Developer Diary 8 – The Artisan

[CatalanNation]

No I said there would additional weight towards picking the same good twice in a row if the previous month's good made money.

About what manufactured good will the artisans pick, it would make sense that they count not just on their world market profit but also on the internal goods every nation produces. I mean, if an Artisan POP is in a nation that produces a lot of fruit, it should be more profitable and thus more probable that this artisan decides to produce wine. Or if a nation has a textile factory, he should think a bit more about making let's say regular clothes, before making cement or machine parts.

 

[unmerged(63310)]

About what manufactured good will the artisans pick, it would make sense that they count not just on their world market profit but also on the internal goods every nation produces. I mean, if an Artisan POP is in a nation that produces a lot of fruit, it should be more profitable and thus more probable that this artisan decides to produce wine. Or if a nation has a textile factory, he should think a bit more about making let's say regular clothes, before making cement or machine parts.

The weight towards profit does that already. The less the artisan has to buy at full expense off of world market means more profit. Unless for some weird reason artisans are banned from internal market.

 

[Alex_brunius]

The weight towards profit does that already. The less the artisan has to buy at full expense off of world market means more profit. Unless for some weird reason artisans are banned from internal market.

Wouldn't that actually depend on your tariff settings?

If it works like in V1 then with say no tariffs it would be equally expensive for them to buy from WM or the Internal market I think.

 

[Vricklund]

The weight towards profit does that already. The less the artisan has to buy at full expense off of world market means more profit. Unless for some weird reason artisans are banned from internal market.

Yeah, but if I'm understanding King correctly that is not how it works. Artisans doesn't make the choice based on future profit, it's completely random.

As long as they're making enough on their current good they won't change and if they don't they will pick another one, randomly, until they either evolve, devolve, move or find profit in their new product.

 

[unmerged(126297)]

That map looks awesome. And so many provinces! I'm excited.

 

[unmerged(164401)]

Yeah, but if I'm understanding King correctly that is not how it works. Artisans doesn't make the choice based on future profit, it's completely random.

As long as they're making enough on their current good they won't change and if they don't they will pick another one, randomly, until they either evolve, devolve, move or find profit in their new product.

which i think makes good sense. with a limited number of artisans, you want to make sure they fairly cover enough amunt of products, instead of a bunch of artisans going straight on to the most profitable (ending up producing maybe 2 or 3 products). as a result, artisans will help backward countries producing the supplies that will help industrializing.

King can confirm that.

 

[Darkrenown]

Actually, I have the skull pegged for life rating. The hammer seems a better fit for RR.

Could be. I thought the hammer might be some kind of industry map mode while life rating would go on the colonial range mapmode, I guess we'll have to wait and see though

 

[unmerged(48056)]

Could be. I thought the hammer might be some kind of industry map mode while life rating would go on the colonial range mapmode, I guess we'll have to wait and see though

Hammer rating sounds fantastic. I've been to London, Berlin and Paris and its completely understandable why those provinces have the highest life ratings (namely because of all the river infrastructure and flat terrain)

 

[unmerged(63310)]

Wouldn't that actually depend on your tariff settings?

If it works like in V1 then with say no tariffs it would be equally expensive for them to buy from WM or the Internal market I think.

That is true but how often will there be zero tariff in both the export and importing nations? A few times but more often not.

 

[unmerged(7537)]

which i think makes good sense. with a limited number of artisans, you want to make sure they fairly cover enough amunt of products, instead of a bunch of artisans going straight on to the most profitable (ending up producing maybe 2 or 3 products). as a result, artisans will help backward countries producing the supplies that will help industrializing.

King can confirm that.

The problem with random distribution is that it's, well, random - the player has no (or very little) control over what artisans are actually producing.

 

[ikki]

The problem with random distribution is that it's, well, random - the player has no (or very little) control over what artisans are actually producing.

And this is a problem, because in reality obama calls every artisan and makes them produce whatever he wants them to..?
Or perhaps Vicky sent Disraeli with Beefeaters to make the artisans of the empire produce what she wanted them to?


