So, let's talk about the big four resources

[RELee]

But saying "The AI is bad" is not the same thing as saying "The AI suffers from an inability to build resource buildings" or "The AI spends too much money on wars it loses, so it can't fund economic development" or "The AI doesn't see demand in other markets, so it doesn't know to build more resource buildings" or "The AI is fine, but human players starve the AI of funds accidentally through their actions" or "There is a structural problem in the late game economy that causes a deflationary spiral that only the largest economy (which will be the player) can deal with" or "The AI fails to utilize PMs well" or "There simply aren't enough resources in the game at all."

Thank you.

 

[Sbrubbles]

Well, I don't want the answer to the game's economic problems to be "World conquest." Yes, I'm sure if I conquered 70% of the world's population and states I could probably fix most of these economic problems. (As no one seems to be saying that there simply aren't enough resources in general.)

I'll say it then. There simply aren't enough resources in general.

If you conquer 70% of the world population, you'll end up making it productive enough that they'll demand enough goods to make you run out resources again. If the AI was smart enough to build the resources you desire, it would grow faster and build new factories that would create their own demand for those resources.

I'll say it once more. The problem is that growth is too freaking fast. If the AI was smarter, resource scarcity would be worse, not better (ok, at some intermediary point, maybe around 1870, resource scarcity would be better, not worse, but that would eventually coalesce into a worse problem than what you describe).

 

[Sbrubbles]

There is a solution to resource scarcity that envolves redefining your goal: make it your goal not to maximize overall GDP or GDP per capita, but to maximize SoL (or GDP por capita) of core population. Enact closed borders so that there's no migration events, avoid growing your population as much as possible, conquer stuff to build resource extraction outside core territory, delete their factories and just ignore unemploment there.

Problem is there aren't good UI indicator of these goals. I really wish SoL and GDP per capita referred only to incorporated states (like literacy does)

 

[TheHostName]

Do I know that? 1.1 hasn't been out that long.

The patchnotes didnt include a single line that mentioned that significant improvements had been made. There was litereraly 0 advertisment that would suggest something in that direction was attempted in 1.1. Pdx normaly does mention when they improve performence or AI in a significant way.
Also you did ask specifically about 1.1 and the AI. Yet this problem exists since Day 1 of this release. You surely have noticed the bad AI before this patch.

But saying "The AI is bad" is not the same thing as saying "The AI suffers from an inability to build resource buildings" or "The AI spends too much money on wars it loses, so it can't fund economic development" or "The AI doesn't see demand in other markets, so it doesn't know to build more resource buildings" or "The AI is fine, but human players starve the AI of funds accidentally through their actions" or "There is a structural problem in the late game economy that causes a deflationary spiral that only the largest economy (which will be the player) can deal with" or "The AI fails to utilize PMs well" or "There simply aren't enough resources in the game at all."

You asked us whether we also encounter a huge lack of resources, because you wanted to find out where this problem came from.
My answer is that the building AI is not even remotly working correctly. (AI bad) If you want a more detailed answer for why that might be:

-Efficent pms are not selected because AI uses the prediction tool. This tool however ist often wrong. Rule number 1 of PDX UI: DONT BELIEVE IT.
-Ai builds constuctions sectors but isnt using them. Just do an oberserver game and watch 1k construction sectors in the UK not be used. Why does this happen? Maybe because the Ai is shit with budgets. I wounldnt be suprised to learn that it cant handle the balance swings from using up the investmentpool and suddendly having to pay for constuction.

Are there other reasons for why you might have encountered this problem?

Maybe. But i dont see how you will find them when the building AI is this shit. Thats why we are suggesting to use Aroai. You wont see a industrialized world unless you use this or play MP with 40 Players. If you encounter Resource problems at that point, then you know theres not enough resources.

But at the end of the day: How are we supposed to give you an answer to why the ai isnt building stuff: We arent programmers who coded the AI. We can only make assumptions and statements about its competancy. Thats why the only answer you got from me so far has been that AI is shit and you might rather wanna use a mod, since we cant fix it, besides using this mod.

(As no one seems to be saying that there simply aren't enough resources in general.)

