1.02 economy mod

[unmerged(7034)]

1.02 economy mod - now moved to a new home

I'm in the process of playtesting an economy mod designed to make 1.02 more playable. Please note it does not make it EASIER, just more playable, meaning that basic commodities such as paper are available if you're prepared to pay a lot of money and possibly wait a little. On the other hand, some commodities are now more expensive and troublesome to produce. Nevertheless the frustration of waiting for 20 years for paper or "regular" clothes to appear on the market is gone (but note you might still have to wait a bit).

Keep in mind that the AI in 1.02 is very prompt about shutting down factories that it deems unprofitable, and in the early stages of the game quite a few are that way. Nevertheless most often the AI will reopen them again if the demand stays high; naturally this involves a wait on your part.

I do not have a page where I can put the files up for download, so if you'd like to try out the mod and possibly help with well thought out input (no knee-jerk reactions, please), send me a private message and I'll send it to the address you provide fairly quickly (I'll be checking my pm folder regularly both today and tomorrow). Naturally if you do have a homepage and can post the files for downloading your assistance would be very much appreciated. Once again please note that this mod is in a late alpha stage; I'm rushing the release a little so that people who want to play a more enjoyable game this weekend will be able to do so.

Moderator: I know that properly this belongs in the mod forum, however most people who have shelved the game post 1.02 will be checking this forum only. Could you please make an exception (temporary if need be) in this case and leave this in the general forum? Thank you very much in advance.

NOTE: This mod focuses on the Grand Campaign. You may still play the other scenarions with it, but it has not been tested outside of GC.

 

[Mozart41st]

http://members.cox.net/mozart41st/viceconmodalpha2.zip

It is up! Download away!

 

[Tayran]

Can you post a description what the mod actually does?

 

[O CoRVo]

Can you post a description what the mod actually does?

From what i seen in the .txt files it adds some factories like paper and regular clothes and lowers the maintenance cost of crime when you make a factory (i did that myself too)

I will test it right now (but i will rename the campaing so it doent overwrites the current one)

Edit: Actually you have to backup your files

Edit2: Well i played for 11 minutes, i dont have time right now

played as prussia (again) and i liked that you switched from the unused clipper factory to a fabrics one, and added some paper and clothes factory but..

You added wool to the fabric imput, and since i dint know it took some time for me to realize

I could not buy glass (to support the winnery and liquor factory), machine parts, precious metal (i think clerks should not need those, only capitalists and clergyman), and i dont know why i started with 15 machine parts but each day i lost one (15..14..13) and i dint built any factory

I used the prestige cheat but i still could not buy those... and since i had to go i could not test more

But so far so good, please continue to make your mod, and include a changelog

 

[unmerged(7034)]

Probably because in my mod machine parts are required for manufacturing a number of things, including small arms (tiny amounts) and artillery (slightly more). You want to industrialize - you have to make a choice: guns or butter? As I said, this mod does not make the game easier, just more playable (still UK starts with two machine parts factories, not just one). Also, although there are extra glass factories, paper mills etc etc you may still have to wait a bit before these commodities become available. I definitely didn't want a return to the 1.01 kindergarten economics.

I will write up all the changes (and there's a lot) but not today lol because I've already put something like 40 hours into this mod and now I just want to play for the fun of it. Just make sure you check what a factory requires before building it!

 

[unmerged(7034)]

Hmmm I ran some quick checks and indeed the input values for machine parts when making guns might be excessive. I did want the mod to stress the importance of machine tools (what the game calls machine parts) in industrial development and probably got carried away. And then, instead of playtesting it extensively, I rushed to get it released... sound familiar?

Anyway to fix this quickly yourself, go to the economics folder (within the db folder within the Vic folder heh heh), open the text file called factory-input, and modify the machine_parts values as follows:

for small arms: machine_parts = 0.2

for artillery: machine_parts = 0.5

(EDIT: you no longer need to do this, in alpha 2 the input has been adjusted down to 0.1 and 0.2 respectively; otherwise even being number 8 or number 7 in the world means no chance at all of buying machine parts on the market.)

Adding machine parts to gun production requirements has the nice added side effect of making militarization more difficult than it was before. So while taking them out might make things much easier, it will also make them much less interesting. Also note that the machine parts requirements when building factories have been reduced (some very sharply, and just a couple or so have been increased). Building a factory is easier, but running it profitably is challenging - the way things should be IMO.

Please be assured that my mod does not seek to punish people further, on the contrary - I suspect the income from raw resources is way too high and may need to be nerfed. The key to making factory production profitable in 1.02 is simple: you must avoid expensive industrial imports, i.e. make stuff from the raw resources you have. However this brings into sharp focus the rather haphazard resource distribution in the game. I'm working on this also but it's a gigantic task.

My apologies for any shortcomings you mgiht find in the mod alpha. Please report any you find but only after you've ran the game for a minimum of 30 game years - the picture changes sharply as time passes.

