Capitalists in North Germany 1858

What's the economic policy of your ruling party?

If your policy allow capitalist to build factory, you must focus on state where there is already some factories and increase their benefit. This will ensure that those capitalist in this state get money so they can invest in other state and start the economy.

How many workers are there currently in the factories that you already have? In my experience as Prussia/the NGF it was tricky to get enough craftsmen in the early game.

Your capitalists won't build factories unless you have workers filling something like 2/3 of available factory jobs (I don't think clerks count either way).

Having a focus on capitalists will encourage POPs to promote to them and stop existing capitalists demoting. However, unless the conditions mentioned above are met, and unless they have sufficient money, then they'll just sit there unprofitably.

Tariffs will affect factory profitability, but if you're able to make money with the current factories then it shouldn't make too much difference in this regard. Of the 24% of the upper class not getting their needs met how many of these are capitalists? It might be that they're demanding luxury goods that you need to import, which means that your tariffs will be having a negative effect on them by forcing them to spend more of their money.

Have your capitalists started projects that they can't afford to finish, or is it just a case of them sitting around and not doing anything at all?

As to what you can do, you could try lowering tariffs to see what effect that has. Research will also change the balance of profitability, so if you can concentrate on the commerce and industrial techs - especially railways - then do so. Building a rail network is generally beneficial, although you might have to pay for the first level or so out of your own funds.

Other than that, patience is your best friend. In my current Germany game my industry didn't start to take off until the 1870s/80s, but by the 1910s it was booming.

Don't forget all promotions are affected by literacy and state administration levels.

Get a steel factory going in the Nordrhine. This is the historic Ruhr area and can be a huge economic boost. Do the same in Silesia. I've seen these 2 steel factories produce most of the world's supply around 1900. Both were double digits in size. Probably would have continued, but that's when I started diversifying those 2 areas. My next go around I expect to do that much quicker.

To do this, you'll have to switch to the Reactionary party so that you can get State Capitalism.

RedRalphWiggum said:

Don't forget all promotions are affected by literacy and state administration levels.

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Neither of those is really going to be an issue in North Germany, though.

Any chance that you're still running version 1.1 ?
Because having a factory lvl 6 while no other are built over your land is typical of 1.1...

Hmm, I personally don't lower the taxes at all in the first 20 years or more. They are low anyway. What I do instead is to have negative tolls. This way the capis have more money to invest and the factories are more profitable.

Dachspmg said:

Neither of those is really going to be an issue in North Germany, though.

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Some parts of it haven't got great admin IIRC, like Prussia

burnzi2 said:

capitalists in Brandenburg (presence only 0.87%)

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That's a lot. Usually in my games I have about 0.3% capitalists in the most populous provinces, and that's enough for them to build factories like mad all over the country. So I guess your problem is rather the lack of craftsmen filling the existing factories, which is typical for Germany.