Moquel -
Make profit in times of peace, take debt in times of war - it's very historical
Heretic
Make profit in times of peace, take debt in times of war - it's very historical
Heretic
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Moquel said:Defence and army upkeep? why, that's pretty damn much init
Just now noticed I had defense spending around £400 and army upkeep at around £900 :rofl:
Oh well, I need it to be anywhere close to beating the frenchies or russians
Meh, I guess it'll just take a while getting used to
Don't spend on the military in time of peace. Instead, maintain a reserve of supplies so that, when war starts, you jack up the defence spending, hire a bunch of new soldiers, and use the manpower to gear up.
Of course, you do need to protect your borders with engineer infantry to gain enough time for this to work...
Standing units of engineers, artillery, dug in in bunkers to slow the enemy's advance until the reserves can come to the front. add a few hussars to slash at your opponent's unprotected provinces and weaker units.
Things are much better now. No more stupid exploits, and you must really plan your economy and start saving for wars.
What yakman has said goes for me too.
What yakman has said goes for me too.
I am curious how the AI is dealing with this. IIRC most of the powerful AI countries tend to build many duplicate factories in various provinces (such as OE, Russia...).
I haven't had a chance to install the patch yet myself.
Thanks
Zedrow
I haven't had a chance to install the patch yet myself.
Thanks
Zedrow
rafiki said:You do have Darkrenown's unification mod installed, right?
Rafiki
Probably not with a line like thta
zedrow said:
I'm sure they deal with it the way they alwasy do. 100% taxation for the poor.
Moquel said:A game in which I was doing pretty good with 1.03b suddenly turned into me losing ~£1000 a day with full crime spending, and still losing at least £200 with crime on 0.
How am I supposed to turn a profit? :/
Any helpfull advice would be nice about now
Wow... What did you do before that a patch would cause that much of a difference?
Well I still have 1.03b but what I did in the beginning is have taxes at about 40% and tariffs fairly high and cut crime, defense, and military unit spending so I can keep afloat until technology (by keeping up the all important education spending) allowed me to industrialize and build railroads (oh and inventions). Don't be afriad to go into debt for your railroads and factories, short term pain can equal long term prosperity.
rafiki said:You do have Darkrenown's unification mod installed, right?
Yeah sure do, but the abscence of BB wars just means you get the opportunity to start them yourself
actually, I did get BB wars anyway, but that's my own fault since I got Austria to join the Popular Unification and got all Croatian and slovenian territory in the process (oops, I guess I had bought one of their provinces and released them as satellites already - darn!)
Apart from those, being allied to a megalomaniacal Russia that's declared war on the Ottomans twice (Crimean war not withstanding) and the UK twice more, you tend to want a military standing around.
The problems with money died down after a few years, and I really have no idea what caused them in the first place since I was doing fine before the patch. Maybe it was just a fluke of some sort.
probably because he was too dependent upon tariffsBlackberry said:Wow... What did you do before that a patch would cause that much of a difference?
so how exactly are we supposed to make money in 1.03c? what are the best strategies?
ConcordantNexus said:
I probably don't the the best strategy, but I raise poor taxes as high as they will go and not impact next month's population growth (in other words, about 75-80%), and tax the middle and upper class at 50%. I also raise tarrifs quite high, and sell off most of my starting stockpile. In desperate cases, I've sold provinces, tech, and my grandmother for quick cash.
I spend almost nothing on defence except when I have to, and fight few major wars (except in special cases). I spend nothing on crime suppression during about the first decade.
Social spending: If I have no social programs, I max out spending (to lower conciousness, because I usually don't have a democracy yet). If I do enact reforms, I lower social spending as far as it will go, and rely on a relatively early shift from Monarchy to avoid trouble.
With most nations, this yield enough leftover cash to spend lots on research, and a small amount left over to slowly and painfully industrialize. I am also a big believer in enacting health care reforms fairly quickly. Many smaller nations can rapidly add other reforms to attract a sizeable number of immigrants.
Raph said:
Spoken like a good communist.
