Inflation WAS killing me

[HydroAC]

The Austrian gold mine is a godsend. I improved its production to 10 and the ducats poured in. I occasionally got the Master of the Mint advisor, but frequently did not.

I was wondering why I have by far the largest empire but am unable to field an army anywhere close to my force limit. My trade income was modest, but at 1550 that is not unusual unless you are blessed with a rich trade node or take Economic/Trade ideas (which I did not).

Having just passed Ewiger Landfriede (5th reform) I could no longer attack errant HRE princes for ducats, so suddenly I have to get my financial house in order.

Military units and buildings were expensive. Hmmm...why is that? Then I checked my inflation. It was over 20% due to my gold mine, ducats from wars, and a few loans. This was having a huge impact on the cost of everything. As this includes maintenance this partially explains why income was inadequate for my army.

So I took a deep breath and used Admin to buy down my inflation rate to 8%. I was ahead of time in tech, had no ideas that need funding, no wars on the immediate horizon, and had maxed my States so it seemed a reasonable thing to do.

Are there other ways than spending valuable Admin and Master of the Mind adviser to get my inflation rate under control?

 

[deathbypie]

If you're catholic, you can just use 50 pope points to get the effect of an inflation advisor for 20? years. And repeat.

 

[Bouchart]

You must have some severe mismanagement, or have developed your gold mine like crazy, to get inflation to 20% from a single gold mine and stealing cash from wars.

First, as Austria you have an idea in your idea set that gives passive inflation reduction each year. It's not much but it should help a little.

Second, you get inflation not from the gold income itself, but the amount of gold income you have as a percentage of your total income. Right at the start of 1444 you are in a great position to beat up Venice and take Venezia in a war or two. The Venice trade node is much better than Wien and you want to take it as soon as you can and move your main trading port there. North Italy takes in a ton of money through trade throughout the whole game.

Third, as Austria you will probably have at least one of Bohemia or Hungary as a PU junior and you can use Siphon Income if it won't worsen liberty desire too badly.

Fourth, even if you are declaring wars for money, remember that you still have to pay for troop reinforcements, you don't get the passive autonomy reduction for being at peace, and you'll likely have some amount of devastation unless you are beating up someone completely helpless.

Fifth, be sure to demolish off any forts you don't need.

The Economic and Trade idea sets shouldn't be necessary at all for anyone in western or central Europe.

 

[HydroAC]

Thanks for all the advice.

My gold mine was developed to 10 only. it is my understanding that 10 is the sweet spot between gold and depletion chance.

All Austrian ideas are done, including the passive inflation reduction. Right now my inflation if flat, with my gold mine increasing it 0.05% per year (which is trivial) that is offset by passive bonuses.

I didn't know that the inflation rate was due to the percent of gold to income. Good to know. I only took out 2 loans (so I could buy an institution), so I'm at a loss as to how inflation got to over 20%. The only thing I can think of was the gold mine and all the war reps from beating up princes for 100 years. This said, it was certainly mismanagement - I should have been paying better attention.

My trade node is in Venizia. My two merchants are 1) directing trade from Wien to Venezia and 2) collecting at Venizia. My trade power at Ragusa was pathetic (~3%), so directing trade seemed pointless. Plus the trade at Ragusa was going to Wien, which was directing to Venezia anyway. Trade power at Ragusa is up to a massive 12% now that I've integrated Hungary, but I still make more gold collecting at Venezia with my 2nd merchant. Total trade income is 19 ducats at with 66% trade power, including Venice set to Protect Trade.

My loyal PUs were running huge deficits, piling up large debts. I ended up paying them off with loot from my wars in the HRE so they wouldn't be crippled with no ducats to support troops.

Forts at my perimeter are kept, and those in backwaters removed. I just passed Reform #5 (no more HRE wars), so the entire HRE is a backwater now.

I looked into the Papacy "Forgive Usury". It gives 0.1% per year inflation reduction for 20 years, or a total of 2%. That just isn't worth 50 papal influence since I have no loans out.

 

[Bouchart]

The only other gold mine in the area is in Kosovo so if you have that one too the inflation could add up. Also remember that you can get half price Masters of Mint from the Burgher estate.

Consider having your trade fleet pirate in Constantinople instead of protecting trade at Venice. Most of Constantinople's trade won't leak out unless the Ottomans imploded.

