Dev Diary 4 - The Economic System and why it may seem a little similar

[Ignudo]

You're proposing individual tariffs on each good from each country? Talk about micromanagement.

Was that really important enough to determine the cost of goods, or were the fundamental determinants (a) objective conditions of world supply and demand and (b) general tariff levels of each country?

But even that example destroys our idea of regional markets. What regional market should Canada be in, in that situation? Should regional markets be so fragile that a tariff reduction on a single good in another continent fundamentally changes their composition?

I'm not saying it should be necessary to set individual tariffs for each country. I'm just saying that it would easily be possible in a general equilibrium world as a tariff as well as transportation costs would simply mean another multiplicative factor in the respective supply function. In practise you should probably be able to set tariffs for particular goods. After all, protecting home industries was the main motive for tariffs. If you want to punish one country in particular this could be done by altering a multiplicative factor that is the same for all goods. Hence, if you want to undermine Canada's development as the US you set this factor to let's say 10 and your general tariff for machineries of 20% gets multiplied by 10, which makes imports from Canada prohibitively expensive. This option could be integrated in the diplomatic window and it doesn't need to be a number just like none, mild, strong or severe tariff barriers. You can get easily carried away if you fantasize about these things. I could even think about some tit-for-tat diplomacy here. In concrete terms: Germany might for example offer Austria to lower its tariff barrieres if Austria does the same at the effect of both ending up with a more efficient economy. On the other hand they made themselves more vulnerable and dependent on each other. Germany and Austria ending up on different sides of alliances in a major war would definitely have its effects then. See the interaction between the polical and the economical sphere.

one more thing: there is nothing like objective conditions of world supply especially if it comes to industrial goods. Factories are only set up if there is a sufficient demand for a particular good. If tariffs on wine would be prohibitively high, Germans would rather only drink beer. This would have definite effects on French vineyards. If more industrial power acted this way (maybe because of international sanctions) it might be rationale for France to shut down its vineyards and employ more people in different sectors (I don't think this is something the player should do. If you set things up right the economy will auto adjust at least in a capitalist society).

 

[Sebastian Jarl]

You're proposing individual tariffs on each good from each country? Talk about micromanagement.

Was that really important enough to determine the cost of goods, or were the fundamental determinants (a) objective conditions of world supply and demand and (b) general tariff levels of each country?

But even that example destroys our idea of regional markets. What regional market should Canada be in, in that situation? Should regional markets be so fragile that a tariff reduction on a single good in another continent fundamentally changes their composition?

It's not really that micro. What I'd like is a general tariff system for goods group: "Minerals/metals, foodstuff, industrial components(manure, chemicals), consumer good, military goods". You set a general tariff level, and may then negotiate TA with other countries that mutually reduces tariffs. Maybe something in the other spectrum as well.

As long as the AI doesn't go crazy with TA-offers, it shouldn't be too much of a hassle, but rather a useful diplomatic tool.

 

[martin23230]

Yay, on my birthday they show me a screen shot of where I live!
Great work so far!

 

[RELee]

The best news is that King was able to determine from the world market that there was a world-wide shortage of fish causing economic problems. I'm not sure that you could determine that in Vicky 1. At least I was not smart enough to figure out why. I mean, gee whiz!, I couldn't even figure out which import was killing my profitability without going through each and every stinking factory and comparing prices of needed goods vs. manufactured goods. I'm hoping that this means it will be a bit easier to determine where profit leaks reside in a country's economy that it was before.

Right? Right?!

 

[Ignudo]

While the WM may provide a rough approximation of the world economy viewed from a "macro" perspective, the "micro" of market access to particular nations is a factor which was a very significant factor in global power politics in the 19th century.

I hope future DD's will set my fears aside...

This is another great point. In my "fantasy general equilibrium model world" prices of certain goods would be extremely high in countries that are closed for international trade and relatively unproductive (because of low tech) like the Asian countries were historically. This would provide a large incentive (the more so, the larger the country) for European powers to force these countries to open their market for imports from this particular countries. It could also lead to a lot of turmoil in these countries as huge industries will suddenly no longer be competitive, pushing people into unemployment and poverty, maybe causing rebellion in provinces that are focussed on this particular industry. These issues have really been of great importance in history. Not only for China but also for Japan and India and basically any other backward society.

