How does global GDP progress through an EU4 game?

[nobodyinparticular]

Curious if anyone perhaps has any statistics on this. The richest countries in 1444 have a double digit ducat income, by the end it's hundreds if not thousands (that's not mentioning the modifier stacking that players pull off to compound trade value into the millions). Development increases, income increasing buildings are built, uncolonized provinces are added to the fold, national ideas and idea groups are unlocked that further increase income, manufactories and industrialization increase goods produced and tax, adm and dip tech increase production and trade efficiency...

 

[Orkonkel]

Ehh. Do you mean any game in which a player is involved? Or just running the AI from 1441 to 1821? Because players are magnitudes of degrees better than the AI at increasing income (basically getting 20+ merchants and putting them to use while conquering valuable tradegood areas etc).

Generally speaking, EU4 finances are very different from real life finances. Any strategy game -- even grand strategy games -- kinda abstracts monetary systems in ways that still make for enjoyable gameplay. Even the most successful and expansive nations had periods where they struggled fiscally, going into debt and turmoil for whatever reasons (plagues, volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, having a bad/unlucky battle that essentially demolishes your entire professional army, etc). 'Disasters' are very timid compared to real life, and recovery is quick and smooth.

So. That was a bit of a tangent, but the global GDP in a game of EU4 I'd guess is increased by something like 800-1000%? I have no data, just a gut feeling from me. It'd be easy to just open up a spectator game and add up every nation's income at the start date and then let the game roll until the end date and check again.

 

[Me_]

Always up. There is no such thing as economic collapse/downturn/depression.

 

[iClipse]

Always up. There is no such thing as economic collapse/downturn/depression.

I'd argue there are points where it decreases actually. A player conquering some territory gives it 90% autonomy, so decreasing the GDP.

So the more a player controls, the lower the overall world output is. This is of course counteracted by buildings and trade, but those don't come always into play and don't always work optimally (a manufactory on a trade company without investments isn't all that productive).

And if the player is a Horde. Well..

I'm just looking at the world in general. For the player itself it's always going up obviously. Everything is permanent (buildings, investments, dev increases).

 

[henriqueb1]

I'd argue there are points where it decreases actually. A player conquering some territory gives it 90% autonomy, so decreasing the GDP.

So the more a player controls, the lower the overall world output is. This is of course counteracted by buildings and trade, but those don't come always into play and don't always work optimally (a manufactory on a trade company without investments isn't all that productive).

And if the player is a Horde. Well..

I'm just looking at the world in general. For the player itself it's always going up obviously. Everything is permanent (buildings, investments, dev increases).

It might have periods of downturn of the global economy, especially early game, as the AI also likes (or at least liked some months ago) to increase autonomy, but the constant passive lowering of autonomy overall, and AI slowly snowballing, would lesser downturns. Anyway there aren't many great conquests by the AI early game.

 

[Orkonkel]

I'd argue there are points where it decreases actually. A player conquering some territory gives it 90% autonomy, so decreasing the GDP.

So the more a player controls, the lower the overall world output is. This is of course counteracted by buildings and trade, but those don't come always into play and don't always work optimally (a manufactory on a trade company without investments isn't all that productive).

And if the player is a Horde. Well..

I'm just looking at the world in general. For the player itself it's always going up obviously. Everything is permanent (buildings, investments, dev increases).

A competent player will increase global GDP by a lot more than any AI could hope to accomplish, especially once Furnances come online. There's just no comparison between a player-run campaign and one with only AIs.

90% autonomy? That's more like 45-60% autonomy in territories (depending on whether you went Dharmic religion or not), and even then, it'd be fairly easy to just state everything except the bare minimum to get just as many merchants as you need for an optimal ducat income. A manufactory on a trade company is exceptionally productive, because it creates 1 point of trade good, which is what... 2-5 ducats worth of wealth in the same trade node (depending on the goods), and increasing with every node with a merchant present that it passes through. Depending on how you chain your trade, that original value can increase with 60% (maybe even more?) before arriving at an end node.

