World Market Problems : Countries with Surpluses not selling and other issues

Bolt · 08-01-2003, 10:16

World Market Issues

Some countries such as Britain, France, Belgium and the Netherlands have control of most of the world's rubber supply. They only make offers for things they need. As their needs (shortages) are entirely minor, this means that a goodly portion of the world's supply of Rubber sits in resources pools totally unused and, when resource pool maxes out, completely wasted.

This puts the entire world economy in a gigantic funk.

I went through the trouble of hardcoding a bunch of trades AND making convoys from Britain to her commonwealth allies, making sure that each convoy transported exactly what was needed to the 4 CW countries to sustain their economy. This was part of an overall effort to "balance" the world economy for peacetime so that nations like Germany, Poland, and so forth, could at least produce at close to 80% of their IC capacity.

I felt this effort was vital to making the game more challenging.

Today I discovered that these convoys are removed by the AI days after the game start date, which in turn means that the CW nations begin offering trades of enormous amounts of goods for rubber which of course is not available as explained above.

I believe that there should be a section of code for the AI to ship some goods to Allied nations where there is a surplus incoming of those goods. It seems to me that such code would be fairly easy to write. With the total amount of goods available to the Allies in the 1936 scenario, there should be virtually NO trades being offered by CW nations for Rubber, Coal, Oil, or Steel since, taken as a whole, the CW resources are more than adequate to supply that entire bloc.

Moreover, after convoys have insured all allied nations have all resources *needed*, a portion of the surplus being received beyond that should be offered on the market to support the economies of other countries.

The way the WM, resource, and convoy system is now handled by the AI essentially amounts to a wartime mercantilist embargo between ALL nations.

As it stands now, almost all national economies in the game function at about 40% of efficiency, not even counting the peacetime discount for democratic states. This is part of the reason in default HoI that no one produces anything, even if the human player is producing things. Observe for example the production rate of Poland while playing Germany. Spend 2 years building 60 divisions . . . and Poland builds practically nothing. Meanwhile, Poland is in relatively good shape compared to other more minor countries because she has at least some oil, 40 surplus coal, and some conversion techs. So Poland's economy can funtion (sine wave function) at about 50% effciency. Other countries, like Czecholslovakia, or China, or Japan, forget it.

The world economy as a whole should start off in a balanced state, not the wildly unbalanced state its in now.

In Sum fixes should include :

1. Code to use the convoy system to transport an exact amount of surpluses of what is needed by allied states that are shorted in certain resources.

2. Trade / Offer code to offer a portion of surplusses beyond that used in point 1 to the world market in general. I would shoot for 50% of the leftovers to be offered on the market at 1-1 trades, with the nation attempting to accumulate that which it has the least surplus in and which it detects is available in abundant supply on the WM.

3. If point 1 cannot be done, than at least give us the opportunity to hardcode convoys that will be persistent for more than a few months.

King · 08-01-2003, 11:42

I read it and see what you are gettign at.

However 1 is bad 'un

1. Code to use the convoy system to transport an exact amount of surpluses of what is needed by allied states that are shorted in certain resources.

If a read this correctly you are saying Britain has X rubber in surplus. Canada neeeds Y rubber which is less than X, so Britain ships y rubber to Canada. If I am correct then I thinkl this is a no no. In order for Britain to know what Y actually is the AI would really need to cheat. There is no way the player would know. Cheating AI's go down badly with the fans, so this is something to avoid.

2 on the other hand looks promissing, I know there are plans to look at how the AI trades. So I wil forward this on as a suggestion.

Bolt · 08-01-2003, 11:52

Quote:

Originally posted by King
I read it and see what you are gettign at.

However 1 is bad 'un

If a read this correctly you are saying Britain has X rubber in surplus. Canada neeeds Y rubber which is less than X, so Britain ships y rubber to Canada. If I am correct then I thinkl this is a no no. In order for Britain to know what Y actually is the AI would really need to cheat. There is no way the player would know. Cheating AI's go down badly with the fans, so this is something to avoid.

King : thanks for checking this out.

But, lets do a reality check. Does Canada keep secret from Britain how much oil or rubber she needs? If two player were playing Canada and Britain, would the Canadian player not tell the British player how much rubber / coal he/she needed? Obviously not.

Its cheating against the AI if you can't reasonably give them the same capbility that two similarly situated human players would have.

