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

Let me post my own opinions


1. Blockade

sure, it's stupid to have 1 frigate blockading 4 ports...so, how about,

% of blockade = (no. of warships)/(no. of ports to blockade)


2. World Markets, Local Markets

I would like the idea being able to set-up a local market with your bordering countries to trade stuffs without worrying being blockaded, well, I heard that in HttT there are some trade league or something like that...

3. Convoy maintaining/Convoy efficiency

I think that convoys should cost more to maintain rather than one-off cost buying ships. There should be additional costs to maintain a merchant fleet, the larger your fleet is, the higher the drain on your economy (if you don't count that you need seaman!)

Moreover, I would like more advanced convoy efficiency to be implemented, currently you need only 1 ship to ship goods from either hamburg to london or singapore to london. It also take only 1 ship to ship 200 tonnes of grain or just 20 gram of diamonds. This certainly don't makes any sense at all.

I think the number of convoy needed should be more details, maybe something like this,

Convoy needed: Mean[(distance from homeland ports)*(product weight)]*Mean[1/(individual convoy efficiency)]

The factor [1/(individual convoy efficiency)] would be corresponding to the efficiency of shipping which is related to type of ship(steamer/clipper) and naval technology, it would be reasonable that steamers would operate good at handling more goods and being more efficient.

the factor distance from homeland ports would maybe not good to simply assign it as a linear relationship to the absolute distance, I would suggest a exponential factor.

and the convoy efficiency should only be simply,

(no. of convoy)*(convoy maintenence %)/(convoy needed)

which is in percentage scale of 1-100%

If WM makes things playable, then alright.

But:

1. Wartime Blockades
2. Resource Shortages
3. Economic Imperialism
4. Diminishing Returns
5. Transport Efficiency

Have to be somehow modelled, otherwise it's hardly an improvement over Ricky.

On your map of Britain, I would suggest changing the province named as 'Ipswich' to 'East Anglia'. The Vicky province contains the RL counties of Norfolk (Norwich) and Suffolk (Ipswich). Norfolk 'Dumplings' and Suffok 'Swedes' are great rivals and to favour one by naming the province after the main city of one county and not the other is not good. The other provinces tend to be named after the counties and not named after the cities.

I Loved Victoria. Started playing with 1.3c, but it didn't really come into fruition until 1.4. I think it's the best Paradox game ever, despite it's many problems. I just hope you don't mess things up too much gameplay wise. Improve the interface and such of course, but don't turn it into EU or HoI (not that I'm saying you are, just...don't)

Sgt Bash said:

On your map of Britain, I would suggest changing the province named as 'Ipswich' to 'East Anglia'. The Vicky province contains the RL counties of Norfolk (Norwich) and Suffolk (Ipswich). Norfolk 'Dumplings' and Suffok 'Swedes' are great rivals and to favour one by naming the province after the main city of one county and not the other is not good. The other provinces tend to be named after the counties and not named after the cities.

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Look at the map closely, all of the provinces are named, as according to Victoria convention, by main urban center of the province. Hence Chelmsford not Essex, Plymouth not Cornwall, Canterbury not Kent, Newcastle-upon-Tyne not Northumbria, etc etc.

Only EU3 and Rome AFAIK use geographic region name for provinces.

RGB said:

If WM makes things playable, then alright.

But:

1. Wartime Blockades
2. Resource Shortages
3. Economic Imperialism
4. Diminishing Returns
5. Transport Efficiency

Have to be somehow modelled, otherwise it's hardly an improvement over Ricky.

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1. Can be simulated by allowing players to fully or partially cut their adversaries off from the WM, either through the blockade of ports or through pressuring neighbouring countries to close their borders to the nations in question. Local trade not necessary.

2. Call me a fool here, but Vicky 1 had resource shortages a plenty.

3. Traditionally this was through the establishing of a semi-colonial regime which would control profits from imports/exports in a country. Perhaps some intermediate level of colonisation short of full annexation which allows you to take a substantial percentage of the profits from a country`s trade with the WM, and also allows you to invest in resource extraction and infrastructure. Call it `establish a protectorate`, requires strong military/naval prescence in the area, offends countries who consider it to be in their sphere of influence.

