Construction work

[KonradRichtmark]

Awhile ago I commented on the circulation of money, noting that having an actual circulation where money simply changes hands rather than appears out of nowhere or disappears into nowhere would be neat, making the game both more dynamic and realistic. While I'm aware that perfect circulation probably won't happen, I'm pleased to see that Paradox is taking V2 somewhat in that direction, with the wages of certain POP types being paid directly from spending sliders.

Which made me think, where does the money spent on construction of factories, railroads and fortifications go, and what does it represent? Since those things already have costs in goods, I suppose it'd mainly be wages for the dudes actually building the thing.

Which leads me to the idea, should this work be carried out by POPs? The labourer POP could take on this role neatly, in addition to its other roles. To avoid having POPs to have to move around too much for work, any labourer in a state could work on a construction job in any province in the state.

The added dynamism that would follow from it would be that the rate of development would be limited by the available amount of labour, as well as present the player with an actual trade-off between (indirectly) turning POPs into craftsmen for factories, or keep them as labourers to get those vital railroads built. Also, the costs of construction would not be static, but dependant on the wage level in the country, giving poor countries a realistic development advantage from being able to build things cheaply, and would put a realistic wage-inflation brake on the growth of countries already doing well.

 

[dunka2]

This would also help countries escape recessions, depressions, and panics. That is, of course, if these types of occurrences are included. They could be triggered by sudden explosions of cash due to massive slider changes, by new goods becoming overproduced, by busts of massive companies, or the most frequent during the timeline, by stock market manipulation of railroad barons! The idea of corporations would be nice too. Sort of like factions. When a panic sets in, you could ask them to spend more, for a price of course. And if this feature was added, it would make capital a closed system, as it was during most of the timeline. Then the situation between England and China could be better rendered, as the cause of the Opium War was England's loss of specie, and thus the loss of money in its country.

EDIT: Also, if the money spent on building was the cost of goods plus the cost of the building itself, then the money spent on the building would disappear from the game. For example, if one spent $1000 on a factory and $700 of that was for goods, then the $300 for the building would be lost for the game as it wouldn't go anywhere. This would result in a general loss of money in the game world and the eventual crash of the world market for good. Countries would have to go into debt to prop up their economies. Eventually those countries would default. Goodbye world!

 

[Bezborg]

What about regions populated exclusively by farmers... If we tie factory construction to the POP's, who would build it then? It would be a bit unrealistic if the farmers suddenly changed into laborers (presumably the POP that would build factories?)? Sure it happened in V1, but I'm under the impression that V2 was trying to distance itself from that kind of deus ex machina phenomenon...

I suppose it could be done via immigration of laborers into the province, some kind of government programme that would encourage laborers and their families to pursue their livelihoods into the region...

 

[dunka2]

If I'm not mistaken, I thought factories were built on a state level. Of the 4 to 6 provinces in a state, there would have to be at least one province with labourers instead of farmers. Then again, farmers and labourers are not terribly different, and frequently farmers were used to build things. If you really wanted factories and the like to be built by only labourers, then some farmers could change to labourers. Unfortunately, those labourers wouldn't have a job when construction was over. The artisans could fill this gap though, as construction was somewhat of a learned profession in the days before construction machinery. Most people also built factories they had designed as factory plans were highly guarded secrets. England even had a law forbidding anyone who had knowledge of designing factories from leaving the country. I believe artisans could represent the owners of construction firms, skilled construction workers like electricians and the like, and the architects.

 

[KonradRichtmark]

EDIT: Also, if the money spent on building was the cost of goods plus the cost of the building itself, then the money spent on the building would disappear from the game. For example, if one spent $1000 on a factory and $700 of that was for goods, then the $300 for the building would be lost for the game as it wouldn't go anywhere. This would result in a general loss of money in the game world and the eventual crash of the world market for good. Countries would have to go into debt to prop up their economies. Eventually those countries would default. Goodbye world!

Well, in Victoria 1, the price of building a factory was in money plus goods. For example, a typical factory might cost £1000, 10 units of cement, 10 units of iron, and 4 machine parts. Meaning that you'd pay the £1000 right away, as well as spend some more money on buying the goods from the world market if you didn't have them yourself. In which case the money spent on the goods would go part to the POPs of the country producing the good, and part as taxes to the government ruling over those POPs. The £1000 would vanish up into air though.

I wondered the same thing you do in the thread linked to in the OP, and apparently money is "injected" into the circulation by giving each POP a "base" income that comes out of nowhere. It was arbitrary and prevented any real social crisis from poverty, but a necessary mechanism to prevent the economy from crashing. This is another reason for why I'd like the circulation to have as few "leaks" as possible, it requires less arbitrary "injections" to compensate.

 

[KonradRichtmark]

What about regions populated exclusively by farmers... If we tie factory construction to the POP's, who would build it then? It would be a bit unrealistic if the farmers suddenly changed into laborers (presumably the POP that would build factories?)? Sure it happened in V1, but I'm under the impression that V2 was trying to distance itself from that kind of deus ex machina phenomenon...

