Chapter 7: Hey, this imperialism stuff is pretty neat!
We're a civilized nation. Now what? We act like one!
September 12, 1868: I think briefly about going big -- taking some colonies from Spain. Unfortunately, they're in the British sphere, and have Russia, the Dutch, and France as allies. I'm not that brave. I do like seeing this, however:
We're a secondary power! If you recall, this means we can colonize. Or we could, if we had the techs to colonize something. Still, it's nice to be appreciated. There's also another fun aspect of being "modern" now.
What's that Atjeh? No friends, because the British keep wasting their influence on discrediting the USA? Don't worry, we'll protect you! See, it even says "
Protectorate!" There's nothing the least bit sinister about that.
And on a busy day, it's time for a brief lesson on the power of artillery.
Artillery only has one new stat, but it's a big one: Support. Support allows certain units to fire from the back row. (The 100% means that the artillery unit contributes 100% of its attack/defense, as the case may be.) Now, the other stats show that artillery is about as bad as irregulars in the front row, so if they get caught... well, they're in for some pain. You need to make sure you have at least as many infantry/cavalry/whatever as artillery, so that they stay safely in the back.
Speaking of cavalry, we've learned our lesson from the Siam Incident: we're going to build 6 brigades of cavalry for occupation duty.
October 5, 1868: The Atjehenese are indeed a menace. Faster CB generation, here we come.
October 16, 1868: This next wall of text will be an imposing one, but it's best we discuss this now.
Political and Social Reforms
As I predicted (although a bit late), we can do our first reform. We're going to break down each and every one now; feel free to use this as a reference later! (All reforms are one step at a time, except voting system and upper house voting.) Every reform (except voting system) does two things: reduces MIL (unless you pick a reform nobody wants; we'll talk about movements later) and increases your attractiveness to immigrants (the specific number is +1% per reform. If you check the tooltip for advanced reforms, it'll say things like "+.04 to global immigrant attraction", but that includes the bonus from the previous steps).
Social Reforms
No Minimum Wage: Well, there is a minimum wage.
0 is the minimum wage.
Trinket Minimum Wage: Workers are guaranteed a minimum wage of 20% (of what, I don't know).
Low Minimum Wage: Workers are guaranteed a minimum wage of 40%.
Acceptable Minimum Wage: Workers are guaranteed a minimum wage of 60%.
Good Minimum Wage: Workers are guaranteed a minimum wage of 80%.
Pros: Gives workers more cash, which means they can buy more stuff and meet their needs.
Cons: Increases factory costs significantly, can bankrupt or severely crippled factories.
Cost: +.1 administrative efficiency per step (that means +.1% of your population must ideally be bureaucrats for 100% administrative efficiency).
Unlimited Work Day: Work 'em to death, then burn the corpses for fuel.
14 Hour Work Day: Factory throughput -5%, luxury needs of poor and middle class down by 5%. (Tooltip says -.05 instead of 5%.)
12 Hour Work Day: Factory throughput -10%, luxury needs of poor and middle class down by 10%.
10 Hour Work Day: Factory throughput -15%, luxury needs of poor and middle class down by 15%.
8 Hour Work Day: Factory throughput -20%, luxury needs of poor and middle class down by 20%.
Pros: Makes people happier.
Cons: Factories less efficient. (If you've got some crazy efficient factories, may not matter as much.)
Cost: +.1 administrative efficiency per step.
No Safety Regulations: So what if you work at a Fertilizer Factory? The owners need their smoke breaks.
Minimal Safety Regulations: Factory maintenance +25%, everyday needs of all POPs down by 5%.
Limited Safety Regulations: Factory maintenance +50%, everyday needs of all POPs down by 10%
Acceptable Safety Regulations: Factory maintenance +75%, everyday needs of all POPs down by 15%.
Excellent Safety Regulations: Factory maintenance +100%, everyday needs of all POPs down by 20%.
Pros: Makes people happier.
Cons: Maintaining a factory is more expensive.
Cost: +.1 administrative efficiency per step.
No Unemployment Subsidies: No job? No pay.
Trinket Subsidies: 25% of your last check with no work.
Low Subsidies: 50% of your last check with no work.
