Some help for economy please

[DukeWilleo1630]

I got Victoria when it came out like any other avid paradox fan, but I soon realized that I was horribly inept at the workings of the game. I never was able to begin a game without going into major debt. I see the budget at the beggining, and, without any meddling yet, I'm losing like -200 a day. So I quickly go into the negative b/c I can't seem to fix the budget problem. I've recently tried to pick up Vic again, for I love the game except for the economic side, and would like some help from you l33t vic players out there

I'd like to use a specific example to try to copy exactly how you can actually begin the game on a positive note. Let's take france at the beggining of the grand campaign. What exactly should I put my budget on to not go under while also not degenerating my pops? Should I hike taxes, spend nothing on military and education and crime, or should I make hight tariffs?

All help is appreciated

 

[swilhelm73]

If you want a specific example try looking in the AAR section to read other peoples' completed games.

More generally;

Taxes can be raised to 50% if necessary, above that causes problems. Try to keep taxes at 40% or below if you can.

Raise tariffs to max - always.

Crime fighting can be lowered to 0 if necessary. This isn't ideal, but won't hurt that much.

If war isn't in the near offing, defense, army, and navy can all be lowered to the minimum.

Education pays large dividends keep it as high as you can afford to.

In the early game factories aren't as profitable. Most countries are better off focusing on building RRs (railroads) over building new factories they will need to promote POPs to fill.

Consider what you produce before building a factory. Importing resources can dramatically lower the real income you earn from a factory, again, especially in the early going.

You need steel, lumber, and cement to build RRs. So unless you want to buy all that from the WM (World Market), at quite a cost, build factories to produce those resources, and stockpile a large amount. Cement, the cheapest and easily available fot he three on the WM is much less important.

Anyway, good luck.

 

[DukeWilleo1630]

Thanks for the advice! I've always left my tariff/subsidise slider on zero. It's a revalation to know it helps if you raise it to the highest.

 

[OriginalRafiki]

You can also take a look at http://victoria.nsen.ch/wiki/index.php/How_to_get_an_economy_running

Rafiki

 

[Cavalry]

quick tips for consider:
- disband all artillery regular units.
- if you are monarchy, make sure you have a party which max tariff.
- don't sell consumer goods of pop need like glass, liquor,paper, cloth, furniture, wine... They hurts tariff . You can use them to make luxury goods and sell luxury things, ship (convoys), artilleries, steel, lumber... In vanilla cloth are ok because they bring back extra money for tax income, but in VIP 0.3 because of dye shortage you are better to use them for luxury cloth.

Then check if you budget is surplus. Then you can do whatever you want a try! Research stock exchange and other tech give you extra tax!

 

[Darkrenown]

Try this:

 

[Lamprey]

As a matter of fact, you can drop navy spending to 0 which will give you even more money (you won't be fighting large navies for a long time anyway, and if you get in a war with the UK you'd lose your navy no matter what anyway).

I also set military maintenance to about 1/4, that seems to maintain your armies at half strength which is plenty for fighting rebels if you're not in a war.

 

[unmerged(29736)]

I have just bought the game 2 weeks ago, and allthough i'm still strugling making any progress(played as Sweden and never any longer than 1850).

I have figured out how to balance my budget, but i do seem to have trouble raising my exports. As far as i can tell my problem seems to be that i don't have enough POP's to fill my RGO and factories.

So i guess my questions are:
1) Can increase the number of POP (or do i just need to be more patient)
2) Can i increase life rating for a province and does this affect POP growth/immigration
3) Should i improve railroad instead of building factories

 

[Darkrenown]

I prefer them at half so I don't need 4 divisions to deal with a 10k rebel and so my ships can fight limited battles or quickly repair up to 100%.

 

[Nightcap]

I prefer them at half so I don't need 4 divisions to deal with a 10k rebel and so my ships can fight limited battles or quickly repair up to 100%.

Same for me. 50% spending for army and navy unless money is really, really tight. It also helps reduce the manpower cost getting them back up to strength in the case of full war.

 

[DukeWilleo1630]

Wow. I never thought of some of this stuff. Thanks again for the help

 

[DukeWilleo1630]

quick tips for consider:

- don't sell consumer goods of pop need like glass, liquor,paper, cloth, furniture, wine... They hurts tariff . You can use them to make luxury goods and sell luxury things, ship (convoys), artilleries, steel, lumber... In vanilla cloth are ok because they bring back extra money for tax income, but in VIP 0.3 because of dye shortage you are better to use them for luxury cloth.

What do you mean by not selling those things? Do you mean even if I'm producing them I should put them on "buy?" Also how does that hurt my tariff?

 

[Cavalry]

if you produce regular cloth but you don't want to sell them right, you can set buy<1 or sell>1000. You get tariff if your pop buy their need that you don't sell. Still no one know how the tariff is calculated. Many time the money loss from tariff is much more than the profit from selling low profit goods like glass. You can check if selling a good is worth. If you intend to sell consumer good anyway, mass production on 1 or 2 goods so the tariff loss is worth it!

 

[unmerged(14477)]

if you produce regular cloth but you don't want to sell them right, you can set buy<1 or sell>1000. You get tariff if your pop buy their need that you don't sell. Still no one know how the tariff is calculated. Many time the money loss from tariff is much more than the profit from selling low profit goods like glass. You can check if selling a good is worth. If you intend to sell consumer good anyway, mass production on 1 or 2 goods so the tariff loss is worth it!