 

[RedRalphWiggum]

Lads, I hate to sound like a fanboi, but if you saw the HoI3 forums after it's release, it would be pretty easy to understand why King, Johan et al wouldn't be inclined to spend loads of time implementing a whole new economic system from scratch and to little real gameplay benefit when the last one worked fine.

Even Johan admitted one of the problems was trying to implement too much new stuff instead of tweaking everything, they got slaughtered for it over HoI3 and they dont want to over Vicky, and they are dead right.

Look, as Vicky fans we are naturally inclined towards extremely detailed gameplay elements, realism etc, but you have to think of the cost/benefit. If PI put in a new intricate and detailed regional market system which the AI couldn't cope with, we'd be eating their faces off here. The system being implemented sounds like a tweaked version of the V1 one, which was great, and considering the other improvements to V2, no one here is going to not enjoy the game over the lack of regional markets.

There is a finite amount of development that will go into the game, and frankly, if it's a choice between having an abstracted regionalised market and having a well-functioning dual-house parliamentary system, or a better colonisation model, or POP issues and ideologies that cross borders, then I'm happy with a WM.

 

[RELee]

Lads, I hate to sound like a fanboi, but if you saw the HoI3 forums after it's release, it would be pretty easy to understand why King, Johan et al wouldn't be inclined to spend loads of time implementing a whole new economic system from scratch and to little real gameplay benefit when the last one worked fine.

Even Johan admitted one of the problems was trying to implement too much new stuff instead of tweaking everything, they got slaughtered for it over HoI3 and they dont want to over Vicky, and they are dead right.

Look, as Vicky fans we are naturally inclined towards extremely detailed gameplay elements, realism etc, but you have to think of the cost/benefit. If PI put in a new intricate and detailed regional market system which the AI couldn't cope with, we'd be eating their faces off here. The system being implemented sounds like a tweaked version of the V1 one, which was great, and considering the other improvements to V2, no one here is going to not enjoy the game over the lack of regional markets.

There is a finite amount of development that will go into the game, and frankly, if it's a choice between having an abstracted regionalised market and having a well-functioning dual-house parliamentary system, or a better colonisation model, or POP issues and ideologies that cross borders, then I'm happy with a WM.

Yepyepyep!

I call for British spelling throughout all event messages and the interface. It'll get me "in the mood".

 

[Ignudo]

Another remark on tariffs.

Having tariffs would be really fascinating as it gave the player a responsibility big politics really had at the time. Governments didn't build factories but set tariff rates for particular goods or groups of goods. However this could easily be used as a vehicle to influence the economic structure of your country. Some industries you might want to protect for autarky reasons. As Germany you probably don't want to depend on Russian grain supply. Also you want to have enough inputs to assemble your own weapons. When it comes to peaceful economic development during the Victorian era protective tariffs also where a huge issue. Consider for example Germany who industrialized rather late and wasn't immideately competitive in many industries as compared to England in particular. What they did was imposing protictive tariffs for these goods so that these industries will have a chance to flourish and become more efficient. To model this you really have to think about tech also. One solution would be that industrial output of a particular good or groups of good improves the technology by which these goods are produced (Economists call this experience effects). Please don't think of this is some obscure idea. This is really a very established model of economic development. The Asian tiger states and also Japan made used it extensively during the last half century.

 

[Ignudo]

Lads, I hate to sound like a fanboi, but if you saw the HoI3 forums after it's release, it would be pretty easy to understand why King, Johan et al wouldn't be inclined to spend loads of time implementing a whole new economic system from scratch and to little real gameplay benefit when the last one worked fine.

Even Johan admitted one of the problems was trying to implement too much new stuff instead of tweaking everything, they got slaughtered for it over HoI3 and they dont want to over Vicky, and they are dead right.

Look, as Vicky fans we are naturally inclined towards extremely detailed gameplay elements, realism etc, but you have to think of the cost/benefit. If PI put in a new intricate and detailed regional market system which the AI couldn't cope with, we'd be eating their faces off here. The system being implemented sounds like a tweaked version of the V1 one, which was great, and considering the other improvements to V2, no one here is going to not enjoy the game over the lack of regional markets.