4. Of resource extraction? Seems likely.

5. Transport efficiency of what? Trade with the WM? Or do you mean within nations based on infrastructure? Not sure how this could be modelled.

The only thing I would add is that it would be nice to see the merchant marine of a nation featured in some way. Any nation with seaports should have some kind of merchant marine, if only to contribute their fair share to the world market and to give shipping yards something to do in between producing warships.

Traditionally this was through the establishing of a semi-colonial regime which would control profits from imports/exports in a country. Perhaps some intermediate level of colonisation short of full annexation which allows you to take a substantial percentage of the profits from a country`s trade with the WM, and also allows you to invest in resource extraction and infrastructure. Call it `establish a protectorate`, requires strong military/naval prescence in the area, offends countries who consider it to be in their sphere of influence.

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That doesn't allow for any overlap or competing interests in a country, such as in China, where many Western powers had a sizable stake. We really need to be able to 'colonize' countries economically without flat out conquering the place.

2. Call me a fool here, but Vicky 1 had resource shortages a plenty.

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how can someone forget that they can't buy a single furniture ...

OHgamer said:

Look at the map closely, all of the provinces are named, as according to Victoria convention, by main urban center of the province. Hence Chelmsford not Essex, Plymouth not Cornwall, Canterbury not Kent, Newcastle-upon-Tyne not Northumbria, etc etc.

Only EU3 and Rome AFAIK use geographic region name for provinces.

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You are, of couse, correct. Sorry about that. I guess it has been that long ago that I played Vicky. Ipswich did not bother me then.

FOARP said:

4. Of resource extraction? Seems likely.

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Won't it be hell lots of calculations for CPU for things like that

FOARP said:

1. Can be simulated by allowing players to fully or partially cut their adversaries off from the WM, either through the blockade of ports or through pressuring neighbouring countries to close their borders to the nations in question. Local trade not necessary.

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Vicky 1 had no such option. At all. WM was always available.

Simply making blockade reduce WM % would result in your own people starving even if you're an agricultural country...they only ever ever ever buy off the WM.

2. Call me a fool here, but Vicky 1 had resource shortages a plenty.

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Not so; resource shortage was only apparent when the world didn't have enough population to work the RGOs. Coal and Cotton immediately come to mind. The Coal was easily remedied when you moved some hundred-fifty million people into Manchuria as a civ. After that, you could supply the entire world with coal. This is also why diminishing returns are a must.

What you probably mean is lack of higher-end goods built by higher-end factories. That is a function of tech research and money production and once again, not enough population.

3...Perhaps some intermediate level of colonisation short of full annexation which allows you to take a substantial percentage of the profits from a country`s trade with the WM, and also allows you to invest in resource extraction and infrastructure. Call it `establish a protectorate`, requires strong military/naval prescence in the area, offends countries who consider it to be in their sphere of influence.

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Vicky 1 had no such option. This would be requiring some major work, but would be satisfactory. I'm not asking for everything at once and in a particular way, I'm just asking to be able to simulate blockades, scarcity and internal consumption.

5. Transport efficiency of what? Trade with the WM? Or do you mean within nations based on infrastructure? Not sure how this could be modelled.

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The most abstracted way I can think of is prices in every province are based on WM+cost of transportation except if locally produced.

The only thing I would add is that it would be nice to see the merchant marine of a nation featured in some way. Any nation with seaports should have some kind of merchant marine, if only to contribute their fair share to the world market and to give shipping yards something to do in between producing warships.

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That would certainly keep those clipper yards gainfully employed, yes.

RGB said:

Not so; resource shortage was only apparent when the world didn't have enough population to work the RGOs. Coal and Cotton immediately come to mind. The Coal was easily remedied when you moved some hundred-fifty million people into Manchuria as a civ. After that, you could supply the entire world with coal. This is also why diminishing returns are a must.

