NOT A BUG: WaD: Corruption event tool tip says +1% inflation

[unmerged(6147)]

Corruption event tool tip says +1% inflation

Last night I got the old corruption event. Before I pressed the A) alternative (-1 stab and some ducats lost) I decided to look at the B) alternative (+5% inflation). When I hovered over it the tool tip said "-1% inflation". I did not dare to rely on that so I chose the usual A) alternative. Has there been a change or is the tool-tip just wrong?

 

[Derek Pullem]

It changed - I take the inflation now

 

[Nikolai II]

I did not dare to rely on that so I chose the usual A) alternative. Has there been a change or is the tool-tip just wrong?

Must have been late at night, or you are unusually paranoid

I like the change since it finally brought some thought into the event. The next step would be to reverse the options since most AI nations suffer less from +1% inflation than -x cash and -1 stab IMHO. (At least the bigger nations should have them reversed, certainly size30+ and possibly from size 8+)

 

[jpd]

I just checked in the new file, and inflation has indeed been reduced to 1% for the B) options, for all nation size variants.

While technically not a bug bringing it down from 5% to 1% and leaving option a) untouched, it feels to me that the 'punishment' dealt by option B) is now way too mild when compared to option A).

When at 5%, it took 20 years (with all majors promoted) to gradually get rid of it. Now it's only 4 years. A stab hit with cash deduction is now much more costly than the mere 1% cost increase that this event is now causing.

While 5% maybe too harsh, shouldn't it be at least more than 1% ?

Jan Peter

 

[Derek Pullem]

I just checked in the new file, and inflation has indeed been reduced to 1% for the B) options, for all nation size variants.

While technically not a bug bringing it down from 5% to 1% and leaving option a) untouched, it feels to me that the 'punishment' dealt by option B) is now way too mild when compared to option A).

When at 5%, it took 20 years (with all majors promoted) to gradually get rid of it. Now it's only 4 years. A stab hit with cash deduction is now much more costly than the mere 1% cost increase that this event is now causing.

While 5% maybe too harsh, shouldn't it be at least more than 1% ?

Jan Peter

My flinch factor would be at around 3% but I guess it depends on your nation and number of provinces (and playing style)

 

[jpd]

Thinking a bit more about this ....

Maybe what is needed, is that we create two sets of corruption events. The country size triggers remain the same in both sets, but one set gets a trigger for infra <= 4, and the second set the complementary trigger for infra > 4

Then, we can leave the low inflation for the event set with infra <= 4 (ie. no access to major promotion, thus no active inflation control), and return the second set to the old, higher inflation levels.

All this, naturally, under the assumption that the inflation levels were lowered to not hit countries too much that haven't reeached infra 5 yet. Which is my guess they were lowered in the first place.

Jan Peter

 

[BiB]

Strikes me as just fine really.

 

[Nikolai II]

My flinch factor would be at around 3% but I guess it depends on your nation and number of provinces (and playing style)

I think 1% is just fine - it's not too big a threat so you can take it if the -stab and money is really bad, and in my current game (with -0.24 annual inflation loss) I still feel compelled to take the cash/stab hit (1400-2000 regain cost and no cash in hand) just to give my 45% inflation a slight chance to drop down. (I have 180 years left, just enough to get down to 0, if I never mint another coin)

 

[Peter Ebbesen]

While 5% maybe too harsh, shouldn't it be at least more than 1% ?

1% [4 years full gov] means that you actually have to consider, which option you choose, once in a while. (I still end up choosing the stability hit nearly every time, but it is no longer automatically every time)

2%+ [8 years full gov] makes it the very nearly the worst random event with a game with multiple options, as choosing 2%+ only makes economic sense in the end-game, where inflation stops mattering.

 

[jpd]

Then my calculations (and my subjective interpretations) are obviously flawed.

When my stab drops from +3 to +2, my monthly budget drops significantly. Same with +2 to +1. While opting for taking the inflation increases the cost, it doesn't drop your montly (and yearly census tax) income. With a mere 1% inflation the cost increase doesn't even come close to the budget loss incurred by a stab hit. Even an inflation hit at 2% wouldn't do that (assuming full major promotion).