Its not cheating for the British AI to do an exact calculation of how much of her spare resources she should send to ally Canada. Two human players would exchange a few words and the deed is done, and accurate. Give AI the same capability.

King · 08-01-2003, 12:06

Quote:

Originally posted by Bolt
King : thanks for checking this out.

But, lets do a reality check. Does Canada keep secret from Britain how much oil or rubber she needs? If two player were playing Canada and Britain, would the Canadian player not tell the British player how much rubber / coal he/she needed? Obviously not.

Its cheating against the AI if you can't reasonably give them the same capbility that two similarly situated human players would have.

Its not cheating for the British AI to do an exact calculation of how much of her spare resources she should send to ally Canada. Two human players would exchange a few words and the deed is done, and accurate. Give AI the same capability.

Now I agree, but you say all allies, do you think that historically the Germans and the Japanese might keep secretes from each other? I agree on the two players and on the same side would not keep secretes from each other, but in the game countries might.

Also there was this guy who ran a long crusade on the EUII forum about the AI cheating, the AI didn't cheat (although the naval attirtion cheat was added since then) but no matter how much you told he he was convinced that they cheated. This issue can be explosive.

However, I willing to run with your idea of the AI getting an estimate, how would you calculate it? As an added challenge try to make it so it could be done ain a players head quickly. I am highly numerat eso you have a little lee way there.

Bolt · 08-01-2003, 12:17

Quote:

Originally posted by King
Now I agree, but you say all allies, do you think that historically the Germans and the Japanese might keep secretes from each other? I agree on the two players and on the same side would not keep secretes from each other, but in the game countries might.

Also there was this guy who ran a long crusade on the EUII forum about the AI cheating, the AI didn't cheat (although the naval attirtion cheat was added since then) but no matter how much you told he he was convinced that they cheated. This issue can be explosive.

However, I willing to run with your idea of the AI getting an estimate, how would you calculate it? As an added challenge try to make it so it could be done ain a players head quickly. I am highly numerat eso you have a little lee way there.

Just let AI allies do exact calcs.

The convoys would NOT be set up if there is insufficient transport or the convoys themselves are highly likely to take heavy casualties. The convoy should be removed by the AI if it takes more than 50% casualties four weeks in a row. The AI should attempt the convoy again in 6 months. Or, something. Certainly with Japan and Germany, there is little chance of the convoys getting anything through.

While we are at the suggestion game (DON'T MOVE THIS THREAD TO THE SUGGESTION BOX

) Let me throw this one at you too :

DO NOT have AI nations that have sufficient oil production and conversion techs to meet all their rubber needs to make OFFERS on the WM for Rubber. The USA and the Soviet Union easily suck up most of the world rubber supply -- completely unnecessarily since they have sufficient oil to convert to rubber and meet all their military and economic needs (although the SU is a tad short there). The current situation in the game shows the US and SU doing just this : taking up the entire supply of rubber when they don't need to.

I should mention that the current situation in the game is totally unbalanced, and unless a *radical* change is made in subsequent patcher OR all of these suggestions, or a form of them, are implemented, the WM will be totally off the hook.

King · 08-01-2003, 12:33

Quote:

Originally posted by Bolt
Just let AI allies do exact calcs.

The convoys would NOT be set up if there is insufficient transport or the convoys themselves are highly likely to take heavy casualties. The convoy should be removed by the AI if it takes more than 50% casualties four weeks in a row. The AI should attempt the convoy again in 6 months. Or, something. Certainly with Japan and Germany, there is little chance of the convoys getting anything through.

While we are at the suggestion game (DON'T MOVE THIS THREAD TO THE SUGGESTION BOX ) Let me throw this one at you too :

DO NOT have AI nations that have sufficient oil production and conversion techs to meet all their rubber needs to make OFFERS on the WM for Rubber. The USA and the Soviet Union easily suck up most of the world rubber supply -- completely unnecessarily since they have sufficient oil to convert to rubber and meet all their military and economic needs (although the SU is a tad short there). The current situation in the game shows the US and SU doing just this : taking up the entire supply of rubber when they don't need to.

I should mention that the current situation in the game is totally unbalanced, and unless a *radical* change is made in subsequent patcher OR all of these suggestions, or a form of them, are implemented, the WM will be totally off the hook.

The world market is imperfect I agree. However I do not like this idea that the AI should be seen to cheat. No exact caculations (although you might get more change out of Vulture on this one), only guestimates allowed. Why not try gettign the AI to make a one of convoy to each of it's allies, without Resourse X, and ships a large ammount in one go? It repeats this process once in a year, or every six months. No exact calculation required, something any player could do.