Would some of those "world's strongest economies" include the USSR, North Korea, Cambodia...and the like. Or perhaps the cultural and economic protectionist Islamic nations of the Middle East who's people live in abject poverty while sitting on some of the greatest natural resources on earth? Or perhaps enlightened France with its decades old double-digit unemployment?
Then there is China which shrugged off its Maoist heritage in favor of engagement in a free market and currently has the fastest growing economy in the world. Or the nations of eastern Europe who have done much the same after declaring their independence from their Soviet overlords...much to the consternation of the decadent and decaying welfare states of Western Europe.
Parmenedies said:
Oh ! Come on ! The USA as well as the UK surely used protectionism heavily in their times, when building their industries. In fact, the 19th century was based on metropole-colony exchange and nothing else. Very little "international" trade or "world market". The whole idea was to take colonies to get the basic stuff, put it in your factories back home and reexport the finished goods to the developing colonies.
USA was an exception because due to their huge national resources they did not really need colonies for that purpose.
Today, of course, American firms and market being mature, they are the strongest advocate of "free trade", yet they do not accept to lower the subsidies on their agriculture to allow FAIR trade.
Tarrifs are THE key to development. Think of it as the major source of income for states that are not far enough administratively developped. Income tax or VAT is just for the advanced, less corrupted states.
Besides, the US still reimpose tarrifs unilateraly when it judges that his national firms are weaker than the competition (See how Bush did with steel recently). "Enlighted" France goes well, thank you. IMO unemployment is the result of a sum of factors including internal taxes (19.6% VAT, who beats that?), demographic bumps, lack of resources (no oil, no more coal, no iron, no wood,...), etc... and in no way tarrifs. As a matter of fact France even has no tarrifs with its 3 biggest commercial partners (Germany, UK, Italy), and that for almost a decade.
And think of Japan, with its crazy 500% tarrifs on agricultural products.
Seriously, man, open a book about economics, not a brochure of yankee crap. :wacko:
Low tarrifs almost always go in favor of the economically strong. As for innovation, it seems that the "protection effect" (protection from external competition gives more incentive for investment and -also- ensures survival) cancels the "spoilt effect", at least for products and services that can be easily (physically) exported (again, look at Japan).
As for the game, I am happy that the tarrif/subsidies stuff works now. Making it more complicated as said above (bilateral agreements, selective product tarrif) would necessitate the introduction of bilateral exchanges (suppression of the world market) and way too much micromnagement I believe.
So... could be fun !
Maybe in Vicky 2, "the empire strikes back" ?
Parmenedies said:
*rofl* Napi said it all. But I wonder how the myth can so strongly overshadow the obvious!
Napoleon Rules said:
Oh ! Come on ! The USA as well as the UK surely used protectionism heavily in their times,
Considering that in "their times" no-one really practiced free trade, this statement is of limited worth.
Nonsense. Britain's trade depended heavily on markets in Europe, the USA, South America and China. Perhaps 10-15% of British trade was with her colonies. Only at the very end of the century did trade with colonies dominate.
This is misleading. What's known as "fair trade" is in fact a form of protectionism. Genuine free trade is, in fact, genuinely fair trade.
Income tax is largely a development which arises when people decide that the rich should pay more tax than the poor, regardless of how they spend their money. Income tax was a highly unpopular tax through to the mid-19th century here in Britain.
Yeah- erroneously. We did the same with our steel industry- and it collapsed anyway. Protectionism doesn't really work for developed economies.
I was under the impression there's masses of iron and a fair bit of coal in France. But then, iron and coal aren't all that important. You can import them- they're cheap.
Look at Britain's "Imperial Preference" in the first half of the 20th century. One of the big beefs Gandhi had with British rule was that we put high tariffs on non-British goods, and as they had no competition, British companies were then able to sell extremely poor quality goods on the Indian market. This resulted in us eventually losing that market.
I am aware of many nations benefiting from high tariffs and a well-thought out policy of targetted protectionism to nuture a domestic industry. Examples that come immediately to mind include the United States, Japan, Germany, and Korea.
