1.02 economy mod

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Yes, steel is a hot commodity in my mod - just as it was in those times. Mind you, you'll always get it within a few months - it does not do a disappearing act like some of the commodities in vanilla 1.02. Nevertheless, it's wise to stock up on it ahead of time, and when building railroads in a big country you might want to consider building a steel mill first to keep costs down.

Once again, note that my mod does not makes things easier per se, it just makes the game more playable IMO.

EDIT: I ran a couple of tests and it seems I was a little overconfident there: there indeed occured a steel shortage starting in the early fifties. The AI did not seem to react by increasing steel output, neither did it seem to build any machine parts factories in the sixties. So around 1866 I decreased inputs for steel mills and machine parts factories, and the effect was salutary - within a couple of years, steel and machine parts output increased significantly (to 2 units a day - Austria took the lead in machine parts manufacturing, lol). However steel remained a very sought after commodity, prices actually increased. I'll have to look into this but in the meantime you might try adjusting factory inputs to 1.5 iron and coal for the steel mill and 1 steel for the machine parts factory (all other inputs unchanged).

Storm 95: good to hear.

 

[WoMOS]

Liqour undervalued?

When playing the 1.02 economy mod as Russia on HARD it looks like liqour is a continous loss-maker (at least 1838). Ca. -$8 profit from a liqour factory (and Russia has two of them). Probably caused by the high glass price (same height as liquor) and the suboptimal efficiency (0.5 glass to create 0.2 liqour doesn't look like a winning proposal). This -$8 profit is despite the fact that there is no surplus on the market.

BTW, the increase in research/education cost makes the game very difficult for countries like Russia, which starts with 15% Literacy. It has to pay ca. $170 just to stay on that low literacy level making increasing Literacy to levels where Clerks become useful (and worth their money) difficult. Looks like a diminishing return of education spendings the higher literacy already is would be a better way to avoid Prussia & Co. come to 100% literacy within a few years than simply increasing cost for everyone. But that's of course something only Paradox can implement.

 

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Fabric production

Fabric is still hard to produce (god only knows what my pops are wearing).
It seems that wool and cotton on the world market is also in short supply, so importing these commodities is no solution to relieving the fabric shortage. I am still early in the Grand Campaign, and I d'ont know whether it gets better over time. I believe that the official 1.03 patch will deal with it. This might be a chance to beat them at the punch!

 

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Thanks for the comments guys, I'll look into the stuff you brought up. also, I've just found out (doh) that the AI gets significant production bonuses at harder difficulty levels. This means WM supply may actually be much better on Very Hard than on Normal.

I'll play the game on Normal for a couple of days (meaning a few hours each day - there's only so much time I can devote to this) and release a mod update as soon as I come to any conclusions.

 

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Why I have expanded my RGO and less workers

 

[Kharybdis]

Hello Michaelis, I have downloaded your economy mod, and played through one entire GC as the Netherlands. I would like to share my experience with you.

It was almost 1870 before any machine parts came on the market. I had researched the tech to build MP factories just slightly before they started becoming available. After building a MP factory, my guess as to why it takes so long for them to become available is that one level on MP factory fully staffed consitantly ran at a deficit. I am aware at how the AI will promptly shut down factories that are not making money, or in this case loosing money. I would hazzard a guess that Brittain kept them open long enough to build themselves some factories and then closed them down, or kept them just staffed enough to build small arms and artillery. The unfortunate side effect of this is that no one else was able to buy MP's until about 1870. And the problem was no having low prestige and being lower on the totem pole to buy stuff, as i was first or second in prestige after about 1840.

Second, as the Netherlands I had only negligable competition with colonisation. To be honest, outside of Portugal building about two colonial buildings, France one, and Brittain filling out Canada, Australlia, and New Zeeland it is safe to say I had zero competition. I colonised all of the Pacific, 90% of Africa, and the three Arabic provinces on the rump end of Saudi Arabia. I am unsure what caused this. Glass might have been a problem since it was also late on showing itself on the WM. Even still the other countries could have built coaling stations. I am puzzled as to what caused the lack of apathy for colonialisation.

Third, I would like to say bravo on keeping the army sizes toned down to somewhat realistc levels. Adding the MP's to small arms production has done a wonderful job. Untill 1900ish Brittain, France, and Russia were the only ones who were able to field armies of more than a million men.


Anyway, this is only one experience with your mod. I will play a few more games as I have the time, and report back with more results.