There is a finite amount of development that will go into the game, and frankly, if it's a choice between having an abstracted regionalised market and having a well-functioning dual-house parliamentary system, or a better colonisation model, or POP issues and ideologies that cross borders, then I'm happy with a WM.

given that we all have much faster computers nowadays than we had when Vicy 1 was released I think an innovative game-developer as Paradox surely wants to be should at least consider making proper use of these additional computer power. What would really be a major charm of a general equilibrium economy is that it made the life so much easier for the AI. Demand functions would be given by pop status. Supply functions would be given by productivity. Tariffs and transportation costs lead to a slightly different picture for every nation/market. The AI would just need to build the factories that promise the largest profit margin given some general restraints regarding overspecialization. I'm really convinced that the AI programming for the economic aspect could be significantly simplified once you put Adam Smith's "invisible hand" in action. It seems to me that the Vicy economy works more like socialism where every nation needs a central planner (AI), which usually turns out stupid and incapable just as in real history. Introducing a general equilibrium model is practically a prerequisite for modelling a free market, which Vicy pretends to do but really doesn't. The excitement in a general equilibrium world for the player would come from the short-sightedness of capitalists. When for example machineries (or machine parts as they were called in Vicy) seem to be a profitable industry to invest in capitalists in many countries will do so simultaneously even though this means that prices will drop, once these additional capacities will become available, maybe by that much that it would have been better to invest somewhat more into another industry and somewhat less into machinieries. But this is what capitalism is all about. There would be no AI to blame. This is just how capitalism works (it's important to note that this shouldn't usually lead to major screw ups but it will keep the game interesting). Something like the fish incident King described in the DD could never happen as it would just be a very profitable endeavour to work in the fish industry or in other industries that produce substitutes like cattle. So much less to worry about for Paradox.

regarding cost/benefit: I have no worries that it would be worth the effort. Nearly every field of politics interacts with the economy. The tariff thing I have discussed above is only one little but still amazing possibility. More important would be that it provided you the tool to model unemployment plausibly. Unemployment and the related poverty however was the major driving force behind emmigration to the new world. Another thing I mentioned above is achieving autarky for military reasons. If you want autarky you would have to pay a price if the economy in Vicy would work like it does in reality. The pop issues and ideologies you were talking about are hardly independent of the economic situation. If your country doesn't have the technology to produce industrial goods efficiently and there are no protective tariffs either nobody would leave the countryside because no factories were set up. People stayed poor but would probably be more easy to control i.e. less easily radicalized, so no opportinity for facism or communism here.

 

[peer-LAN]

I was hopping the world market would stop being so irrationally global. It should be influenced by tariffs, distance (that affects the final price of goods), economic treaties, purchase parity, exchange rate for currencies etc.


A system with local markets like in EU3 but with companies trying to make money trading goods between them (if they can make a profit, meaning they can cover the cost of carrying the goods around from one market to another) would be a much much better system.

 

[Black Guardian]

I'm really convinced that the AI programming for the economic aspect could be significantly simplified once you put Adam Smith's "invisible hand" in action. It seems to me that the Vicy economy works more like socialism where every nation needs a central planner (AI), which usually turns out stupid and incapable just as in real history.

As a student of economics, I can only agree with this prediction. Usually we are calculating around with maximising functions, which would be perfectly what the Capitalist AI would do if it was to think about where to invest.
And comparing profits and deciding for the most profitable one is not THAT hard to calculate and brings plenty of interesting and plausible effects as Ignudo already said.

Political AI, tweaking the tariffs, taxes & economic laws could then act along their political point of view, while the market is self-regulated up to a certain extend by its participants.
I don´t believe that this requires more ressources than a modern PC can handle.

Anyway - it does not make sence to discuss on this any further, as it is a cemented point that we will have World Market and Vickys Economic basics for Vicky 2 as well - which I quite disappointing for me, as this is NOT an expansion of Vicky 1, but an entirely new game. To see the most influential and important topic without a big and necessary overhaul hurts a little bit. But maybe the Devs will reveal a good solution for what they have in mind with their "improvements" - though I doubt that it can be more than cosmetical surgery if the core is rotten. But lets see before judging it prematurely...