In my (granted, very limited) game economics experience, I would go for a 1% inflation hit each and every time once I have my majors (and not even all at that) promoted. A stab hit simply will cost more, budget wise. And my gut feeling is that even 2% would not turn that around.

Jan Peter

 

[Nikolai II]

Then my calculations (and my subjective interpretations) are obviously flawed.

Possibly

Dropping from 3 to 2 will lose you 10% of tax income = 1-5% of total income will be lost, if you have 2 or 3 in stab, and only until stab is regained. (You might also lose stab for other reasons later).

Gaining 1% inflation is 1% more expenses forever, but it is worth considering.. but 3% is 3% forever.. (until you have 0 inflation, but that is in the endgame, if at all..)

(And 1% inflation can be called 6% higher costs, 1% on land, one on infra, one on naval, one on purchases....)

 

[jpd]

Well, first of all, we were under assumption that infra 5 had been reached, so 1% is not forever, but recovered in a minimum of 4 years. Secondly, recovering stab quickly will need a full budget allocation, which is then unavailable for something else. So research is at a complete standstill during recovery, something that does not happen if you take the inflation instead of the stab hit.

If you opt for not using the budget to recover stab, it is not uncommon for stab recovery to take a decade or more, during which you are working with the substantially lower budget, not to mention lower census tax income.

The budget drops I have observed (going from +3 to +2 stab) are noticibly higher than 1% (typical is 5-8%), meaning that while my research cost didn't go up, my investment in it did go down significantly. More to the point, my completion date for the next level went up. This makes 1% inflation a far more beneign option than a stab hit in my book. And yes, I tend to play at +3 stab as much as possible

Jan Peter

 

[Peter Ebbesen]

Then my calculations (and my subjective interpretations) are obviously flawed.

Or based on different assumptions.

After all, I do not know what sort of nations you usually play. High stability nation with long stability recovery time and a major portion of income from taxes? Then you are most definitely right. Decent stability nation with 6 months recovery time and a high production and trade income? The situation changes.

My basic assumption is that, if you attempt to run a +3 stability nation consistently, your stability recovery time is not be excessively high. Given the way random events have a tendency to hit you with stability hits, this is usually a good assumption.


Assuming that you have p percent inflation already, and that we assume for the sake of argument that you will never reach 0 percent inflation for the rest of the game, an n percent inflation increase corresponds to a

[(1+p+n)/(1+p)] -1 percent increase in all costs for the rest of the game​

Using inflation adjusted figures instead, it corresponds to a

1-[(1+p)/(1+p+n)] percent loss of income for the rest of the game​

For low values of p and n, this value is close to n. For p~50% it approximates to 2n/3, for p~100%, it approximates to n/2.

The cost of a stability hit is much harder to generalise. Obviously, if you attempt to run +3 stability while having a ten year recovery time, the inflation hit option is very attractive at 1%, as you would lose perhaps 5% of your total income for ten years AND ten years worth of investment in stability to bring it back to +3.

- Another extreme case: if you are already at -3 stability, the extra stability hit will always be the way to go -

If your recovery time is about half a year instead at full investment (I usually attempt to stay in the 4-8 month bracket if at all possible, but your strategy may vary), that is, taking a VERY rough (and probably false) approximation that says that your economy does not expand considerable, 0.5/nOfYearsLeft percent of your total income over the rest of the game.

I.e. with 50 years left and n=1, taking the stability hit and recouperation costs ends up costing us (very roughly) 1%, while the inflation hit is also roughly 1% (unless you have high inflation to start with, in which case it is lower). (For n=2, the values would be 1% vs 2%)

With 100 years left and n=1, taking the stability hit costs us 0.5% of our income, while the inflation hit is still about 1% of income. (For n=2 the values would be 0.5 vs 2%)

Now, we did not add the extra direct ducat expense associated with the stability hit option or the lost taxes above. Let us do so now. We cannot, unfortunately, give a good estimate on whether the direct ducat cost of the stability hit option costs us inflation through minting. I will assume in the following that it does not, which may be a wrong assumption in any specific case. Thus, using Voodoo mathematics and the rough approximations above, we have the following inquality, showing that choosing the stability hit pays off if

(nOfMonthsToPayStabilityRecoveryAndDucatCost/12)/nOfYearsLeft <= 1-[(1+p)/(1+p+n)] ~ n percent,​

For low values of p and n. In other words, choosing to take the stability hit is always the best choice economically unless there is very little time left in the game, or you have a very high stability recovery time.