I know there is currently a problem with the AI ignoring convoy attacks. This is already in the AI thread and is being looked at by Paradox. I know because I passed the information over to them myself, and got a reply from Johan about it. The AI is an important priority for the next patch.

So as an AI suggestion are you saying it should take into accounts its conversion rates as well as it's production when it comes to things like oil and rubber? That is something I will be happy to pass onto Paradox. I have started a thread in the Beat forum about this thread. Your orginal sugestion 2 is already there.

Maximilian I · 08-01-2003, 12:41

I agree with King on this.

Bolt · 08-01-2003, 12:51

Quote:

Originally posted by King
The world market is imperfect I agree. However I do not like this idea that the AI should be seen to cheat. No exact caculations (although you might get more change out of Vulture on this one), only guestimates allowed. Why not try gettign the AI to make a one of convoy to each of it's allies, without Resourse X, and ships a large ammount in one go? It repeats this process once in a year, or every six months. No exact calculation required, something any player could do.

I know there is currently a problem with the AI ignoring convoy attacks. This is already in the AI thread and is being looked at by Paradox. I know because I passed the information over to them myself, and got a reply from Johan about it. The AI is an important priority for the next patch.

So as an AI suggestion are you saying it should take into accounts its conversion rates as well as it's production when it comes to things like oil and rubber?

Yes, an AI controlled country should not try to get rubber if :

{oil production - oil needed by military forces} > {rubber needed by economy - rubber imported or produced } / { oil production - oil needed by military forces } * { oil conversion factor }

I'm not good at algebra :

Plain english :

AI should not offer for Rubber if oil production remaining after oil needed by military leaves enough oil to convert to rubber sufficient to supply the current IC production level.

The idea here is to prevent countries from unnecessarily bidding for rubber if they have enough oil to supply the military and convert what's left to power the economy at 100% of current IC level.

Now, about the auto-send for AI countries to allies. Please, in real life countries don't hide this data. In a game with humans they don't hide it from each other unless they aren't allied. Let the Ai do what humans would *reasonably* do. I don't even think this is in the ballpark of AI cheating, King, to be honest. Its just an information transfer. AI cheating would be the AI giving itself rubber because it doesn't have any : i.e. making it out of thin air.

Monsabert · 08-01-2003, 13:00

Quote:

Originally posted by King
The world market is imperfect I agree. However I do not like this idea that the AI should be seen to cheat. No exact caculations (although you might get more change out of Vulture on this one), only guestimates allowed. Why not try gettign the AI to make a one of convoy to each of it's allies, without Resourse X, and ships a large ammount in one go? It repeats this process once in a year, or every six months. No exact calculation required, something any player could do.

I know there is currently a problem with the AI ignoring convoy attacks. This is already in the AI thread and is being looked at by Paradox. I know because I passed the information over to them myself, and got a reply from Johan about it. The AI is an important priority for the next patch.

So as an AI suggestion are you saying it should take into accounts its conversion rates as well as it's production when it comes to things like oil and rubber? That is something I will be happy to pass onto Paradox. I have started a thread in the Beat forum about this thread. Your orginal sugestion 2 is already there.

I agree. World market needs more rubber. But about CW trade and generally all alliances, I would prefer a trade agreement system, based not only on resssources to exchange but too diplomatic relations to determine cost...let's say between CW nations, rubber will be exchanged with coal to 1/1 rate, between Germany and USSR during Molotov pact 3 or 3 coal or steel for 1 rubber ( and why not give a ressources price to technology...selling one tech for x rubber...). the relation level would be based on regime types, hate and frustration factors...

Another point: I don't thinkit's AI cheating than giving it economic infos players can exchange and in real world are exchanged or known. Fog of war isn't fog of economy. BTW, it's too much we can have no info about enemy economy production.

King · 08-01-2003, 13:00

I have forwarded on the suggestins as is (with my own personal comments) we will se what happens from here.

JouniL · 08-01-2003, 13:21

I haven't thinked this before, so there can be some problems (probably is ), just got the idea:
How about this:

Countries could ask for resources in diplomacy screen.
Country A is in need of oil. A looks from economic map, that county B produces much oil. A ask from B could he give him surplus resources. If country B accepts, he shows his surplus to country A, and country A can then make an offer what resources and how much they would need. Then country B decides, will he agree or not. If he agrees, convoys are automatically made to ship the resources to country A.