Going further back in history, to a time when England was economically subordinate to the Low Countries (I speak of roughly 1300-1500 here), we see that the English corrected this problem through a combination of nuturing domestic industry (wool-weaving in particular) and penalizing imports that matched items the English were beginning to make themselves.
--------
However, some issues with protectionism suggest themselves.
1. Protectionism doesn't work nearly as well when your trading partners are aware of your moves. They have this strange tendency to take revenge by raising their own tariffs - and soon everyone gets hurt. The United States in particular is forever finding this out.
In many people's opinions, one of the greatest attacks on global poverty would be to simultaneously open up the rich economies to imported agricultural goods, and to open up the poor economies to global investment in advanced agricultural production, and then value-added processing, advertising, and sales. A nation with a strong agricultural sector has strong industrial and service sectors ready to hand.
2. Protectionism doesn't work if domestic industry isn't ready to get world-class, to compete with the best. Examples of protected industries that stay miserable are legion. I will content myself by mentioning India's car industry, Korea's car industry, Japan's food-processing sector, and (recently) American steel.
Protectionism can be beneficial - but only if most other factors are favorable.
3. Injudicious protectionism - and, historically, most protectionism has been injudicious - slows down the rate at which global best practice - of design, of labour, of management, of promotion and sales, of distribution, of raw material use - is adopted. So often, an industry that needed protection to get established requires more protection merely to survive.
We all like to be comfortable, but those nations who make themselves uncomfortable prosper most greatly. America makes many mistakes, but her willingness to make herself uncomfortable keeps her economy the world's strongest.
4. Protectionism and the service sector don't mix. The reason for this is almost as simple as noting that protectionism and the spread of knowledge don't mix. As is well-known, the service sector is far more important economically than the industrial sector in almost every country. It employs more people, grows more quickly, can be done world-class in more diverse places, has fewer hard limits to exansion (steel can be over-produced, but it's hard to over-produce advertising that sells more steel) and both requires and encourages a more educated and less oppressable citizenry.
It is claimed by some that the service sector depends on the industrial sector. It is more correct to say just the reverse: that a steel factory cannot be run, that new steel-making techniques cannot be researched and implemented, that new uses and market opportunities for steel cannot be found, that steel cannot be sold or delivered or financed or paid for, without an effective service sector.
5. Protectionism is the death-knell of intellectual achievement. In (at least) the first half of the 19th century, the United States had very low regard for foreign copyrighted materials. Booksellers made a fine living re-printing popular English works and selling them for less than they could be imported through the tariff walls. This was murder for early American writers, because pirated English works paid no copyright. This was among the reasons why this nation took a while to develop a native liturature and world-class authors.
There are few absolutes in the free-trade / protectionism debate, but one of them is this: "A nation without a free trade in ideas is a nation that contributes few or none."
Going further back in history, to a time when England was economically subordinate to the Low Countries (I speak of roughly 1300-1500 here), we see that the English corrected this problem through a combination of nuturing domestic industry (wool-weaving in particular) and penalizing imports that matched items the English were beginning to make themselves.
--------
However, some issues with protectionism suggest themselves.
1. Protectionism doesn't work nearly as well when your trading partners are aware of your moves. They have this strange tendency to take revenge by raising their own tariffs - and soon everyone gets hurt. The United States in particular is forever finding this out.
In many people's opinions, one of the greatest attacks on global poverty would be to simultaneously open up the rich economies to imported agricultural goods, and to open up the poor economies to global investment in advanced agricultural production, and then value-added processing, advertising, and sales. A nation with a strong agricultural sector has strong industrial and service sectors ready to hand.
2. Protectionism doesn't work if domestic industry isn't ready to get world-class, to compete with the best. Examples of protected industries that stay miserable are legion. I will content myself by mentioning India's car industry, Korea's car industry, Japan's food-processing sector, and (recently) American steel.
Protectionism can be beneficial - but only if most other factors are favorable.
