Poor pops suddenly stop buying all life goods (says goods not available)

Some things I have observed regarding poor POPs not buying certain goods.

1) The UK eats up alot of things on the WM with #1 prestige. Sometimes, the goods are simply not there. This is WAD.

2) If you are short of something that both POPs and factories use (i.e. timber), and the UK is eating most of it up on the WM, and you do not produce enough in your SOI to cover both POPs and factories, factories will get it first and the POPs will not get their needs met. I assume this is WAD,as the alternative is worse.

3) Generally, when I am short of a good that has insane demand on the WM (timber and fruit are the habitual offenders), I will annex provinces from uncivs that produce the resource. China has some lucrative timber provinces, and with your advanced technology, you can meet your needs by annexing the provinces in question.

4) POPs who cannot get a good due to lack of it on the WM, and who are still able to buy luxury goods, will still be happy. So, while there might be good money to be had in fixing the resource shortage, it should not screw with militancy too much.

Perhaps.

The good news is that the UK subsidizes its ridiculous industries. If you can grab the right RGOs, and build the right intermediate factories, you can make good money supplying the UK things like lumber, steel, and electical gears if the UK forgets to build enough of those factories.

Just dont bother making clothes. They own 99% of the world's dye, and will spam clothing factories until they run out of dye.

ZechsMerquise73 said:

Which is pretty silly, considering this is not even how a globalized world works. How can the UK demand first dibs on resources from Georgia in 1836? They should have no range at all on something like that.

Click to expand...

Considering the alternatives, this is an abstraction that makes sense. Yes, realistically, this should not be occuring. But the reality of development time and testing means that more complicated regional markets, as suggested by others in this thread, may be beyond the reach of the initial development of the game. This also does not factor in SOIs. To be honest, with the bonuses and pelantlies assigned to generating influence in countries that either border you or are on other continents, the world SHOULD settle into regionally appropriate SOIs, creating regional markets. Since it costs more influence to sphere countries on other continents, this simulates the difficulty in controlling that market, not unlike your complaint about the UK grabbing goods from Georgia in 1836.

As for complaints about the UK's devouring of resources, I would like to point out that the lack of needed natural resources is a very appropriate problem to face in the Victorian period. As your historical counterparts did historically, you should be carving a "place in the sun" anyway, and that empire you are building should be geared to making your like easier economically. Are you short iron and coal? Annex Korea. Need oil? Annex or sphere Brunei and other minor uncivs with oil (annex for preference, since oil production is lousy with low techs and infrastructure). Planning on dominating the market for telephones, airplanes, and cars? You better put Brazil and the Netherlands into your SOI so you have sole access to their rubber. (In my current USA game, I make so many things that require rubber than the whole planet's supply is tapped out!) And if you are going to get into furniture in a big way, annex pieces of China that produce timber. Between POPs and factories, you will need it badly.

My point is that while regional markets might make more historical sense, the reality is that you need to use SOIs and outright annexation to create those regional markets with the current game model. It is possible to do this and get around the UK's ever insatiable appetite for resources. And it is one of the things that requires some real strategy. Players in other threads have complained that they feel like they sit back and watch the game run on full speed while waiting between wars. Those that do that for more than a few years at a time are not seeing all the in-game tasks that should and need to be performed in order to be successful. Monopolizing the world's supply of oil, and therefore fuel, in order to cripple British naval dominance in the cruiser/dreadnought era requires real finesse; it is also quite satisfying going to war with the UK in 1915, knowing that the 3,000 ships they have will fight at 75% of their efficiency due to having almost no fuel available, while your own navy wanders the world, sinking them and laughing maniacally. And this does not even factor in tank brigades they won't have because they have no rubber with which to build cars->barrels.

It almost makes gas attacks redundant. Almost.