Weak factory input demand (the little brother of d!=d).

[DesertSnow]

If (I know that it is unrealistic) the amount of input a factory seeks to buy each day (after day one) is the one that it would have been required to build the goods it sold the previous day, wouldn't that partially solve the problem?

On day one, a factory gets a "free ride" (it can build products without needing resources). It builds x amount of goods.
1. If it manages to sell all produced goods (and make a profit), next day it tries to buy the input needed to build x+a goods ("a" could be a percentage of x or a set number). The resources that are needed to build (x+a) are the limit that the factory is allowed to purchase, but the actual amount can be lower (because of insufficient money or insufficient available raw materials). If it has the money to buy the resources needed, it again produces (x+a goods). If all (x+a) are sold, next day it goes out to buy the input required to build (x+a)+a goods. So, until the product's supply meets demand (plus the factory makes a profit so it is actually able to buy the required resources), the factory keeps increasing its input and output (or at least it tries to do so).
2.If it sells y<x, next day it sets out to buy the input required to build y goods.

The result would be that fewer products are left unsold, and less resources go down the drain.

It is QUITE possible that i am missing some important parameter. I just wanted to post my idea.

 

[TheArchMede]

Hundreds of thousands isn't an explosion.

Vic2 already has at least the level of hundreds of thousands and I suspect orders of magnitude more of simultaneous differential equations. Vic2 isn't solving equations every day, its calculating the next day, based on what the previous day was. Its numerically solving simultaneous differential equations with a time step of a day on a huge scale already.

Multiply provinces in the game by pops per province by variables per pop. I guess that is order 10^6 at the beginning of the game but it gets worse, much worse, as the game progresses and splits out new POPs.

Marginal substitution doesn't actually need new equations, just more complex ones. Unless you are actually adding new variables (which regional prices would be) you don't need, and shouldn't add new equations. Trying to force 100,000 variables to fit 200,000 equations will merely make the game go unstable.

Variables associated with other entities in the game are small fry compared to those associated with POPs. Making the variable substitution at the level of each individual POP, could indeed add significant computation, but by making the equations associated with the POPs more complex, rather than adding new equations. However, I don't think it has to be done that way. The substitution rate can be calculated at the aggregate level from the aggregate supply and demand which have to be calculated anyway, and then its just one extra multiplication operation per POP need.

 

[TheArchMede]

It is QUITE possible that i am missing some important parameter. I just wanted to post my idea.

I think it would have a number of advantages in smoothing out the instabilities caused by factory startup. I don't think it would deal with the problem of factories being able to buy inputs cheap when the POPs that work in them can't buy them at all. Factories will still tend to expand until they grab all the supply and leave none for the POPs. The price mechanism doesn't allow the POPs demand to force up the amount the factories have to pay for their inputs. POPs in Vic2 are slaves of the factories. If the factories want all the food, the POPs starve. Sooner or later industrialisation in the game does reach a point where the factories want all of a good, and then the POPs have to go without.

 

[DesertSnow]

Yes, but you would spare the market from the loss of many resources that are currently being used by factories to produce products that remain unsold. According to the OP, this is one of the main reasons that leads to resource shortage.

 

[unmerged(133356)]

I wonder if it would work to limit factory production to no more than x% more than it was able to sell the previous day, which would allow growth but never allow more than x% "throwaway" production.

 

[Naselus]

Raw material shortages are fairly rare in vanilla, tbh, given that it starts off with such enormous oversupply and increases immensely with tech, and that factories are generally increasing output rather than throughput and so don't consume more resources as they improve. The problem is much more likely to crop up in mods, tho.

The major issue, of course, is that supply and demand ratios for factory goods will never rise above 1:1. Supply can always massively outstrip demand, but demand can only outstrip supply if POPs want the good in raw form. As the only solution the engine can understand (without a fairly hefty trade mechanics rewrite that simply isn't going to happen) would be the previously mentioned system of deliberately overpricing RGO goods, and then even more deliberately overproducing them so that you get a price collapse, we'd be left in an even more ludicrous situation where goods are only affordable if half of them are being thrown away...

 

[TheArchMede]

I wonder if it would work to limit factory production to no more than x% more than it was able to sell the previous day, which would allow growth but never allow more than x% "throwaway" production.

It would need an absolute as well as a fractional amount. Otherwise a factory could never get started because x% more than 0 is still 0.

The game would still hit the Malthusian barrier eventually (factory demand increases exponentially, but available resource doesn't) but it would happen later and keep the game interesting for longer. (interesting requires that resources are tight enough that strategy is required to get them, but that they don't get so tight they are never available to POPs)

I still would prefer to see an effective feedback making it more difficult for factories to claim resources when governments and POPs are starved of them. It just is not right that a government cant build a naval base for years on end that requires a mere 2% of one day's local production, because lumber factories are using all the timber at a low price. It is not right that aristocrats in a fruit producing province are unhappy because they can't meet their life need for fruit due to wineries taking all the fruit at low prices. These demands should come ahead of the factories' on prestige grounds, and they should be able to outbid the factories on price.