3. Injudicious protectionism - and, historically, most protectionism has been injudicious - slows down the rate at which global best practice - of design, of labour, of management, of promotion and sales, of distribution, of raw material use - is adopted. So often, an industry that needed protection to get established requires more protection merely to survive.
We all like to be comfortable, but those nations who make themselves uncomfortable prosper most greatly. America makes many mistakes, but her willingness to make herself uncomfortable keeps her economy the world's strongest.
4. Protectionism and the service sector don't mix. The reason for this is almost as simple as noting that protectionism and the spread of knowledge don't mix. As is well-known, the service sector is far more important economically than the industrial sector in almost every country. It employs more people, grows more quickly, can be done world-class in more diverse places, has fewer hard limits to exansion (steel can be over-produced, but it's hard to over-produce advertising that sells more steel) and both requires and encourages a more educated and less oppressable citizenry.
It is claimed by some that the service sector depends on the industrial sector. It is more correct to say just the reverse: that a steel factory cannot be run, that new steel-making techniques cannot be researched and implemented, that new uses and market opportunities for steel cannot be found, that steel cannot be sold or delivered or financed or paid for, without an effective service sector.
5. Protectionism is the death-knell of intellectual achievement. In (at least) the first half of the 19th century, the United States had very low regard for foreign copyrighted materials. Booksellers made a fine living re-printing popular English works and selling them for less than they could be imported through the tariff walls. This was murder for early American writers, because pirated English works paid no copyright. This was among the reasons why this nation took a while to develop a native liturature and world-class authors.
There are few absolutes in the free-trade / protectionism debate, but one of them is this: "A nation without a free trade in ideas is a nation that contributes few or none."
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Golden_Deliciou, LM+: I think we all essentially agree.
1. Protectionism is no good to get to a very advanced economic level, but still every country used it -as a natural, maybe unreasonnable, reflex- at a certain point of time.
2. In the 19th century trade volumes were at a much lower level than today. At first European countries were trading together, then when the colonies produced enough, trade was almost entirely reoriented to them.
I think all this is already present in the game. When I play a big power I usually try to get an interventionnist party in power, like everyone, in order to get the cash to develop my economy, and at the end of the game I always import less than 100 pounds a day, so my tarriff income is ridiculous anyway. Sometimes I just lower the rate because I think it lowers my people's militancy a bit.
On the other hand, when I play a nation that cannot expand too much in colonies, at the end, when I need a lot of raw materials for my industry, I am OK with a liberal party that allows me no tarrif, but imports for half the price.
So what I mean is that the game just makes us do things almost historically.
The bonus of practicing free trade with liberals (half-priced imports) is already big enough. No need to impose more rules to lower the efficiency of countries using the protectionnism.
Besides, I have not noticed too much so far, but I guess if our POP now really pay those tarrifs (and the money really comes out of their pocket) in the new patch, it won't be possible to run the entire game at 500% tarrif...
1. Protectionism is no good to get to a very advanced economic level, but still every country used it -as a natural, maybe unreasonnable, reflex- at a certain point of time.
2. In the 19th century trade volumes were at a much lower level than today. At first European countries were trading together, then when the colonies produced enough, trade was almost entirely reoriented to them.
I think all this is already present in the game. When I play a big power I usually try to get an interventionnist party in power, like everyone, in order to get the cash to develop my economy, and at the end of the game I always import less than 100 pounds a day, so my tarriff income is ridiculous anyway. Sometimes I just lower the rate because I think it lowers my people's militancy a bit.
On the other hand, when I play a nation that cannot expand too much in colonies, at the end, when I need a lot of raw materials for my industry, I am OK with a liberal party that allows me no tarrif, but imports for half the price.
So what I mean is that the game just makes us do things almost historically.
The bonus of practicing free trade with liberals (half-priced imports) is already big enough. No need to impose more rules to lower the efficiency of countries using the protectionnism.
Besides, I have not noticed too much so far, but I guess if our POP now really pay those tarrifs (and the money really comes out of their pocket) in the new patch, it won't be possible to run the entire game at 500% tarrif...