 

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Kharybdis: Thank you very much indeed for such a detailed rundown on what went on in your game. I was very surprised though that you encountered such weak competition when colonising. In my first Normal game, USA grabbed almost all of the Pacific islands by 1846 - and that came after they colonised their primary targets on the American continent.


I'm continuing to play on Normal (world industrial output is regularly half (!) of what it is on Very Hard), and trying out various tweaks in my continuing attempt to make 1.02 more playable. I'll be trying out various tweaks to colonial buildings costs, plus other diverse moves. Most likely I'll release an update to the mod in a couple of days.

 

[pimparel]

I'm continuing to play on Normal (world industrial output is regularly half (!) of what it is on Very Hard), and trying out various tweaks in my continuing attempt to make 1.02 more playable. I'll be trying out various tweaks to colonial buildings costs, plus other diverse moves. Most likely I'll release an update to the mod in a couple of days.

Any news, updates? This mod is in my wishlist, when 1.02a is coming, need help?

As you are tweaking with the economy, I should ask this to you:

In my series of brazilian events, I wanna do 2 chain-events, 1) The rubber-cycle; and 2) The coffee cycle. Where, among some changes in the life_sustainability of some key provinces, I would like to improve efficiency of the RGO's for a period, somthing like 5% or 10%, then make a inverted event to mark the end of the cycle.

So, how would the WM respond to a increase of 10% of brazilian coffee and rubber for 10 years? The price would fall, but the marginal profit would fall too? Cause that the very ending of the brazilian coffee cycle was it's super production, that made the price falls, and made the marginal profit negative.

thanks.

 

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Michaelis,

Does your mod affect the cash reserves of the pops?
I got seriously frustrated with this game as most of the clerks that I had educated reverted back to poor class jobs. That caused too much micromanagement. Do you think your mod affects this issue?

 

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Michaelis,

Been playing with your mod the last couple of days. Been working through a GC as France playing on Normal AI setting Normal Aggression. So far have gotten to around 1850 and have noticed that Steel and Fabric seem to be real hard to come by. I read that you were trying to keep supplies limited at first, but I've never seen the WM above 4 or 5 in either category. That seems a bit low in my opinion. Will continue to go thru the game and see how it pans out.

Barry

 

[OHgamer]

First I want to say good start to trying to fix some of the economic problems with Vic. I have been fiddling around on my own with the colonization issue and after observing several games as a hands-off Bhutan, I think part of the problem with colonization is economic and part of it is an AI issue regarding colonization.

On the economic front, I think using low-level manufactured goods like fabric and glass may actually cause more problems for the AI to colonize. I think the AI regulates its own production of these goods based on what it needs as inputs for higher level manufactures (glass for wine/liquor, fabric for clothing) and military buildup. It may be something in the internal workings of the AI but I think needs of goods for colonization are not readily included in how the AI computed what it needs to produce for a nation. The result is that after the initial stockpile of glass or fabric is used for colonization, colonization stops for the AI countries. A human player of course takes colonization into account for their production levels and therefore can colonize much more as Netherlands than a British AI can. Not sure what ths solution would be to resolve the economic basis of colonization for the AI, but I think this is one of the problems. Perhaps change the required manufactured good to a higher-level manufactured good (regular clothes come to mind and both would be applicable for Missions (clothing the "heathens" and Trade Posts (clothes as a trade good)).

The other problem, the AI directions for colonization, are beyond the scope of what you are trying to do with your economic mod, but here is what I have found. Some countries (Netherlands, Russia and the USA in particular) have from the start already completed the colonization of their areas of primary importance in the first half of the 19th century (Indonesia, interior Siberia and the American West, respectively) so the AI for those nations can begin colonization in areas traditionally outside their historical areas of interest. Britain and France, on the other hand, still have large swathes of terrirtory to establish claims on in places like Canada/Australia and Senegal/Algeria before they can complete move on to other areas they historically were colonizing in the 1880s and 1890s. The solution for this part of the problem would be, I think, to have the Dutch, Russian and USA AIs have to focus on their traditional areas first, thus reducing Dutch holdings in Indonesia, Russian holdings in the Siberian interior and USA holdings in the Great Plains at the start. I am considering a mod myself to create a more balanced colonization and with your economic changes I am getting some encouraging results (much better than with the vanilla 1.02 economic system) so will be very interested to see what changes you may come up with on the economics side in the future.

 

[pimparel]

First I want to say good start to trying to fix some of the economic problems with Vic. I have been fiddling around on my own with the colonization issue and after observing several games as a hands-off Bhutan, I think part of the problem with colonization is economic and part of it is an AI issue regarding colonization.

