Theodotus1 said:
If you want to be utterly dismissive why not do it by not posting and saving us the bother of reading it?
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If you want to be utterly dismissive why not do it by not posting and saving us the bother of reading it?
Looking at the pop requirements, I think that there are two main problems..
1) Availability
Nearly all of the pops have things like liquor or glass in life in life needs, and clothes, furniture in everyday needs. These goods are often in short supply- I doubt that there is enough to supply the world's population. Even as th UK, with masses of factories (6) gushing furniture, I haven't managed to get all my pops to be able to affor furniture. Low supply drives up the price, so pops don;t keep any cash.
However, at the start of the GC, there are very few factories producing manufactured goods (and many of those that do have raw material shortages), so things like liquor aren't produced at all- this means that pops ignore items that aren't being produced, and are thus happy.
Sp basically
Very Early game- no manufactured goods, happy pops
Mid game- Few factories, high demand, high price, unhappy, cashless pops.
Late game- more factories but higher popultion means that pops are still unhappy.
1) Availability
Nearly all of the pops have things like liquor or glass in life in life needs, and clothes, furniture in everyday needs. These goods are often in short supply- I doubt that there is enough to supply the world's population. Even as th UK, with masses of factories (6) gushing furniture, I haven't managed to get all my pops to be able to affor furniture. Low supply drives up the price, so pops don;t keep any cash.
However, at the start of the GC, there are very few factories producing manufactured goods (and many of those that do have raw material shortages), so things like liquor aren't produced at all- this means that pops ignore items that aren't being produced, and are thus happy.
Sp basically
Very Early game- no manufactured goods, happy pops
Mid game- Few factories, high demand, high price, unhappy, cashless pops.
Late game- more factories but higher popultion means that pops are still unhappy.
Chris 1959
Having worked my way through this long and complex thread and really only being interested in how the game plays as a whole, could I ask a few questions and be indulged some observations.
Does the fact my pops have no cash affect population growth, happiness health and overall taxability ?
If I am representing the govt. of Prussia, for example, then I want political stability and the ability to raise taxes to fund my foriegn policy adventures, big army, holidays in Poland etc.
If by keeping taxes and tariffs at a level to balance the budget but not too high can I still get population and economic growth ?
It does not matter to me, as the govt.,if my population has spare cash, so long as they get most of what they want to keep working away.
In fact maybe Paradox have hit a very good model of the world economy. Lets be honest the real world operates with a very unbalanced world market, where supply and demand are grossly distorted by tariffs and subsisies and many people are denied access to the most basic items. Third world peasants unable to feed themselves yet able to buy tobacco as a crude example.
As for cash reserves, in the terms of the game most of the current population of the USA would have a negative cash value due to personnel debt and mortgage pyments, and this is the world's most powerful economy and largest military. However, most of their basic demands are met.
I also see moans about the low price of certain luxury goods, in fact as contributers to a nations economy they would be of little value. The automobile only becomes important when Henry Ford makes it a staple of modern life then as unit price falls profits soar. Boeing makes huge profit because air travel is cheap not a luxury.
Maybe if there are flaws in the economic model we should celebrate them and learn to work with them, so long as bugets can be balanced and taxes raised. The games era is that of goverments working in almost perpetual defeciet, not the medieval world of a big chest in a castle full of gold.
Having worked my way through this long and complex thread and really only being interested in how the game plays as a whole, could I ask a few questions and be indulged some observations.
Does the fact my pops have no cash affect population growth, happiness health and overall taxability ?
If I am representing the govt. of Prussia, for example, then I want political stability and the ability to raise taxes to fund my foriegn policy adventures, big army, holidays in Poland etc.
If by keeping taxes and tariffs at a level to balance the budget but not too high can I still get population and economic growth ?
It does not matter to me, as the govt.,if my population has spare cash, so long as they get most of what they want to keep working away.
In fact maybe Paradox have hit a very good model of the world economy. Lets be honest the real world operates with a very unbalanced world market, where supply and demand are grossly distorted by tariffs and subsisies and many people are denied access to the most basic items. Third world peasants unable to feed themselves yet able to buy tobacco as a crude example.
As for cash reserves, in the terms of the game most of the current population of the USA would have a negative cash value due to personnel debt and mortgage pyments, and this is the world's most powerful economy and largest military. However, most of their basic demands are met.
I also see moans about the low price of certain luxury goods, in fact as contributers to a nations economy they would be of little value. The automobile only becomes important when Henry Ford makes it a staple of modern life then as unit price falls profits soar. Boeing makes huge profit because air travel is cheap not a luxury.
