Bureaucrats: National Impact only

[Spartakusbund]

The latest Dev Diary shows that Government Administration only produce Bureaucratic Capacity, which we know from the previous Diary is aggregated on the national level.

I’d speculated before that bureaucrats would produce something with effects on the state level (similar to the ticket production we saw on the train station in that other screenshot). Sadly this doesn’t seem to be the case. Bureaucrats might have jobs in other types of buildings though? That still remains unclear.

 

[Muhu]

I'm entirely sure about that. The weekly taxes are listed on this building page, which might imply that the state taxes somehow scale with the level of government administration. Otherwise why would taxes appear here?

 

[Spartakusbund]

I'm entirely sure about that. The weekly taxes are listed on this building page, which might imply that the state taxes somehow scale with the level of government administration. Otherwise why would taxes appear here?

Turmoil has an effect on local tax rates. Probably a lot of other things do too.

EDIT: Misunderstood your question, thought you were talking about the state screen not the building screen.

 

[Kimberly]

I'm entirely sure about that. The weekly taxes are listed on this building page, which might imply that the state taxes somehow scale with the level of government administration. Otherwise why would taxes appear here?

I think the weekly taxes for buildings are the taxes that the workers there pay. That's why they're listed below wages. It tells you which buildings are the most important to the state budget.

 

[Muhu]

I think the weekly taxes for buildings are the taxes that the workers there pay. That's why they're listed below wages. It tells you which buildings are the most important to the state budget.

You are right. I just realized that the other buildings have that section too.

 

[alanschu]

I agree that regional bureaucracy is still important. Hopefully the UI is just unclear about it and/or they take this feedback and consider it.

 

[Alfred Dreyfus]

Regional bureaucracy is not only import: it is essential.

If you are playing USA or Russia you shouldn't be okay by just having a mountain of Government Administration buildings in Washington or Moscow, you should have Government Administration buildings distributed in all your states.

 

[alexti]

Regional bureaucracy is not only import: it is essential.

If you are playing USA or Russia you shouldn't be okay by just having a mountain of Government Administration buildings in Washington or Moscow, you should have Government Administration buildings distributed in all your states.

In terms of realism, yes. But is it important for the gameplay? I can see that the cost of it would be the need to micromanage administrative buildings in many states, but what is the upside? Does it add any new interesting decisions?

 

[Alfred Dreyfus]

In terms of realism, yes. But is it important for the gameplay? I can see that the cost of it would be the need to micromanage administrative buildings in many states, but what is the upside? Does it add any new interesting decisions?

Of course it's important for gameplay. This game has POPs at a regional level.

The need of bureaucrats geographically distributed in your regions rather than just having a mountain of beaurecrats at your capital should be important in the game.

 

[Spartakusbund]

Of course it's important for gameplay. This game has POPs at a regional level.

The need of bureaucrats geographically distributed in your regions rather than just having a mountain of beaurecrats at your capital should be important in the game.

As a practical matter, it will probably not be viable to have a Government Admin building just in your capital state unless you're a small country. Just look at the state Sweden is in in Dev Diary #2. It's got a fully staffed up (presumably level 3) Admin building in Svealand yet is still over capacity. And Sweden is not the most densely populated country to say the least.

Also, from an opportunity cost perspective you probably want to spread the Admin Centers around. There are probably more important things you want highly educated, well promoted POPs doing in your capital.

But fundamentally I agree, it would be nice for the mechanics to provide a direct incentive to have at least some bureaucrat POPs in each state.

 

[Arizal]

The portayal of regional bureaucrats would serve to highlight that some regions were better desserved by the countries than others, which were backwaters. Think about it : with a perfectly working administration everywhere, there is no far west, no difference between North and South Italy, colonies (those that aren't portrayed as their own states at least) won't be any different than the metropolis on how effective the player actions are.

I think it's a major oversight and it could be fixed relatively simply by giving local impacts to bureaucrats. Ideally I would like a more complex mechanic by which the player would have to choose whether or not he wants the local bureaucracy to work on local or national things, but for now I would be satisfied with an overlap of both tasks.

 

[alanschu]

On the surface and just spitballing here, but a mechanic similar to market access via infrastructure for taxation could possibly work?

An incorporated state without any nearby government actors might see less throughput on the effectiveness of tax collection or other possible government actions.

 

[Avian Overlord]

I mean, centralized bureaucracies do... exist.