Depends on the SoL one wants to achieve and the population you want to support. There is a finite amount of resources ingame (duh) and if you efficently mine/plant them and use them to feed the needs of your pops you will be able to do that for X amount of Millions at X SoL. Just alone the picture from my Japan comment includes 500Mio people living at easily over 20 SoL. For many of them its even way higher. (Just a SoL of 34.8 means they have a demand thats 4 times higher then that of pops at SoL 20.)
So there are probably enough resources for a SoL of 20 for the world population. But not for 30. So whether this constitues a lack of resources is up to everyones taste. My taste would be: There is a lack.

So, I'm not just looking for the basic "AI bad" kind of explanation. I would like to know more (if there is anything more to know).

So you can see that there are enough resources to support your 400Mio Germany. There is no in game mechanic that makes the Ai not build up stuff besides its own competancy. So there is not anything more to know.

Now, one thing I was considering in that game was maximizing benefits for the elderly (reducing workforce ratio) and then stripping women of their rights (further reducing workforce ratio) and seeing if I could then afford to radically restructure the labor economy and maybe re-imagine how I cater to POP demands with lower workforce ratio and higher dependent income. :shrugs:

That can help with your lack of resources. Making your pops effectily poorer to reduce their SoL. and there for your resource needs for X amount of people. But you could also simply not conquor 5x 20Mio Pop states from China to get access to a lvl 60(?) coal mine in Shanxi. You literally caused more demand in coal from this conquest then you got out of it.

 

[TheHostName]

I'll say it once more. The problem is that growth is too freaking fast. If the AI was smarter, resource scarcity would be worse, not better (ok, at some intermediary point, maybe around 1870, resource scarcity would be better, not worse, but that would eventually coalesce into a worse problem than what you describe).

I disagree here. I would say that the growth needed for this is higher then we experiance even with Aroai. Because what you are describing would imply a reduction of SoL from unemplayment aswell as lower SoL overtime since there are more pops that create demand and raise prices while there arent enough resources for more profitable factories. I havent seen that happen though. Not even 2% popgrowth is enough for that.

In general: I know there is not enough resources for the world to have a certain SoL. But the fact that i NEVER had a lack of resources besides Oil and rubber is enough of a statement. Literally was lacking workers 100% of the time. My record so far has been a Japan at 37 SoL and 110 Mio pops. Thats the resource demand equivalent of: 500Mio pops at SoL 20. Considering there were was a total of 20B in GDP by the AI. I really cant say that we are lacking resources for SoL 20.

 

[thedarkendstar]

I disagree here. I would say that the growth needed for this is higher then we experiance even with Aroai. Because what you are describing would imply a reduction of SoL from unemplayment aswell as lower SoL overtime since there are more pops that create demand and raise prices while there arent enough resources for more profitable factories. I havent seen that happen though. Not even 2% popgrowth is enough for that.

In general: I know there is not enough resources for the world to have a certain SoL. But the fact that i NEVER had a lack of resources besides Oil and rubber is enough of a statement. Literally was lacking workers 100% of the time. My record so far has been a Japan at 37 SoL and 110 Mio pops. Thats the resource demand equivalent of: 500Mio pops at SoL 20. Considering there were was a total of 20B in GDP by the AI. I really cant say that we are lacking resources for SoL 20.

I would say its probably still an issue because im not sure other countries could fill the demand the way economics works in real life in real life you build an economy up from the ground by extracting the resources then building industries that use them.

Eventually however eventually you have so much capital the world has so many resources the limiting factor is labor so in order to make more money you begin closing down the mines farms etc and put people into the value adding industries you replace the resources you just lost through importing.

I'm not sure that's possible in game if I'm Germany and I'm at that late stage service value adding industries phase I don't think the world could supply my need of coal very well or iron in game especially if there fueling there own industries.

South American nations in game aren't gonna be able to export enough coal for me to fuel that industry and the other great powers are going to be using there own supply.

 

[Secret Master]

I'll say it then. There simply aren't enough resources in general.

Okay, so you would argue that even with an outstanding AI, the economy would starve late game.

I can't help but think that these issues are also tied to the "labor saving PMs are bad later in the game" problem as well. Not just the lack of resources needed for labor saving PMs, but the general problem that it makes more sense to employ more POPs as low class laborers than to use labor saving PMs that would let you extract more resources per level of building.

 

[dunka2]

Do I know that? 1.1 hasn't been out that long.

