Wrong. I only played a civilized nation so far: Sweden. I played six or seven uncivilized nations.
LF always worked.I went for laissez-faire because it relieved me from industrializing. I could focus on the social and political aspects of the game to try them. All you have to do is to accompany the capitalists.
Industrialization demands two prerequisites: a highly enough literrate population and a artisan population numerous and wealthy enough to support the effort of industrialization.
If you dont have them, the game will devolve. If artisans are not numerous and not wealthy enough, the first stage of industrialization is already compromized. If the nation is not litterate enough, clerks wont show up and more advanced technology factories need a large population of clerks to be profitable. For some time, I thought that there could be an issue with LF as some industries never showed up in the latter game. But in the couple of latest games, they did. I went through the steps of literacy and bourgeoisie revolution and for example, barrels were decided when the technology was available.
If you do not work on these two aspects, the wall is the next stop for your economy.
Another point: infrastructure must be well thought before being introduced. It can kill industry.
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1- Well, too much perceived as a bad thing. Hard to tell how capitalists make their choice but in all cases, it does not correspond with most players' perceptions.
2-Industrialization is supposed to come as a competitor to artisan production.
Ah, capitalists are not supposed to have a national conscience but a selfish conscience. They go for what they perceive as good for themselves, not what is good for the country. That is for the other economical regimes.
And eating on an already well established market is always a surest adventure.
3- Maybe not. I already told in the same thread the little experiment I ran. It looked conclusive. Factories are too little of a sample to draw any conclusion on that. My understanding of it is that it influences the starting chances. So +30pc on an activity that has -35 chances to start with might lead to nowhere.
4- They somehow used the banks as the savings come from the POPs. Whatever, it was mostly an economy running on capital built up on savings.
In my last game, I played Sokoto which comes with four starting states. I focused on only one because I had only one NF point. Something comes up.
The capitalists there opened three factories, all working very well. At this point, they stopped working on projects. In every other states, capitalists were trying to open factories to fail. It was interesting because I reached a (meta) equilibrium in this state and I could focuse on the others if I wanted.
Capitalists too slow to gather their resources is the sign that they are not numerous enough and not wealthy enough. And it is part of the game to increase their numbers.
5- Because industrial production killed artisanal production.
6- Stockpiling is more designed for times of war. Many other factors allow to work on the inputs. They are the way to go to support capitalists on their path to industrialization.
7- Already answered. Still, interventionism is here for that.
8- I thought the same. But when I hovered over the location name of a craftsmen pop in the population screen, I could see that populations moved. They moved to national provinces in a slightly higher ratio than they demoted (depending on savings) and in a much higher ratio to colonial provinces.
People migrate. They do not migrate in such a way though that 20000 people suddenly laid off could disappear in a trice.
I suppose Paradox is going to listen. Not because their game mechanics are flawed but because people simply do not like them. LF works well but it does not correspond with most people's expectations on what LF is supposed to be.
To respond to some of these:
2. I understand that industrialists sought to replace artisans, and having them make factories for already-established goods makes sense. However, the mechanics of the game don't allow this to necessarily work since well-established goods are likely to have a higher supply than demand, meaning that it's going to be difficult for those factories to make a profit and survive.
3. NF points work when it comes to encouraging growth of certain POPs, though it's underwhelming when it comes to immigration and seems completely broken when it comes to encouraging factory growth. You can experiment all you want, but when I encourage capitalists to build basic industry and they keep jamming canneries and wineries in the queue year after year, it's broken.
4. Part of the reason the capitalists are broke is because they keep chosing factories for goods that have an unprofitable or saturated market. Or, they choose a profitable good but can't afford the inputs and the factory goes bust after a month. That's a waste of capital.
5. Like I stated in 2: correct theory, horrible execution.
6. Having a stockpile for war only is fine, but if I'm trying to establish a stockpile for a certain good and the POPs and factories keep buying it up, it's not helpful. The ability to open up one good and close off another instead of opening or closing the entire market would be helpful.
7. I understand the purpose of intervention, but as I stated in my opening sentence, I am playing as Mexico which has a laissez faire government to start, and inability to choose ruling party. My hands are pretty well tied unless I really mess up the country to cause a change in government style.
8. I hadn't really notice them move much. If they do, then I retract my statement, but it would be nice if I could track that somehow through the tooltip... perhaps get a better breakdown to see which POPs are immigrating and where.