Of course countries wouldn't accept this kind of charity easily, if asking and giving countries isn't same alliance. Also the goverment type and earlier "trades" (If asking country has given some other resources to giving country earlier) could affect the possibility of trade agreement.

One thing that I haven't thinked, is that would the trade agreement be one-time bonus, xx amount in month/day...

Bolt · 08-01-2003, 14:49

ISSUE 1 : should AI *ALLIES* do "exact" trades for need?

Yes. Those of you that disagree, I request you consider the following :

Reason A : Players would make exact calcs if they were allies with a few words, and that would be that. AI should have the same capability as humans similarly situated, not LESS capability.

Reason B : Allied countries in real life had industry and economic staffs in the THOUSANDS to make precisely these calculations, so that resources weren't wasted.

It would be ridiculous to hamstring the AI into guessing how much to send, the info is PLAINLY AVAILABLE both in real life between allies, between players in the game, and to an individual player who merely looks at and totals the industrial displays on the map.

Reason C : If you force the AI to guess and the target countries get shorted, you are going to put the WM right back into the toilet because any country that detects a shortage will start doing idiot trades; this will then negate any improvement in the WM system in the Patch.

ISSUE 2 : HOW do we get rid of "Idiot Trades" by the AI ?

I have some good news here.

I've done some major convoy and econ refactoring in the mod process.

I just refactored the British convoy system to pull in the maximum rubber and sell about 70 % of their surplus after industrial needs and convoys to allies.

I set up almost every European, commonwealth, and North American country to sell their surpluses for the minimum rubber (or whatever else) needed to support their industry.

In the case of the United States, I added large hardcoded trades to trade 2-1 for rubber using 648 oil and 200 coal. This appears to be the only way to prevent the US from engaging in enormous idiot trades.

Result :

For all the countries so modified, after TWO YEARS of running the market from 1936-8, I saw ZERO idiot trades. In 1938, meanwhile, the market was still running 1000+ surplusses in Rubber, meaning that non-hardcoded trades were going through and all the other unmodded countries were getting the goods.

The combination of British flooding the Rubber market and doing "preventative" "Lets get 424 rubber on the market if the little display says thats how much our industry requires" trades (specific to each country, i.e. sweden now trades 68 steel for 34 rubber which is just enough to keep them in rubber and *still* gain steel surplus -- similar types of manipulations for all countries modified), has apparently solved the problem.

NOTE : Please feel free to link the thread in its entirety into the Beta forums. Don't move it there because then I won't see it ever again.

Bolt · 08-01-2003, 14:58

Quote:

Originally posted by Monsabert
I agree. World market needs more rubber. But about CW trade and generally all alliances, I would prefer a trade agreement system, based not only on resssources to exchange but too diplomatic relations to determine cost...let's say between CW nations, rubber will be exchanged with coal to 1/1 rate, between Germany and USSR during Molotov pact 3 or 3 coal or steel for 1 rubber ( and why not give a ressources price to technology...selling one tech for x rubber...). the relation level would be based on regime types, hate and frustration factors...

Another point: I don't thinkit's AI cheating than giving it economic infos players can exchange and in real world are exchanged or known. Fog of war isn't fog of economy. BTW, it's too much we can have no info about enemy economy production.

If the patch implements a "trade agreement" system as described in the manual, this may help. However, the normal trading algorithims remain non-optimized and therefore still pose a fatal unbalancing risk. Also, will the AI be able to calculate rational agreements ? Experience to date indicates not.

King · 08-01-2003, 14:59

Look I am sorry we disagree here, but I have forwarded it on, what more do you want?

Bolt · 08-01-2003, 15:02

Quote:

Originally posted by King
Look I am sorry we disagree here, but I have forwarded it on, what more do you want?

My statement "If you disagree you are just plain wrong" was using the *general* form of you and not specifically directed to you personally. You've been engaging and thoughtful, and nothing personal was meant.

King · 08-01-2003, 15:11

Quote:

Originally posted by Bolt
My statement "If you disagree you are just plain wrong" was using the *general* form of you and not specifically directed to you personally. You've been engaging and thoughtful, and nothing personal was meant.

Sorry I misread your post. I would like to let this discussion die a death. It is beomming less Bug and mroe GD by the minute.

