EXTRA UPDATE: this mod still works, and the web version below is what you want, but for a simpler way to make the game more difficult without having to mess with files manually, you may want to try My Steam Workshop Productivity Mod. It's much more limited in scope and configurabililty than the web mod but is an easier way to dip your toe.

UPDATE: this mod has been migrated to the web! The details below still apply, but the mod is now much easier to use! Use the web version.

JK's Productivity Mod for Workers & Resources: Soviet Republic

A scenario creation mod for the game "Workers & Resources: Soviet Republic". It creates a unique set of economics for every new game by changing building production rates and costs.

In its default configuration, it makes the game harder but more varied. The script can also be used to make the game easier or generate extremely challenging economic situations.

Overview

Do you want a fresh challenge every time you play Workers & Resources: Soviet Republic?

Once you've played several times, you'll notice that the way you "should" play, and the way you should start, is probably quite similar every time. This mod's goal is to give you a fresh set of economic challenges every time you play.

The mod changes your buildings so that every game, some industries will be more or less productive than others, and costs will be different. It is intended to make the game harder, but it can also be configured to make the game easier.

In one scenario, you may be a nation who can produce crops and livestock very well, but needs to import power and steel; in another, you may be a nation who can process oil well but can't mine it very effectively; in another, coal power plants may cost 1.5m rubles. There are endless possibilities!

The mod comes with an economic spreadsheet that can be used to plan your development, and assess which industries are likely to be productive for your nation. The spreadsheet is optional but helps a lot on harder scenarios.

This mod also re-balances (aka "nerfs") some of the core industries (coal, oil, livestock, and clothing) to make them less productive and therefore less obvious choices for every game.

What this mod does

The goal of this mod is to make the game much more difficult, but still "winnable" in many cases.

It modifies your game production building files for the following buildings:

1. Wood Industry
   1. Woodcutting Post
   2. Sawmill
2. Iron Industry
   1. Iron Mine
   2. Iron Processing
3. Coal Industry
   1. Coal Mine
   2. Coal Processing
4. Power Industry
   1. Coal Power Plant
5. Gravel Industry
   1. Quarry
   2. Gravel Processing
6. Construction Materials Industry
   1. Brick Factory
   2. Cement Plant
   3. Asphalt Plant
7. Advanced Construction Materials Industry
   1. Steel Mill
   2. Prefab Factory
   3. Concrete Plant
8. Oil Industry
   1. Oil Rig
   2. Oil Refinery
9. Livestock Industry
   1. Livestock Farm
   2. Slaughterhouse
10. Agriculture Industry
    1. Farm
    2. Food Factory
11. Alcohol Industry
    1. Distillery
12. Clothing Industry
    1. Fabric Factory
    2. Clothing Factory

It lowers baseline production for a few buildings I think are overpowered:

1. Coal Processing: default workers required increased from 20 to 30; daily production decreased from 120t to 75t.
2. Coal Power Plant: default workers required increased from 20 to 40; daily production decreased from 1400 MWh to 1000 MWh.
3. Oil Rig: daily production decreased from 7t to 3.5t.
4. Oil Refinery: daily production decreased from 125t oil and 75t bitumen to 100t oil and 60t bitumen.
5. Livestock Farm: daily production decreased from 5t to 3t.
6. Clothing Factory: daily production decreased from 1.2t to 0.8t.

Then, it randomly adjusts the productivity and size of each industry by a configurable amount. The adjustments use a normal distribution with a mean (MEAN_PRODUCTIVITY_MULTIPLIER below) and a deviation (INDUSTRY_DEVIATION) below. Using the default values of 0.8 and 0.3, this means most industries will be adjusted to between 50% and 110% of the baseline values (that's an average of 80% with a standard deviation of 30%).

Then, it randomly adjusts the size (workers required), productivity, and cost of each building by a configurable amount. The productivity and size value for the given industry is the baseline, and then is randomized by the BUILDING_DEVIATION value below. So if wood had received a 90% productivity and 60% size value, using the default BUILDING_DEVIATION of 0.15, both the Woodcutting Post and Sawmill would be expected to be between 75%-110% productive per worker, and have a size of 45%-75%. The building cost is also adjusted using BUILDING_DEVIATION, but uses industry productivity multiplied by size to determine the expected value. So a very productive, large factory of 150% worker productivity and 150% size would generally cost about 225% of its baseline value.