But saying "The AI is bad" is not the same thing as saying "The AI suffers from an inability to build resource buildings" or "The AI spends too much money on wars it loses, so it can't fund economic development" or "The AI doesn't see demand in other markets, so it doesn't know to build more resource buildings" or "The AI is fine, but human players starve the AI of funds accidentally through their actions" or "There is a structural problem in the late game economy that causes a deflationary spiral that only the largest economy (which will be the player) can deal with" or "The AI fails to utilize PMs well" or "There simply aren't enough resources in the game at all."

Across my many games so far, I have noticed a few quirks with the AI with regards to managing the economy and building. A glaring issue is the AI very, very, VERY rarely builds gold mines once gold fields become exhausted which means the AI forgoes what amounts to free money that could be used to balance their budget and build more construction centres. In general the AI also doesn't seem very responsive to prices and demand. AI India will build more opium farms over time, but they will never build enough to realise the profit they could, and India isn't exactly lacking for workers in the states that grow opium. This same behaviour applies to all resource buildings really and has been a feature of the game since launch. Part of me wonders if this has to do with the bizarre math the game uses to calculate profitability changes for new buildings. The calculation seems to heavily favour states without any example of that particular building or if the good produced is at an incredibly high price. If the AI is using this calculation, it would explain why it very rarely constructs buildings like rubber plantations, oil rigs, and opium farms in markets with high demand for those goods. the amount of times I've seen an AI Mexico or Venezuela with the build strategy for extraction resources not build a single oil rig despite a shortage in our common market is maddening.

Interestingly, I've seen the AI build huge amounts of factory buildings even if they employ no one and make no money. The tiny states in West and East Africa routinely will have level 10 tooling workshops that are completely empty and make no money, but they will have a shortage of wood which might explain why the tooling workshops are empty in the first place.

As for the AI deleting ports, this is an infuriatingly common occurrence which seems to be triggered by extreme budget deficit. The AI seems to deem the expense of maintaining ports too much and instead of switching the pm to anchorage, just deletes all of them. China will do this if the Opium Wars become too much which chokes the world of silk and dyes, and the Netherlands seems to do this nearly every game. It's worse for them because they are also often in the Spanish or British market, so they suddenly have 0% market access in their own country. Newly released countries will do this frequently too as their economy becomes severed from their former market and goes into a tailspin. Now usually they could import the missing goods, but since they've already deleted all their ports, they can no longer do that.

Another wrinkle I've noticed is that the AI loves to use the most advanced pm without much consideration for profitability seemingly. This is most apparent with the labour-saving pms which are usually a bad idea unless the state has a labour shortage, but the AI will always use them regardless. the added strain on coal and tools while employing fewer people is unecessarily hamstringing the already struggling AI. The AI does respond to shortages, so at least they aren't trying to use Elastics when they refuse to build any rubber plantations.

 

[Sovieticozasz]

One suggestion: try not using any of the automated PMs. This way you can save all the coal and tools for more factories with more workers. The same goes for railways, if you stopped using railroad pms, there is no need for steel carts and the steel can be used elsewhere i.e. more tooling workshop and engines.

In my opinion, automation is the single largest economic trap in the game, simply because of the number of coal that it consumes when it can be used for other stuff, like coal power plants.

How do you cope with employement in your games? full employement is reached waaaaaaaaaay before consumption needs are met in my games, and automation is the only thing that allows me to continue growing.

 

[thedarkendstar]

How do you cope with employement in your games? full employement is reached waaaaaaaaaay before consumption needs are met in my games, and automation is the only thing that allows me to continue growing.

This is a middle of the game slump once this happens your wages shoot up as competitiveness increases death rate falls to the floor migration attraction shoots to the moon.

 

[Dogesleg]

Ummm, how is that even possible? I didn't think the AI ever deleted buildings.

The ai deletes government building if they run out of money, most likely due to turmoil due to radicals.

Your trade and diplo game isn't very good. Learning those can help:

• You aren't importing enough. The correct amount to import is: "all of it". Open the trade lens, go to "import trade route", select each good and open any import route that is above level 1. Every input good you import is a few more finished goods you can make. Every finished good you import is a one you you don't have to produce domestically.

• Stop exporting things if you have a resource shortage. That's probably one of the reasons the ai isn't building RGOs: You are supplying the entire world with finished goods, and why would anyone build a lumber yard when you are exporting 7.74k tools and 9.76k furniture?

