Investment pools don't have to be a problem

[Ololorium]

I don't care about whether the player is the 'spirit of the nation' (whatever that means) or the government. I care about gameplay, and if the core gameplay loop is clicking around different areas on the map and plopping down buildings no matter what economy you have then it's not very interesting gameplay.

It will make the game better to have capitalists build their own factories because then the player would have more interesting challenges to work with in order to direct their country to whatever goals they want. It's much more interesting to try to mobilize for war, for example, by improving factory working conditions to get rural workers to urbanize and subsidizing steel costs than just plopping down an arms factory. Having capitalists build their own factors could then turn them into powerful actors you'd have to interact with at an individual and group level -- some of which could become powerful titans of industry and become heavily involved in national affairs. It seems like a missed opportunity to not have people like Rockefellers or Carnegies appearing.

Okay, so you find building things by hand not interesting gameplay in general and prefer more indirect approach. I get that argument. But why do you ask for in only under some economic systems then? Surely automatic build system based on some stimuli like national focuses, development goals etc. would make planned economy more fun to play with too? Why ask for interesting gameplay under some economic systems, but letting other systems be "not interesting in general"?

A lot of things you describe that would make gameplay challenging don't depend on capitalists building their own factories at all. We already know that the workers would choose workplaces based on the salary (and work conditions, I assume) and will desert poorly paid workplaces for greener pastures. So if you "just plop down" the ammunition factory using the Investment Pool money without making sure that the conditions are good (by passing minimal wage laws etc.) no one would go to work there and the factory will go bankrupt.
Don't forget that Capitalists still own the factories you build with their money, they collect dividends, so if your private sector is strong, Industrialists will demand more say in national affairs. If you invest their money poorly, your country will be poor as well, and if you invest it too successfully, your government will become dependent on the Industrialists. Is it not interesting gameplay?

 

[WARenie]

Micromanagement is bad, and the game should offer solutions to hand off micromanagement to the AI when desired.

None of that should be tied in any way to the economic system. I should not be forced to go laissez faire because I am Russia and do not want to manage all my states. That makes no sense. I do not want to make the decision for my economic system based on how much the micromanagement annoys me.

It should be based on what I think is best for my country, or which ideology I want to roleplay as.

I think then it shouldn't be "just automation of plopping down buildings". Let it be Planning Bureau or Ministry of State Industries for state controlled buildings that you need to supply with bureaucratic power and fill their own "investment pools" for state projects regardless of ideology or whatever. Also i think that there shouldn't be really vic2 stuff like "I am a laissez faire thus i can't build buildings" or "i am a command state economy and my people had lost every bit of their entrepreneur spirit". What i always felt would be better is that capitalist/aristocrats/whoever investment pool should be always a part of simulation with no way to directly influence/spend it, it's their money. But at the same time state should always be able to build it's own stuff but only on it's own money and automate it if needed. And then influence groups react differently to things you are doing or not doing.
Don't like these little capitalists doing their own things or feel that you have not enough money for state project? Then you should be able to take their money by law and force and put them in your pockets to fuel investment pool of your Planning Bureau to build Correct Buildings and exercise your Player Agency while suffering consequences. Or you could politely ask their influence group to invest money into your projects making it a private enterprise after finishing building. But direct spending of their investment pool without even asking for permission just feels wrong.

 

[Rascal Nag]

There should be two elements - an automation system that can be toggled on or off as a tool to prevent excessive micro as countries get larger (or for those who never want to direct the economy) and a policy driven scale of control that is reduced with more liberal policies but not fully taken away to preserve player ability to still act in the economy if they choose. I went into more detail on this in another thread I posted, but imagine giving half the pool to investors in Laissez-Faire while keeping more of it in Interventionism, to keeping all of it in State Capitalism and not having a pool at all in Planned Economy. The investors can invest, the player can still build, and everyone can get a slice of what they want in terms of both gameplay and representing free market capitalism.

 

[Oglesby]

Another simple thing would be to restrict which buildings we can build with the Investment Pool based on some factors that would realistically impact the decision making of the investors (profitability and other concerns, like Aristocrats prioritizing agriculture over heavy industry and mining).

It was already mentioned that there are factors that affects who is 'investing' into the pool and what it can be used for.

• Free Trade gives you more import/export routes, reduces loan interest rates, allows you to subsidize only Service Industries and Infrastructure, and increases the amount of wealth Capitalists contribute to the Investment Pool.
• Isolation cuts off all foreign trade (so you can only operate within your Market/Customs Union), you can embargo all goods, you can subsidize all buildings, and both Capitalists and Aristocrats will contribute to the Investment Pool.
• Traditionalism (used mostly by Unrecognized countries and represents pre-industrial economies): Fewer trade routes, can subsidize only Services and Infrastructure.
• Agrarianism gives you more export routes, lets you subsidize agriculture, infrastructure, and services, Aristocrats contribute to the Investment Pool, and you can embargo Luxury Goods
• Different economic systems dictate what you can or cannot spend Investment Pool money on.