Extended Subsidies: 75% of your last check with no work.
Generous Subsidies: 100% of your last check with no work.
Pros: Prevent rebellions (the unemployed are always furious for some reason).
Cons: Can be pricey.
Cost: Unemployment is funded through the Social Spending Slider. If you have full employment, you pay nothing.
No Pensions: I don't care if you have only one arm and half a leg; you swing that pickaxe, Grandpa, or you get no money!
Trinket Pensions: Increase of every POP's income by 5%. (Every POP has "hidden" people that can't work; only about 25% of your population is represented by POPs, or so the Wiki claims.)
Low Pensions: Increase of every POP's income by 10%.
Acceptable Pensions: Increase of every POP's income by 15%.
Good Pensions: Increase of every POP's income by 20%.
Pros: Prevent demotions based on lack of cash; pops buy more stuff, so ancillary effect on economy.
Cons: Can be very pricey.
Cost: Pensions are funded through the Social Spending Slider. Unless your population gets smaller (which is bad), this will always increase.
No Health Care: Got a cold? Walk it off. Got hepatitis? Walk it off. No legs? Crawl it off.
Trinket Health Care: Global population growth of .05%.
Low Health Care: Global population growth of .75%.
Acceptable Health Care: Global population growth of 1%.
Good Health Care: Global population growth of 1.5%.
Pros:
Thomas Malthus is full of it. More people is always good!
Cons: Apart from the slight increase to bureaucracy, there really aren't any.
Cost: +.1 administrative efficiency per step.
No Schools: Little Johnny should be working. Who cares if he's three? That's old enough to reach his tiny hands into the thresher to clear jams.
Basic School System: +10% to educational efficiency. (Note: this tree starts at 2% increase to global immigration, instead of 1% for the first step of the others.)
Acceptable School System: +20% to educational efficiency.
Good School System: +30% to educational efficiency.
Pros: Larn your POPs how read them fancy books, even the ones without pikchers!
Cons: CON increases if Literacy does. Other than that, just the modest increase in administrative efficiency.
Cost: +.1 administrative efficiency per step.
If you want a social reform, Schools and Health Care are uniformly positive without much cost. Next, I'd pick Unemployment, which can be very powerful while not costing too much (provided you fix the cause of unemployment.) Pensions are good, although they're universal, and they could get out of hand. The other three are really only for advanced nations, in my opinion. Then again, your people may not give you the chance to ignore them.
Political Reforms
Slavery
Allowed: Creates the Slave POP (supplements Farmers/Laborers). Slaves don't get paid, but they aren't as efficient as regular POPs either. They can't vote and automatically have all their needs fulfilled.
Outlawed: All Slave POPs turn into Farmers or Laborers. More productive, but you have to pay them.
I've never played much with a Slave-holding Country (except USA pre Civil War), but I always try to outlaw slavery.
Upper House
This is also affected by Ruling Party voting policies (Residency, Limited Citizenship, Full Citizenship.)
Ruling Party Only: Your Upper House is 100% Ruling Party. Very, very few countries start with this reform (it's easy to reform very quickly by just picking a Liberal ruling party) unless they're dictatorships.
Appointed: Only the rich get to sit in the Senate.
Two per State: Just like the name says. Every State gets two people in the Upper House, be they rich, middle, or poor.
Based on Population: If a State is, say, 15% of the population, it gets 15% of the Upper House, be they rich, middle, or poor.
The rich tend to pick the "crazier" ideologies (Liberal, Socialist, Fascist, etc.) while the poor tend to be Conservative or Reactionary. Keep this in mind when you choose your reform here. The more representative you are, the more difficult it will likely be to pass reforms (barring movement pressure or MIL.)
Vote Franchise
This applies to the
Lower House; i.e., what determines your ruling party. This is also affected by Ruling Party voting policies (Residency, Limited Citizenship, Full Citizenship.)
No Voting: You get to pick the Ruling Party. Ruling Party changes will cause a small spike in MIL.
Only Landed: Just the rich vote.
Weighted Wealth: Each rich POP gets 2 votes; each middle class POP gets 1 vote.
Wealth: Each rich and middle class POP gets 1 vote.
