost power plants
  
• Coal is only burned when needed
  
• Production lines now have an energy cost, with a tooltip breakdown per category (air, naval, land)
  
• Added power generation/consumption modifiers; removed the old energy building
  
• MIOs: added a production energy draw stat, with Electrified Assembly and Power Rationing policies
  
• Added a research tech related to power
  
• Industrial focus branches in most focus trees now reward power plants
  
• Added 1936 & 1939 starting power plant setup for the world
  
• Topbar power bar, lack-of-power alert and tooltips now use the power pool, listing generation per source, power plant states, coal usage and maximum generated power
  
• Technology and trade window now supports coal and oil burning
  
• AI builds power plants as needed
  
• Missing: New art for the various icons