 

[HydroAC]

I just integrated Hungary, so I have 2 new gold mines in Kosovo and Hont. Total gold mine income is 11.2/month, or ~12% of my total income. The 2 new mines have a production of 3, so it may be worth throwing some diplo at them when I can.

My half price Production adviser is 65, and he will be replaced by the Master of the Mint when he moves one.

 

[Vulkandrache]

Then I checked my inflation

How do you even manage to not check your finance screen for 100 years.
Just from army maint management youd have it open every year.

 

[gia257]

you probably didnt have to buy it down at just 20%, unless you had nothing better to spend on

 

[HydroAC]

You are right. I should have checked earlier.

Inflation hasn't been a significant issue in the past - certainly not to 20%. So I 'saw' the increase in prices for buildings and army units, but gave it a better look.

Lesson learned...

 

[Incompetent]

Don't be afraid of income sources that cause inflation, just pay it down as needed (unless you're going full Florrynomics) and make the usual efforts to build up your non-inflationary income. It usually works out efficient enough: if you're getting so much inflation from gold and plunder that you're paying to pay it down every couple of years, that means the rest of your economy is so weak that you really needed the money, and/or it's paying for significantly better advisors (so the ADM you spent paying down inflation isn't really lost). But that's normal if you're a small country trying to make big gains (not that Austria is 'small', but it has some pretty big goals to achieve in the first 100 years).

Austria's trade position is a bit awkward but there are definitely opportunities, especially if you get a good Burgundian Inheritance (can skim money off the colonizers) or take over the Venice node. From Venice, the best direction to go in terms of trade is through Egypt; while you're there, don't forget to take Jerusalem and Mecca for the +2 missionaries and +1 prestige/year. At that point you're not far from Zanzibar, where you can easily get to 20% ivory trade share for the +2 diprep (as well as a healthy amount of extra money of course).

 

[Lacost]

First of all: This inflation most likely doesn't come from your goldmine. Especially with the Austrian passive inflation reduction the goldmine shouldn't contribute much to inflation growth.

However, demanding 80% warscore in ducats from Hanseatic princes does increase your inflation by a lot. But also other wars where you aim to release princes or keep blobbing princes in check will also be likely to give the Emperor money in a peace deal. This combined with the frequent and usually fast HRE wars in the early game can really skyrocket your inflation.

That being said, getting 1000 ducats early game is always worth the inflation penalty.

If you really want to see how impactful those ducats from peacedeals are, then play a native North American tribe and demand 100% warscore ducats as an OPM. I once gathered 50% inflation before even one colonizer showed up in the new world.

 

[HydroAC]

The HRE wars were constant, and I did ruthlessly demand ducats from princes, demand princes be released, forced religion. The loot was huge in comparison to my fairly weak economy, with some princes (such as Lubeck) contributing 1000s of ducats in one go. I used the loot to subsidize almost constant deficits, buy buildings, Institutions, pay off the occasional loan, and pay off the debts of vassals, PUs, and allies.

So this must be where the inflation came from/

This loot hid my weak economy, and as the ducats rolled in I did not notice the huge inflation - until I could no longer shake down the princes for gold (Reform #5).

You are right that I need to get the trade nodes upstream of Venice sorted out. As to expansion as Austria, I attacked Muscovy to peal them away from their unholy axis with the Ottos. I released Novgorod for easy almost AE-free expansion. Now my first war with the Ottos is about done, so I'm driving to Constantinople. The Ottos took Alexandria and Cairo long ago, so getting there will take a while.

interestingly, Portugal is now Muslim (!!!), have no allies (they keep getting abandoned by Castile),. so with a bit of luck I'll vassalize them, force religion, and have my first colonizer under my belt.

 

[Lacost]

The HRE wars were constant, and I did ruthlessly demand ducats from princes, demand princes be released, forced religion. The loot was huge in comparison to my fairly weak economy, with some princes (such as Lubeck) contributing 1000s of ducats in one go. I used the loot to subsidize almost constant deficits, buy buildings, Institutions, pay off the occasional loan, and pay off the debts of vassals, PUs, and allies.

So this must be where the inflation came from/

This loot hid my weak economy, and as the ducats rolled in I did not notice the huge inflation - until I could no longer shake down the princes for gold (Reform #5).

Sounds like a perfect HRE-Austria game to me .