Weighted Universal: Everybody gets to vote, but the rich POPs get 3 votes, the middle class POPs get 2 votes, and the poor POPs get 1 vote. (Think late 18th and 19th century Prussia.)
Universal: Everybody gets to vote, and everybody's vote is equal.
Check the Voter's Ideology and People's Ideology pies; decide which you'd rather have. If you include any voting, you get a Prussian Constitutionalism (we'll talk about government types later.)
Voting System
Note: This applies to the Upper and Lower House. Therefore, in a First Past the Post Upper House with Based on Population, if a State has 10% of the total population and is thus entitled to 10% of the Upper House, all 10% will come from one party.
First Past the Post: Whichever party gets a plurality (i.e. the most votes) sends its chosen representative. In practical terms, only the party with the most votes in a state wins in the Lower House. (Example: Imagine a state that gets 10 seats in the Lower House. Party A wins 45% of the vote, Party B wins 35% of the vote, and Party C wins 20% of the vote. Party A gets all 10 seats.)
Jefferson Method: No matter how many times this is explained to me, I don't understand it. Too mathy for me. It's more representative than FPP, but less representative than proportional representation.
Proportional Representation: Party seats are allocated based on actual percentages won. (Example: State still has 10 seats. Party A has 70% of the vote, Party B has 20% of the vote, Party C has 10% of the vote. A gets 7 seats, B gets 2 seats, C gets 1 seat.)
FPP is the easiest to understand, PR is the most representative. Again, compare the pies. I like to pretend the Jefferson Method doesn't exist; one of his few misfires, in my estimation.
Public Meetings
None: No effect.
Allowed: Increases desire for Political Reforms by 25%.
Do you want Political Reforms? Choose appropriately.
Press Rights
State Press Only: Literacy reduces CON by 25%. Suppression points increased 25% (I swear, we'll get to movements soon, when I actually have some.)
Censored Press Only: More immigrants; otherwise, nullifies effects above.
Free Press: Literacy increases CON by 25%. Suppression points decreased 25%.
Do you want reforms? Remember that higher CON POPs are more likely to ask for reforms.
Trade Unions
Illegal: No effect.
State Controlled: Social Reform desire +10%.
Non-Socialist Allowed: Social Reform desire +20%.
All Allowed: Social Reform desire +30%.
Unless you're in a unique situation like ours, where everybody hates us, it's really hard to get Social Reforms without Trade Unions, and some of them are pretty sweet, so I can give an unqualified recommendation to go for this one (with the understanding that POPs don't always cooperate.)
Political Parties
Underground: Ruling Party Support gets a bonus of 20%.
Harassment: Ruling Party Support gets a bonus of 15%.
Gerrymandering: Ruling Party Support gets a bonus of 10%.
Non-Secret Ballots: Ruling Party Support gets a bonus of 5%.
Secret Ballots: Ruling Party Support gets no bonus.
As you can see, the ruling party gets a lot of support based on these reforms. With underground parties, unless they are REALLY mad, they'll always vote for the guys in power. If you have any voting and Non-Secret Ballots, you get an HM's Government.
Whew! I hope none of you fell asleep, because there
is some action in this update.
We'll pick Basic School Systems, mostly because I don't want to bother with a tutorial on Elections yet.
October 20, 1868: MIL drops a full two points from our first reform.
November 10, 1868: More ships for our mighty fleet! Another 10 clipper transports will do nicely.
December 18, 1868: Oh, Atjeh. Stop being so menacing!
December 29, 1868: In preparation for our certain victory, our soldiers march to Kyoto. The first wave will be 5 Infantry and 2 Cavalry brigades.
January 10, 1869: CB acquired! Now, we send our troops to the sea outside Atjeh. We don't want to tip off the Brits! UK is at 1.8 influence and needs 50 to bump up to Friendly, and they just Discredited the US again. Hah hah!
May 14, 1869: Everything is ready. Declare war on Atjeh!
May 16, 1869: Blast. My devious plan failed.
I really wanted Johore to honor, as I conveniently enough have another 11 infamy to annex them too. They might have called the British in, but I don't think that they can, since cascading alliances aren't in this game.