Well, as far as I understand, the point isn't as much about preventing POPs from changing, but about taking away direct player control over it. The player wouldn't convert farmers into labourers upon wanting to get a railroad built. He would simply order the railroad, and if there are no labourers around (unlikely but possible), some of the farmers would convert on their own. Or, labourers with unprofitable works elsewhere would move in.

There should be some inertia when it comes to turning into clerks or craftsmen, but farmers and labourers both represent fairly unskilled labour and should thus be fairly interchangeable (aka one would quickly convert to the other when there is demand).

 

[KonradRichtmark]

If I'm not mistaken, I thought factories were built on a state level. Of the 4 to 6 provinces in a state, there would have to be at least one province with labourers instead of farmers. Then again, farmers and labourers are not terribly different, and frequently farmers were used to build things. If you really wanted factories and the like to be built by only labourers, then some farmers could change to labourers. Unfortunately, those labourers wouldn't have a job when construction was over. The artisans could fill this gap though, as construction was somewhat of a learned profession in the days before construction machinery. Most people also built factories they had designed as factory plans were highly guarded secrets. England even had a law forbidding anyone who had knowledge of designing factories from leaving the country. I believe artisans could represent the owners of construction firms, skilled construction workers like electricians and the like, and the architects.

Didn't notice this post before I typed out mine above. I endorse this.

 

[dunka2]

No worries. I pretty much wrote a stream of conciousness post. Labourers are pretty interchangeable with farmers, but having artisans receive the money from construction is simply easiest.

 

[alvaro]

Awhile ago I commented on the circulation of money, noting that having an actual circulation where money simply changes hands rather than appears out of nowhere or disappears into nowhere would be neat, making the game both more dynamic and realistic. While I'm aware that perfect circulation probably won't happen, I'm pleased to see that Paradox is taking V2 somewhat in that direction, with the wages of certain POP types being paid directly from spending sliders.

Which made me think, where does the money spent on construction of factories, railroads and fortifications go, and what does it represent? Since those things already have costs in goods, I suppose it'd mainly be wages for the dudes actually building the thing.

Which leads me to the idea, should this work be carried out by POPs? The labourer POP could take on this role neatly, in addition to its other roles. To avoid having POPs to have to move around too much for work, any labourer in a state could work on a construction job in any province in the state.

The added dynamism that would follow from it would be that the rate of development would be limited by the available amount of labour, as well as present the player with an actual trade-off between (indirectly) turning POPs into craftsmen for factories, or keep them as labourers to get those vital railroads built. Also, the costs of construction would not be static, but dependant on the wage level in the country, giving poor countries a realistic development advantage from being able to build things cheaply, and would put a realistic wage-inflation brake on the growth of countries already doing well.

i'd mention also that this would spare testing time as money would be under control anytime by being just a matter of setting up the total amount to start and the capacity of each country to adquire it by selling products.

big +1 then.

 

[Alex_brunius]

Smart Ideas in OP that I fully support.

 

[unmerged(63310)]

Interesting idea for sure. Surprised it hasn't been mentioned before that I know of.

It would present very interesting trade off for the later part of the game, especially in small highly industrialized nations.

It could also give some advantages to the nations like Russia, Ottomans, China... etc as laborers happier with less wages as well if its possible to speed construction time a bit with more laborers. Not linear reduce speed IE- 50,000 worker 1 year, 2 workers/100,000 POP sized = 6 months, but maybe +50,000 worker = 10% reduced time up to 50% reduction in time. This would only be worthwhile to nations low in industry with massive unemployment but would allow for instance Russia to model the massive industrialization of 1900s or China to attempt a great leap forward 30 years early.

Would also satisfy some micro number cruncher players to calculate all the cost/benefit of retaining laborers to make less profit currently to build more factories which might if the POPs show up to work produce more profit eventually. Only problem is it could cause AI to either way over develop or remain under developed trying to keep laborers to make factories. It depends on how flexible the system of POP evolution/devolution and migration is if it could work over the entire world.

It brings up an interesting point also of POP efficiency... should poor nations with lots of unemployment have an option to take 2 for 1 workers? In other words workers get halve the wages but both are working, would be inefficient but does that matter when there is massive unemployment or only jobs in really poor RGO available? A place like China would still have issues industrializing due to large area and very spread out workers and the cost of infra over such an area but at least this way player might be able to industrialize a few areas a bit quicker while managing the social transition better with more POPs working and thus a bit less unhappy.

 

[Xz2]

could you not abstract it by spreading the money to all laborers in the province first, if there is none the money will spread to those in the state and if there is none in the state, it will spread to those in the country?

 

[unmerged(63310)]

could you not abstract it by spreading the money to all laborers in the province first, if there is none the money will spread to those in the state and if there is none in the state, it will spread to those in the country?

That would not make it a choice between having a worker earn higher profit in a factory vs take tax money or capitalists money working on a railroad. Its not just the money but having to decide what is worth more. Sure railroads in high value state almost always going to be worth building immediately but in many of the less valuable RGO/factory area it wouldn't be worth it to take workers away from one job to work on railroad until techs or efficiency of all the other inputs was high enough.