 

[The Andy-Man]

[nitpick]I love how on that screenshot, a tiny village called Saint Albans gets a whole privince!!

Why not call that place Hertfordshire? [/nitpick]

 

[EGaffney]

As a graduate of economics, I would say that the effort in programming all the agents and markets in a general equilibrium model would yield a very low return in terms of improving the game, compared to a well-functioning world market.

I'm happy to have someone in favour of a GE model explain just what the added fun would be. But I do think people are greatly overestimating the entertainment value of Tariff Manager 2010.

 

[Duke of Wellington]

This game is becoming more appealing with each diary. Keep up the good work.

 

[unmerged(48056)]

Great to hear that someone's been reading the original Victoria's forum and passing information to the folks upstairs. I thought it was always funny that the world could keep growing despite the world's supply of grain being 1/4 of demand

 

[Autonomous]

[nitpick]I love how on that screenshot, a tiny village called Saint Albans gets a whole privince!!

Why not call that place Hertfordshire? [/nitpick]

Because Vicky provinces are named after the most important urban areas in them. most important in the period. If you can name a township in that area more important than St Albans between 1836 and 1935, go for it.

 

[Kurdistani]

Well first off, not all Diary readers are actually familiar with Victoria so giving them a Victoria economy basics would be quite nice. Also I am bit disapointed that none of you noticed that thanks to our improved interface we are already spotting balance issues that made it into Victoria 1.0.

I did - A new interface is really important - It was sometimes a pain in the butt to try an go through all those windows to set it so that you were able to buy 30 rifles and 30 cans of food so that you could increase your mobilisation level.

My main issue with the economic system was that sometimes it would become confusing as to what was going on! You seemed to be producting everything you needed - yet there were still shortages everywhere.
Two questions -
1. If the economy is set to automanage - will the AI be able to make more smart buys - yani - will you be able to set the AI to focus on procuring for example - military hardware - or luxary good etc.
2.Will there be more that you an do to influence economic development - save setting tariffs - for example - will there be "national descisions" - like in EUIII which will effect economic growth
for example - "Anti-Trust laws" which might hamper some development for a reduction in corruption (I am just thinking off the top of my head)

 

[Sebastian Jarl]

There is a finite amount of development that will go into the game, and frankly, if it's a choice between having an abstracted regionalised market and having a well-functioning dual-house parliamentary system, or a better colonisation model, or POP issues and ideologies that cross borders, then I'm happy with a WM.

Victoria is an economic and political game. Sure, I'll probably buy it just for the dynamic events, but that doesn't mean one should ignore core elements, as not everyone are fans.

Without a functioning tariff and shipping-cost system, what's the point with keeping good relations with your neighbours, nations with the resources or even colonizing? I might as well export/import with a country on the other side of the globe as my neighbour, without loosing anything.The strategic value of having a secure access to resources is lost with a WM, as everybody has that same access.

I mean, what's the point in having a functioning colonisation model if the true incentive to colonize isn't present? Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell. .

 

[unmerged(48056)]

Victoria is an economic and political game. Sure, I'll probably buy it just for the dynamic events, but that doesn't mean one should ignore core elements, as not everyone are fans.

Without a functioning tariff and shipping-cost system, what's the point with keeping good relations with your neighbours, nations with the resources or even colonizing? I might as well export/import with a country on the other side of the globe as my neighbour, without loosing anything.The strategic value of having a secure access to resources is lost with a WM, as everybody has that same access.

I mean, what's the point in having a functioning colonisation model if the true incentive to colonize isn't present? Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell. .

Hearts of Iron was great in the beginning for me. But after a dozen campaigns I developed military staff officer fatigue :rofl: At least I get convenient maps ~ in real life they had to use index cards and constantly had to yell at politicians and intelligence officers

The thing I liked about Victoria was that warfare was simple.

 

[alvaro]

Because Vicky provinces are named after the most important urban areas in them. most important in the period. If you can name a township in that area more important than St Albans between 1836 and 1935, go for it.

london colney!
fighting cocks and horn reborn. 2 good reasons to have st albans in that map!