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SolSys

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Apr 26, 2013
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Edit: The spreadsheet is located at the bottom of the post.

Spreadsheet usage:
1. Enter the current efficiency and other modifiers in J3~J7.
2. O3~O4 is used to enable manufactory and set trade good value.
3. RoI is given for base/advanced building [from scratch]. The 3rd RoI is if the base already exists.
* Values include: autonomy, build cost [with inflation], tax/production/trade efficiency, node trade control [for manufactories].


Original post below:
I'm sure many users are familiar with the following link: http://imgur.com/a/jBG5y

I myself found it rather useful even if some of the calculations were a bit off - using the full tax income instead of building profit only. Since I had a bit of time I decided to do some calculations myself.

Table/Graph explained:

1. Basic info and regular assumptions to ease calculations: autonomy 0%, tax/production/trade efficiency 100%, node control 25% [may be changed].
2. The first 2 sections [blue/orange] show how much years it would take for the building in question to return the investment and start making a profit - if building from scratch.
3. The 3rd section [yellow] shows how much years it would take for an upgrade to return the investment. Note that this shows less lucrative numbers since the comparison is done to income that includes the base building which is already present - and may have been for quite some time.
4. The upgrade ROI has a second meaning as well - it shows after how many years would the advanced building generate more profit than the basic building.
5. Trade is taken into account only with manufactories [percentage can be changed].

Initial findings
1. When choosing between a temple or workshop [disregarding "combo" with manufactury], a temple is the better choice for most provinces. A workshop is equal only on trade value 4.0 and superior only after upgrading the base building.
2. A combo of manufactury+production building is superior to a standalone manufactury due to the combo reducing ROI time by 20% [in state provinces].

Spreadsheet
This is the current version of the spreadsheet if anyone would like to tinker with it themselves. While not finished - or even refined enough - it should have its uses.

To use enter desired values [or leave at default] in the cells colored pale-orange [or/and yellow] - note that blue cells are just for info. Values include: autonomy, build cost [with inflation], tax/production/trade efficiency, node trade control [for manufactories].

If you spot a mistake or if I missed something do let me know. Obviously, if someone already did this a link would be appreciated.
 

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Tax buildings
Basic info and regular assumptions to ease calculations: autonomy 0%, efficiency 100%, no other modifiers applied.
roi3.png

Ttax.png

Gtax.png


Edit: Moved the above from OP to 2nd post.

This time I opted for the production buildings [sans manufactury - I'll make one with them later].

Basic info and regular assumptions to ease calculations: autonomy 0%, efficiency 100%, no other modifiers applied.
Refer to the first post for what the graph and numbers mean.
base.png


Trade goods - value 2.0
Tpro 2.png

Gpro 2.png


Trade goods - value 2.5
Tpro 2.5.png

Gpro 2.5.png


Trade goods - value 3.0
Tpro 3.png

Gpro 3.png


Trade goods - value 4.0
Tpro 4.png

Gpro 4.png
 
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Since I might become busy with prior obligations I thought I'd post the initial tables/graphs - even if without much explanation.
I'll refine them later, but at least you'll have some numbers to look at and spot mistakes before I'm done.

basic look
Manufactories work in a different way to tax/production buildings. While the other buildings generate income by changing percentile efficiency, a manufactory adds a flat bonus at the base of the chain [trade goods produced] which then can affect both production and trade - and be affected in turn by production/trade efficiency.~~and now I got to go.
Note: in the table below it is assumed the manufactory is the last build [no additional cost]. For combined costs see tables further down.
Tmanu.png

Gmanu.png


Setup
these are for combos of manufactories+production buildings.
Smanu.png


Trade goods - value 2.0 [trade profit 0.5]
Tmanu 2.png

Gmanu 2.png


Trade goods - value 2.5 [trade profit 0.625]
Tmanu 2.5.png

Gmanu 2.5.png


Trade goods - value 3.0 [trade profit 0.75]
Tmanu 3.png

Gmanu 3.png

Trade goods - value 4.0 [trade profit 1.0]
Tmanu 4.png

Gmanu 4.png
 
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ROI is in number of years I imagine?
For trade, I imagine you consider 100% value in trade node?

