Dev Diary 4 - The Economic System and why it may seem a little similar

[ashandresash]

here i like more the idea of distribution centers based on transport costs. i reckon transport costs would be a hell to manage so if we leave it in infrastruture level that would pretty much do it. and the the other important point, merchant fleet. i'd implement this with a new industry.

many industry buildings may lead to endemic lack of workers. easy solution. the industries doesn't need to employ just people but capital as well. this may work also to help problems of supply as King told us in this DD. And it could simulate foreign investments that were/is so important for capitalism in developping countries.

It would be great. Though I see a problem with transport and a WM: you don't know where your goods or resources are coming from, in special with goods like coffee, for example, wich is mainly produced, let's say both in South America and Africa. Or grain, produced almost everywhere.

That's why I think we could simulate it in a more abstracted way, by trade efficiency, a factor affecting prices both of imports and exports (thus, reducing profit of selling your surplus, even making more likely others to satisfy world demand and you being incapable of selling it, bringing unemployment to you). A trade industry seem great for me (though I'd prefer to have it like 'services', but... it's negotiable ).

Other thing should be your internal market: not investing in infrastructure, and a 'commercial net' would have a cost in, maybe reducing production efficiency (as you won't get all your production reaching markets), which would affect either incomes of POPs in undeveloped regions (reducing it). In other words: investing in a commercial net is better for your production and making people money matters more.

What I find definetely tricky is not the one and only world market, but a 'perfect' world market: same price everywhere, and so on. Please, let us we keynesians have our market imperfections :rofl:

 

[RedRalphWiggum]

Luckily, we are slated to learn more on this tomorrow. Don't let us down King, serve the crocodiles some meat this time (any homoerotic overtones in this post are entirely incidental).

 

[alvaro]

It would be great. Though I see a problem with transport and a WM: you don't know where your goods or resources are coming from, in special with goods like coffee, for example, wich is mainly produced, let's say both in South America and Africa. Or grain, produced almost everywhere.

we all see it

Other thing should be your internal market: not investing in infrastructure, and a 'commercial net' would have a cost in, maybe reducing production efficiency (as you won't get all your production reaching markets), which would affect either incomes of POPs in undeveloped regions (reducing it). In other words: investing in a commercial net is better for your production and making people money matters more.

What I find definetely tricky is not the one and only world market, but a 'perfect' world market: same price everywhere, and so on. Please, let us we keynesians have our market imperfections :rofl:

that's actually the problem with the WM, that everyone gets the fair price. with this we just have left the hunger in the world and the health of the rain forest and we are done.

 

[Le Jones]

Looking good - am glad that the 'flavour' of Vicky will remain.

 

[King]

Transport costs should be easy to calculate.

Just have a total number of units by type, their capacity, resources they use.

a train will have a certain capacity, require coal or oil and machinery, and x number of people.

Clipper would use lumber cloth and a little iron and a lot of people.

As it costs more to have people around the value of moving to steam ships becomes obvious and necessary.

Transport modes could be as follows:

Road:
Sherpa.
Wagon.
Auto.
Truck.

Rail:
Train.

Sea:
Clipper
Steamer
Liner
Panimax

Air:
Airplane.

Your technology cold determine the ratio of resource consumption for each mode.

Movement by troops should be confined to road, except if they move strategically. In this case they should move at rail speed and use up capacity. In this case then there is competition for transport resources between troop movement and goods.

Sea units could be assigned escorts as in HoI and then based upon the commitment to blockading they transport can be inhibited, sunk or captured.

Units should also suffer normal attrition. That is, in the normal course of business units should die off from wear and tear.

Any upgrades should be paid for.

There should also be ports that have a particular capacity. If you don't build up your ports then you get a bottleneck. Lots of transport sitting around sucking resources but not moving anything.

This doesn't require much more than expanding the existing transport system to cover the movement of all goods.

The other thing missing from Vicky is the transport of people. Obviously they can walk from one province to another but they may also want to use (and pay for) ships trains and autos.

This brings up an issues for PoPs, assets that consume. If you track by pop the houses and cars they own you get pretty good consumption factor for fuel and maintenance demand. Having an automobile isn't like having brick, it has it's own supply ecology.

As far as consumption goes, food should always be listed first. (and yes, slaves do eat food and have higher level needs, even slaves need incentives to work).

No they aren't

 

[henryjai]

No they aren't

I agree, it's very mathematically complicated. But I guess it's the job of game developers to devise a simple mechanism to approximate the situation.

Transport costs should be easy to calculate.

Just have a total number of units by type, their capacity, resources they use.

a train will have a certain capacity, require coal or oil and machinery, and x number of people.

Clipper would use lumber cloth and a little iron and a lot of people.

As it costs more to have people around the value of moving to steam ships becomes obvious and necessary.

Transport modes could be as follows:

Road:
Sherpa.
Wagon.
Auto.
Truck.

Rail:
Train.

Sea:
Clipper
Steamer
Liner
Panimax

Air:
Airplane.