Mediator · 08-01-2003, 16:11

I agree with Bolt on many issues. It has to be guaranteed that the AI countries can have a balanced industry running. It seems to be easy to get 2-1 trades coal to rubber when you start them on Jan. 1st 01:00 and maintain them throughout the game (at least for me, this makes a 100% German industry at the beginning very easy). Later trades need to be 3-1 to be accepted.

manton · 08-01-2003, 16:42

Personally, I never have a problem (playing as Germany) getting 1:1 trades accepted, except when there is a lack of a given commodity on the market. The rubber market dries up quickly, so I have to trade 400 coal for 400 oil, which is then converted to 200 rubber (until I get the conversion techs). And the steel market can fluctate wildly. But it's never a question of 1:1 trades being rejected; only of there being no steel on the market.

Is trading therefore too easy?

AndrewReeve · 09-01-2003, 05:13

v1.02
I have noticed that the USA AI always starts with a large oil for rubber trade at 3 for 1. Now as the USA can convert oil to rubber at a rate of 2 for 1 this is uneconomic, and the only reason for the USA to do so is to reduce the world's supply of rubber for other countries (including allies, fascists and neutrals). If this is intentional then OK, otherwise the AI is being a bit extravagant.

Protagoras · 09-01-2003, 06:26

Really? Why would it be cheating?

Except in the most primative economies, or those that are command economies without any sort of free trade, to know what resources a Nation needs/wants is not a matter of difficulty.

We assume that most of the industry is controlled by private enterprise (Notable exception communists but this even applies to them somewhat.) These industrialists are going to engage on the world market to buy what is hard for them to aquire locally. In the simplified HOI economy, if a nation is short on Steel, almost any other nation would know this because because if they as a Nation export Steel, then they see a prospective trade partner... if they as a nation import Steel they see the nation as a potential competitor for this resource.

Exact numbers known? Probably not.. but pretty darned close... any nation that devoted any effort could make gross economic estimates such as Steel Coal Oil monthly usage of almost any other nation.

In the case of Communist nations such as USSR, while a command economy was used, and the USSR sought as much resource independance as possible, they did indeed trade resources quite a bit, and while it would be a bit harder to know as the State could more easily control the information... still an effort made could determine economic needs of a Nation.

In Short amongst allies suck as UK/Canada.. if Canada needed a bit of rubber... UK would know that easily.. and amongst CW nations a small amount of "back Channel" talk would easily pass the information that Canada needs 2.5tonnes of rubber per day or whatever. Even amongst enemies (or future enemies) such information would not be too hard to come by.

08-01-2003, 10:16	#1
Bolt Lt. General Join Date: Nov 2002 Posts: 1,638	World Market Problems : Countries with Surpluses not selling and other issues World Market Issues Some countries such as Britain, France, Belgium and the Netherlands have control of most of the world's rubber supply. They only make offers for things they need. As their needs (shortages) are entirely minor, this means that a goodly portion of the world's supply of Rubber sits in resources pools totally unused and, when resource pool maxes out, completely wasted. This puts the entire world economy in a gigantic funk. I went through the trouble of hardcoding a bunch of trades AND making convoys from Britain to her commonwealth allies, making sure that each convoy transported exactly what was needed to the 4 CW countries to sustain their economy. This was part of an overall effort to "balance" the world economy for peacetime so that nations like Germany, Poland, and so forth, could at least produce at close to 80% of their IC capacity. I felt this effort was vital to making the game more challenging. Today I discovered that these convoys are removed by the AI days after the game start date, which in turn means that the CW nations begin offering trades of enormous amounts of goods for rubber which of course is not available as explained above. I believe that there should be a section of code for the AI to ship some goods to Allied nations where there is a surplus incoming of those goods. It seems to me that such code would be fairly easy to write. With the total amount of goods available to the Allies in the 1936 scenario, there should be virtually NO trades being offered by CW nations for Rubber, Coal, Oil, or Steel since, taken as a whole, the CW resources are more than adequate to supply that entire bloc. Moreover, after convoys have insured all allied nations have all resources needed, a portion of the surplus being received beyond that should be offered on the market to support the economies of other countries. The way the WM, resource, and convoy system is now handled by the AI essentially amounts to a wartime mercantilist embargo between ALL nations. As it stands now, almost all national economies in the game function at about 40% of efficiency, not even counting the peacetime discount for democratic states. This is part of the reason in default HoI that no one produces anything, even if the human player is producing things. Observe for example the production rate of Poland while playing Germany. Spend 2 years building 60 divisions . . . and Poland builds practically nothing. Meanwhile, Poland is in relatively good shape compared to other more minor countries because she has at least some oil, 40 surplus coal, and some conversion techs. So Poland's economy can funtion (sine wave function) at about 50% effciency. Other countries, like Czecholslovakia, or China, or Japan, forget it. The world economy as a whole should start off in a balanced state, not the wildly unbalanced state its in now. In Sum fixes should include : 1. Code to use the convoy system to transport an exact amount of surpluses of what is needed by allied states that are shorted in certain resources. 2. Trade / Offer code to offer a portion of surplusses beyond that used in point 1 to the world market in general. I would shoot for 50% of the leftovers to be offered on the market at 1-1 trades, with the nation attempting to accumulate that which it has the least surplus in and which it detects is available in abundant supply on the WM. 3. If point 1 cannot be done, than at least give us the opportunity to hardcode convoys that will be persistent for more than a few months. Last edited by Bolt; 08-01-2003 at 10:22.