• No seriously, you are supplying literally 100% of russia's domestic paper and luxury furniture consumption single-handedly, of course they're not building lumber yards. OK, to be fair there's also:

• Your wood imports from russia are suffering from a trade bug. Russia produces 9k wood and has 3 export routes. For some reason that means that each trade route is limited to 3k, even though the other 2 trade routes only take 1k total. Adding 2k domestic consumption leaves a 3k surplus, meaning wood on the russian market is 33% below base price and their logging industry is actually losing money. That's why they won't build more.

• The Qing have an embargo against you, but are still unrecognized so getting a treaty port would force them to trade with you.

• I don't think you've touched the "declare interests" button since the game started. You have enough to cover every region in the world. Canada and Brazil have spare wood they could trade with you, but can't because you don't have interests set in their part of the world.

• You have defensive pacts with half the world. That's not bad or anything, but a good strategy would be to diplo vassalize them instead. You don't need it, but it gives you some part of their prestige and prevents them from ever leaving you customs union or becoming a great power and competitor.

• Bankrolling is cheap in terms of influence and gives obligations. You easily have the money. Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, Sweden, and probably some others are all within 50 points of accepting diplo-vassalization, so would do so with an obligation. That saves influence vs defensive pact and will always keep them in your customs union.

• One incredibly over-powered strategy is to force-vassalize "major powers" and then annex them. Not that there is enough time, but everyone of you problems would be solved by going to war to vassalize Russia or United States, both of who fell out of Great power status after going bankrupt, and then annexing them after the truce expires. You can't annex countries you diplo-vassalized, only forced-vassalized. If you go to war with Britain, you can transfer the east india company to you. and then annex it later.

• You also haven't touched tariffs. Adjust those when you import or export things.

• Part of your problem is everybody's flu response is causing -50% throughput in all the buildings. Things got better after I went full Republican and told everyone to get back to work and if they die they better get someone to cover their shift. You have 8 million unemployed people so I figure if up to that many people die you'll still come out ahead.

I understand you like using all your construction, but you really have too many factories. You can switch to "worse" production methods to employ the same number of people and even keep building more of them. For example:

• You have 3200 art academies using 32k tools to make 32k film fine art despite only having 18k domestic demand, don't do that. Fine art just substitutes for services, just let them buy services. Switching to realist art saves 32k tools, 16k paper, 16k electricity and still puts out 10k art while employing the same number of people.

• You are making 330k clothes with only 156k domestic needs, switching to sewing machines saves 13.4k tools, 26.9k dye, 26.9k electricity, and still puts out 222k clothes while employing the same number of people.

• You are producing 194k groceries for 130k domestic consumption. Switching PMs on just a few saves sugar and maybe adds fish if you can find the iron, revitalizing you fishing industry. If you switch to the simplest PM, you can build a near infinite amount. It would only use 40 grain per level and you have 171k surplus.

If you were to stop building more and start downsizing, this is where to start:

• You have too much unemployment to be using automation. Changing automation away from all the ones that use tools or engines saves a bunch of tools and engines, I didn't count how many.

• After saving all those tools, engines, and power, downsizing your tool makers saved wood and steel. Downsizing power plants saved engines. Downsizing engines saved steel. Downsizing steel saved iron.

• Overall I'm pretty sure employment numbers increased after ending automation.

 

[Fawr]

One suggestion: try not using any of the automated PMs. This way you can save all the coal and tools for more factories with more workers. The same goes for railways, if you stopped using railroad pms, there is no need for steel carts and the steel can be used elsewhere i.e. more tooling workshop and engines.

In my opinion, automation is the single largest economic trap in the game, simply because of the number of coal that it consumes when it can be used for other stuff, like coal power plants.

This feels like an inaccuracy in the game's model. Historically labour saving didn't run into problems with running out of coal, electricity or oil.

 

[Serensius]

Seems like some of the issue here is that your population has just grown too large. A Germany in 1935 with 1.3x the current population of the US? There should probably some more late-game limits to pop growth (although how many of your pops are in China?)

 

[Vieras]

This feels like an inaccuracy in the game's model. Historically labour saving didn't run into problems with running out of coal, electricity or oil.

