AHD DD8 – Foreign Investment

[murlocmancer]

THank god i can become an industrial protugal through other nations. Maybe I can stay in great power around 1870 without having to take sicily.

[Beagá]

THIS IS SO AWESOME




And also, what happens to your foreign investments in general if your country undergoes a revolution?

Think that if the revolutionaries support planned economy or state capitalism, and relations between countries aren´t super duper good, you should be screwed heh.

[Sarmatian]

Ouch, I foresee a lot of problems with this.

3 nations declared war on you and they have nationalized your industry.

Your trying to build industry to remove a country from another GP sphere, and that GP declares war on you - decades of investments loss.

You have a lot of unemployed craftsmen and your capis insist on building a factory in Brazil.

You're waiting for your capis to accumulate enough money for your first factory and they decide to build it in Ottoman empire

You're capis build their first Automobile factory in Argentina while you get 123rd furniture factory.

Your capis are now bankrupt because they built a lot of factories in other countries and their numbers bloated in your country making them not earn enough.

And so on...

[Beagá]

All your comments could indeed become true if the system is poorly implemented. Let´s just hope it isn´t, and I have faith it won´t.

[Sarmatian]

I hope so, but considering they haven't dealt with capi AI problems in between Vic 1 and 2, expecting that capis will make good enough decisions in AHD, when they have even more parameters to worry about, is perhaps too optimistic.

[Maginor]

Ouch, I foresee a lot of problems with this.

3 nations declared war on you and they have nationalized your industry.

Your trying to build industry to remove a country from another GP sphere, and that GP declares war on you - decades of investments loss.

You have a lot of unemployed craftsmen and your capis insist on building a factory in Brazil.

You're waiting for your capis to accumulate enough money for your first factory and they decide to build it in Ottoman empire

You're capis build their first Automobile factory in Argentina while you get 123rd furniture factory.

Your capis are now bankrupt because they built a lot of factories in other countries and their numbers bloated in your country making them not earn enough.

And so on...

All of these are actually real world concerns, and they happen a lot in reality. It is what you get without government direction of the economy. Also, it is realistic that foreign investments are a big risk in case of war. This will make the economic and diplomatic metagame even more interesting, because you will be (literally) heavily invested in trying to maintain control of certain regions, and it will maybe give you reasons to intervene in wars concerning those regions or try to maintain peace there at all costs.

[Sarmatian]

All of these are actually real world concerns, and they happen a lot in reality. It is what you get without government direction of the economy. Also, it is realistic that foreign investments are a big risk in case of war. This will make the economic and diplomatic metagame even more interesting, because you will be (literally) heavily invested in trying to maintain control of certain regions, and it will maybe give you reasons to intervene in wars concerning those regions or try to maintain peace there at all costs.

Actually, there is one huge difference compared to real world - in real world capis get a return on those investments (which is why they make them in the first place). As it is now, capis spend your POP's money in another country for absolutely no gain of their own.

[Maginor]

Actually, there is one huge difference compared to real world - in real world capis get a return on those investments (which is why they make them in the first place). As it is now, capis spend your POP's money in another country for absolutely no gain of their own.

That wasn't a part of your initial complaint. I just adressed things like capitalists building their factories in foreign provinces while there is unemployment at home. Whether or not the capitalists gain money from it has some impact on your tax incomes and the capitalist's ability to get funds for even more factories, but it is not immediately relevant to the unemployment issue. Or to the issue of your control of automobile production, which you get to some degree anyway if you sphere Argentina in that example. If the capitalists have some rule that they only spend money in your sphere and only spend some small fraction of their investments abroad, then they are actually better behaved than real world capitalists. There should probably be such rules, though, for the sake of game balance, and because there were a lot of natural restrictions to free trade back then that are difficult to model in other ways.

Edit: what I mean is that I don't claim that the economic model is 100% correct (and I don't expect it to be), I just say that the issues you presented are real world issues.

[keynes2.0]

Ouch, I foresee a lot of problems with this.

Worse case scenario, we can always just mod it out of the game again by setting all governments to not foreign invest.

[Secret Master]

Ouch, I foresee a lot of problems with this.

3 nations declared war on you and they have nationalized your industry.

Your trying to build industry to remove a country from another GP sphere, and that GP declares war on you - decades of investments loss.

You have a lot of unemployed craftsmen and your capis insist on building a factory in Brazil.

You're waiting for your capis to accumulate enough money for your first factory and they decide to build it in Ottoman empire

You're capis build their first Automobile factory in Argentina while you get 123rd furniture factory.

Your capis are now bankrupt because they built a lot of factories in other countries and their numbers bloated in your country making them not earn enough.

And so on...

In the DD, they said that foreign investments were meant to make the end game economy better. I suspect this means a couple of things.

1) Capis will probably only foreign invest when labor is not in surplus at home. It wouldn't make sense for them to foreign invest when you have excess labor at home anyway.

2) I also think (could be wrong) that they can only build factories at the tech level of the host country. So they won't build automobile factories overseas until those countries get that tech anyway.