 

[unmerged(133356)]

It would need an absolute as well as a fractional amount. Otherwise a factory could never get started because x% more than 0 is still 0.

Good point -- an absolute allowing increase at some minimum size is also needed.

 

[TheArchMede]

Raw material shortages are fairly rare in vanilla, tbh, given that it starts off with such enormous oversupply and increases immensely with tech, and that factories are generally increasing output rather than throughput and so don't consume more resources as they improve. The problem is much more likely to crop up in mods, tho.

The initial oversupply runs out if you let the game run long enough.

Factories do consume more resources as they improve, because a higher proportion of the product gets trashed. Once there are enough factories built that there is competition to supply, factories compete by who can stay in business while trashing the most product. Early in the game 25% of the product might be being trashed because thats the point at which factories become uneconomic. As techs improve, factories can afford to trash more of their product. Late in the game it might be 5/6 of the product. When 25% of the product is trashed, 4/3 the nominal input is consumed to make the output that is actually used. When 5/6 of the product is being trashed, 6 times the nominal input is required to make the product that is actually used. That is a huge increase in the resources a factory consumes to make a product. Factory efficiency techs make factories better equipped to compete with one another, but they cause an increase in resource consumption not a decrease as they improve. More coal is consumed to make the same amount of sold machine tools in a late game with high efficiency factories, than in an early game with low efficiency factories, because the high efficiency factories are trashing a higher fraction of their throughput.

 

[unmerged(133356)]

So the more efficient your factories, the more they waste?

No wonder late-game economy is a shambles.

 

[NoClass]

Okay then,

Though I'm still at a loss to think of the bast way to prevent factories from sucking up all the raw materials, two obvious fixes brought up here may help.

-Limit factory production to 1+X% of previous day production plus Y% of total possible (lvl 1) production. This will at least prevent factories from sucking up raw materials for goods that get wasted.

-Adjust demand generated by factory inputs to 1+Z% of inputs bought, where Z is some modest number scaled by profit (and bounded by some small percentage scaled by the inverse log of the factory level). This would go some way to increasing the price of limited factory inputs.

 

[TheArchMede]

So the more efficient your factories, the more they waste?

No wonder late-game economy is a shambles.

Yes, though the causality is indirect.

Improvements in your efficiency force your competitors to be more wasteful. When they increase their efficiency, they force your factories to be more wasteful. When everyone has improved their efficiency, everyone is more wasteful.

 

[Heliocon]

Interesting post, I would say you hit the nail on the head in general and Paradox needs to listen.
I especially agree with your post on Labor mobility, I had a massive pop rush to Alaska after conquering it off Russia. It has a few provinces with rare minerals, its pop was increasing by over 10k a day! But now that the pop is there, they just all converted to soldiers because the RGO was full, not this one russian province contains 52 possible units! Thats freaking nuts - and they refuse to demote or promote from solider, or even immigrate back to the main USA where I need factory workers.

 

[NoClass]

Interesting post, I would say you hit the nail on the head in general and Paradox needs to listen.
I especially agree with your post on Labor mobility, I had a massive pop rush to Alaska after conquering it off Russia. It has a few provinces with rare minerals, its pop was increasing by over 10k a day! But now that the pop is there, they just all converted to soldiers because the RGO was full, not this one russian province contains 52 possible units! Thats freaking nuts - and they refuse to demote or promote from solider, or even immigrate back to the main USA where I need factory workers.

At the risk of derailing this thread, I'd say the way Vic 2 handles soldier pops is distractingly unrealistic. It would be my biggest complaint, if it wasn't for the fact that I think economy and politics are more central to this game.

Soldiers in Vic 2 are formed solely through societal forces, rather than recruited or conscripted from the existing population. They migrate, quit, and recruit their children independant of their nation's military policy. No matter how many workers want to be soldiers, the government will pay them a salary, regardless of whether or not they are formed into some sort of fighting force. If military units are formed from soldiers who are otherwise being payed to sit around, that unit may only be formed in the soldiers' home province. If masses of soldiers want to randomly move en masse to some distant corner of the empire, as they are often wont to do, the organized unit disbands.

I could go on and I'm surprised more people don't think this is ridiculous. A racoon randomly spelling out psuedocode on a Ouijia Board could come up with a better system.

But lets focus on the economy for now.

 

[zmantle]

It would be so easy to just have manpower be a function of total soldiers in the country. I cant even imagine what they thought the upside was.

Anyway, what would happen if all of the goods in the game had to go thru manufacturing before going to the pops? That would seem to eliminate the factories trashing all the goods.