 

[DGuller]

I like how it's possible to get some paper and precious metals early on. I'm playing Sardinia, by the way. Unfortunately, I accidentally killed all my aristocrats and capitalists, I overtaxed them to 100% and they all died off. Oh, well, it happens. I can still run a modest profit with full education, crime fighting, and later full defence spending and 4 divisions. However, I only played through 15 years, so I need to play some more to see where it goes. Right now, there is utter lack of luxury stuff, if it's that bad later on in the game, factory inputs for luxury stuff should be drastically lowered.

 

[O CoRVo]

Please report any you find but only after you've ran the game for a minimum of 30 game years - the picture changes sharply as time passes.

Well i am sorry about this post since its about 20 years in victoria


I made a new game as prussia again to compare to my previous, after decreasing the needs of machine parts to 0.2 and 0.5 it helped alot but i still had to rush to build a regular clothes and glass factory, upgrading the lumber, steel and fabric

I still had to decrease the army maintenance to the minimum, and after decreasing 10 in education and crime fighting i finally made a little (3-5) profit

For the first time i dint had to blatantly cheat to get the resources i needed to upgrade my POPs, still the production of goods (1 daily, 2 when i was producing) was still far low compared to the demand, steel was alot better (5 daily production)

I closed my liquor factory and the wine one was losing money since glass was more expensive, just like ammunition (iron was in high demand)

Then i got my second batch of machine parts after researching something, i closed the ammunition factory and built a paper one, upgraded the furniture and lumber

but the problem is small arms, i backed down to the war agains burma (they do nothing, but sometimes they have allies) and then since i had low prestige i decided not to back down in the slevik question (war with denmark)

I mobilized my 30 army but since i was having a tight budget (-6, 30 bucks) i could not increase much my army maintenance, and got crushed soon after


I think that the machine parts for small arms is a brilliant idea, but then you lose good profit since it cost more than the arms (probably 130 more) and the war (big or small) will be a little capped, and i dont think it will be easy to make new divisions after you lose them... is the output of factories hard coded? because or the machines production should be increased a little or more countries should have this


Sorry about not waiting some more years but i though you might wanna see this (especially since some war events happens early)... my next game after this one will be as usa..

I for one enjoyed the game ALOT more this way

 

[Damocles]

Very interesting.

 

[unmerged(14180)]

I don't think machine parts should be used like this, how in hell would an uncivilised nation make a military?

 

[unmerged(7034)]

Given the drastically lowered requirements for military units, the initial stockpile of small arms makes it possible to raise quite an army.

Returning to the mod: I played last night and the POP consumption levels are too high for 1.02. I'll be adjusting these today, possibly tweak down machine parts requirements for industrial production. However I won't be removing them, they do make the game much more interesting and playable (Austria fielding just 29 divisions in 1848 heh heh personally I love it, because IMO nothing's as boring and tedious than rearranging tens of army stacks, but the army numbers are a bit low).

I'll also be looking at machine parts supply. I do not buy into the official line completely; while I agree machine parts shouldn't be available to every Tom, Dick and Harry that wants therm, a country that's in the top 20 prestige-wise should be able to acquire one or two units over the course of fifteen years.

PS. I will be writing a detailed change log once most of the tweaks are done. What can I say, I'm a lazy sod.

Generally speaking though I think the mod improves the gameplay, naturally it's nothing more than a big band-aid since the economic system in Vic is a band-aid concept to start with. BTW I'm playtesting at Very Hard/Furious, I do not have the time to playtest it on all difficulty levels so please post comments about gameplay at easier difficulty levels. I assume that if I make things really hard at the max difficulty level things will automatically be easier but still challenging at easier levels.

 

[unmerged(7034)]

I think that the machine parts for small arms is a brilliant idea, but then you lose good profit since it cost more than the arms (probably 130 more) and the war (big or small) will be a little capped, and i dont think it will be easy to make new divisions after you lose them... is the output of factories hard coded? because or the machines production should be increased a little or more countries should have this


Sorry about not waiting some more years but i though you might wanna see this (especially since some war events happens early)... my next game after this one will be as usa..

I for one enjoyed the game ALOT more this way

Glad you enjoyed it, by Sunday evening I should have a new and improved version available. I will be tweaking down the machine parts requirements still more, but they're staying in - I'll be rebalancing industrial product prices, did a bit of that last night for small arms and it worked really nicely even with the relatively high machine parts requirement for guns.

 

[Arado]

dont forget to increae the ammount of sulphur available, it always inevitably runs short for everyone

 

[unmerged(7034)]

I'll see what I can do about sulphur but frankly I think a major fix there will have to wait until I complete my gargantuan resource distribution project. If anyone would like to help with this please pm me, as I estimate it's going to take me about a month to get the raw resources redistributed (I'm looking into various books and stuff to make things reasonably accurate). If you're knowledgeable about a certain area of the world, i.e. have an idea what was produced there in the 19th century and in what quantities, your help would be very valuable.