Nah im sure that with raising armies they will quickly morph into reloaders, gunsmiths, cannon founderers, gunpowdermixers, horsebreeders and uniform tailors

There is one problem tho. Maybe. In that sofar you have needed the guns BEFORE raising the unit.. and this MIGHT grant them afterwards.
Which really is just another argument for what ive written about before:

NO MORE STOCKPILING RIFLES!! Instead, when building an army, let the player spend money, and the price of armies, etc gun usage, would increase..

 

[unmerged(56465)]

They should begin producing small arms (or whatever) when you increase demand by attempting to stockpile them.

 

[unmerged(63310)]

It won't be massive amounts... even in China with probably more artisans than anywhere else it will simply allow home manufacture of a trickle of goods so that low prestige won't prevent complete lacks of limited goods from the WM. Still need the tech to make it and enough low efficiency artisans with the money to buy inputs to produce the goods.

 

[ikki]

It won't be massive amounts... even in China with probably more artisans than anywhere else it will simply allow home manufacture of a trickle of goods so that low prestige won't prevent complete lacks of limited goods from the WM. Still need the tech to make it and enough low efficiency artisans with the money to buy inputs to produce the goods.

heh.. english who tried to pay for the tea with everything from ships to modern arms... but the chinamen refused, stating they had no need for foreign manufactured goods
...thus leading to the whole chain of opium episodes..

 

[unmerged(63310)]

heh.. english who tried to pay for the tea with everything from ships to modern arms... but the chinamen refused, stating they had no need for foreign manufactured goods
...thus leading to the whole chain of opium episodes..

Well they certainly had need for it but the political pressure was to protect the local manufacturing which could not compete with foreign prices. As well China would have preferred hard currency that England at the time wanted to keep at home.

Ironically the situation today is directly reversed. Although China is not as high up the value added chain they are moving higher quickly.

 

[Balesir]

Well they certainly had need for it but the political pressure was to protect the local manufacturing which could not compete with foreign prices. As well China would have preferred hard currency that England at the time wanted to keep at home.

China certainly preferred hard currency, but the main difficulty was not that the British 'preferred to keep hard currency at home', but that the currencies were incompatible. China, being on a silver standard, demanded silver for tea. Britain, being on a gold standard, had all its hard currency in gold. India, ironically, was at that time based on a silver rupee - but the demand for tea was in Britain (this being before tea was either grown or widely drunk in India)...

 

[john_bell]

Artisans sound like a really good feature, they sound hard to control though, I know they are meant to work on their own initiative but still.

 

[Ex Mudder]

The problem with random distribution is that it's, well, random - the player has no (or very little) control over what artisans are actually producing.

I get the feeling that a trickle of every item is somehow necessary for the WM to work correctly. Artisans provide this at game start, so it acts kinda like the "fish shortage" King discussed earlier - you can quickly pick up on what is going wrong, even in 1836.

As for artisans making ships, I doubt many artisans will have the money for the inputs. In fact, I wonder how many of them will have the money to make things like luxury furniture at game start.

Giving artisans money to both buy needs and buy inputs will be tricky to balance I think. But it will also provide a fairly constant world wide demand for inputs from game start, so hardwood RGOs might actually be profitable, and the trickle of everything means there should always be some normal furniture on the market as well.

Also means we don't have to stick the UK with one of each factory at game start so everything is available on the WM.

And as someone else pointed out, it allows low prestige minors a chance to advance even if the high prestige majors are buying up everything else.

 

[cool-toxic]

So I am really happy to say this, I like the map of the Vanilla! Hehe you guys stepped up and saw Clio as the great map it is.

Vicky 2 has just been sold to me.

 

[King]

which i think makes good sense. with a limited number of artisans, you want to make sure they fairly cover enough amunt of products, instead of a bunch of artisans going straight on to the most profitable (ending up producing maybe 2 or 3 products). as a result, artisans will help backward countries producing the supplies that will help industrializing.

King can confirm that.

Artisans don't have sophisticated market research. All they know is they can make stuff, they will of course not try to make things they can't make because there are no goods available. Then they will try things, a prevous month's profit makes a switch less likely (these artisans, they are so conservative), but in general they try stuff and if doesn't work they end up as labourers or something like that.