Love this game until the late game, when the economy tends to become unmanageable. To make it manageable, I tend to prefer Laissez Faire and Free Trade and let the capitalists reinvest in industries. For most goods, this works great. More profitable industries grow quickly.
This does not seem to work with railways and utilities, however. Their prices never seem to rise much above 15, even during shortages. This is strange, because in the real world these goods respond more sharply than most to local surpluses and shortages. Anyway, in the early and mid game this is not too much of the problem and the player manually build as needed. However, in the late game when labour gets tighter (no peasants to promote) these industries can lose all of their workers and cause massive shortages of everything else. Any workers there are "fired", but I assume they are being competed away to dependent industries that have properly priced products.
I'm not certain this is the cause, but I think better localized pricing mechanics for transportation and electricity would improve the game. If I build a railroad in Tonga, the price of transport there should be very cheap and the staffing should probably never reach full capacity. My level 16 railway in Flanders shouldn't "fire" loads of staff unless there is an economic calamity like a general strike. A major shortage of electricity or transportation should cause their prices to spike massively.
This does not seem to work with railways and utilities, however. Their prices never seem to rise much above 15, even during shortages. This is strange, because in the real world these goods respond more sharply than most to local surpluses and shortages. Anyway, in the early and mid game this is not too much of the problem and the player manually build as needed. However, in the late game when labour gets tighter (no peasants to promote) these industries can lose all of their workers and cause massive shortages of everything else. Any workers there are "fired", but I assume they are being competed away to dependent industries that have properly priced products.
I'm not certain this is the cause, but I think better localized pricing mechanics for transportation and electricity would improve the game. If I build a railroad in Tonga, the price of transport there should be very cheap and the staffing should probably never reach full capacity. My level 16 railway in Flanders shouldn't "fire" loads of staff unless there is an economic calamity like a general strike. A major shortage of electricity or transportation should cause their prices to spike massively.
- 1