Historically labor saving has been limited by investment costs that is not modeled in game.

 

[Meneye]

8.8 billion gdp, jesus christ. 1 billion is an achievement, 4 billion means a player mastered the game, but 8.8 looks impossible. No wonder you tapped every resource, you're pratically eating the world.

That's amazing, but sadly I don't think the game was balanced for that. There was always going to be a limit to how much you can grow before the game breaks, and I'm certain that you passed it a while ago.

 

[Notme1]

8.8 billion gdp, jesus christ. 1 billion is an achievement, 4 billion means a player mastered the game, but 8.8 looks impossible. No wonder you tapped every resource, you're pratically eating the world.

That's amazing, but sadly I don't think the game was balanced for that. There was always going to be a limit to how much you can grow before the game breaks, and I'm certain that you passed it a while ago.

Saw some saves with tens B of GDP, but those are after world conquest.

 

[Fawr]

Historically labor saving has been limited by investment costs that is not modeled in game.

In real life it might be 2500 engines on day 1, with a replacement rate of 8% per year as they break, wear out, or need to be replaced (~4 per week).

I feel that given the games mechanics 4 engines every week is a decent approximation of the investment cost. It could be better by having some of the engine costs being an up-front component, but given goods can't be stored in-game that doesn't fit the games economic model.

 

[Fawr]

Saw some saves with tens B of GDP, but those are after world conquest.

I understand you like using all your construction, but you really have too many factories. You can switch to "worse" production methods to employ the same number of people and even keep building more of them. For example:

• You have 3200 art academies using 32k tools to make 32k film fine art despite only having 18k domestic demand, don't do that. Fine art just substitutes for services, just let them buy services. Switching to realist art saves 32k tools, 16k paper, 16k electricity and still puts out 10k art while employing the same number of people.

• You are making 330k clothes with only 156k domestic needs, switching to sewing machines saves 13.4k tools, 26.9k dye, 26.9k electricity, and still puts out 222k clothes while employing the same number of people.

• You are producing 194k groceries for 130k domestic consumption. Switching PMs on just a few saves sugar and maybe adds fish if you can find the iron, revitalizing you fishing industry. If you switch to the simplest PM, you can build a near infinite amount. It would only use 40 grain per level and you have 171k surplus.

I think the OP's GDP is artificially low as he is trying to increase SoL by decreasing prices. Dogesleg noticed a few places where that has happened. If those were removed and prices increased then that would reduce his pops SoL. I think this is a perfectly valid strategy as long as you are decreasing the prices of consumption goods as evenly as possible.

The low prices of goods would reduce the countries GDP too, as the value of goods is measured in the $ they are selling for (I hope that is how they calculate GDP anyway).

 

[Sbrubbles]

Okay, so you would argue that even with an outstanding AI, the economy would starve late game.

With outstanding AI, the economy would starve even harder, because the AI economy would grow faster and at some point it would start making its own factories, demanding the resources you're saying are scarce. What I'm saying is that if you take your save file and give it outstanding AI, it would, initially, build up resources and drive down prices, but since it's outstanding if you look another 10-20 years later, it'll be demanding back those initial resources and more.

There might be some exceptions, like maybe wood in russia, where there is so much that you can brute force it? Not sure.

I can't help but think that these issues are also tied to the "labor saving PMs are bad later in the game" problem as well. Not just the lack of resources needed for labor saving PMs, but the general problem that it makes more sense to employ more POPs as low class laborers than to use labor saving PMs that would let you extract more resources per level of building.

Labor saving PMs are bad if have excess labor lying around? I'm not sure what you're getting at.

 

[TheHostName]

Okay, so you would argue that even with an outstanding AI, the economy would starve late game.

I can't help but think that these issues are also tied to the "labor saving PMs are bad later in the game" problem as well. Not just the lack of resources needed for labor saving PMs, but the general problem that it makes more sense to employ more POPs as low class laborers than to use labor saving PMs that would let you extract more resources per level of building.

Iam confused. Why are labor saving Pms bad late game? Why does employing low level labor make more sense and which labor saving pms give you more resource extraction?

Automation is only bad when you have free peasants or unemployment in a state. If that isnt the case, then your wages will rise far above what automation cost. The increased profitability ends up partly in your investment pool and partly in higher wages for the workers that still work there.