 

[O CoRVo]

Well, i decided to play with Russia instead of the USA...

My first game i forgot to build a regular clothes factory and could not buy any, i started again

Now i closed down the small arms, built the paper, clothes and glass factories.. i cut military maintanance in almost a half and navy in almost everything (and disbanded some man of war)

after a while i was having 50 profit a day, increased education and military maint...

I got my second batch of machine parts, i probably built one fabric factory and expanded my lumber and steel one (cant remember)

Curiously i noticed that the production of ammunition was jumping from 1 to 7 frequently..

Or the various nations are having resource shortages or they are closing down and opening the factories like you said... (in my factory it listed i was losing a little money, something like 1 buck a day)

USA offered me 2 weird trade offers (i posted in the bug forum) that i dint accept...

Now, its 1858 and german declared war on me and eventually crushed my few forces (though they were on maximum strenght)

I still could not buy machine parts and some other goods like glass but now the production of steel increased from 5 to 8 and some other few goods too (and i was able to buy precious metals, probably of some gold rushes)

 

[unmerged(7034)]

Thank you very much, this is quite helpful. Keep the comments coming! I'm working on the next version right now and things look promising.

I've noticed that in 1.02 the AI keeps switching production between factories. I suspect that they begin making what they need, find out it's unprofitable, shut down production, discover they need that stuff after all... and so on.

A teaser for the next version of the economy mod: you'll need explosives to build railroads. Lol don't worry I'm rebalancing the whole sulphur/fertilizer/explosives thing to make it hard but feasible.

 

[Mozart41st]

Good news! The econ mod has just reached it's 25th download!

 

[unmerged(7034)]

Victoria economy mod alpha2

An update should shortly become available - I've already sent it off for posting. I haven't had time to playtest the new version properly, just ran three games with various nations at very high speed, so I'm really hoping for constructive input from you guys. My impression is that the new version is an improvement, obviously (otherwise I would not bother submitting it to Mozart41st for posting); among others, you should see a slight slowdown in AI colonization. It's still far from perfect though, so I'm eager to hear constructive comments (but bear in mind I cannot do anything about precious metal availability at this point - sadly it's a random thing).

My apologies for not providing a detailed change log. One reason for this is that I'm rather pressed for time; the other is that I don't want to prejudice anyone with changes that sound good or look good in numerical form, but don't work well in practice, and vice versa. I'll definitely include a log once there's a consensus the mod is firmly on the right track.

Some features:

- input for factories has been tweaked down slightly on the average; altho there have been some small increases here and there, overall less is needed to make stuff

- pop conversion costs have been changed, craftsmen are cheaper, but the other pop groups are generally more expensive

- prices have been tweaked up slightly for selected factory-made goods

- consumption has been cut relative to alpha 1 for pops, but note that farmers do require food. After all everything that gets produced is supoposedly sold on the WM, and everything the pops need is bought off the WM, so having farmers not require food was like saying they live on thin air. If you feel you're making too much money, check pop cash reserves and need satisfaction before commenting; it may be that you're robbing them blind and they'll soon start emigrating or dying of starvation.

- factory building costs have been changed: generally speaking you need less machine parts and more cash, but there quite a few exceptions

- manufacturing costs have been revised, with items such as steel, rubber, machine parts (small amounts! small amounts!) added to the input; big changes include tanks or 'barrels' needing steel and machine parts, plus aeroplanes needing machine parts and quite a lot of lumber and fabric.

- railroads require explosives (small amount), colonial forts require artillery not explosives

- the starting factories in the gc scenario have been revised to provide maximum fabric, clothes, furniture, glass, paper, machine parts etc that are possible without a complete change of country industry profile


That's a very rough outline of what has been done, I hope you see now why I'm not so eager to write a detailed change log for each version lol.

I'm not sure I'll be able to work on this a lot before Christmas but I'll try to release one more update in the coming days.

 

[Mozart41st]

The latest version is up!
http://members.cox.net/mozart41st/viceconmodalpha2.zip

Thanks to Michaelis for his hard work.

 

[Mozart41st]

Hey Mike, you might want to take a look at including this in your mod, it solves the problem of output nicely.

################################################## #######################
# 1.02 general output modifier
################################################## #######################

event = {

id = 59000

random = no

invention = no



picture = chemistry_electricity



trigger = {

year = 1836



}



name = "EVT_556_NAME"

desc = "EVT_556_DESC"

style = 0



date = { day = 5 month = january year = 1836 }

offset = 40 # Check for trigger conditions every 40 days

deathdate = { day = 10 month = march year = 1836 }



action_a = {

name = "OK" # Excellent!



command = { type = work_hour_eff value = 400 }

}

}