Since these are randomized per step, the end result is a unique set of economics every game. The ratios of production, and capital costs will vary wildly every time you play. Some scenarios may be difficult to the point of being unwinnable when using the default values.

If you want a milder experience, use lower numbers when generating your nation. You can even make it easier (see "Example values" below).

Requirements

Java 8 or higher

How to use

1. Download "economics-v2.xlsx" (your spreadsheet for planning) and "workersandresources.jar" (the Java file that does the modding).

2. Make a backup copy of your "buildings_types" directory from Workers & Resources: Soviet Republic into a safe place. The "buildings_types" directory is found at [STEAM_DIRECTORY]\steamapps\common\SovietRepublic\media_soviet\buildings_types

3. Make a working copy of your "buildings_types" directory from Workers & Resources: Soviet Republic into a different place. (IMPORTANT! DO NOT USE MODDING SCRIPTS DIRECTLY ON YOUR GAME DIRECTORY, that's always a bad idea.)

4. Run the script using Java. You will need to do this by typing in a command into a command-line prompt. In Windows, you get there by finding the "Command Prompt" (cmd.exe) app in the Start menu. The command you will need to type in is:

   java -classpath workersandresources.jar com.jk.workersandresources.GameScenario WORKING_DIRECTORY MEAN_PRODUCTIVITY_MULTIPLIER INDUSTRY_DEVIATION BUILDING_DEVIATION

Where:

WORKING_DIRECTORY is your directory from #3 above. It is the only required parameter.

MEAN_PRODUCTIVITY_MULTIPLIER is the average productivity and size multiplier per industry. A value of 1 uses the default values. I think that's too easy, so I recommend 0.8 (that makes each industry 80% productive).

INDUSTRY_DEVIATION is the standard deviation of productivity per industry. So if you use MEAN_PRODUCTIVITY_MULTIPLIER of 0.8 and INDUSTRY_DEVIATION of 0.3, most industries will be between 50% (0.5) and 110% (1.1) productive.

BUILDING_DEVIATION is the standard deviation of productivity per building. This is applied on top of the industry productivity. So if you gave MEAN_PRODUCTIVITY_MULTIPLIER of 0.8, and INDUSTRY_DEVIATION of 0.3, an industry like wood may end up with productivity of 90% (0.9), and if you give BUILDING_DEVIATION of 0.15, the wood buildings would be expected to be between 75% (0.75) and 105% (1.05) productive.

If you don't supply values for the numbers, the defaults are 0.8, 0.3, and 0.15 (the values I like to run with).

The script will generate a bunch of logging output, and then at the end will give you a little blurb that will look like this:

Greetings from the great nation of Tajmenistan!

Our people are most productive in:
Gravel (1.15)
Energy (1.09)
Agriculture (1.03)
Livestock (0.88)
Clothing (0.85)
Construction Materials (0.84)
Iron (0.74)
Wood (0.70)
Oil (0.68)
Coal (0.61)
Advanced Construction Materials (0.41)
Alcohol (0.22)

Our largest industries are:
Energy (1.38)
Coal (1.25)
Alcohol (1.16)
Gravel (1.08)
Livestock (1.06)
Agriculture (0.96)
Advanced Construction Materials (0.79)
Oil (0.76)
Clothing (0.66)
Iron (0.54)
Construction Materials (0.50)
Wood (0.20)

Our people are most famous for:
Energy (1.49)
Gravel (1.23)
Agriculture (0.99)
Livestock (0.93)
Coal (0.77)
Clothing (0.56)
Oil (0.52)
Construction Materials (0.42)
Iron (0.40)
Advanced Construction Materials (0.32)
Alcohol (0.25)
Wood (0.14)

Config files are in [DIRECTORY]\Tajmenistan-1559359482539 -- copy over the files in your buildings_types game directory (MAKE SURE TO BACK THEM UP FIRST!).
Data for all the industries is in [DIRECTORY]\Tajmenistan-1559359482539\data.tsv

This is telling you which industries "should" be most productive, most large (number of workers), and most costly. This data is a rough guide, it's intentionally misleading because the actual building values have been further randomized around those values. In the above list, I would usually look at an industry like Agriculture as a potential starting point, because it will probably be reasonably productive without having exorbitant capital costs.