Maybe if there are flaws in the economic model we should celebrate them and learn to work with them, so long as bugets can be balanced and taxes raised. The games era is that of goverments working in almost perpetual defeciet, not the medieval world of a big chest in a castle full of gold.
grumbold said:
You misunderstand me.
He said he wasn't going to be playing until 1.07 or so. When someone goes away, it's always polite to say goodbye.
No --Their happiness is only affected if their needs are not being met. If there's no cash left over after that, no problem. Pop growth is unconnected with how much cash POPs have. Taxability is based on their income from factories & RGOs, not their cash supply.Chris1959 said:
Most economic growth comes from generating a positive cash balance, for investment in things like factories & railroad upgrades. So don't merely balance the budget, squeeze some cash out of it.Chris1959 said:
Chris1959 said:
When PoPs do not get their needs then I *think* their militancy will rise with a positive militancy bonus. You will also lose the negative bonus, so instead of -.01 it's +.01. I don't have the exact bonus in front of me so hopefully someone will correct this if it's wrong.
Taxes and tariffs won't stagnate the economy. >50% taxes will lead to middle class and rich PoPs devolving. Derek said that poor class PoPs won't devolve but will emmigrate. There is also an unknown problem which devolves craftsmen and clerks even when taxes are less than 50%
That might be fine if it were possible in any country to keep PoPs accumulating cash or getting their needs, but Britain is as helpless as Bhutan (from what's been said in this thread)
Further, the richer the PoP should be (aristos and capitalists over craftsmen and labourers) the less cash and needs appear to be met, so no, it's not a clever model, something is wrong.
Visa and American express were not giving credit cards away to miners in 1836. Consumer debt was no where near the level it is today, debt before the growth of the credit industry was a smaller and more personal affair; small store and service credit etc.
The national deficeit does not appear to be modelled the same in game. It's not expected to operate from a continous and growing debt. The problem in this thread has little to do with national assets though, it's the economics of populations which in turn drives the pricing of goods.
Playing a GC (V 1.03) as Brazil in 1860, my low income pops are getting all their needs filled and have extra cash, however they still aren't buying bonds. I have been checking them every 6 months to a year to see if they are still getting their needs filled and they always have cash reserves.
I haven't been in debt all game and their taxes are around 40% with a very slight tariff. Is there a minimum cash on hand they need to buy a bond? They are currently at $60.00?
Thanks
Zed
I haven't been in debt all game and their taxes are around 40% with a very slight tariff. Is there a minimum cash on hand they need to buy a bond? They are currently at $60.00?
Thanks
Zed
Growth - no, happiness - yes, health - no, taxability - yes.Chris1959 said:
That depends. But generally, yes.
Modern market is not good for Victoria time. By then, markets were essentially local. In the game, it has been regarded necessary to have a world market without transport delay or transport cost, probably because of the simplification of production (a province has just one RGO). That is very unreal. To regard all farmers as equal is very unreal, too. The free farmers in North America were immensely better off than the totally enslaved farmers of old Russia. Not to speak of uncivilized countries.
That is just a symptom. It does not contribute considerably to any country's budget (maybe Oman). There You are quite right.
Honestly, I don't know for sure, just that Sweden's old deficit was fully paid by the new elected crown prince some years before Victoria time, and foreign loans were then practically non-existent until railway building began (1860-1880). And the railways could pay the loans and give surplus. But anyhow, someone has had to pay. I have always thought that must have been the colonies.
I think perhaps I can shed some light on this topic ...
I ran some testing on POP incomes and expeditures a month or two ago, with 1.02. The purpose was to determine just how much money the POPs were making and what it was being spent on. I came to the following conclusions:
EDIT: See my original discussion in this thread
1. POPs will buy their goods from the world market if those goods are available.
Proof: As an industrial good, wool is utterly useless, but some POPs have it in their needs. If you examine the WM supply of wool, you'll notice that it equals the worldwide production of wool. This means that the wool is harvested, sent to the WM, and bought each day.
2. If POPs have the money to buy goods on the WM, but sufficient supply does not exist, they will still buy those goods from a "phantom market" that has unlimited supply.