Even running at, say, p=50% inflation, the righthand side only yields the approximation (2/3)n percent, which, though it obviously makes inflation hits slightly more attractive, is not enough to change my conclusion

Voodoo math, yes, but hopefully not too far off the mark.


(On the other hand, if you run very high stability costs, which is usually mutually exclusive with a +3 stability strategy, the inflation hit looks rather more attractive. E.g. three years recovery time and ducat payment at low inflation means that stability pays off if 3/nOfYearsLeft <= n percent, i.e. for n=1%, nOfYearsLeft >= 3/0.01 = 300 years, n=2 % gives 150 years, n=5 gives 60 years)


PS: In case of errors or typos in above, I refer to the ancient mantra: Never compute in public.

 

[jpd]

Or based on different assumptions.

.....

PS: In case of errors or typos in above, I refer to the ancient mantra: Never compute in public.

While it took me a moment to digest the formulae, I seem to be overlooking one crucial variable. The fact that (with full majors) one point of inflation goes away gradually over 4 years.

It seems to me that this small fact changes the entire picture when comparing inflation increase against stab cost, when both options are calculated against the time remaining in the game.

Jan Peter

 

[unmerged(6147)]

Then my calculations (and my subjective interpretations) are obviously flawed.

When my stab drops from +3 to +2, my monthly budget drops significantly. Same with +2 to +1. While opting for taking the inflation increases the cost, it doesn't drop your montly (and yearly census tax) income. With a mere 1% inflation the cost increase doesn't even come close to the budget loss incurred by a stab hit. Even an inflation hit at 2% wouldn't do that (assuming full major promotion).

In my (granted, very limited) game economics experience, I would go for a 1% inflation hit each and every time once I have my majors (and not even all at that) promoted. A stab hit simply will cost more, budget wise. And my gut feeling is that even 2% would not turn that around.

Jan Peter

How is your arithmetic Jan? 1% increased cost for everything (assuming you never reach 0%) during the rest of the game is for me almost always worse than a stab hit.

Say the year is 1720 and you earn 6000d a a year, 500d per month. These you invest in tech or other things. If you take 1% inflation it means you lose 60d per year (assuming your income does not increase, which it of course does). Say it takes 6 months to recover 1 stab point, that means it costs you 3000d (assuming you get 0 from your king, FAAs etc, which you of course do not).

So in this conservative calculus you pay 3000d today to earn 6000d (50*100 years). I say conservative because there are other costs (besides those indicated above, also those techs you do not invest in get more expensive) and the stab hit may be fixed by a good event while the inflation will not (assuming you never reach 0%, which I never do in my "serious games").

I still choose the stab hit unless I am in a WC BB war phase were stab costs are enourmous and stab hits are dangerous because of the risk of a CW - or I am in the endgame without being in a BB war position.

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If you have a high BB this calculus must be re-made. But normally a wisely played game will be played on low BB for most of the time.

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3000d today cannot be compared just like that to 6000d spread out during the rest of the game. 3000d today is worth more than that, but still...

 

[jpd]

My arithmetic is, simply put, based on the fact that in 4 years time 1% infation has been eliminated through the never ending efforts of all my promoted majors. Simply put, 1% inflation is only negatively influencing my cost for 4 years, not until the end of the game.

To show my way of calculating, let's take an example out of my Mughal Empire game.

At stab +3, my monthly budget is 67 ducats, and I am fully commiting that budget to researching my next infra level. Total cost of the infra level is roughly 15000. At this point in time, stab recovery cost for one stab level is 835, and my monarch skill gives 12 free on stab recovery.

Taking the stab hit brings my monthly budget down to 62. Now I can choose between two extremes for the stab recovery, or anything in between. For sake of argument, let's calculate the cost on my ongoing research for the two extremes.