5. You should now see a modified list of building files in the directory it gave you above. It will look like this:

6. Copy all of the ".ini" files from this directory into your actual game "buildings_types" directory. This will permanently change the game configuration for these buildings! Make sure you took a safe backup above. If you want to revert to the vanilla game, all you do is copy the .ini files from your backup back into the game directory.

7. Fire up the game and play! I recommend playing on full hard mode, because if you don't find hard mode too easy, why would you be trying to change the economics of the game?

Planning Spreadsheet

This repo includes an Excel spreadsheet I used for designing this mod, and which you can use for planning how to build your great nation. It shows you the production values of every building that was modified, and estimates profitability of trade-based production for those buildings. Some people may prefer to play without using this "crutch".

To use the spreadsheet, open economics-v2.xlsx in Excel.

Using a good text editor (not Notepad), copy the values that the script wrote in "data.tsv". Paste them into cell A5 in the spreadsheet. It should look like this:

Next, you'll need to enter actual trade values into the spreadsheet in columns T and U. The spreadsheet includes estimates for export and import costs per ton (fuel for your exports, and transport tariffs for the imports). Enter your commodity prices from your game, and edit the export/import costs based on what you think you'll be paying. That section should look like this:

You will now see the middle section updated. It looks like this:

This is the section that tells you which industries might be profitable based on strictly importing the products needed, and exporting the products they produce, with the transport cost assumptions above. It is usually a good idea to focus on the industries that either have a good profitability, or whose imports can be wholly created domestically (e.g. coal/iron/wood/oil/crops/gravel can all be created with zero import cost).

Using the spreadsheet is optional, however it is a very useful tool in planning your economic development. Under some hard scenarios, I don't think I would have survived without referring to the spreadsheet.

Example values

Here are some ways to generate interesting scenarios.

java -classpath workersandresources.jar com.jk.workersandresources.GameScenario WORKING_DIRECTORY 0.8 0.3 0.15

The default configuration. It makes industries 50%-110% productive for the most part. Generally only maybe 2-4 industries will be solidly profitable enough to use as your starting point. Significantly more difficult than vanilla, but most scenarios should have a clear path to growth.

java -classpath workersandresources.jar com.jk.workersandresources.GameScenario WORKING_DIRECTORY 1 0.2 0.1

A slight variation from vanilla. Industries will have the same scale as the base game, within about 20% of normal productivity. Coal, oil, livestock, and clothing will still be nerfed.

java -classpath workersandresources.jar com.jk.workersandresources.GameScenario WORKING_DIRECTORY 0.5 0.3 0.1

Insanely difficult, industries are scaled to an average of 50% productivity, most buildings ranging from 20%-80% productivity. Many industries will be unprofitable or have extremely low productivity. If you do find a way to get to profitability, it will likely be a very long slog to building a great nation!

java -classpath workersandresources.jar com.jk.workersandresources.GameScenario WORKING_DIRECTORY 1.5 0.5 0.25

Easier start, still might be a bit harder than vanilla since the core industries are still nerfed, but should be a nice easy intro. Industries will be around 100-200% productivity.

java -classpath workersandresources.jar com.jk.workersandresources.GameScenario WORKING_DIRECTORY 0.8 0.6 0.6

Very divergent scenario. Some industries/buildings could be 200% productivity, but many will also be at 20%. So some industries will be super-viable, others will be unviable. May be good if you want to try some scenarios where you are forced to go into a limited number of industries and power your nation through trade.

Bug reports, requests, etc

Please use the Issues tracker here to log any issues or requests you have.

Good luck!