Anyone wants real and working economy?

Dishonor said:

Part 2 changes needs of pops not what they buy. They would change needs from 1.5 to 1. They would buy 1 and have 100% fulfilled.

Substitution effect would be interesting. But I think it would be too big change to make it into vanila now.

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The point I was trying to make is that since they only demand 1 unit now because it is too expensive for 1.5, that should be partly unfulfilled needs. What you described models the demand for the goods, not what the POPs would ideally want to have.

Otherwise it doesn't make much sense. Equating demand to need would put us in a situation where by raising the price of everything you can make your POPs happier, since their demands for everything falls, and so needs of everything falls too, thus getting 100% needs fulfilled despite not consuming any more than before.

I agree that substitution effect is getting more complicated than necessary (esp for a game). However I can't see part 2 of your proposals working properly under vanilla mechanics. This kinda stuff is probably why the devs didn't implement any sort of complex economical model

Dishonor said:

3. Price almost doesn't change (at last down). I think this is on purpose by PI. If they allow real price changes, their current economics system would crash in no time.

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So maybe this is where we should start. We need this part to work right for the rest to really work in a way that is meaningful.

Do you not agree?

Now, I am obliged to do the heterodox criticism here.

First - what "real" economy are we talking about here? You might have a PhD in Economics, but sell me your theoretical apparatus. All I got is that you are attempting some neoclassical improvement by reviewing some aspects of the game - and let me remind everyone here, Victoria 2 is a GAME and not reality, which economists tend to have some slight problems in working with that sometimes*

Also, wouldn't PI benefit a lot more from just brute-forcing some of the more complex econometric models that we know and adapting that into the game, following this idea? I believe there are tools sophisticated enough to do scenarios based on POPs and such...

...Please do note that I am not trying to dismiss the OP or anything. I am just curious.

* - considering that, while I do not have my degree yet, I feel obliged to mess around with my colleagues

Pijama said:

Now, I am obliged to do the heterodox criticism here.

First - what "real" economy are we talking about here? You might have a PhD in Economics, but sell me your theoretical apparatus. All I got is that you are attempting some neoclassical improvement by reviewing some aspects of the game - and let me remind everyone here, Victoria 2 is a GAME and not reality, which economists tend to have some slight problems in working with that sometimes*

Also, wouldn't PI benefit a lot more from just brute-forcing some of the more complex econometric models that we know and adapting that into the game, following this idea? I believe there are tools sophisticated enough to do scenarios based on POPs and such...

...Please do note that I am not trying to dismiss the OP or anything. I am just curious.

* - considering that, while I do not have my degree yet, I feel obliged to mess around with my colleagues

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The vanilla model is broken, both for realism and gameplay purposes.

All he suggests seems to be that demand should scale with income and prices and that prices should be based on real demand, not virtual demand.

That brings the problem of setting prices, no? Which is a bloody dangerous territory.

(Not to mention that then you have to simulate inflation and deflation to boot)

I do not mind fixed pricing for the sake of gameplay, as here I am a gamer first and foremost and not an economist, so isn't better to fine-tune POPs demands rather than adjusting more drastic aspects?

Foelsgaard said:

The vanilla model is broken, both for realism and gameplay purposes.

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Ok the vanilla model is certainly not perfect. But how exactly is it broken?

Paradox should organize a seminar in Stockholm, and invite you economics and simulation guys over for two or three days, on Ryanair tickets

First they should externalize the economics functions, give you their debug builds of Vic2, along with some representative save game files, and plotting functions so that you can visualize the economic numbers on a separate screen while the game is running.

Gather some numbers, then have a big brainstorm session with all of you. Divide into three teams, each one tackling one problem in the economic simulator, put you in front of fast computers so they can run the inefficient debug builds with externalized functions at acceptable speed, and let you get cracking at coming up with solutions!!

And put the results into the next patch. If the implemented model is still "acceptable" to an economists, publish the results in a game developer magazine or a journal on education in economics

rmdsc said
"Ok the vanilla model is certainly not perfect. But how exactly is it broken? "

@ rmdsc

You get too rich too easilly, the economy colapses late game. You have high prices for products with no actual demand, since people can't buy it. The POPs promote too early, converging towards too much aris. You just can't get no clerks without NF, cause they demote or promote too eagerly, without staying clerks. Capis build the wrong type of industries and take too much time too build things. LF is a economy killer. I could go on...

@Leviathan07: It would be great, except that we would eventually end up in bloody murder.

Economic science, political economy, whatever you want to call it, has one fundamental aspect that people sometimes forget - it is a HUMAN science. In Physics, Chemistry and etc once we get a result after intense experimentation, we can be damn sure that if all conditions required are met, we will have the same result.

Here, we get a hundred different answers that change with the alignment of the planets and stars, what we had for breakfast and so on and on.

Pijama said:

@Leviathan07: It would be great, except that we would eventually end up in bloody murder.