The transition from being the lunch-break bully to becoming a normal nation again is pretty rough for Austria and has to be planned for if you don't want to end up like you did. Either you completely reform your army, throw out the mercs and don't wage wasteful wars anymore or you:

1. Leave the HRE
You can loose the emperorship and leave the HRE which removes you as a prince. That means you are not bound to the restrictions of Ewiger Landfriede and can continue to "tax" your princes with your armies. Just annex the new Emperor afterwards and force an election to get the emperorship back. This may complicate your HRE diplomacy though because you get a negative modifier for elections for not being a HRE prince.

2. Fast revoke
As soon as you pass Ewiger Landfriede you want to have enough non HRE provinces ready to pass the next reforms to get a fast Revoke the Privilegia. As soon as the princes are your vassals they will pay nice amounts of Vassal fees to you, especially if you stay a Feudal Monarchy and stack Income from vassals modifiers. That will solve your economic troubles for sure.

 

[HydroAC]

Buying down the inflation has worked wonders. I took a deep breath and spent 600 diplo to buy it down 8 times (lowering inflation from 20 to 4, and also got the Master of the Mint. Now inflation is down to a manageable 4% and dropping slowly. This was gross mismanagement on my part to not notice this sooner.

Reform #6 (no more elections, religious unity) passed in 1577, and with my economy is producing a healthy surplus and is trade improving so I can finally build my army up to near its force limit of 116. Passing Reform #6 also means I JUST avoided a religious league war since Siena went Protestant on me. This must have been an event since they are nowhere near any former Center of Reformation. Or it was coded by Paradox to vex HRE Emperors...

I'll work on the Reform #7 - making all those nasty princes my vassals. I'm making a nice 0.34 IA/month now, and I have 41 provinces to add to the HRE. I understand that princes that refuse #7 may break away, so I'll likely have to rely on lots of extra IA, high reputation, and devastating good looks to convince all the princes to go along with being my slaves

 

[Aythne]

Inflation is a bugaboo for many players, but it's really not a huge deal even when it reaches into the double digits and beyond.

You just have to make sure you're continuously growing: I don't care about gaining 15% inflation if those loans/peace deals/gold mines have helped grow my economy by 300%.

Inflation only kills stagnant nations.

 

[YuriiH]

and spent 600 diplo

It was admin, the most valuable points

 

[Snake_Squeezins]

It's good to eventually play a game like this where you end up with high inflation and then have to deal with it and slowly dig out - because then you realize that 20% inflation (or more) is actually no big deal at all for many nations.

 

[harezmi]

Inflation is a bugaboo for many players, but it's really not a huge deal even when it reaches into the double digits and beyond.

You just have to make sure you're continuously growing: I don't care about gaining 15% inflation if those loans/peace deals/gold mines have helped grow my economy by 300%.

Inflation only kills stagnant nations.

I'm playing my first ironman game as Ottos and inflation is also killing me because of the extra cash I get from the peace deals. I almost always make separate peaces to make sure I collect all of the cash possible. However, when I hit the 20% inflation and started to get the nasty events those force me to pay 100 admin for -2 inflation or die, I realized I ended up paying extra 25 admin for no reason. I think it is a good idea to buy back some of the inflation if you can't resist to get the cash. I think I'll be more resistant for cash from now on since admin points are the most valuable thing in the game by far.

 

[gia257]

I'm playing my first ironman game as Ottos and inflation is also killing me because of the extra cash I get from the peace deals. I almost always make separate peaces to make sure I collect all of the cash possible. However, when I hit the 20% inflation and started to get the nasty events those force me to pay 100 admin for -2 inflation or die, I realized I ended up paying extra 25 admin for no reason. I think it is a good idea to buy back some of the inflation if you can't resist to get the cash. I think I'll be more resistant for cash from now on since admin points are the most valuable thing in the game by far.

dont pay the admin, let it hit 50%+, you can buy it down after you wc or if you get stuck in a coalition for a couple years

also if you bankrupt you lose a lot of MP but also cut down on inflation for free, so could be good, or not

now, if you arent wcing, then yeah do whatever you feel works

 

[harezmi]

dont pay the admin, let it hit 50%+, you can buy it down after you wc or if you get stuck in a coalition for a couple years

also if you bankrupt you lose a lot of MP but also cut down on inflation for free, so could be good, or not

now, if you arent wcing, then yeah do whatever you feel works

my goal is to do a WC in my first iron game and overall 5th EU4 game but I quickly realized how hard it is now after the huge Ottoman nerf! I'll try, though.

Building a manufactory is almost 700 ducats because of inflation and the pashas. There is just so many things to consider. I love this game!