Thanks for the great work.
He's not talking about trade. Just production. Trade is too complicated for such an easy diagram...


Nice diagrams. What you upper limit on ROI s.t. you would build the stuff? For me it's something like 70 years (or 1.6 income for the base buildings). Manufactories are much more complicated due to trade...
 
Have you thought about making a page on the EU4 wiki with those graphs?
I may add them when calculations are done assuming there are no other wiki projects pending.

ROI is in number of years I imagine?
For trade, I imagine you consider 100% value in trade node?
Yes, that is in years.
Trade income is an issue as it is dependent on AI actions as much as yours. I'm not sure if its best to ignore it outright or take a small portion into account [25%].
Mind you, if you have 100% trade share in the node you can halve the ROI of manufactories** by as much as half as can be seen below [standalone manufactories].
upload_2017-2-6_17-35-16.png


**full manufactory graph will be made available later.
 
He's not talking about trade. Just production. Trade is too complicated for such an easy diagram...

Nice diagrams. What you upper limit on ROI s.t. you would build the stuff? For me it's something like 70 years (or 1.6 income for the base buildings). Manufactories are much more complicated due to trade...
I generally consider how much years I still have in-game. Past the point of breaking even its also worth of note what's more profitable in the long-run.

For example, if I got 2 new empty provinces with base tax 5 and 10 with another 150 years to go then I'll build a temple in the first one and a cathedral in the second one**.


**was kinda surprised when the VS. section turned out to be the same as the upgrade ROI even though logically it makes sense. I'll probably combine them in the future.
 
I may add them when calculations are done assuming there are no other wiki projects pending.


Yes, that is in years.
Trade income is an issue as it is dependent on AI actions as much as yours. I'm not sure if its best to ignore it outright or take a small portion into account [25%].
Mind you, if you have 100% trade share in the node you can halve the ROI of manufactories** by as much as half as can be seen below [standalone manufactories].
View attachment 239421

**full manufactory graph will be made available later.

You can actually get more than 100% in income from trade goods: If you move that trade from India to Genoa via merchants and have 100% everywhere it's probably gonna be like >200%..
 
You can actually get more than 100% in income from trade goods: If you move that trade from India to Genoa via merchants and have 100% everywhere it's probably gonna be like >200%..
Very much true, but it requires you to have a fully operational trade network already in place - which might not be true for everyone.
I will say that if you've a sprawling empire then manufactories can be good to spam outside your states even solely as trade generators - if building in a state then always add a workshop as it does wonders to ROI in low production provinces.
 
Last edited:
I'm sure many users are familiar with the following link: http://imgur.com/a/jBG5y

I myself found it rather useful even if some of the calculations were a bit off - using the full tax income instead of building profit only. Since I had a bit of time I decided to do some calculations myself - starting with the easy part.

Table/Graph explained:
1. The first 2 sections [blue/orange] show how much years it would take for the building in question to return the investment and start making a profit - if building from scratch.
2. The 3rd section [grey] shows how much years it would take for an upgrade to return the investment. Note that this shows less lucrative numbers since the comparison is done to income that includes the base building which is already present - and may have been for quite some time.
3. The last section [yellow] shows after which point would an advanced building make more profit than the basic building - if building from scratch.

EDIT: You can't see the upgrade line in the graph since they happen to overlap.

If you spot a mistake or if I missed something do let me know. Obviously, if someone already did this a link would be appreciated.

Tax buildings
Basic info and regular assumptions to ease calculations: autonomy 0%, efficiency 100%, no other modifiers applied.
View attachment 239290
View attachment 239384
View attachment 239385

I will point out that trade is actually pretty straight forward to put down. Just calculate out the amount of extra goods produced and then just assume a series of fractions of trade power at the collection node.

Basically the net result is you will find that capturing a high fraction of the extra trade produced means that it halves (depending on relative production efficiency versus trade efficiency bonus) the time it takes for you reaching ROI. Assuming the manufactory is in your collection node. You get more if its further back and there was merchants - but this would set the a baseline.
 