Proof: Start a game as UK. Note the worldwide supply of fruit - it's not even enough to satisfy your domestic demand. Even if you're the most prosperous nation in the world and your prestige is the tops, you still couldn't get enough fruit for everyone in the Empire. But staff all your factories, set your taxes low, and wait a few days, and sure enough all your POPs will have fruit. Now try a reasonably prosperous, low-prestige nation, like the USA. Take a look at some POPs and you'll see they're buying fruit. They shouldn't be able to - the UK's citizens are buying all the fruit. (And even if they aren't, I'll bet the Prussians, French, Russians, et al are taking up the slack, since the USA starts with 0 prestige, IIRC.) Further proof of the "phantom market" is exhibited by the POPs' cash levels. If market shortages come into play, than any low-prestige nation's POPs should be rich and have 0% need fulfillment, since they sure as hell can't buy anything from the WM. But they're not. They spend their cash just like all the other POPs, and they satisfy their needs.
3. POPs buy goods by price, not by need level (i.e. subsistence, everday, luxury).
Proof: This was very difficult to prove in 1.02, since there was no on-screen indication of exactly what a POP was buying, but in 1.03 it's trivial. We know now exactly what the POPs are buying. Start a game, play a few days and check out a farmer POP. He'll probably be buying all his subsistence goods except for liquor, as well as a few everyday goods. Why is he doing this? Check out the prices for the goods he's buying: they're all the cheapest goods, and all of them are much cheaper than that liquor.
So in case you haven't deduced it by now, POPs have no cash because they aren't making enough money to buy all their needs and have money left over. Undoubtedly this sparks off some questions:
Why are my richest POPs satisfying less of their needs than my poor POPs?
Quite simply, rich POPs' needs are much more expensive than poor POPs'. They're so expensive that even the rich POPs' extra income isn't enough to balance. Also, players typically tax rich POPs heavily, which further hampers their need satisfaction.
So how do I get my POPs to satisfy all their needs and have cash left for bonds?
Simple: maximize their income. Specifically, lower taxes and tariffs as much as tolerable, build the most profitable factories you can, and export like mad. Remember that full satisfaction of needs for large POPs requires hundreds of pounds of income, so don't be surprised if you can't pull it off.
But how can I maximize factory profitability when all my arms and artillery factories are showing negative profit?
Don't build arms and artillery factories. OK, you need one of each to supply your army, but I wouldn't build more than that. Just set the arms, arty and canned goods traders to sell > 1000. That way, all your military production will go toward your army, not other nations'.
But I need more than one arms factory to supply my army!
Well, that's not a question, but here's the answer: build a smaller army. Or rather, build a sensibly-sized standing army, and maximize your reserves. The larger your army is, the bigger drain on the economy it will be. So don't build a larger army than you need.
The feature of 1.03 that reveals exactly what POPs are buying should allow me to develop a comprehensive understanding of POP income and spending habits. I was originally just doing it to satisfy my own curiostiy, but if there is sufficient interest here, I'll gladly post my findings to the forum in a sort of "POP Budget FAQ".
I ran some testing on POP incomes and expeditures a month or two ago, with 1.02. The purpose was to determine just how much money the POPs were making and what it was being spent on. I came to the following conclusions:
EDIT: See my original discussion in this thread
1. POPs will buy their goods from the world market if those goods are available.
Proof: As an industrial good, wool is utterly useless, but some POPs have it in their needs. If you examine the WM supply of wool, you'll notice that it equals the worldwide production of wool. This means that the wool is harvested, sent to the WM, and bought each day.
2. If POPs have the money to buy goods on the WM, but sufficient supply does not exist, they will still buy those goods from a "phantom market" that has unlimited supply.
Proof: Start a game as UK. Note the worldwide supply of fruit - it's not even enough to satisfy your domestic demand. Even if you're the most prosperous nation in the world and your prestige is the tops, you still couldn't get enough fruit for everyone in the Empire. But staff all your factories, set your taxes low, and wait a few days, and sure enough all your POPs will have fruit. Now try a reasonably prosperous, low-prestige nation, like the USA. Take a look at some POPs and you'll see they're buying fruit. They shouldn't be able to - the UK's citizens are buying all the fruit. (And even if they aren't, I'll bet the Prussians, French, Russians, et al are taking up the slack, since the USA starts with 0 prestige, IIRC.) Further proof of the "phantom market" is exhibited by the POPs' cash levels. If market shortages come into play, than any low-prestige nation's POPs should be rich and have 0% need fulfillment, since they sure as hell can't buy anything from the WM. But they're not. They spend their cash just like all the other POPs, and they satisfy their needs.
3. POPs buy goods by price, not by need level (i.e. subsistence, everday, luxury).
Proof: This was very difficult to prove in 1.02, since there was no on-screen indication of exactly what a POP was buying, but in 1.03 it's trivial. We know now exactly what the POPs are buying. Start a game, play a few days and check out a farmer POP. He'll probably be buying all his subsistence goods except for liquor, as well as a few everyday goods. Why is he doing this? Check out the prices for the goods he's buying: they're all the cheapest goods, and all of them are much cheaper than that liquor.
