Player socialism overpowered?

[AlphaNarwhal]

From my time with this mod, it seems like having a socialist or communist government is just plain OP, at least compared to the other types of economic policy. The capitalists are just too stupid. They make small arms factory after small arms factory and they all fail. I'm saying only player socialism is OP because I'm assuming that AI socialism operates on the same brain dead 3-year-old logic as the capitalists. They just can't handle all the new products, I guess. Anyway, is anything being done to fix it, and is anyone else having this problem?

[airpirate]

From my time with this mod, it seems like having a socialist or communist government is just plain OP, at least compared to the other types of economic policy. The capitalists are just too stupid. They make small arms factory after small arms factory and they all fail. I'm saying only player socialism is OP because I'm assuming that AI socialism operates on the same brain dead 3-year-old logic as the capitalists. They just can't handle all the new products, I guess. Anyway, is anything being done to fix it, and is anyone else having this problem?

If I remember right capitalist policies get an efficiency boost. Other than that, everything is a problem with the AI and thus can't be fixed through modding. It's a vanilla problem, not a PDM one. I highly doubt it's the extra goods that messing with the AI, the AI is just sort of dumb at times.

[fenwayb]

Actually, most people seem to be in agreement that, once you've set up a decent economy through state capitalism, then the best economic policy by far is L-F, because of the efficiency boosts, with a close contender being interventionism, because you still retain some control without taking the hits that you get with Planned Economy/State capitalism. Personally, I always try to go for Planned Economy, but that's mainly because I'm anal about controlling my economy down to the T, and because RP'ing Commies is one of the best things about this era.

[Jaol]

Interventionism all the way! If you're willing to be OCD about your economy, you can direct it pretty well by setting an NF, shutting down a factory, and reopening it after your capitalists build a new one. You just have to be ready to repeatedly destroy whatever nonsense they build until they finally get it right.

[dmayben505]

Interventionism all the way! If you're willing to be OCD about your economy, you can direct it pretty well by setting an NF, shutting down a factory, and reopening it after your capitalists build a new one. You just have to be ready to repeatedly destroy whatever nonsense they build until they finally get it right.

Hell hath no fury like my state of mind when Capis build a dozen clipper convoy factories in a row with the shipping industry NF.

[Naselus]

There's enough contention between players about what the 'best' economic policy is that I reckon they're balanced, tbh. More experienced players tend to claim L-F is overpowered, while less experienced players tend to think S-C and P-E are too good. It's more about when a policy is applied that a blanket thing, tho - going L-F as an unciv in 135th place is a terrible strategy, while trying to run GB as S-C is painful (and horrendously expensive).

[Wallienator]

I prefer to have SC at the start & turn of the century to build the automobile etc factories, rest tends to be interventionism/LF, whatever flavor my people choose :P.

[CrusherX7]

I was comparing the different economic policies to see how they measure up with each other, but it's not quite clear what the "Factory Owner Cost" is supposed to do. I checked the Question & Answer thread, someone asked there but no one answered it. What does it do?

[Naselus]

I was comparing the different economic policies to see how they measure up with each other, but it's not quite clear what the "Factory Owner Cost" is supposed to do. I checked the Question & Answer thread, someone asked there but no one answered it. What does it do?

It's a multiplier for how much Capis pay for factories.

[AlphaNarwhal]

It's nice to see that there's no 100% consensus for "best" economic policy. My biggest problem with capitalists is that I get really frustrated having to a)Destroy early small arms factories in my most valuable industrial state to make room for better ones, and b) Watching them build factory after factory in a state with literally 0 industrial worker. I guess it's a preference thing.

[Naselus]

It's nice to see that there's no 100% consensus for "best" economic policy. My biggest problem with capitalists is that I get really frustrated having to a)Destroy early small arms factories in my most valuable industrial state to make room for better ones, and b) Watching them build factory after factory in a state with literally 0 industrial worker. I guess it's a preference thing.

Yeah, capis remain stupid, which is why you get a throughput bonus under L-F - I'd really rather get rid of that, but til the Capi AI is a little smarter it's not likely to happen.

[CrusherX7]

If L-F didn't have a throughput bonus, it would be clearly inferior to Interventionism even if the Capi's were smart about what to build. L-F's only other advantage is Factory Owner Cost. However, it doesn't take all that long before sucessful Capi's are sitting on enough cash to build factory after factory, so the modifier on how much the Capi's pay matters little to the player.

[GAGA Extrem]

I think the economic policies are in fact well-rounded and everything can be useful under certain circumstances:

Laissez-Faire takes away your control over the economy (well, at least you can open factories and make foreign investments, unlike in vanilla!), but the throughput bonus and low maintenance cost makes up for that. L-F is probably the best ideology for the late early game and mid game, when you have already built up a decent industry with profitable factories, but lack of craftsmen is the limiting factor of your economy (and you can survive that 50% max tax limitation).

Interventionism gives up the economic benefits for more control. If you have factories that are running deficits but you really want to keep them (steamer yards, military supply stuff, kickstarted late game factories) it is okay to have, but otherwise it feels quite lackluster compared to L-F.

State capitalism is great because it allows free factory construction AND auto-upgrade with your capis. Perfect to kickstart an economy or build these neat late game factories, but the maintenance cost makes it of somewhat dubious value for a long term policy - unless you dominate the economy and make tons of money anyway.

Planned economy is tedious in any larger country, but at least it has farming efficiency bonus, so it is actually useful if you own enough provinces. Not sure how great the effect of the reduced maintenance cost really is, but I guess if you are running a backwards country with horrible economy, it might be the best choise out there...

So as said by someone above, there is no real "best" economic policy. They all have their pros and cons and are quite situational.
A thing that I would find quite interesting would be an added economical effect to free trade vs. protectionism (although I doubt it would be easy to create plausible effects with the V2 engine).

[Caewil]

I'm pretty sure none of the policies affect maintenance costs, only upgrading and building costs.