OHgamer,

I totally agree with you. The fast colonization need a 2 side correction. 1) economic, increasing the costs, so only great countries can colonize; and 2) AI part, there must be two sets of AI, one default, with industrialization issues and the second with colonization instructions. Like the vanilla belgium AI, with have 4 parts.

 

[OHgamer]

Also having each of the major colonizing states have a full realtive factory build setup section in their AI might make the economies as a whole more efficient, rather than having them use default AI settings which may very well be starving the economy as a whole as I think ai attempts to create autarky in a nation's economy.

 

[unmerged(7034)]

Thank you very much for your comments everyone, I really appreciate it. I'm afriad I won't be releasing an update for at least two more days, as when I got into the whole Normal thing I became horrified. The AI economy basically just lies on its back gasping for air. At the same time I haven't succeeded in balancing the colonisation costs yet; it either goes too fast or too slowly. what's more right now I cannot conceive a way of adjusting things so the game gets more playable at Normal while maintaining its balance on Very Hard, where AI industrial production gets (I believe) a 50% production boost. All in all world industrial output on Normal tends to be half of what it is on Very Hard after ca 50 years of playing (I have two campaigns with Colombia, one on Normal and one on Very Hard, running concurrently).

All in all I must say my impression is that Normal is actually harder to play than Very Hard (!). Industrial production is lower, while I didn't see a significant decrease in difficulty in other areas (a dug in division can successfully defeat 50k partisans as well as 20k). You can be sure I'm taking all of your comments into consideration. I'll continue to work on this as much as time allows and I'll definitely release an update in the next few days.

Happy new year everyone.

 

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Michaelis,

Does your mod affect the cash reserves of the pops?
I got seriously frustrated with this game as most of the clerks that I had educated reverted back to poor class jobs. That caused too much micromanagement. Do you think your mod affects this issue?

Yes my mod definitely affects this issue. Actually POP cash and earnings were a focus for much of the early development of this mod. The whole thing still isn't perfect (middle and rich classes have a little too much money), but on the whole it works much better than in vanilla 1.02.

It looks as I'll actually have some time to work on the mod today. In the meantime, I'd like everyone to tell me what difficulty level they are playing at, and of course of any issues which need extra attention. Thank you in advance.

 

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Normal level play France, Grand Campaign

In one of my earlier posts I indicated that France lacked both fabric and steel in the earlier part of the game. This is entirely historical as the fabric industry came to full bloom after 1815, steel production was at insignificant levels in 1865 (WM production 419,000 metric tons). Whether you want the mod to be more playable of historical or both is entirely up to you. My two pence.

 

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Well, I'm playing your mod on normal for all settings.

 

[unmerged(7034)]

Thanks for the input guys. I've managed to get quite bit done today, colonisation is now proceeding at a pace not far from historical. I'm applying final tweaks to factory input, costs, and POP consumption and should be done tomorrow/the day after at the very latest. Here are the changes till now:

Changes in 1.02 economy mod beta2

- factory crime fighting costs have been slightly raised. The whole crime cost issue remains in need of overhaul, as crime fighting costs should begin low and end high; the present tech benefit setup has the opposite effect

- making glass now requires coal and cement (I know, I know - well, it's the nearest there is to sand, and I wanted it in the production chain)

- factory inputs have been decreased yet again to work better at the Normal difficulty level. Nevertheless, you're still advised to invest in appropriate commerce research and to build railroads in 'factory' states even before you start to industrialize in earnest.

- colonisation costs have been radically revised. A colonial efort involves plenty of booze; if you want to colonise as a minor, you have to build an early (and probably unprofitable) booze industry. This is possible the moment you acrquire any machine parts, and the 5 machine parts you get with Mechanical Production will suffice for building several factories because of the lowered machine parts factory construction costs. Note that including booze in colonisation costs makes it very hard to buy any on the open market, however the starting stockpile for all civilised nations is quite ample for purposes other than colonisation.

- railroads are slightly cheaper, notably the amount of explosives required for railroads has been decreased

- POP needs have been tweaked; all POPs are more demanding (poor- very slightly, middle and rich - slightly)

- starting factory setup has been tweaked; Russia has lost a distillery to slow down its colonisation of unhistoric locales

- factory construction costs have been decreased with an eye on speeding up AI industrialization

 

[pimparel]

- making glass now requires coal and cement (I know, I know - well, it's the nearest there is to sand, and I wanted it in the production chain)

Sand is a Natural resource!

 

[unmerged(3410)]

Do you have a new link for the mod?