The economy needs a rework.

[MachopPower69]

The big gripe I have about the game is how unpredictable the economy can be. Sometimes the numbers fluctuate randomly or resources can be difficult to obtain because nobody wants to work to get resources for your dying economy. Plus, if you don't have railways, you are screwed until around 1850 because you have to wait for 5 technologies if you are not playing in Europe, and you probably are over the infrastructure limit trying to fix your economy.

 

[Nirmara]

The game could do a better job at explaining some of the emergent properties of the economy but that's more of a UI problem than one with the game mechanics.

As for the infra issue in pre-industrial nations, it's somewhat fitting considering the impact railroads had on the economy. Those nations are not without options: Ports do provide some infrastructure and the road maintenance decree do help, especially considering the authority surplus those nations tend to have. Larger countries can also spread their industries while single state can opt to ignore infrastructure altogether. All in all, the infrastructure bottleneck do offer some interesting challenges with multiple ways to mitigate it until they get access to railroads.

 

[romothecus]

The big gripe I have about the game is how unpredictable the economy can be. Sometimes the numbers fluctuate randomly or resources can be difficult to obtain because nobody wants to work to get resources for your dying economy. Plus, if you don't have railways, you are screwed until around 1850 because you have to wait for 5 technologies if you are not playing in Europe, and you probably are over the infrastructure limit trying to fix your economy.

You have to beeline railways. There's no alternative. To an extent that's an experience / "skill issue." It's a macroeconomic simulator about the 19th century. There is no solution that doesn't involve railroads.

That said, the economy is completely messed up by the fact that transportation costs aren't more important. Oh you can mine iron in Arkansas and teleport it to New York? Oh every place on Earth can just import my steel for virtually no cost?? It's not super expensive to ship steel from NY to Turkey???

 

[Bearjuden]

Plus, if you don't have railways, you are screwed until around 1850 because you have to wait for 5 technologies if you are not playing in Europe, and you probably are over the infrastructure limit trying to fix your economy.

Infrastructure needs a total rework at some point because it makes no sense right now, but this isn't exactly the issue. Market access should trend low in many states until railways, with the exception being around waterways which have a cheap way to connect. So railways being game changing is good, but because right now there's no other forms of infrastructure, you can't properly develop states that never would have had to rely on railways (using waterways). If this was fixed then early development focuses on those waterways, which puts developed industry all in those cities, which then sets then up to be the largest cities as was historical.

I think the key fixes to this are to have a second infrastructure building for any coastal state or state with a major waterway that is available from game start, and to invert infrastructure-from-population so that population consumes infrastructure. This solves the problem where the Chinese interior has the best roads in the entire game in 1836 and frankly just makes more sense; people use good roads if available and revert to local paths if market access is low (such as rural China, where smaller roads were not suitable for mass trade and represent low market access).

 

[DukeLeto42]

You have to beeline railways. There's no alternative. To an extent that's an experience / "skill issue." It's a macroeconomic simulator about the 19th century. There is no solution that doesn't involve railroads.

Canals.

 

[romothecus]

Canals.

Nah. They're too limited - ship draft, maximum speed, upkeep, cost per mile, et cetera. They're just not competitive with railroads, which is why they were abandoned. Getting off-topic, in any case, since canals aren't in the game.

 

[DukeLeto42]

Nah. They're too limited - ship draft, maximum speed, upkeep, cost per mile, et cetera. They're just not competitive with railroads, which is why they were abandoned. Getting off-topic, in any case, since canals aren't in the game.

Yes, there's no canals in-game, but they were a key part of the infrastructure system for the first half of the century that demands to be brought up in light of the phrase "no solution that doesn't involve railroads." While at lot of them were made fully obsolete, some (such as those in the Chicago area) are still operation.

Canals could be an early option for nations in desperate need of transportation but not ready for a steel industry or without the railroad tech. As you note, railroads are currently the immediate target tech for any game, and this could allow more options even if railroads are eventually a necessity.

