Making the case for a general equilibrium economy
Can somebody inform me about the current state of the discussion regarding the economic system in Vic 2. I didn't follow the discussion so far and I would really appreciate a quick start.
Personally, I think the Economy is the core of the game. So if you don't get this one right everything will be flawed. Let me just name two examples to illustrate my point:
Immigration: While there was some migration of persecuted minority groups most of the migration to the new world was triggered by economical problems. Hence, immigration should be very closely linked to the economic wellbeing of a nation not so much to political parameters as it was the case in Vic 1.
Revolutions: revolutionary movements usually root in the discontent of the masses. Usually this means significant unemployment or even worse an insufficient food supply.
Imagine how cool it would be if an early industrializing Britain would drive the global cotton prices down by dramatically expanding supply, thereby putting the more traditional textile manufactures out of business causing unemployment in the respective regions (like Silesia) to skyrocket. This might trigger mass emigration or undermine the authority of the current regime, most likely both. Maybe however the regime is prepared and quickly innovates its own industry (see the interaction with technology investments: I could imagine a rather complicated tech-tree, which gives the player something to strategize) or strengthens public demand by huge investments into railroads for example. A communist regime could just decide to continue to run its inefficient factories at the price of growing budget deficits and inflation.
Another nice thing to fantasiza about would be how bad harvests could distort the world markets and lead to a quick deprivation of big numbers coupled with all the side effects this could have on internal policy.
I could name many more aspects of the game like war capacity or great power status, which are vastly influenced by the economic basis of the respective nation but I think I already made my point: For plausible and intriguing game outcomes Vic 2 needs a solid economic model as its backbone. Therefore I want to question why Paradox is not committed to a general equilibrium economic model. Vicy 2 with a general equilibrium economic model could just be the most amazing and intelligent game ever made. It would also be extensibly modable and could be easily fine-tuned by the community. Probably the most important advantage of a preprogrammed general equilibrium economic model would be that it could eventually prevent the AI from doing stupid, implausible things.
