French Industrial Development 1845-1932
Another paper from the Victoria Economic History School.
I have looked at various industrial indicators, including factory numbers, through the whole game so people can get an even better idea of what the Capis are building. There wont be any more posts in this AAR except this sorta thing.
The time points are fairly regular except for 1888 - 1896 - 1904 which are close together to give examples of late-19thC industrial development.
The numbers given for factories count expansions (eg a level-3 factory counts for 3 points here). This is a change from the last post on this subject!
Overall an extra 108 factories were built (not counting, of course, those that were deleted during the game) I have also divided factories into 4 categories.
Armaments are Artillery, Ammunition, Canned Food, Explosives, Fertiliser, Small Arms, Tanks and Steamer Convoys: Goods that have no peaceful application whatsoever. (note that Tanks were never produced by anyone in this game).
This group grew by 14 out of the 108 factories: 13% of total growth, growing to 333% of initial size
Almost all this growth was in steamer convoys, which dramatically expanded with the invention of late-game naval techs. Possibly 3 such factories were deleted: one fertiliser, one expolsives and one artillery (the last entirely by accident). If these factories had remained built this sector mgiht have represeented 15% of new construction and grown to 383% of initial size.
I have also calculated armaments exluding steamer convoys so show how the genuinely military armaments were totally static through the game.
Heavy industry is Automobiles, Aeroplanes, Electric Gear, and Fuel: high-tech goods that have civilian demand but also are important to the late-game military. (Note that automobiles were never produced by anyone in this game)
This group emerged in the 1890s and 7 factories were built, representing 6.4% of total development and 11% of development since 1888. Bear in mind this group is much smaller than either Armaments or Civilian.
Construction is Steel, Cement, Machine Parts and Lumber: goods with no military application and no civilian demand which are mainly used to build factories and railroads
This group mushroomed from 4 to 25 factories, representing 19% of growth, and growing to 625% of its original size. Growth was strongest with a massive increase in steel from 1914 to 1932 - not entirely sure why, but a simultaneous growth in MPs suggests possibly the downstream demand for aeroplanes and steamers plays a role.
Civilian is other goods, which all have high civilian demand but only incidental military applications.
These soared from 11 to 77, represeenting 61% of growth and a 700% increase. Bear in mind that many, many factories of this type were deleted, particularly from 1880s onwards, in an attempt to focus development on heavy and military industry. Left to a natural course there would have been more of these industries. With wine, liquor and glass these deletion splurges are quite noticeable in the figures.
Overall Discussion
The overall picture illustrates the tendency of capitalists to build useless luxuries extremely well, as you can see from comparing the growth of civilian goods to that of armaments. Armaments grew by 3.3x; civilian good grew by 7x, in spite of my efforts to hold them back.
However, that said, there are points which illustrate the potential to influence a capitalist economy.
Looking at 1888 to 1904, the net increase in civilian factories was only 2 (12% of growth over the period), thanks to my adopting a slash and burn approach with the drink industry, deleting a net 15 drinks factories! (oh noes!). While mux civilian growth occurred nonetheless (e.g the significant growth of furniture and clothing in this time), the overall effect was 5 armaments factories (29%) , 6 new 'heavy industry' factories (35%) and 4 new construction factories (24%): far out of line with the proportions of growth these sectors occupied over the century. This was a remarkable period of sustained non-civilian development - caused by deliberately trashing a part of the civilian economy. And even so, relatively few armaments emerged from it.
However other questions need to be asked: is military development all it's cracked up to be? France was able to become the world's no.1 power with a massive fleet of dreadnoughts and a successful war against Prussia even with no Artillery, Small Arms, Ammunition or Canned Food factory being built since start. (And there was another question which i can't remember).
Code:
1845 1861 1875 1888 1896 1904 1914 1932
IND 381 1052 1521 2108 2987 3845 4324 6658 Ind Score
RANK 4 2 1 1 1 1 Ind Rank
RR 0 or 1 3 3 4 4 4 or 5 5 6 Railroad Level
POPS 108 149 199 226 303 325 359 483 Factory POPs
Tfax 21 39 61 66 74 83 92 129 Total Factories
Arm 6 9 11 10 12 15 16 20 Total Armaments
Hvy 0 0 0 0 3 6 7 7 Total Heavy Ind
Con 4 7 8 9 10 13 14 25 Total Construction
Civ 11 23 42 47 49 49 55 77 Total Civilian
Arm-Ste 6 8 10 9 9 10 9 8 Armaments Ex Steamer
AER 0 0 0 0 1 2 2 2 Aeroplanes
AMM 1 1 2 2 2 2 2 2 Ammunition
ART 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 Artillery
CNF 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 Canned food
CEM 0 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 Cement
DYE 0 0 0 0 2 2 1 2 Dye
ELG 0 0 0 0 1 3 4 4 Electric Gear
EXP 1 1 2 1 1 1 1 1 Explosives
FAB 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 Fabric
FER 1 2 2 2 2 3 2 1 Fertilizer
FUE 0 0 0 0 1 1 1 1 Fuel
FUR 1 2 3 3 5 7 10 16 Furniture
GLA 1 3 10 13 9 9 7 10 Glass
LIQ 0 3 6 7 5 1 2 4 Liquor
LMb 3 4 5 6 6 8 8 8 Lumber
LXC 1 2 2 2 3 5 7 11 Luxury clothes
LXF 1 2 3 4 6 7 5 5 Luxury furniture
MPA 0 1 1 1 1 1 1 3 Machine Parts
PAP 1 2 4 4 4 3 6 2 Paper
RAD 0 0 0 0 0 0 4 Radio
RGC 1 1 3 3 4 7 5 6 Regular clothes
SMA 1 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 Small Arms
SMR 0 1 1 1 3 5 7 12 Steamers
STE 1 1 1 1 2 3 4 13 Steel
TEL 0 0 0 0 0 2 4 4 Telephones
WIN 2 5 8 8 8 3 5 10 Wine
) ...