 

[wtrmute]

I've raised this issue in the DD as well, but while I think that the investment pool does not currently look like a problem, I think the devs could do with at least securing enough specific scripting hooks (a hook that runs once a month for every state and an effect for spending Investment Pool funds for a state into a building) where the laissez-faire purists like @durbal can write a simple mod that evaluates the local economic conditions somehow and then (if applicable) set down a building, without the input of the player. Then people can fine-tune the investment rules in these mods and, if one proves reasonably popular, we can discuss it being merged into the base game in some future version. Presto! We have the capitalists deciding "by themselves" what industries to invest in.

Wiz is an intelligent fellow. He thinks that having the Capitalists randomly pick investments is bad from a game design standpoint, but if the radical Liberals can show by a concrete implementation that it is not the case, he will certainly relent. And in the meantime those of us who are fine with using the abstraction of the investment pool will use it and not worry about that.

 

[durbal]

Okay, so you find building things by hand not interesting gameplay in general and prefer more indirect approach.

No, I think that the idea that all economies should play the same and that a core part of the V3 gameplay loop being plopping down buildings isn't interesting gameplay. It's fine if it's done for a command economy, for example, but the idea that it's so core to gameplay that it must exist for all economies is...not good. Clicking around the map and plopping down buildings is not interesting gameplay to me.

 

[Rhazzaz0r]

No, I think that the idea that all economies should play the same and that a core part of the V3 gameplay loop being plopping down buildings isn't interesting gameplay. It's fine if it's done for a command economy, for example, but the idea that it's so core to gameplay that it must exist for all economies is...not good. Clicking around the map and plopping down buildings is not interesting gameplay to me.

How else would you do it? Its not like the buildings have no restricitons that you can just "plopp" the same buildings in every state. You still have to think about your infratsructure, where your educated pops live, what resources you have available (or which resources you can make available). The core loops can also totally change based on your economic system, are you trying to be a self sustaining economy? Or Export a lot? Be a super high educated state that only produces dynamite but imports all its food?
If you go around and just "plopp" buildings then you are for sure going bancrupt, thinking about which buildings are needed/efficient and where is very dynamic and makes a lot of sense. Regulating the markets and relations with other countries will also play a big part in this. I don't know how random AI "plopping" buildings for you instead makes it better. It just worse and more random

 

[Oglesby]

No, I think that the idea that all economies should play the same ...

Judging by this response I don't think that the developers think that they should either.

This is for sure not the case! The country's different economic systems enable and prohibit both certain pop behaviors and actions the player can take, in addition to making it easier or harder to engage in certain playstyles. So both a set of hard locks/unlocks on actions and modifiers/cost adjustments. We'll get into more details on this in the near future.

Like @Wizzington has hinted at a few times already in this thread, a crucial bit of design intent behind our approach to never prohibit the player from engaging in new construction, or put construction wholly on AI autoplay, is that choosing which aspects of your country to invest into and expand - represented by different buildings - is the core of Victoria 3, informed both by economic and political concerns. Expanding an Iron Mine in a newly conquered unincorporated part of your country can have very different long-term knock-on effects from expanding one in your capital, and predicting or discovering these kinds of effects in retrospect is a big aspect of our enjoyment when playing. We don't want the player's choice of economic system to either make the game unplayable because of micromanagement requirements nor remove the society-building aspect from the experience.

To put this a different way, we want the decision to switch to a different economic system to be based on a play strategy that develops in response to the game. For example, the Industrialists (or the United States) might demand you open your market and you decide you're not in a good position to fight them, or perhaps you welcome the opportunity. This demands each system be a valid choice in its own right, without forcing the player into a kind of game they don't like playing. We never want to force the player to make a decision about which direction to take their country because the alternative is boring or impossible to manage.

But that for sure doesn't mean it should feel the same to play a Laissez-Faire country as one with a Command Economy.

 

[Ololorium]

No, I think that the idea that all economies should play the same and that a core part of the V3 gameplay loop being plopping down buildings isn't interesting gameplay. It's fine if it's done for a command economy, for example, but the idea that it's so core to gameplay that it must exist for all economies is...not good. Clicking around the map and plopping down buildings is not interesting gameplay to me.

If plopping is so bad, why is it fine for command economy? Do you think the command economy should be "the boring one" that players (or at least you personally) actively avoid?
Your preferences are yours of course, hopefully there will be mods that will change the game more for your liking (much like Meiou&Taxes for EU4 added pops and organic growth, changing the game from a map-painter more to the society simulation).

