Electricity in the game

[Vargas]

If I remember well, the old vichy simply increased in one time the global production when you discovered tehcs like gas ligthening and electricity.
I always felt that being able to simulate electricity production trough power plants, wich would increase your factories eficiency (or capacity) would be much more interesting. This way we would have an increasing market for oil and gasoline. Also for cement and steel, in the case of hidroelectrical plants.

Is there any prospect of including electricity in the game other tham in event?

 

[OHgamer]

If infrastructure is moddable, perhaps replace a rail level with say formation of an electrical grid as one of the steps towards building infrastructure in your nation.

 

[Garek Maxwell]

I'm not sure, this may be better suited to mods... I could easily see a mod allowing for the creation of a "factory" that satisfies a newfound demand for electricity. It would then be like a luxury good... And it's possible Paradox already implimented it this way, I don't know. We haven't seen all the factory varieties I believe.

Of course, I'd love more detail and such, but perhaps for an expansion? The game is supposedly going to be released in a few months, so they're likely at the point of testing and have moved beyond implimentation. That doesn't mean ideas aren't useful though. As said, expansions!

 

[Gottskalk]

Wow i think OHgamer hit it spot on. Probably too late now to add before the game is released but it sounds like a thing that will go on the list of new stuff for the expansion.

 

[Kanaric]

personally I think the original game handled electricity well. I dont want to have to manage my nations electrical grid I think this is done well enough in terms of what goods people demand and the increased productivity.

 

[Aeon221]

Normally I don't ask for redundant and functionally irrelevant systems in a game, but Vicky is definitely the game best qualified for redundant and functionally irrelevant systems! I say bring on the separate developmental index for electricity! Hell, why not even have a few others based on roads, sanitation and corruption!

No I'm not being facetious! Yes, these would all be fairly unimportant! But this is a game where you play the leader of a developing country. Why not have all sorts of indices, and maybe even some whiny NGOs to tell you about Women's Rights and the Importance of Press Freedom and the Committee for Possibly Not Beating Up The Native Peoples Quite So Much Or Quite So Often. I mean, everyone has heard of the CPNBUNPQSMOQSO, right? They were massively influential in Al*cough**cough**cough*land. Absolutely essential!

Also I positively demand the ability to set up a Bureau for the Purpose of Protecting and Spreading Awareness of Rare Silly Walks. It's inconceivable that a game so obsessed with bureaucracy would lack such an incredibly well known institution!

 

[unmerged(91061)]

Electricity generation was a major part of the second Industrial Revolution circa 1880-1900. It modernised factories, improved living conditions in homes, reduced crime (by lighting the streets at night) and was sometimes exported regionally (I believe the Belgians exported electricity to West Germany, or visa versa.)

The problem in implementing it in Victoria is a matter of How.
One the one hand, power generation would work well as a commodity because it needs a factory (power station) with workers to turn raw materials (Coal, etc.) into a finished product (electricity). It is also exported and bought by consumers. However, this raises the problem of selling on the world market, and leads to ridiculous scenarios whereby France sells electricity to Japan.
On the other hand, making an Electrical Grid part of Infrastructure eliminates the problem of selling Electricity to Japan, but it leaves out the Power Plants, the workers, the consumption and the use of Raw Materials.

The best way to implement it in my mind, is to have electricity as a commodity, but PoPs & Factories will only demand the Electricity good if an Electrical Grid has been built in their province. If there is no Grid, there is no demand, just like how Capitalists do not demand Automobiles until they tech is discovered, PoPs & Factories don't demand Power until the Power lines are built.
There would still be then selling Electricity on the World Market, and odd situations like France selling electricity to the USA, but it's a good compromise in my mind.

 

[unmerged(68110)]

Electricity, IDEALLY, should depend of a "factory" and be an infrastructure type too (railroads/ports)...

But I settle for the latter. :]

 

[zarinth]

Wow i think OHgamer hit it spot on. Probably too late now to add before the game is released but it sounds like a thing that will go on the list of new stuff for the expansion.

2nd that, I believe they can add new dynamic to the overall play of the game if electricity had a big impact on the world, which it did!

 

[Alex_brunius]

Actually Id say that advances in all 3 categories (transportation, power, communications) were equally important to the Industrial revolution at various stages.

Perhaps it would provide more flavour (and more balance) if all three could be upgraded just like railroads. At least it would create a much larger demand for commodities like telephones and electric components (or what they were called), and make these just as important as steel and coal for your railroads are.

However having to expand the telephone/telegraph grids aswell as the power grids might be a bit to much micromanagement.

 

[Zelvik]

An infrastructure spread system like the tech spread system in CK would be interesting. It would start in an industrialised state in the country that developed it first and then spread from there to other states and countries (heavily industrialised regions would be first, then more rural areas). Only prerequisite for the infrastructure to spread (develop) in ones states would be the tech (which could be seen as an abstraction to create the legal and generel infrastructural framework for the new infrastructure to be applied in ones provinces). One could also combine it with national focus to accelerate the adoption of the new infrastructure.