Let me try to make some maths here...

if x to y is d, x to z is 2d

I suppose it takes 1 day for you to ship 1 unit of grain for distance d with a single clipper, it would take 2 days for a single clipper to ship 1 unit of grain.

that means, for each day, a clipper can only ship 1/2 unit of grain for distance of 2d.

problem is that, even with this simple model, you would have HELL LOTS of calculations to do for each shipping...EVERY day in a game!


not to mention that it cost much more for long distance travels, it's more risky and costly (such as going down in a storm, get robbed by pirates, salaries of seaman, stuffs deteriortating... etc etc), not to mention you can't just get more ships, your ports should also be able to maintain such flow.

 

[unmerged(59077)]

Or you could just have transport cost you a % of your efficiency, per province, depending on infrasctructure.

 

[King]

Or you could just have transport cost you a % of your efficiency, per province, depending on infrasctructure.

Just think about it this way, with a world market we need to keep track of what is being sold on the market, and from where so the right people can get paid, and who buys it so the right people spend the money. However have no need to keep track of both at the same time. If we start to factor in transport we are adding quite a major level of computational difficulty to the game.

 

[RedRalphWiggum]

Just think about it this way, with a world market we need to keep track of what is being sold on the market, and from where so the right people can get paid, and who buys it so the right people spend the money. However have no need to keep track of both at the same time. If we start to factor in transport we are adding quite a major level of computational difficulty to the game.

How about a simple one-off multiplier based on tech levels?

 

[King]

How about a simple one-off multiplier based on tech levels?

Who pays this, where does the money go, what tech level effects this, you already have production cost modified by tech will this second level doing basically the same thing make balance more difficult, how do you represent this interface wise, how does this impact the unemployment model? I have more questions once you have answered these.

 

[RedRalphWiggum]

Who pays this, where does the money go, what tech level effects this, you already have production cost modified by tech will this second level doing basically the same thing make balance more difficult, how do you represent this interface wise, how does this impact the unemployment model? I have more questions once you have answered these.

Not in the mood for questions, in other words. Fair enough, can't argue with that.

 

[King]

Not in the mood for questions, in other words. Fair enough, can't argue with that.

Ok maybe a I went about it the wrong way, but to be honest in a ame as complex as Victoria 2 nothing is ever that simple.

 

[RedRalphWiggum]

Ok maybe a I went about it the wrong way, but to be honest in a ame as complex as Victoria 2 nothing is ever that simple.

Yeah, fair enough, I respect the fact that you have an insight into these things we don't. There is probably all sorts of knock-on effects of making small changes and alterations that the community wouldn't be aware of. I don't have even the most rudimentary knowledge of programming so I'm not going to pretend I have any idea how these things work. But remember, people only ask because they are fascinated by the game and the process of creating it.

 

[ashandresash]

Ok maybe a I went about it the wrong way, but to be honest in a ame as complex as Victoria 2 nothing is ever that simple.

Having unemployment rather than 'unassigned', and a 'monetary circuit' as you've stated in last DD seems so cool and promising that I assume we're going to be very understanding with the world market issue

EDIT: +1 to last RedRalphWiggum post

 

[unmerged(77251)]

yeah, fair enough, i respect the fact that you have an insight into these things we don't. There is probably all sorts of knock-on effects of making small changes and alterations that the community wouldn't be aware of. I don't have even the most rudimentary knowledge of programming so i'm not going to pretend i have any idea how these things work. But remember, people only ask because they are fascinated by the game and the process of creating it.

+2

 

[RELee]

Ok maybe a I went about it the wrong way, but to be honest in a ame as complex as Victoria 2 nothing is ever that simple.

Ach! Ja! I tink I zee it now, mein butterblume. You haf a nefarious scheme already in your mind, und ready to spring upon us unawares.

I am impressed!

 

[henryjai]

Having unemployment rather than 'unassigned', and a 'monetary circuit' as you've stated in last DD seems so cool and promising that I assume we're going to be very understanding with the world market issue

EDIT: +1 to last RedRalphWiggum post

circuit makes me think of vector functions, makes me think of potentials.

 

[unmerged(59077)]

Just think about it this way, with a world market we need to keep track of what is being sold on the market, and from where so the right people can get paid, and who buys it so the right people spend the money. However have no need to keep track of both at the same time. If we start to factor in transport we are adding quite a major level of computational difficulty to the game.

Well, only you would know the answer. Who owns the transportation networks in-game?

Moreover, it's not like transportation inefficiencies mean that someone must be recieving the lost profits, it simply means the profits are never made in the first place. So yes, it could be a black sinkhole without breaking anything about the game other than a commitment to make sure the finances are completely circular.

That said, I find the idea of tracking every d. very interesting and am looking forward to seeing it in action once the game comes out. Esp. since OH thinks there will be a 'buy-domestic-first' mechanism and that blocades really could be implemented; that covers most of what I wanted out of the new economy.

 

[EGaffney]

There already was a "buy-domestic-first" mechanism in Victoria, so that's a reasonable assumption. You can't really have a sensible tariff system without it, after all!

 

[unmerged(59077)]

There already was a "buy-domestic-first" mechanism in Victoria, so that's a reasonable assumption.

It didn't work on items that weren't immediately used, although you could stockpile them if you wanted. I don't remember if you had to pay for the stockpiling. But yes, it is a reasonable assumption.