Freeminting Exploit

[unmerged(30612)]

WTF are people claiming this imaginary "freeminting" is some kind of cheat or exploit?

Maybe I do not understand what these particular people are talking about, but I will try to explain what I think it means.

When you are running a negative monthly income because of bloated research after January tax, and other reasons I am not completely sure about. And your treasury reaches zero, instead of making you take out a loan or raising your Treasury bar so you gain inflation, the game will automatically reduce your research in order to keep you at a zero balance.

This is apparently considered an exploit by some people, and I would like to know why?

 

[unmerged(45895)]

Since AI players use it I would not call it exploit.

 

[Varam]

Er... that's exactly how the game is supposed to work. Everyone would constantly go bankrupt or have tons of inflation otherwise.

 

[Desertfox]

Apparently it is an exploit because minting that way doesn`t give inflation while properly adjusting your sliders to give a balanced budget at zero treasury does give inflation.

 

[Varam]

But that's not an exploit; that's how it's designed to work.

 

[unmerged(30612)]

http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?t=298494

No matter how much money i make it all goes into research but when I run out of money i can keep the treasury slider all the way to the left and i just have less research. Why cant i have less reasearch when i have money

Because this is a "feature" I call freeminting. Whether it is a cheat or not is up to you, but even Johan says he uses this technique. It encourages the January Splurg. Realisticly, the more "accurate" way to do this would be to forcemint enough to cover, but inflation might be uncontrolable for some people then.

This is an example of what I am referring to, post #4 by Bowling (not trying to single you out bud). I just want to know why this is even remotely considered an exploit. I have seen this come up quite a few times in threads and do not mean to single out Bowling.

 

[unmerged(40278)]

though i guess understanding that you're not paying cash for expenses, therefore not minting, therefore not incurring inflation would help. and understanding that balanced budget means having more monthly income than monthly expenses (and not having more cash than monthly expenses) would help too.

Apparently it is an exploit because minting that way doesn`t give inflation while properly adjusting your sliders to give a balanced budget at zero treasury does give inflation.

 

[Desertfox]

though i guess understanding that you're not paying cash for expenses, therefore not minting, therefore not incurring inflation would help. and understanding that balanced budget means having more monthly income than monthly expenses (and not having more cash than monthly expenses) would help too.

It would be more realistic to get an "army debt" if you don`t pay the troops. But the more army debt you get, the lower the morale and combat effectiveness, and the higher the chance of desertions or outright rebellion.

 

[Manziel]

why would it be realistic to forcemint? every reasonable ruler will cut his costs if he runs out of money for some reason.

 

[unmerged(50629)]

http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?t=298494




This is an example of what I am referring to, post #4 by Bowling (not trying to single you out bud). I just want to know why this is even remotely considered an exploit. I have seen this come up quite a few times in threads and do not mean to single out Bowling.

For precisely the reason you see in the response 2 above this on in this thread.

If you took out exactly the right amount of minting to give you a 0 budget deficeit at the end of the month, you would have 0 treasury, investments for the month equal to monthly income minus expenses, and inflation.

Instead, you get to have o treasury, investments for the month equal to monthly income minus expenses, and no inflation using "freeminting".

It is not an exploit in the classic gaming sense, using a bug or bad design to cheat the system.

For instance, the Roma bug was an exploit. It has since been corrected, but being able to reduce bad boy endlessly was not the intent of the event. Using that event to reduce bad boy is thus and exploit.

This is not an exploit, since it is clear that the design of the game exncourages it's use. That is why I used the term "cheat" since you can consider it cheating to mint money for free or not at your own choosing. But make no mistake, being able to get minting for free is doing something that "realisticly" would not be possible, for so far as this treasury mechanism actually represents some real world income model.

Realisticly, you should have to have your treasury set at a minimum amount to cover monthly expenses in excess of your treasury, otherwise you would have military and advisors go unpaid. That could be accomplished by having you forced to take a loan, or forced to mint, causing inflation.

Frankly, I consider the negative consequences of such forced action to be so detremental to the potential fun of the game that it should not be done. I suspect the same is true for Paradox. So it is a deliberate feature where everyone is allowed to "cheat" the inflation system when treasury = 0.

While I do not want it to change for those reasons, I believe that some people see it the other way, and can understand why.

 

[unmerged(40278)]

except why do you define having 0 cash as debt? we do agree that your monthly income consists of money and not apples and oranges right?

cash is money that you can invest. income is money that you can spend.

It would be more realistic to get an "army debt" if you don`t pay the troops. But the more army debt you get, the lower the morale and combat effectiveness, and the higher the chance of desertions or outright rebellion.