 

[unmerged(164401)]

It is also exported and bought by consumers. However, this raises the problem of selling on the world market, and leads to ridiculous scenarios whereby France sells electricity to Japan.

sorry OH

i think it would be a great idea, but it just needs to be more than commoditiy bought by consumers, other wise it is just like any good your POPs are demanding.

 

[prevalcalifers]

If the idea of, say, electrical grids are to be implemented, then I envision there will be a shortage issue when a corresponding country is at war and her territories containing electrical grids are occupied, no?
Still, I think it would be different if the addition is simply a modded infrastructure system. It would be entirely the opposite, if the grid feature is going to walk in parallel with its infrastructure counterpart.

 

[henryjai]

I think, electricity better not appear on WM or it'd be messed up, it is strange to sell electricity over a large distance. (within a state is already quite far away)


It should be something like infrastructure, when you build a power plant in a province, the province would be covered with electricity. To simplify the system, just make the POPs demand more coal (the fuel) in return of higher production efficiency/satisfaction. This way you don't need to include an electricity good yet something is consumed.

Of course, the power plants would need someone to man it... but I am not sure if it'd be a good idea to have POPs working in power plants (you don't operate a few power plants with 50k workforce? I am pretty sure the process is simple)

 

[Cinéad IV]

Electricity shouldn't be on the WM as a tradeable commodity: too much potential for strangeness in the market.

Infrastructure though? Definitely. We could also have water sanitation systems, mail services, telegraph lines and phone infrastructure, each of which would give provincial modifiers for life rating, army movement and production efficiency.

I'd far rather have these than the five or six gradiations of railways, when in reality all we probably need is experimental - early - integral - road.

Hell, we could maybe even include the construction of airports once everything else has been covered.

 

[unmerged(91061)]

I think, electricity better not appear on WM or it'd be messed up, it is strange to sell electricity over a large distance. (within a state is already quite far away)


It should be something like infrastructure, when you build a power plant in a province, the province would be covered with electricity. To simplify the system, just make the POPs demand more coal (the fuel) in return of higher production efficiency/satisfaction. This way you don't need to include an electricity good yet something is consumed.

Of course, the power plants would need someone to man it... but I am not sure if it'd be a good idea to have POPs working in power plants (you don't operate a few power plants with 50k workforce? I am pretty sure the process is simple)

If there is some way to limit the spread of a good, particularly to within a state, then it could work, but I do concede that WM electricity would be odd.

I do think that a power plant ought to be a factory and not just an infrastructure level. I'm struggling to find some data, but I do believe that a significant number of workers were employed in the energy sector at the time.

 

[Rhion]

I think the best way to implement this would be by adding a second infrastructure type which, as a placeholder, I'll call "electronic infrastructure". This would appear in the same upgrade-list as "Infrastructure", "Forts" and "Ports", or if it's a mod, maybe replace "Forts" (I don't use them anyway)

"Electronic infrastructure" would represent everything from telegraph poles to power plants and wireless broadcasting and would work fairly similar to regular infrastructure. There are several levels, triggered by inventions, each giving a boost in production efficiency and perhaps even a small modifier for combat (because of improved communications, etc...)

The initial investment and maintenance cost (which is a feature in Vic2 IIRC) get bigger the more advanced you get. So an early telegraph cost only some lumber, iron and machine parts, but a power plant and grid would cost large amounts of steel, cement, electronic parts, etc... The latter should be such a sizeable investment that it only paid of to have a power and grid in your most heavily industrialised areas.

Unfortunately, this wouldn't cover the influence of electricity on POP's.

 

[unmerged(75409)]

Hey guys, before you go into the wonderland of "I would like X as a feature", read some history books please... factories did not depend on the public electricity grid, instead they would have their own generators. And factories usually used electricity long before a publicly owned infrastructure were set up.

If anything, electrification should improve clerk productivity and boost demand for electric appliances (if it's included as a product in the game)

 

[unmerged(75409)]

I think the best way to implement this would be by adding a second infrastructure type which, as a placeholder, I'll call "electronic infrastructure". This would appear in the same upgrade-list as "Infrastructure", "Forts" and "Ports", or if it's a mod, maybe replace "Forts" (I don't use them anyway)

"Electronic infrastructure" would represent everything from telegraph poles to power plants and wireless broadcasting and would work fairly similar to regular infrastructure. There are several levels, triggered by inventions, each giving a boost in production efficiency and perhaps even a small modifier for combat (because of improved communications, etc...)

The initial investment and maintenance cost (which is a feature in Vic2 IIRC) get bigger the more advanced you get. So an early telegraph cost only some lumber, iron and machine parts, but a power plant and grid would cost large amounts of steel, cement, electronic parts, etc... The latter should be such a sizeable investment that it only paid of to have a power and grid in your most heavily industrialised areas.

Unfortunately, this wouldn't cover the influence of electricity on POP's.

Electronics =/= Electricity

Electrical science = the science of generating electric power, distributing it and converting it into mechanical work or heat (1820s and beyond)

Electronic science = the science of how to do information processing using controlled electrical flows (1950s and beyond, before that it was called "radio technology")

 

[Alexander Seil]

For much of the period electricity might as well not exist. This is the age of coal. Too much work needed to include a feature most players won't even see (until they make the World War I expansion pack, at least )