It doesn't matter anyway.
June 16, 1869: Let's take a look at our victorious troops, shall we?
Wait. Why has the combat width vanished? Have I all of a sudden gained all the Army Techs?
Nope. It's another lovely new addition with AHD. Certain terrains reduce combat width! In this case, we're in Mountains, which reduce Combat Width by ~33% (it's 66% of the normal value). I'm not sure which other terrains reduce Combat Width (I'm pretty sure Jungle is one of them.) Readers?
I've also crudely drawn how flanking works. They're actually moving two spaces (kind of like a knight in chess, but it's 1x1 instead of 1x2), but I'm not skilled enough to draw a right angle in Paint. Those poor infantry brigades on the end, therefore, get hit by the infantry across from them as well as the cavalry to their NW/NE.
June 17, 1869: Russia proclaims herself Ruler of the East after passing the Peking Convention. In other words, they get a slice of Manchuria and change the names to Russian ones. I know at least one country that might beg to differ with who is ruling whom...
June 21, 1869: Our cavalry corps is done, and jumps aboard our new ships to make for Atjeh.
June 27, 1869: The troops already there dominate Atjeh, as expected.
Here's one of my favorite additions to AHD.
This was first added to DW, but it splits your army into roughly two equal parts. Awesome stuff! We really need to get things going here.
August 14, 1869: We finish High and Low Pressure Steam Engines. Our next tech, since we can colonize, is Medicine. Why?
Inventions (I have Prophylaxis Against Malaria highlighted here) are like mini-techs. Each one has a base chance (2% in this case), which means that every day, the game rolls a hundred sided die, and if you get a 99 or 00, you get the invention. (I believe it's daily, but it might be monthly. Can a reader confirm/deny?) You'll see that there are two boosts to this invention; I don't have Inorganic Chemistry, so that one doesn't fire. I technically count as a colonial nation thanks to my conquest of Brunei, so I don't get the 3% boost either.
August 23, 1869: Cavalry are on their way to Atjeh. UK is only up to 11 influence; things are looking good. Are the British ignoring Atjeh? I hope so. I see a lot of Light Blue (i.e. luxuries) for the rich, so I jack up their taxes and cut the taxes of the poor. Luxury Goods decrease MIL, but as long as POPs have their Everyday and Life Needs met, nothing is really increasing their MIL (in most cases). Therefore, unless all three groups have a lot of luxuries, luxuries are a flashing green light to go ahead and tax them 'til it hurts. Taxes on the poor drop to 25%; for the rich, they go up to 70%. (The poor get the tax break because a tiny sliver are still red.) I can even afford to bump education up to 60%.
I also see something in the wars screen that gives me an evil idea. Still, I'm going to keep that one under my hat for now.
September 30, 1869: We're winning handily, so let's talk about factories and how they make stuff (and turn a profit!)
Making Factories Profitable
Factories work a lot like RGOs, in some ways. You'll see the same three basic stats: Base, Output, and Throughput, and those all work the same. There are three new things to consider, though.
Maintenance: Every factory has to pay maintenance costs every day. Two things affect this: the level of the factory and your safety regulations. These will, sadly, always get higher.
Input Costs: Every factory has to pay for the inputs every day. New techs can reduce the cost of inputs.
Factory Level: Factories are, for all intents and purposes, infinite. If your factory gets full, you can pay to expand it, which adds capacity for another 10,000 workers. (You can only go up to level 99; that would translate to 990,000 workers in one factory. I have never seen a full level 99 factory.)
Base is unchangeable. Most of the things that affect throughput for RGOs also affect throughput for factories. Clerks improve output efficiency instead of aristocrats, and there are output and throughput techs for factories. So where do Capitalists come in? (Note: I went and edited the post that said Capitalists improve factory efficiency; I had them confused with Clerks at the time.)
I took this screenshot a bit later, so I chose the Glass Factory instead of the Cement Factory; the principle is the same.
There's a lot of great stuff here. Average profitability is new: it's how much over the cost of making stuff you made.