 

[Spartakusbund]

I don't care about whether the player is the 'spirit of the nation' (whatever that means) or the government. I care about gameplay, and if the core gameplay loop is clicking around different areas on the map and plopping down buildings no matter what economy you have then it's not very interesting gameplay.

There’s still a lot to be revealed about the game, but I am confident that “plopping down buildings” is not going to be the only part of the gameplay loop.

It will make the game better to have capitalists build their own factories because then the player would have more interesting challenges to work with in order to direct their country to whatever goals they want. It's much more interesting to try to mobilize for war, for example, by improving factory working conditions to get rural workers to urbanize

Very rosy picture of what industrialization was like there, chief. Go read The Condition of the Workingclass in Manchester to decide whether those Irish peasants moved out of the countryside because they thought “these factory conditions are nice.”

Regardless, getting peasants to the cities is something you’re going to have to do whether you are building buildings or the AI is.

and subsidizing steel costs than just plopping down an arms factory.

That’s not Laissez Faire!

Having capitalists build their own factors could then turn them into powerful actors you'd have to interact with at an individual and group level -- some of which could become powerful titans of industry and become heavily involved in national affairs. It seems like a missed opportunity to not have people like Rockefellers or Carnegies appearing.

That’s going to happen regardless of whether capitalists auto-build factories.

 

[alexti]

Okay, so you find building things by hand not interesting gameplay in general and prefer more indirect approach. I get that argument. But why do you ask for in only under some economic systems then? Surely automatic build system based on some stimuli like national focuses, development goals etc. would make planned economy more fun to play with too? Why ask for interesting gameplay under some economic systems, but letting other systems be "not interesting in general"?

I think the indirect approach should apply to all economies, but depending on the type of economy this indirect approach would be quite different. One of the reason is from purely gameplay point of view. Let's say the level of control for direct (putting buildings directly) and indirect approaches is equal in 1 state case. So the player will make a choice and use controls to give a command to the game. So for small nations, gameplay loop is mostly the same. Most Paradox games use the direct approach and for the small nations gameplay is typically good.

Now, let's look at a large nation with ~100 states. With direct approach you have to go through each state and make a decision (and the process of deciding is the same) and click on UI 100 times. This is getting tedious and this is what most Paradox games (and the same applies to most games of this type too) suffer from. Usual solution is to provide some automation and usually it works poorly (see Stellaris). With indirect approach you get a bit of an increase in number of decisions and clicking in comparison to 1 state case, but maybe in 3-5 times, rather in 100 times. You lose some granularity in your control, but you keep making few interesting decisions instead of very many repetitive ones.

The difference in gameplay between economic policy would come from the levers available to the players. In command economy the player might make 5-year plans dictating that 10 steel factories, 5 tank factories and 1 textile factory needs to be built and the bureaucrats would implement the orders. In laissez-faire economy, the player might open some new markets for the goods the capitalists decided to produce or invest into infrastructure projects to create demand on cement and steel to encourage capitalists to build these industries. In some middle of the road economy, the player might set tariffs on importing some goods to encourage and support local industry or give tax breaks to some types of industries.

 

[durbal]

There’s still a lot to be revealed about the game, but I am confident that “plopping down buildings” is not going to be the only part of the gameplay loop.


Very rosy picture of what industrialization was like there, chief. Go read The Condition of the Workingclass in Manchester to decide whether those Irish peasants moved out of the countryside because they thought “these factory conditions are nice.”

Regardless, getting peasants to the cities is something you’re going to have to do whether you are building buildings or the AI is.


That’s not Laissez Faire!

That’s going to happen regardless of whether capitalists auto-build factories.

1. It's going to be a core part because the engine design and scripting environment encourage it. The devs have all but confirmed that it's so core in the gameplay that they created a weird workaround to try and hand-wavey explain it in terms of capitalists. Let's not kid ourselves here.

2. It was an example. Industrialization happened differently in a lot of places. Requiring me to read a book specifically about the Irish situation -- which is probably the worst example you can think of considering how far they lagged behind other anglophone nations and how unique their situation was -- is just silly gatekeeping.

3. I never mentioned laissez-faire. Not sure what you're on about.

4. If capitalists don't build the factories themselves and make decisions on their own then it's hard to see them as powerful actors.

If plopping is so bad, why is it fine for command economy? Do you think the command economy should be "the boring one" that players (or at least you personally) actively avoid?
Your preferences are yours of course, hopefully there will be mods that will change the game more for your liking (much like Meiou&Taxes for EU4 added pops and organic growth, changing the game from a map-painter more to the society simulation).