Maybe also have the efficiency techs reduce the Throughput to eat up the excess capacity.

 

[NoClass]

Anyway, what would happen if all of the goods in the game had to go thru manufacturing before going to the pops? That would seem to eliminate the factories trashing all the goods.

Naselus did this with all life needs goods in PDM by making canned food the only life need and introducing a variety of canned food factories that the original life needs as individual inputs.

To me, it is a bit unrealistic (a minor complaint in a truly great mod), but it does stabilize the economy in terms of life needs very well.

Still, it doesn't stop overproduction. Actually, in all my PDM games, canned food is often the most overproduced good, pushing the price is so low that any employed pop not taxed to the max can afford all life needs.

Factories will continue to overproduce until they stop making a profit. And because price response to supply and demand is so wacky, the price of factory goods rarely falls much below their highly profitable base values.

Reducing throughput through efficiency techs (at least, those that boost input and output efficiencies) might help reduce overproduction a bit, but it would give disadvantages to nations that have those techs. Once a good is overproduced on the world market, the only way for a nation to increase profit is to increase it's total market share through increased output. Reducing throughput to balance increased production due to tech efficiency would drastically reduce the value of those techs.

 

[zmantle]

Naselus did this with all life needs goods in PDM by making canned food the only life need and introducing a variety of canned food factories that the original life needs as individual inputs.

To me, it is a bit unrealistic (a minor complaint in a truly great mod), but it does stabilize the economy in terms of life needs very well.

Still, it doesn't stop overproduction. Actually, in all my PDM games, canned food is often the most overproduced good, pushing the price is so low that any employed pop not taxed to the max can afford all life needs.

Factories will continue to overproduce until they stop making a profit. And because price response to supply and demand is so wacky, the price of factory goods rarely falls much below their highly profitable base values.

Reducing throughput through efficiency techs (at least, those that boost input and output efficiencies) might help reduce overproduction a bit, but it would give disadvantages to nations that have those techs. Once a good is overproduced on the world market, the only way for a nation to increase profit is to increase it's total market share through increased output. Reducing throughput to balance increased production due to tech efficiency would drastically reduce the value of those techs.

Hm. It seems like there would be a balance point where you made more goods for less while still using more of your factory space. So you still have your market share but the factory is making money.

 

[zmantle]

Sorry for the double post but I figured out what I was trying to say.

The World Market for widgets is 1000 units at 10 dollars a unit.

The German widget factory has 10 workers who each make 10 widgets at a cost of 2 dollars a unit. It captures 33 percent of the market and makes 130 dollars.

The Chinese widget factory has 10 workers who each make 20 widgets at a cost of 3 dollars a unit. It captures 66 percent of the market and makes 60 dollars.

 

[Heliocon]

Hey peeps, been watching these threads alot and there are some very knowledgable people posting here. Personally I study economics but dont often post on it because I tend to take things over the top. In any case can someone please look at this thread and explain the mechanics at play, for some reason he doesnt like reading posts that dissect his point. Or in the case that I am wrong, I would love for someone to fill me in. Thanks
http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum...r-capis-to-complete-construction-of-a-factory

 

[Naselus]

The initial oversupply runs out if you let the game run long enough.

Factories do consume more resources as they improve, because a higher proportion of the product gets trashed. Once there are enough factories built that there is competition to supply, factories compete by who can stay in business while trashing the most product. Early in the game 25% of the product might be being trashed because thats the point at which factories become uneconomic. As techs improve, factories can afford to trash more of their product. Late in the game it might be 5/6 of the product. When 25% of the product is trashed, 4/3 the nominal input is consumed to make the output that is actually used. When 5/6 of the product is being trashed, 6 times the nominal input is required to make the product that is actually used. That is a huge increase in the resources a factory consumes to make a product. Factory efficiency techs make factories better equipped to compete with one another, but they cause an increase in resource consumption not a decrease as they improve. More coal is consumed to make the same amount of sold machine tools in a late game with high efficiency factories, than in an early game with low efficiency factories, because the high efficiency factories are trashing a higher fraction of their throughput.

This can easily be solved by simply reducing the currently-absurd efficiency increases, tbh. A vanilla factory can currently improve it's output effciency to around 530% of it's start value, while only consuming 103% of the initial inputs (thanks to Gaius Marius for the figures). This means that farmers are still only shifting 103% of the raw material, but are expected to consume 500% of the output. They fail to do so, and hence the mega-trashing aspect of the late-game.

The fundamental flaw is that, even by the end of the game, 70% or more of the world's population works as farmers/labourers, and the RGO economy is essentially bankrupt. These means they cannot hope to afford manufactured goods, which means the market is doomed to crash unless RGOs become profitable enough to open the door to purchasing manufactures. Fixing this pretty much sorts out the economy altogether.