I use to amass a quantity of those goods (cloths or paper or liquor etc.) and then sell it all-in-one instance (like 100 or 200 units at once or in more advanced stages of the game, 400 and more). I get an amount of money (of course the price is lower than usual, as you get the medioum of the prices before the sell and the one shown after you have fed the WM with so many goods) but most importantly, I witness a hefty boost in my tarrif income that stands for several days (a couple of weeks, I think, but that varies with the amount of goods sold? dunno...).

Then I stock up the same goods and repeat the process.

Is this a sound strategy? I think I am getting much more money that way, than selling them goods on the WM and having my tarrif income minimal.

 

[TheFlemishDuck]

Note that if you have a big army you can also use it for corruption fighting by spreading them over province's with corruption.Army's will make corruption building's go away much faster ,so you can set youre crime fighting to like 30% and youll army's will be able to minimilize the corruption still.

Is this a sound strategy? I think I am getting much more money that way, than selling them goods on the WM and having my tarrif income minimal.

Nope ,in fact youre blasting a lot of income down the drain.Yes you get the tarrif boosts but youll also get those if you sell the good 1 by 1 ,afcourse at that rate the income won't change much on the very short term ,but youll sell the goods at it's most expensive price.

see every export you do will give you extra in tarrifs ,no matter if you sell it by batch or 1 by 1 ,but if you sell 200 goods in batch 199 of those will be sold at a price rangeing -20% to -50% of the normal price ,and thus the tarrifs youll earn on it will be also -20 to -50% less!

It goes the ther way around to.If a good is exported at a fair quantity (over 2) ,buying them by batch is cheaper than 1 by 1 ,afcourse i think most people buy in batch and then keep a constant supply.

Rather than always setting youre inport to like <10 cotton import (for a cloth factory for instance) you better buy <1000 every so much weeks.

 

[Raph]

I use to amass a quantity of those goods (cloths or paper or liquor etc.) and then sell it all-in-one instance (like 100 or 200 units at once or in more advanced stages of the game, 400 and more). I get an amount of money (of course the price is lower than usual, as you get the medioum of the prices before the sell and the one shown after you have fed the WM with so many goods) but most importantly, I witness a hefty boost in my tarrif income that stands for several days (a couple of weeks, I think, but that varies with the amount of goods sold? dunno...).

Then I stock up the same goods and repeat the process.

Is this a sound strategy? I think I am getting much more money that way, than selling them goods on the WM and having my tarrif income minimal.

It is a valid strategy, but I'd also call it an exploit.

 

[unmerged(14477)]

Nope ,in fact youre blasting a lot of income down the drain.Yes you get the tarrif boosts but youll also get those if you sell the good 1 by 1 ,afcourse at that rate the income won't change much on the very short term ,but youll sell the goods at it's most expensive price.

see every export you do will give you extra in tarrifs ,no matter if you sell it by batch or 1 by 1 ,but if you sell 200 goods in batch 199 of those will be sold at a price rangeing -20% to -50% of the normal price ,and thus the tarrifs youll earn on it will be also -20 to -50% less!

I don't get it... if that's what goes, then why does your tarif income go down the drain if you produce (and steadily sell) those goods yourself? I think tarifs are imposed only on goods coming from the WM, but... oh, I'll have to think about it, I am just learning the deeper game mechanics right now :wacko:

Raph

An exploit? I'd call it "market manipulation"

 

[Cavalry]

quote: I get an amount of money (of course the price is lower than usual, as you get the medioum of the prices before the sell and the one shown after

Someone said you only get the last price, not the price between. So no exploit, and no profit here! You better don't sell it like that!

 

[TheFlemishDuck]

don't get it... if that's what goes, then why does your tarif income go down the drain if you produce (and steadily sell) those goods yourself?

It only does that for certain products ,and these are the product's that youre pops are able to buy ,but not all goods.

Youre tarrif income is depending on how much youre pops buy of the world market. (Usually youre pops arn't able to buy much life or everyday needs so what they are able to buy at most is usualy liquor or clothes or some other basic goods)
But when youre producing one of these used goods yourself and sell them ,then youre pops will buy the local produced good first and since it isn't imported from the local market you won't get tarrifs anymore on that import.
So selling a product that youre pops are able to buy will hurt youre tarrifs income.

Because youre pos are short in cash ,they will only buy 5 or 6 basic goods. While they can afford rural goods easily usually because they are cheap ,they won't be able to afford the import of 1 or 2 produced basic products like furniture ,clothes or liquor.And since these latter products are relativly expensive ,the about 70 to 90% of youre tarrifs are from the imports of those produced products ,and producing these products will hit youre tarrifs by that much.

You can see what youre pops are importing by checking them. Check what the most expensive goods are that they import and avoid selling that.
That doesn't mean that you never should produce the goods that youre pops are buying ,just don't sell those goods on the world market.but in a production chain of for ex. lumber->furniture->lux furniture it's acceptable to produce the furniture even if youre pops import it as long as you only use it for producing the lux furniture or to stock them upgrade pops.

 

[iBaLkiD]

quote: I get an amount of money (of course the price is lower than usual, as you get the medioum of the prices before the sell and the one shown after

Someone said you only get the last price, not the price between. So no exploit, and no profit here! You better don't sell it like that!

Yep.