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wooo I completely agree with that.

The production should level off when it's reaching a a certain value.

but for agricultural ones? it's hard to quantise the amount of fertile land and put a limit.




I also would love to see the powerful nations to invest in the other nations such as railroads, factories... whatever, I think UK do this a lot.

This would definitely help the poorer nations(not limiting to "uncivs" I think, US, Russia.. etc all have foreign investments) to develop, the workers are those from "poor" nation, and the profit is shared somehow.


Merchant Marines! I think it would be a great way for some nations to make money such as Norway.

RGB said:

(...)
The most abstracted way I can think of is prices in every province are based on WM+cost of transportation except if locally produced.



That would certainly keep those clipper yards gainfully employed, yes.

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I also would think in an abstracted "trade efficiency" like a factor applied to prices of resources and goods imported from WM. The less your trade efficiency is, the less profits you'll obtain for your factories depending on foreign trade, and the poorer would be your POPs in relative terms.

Trade efficiency could be related to blockeage, some sort of trade infrastructure or merchant fleet, certain policies and some techs to research and implement.

ashandresash said:

I also would think in an abstracted "trade efficiency" like a factor applied to prices of resources and goods imported from WM. The less your trade efficiency is, the less profits you'll obtain for your factories depending on foreign trade, and the poorer would be your POPs in relative terms.

Trade efficiency could be related to blockeage, some sort of trade infrastructure or merchant fleet, certain policies and some techs to research and implement.

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but such abstract way didn't provide a way for those nations with a large fleet of ships to make money.... the [price] is relatively lower but what about the [income]?

so far I know that

[income]-[price of stuffs] = money gain

you can't leave out a factor!

About the economy: Will there be a realistic depiction of the financial sector, with central banks generating all the money, by issuing it at interest towards the governments and enterprises, with the resulting perpetual growth of money and debts?

RGB said:

Simply making blockade reduce WM % would result in your own people starving even if you're an agricultural country...they only ever ever ever buy off the WM.

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Actually no it would not, because the WM worked in a 2-stage process in V1, something that most players I don't think really grasped.

When a good is made or an RGO product produced, it goes into the market, but the first people who get to buy it are your local citizens. Any surplus left over beyond your national demand then is sold to the rest of the world.

So there was an internal market in V1, it was simply implied in how it functioned, as the first step towards how goods are sold on the World Market as a whole.

As such, it would not be impossible, I would gather, to code blockades in this model so as to have blockade restrictions apply ONLY to that part of goods going to the world market AFTER the national population has had their fill (as well as blocking imports for both consumption AND production).

So unless your agricultural production for life needs is less than what your national POPs need, your POPs would not necessarily have to starve in a blockade.

I'm all for discussion in minute detail about V2 (look at how many posts I generally have in each thread), but I cannot understand how people are getting so irate about this DD.

I predict that if the game in general is sound, almost no one will even remember that they didn't want a WM. An improved version of the WM will provide interesting and challenging gameplay, and while not 100% realistic, who cares? If the development time needed to make a 100% realistic economic situation was put in then nothing else would be done, it'd be a game on its own.

ashandresash said:

I also would think in an abstracted "trade efficiency" like a factor applied to prices of resources and goods imported from WM. The less your trade efficiency is, the less profits you'll obtain for your factories depending on foreign trade, and the poorer would be your POPs in relative terms.

Trade efficiency could be related to blockeage, some sort of trade infrastructure or merchant fleet, certain policies and some techs to research and implement.

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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.

Transport

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).

RedRalphWiggum said:

I'm all for discussion in minute detail about V2 (look at how many posts I generally have in each thread), but I cannot understand how people are getting so irate about this DD.

I predict that if the game in general is sound, almost no one will even remember that they didn't want a WM. An improved version of the WM will provide interesting and challenging gameplay, and while not 100% realistic, who cares? If the development time needed to make a 100% realistic economic situation was put in then nothing else would be done, it'd be a game on its own.

Click to expand...

I tend to agree this