Economic science, political economy, whatever you want to call it, has one fundamental aspect that people sometimes forget - it is a HUMAN science. In Physics, Chemistry and etc once we get a result after intense experimentation, we can be damn sure that if all conditions required are met, we will have the same result.

Here, we get a hundred different answers that change with the alignment of the planets and stars, what we had for breakfast and so on and on.

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Very true. A bunch of people discussing economics. That could be the starting sentence of a book about III World War.

Pijama said it all.

I would love to see OPs ideas implemented. Still waiting for 1.2 to buy V2 (hoping that most issues will be dealt with until then) but these ideas sound like they could be to V2 as Revolutions was to Vicky1 ! Great thread, a pleasure to read.

hey Dishonor, I haven't had a chance to read through the whole thread, but have you taken a look at Brownbeard's POP revamp thread? He has some ideas on there to mod the game so that as the POPs have more money they will keep spending on more goods.

the best would be to use a simple economic equilibrium model at least for the micro decisions. just give the pops a substitutional utility function (u=x1^a*x2^b*x3^c*..*xn^z with sum a+b+c+..+n=1) or maybe several for each level of satisfaction so they dont need everything right away. they simply max utility, supply is used in ascending order of costs so we have a (almost) a supply function for each good. prices shouldnt be too volatile so the capis could decide reasonable considering expected rate of return or whatever works best.

next step would be a variable marginal consume-quota dependent on the interest rate which should increase with dept in relation to gdp or something similar of the game economy. increasing debt leads to less savings, in consequence a default will be inevitable if the spending is not decreased.

just a few cents

as wrotten the supply/demand model doesnt feel that well, i bring another issue within : start the money printing machines. money is also a product.

But those both points are only further ideas.

wealth is always relative, also money is always relative, even gold's worth is relative. Demand & supply.

After time, there is far more supply than demand (like coal). And with industrialism production but also needs skyrocketed. Why not in game ? Cause in game even the farmers with tractors in a highly developed province will never need fertilizer, automobiles(tractor replace), lumber,cement,steel ,... to produce grain (actually its a luxury need, but if the pop isnt rich enough?). In reality we produce better tools to be able to build more better tools to replace more and more human workforce to get things produced.
may its somehow possible to simulate this.

Small example, when having researched tractors , but this first examplares are so expansive, so that the time until it paid up is quite high or never reached. Than there would be no need to do it, " let's work the nxt years in the same old way ". But once we hit something 15-25 y (or in which short terms do v2 calculate?), more farms are going to buy tractors and less people are needed. And than if its cheaper to replace farmers with new machines than expanding the rgo - then do so.

----> get rid off this free upgrades. Also factories, to produce whatever - u will need more machines to be able to work more efficient. while more efficient means work efficiency -> 1$ dollar for the worker + for 0,5$ tools, will make him work lets say with 125% , than it wouldn't be better, or lets say with 400% -> this would be an awesome increase and the good can be produced better. And please get rid off this input_efficiency as far as possible , in many cases it doesnt make sense.

But i guess to bring that realism into game will take too much cpu usage...

And of course with your mod to change the pops need, the private market will raise hopefully also good.

It has also mentioned that the prices for building factories,railroads are ridiculous low. And when a 2M pop has 2M money reserves- i guess its true. Turn the base prices up by factor 5-50 ?

Anyway when there should be a better model for those 2 aspects , we will have a bigger problem . There is no money cO . money only increases with production of gold. Well, when the growth of the economic is higher than the production of money . Than the people are going to be more poor than before. Actually , when producing more products the price will decrease, ok so far. But not generally and not for every product , v2 is game of deflation only. This can work until a certain point. So make money to a product, which is based at begin mainly from gold production and at the end mainly from national product.
What demands money : high deflation
What makes too much supply : too much money print.
Also people want to have some money left as everyday and luxury need.

And may another use of the mentioned surplus_reserves_days_impact at begin, could be a promoting/demoting factor. People like to become rich. And if u have more bureaucrats than needed for maximal efficiency - they should become unemployed and same for clergymen and and and....

Really, all we need right now is a fix for the demand = desire issue. That's the serious flaw. No giant overhauls of the system are neccessary.

Dishonor said:

I was thinking about it too. But remember that not every player is economist. It would be too much for V2.

We can make mod for only economist geeks later. I will be participated.

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well they don't need to be but they would like the result. its still a social science which describes human behavior (or optimal human behavior) which is usually pretty plausible

@ dbraaker I hope you are not talking about economics. Cause that(the science) has nothing of plausible. At least the way the mainstream teaches it in the main Universities. Being a graduated economist myself, I spent most of my years in University listening to crap like: if people save enough, economy will rise to stars due to higher investment. And other things like that.

On topic, Have someone open a thread in Mod foruns yet, to put this system to work? There's a plan for this?