Let's imagine this Glass factory actually exists. Day 1, it has a budget of however much starting cash the factory requires. That budget must pay for maintenance, inputs, and minimum wage, if you have it and the factory isn't profitable enough. (Listed under Market Spendings in this example.) Once the factory gets going, it's ideally self sustaining. The factory turns inputs into outputs and sells the outputs at the market price. Next, you deduct the cost of the "Market Spendings" and you pay the Craftsmen, Clerks, and Capitalists. (You get to tax that pay!) Any profit above and beyond that goes back into the factory budget. The Capitalists then hire new workers or expand the factory (if they can afford it and they're allowed to). If the factory budget ever reaches zero, it'll close.
So, what can we do to help out our Capitalists? There are a few things.
1. Research techs. There are technologies that improve throughput, output, and input costs.
2. Build railroads. That'll improve your infrastructure, and thus, throughput.
3. Give them more workers. You can either set hiring priorities (the three boxes in the picture below next to the people; for low, medium or high) with the right government policy (anything but Laissez Faire) or increase the overall pool of Craftsmen with an NF.
4. Cut their taxes. There's no capital flight in AHD (thank goodness!), so if Capis have extra cash, they'll put it into the factory.
5. Subsidize them. See the Green Icon with the yellow check mark? If it's checked, the government (i.e. you) will pay for maintenance, inputs, and minimum wage if the profitability is below zero. If it isn't, you pay nothing.
6. Import subsidies, or negative tariffs. This will reduce the cost of inputs.
7. Stockpile goods, then allow POPs to take goods from the stockpile (there's a button in the trade screen). Not recommended.
8. Expand the factory (click the + sign). Capitalists can do this themselves if you're Interventionist or Laissez-faire.
9. Switch ruling parties. State Capitalism and Planned Economy have penalties to output, while Laissez-Faire has a bonus.
10. Conquer places with needed inputs. This will guarantee (or at least increase) the availability of the inputs. You could also sphere places with the inputs, if you're not the conquering type.
Now, you will find, from time to time, that some factories will just stop being profitable. Don't force it. Let it go bankrupt (unless it's the only factory in a state and you have no unemployment insurance) so that you or your Capis can build something better. Even if a factory closes, if the Capis have enough cash and the desire to do so, they'll reopen the factory (of course, you can also do that, with the right ruling party.) The only reason you might want to keep an unprofitable factory open is that it's critical to your defense in the event of your getting shut out of the market (say, if there's a big war between #1 and #2, and you're #55). I can't give you hard and fast advice, because every single game is different. Be diverse, and focus on high tech stuff if you can afford it. Automobiles/Airplanes/Radios are almost always profitable.
A quick examination of our inputs shows that we're making a lot of Cotton. Japan has access to an extremely rare Raw Resource -- Silk. How do we take advantage of Silk? Simple. First, we build a Fabric Factory (which I just did) in Osaka, since Osaka has a large population. With Fabric and Dye (which we'll buy on the open market for now), we make Regular Clothes. With Silk and Regular Clothes, we make Luxury Clothes. Luxury Clothes will stay fairly profitable in the mid to late game, since Guards require them (as do your rich POPs). It's always good to identify chains of goods like this that are likely to end up profitable.
October 14, 1869: The Russians discover Tut's Tomb.
October 16, 1869: We take our first province.
October 27, 1869: Cavalry lands. UK opinion is 15.8; Atjeh is doomed! Doomed, I tells ya!
November 13, 1869: Atjeh wants a White Peace. Not bloody likely. The province with cavalry is at 7% occupied; the other two are at 60% and 18%. I want to illustrate how awesome cavalry are.
December 5, 1869: Infantry: 70% and 38%; Cavalry: 41%. To be fair, the Cavalry Corps is a little smaller than the other two combined, but is also taking attrition.
January 1, 1870: Cavalry: 81%, Infantry: 82% and 59%.
January 15, 1870: Cavalry: 97%, Infantry: 89% and 71%.
January 17, 1870: And the second province falls. I shift the cavalry to the lower of the other two provinces, and...
February 13, 1870: Atjeh is completely occupied! And the crowd goes wild!
Victory is sweet. That said, since for the first time in a long time, I got a CB for 0 infamy, I have a new target in mind. A devious target. You may speculate, but you are unlikely to guess it.
Until next time!