08-01-2003, 11:42	#2
King Paradox QA Paradox Dev Team Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: In Exile Posts: 9,713	I read it and see what you are gettign at. However 1 is bad 'un 1. Code to use the convoy system to transport an exact amount of surpluses of what is needed by allied states that are shorted in certain resources. If a read this correctly you are saying Britain has X rubber in surplus. Canada neeeds Y rubber which is less than X, so Britain ships y rubber to Canada. If I am correct then I thinkl this is a no no. In order for Britain to know what Y actually is the AI would really need to cheat. There is no way the player would know. Cheating AI's go down badly with the fans, so this is something to avoid. 2 on the other hand looks promissing, I know there are plans to look at how the AI trades. So I wil forward this on as a suggestion. __________________ Nostalgia is not as good as it used to be

08-01-2003, 12:41	#7
Maximilian I Bierbrauer Join Date: Oct 2000 Location: Beer Country Posts: 9,272	I agree with King on this. __________________ Wir wollen auch sonderlichen/das füran allenthalben in unsern Stetten/ Märckthen/un auff dem Lannde/zu kainem Pier/ merer stückh/ dan allain Gersten/ Hop= fen/ un wasser/ genomen un gepraucht solle werdn. in retirement 9000 posts and no custom avatar

08-01-2003, 13:00	#10
King Paradox QA Paradox Dev Team Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: In Exile Posts: 9,713	I have forwarded on the suggestins as is (with my own personal comments) we will se what happens from here. __________________ Nostalgia is not as good as it used to be

08-01-2003, 14:49	#12
Bolt Lt. General Join Date: Nov 2002 Posts: 1,638	ISSUE 1 : should AI ALLIES do "exact" trades for need? Yes. Those of you that disagree, I request you consider the following : Reason A : Players would make exact calcs if they were allies with a few words, and that would be that. AI should have the same capability as humans similarly situated, not LESS capability. Reason B : Allied countries in real life had industry and economic staffs in the THOUSANDS to make precisely these calculations, so that resources weren't wasted. It would be ridiculous to hamstring the AI into guessing how much to send, the info is PLAINLY AVAILABLE both in real life between allies, between players in the game, and to an individual player who merely looks at and totals the industrial displays on the map. Reason C : If you force the AI to guess and the target countries get shorted, you are going to put the WM right back into the toilet because any country that detects a shortage will start doing idiot trades; this will then negate any improvement in the WM system in the Patch. ISSUE 2 : HOW do we get rid of "Idiot Trades" by the AI ? I have some good news here. I've done some major convoy and econ refactoring in the mod process. I just refactored the British convoy system to pull in the maximum rubber and sell about 70 % of their surplus after industrial needs and convoys to allies. I set up almost every European, commonwealth, and North American country to sell their surpluses for the minimum rubber (or whatever else) needed to support their industry. In the case of the United States, I added large hardcoded trades to trade 2-1 for rubber using 648 oil and 200 coal. This appears to be the only way to prevent the US from engaging in enormous idiot trades. Result : For all the countries so modified, after TWO YEARS of running the market from 1936-8, I saw ZERO idiot trades. In 1938, meanwhile, the market was still running 1000+ surplusses in Rubber, meaning that non-hardcoded trades were going through and all the other unmodded countries were getting the goods. The combination of British flooding the Rubber market and doing "preventative" "Lets get 424 rubber on the market if the little display says thats how much our industry requires" trades (specific to each country, i.e. sweden now trades 68 steel for 34 rubber which is just enough to keep them in rubber and still gain steel surplus -- similar types of manipulations for all countries modified), has apparently solved the problem. NOTE : Please feel free to link the thread in its entirety into the Beta forums. Don't move it there because then I won't see it ever again. Last edited by Bolt; 08-01-2003 at 15:04.