So in case you haven't deduced it by now, POPs have no cash because they aren't making enough money to buy all their needs and have money left over. Undoubtedly this sparks off some questions:
Why are my richest POPs satisfying less of their needs than my poor POPs?
Quite simply, rich POPs' needs are much more expensive than poor POPs'. They're so expensive that even the rich POPs' extra income isn't enough to balance. Also, players typically tax rich POPs heavily, which further hampers their need satisfaction.
So how do I get my POPs to satisfy all their needs and have cash left for bonds?
Simple: maximize their income. Specifically, lower taxes and tariffs as much as tolerable, build the most profitable factories you can, and export like mad. Remember that full satisfaction of needs for large POPs requires hundreds of pounds of income, so don't be surprised if you can't pull it off.
But how can I maximize factory profitability when all my arms and artillery factories are showing negative profit?
Don't build arms and artillery factories.
OK, you need one of each to supply your army, but I wouldn't build more than that. Just set the arms, arty and canned goods traders to sell > 1000. That way, all your military production will go toward your army, not other nations'. But I need more than one arms factory to supply my army!
Well, that's not a question, but here's the answer: build a smaller army. Or rather, build a sensibly-sized standing army, and maximize your reserves. The larger your army is, the bigger drain on the economy it will be. So don't build a larger army than you need.
The feature of 1.03 that reveals exactly what POPs are buying should allow me to develop a comprehensive understanding of POP income and spending habits. I was originally just doing it to satisfy my own curiostiy, but if there is sufficient interest here, I'll gladly post my findings to the forum in a sort of "POP Budget FAQ".
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Crimson King
Your analysis is almost 100% correct but there is something that I think you've got wrong (Think - because I'm a little shaky on it myself). The mysterious invisible stockpiles are really invisible. Because the surplus shown on the WM screen is the daily surplus. For goods that do not show 1 or 0 in the market surplus this means that they are continually building up in the total "Invisible" stockpile. As the stocks are depleted through POP demand it is possible that the stocks can be depleted and then the POPs will stop buying it (liquor is a good example of this)
Is this right - well its better than 1.01. The price will rise if demand is greater than production (not supply as in 1.01). The price falls if production is greater than demand. The difference here is that an overhang of goods in the stockpiles does not depress the price.
Now some people may say that this is unrealistic but I thinks its better than a situation which would allow a stockpile built up over 25 years to permanently affect the world prices. At least now the prices are broadly speaking moving with todays supply and demand. The only fudge is to allow a greater supply from stockpiles at current market price for some goods in some circumstances.
Your analysis is almost 100% correct but there is something that I think you've got wrong (Think - because I'm a little shaky on it myself). The mysterious invisible stockpiles are really invisible. Because the surplus shown on the WM screen is the daily surplus. For goods that do not show 1 or 0 in the market surplus this means that they are continually building up in the total "Invisible" stockpile. As the stocks are depleted through POP demand it is possible that the stocks can be depleted and then the POPs will stop buying it (liquor is a good example of this)
Is this right - well its better than 1.01. The price will rise if demand is greater than production (not supply as in 1.01). The price falls if production is greater than demand. The difference here is that an overhang of goods in the stockpiles does not depress the price.
Now some people may say that this is unrealistic but I thinks its better than a situation which would allow a stockpile built up over 25 years to permanently affect the world prices. At least now the prices are broadly speaking moving with todays supply and demand. The only fudge is to allow a greater supply from stockpiles at current market price for some goods in some circumstances.
One problem I've come across is that educating/upgrading pops is counterproductive to the pops themselves. Case in point:
100,000 craftsmen
100,000 craftsmen
100,000 craftsmen
100,000 craftsmen
100,000 craftsmen
result = 500,000 man-hours (abstract for purposes of making my point)
500,000 income shares
100,000 craftsmen
100,000 craftsmen
100,000 craftsmen
100,000 clerks
100,000 clerks
at 100% literacy, result = 600,000 man-hours
1,300,000 income shares
In other words, 20% increase in money to shares, with an effective 260% increase in money needed to maintain (not increase, maintain) wealth for the craftsmen.
100,000 craftsmen
100,000 craftsmen
100,000 craftsmen
100,000 craftsmen
100,000 craftsmen
result = 500,000 man-hours (abstract for purposes of making my point)
500,000 income shares
100,000 craftsmen
100,000 craftsmen
100,000 craftsmen
100,000 clerks
100,000 clerks
at 100% literacy, result = 600,000 man-hours
1,300,000 income shares
In other words, 20% increase in money to shares, with an effective 260% increase in money needed to maintain (not increase, maintain) wealth for the craftsmen.