Anyway, any form of player blobbing GDP inefficiency isn't there because players suffer increased autonomy, but because optimizing 1,5-3k provinces is just micromanagement hell. At a certain point, building extra Cathedrals is still going to give you a few extra ducats, but just clicking through the list with the endgame lag is just not worth it when you already have a 7,000 monthly income or more.

 

[iClipse]

Well, yes, but you're specifically comparing endgame to start of the game. Of course the money supply grows by 1821. But what about 5-10 years after the start date? Temples aren't a thing yet. Some countries got conquered, and the ones that conquered in the first place have now provinces at 50-90 autonomy. What about everything before techs 11, because manufactories aren't a thing other than farm estates and countries, especially the player are conquering over their government capacity limit. As in, they're leaving stuff as territories because full coring is going over capacity too much.

45-60% autonomy in territories is only a thing by the endgame and if you took the specific government reforms, estate houses, trade company investments to get there.

Anyway, in game terms it doesn't matter. I just thought it was an interesting question the OP asked.

 

[Jarvin]

From an AI only game.

Global development typically increases by around 100-120%.

 

[henriqueb1]

View attachment 732164
From an AI only game.

Global development typically increases by around 100-120%.

Bigger downturns than I would've expected, quite interesting, would like to know what caused them. I noticed the 17th century ones are around institution years, but I don't think debts would cause such a dent.

 

[Orkonkel]

From an AI only game.

Global development typically increases by around 100-120%.

That graph is so cool. Thank you for doing this!

 

[Orkonkel]

It's not that far from reality apparently:

From 1441-1821 it looks like about 300% increase in global GDP.

 

[Jarvin]

It's half broken because it's based on an old dataset but if someone is interested

Skanderbeg

Ledger for save ID: 053deb

skanderbeg.pm

You can check out how some other metrics are shaped over the years(in "Global" subledger) and per individual country(click on a cell and "generate graph"(might take a moment)

AI run courtesy of Zlewikk

 

[Vin55]

to big of a scale to show the crushes and financial crisis or stuff like the opiode crisis of china. But the revolution should impact the eu4 economies gives 50%autonomy in all provinces where it is but the ai is flipping supper fast, so there is that.

 

[raikaria]

It would always be an upward trend; accelerating in the later game as development costs fall due to tech; development investment increases due to other MP discounts; and the space between each technology growing slightly.

However, the exact amount of acceleration would also highly depend on the number of countries alive.

Every single country gets it's own 3/3/3 monthly monarch power; plus it's generation. Put simply; a bunch of minors generates more monarch power than a big blob. More monarch power = more leftover monarch power = more development. If you were to use the console and make a fully decentralised HRE in 1444 [Or at least pass up to disallow internal wars]; and also create the HRE tag in 1444, and let the game play through, the decentralised HRE area would end up with a FAR higher development level by 1821. [Of course; this 1444 HRE would also regurgitate some tags due to being way over governing cap; but these vassals still wouldn't come close to a full HRE]

Another example would be China. If Ming explodes in 1444; China will end usually [barring some insane tributary numbers feeding Ming Monarch points] up with higher development than if Ming survives until 1821.

A great place to show this would also be Ireland. England easily can stop anyone else messing with Ireland. If one of the minors eats the others; England can just come and smack them out. A divided Ireland will end up with MUCH more development than if England owned it themselves or let a vassal own it. Of course, this Irish micromanagement would also be a bit more busywork too; but England players need something to do; right? Then England can go harvest these gains and integrate the Irish whenever it wants. [And with the new features in Leviathan, should the AI stop devving due to caps; you can just pillage them]

This can actually make it long-term beificial if you start as a regional power to not expand and eat all the minors around you; as long as you don't let another power eclipse you; because those small nations will develop their lands and when you come for them later [With Admin efficiency; ect] they'll be higher development. Remember; every +1 dev [up to 30] is +10 core cost, but it costs a lot more than 10 ADM in most cases to develop.

...

Now excuse me, making this post has given me an idea of a really stupid England campaign where I try to send the British Isles TO THE MOON by doing some stuff that no sane EU4 player would do; and it's things that only England could probably get away with.