1) Try to get stab back as fast as possible.

monthly total budget for stab recovery = 62 + 12 = 74
means recovery time = 835 / 74 = 11.2 -> 12 months.
means 12 months not researching = 12 * 62 = 744 research ducats
at stab +3 this would have been 12 * 67 = 804 research ducats

2) Continue investing in research, and recover stab on monarch skill

Recovery time = 835 / 74 = 69.6 -> 70 months
thus losing out on 70 * 5 = 350 ducats

Ignoring effects on census tax and possible RR (and their reduced income effects when > 0), method 2) is the cheapest way to go, but I still loose out on 350 ducats when compared to not taking a stab hit.

Now, what happens if I take the inflation hit instead of a stab hit.
My 15000 infra target goes up to 15150, an increase of 150. For the sake of argument, lets assume I had accumulated 7500 to this point. In four years time (assuming for now no other income related effects) this grows to 7500 + 48 * 67 = 10716. The next tech level target hasn't been reached yet, and because of inflation reduction through my majors, the target is back to 15000 in four years time. Basically, taking the inflation hit costs me nothing, while taking the stab hit costs me at least 350 ducats = 5.2 months (or at worst 804 = 12 months) on my ongoing research with current monthly budget

Now, I do realise that the cost increase for buying stuff hasn't been taken into account here. But neither has the reduced census tax income for 1 to 6 years, nor the cash hit that accompanies the stab hit option. Given my normal spending habits, the 1% increase in costs over 4 years doesn't even come close to the census tax income loss added to the cash hit of the stab hit option.

Jan Peter

 

[Peter Ebbesen]

While it took me a moment to digest the formulae, I seem to be overlooking one crucial variable. The fact that (with full majors) one point of inflation goes away gradually over 4 years.

Actually, not including the work of governors is on purpose. They are IRRELEVANT to the analysis unless you are running an inflation=0 economy, which I explicitly assumed not to be the case in the example above. If you ARE running an economy that will have 0% inflation for extended periods of time, however, mayors become relevant. When not, not.

It is irrelevant whether the governors remove a point of inflation caused by minting coin in a good cause or whether they do it to remove a point of inflation caused by events.

For any arbitrary average level of inflation p, the only relevant point is the increase p+n over p, and, as pointed out, for most common values of p, you get n as a pretty good approximation. (Or 2/3rds of n at around p=50%)

 

[Peter Ebbesen]

Now, what happens if I take the inflation hit instead of a stab hit.
My 15000 infra target goes up to 15150, an increase of 150. For the sake of argument, lets assume I had accumulated 7500 to this point. In four years time (assuming for now no other income related effects) this grows to 7500 + 48 * 67 = 10716. The next tech level target hasn't been reached yet, and because of inflation reduction through my majors, the target is back to 15000 in four years time. Basically, taking the inflation hit costs me nothing, while taking the stab hit costs me at least 350 ducats = 5.2 months (or at worst 804 = 12 months) on my ongoing research with current monthly budget

Basically, your reasoning only works if you have 0% inflation already, as otherwise the "because of inflation reduction through my majors, the target is back to 15000 in four years time. Basically, taking the inflation hit costs me nothing" fails.

In your explicit example, you are comparing a situation of a 1% being reduced to 0% (inflation hit) with 0% reduced to 0% (stability hit), and hence the same situation you were already in, and conclude that it is much the same in the long run, rather than the much more likely NON-ZERO base level, e.g. 11% reduced to 10% (inflation hit) compared to 10% reduced to 9% (stability hit).

 

[unmerged(6147)]

Jan Peter!

It cannot be true that you as the Timurids/Mughals reached 0% inflation? Can it?

If so, that must have been a dull game

I played them twice in a row a couple of months ago and in the latter I set a personal record for exceptional years (I think I got 5-6 before the year 1600) and still I was not close to 0% inflation anytime in the game although I reached infra 5 during the 16th century.

 

[jpd]

In your explicit example, you are comparing a situation of a 1% being reduced to 0% (inflation hit) with 0% reduced to 0% (stability hit), and hence the same situation you were already in, and conclude that it is much the same in the long run, rather than the much more likely NON-ZERO base level, e.g. 11% reduced to 10% (inflation hit) compared to 10% reduced to 9% (stability hit).

Right. I am beginning to understand where my reasoning is flawed. I was reasoning from the context of all my GC games, and those tend to be played at 0% inflation. Even my Timurid/Mughal game was at 0% inflation within 80 years of gameplay, although majors had nothing to do with that.

Jan Peter