3) I would not be surprised if capis only want to foreign invest in countries that you already have some amount of influence in. It would be stupid for them to invest in countries that you have no interest in at all (read as no influence) because the government doesn't have the clout to protect their investment in the first place. Tailoring the AI in this way would make it harder to use foreign investment to aid initial diplomatic penetration (bad) but make it easier to retain diplomatic influence once you have it (good) while not pissing away investment dollars chasing pointless ventures (also good).



Aside from all this, I also hope the investment AI will favor railroads ahead of everything else. This is militarily and economically useful, even if they nationalize later on. (You can use those fancy new railroads to invade when they try to nationalize. )

[Sarmatian]

Worse case scenario, we can always just mod it out of the game again by setting all governments to not foreign invest.

True...

That wasn't a part of your initial complaint. I just adressed things like capitalists building their factories in foreign provinces while there is unemployment at home. Whether or not the capitalists gain money from it has some impact on your tax incomes and the capitalist's ability to get funds for even more factories, but it is not immediately relevant to the unemployment issue. Or to the issue of your control of automobile production, which you get to some degree anyway if you sphere Argentina in that example. If the capitalists have some rule that they only spend money in your sphere and only spend some small fraction of their investments abroad, then they are actually better behaved than real world capitalists. There should probably be such rules, though, for the sake of game balance, and because there were a lot of natural restrictions to free trade back then that are difficult to model in other ways.

Edit: what I mean is that I don't claim that the economic model is 100% correct (and I don't expect it to be), I just say that the issues you presented are real world issues.

Even if I didn't mention it, it's a huge part of the issues I posted. Capis only invest based on profitability and in this case there is no profitability so capis will invest based on other stuff. Capis already have problems investing in profitable factories as is, now they have to deal with investing abroad where there is no profitability for them.

So, while it would be logical for capis to build factories abroad even if there's surplus labour at home IF it brings them more return, in the game they're gonna do it for absolutely no gain at all.

[Israel Hands]

Are Companies going to be in the expansion?

[BRK]

Absolutely LOVE these changes to the game, and I'm not exaggerating. Adds a depth and dimension that I've actually fantasized about (watching uncivs gradually built up to become strong industrialized societies under my wing as a GP) - the others being spying and sabotage and a rebel system tweak.

IMO the mechanics will work just fine, capitalists will go where the action is in RL so I don't see the issue of capis preferring investment overseas as a problem. You're more likely to get cheap labour, less expense and overhead to begin with, etc; in fact it would be incredible if there were some way of modelling this into the game as well, imagine a strong colonial power acquiring raw goods at low prices from the colonies and selling back manufactured goods for a profit. That would hit local industry and lead to increased resentment, and a foreign power could step in to sort out the mess..

[GrinningSatyr]

Although I would love to see profits head back to the original inverstor, the current beenfits are listed as:

Your benefit is
a) bigger marketshare of that nations goods
b) more goods produced to the your market.
c) more craftsmens & clerks that can benefit from your products.

So currently, capitalists do get SOME benefits, in that your economy will be stronger; you get 1st dibs on more raw material, and even more importantly, lots of resource-hungry craftsmen and clerks that buy from your country before the world market! Imagine the demand a half million Chinese Craftsmen could provide for your economy!

[BillBear]

This will hopefully make the ai more likely to get involved in foreign revolutions if they have invested in it.

[MasterOfGrey]

If I, as France, build a clipper plant in Latvia, Russia (assuming they're not a GP), and Latvia is awarded their independence at some point, is the clipper plant still mine or does Latvia nationalize it without recourse upon independence?

The way I understand it, your investment is into Russia the nation, not the specific region, so you'll still have the influence in Russia which you gained from building it, but the factory itself is property solely of Latvia.

[Buladelu]

1) If there's partial market ownage by GPs then why did you divided China?

2) Can't GPs invest in each other? What if I invested in someone who becomes GP - instant nationalization?

3) Is there difference between nationalization in different government types? I thought commies should have better position for it or it makes you look more socialistic and stuff.

[Samhayne]

Those additions just sound awesome, still I want to know like VTA asked:

Exactly which policies allow foreign investment - same ones that allow capitalists to build factories? Or have protectionism/free trade any effect here?

if those policies have any impact on market control e.g. for example if you have free trade, you extend your possibilities to sell your stuff but limit the possibility to buy ressources and vice versa...

[podcat]

1) If there's partial market ownage by GPs then why did you divided China?

2) Can't GPs invest in each other? What if I invested in someone who becomes GP - instant nationalization?

3) Is there difference between nationalization in different government types? I thought commies should have better position for it or it makes you look more socialistic and stuff.

1. the split doesnt quite work like that. its only between the sphere leader and the country itself. if a 3rd party also has invested his factories count as the country's own share, so the sphere leader gets more, but you wont. It will however give you an advantage when influencing
2. its up to them to nationalize or not
3. no, but if say communist rebels push through planned economy that counts as immediate nationalization with resulting CBs etc.

Exactly which policies allow foreign investment - same ones that allow capitalists to build factories? Or have protectionism/free trade any effect here?

same as factory building etc.

[keynes2.0]

So if France invests in Russia like happened prior to WWI, what are the advantages for France? They aren't the sphere leader so they wouldn't get market share. Russia is a GP so it doesn't fall under the influence system. There aren't any dividends on the investment. What's the benefit here?