 

[unmerged(40278)]

how on earth would you be running a "budget deficit" when your monthly income exceeds your monthly expenses? you are taking so much time to argue about "realistic", when it is totally moot because you miscomprehended the nature of income and cash in the first place.

For precisely the reason you see in the response 2 above this on in this thread.

If you took out exactly the right amount of minting to give you a 0 budget deficeit at the end of the month, you would have 0 treasury, investments for the month equal to monthly income minus expenses, and inflation.

Instead, you get to have o treasury, investments for the month equal to monthly income minus expenses, and no inflation using "freeminting".

It is not an exploit in the classic gaming sense, using a bug or bad design to cheat the system.

For instance, the Roma bug was an exploit. It has since been corrected, but being able to reduce bad boy endlessly was not the intent of the event. Using that event to reduce bad boy is thus and exploit.

This is not an exploit, since it is clear that the design of the game exncourages it's use. That is why I used the term "cheat" since you can consider it cheating to mint money for free or not at your own choosing. But make no mistake, being able to get minting for free is doing something that "realisticly" would not be possible, for so far as this treasury mechanism actually represents some real world income model.

Realisticly, you should have to have your treasury set at a minimum amount to cover monthly expenses in excess of your treasury, otherwise you would have military and advisors go unpaid. That could be accomplished by having you forced to take a loan, or forced to mint, causing inflation.

Frankly, I consider the negative consequences of such forced action to be so detremental to the potential fun of the game that it should not be done. I suspect the same is true for Paradox. So it is a deliberate feature where everyone is allowed to "cheat" the inflation system when treasury = 0.

While I do not want it to change for those reasons, I believe that some people see it the other way, and can understand why.

 

[unmerged(40278)]

yes, there are a couple of misleading labels and figures in the budget window. but if you're able to ignore these and look at the numbers, this is how it breaks down.

t ... treasury
i ... income
e ... expenses

money available this month: m = t+i
incurring debt at: e > m
running deficit at: e > i
money you can spend on improvements and specialists: t
money you can spend on events and running costs: m
money put into research: r = (((t - e) < 0) ? (t - e) : 0) + i
minting: r -> t

 

[unmerged(50629)]

how on earth would you be running a "budget deficit" when your monthly income exceeds your monthly expenses? you are taking so much time to argue about "realistic", when it is totally moot because you miscomprehended the nature of income and cash in the first place.

But you aren't. That is what is going on here. Your income is ALWAYS converted into investment, which is an expense. The only way to draw some of that income and put it into treasury is to use the treasury slider, which also incrues inflation.

The only way for you to avoid a monthly defecit when you have money remaining in you treasury is to mint, but when you have no money in treasury, you can set the slider all the way to the left and still not have a defecit. This is the nature of the "cheat".

 

[StoweMobile]

FWI if they ever come out with a patch that eliminates freeminting...im not going to upgrade to it.

 

[Happy_Lonely]

Considering how important factor inflation was at times it is a shame how easy it is to avoid in the game, even if minting at will during war time.

These "making things simple and clean" features just turn the game all too easy even when it was supposed to be "very hard/furious".

Hopefully a future update would see this feature "fixed" (consider it not broken if you will) at least on the tougher levels, while those who want the game simple and clean can be satisfied with freeminting up to normal difficulty.

 

[StoweMobile]

acording to some of these arguments it would seem like every dime should cause inflation. why would spending money on my army be minting, but reasearch not? As long as your treasury is empty I don't see how you could be argued as "minting" money.

 

[NikkTheTrick]

As long as your treasury is empty I don't see how you could be argued as "minting" money.

Your soldiers would like cash payments

 

[unmerged(60815)]

without a more complex economy. Any changes like to make inflation more realistic would not be worthwhile.

 

[unmerged(45895)]

Considering how important factor inflation was at times it is a shame how easy it is to avoid in the game, even if minting at will during war time.

I don't think current system in any way represents inflation except as name.

Why would using some of the monthly tax income for army cause inflation and using yearly income not? And why same money used in research does not cause inflation but using it to send merchant causes inflation? As long as AI players use freeminting and as long as minting is actually just using your income and not minting more money I don't see how freeminting is any kind of cheat or exploit.

If they changed minting to make cash out of nothing I could see it cause inflation. But as it is now inflation is just using your monthly income for something other than research. It makes no sense at all.

I am not enough of history buff to know what caused inflation at those times. But if it was upkeep of army etc then make upkeep cause inflation. If it was trading then make trading cause inflation. etc