It shouldn't be a core part of gameplay is all I'm saying. It doesn't have to be boring for command economies, but if it's so core to the gameplay that the player is actively building things himself even in liberal economies then I have a feeling a large part of the player agency (a phrase the devs themselves used in reference to it) is going to be clicking states and choosing buildings just like in, well, every other Paradox game -- except at least in those games (besides maybe Stellaris) it's not part of the core gameplay loop (and it's problematic at best in Stellaris).

 

[Vernichtere]

4. If capitalists don't build the factories themselves and make decisions on their own then it's hard to see them as powerful actors.

Please explain how it should be done without competition between different brands, without market concentration. And please explain how it should actually be done in the code. How should the AI react to this?

 

[durbal]

Please explain how it should be done without competition between different brands, without market concentration. And please explain how it should actually be done in the code. How should the AI react to this?

What does any of this have to do with what I am saying? For one thing, acting like the Rockefellers and Carnegies were concerned about competition between brands is pretty silly considering their history with anti-trust laws. Regardless of that historical anecdote though, why would having capitalists build their own factories not be possible within the heavily-abstracted economic simulation in V3? It was already done in V2, just with garbage AI partially caused by the fact that in that game -- and get this -- capitalists did not make decisions for their own benefit.

 

[Spartakusbund]

1. It's going to be a core part because the engine design and scripting environment encourage it. The devs have all but confirmed that it's so core in the gameplay that they created a weird workaround to try and hand-wavey explain it in terms of capitalists. Let's not kid ourselves here.

I said it wasn’t the only part of the gameplay loop.

2. It was an example. Industrialization happened differently in a lot of places. Requiring me to read a book specifically about the Irish situation -- which is probably the worst example you can think of considering how far they lagged behind other anglophone nations and how unique their situation was -- is just silly gatekeeping.

Manchester isn’t in Ireland, durbal.

You ignored my larger point, which is that shifting people from the countryside to the cities will be a gameplay challenge whether or not you or the capitalist AI decide what buildings to build.

3. I never mentioned laissez-faire. Not sure what you're on about.

Isn’t the entire complaint here based around capitalists not building buildings in a free market economy? It’s kind of a problem if your proposed solution also does not fit with a free market economy.

4. If capitalists don't build the factories themselves and make decisions on their own then it's hard to see them as powerful actors.

I don’t have this problem. I can think of many, many ways capitalists might be powerful actors in the Interest Group system whether or not they auto-build for you.

 

[Vernichtere]

What does any of this have to do with what I am saying? For one thing, acting like the Rockefellers and Carnegies were concerned about competition between brands is pretty silly considering their history with anti-trust laws. Regardless of that historical anecdote though, why would having capitalists build their own factories not be possible within the heavily-abstracted economic simulation in V3? It was already done in V2, just with garbage AI partially caused by the fact that in that game -- and get this -- capitalists did not make decisions for their own benefit.

So you seriously assume that competition is being simulated on the micro level? Or are you asking here that one should introduce the possibilities of setting up a company? That simply goes beyond the limits of what is possible in simulation.

Mr. Rockefeller is not simulated here. The capitalist here is neither a person nor a company, but simply part of a class.

 

[Alfred Dreyfus]

All of you saying that the capitalists building their own things is bad because the AI is bad: you do realize that all the non-player countries industry is going to be managed by the AI, right?

The player shouldn't control the POPs, the player should only control the State, the Government, however you want to call it.

Victoria isn't about playing as the citizens, Victoria is about using your limited government tools to steer your country. If you want to fully control your industry, then you have the option to have a Planned Economy economic system. That's exactly what governments do when they want to control their countries industry.

The fact that the AI is bad isn't a reason to, for example, control your allies armies.

 

[Spartakusbund]

All of you saying that the capitalists building their own things is bad because the AI is bad: you do realize that all the non-player countries industry is going to be managed by the AI, right?

Who is saying this?

 

[Vernichtere]

Who is saying this?

They think that the countries Ki is calculated in the same way as the reactions of a pop and it would be more or less done to give the capitalist pop the same parameters, only one level lower.

 

[wtrmute]

All of you saying that the capitalists building their own things is bad because the AI is bad: you do realize that all the non-player countries industry is going to be managed by the AI, right?

The player shouldn't control the POPs, the player should only control the State, the Government, however you want to call it.

Victoria isn't about playing as the citizens, Victoria is about using your limited government tools to steer your country. If you want to fully control your industry, then you have the option to have a Planned Economy economic system. That's exactly what governments do when they want to control their countries industry.

The fact that the AI is bad isn't a reason to, for example, control your allies armies.

Once again, the investment pool does not exist because the AI is bad at picking an investment. This is something inherently implementable in script.

The investment pool exists because the game designers have become convinced that this mechanic is more engaging than having the POPs pick investments according to some rules the player would have to learn by either long hours of gameplay or by reading the wiki. Maybe they are wrong; but it is a design decision, not a limitation of the game.