Barkhauer said:
Well that means that this factory may absorb a higher proportion of the national wealth than before.
Making up some numbers. Before the upgrade national wealth = 200 exports
After upgrade export = 206
Total number of pop shares before = 200
Total number of pop shares after = 206
But factory pop shares before = 5
Factory pop shares after = 11
In this case there is no change. If the overall export productivity increase is less than the total rise in pop shares then there will be a net decrease in cash per pop share. If it is more then the cash per pop share increases.
I think DP is right here. Look in the save file, not on the display screen, which already has fruit and cattle in it. Also remember that nations have liquor stashed away and may sell it off. It is not just that people have trouble affording it, but the world goes dry after a couple of days. I have some more thoughts incompletely fleshed out on how to work the stockpile, but I have to go eat bear and drink single malt 2h away. I will plug away over the weekend, but the more I do the more IMO the economic system needs a sufficiently major overhaul to release "Victoria - New and Improved", and pick up some more sales, if the sales weasels can spin it right. Back to previous point, I am thinking stockpile attrition. Have a good weekend.Derek Pullem said:
Derek Pullem said:
But how can there be any stockpile at all when the world market suffers from a daily deficit of nearly every good, including wool? As far as I can tell, there is never a daily surplus of wool on the world market, because worldwide demand always exceeds worldwide supply. Yet POPs continue to buy wool successfully well into the 20th century. Ditto for fruit. Hell, the world supply of fruit isn't even enough to satisfy the UK's needs at game start, so you can forget about ever having a daily WM surplus.
The only way your postulate could hold water would be if the "invisible stockpiles" were very, very large (practically infinite) at game start. This would, to the player, be utterly indistinguishable from the "phantom goods" model. The difference seems only to be semantic.
As a final testament to the futility of the WM supplying POP needs, consider the following: With a building efficiency modifier of 1.0 and max railroads, a 100k craftsmen POP could produce at most 0.2 furniture daily. But he requires 0.5 furniture daily. So it can't even produce enough furniture to satisfy its own needs, let alone that of other POPs. Even if you had every POP in the world making furniture with max railroads everywhere, you still wouldn't have enough furniture to supply all the POPs. Consequentially, you will never, ever have a daily surplus of furniture on the WM. EVER. Thus, the need for phantom goods.
Now, I'm not making any judgements on how realistic all this is, because frankly I don't care. I'm just trying to make sense of what I see occurring in game, and answer some folks' questions on how to put money in their POPs' pockets.
Derek Pullem said:
The net effect seems to be a plunging income/revenue per share. The more clerks there are, the less money everyone makes. To say nothing of the capitalists. A capitalist brings in a small % of "over the top" income by increasing efficiency, but not, material demands, but they demand 25(!) times as much cash. I need to plug some of this into an Excel doc because the math is rapidly getting out of hand, but it explains why in my Italy game last night I had capitalist goods satisfaction going down, not up, the more I industrialized and upgrade pops. The more money the player makes (or the more efficiently he makes it) the owrse off the pops become.
EUnderhill said:
Well, the POPs are buying them daily. Check out the link to my original discussion ... the POPs buy goods_need * (100k / POP_size) every day, or at least they spend enough money to buy goods_need * (100k / POP_size) every day.
I have validated this behavior with tests.
Crimson King said:
Well you are assuming that
a) There should be a world surplus of furniture
b) that most POPs have sufficient cash to satisfy their demands right now
The fact is that the demand for furniture is limited by POP cash available after tax. Many pops will not have enough remaining cash left to afford furniture, depressing demand.
What I do believe is that the current pop needs are too high as you note which means that not enough POPs are providing a demand for certain goods.
Derek Pullem said:
No, I'm not assuming anything at all. I'm simply stating that no POP can possibly produce enough furniture to satisfy their own need. That is a fact, and has nothing to do with how much cash the POPs have. Therefore, the concept of POPs buying goods from the WM is doomed to failure. How can the POPs buy goods that will never exist?
Crimson King said:
All POPs will never buy all their goods from the WM at the same time. Rich / high prestige countries will but their share first so it is possible that some countries who are winning the game will satisfy their needs at the expense of the lesser nations.
But the POP demands are too high right now IMHO. As you point out it will take 3-4 factories minor nation furniture factory POPs to meet the POP demands of one UK factory worker POP