08-01-2003, 13:21	#11
JouniL First Lieutenant Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: Finland Posts: 240	I haven't thinked this before, so there can be some problems (probably is ), just got the idea: How about this: Countries could ask for resources in diplomacy screen. Country A is in need of oil. A looks from economic map, that county B produces much oil. A ask from B could he give him surplus resources. If country B accepts, he shows his surplus to country A, and country A can then make an offer what resources and how much they would need. Then country B decides, will he agree or not. If he agrees, convoys are automatically made to ship the resources to country A. Of course countries wouldn't accept this kind of charity easily, if asking and giving countries isn't same alliance. Also the goverment type and earlier "trades" (If asking country has given some other resources to giving country earlier) could affect the possibility of trade agreement. One thing that I haven't thinked, is that would the trade agreement be one-time bonus, xx amount in month/day...

08-01-2003, 14:59	#14
King Paradox QA Paradox Dev Team Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: In Exile Posts: 9,713	Look I am sorry we disagree here, but I have forwarded it on, what more do you want? __________________ Nostalgia is not as good as it used to be

08-01-2003, 16:11	#17
Mediator Colonel Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Vienna / Austria Posts: 1,012	I agree with Bolt on many issues. It has to be guaranteed that the AI countries can have a balanced industry running. It seems to be easy to get 2-1 trades coal to rubber when you start them on Jan. 1st 01:00 and maintain them throughout the game (at least for me, this makes a 100% German industry at the beginning very easy). Later trades need to be 3-1 to be accepted.

08-01-2003, 16:42	#18
manton First Lieutenant Join Date: Dec 2002 Posts: 274	Personally, I never have a problem (playing as Germany) getting 1:1 trades accepted, except when there is a lack of a given commodity on the market. The rubber market dries up quickly, so I have to trade 400 coal for 400 oil, which is then converted to 200 rubber (until I get the conversion techs). And the steel market can fluctate wildly. But it's never a question of 1:1 trades being rejected; only of there being no steel on the market. Is trading therefore too easy?

09-01-2003, 05:13	#19
AndrewReeve Private Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: Weybridge, Surrey, England Posts: 11	USA Rubber requirements v1.02 I have noticed that the USA AI always starts with a large oil for rubber trade at 3 for 1. Now as the USA can convert oil to rubber at a rate of 2 for 1 this is uneconomic, and the only reason for the USA to do so is to reduce the world's supply of rubber for other countries (including allies, fascists and neutrals). If this is intentional then OK, otherwise the AI is being a bit extravagant.

09-01-2003, 06:26	#20
Protagoras Sergeant Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: Texas Posts: 54	Ai Cheating in Resource estimates for allies!? Really? Why would it be cheating? Except in the most primative economies, or those that are command economies without any sort of free trade, to know what resources a Nation needs/wants is not a matter of difficulty. We assume that most of the industry is controlled by private enterprise (Notable exception communists but this even applies to them somewhat.) These industrialists are going to engage on the world market to buy what is hard for them to aquire locally. In the simplified HOI economy, if a nation is short on Steel, almost any other nation would know this because because if they as a Nation export Steel, then they see a prospective trade partner... if they as a nation import Steel they see the nation as a potential competitor for this resource. Exact numbers known? Probably not.. but pretty darned close... any nation that devoted any effort could make gross economic estimates such as Steel Coal Oil monthly usage of almost any other nation. In the case of Communist nations such as USSR, while a command economy was used, and the USSR sought as much resource independance as possible, they did indeed trade resources quite a bit, and while it would be a bit harder to know as the State could more easily control the information... still an effort made could determine economic needs of a Nation. In Short amongst allies suck as UK/Canada.. if Canada needed a bit of rubber... UK would know that easily.. and amongst CW nations a small amount of "back Channel" talk would easily pass the information that Canada needs 2.5tonnes of rubber per day or whatever. Even amongst enemies (or future enemies) such information would not be too hard to come by.