Wait a sec...if it's a Rev. France 1798 start....then do we get to play some of the revolutionary/napoleonic wars or is this just a 'placeholder' situation?
Europa Universalis IV: Developer diary 4: Your Economy is about to change
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Wait a sec...if it's a Rev. France 1798 start....then do we get to play some of the revolutionary/napoleonic wars or is this just a 'placeholder' situation?
Rev. France, revolution, Napoleon, late 18th century start etc. has been in EUIII for years since the expansion Napoleon's Ambition.
I like the changes so far, but of course it is hard to actually guess their impact if you only see screenshots.
My biggest fear now that minting is gone for good is that it will become too easy to mass money (like in EU3 or CK2 Late Game). I really hope we see steep military costs not like EU3 where the only limit is my manpower pool / force values.
My biggest fear now that minting is gone for good is that it will become too easy to mass money (like in EU3 or CK2 Late Game). I really hope we see steep military costs not like EU3 where the only limit is my manpower pool / force values.
Well I just wondered because from the current info we have (or not?) EUIV plays(ends) into late 18th century...so from a 1789 start do we get to play napoleonic wars for 11 years?
Or to put it succinctly:
If your currency is based on gold, then digging more gold out of the ground has exactly the same effect as printing more banknotes when you have a paper currency.
To those people saying that EU3 was a complex game, please stop it! EU3 is a very simple game compared to HoI3, CK2 and Victoria 2 and those games were not even that complex either.
I've also seen player say that CK2 is less complex than EUIII so it seems to be different opinions on this.
This may have been already discussed, but how does this system accomodate non-minted precious metals (bullion) as trade goods, as well as coinage, and their relation to inflation? While a source of precious metal that is so abundant that there is a constant flow of gold and silver to the exterior would devalue the worth of gold and thus currency in its country, this effect could be reduced by using the same gold- and silver-rich currency in foreign transactions. This historically occurred with Portuguese and Spanish coins during their empires' more prosperous years, devaluing gold but also allowing a greater volume of international trade.
From what I can tell, neither this system nor EU3's can accurately represent inflation through gold and silver in chronic precious metal-importers. Ming China was invaded by Spanish silver via Manila, which allowed it to dramatically expand its money economy. Even still, this devaluation of silver and poor economic policy produced a situation in which 1600's land taxes were still being paid in 1500's coinage values, despite the marked devaluation of the latter, thus reducing tax income and accentuating fiscal problems for the Ming Dynasty.
This last point also brings me to fighting inflation. Just as the Ming could have adjusted these new taxes - which they didn't - so should other countries attempt to fight large inflation carried over from war or other factors. For the Ming to correct those values they would need a more disciplined bureaucracy and the ability to weather through the probable storm that would arise from an effective tax hike.
I'm not asking for some new system, just that the silver (I don't know whether or not it is in the game as a trade good) and gold trade also have an effect on inflation of both producing and importing nations. All that minted gold and bullion had to wound up somewhere other than producing country.
All that said, keep on doing a great job!
From what I can tell, neither this system nor EU3's can accurately represent inflation through gold and silver in chronic precious metal-importers. Ming China was invaded by Spanish silver via Manila, which allowed it to dramatically expand its money economy. Even still, this devaluation of silver and poor economic policy produced a situation in which 1600's land taxes were still being paid in 1500's coinage values, despite the marked devaluation of the latter, thus reducing tax income and accentuating fiscal problems for the Ming Dynasty.
This last point also brings me to fighting inflation. Just as the Ming could have adjusted these new taxes - which they didn't - so should other countries attempt to fight large inflation carried over from war or other factors. For the Ming to correct those values they would need a more disciplined bureaucracy and the ability to weather through the probable storm that would arise from an effective tax hike.
I'm not asking for some new system, just that the silver (I don't know whether or not it is in the game as a trade good) and gold trade also have an effect on inflation of both producing and importing nations. All that minted gold and bullion had to wound up somewhere other than producing country.
All that said, keep on doing a great job!
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They were accused of heresy, not of being bankers. And it was before, long before, 1444.
That was the pretext, yes. The fact that Philip IV of France owed them a rather large pile of money was a mere coincidence.
Which was what they used. Having a tool to say Ban and/or execute lenders doesn't work, because it didn't work that way. If there was an event or something in which you could accuse your lenders of heresy as an excuse for refusing to pay, that would be a different matter.
Well, this Dev. diary made me more excited how actually stability and technology will work in the future!
I would say CKII is a character game, so it can't really be compared to the others: on one hand you have simplified and streamlined mechanics, but on the others you have thousands upon thousands of characters.
So, excluding CKII, I would say from least to most complex it is: Hearts of Iron 2 & Derivatives, EU3, Victoria 2, HOI3.
Yeah, it should probably be handled by event, if at all. I can't think of any examples of lenders being executed or banished during the EU timeframe, of the top of my head. I know monarchs frequently wrote off their debts, but I can't think of any examples of killing the creditors.
But, loans are primarily a game mechanic, and should be balanced as such. If allowing players to wipe out their debt would cause balance problems, then don't allow it.
Best Dev Diary so far! Taking stability and technology investment out of the monthly budget is huge. It never seemed to make much sense to make stability and technology primarily dependent on money. However, the worst thing about this system was that it could be gamed very easily. Since the entire monthly budget usually went into technology it was very easy to instantly create an enormous cash flow by setting the tech sliders to zero during times of war (especially for large nations). Of course, this meant accruing some inflation but as I've pointed before in some detail in the Magna Mundi forum, the cost of inflation was ridiculously small as compared to the cost from taking out a loan for the same amount of money (for those of you who are really interested: http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum...Tax-Burden&p=11102460&viewfull=1#post11102460). I guess, the new system means that extraordinary expenses will have to be financed by loans or savings.