So if I understand this right?

It is always better to build cathedral over temple then upgrade to cathedral? Interesting.
 
So if I understand this right?

It is always better to build cathedral over temple then upgrade to cathedral? Interesting.
Not exactly as its all time dependent.
I generally consider how much years I still have in-game. Past the point of breaking even its also worth of note what's more profitable in the long-run.

For example, if I got 2 new empty provinces with base tax 5 and 10 with another 150 years to go then I'll build a temple in the first one and a cathedral in the second one**.


**was kinda surprised when the VS. section turned out to be the same as the upgrade ROI even though logically it makes sense. I'll probably combine them in the future.
 
So if I understand this right?

It is always better to build cathedral over temple then upgrade to cathedral? Interesting.

Yes and no. Yes because direct to cathedral means you get all of the 60% at once so it provides the appearance of a quick ROI. No because a temple will have been in play substantially longer and the calculations for ROI only exploit the marginal value added. So an upgrade will appear to take longer to pay back then a single purchase of a cathedral but the calculation is not counting the fact that most temples will have been on the map for 120 years - so its likely you'll have made enough moneys to purchase cathedrals from your excess temple moneys if you hadn't spent it somewhere else.
 
This time I opted for the production buildings [sans manufactury - I'll make one with them later].

Basic info and regular assumptions to ease calculations: autonomy 0%, efficiency 100%, no other modifiers applied.
Refer to the first post for what the graph and numbers mean.
View attachment 239368

Trade goods - value 2.0
View attachment 239374
View attachment 239370

Trade goods - value 2.5
View attachment 239373
View attachment 239369

Trade goods - value 3.0
View attachment 239375
View attachment 239371

Trade goods - value 4.0
View attachment 239376
View attachment 239372

I'd point out that it is actually unnecessary to build a production/manufactory graph because a manufactory effectively 'adds' 5 production to a province. Give me a little I'll build some more appropriate graphs.
 
I'd point out that it is actually unnecessary to build a production/manufactory graph because a manufactory effectively 'adds' 5 production to a province. Give me a little I'll build some more appropriate graphs.
That is true.
Depending on the circumstances a manufactury can yield from (1x trade goods value) up to (3x trade goods value) - if including trade.
 
Yes and no. Yes because direct to cathedral means you get all of the 60% at once so it provides the appearance of a quick ROI. No because a temple will have been in play substantially longer and the calculations for ROI only exploit the marginal value added. So an upgrade will appear to take longer to pay back then a single purchase of a cathedral but the calculation is not counting the fact that most temples will have been on the map for 120 years - so its likely you'll have made enough moneys to purchase cathedrals from your excess temple moneys if you hadn't spent it somewhere else.
Actually, this is shown in the graphs and tables. The question is not whether "you had the basic building for X years and thus it already paid building Y", but rather what is best to build at the current time point.

The upgrade section is helpful in this regard since not only does it show if its worth the time to build the upgrade [if you won't return the cost of the upgrade then why build it at all], it also lets you know after how many years would building Y generate more profit than building X [if building from scratch].
 
Actually, this is shown in the graphs and tables. The question is not whether "you had the basic building for X years and thus it already paid building Y", but rather what is best to build at the current time point.

The upgrade section is helpful in this regard since not only does it show if its worth the time to build the upgrade [if you won't return the cost of the upgrade then why build it at all], it also lets you know after how many years would building Y generate more profit than building X [if building from scratch].

I disagree a little on the ROI point. Sometimes its just better to build regardless on whether you'll get the ROI back because the goal is to build a large difference between your revenues and expenses. However, this is only true if you've maxed buildings on the optimal provinces.
 
I disagree a little on the ROI point. Sometimes its just better to build regardless on whether you'll get the ROI back because the goal is to build a large difference between your revenues and expenses. However, this is only true if you've maxed buildings on the optimal provinces.
This is problematic because if you don't reach ROI point you are actually losing money at the bottom line rather than making money.
That being said, I also tend to build in the last years of the game because its more fun than stockpiling money even if not exactly productive.