 

[alanschu]

I mean, centralized bureaucracies do... exist.

This is true, and on some level I could very well be being guilty of "I'm used to this from Victoria 2, so it feels off that it's missing in this one." Though it's actually why I used the term "near" rather than "specifically in the state" in my previous post.

I'll admit to being a bit ignorant of stuff like this in history. My understanding is China had a pretty centralized bureaucracy for a long, long time. But I'm not sure how the efficacy of the government faded the further they got from the core (if at all).

To be clear it's not something I feel is a deal breaker. If I'm honest I probably just like that mechanic in Victoria 2

 

[Arizal]

I mean, centralized bureaucracies do... exist.

You are right. Maybe bureaucracy should be linked with a value of autonomy : the more autonomous a region is, the more bureaucrats it needs? So you could have your country with almost no need for bureaucrats in region, and those more evenly distributed.

 

[Avian Overlord]

You are right. Maybe bureaucracy should be linked with a value of autonomy : the more autonomous a region is, the more bureaucrats it needs? So you could have your country with almost no need for bureaucrats in region, and those more evenly distributed.

I'd just make states with no local bureaucrats cost a little more bureaucracy.

Edit: And keep in mind, just because a pop lives in one location doesn't mean they never leave. Bureaucrats can be sent out on assignments, even long term ones, even if their house and family are in London or wherever.

 

[Arizal]

I'd just make states with no local bureaucrats cost a little more bureaucracy.

Intriguing. What would this represent? Unitary states (so to speak) would have more problem holding vast stretch of land? Or you think we should just place a malus on centralized bureaucracy to achieve the desired effect of more distributed bureaucrats? One thing I think would be important is some clarity, though. You should know by which rationale you need to put at least X bureaucrats in this or that region.

 

[Avian Overlord]

Intriguing. What would this represent? Unitary states (so to speak) would have more problem holding vast stretch of land? Or you think we should just place a malus on centralized bureaucracy to achieve the desired effect of more distributed bureaucrats? One thing I think would be important is some clarity, though. You should know by which rationale you need to put at least X bureaucrats in this or that region.

Well, as I said above, a region not having administration buildings doesn't mean they never see a civil servant, but if someone has to make a trip every time something comes up, that will simply be less efficient than if there was a hub in the area.

 

[alexti]

Of course it's important for gameplay. This game has POPs at a regional level.

The need of bureaucrats geographically distributed in your regions rather than just having a mountain of beaurecrats at your capital should be important in the game.

But what effects do you expect them to have in the game? And what decisions the player will be making regarding this? If it ends up "build N_i administrative buildings in state i" to achieve optimal bureaucrat distribution that would be more of an annoyance.

The portayal of regional bureaucrats would serve to highlight that some regions were better desserved by the countries than others, which were backwaters. Think about it : with a perfectly working administration everywhere, there is no far west, no difference between North and South Italy, colonies (those that aren't portrayed as their own states at least) won't be any different than the metropolis on how effective the player actions are.

I think it's a major oversight and it could be fixed relatively simply by giving local impacts to bureaucrats. Ideally I would like a more complex mechanic by which the player would have to choose whether or not he wants the local bureaucracy to work on local or national things, but for now I would be satisfied with an overlap of both tasks.

Is it a role of bureaucrats though? I would like those differences to be represented, but I am not convinced bureaucrats are the right tool. Realistically, such differences were result of many factors of which administration would be only a small part.

 

[Hertzila]

I ultimately agree that there should be some sort of regional or state-based administration system, or a reason to spread the administrative burden outside your capital. Just having a bunch of paper pusher buildings in your capital region and calling it a day sounds very off to me. I like the idea that you only need to monitor your national bureaucracy and worry about basically the national governance level of bureaucracy, but having no system for local administration sounds lacking to me.

That said, from a gameplay perspective, it might be a better idea to tie such administration to something you don't specifically construct yourself. Eg. whereas you do need to construct your national bureaus, local admin and relevant workplaces would be tied to how urbanized the state is, with more urban development creating bigger local admin workplaces that need filling, or the state becomes inefficient. Large patches of land sparsely filled with farmers would be easier to manage locally with few local admins, whereas a massive city with plenty of industry requires lots of local administration alongside the national bureaucracy to keep things running smoothly. The national bureaucrats would not be affected by this, it would still count on just pops and incorporated states.