This will potentially have huge strategic implications (read the above mentioned post to get a much clearer picture). Imagine you get yourself into more trouble than expected by a particular war effort it won't be that easy to just hold out for white peace by minting the money you need to finance your campaign and worrying about the inflation later. Instead you'll have to take out more and more loans at increasing rates of interest. While it might certainly be good to do so in some situations, taking out loans clearly isn't a no-brainer like minting and unlike minting it also can't be done indefinitely. I expect this change will increase the importance of a proper contingency plan during war-times, which might at times mean accepting an unfavourable peace treaty.
I would really be interested if the Devs had these issues in mind, when they decided to make this rather dramatic conceptual change. Would be nice if someone from the Dev team could comment on that. Learning about this change certainly raised my expectations regarding EUIV a great deal. It really looks like you guys are drawing all the right conclusions.
This will potentially have huge strategic implications (read the above mentioned post to get a much clearer picture). Imagine you get yourself into more trouble than expected by a particular war effort it won't be that easy to just hold out for white peace by minting the money you need to finance your campaign and worrying about the inflation later. Instead you'll have to take out more and more loans at increasing rates of interest. While it might certainly be good to do so in some situations, taking out loans clearly isn't a no-brainer like minting and unlike minting it also can't be done indefinitely. I expect this change will increase the importance of a proper contingency plan during war-times, which might at times mean accepting an unfavourable peace treaty.
I would really be interested if the Devs had these issues in mind, when they decided to make this rather dramatic conceptual change. Would be nice if someone from the Dev team could comment on that. Learning about this change certainly raised my expectations regarding EUIV a great deal. It really looks like you guys are drawing all the right conclusions.
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Untying stability and research from money is a great idea, but we should be able to spend money (right now) on increasing the amount of leadership (or else) available in the future. That is to say, financing a school system (whether state-run in a secular bureaucracy or paying for church schools in a more decentralized state with a state religion) should be a decision in spending some of the money.
On the balance issue, I think it is merely a matter of giving a multitude of money-sinks to the player, with each and every of them being important.
Army maintenance, missionaries... meh. Developing provinces (creating buildings), establishing the nationwide bureaucracy, improving and expanding the infrastructure (roads, canals, the postal system), building maintenance, etc. should all be high priorities in spending, but the money available shouldn't be enough to cover them all, by far.
And this leads to the next important point: as much as taking loans, 'minting' (if in), increasing the tax rate through the roof, etc. would hurt the future state of the empire, they should be to a degree unaviodable. I mean, all these would merit saying that the empire doing it 'lost its soul to the Devil' yet most empires should keep doing them out of necessity.
However, such destructive behaviour should not be forced, there should always be the option of piling up enough money in the treasury - however, given the many things to spend money on, their importance, and the exorbitant amount required to last through e.g. a serious war should make it hard to pull off. Yet it should be possible, and someone doing so all the way through the game should get the rightful reward - the net more money available by the endgame - 'still having one's soul'.
One thing I don't understand is how after an early repayment we have to keep on paying the interest. Not being so would be not only more true to the EU era, with risk of default etc. disappearing, but simpler from a programming point of view as well - loans only include the principal of the loan and simple interest is paid on the for as long as the loan lasts. And with the system EU4 will apparently and sadly have, either the fact that a loan had been repaid has to be kept separately from the expiry date, or the remaining interest has to be calculated at the date of repayment. Both are more complicated than simply deleting the loan at the point it has been repaid, now aren't they?
On the balance issue, I think it is merely a matter of giving a multitude of money-sinks to the player, with each and every of them being important.
Army maintenance, missionaries... meh. Developing provinces (creating buildings), establishing the nationwide bureaucracy, improving and expanding the infrastructure (roads, canals, the postal system), building maintenance, etc. should all be high priorities in spending, but the money available shouldn't be enough to cover them all, by far.
And this leads to the next important point: as much as taking loans, 'minting' (if in), increasing the tax rate through the roof, etc. would hurt the future state of the empire, they should be to a degree unaviodable. I mean, all these would merit saying that the empire doing it 'lost its soul to the Devil' yet most empires should keep doing them out of necessity.
However, such destructive behaviour should not be forced, there should always be the option of piling up enough money in the treasury - however, given the many things to spend money on, their importance, and the exorbitant amount required to last through e.g. a serious war should make it hard to pull off. Yet it should be possible, and someone doing so all the way through the game should get the rightful reward - the net more money available by the endgame - 'still having one's soul'.
One thing I don't understand is how after an early repayment we have to keep on paying the interest. Not being so would be not only more true to the EU era, with risk of default etc. disappearing, but simpler from a programming point of view as well - loans only include the principal of the loan and simple interest is paid on the for as long as the loan lasts. And with the system EU4 will apparently and sadly have, either the fact that a loan had been repaid has to be kept separately from the expiry date, or the remaining interest has to be calculated at the date of repayment. Both are more complicated than simply deleting the loan at the point it has been repaid, now aren't they?
I'm pretty sure that's a misuse of language. Both those words mean the exact same thing, complicated without being inaccessable is one way to put what I think you're trying to put.
Also, good dev diary, this stuff is most definitely an improvement. Eu3 could be way more complex but these changes/reductions make sense a lot more (possibly allowing more room for other more sensible features).
Might I also suggest a rather useful feature from railroad tycoon, where there were two types of loans. "Short term loans" which had insane interest but allowed you to go into the red without thinking about it too hard, and long term loans where you actually click the loan button and get the normal rate.
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