 

[Fawr]

Yes, there's no canals in-game, but they were a key part of the infrastructure system for the first half of the century that demands to be brought up in light of the phrase "no solution that doesn't involve railroads." While at lot of them were made fully obsolete, some (such as those in the Chicago area) are still operation.

Canals could be an early option for nations in desperate need of transportation but not ready for a steel industry or without the railroad tech. As you note, railroads are currently the immediate target tech for any game, and this could allow more options even if railroads are eventually a necessity.

I also like the idea of canals being something you can build in the right areas (flat and next to the coast/rivers/other canals) before you have railroad tech. That was what countries did before they got railways. Also once you have railways noone should be building canals anymore.

 

[DukeLeto42]

I also like the idea of canals being something you can build in the right areas (flat and next to the coast/rivers/other canals) before you have railroad tech. That was what countries did before they got railways. Also once you have railways noone should be building canals anymore.

Could be allowed only on harbor states or those with River bonuses, and the river bonus could be toned down slightly in turn.

 

[Fawr]

Could be allowed only on harbor states or those with River bonuses, and the river bonus could be toned down slightly in turn.

I think a more nuanced placement might be needed. Canals are much more expensive when changes in elevation are needed, so I'd want to exclude a lot of coastal but mountainous provinces (NSW, NZ, Timor, Alps, Pyrenees, etc). I'd also want to exclude a lot of the smaller islands as canals provide little extra value on Tonga or Samoa.

 

[DukeLeto42]

I think a more nuanced placement might be needed. Canals are much more expensive when changes in elevation are needed, so I'd want to exclude a lot of coastal but mountainous provinces (NSW, NZ, Timor, Alps, Pyrenees, etc). I'd also want to exclude a lot of the smaller islands as canals provide little extra value on Tonga or Samoa.

Yeah, that's why I'm thinking only states with the "Natural Harbor" modifier (New York, Home Countries + the rest of southern England, etc.).

 

[paulxiep]

The big gripe I have about the game is how unpredictable the economy can be. Sometimes the numbers fluctuate randomly or resources can be difficult to obtain because nobody wants to work to get resources for your dying economy. Plus, if you don't have railways, you are screwed until around 1850 because you have to wait for 5 technologies if you are not playing in Europe, and you probably are over the infrastructure limit trying to fix your economy.

So where did you play? Where in particular that your economic development far outpaces your tech spread, and that has no access whatsoever to shoreline?
(while I'm sure there're a couple on the map I doubt you've played those countries, mostly they're so sparsely populated in the real world today)
If you have options, like the shoreline port option, or the high literacy (thus fast tech spread) option, then those are the way to play.

In any case even if you play a country without options, Paradox games, later starting date ones in particular, are more bent on historical accuracy than balance.
Playing something like Bhutan or Ethiopian minor is naturally far more challenging than playing Britain and France.
Forget what others say they conquered most of the world in 50 years. If you play a minor nation, set more realistic goals for yourself.
Maybe you'll become a regional power by end game, maybe you won't, maybe you'll get conquered by a major power in year 1900. It's an open-ended game where many outcomes are possible.

 

[MachopPower69]

So where did you play? Where in particular that your economic development far outpaces your tech spread, and that has no access whatsoever to shoreline?
(while I'm sure there're a couple on the map I doubt you've played those countries, mostly they're so sparsely populated in the real world today)
If you have options, like the shoreline port option, or the high literacy (thus fast tech spread) option, then those are the way to play.

In any case even if you play a country without options, Paradox games, later starting date ones in particular, are more bent on historical accuracy than balance.
Playing something like Bhutan or Ethiopian minor is naturally far more challenging than playing Britain and France.
Forget what others say they conquered most of the world in 50 years. If you play a minor nation, set more realistic goals for yourself.
Maybe you'll become a regional power by end game, maybe you won't, maybe you'll get conquered by a major power in year 1900. It's an open-ended game where many outcomes are possible.

To be honest, playing an easy and overpowered nation like France or GB is boring because you have literally everything there. Plus, I love "From the ashes" style campaigns like a new independent nation rising to greatness

 

[paulxiep]

To be honest, playing an easy and overpowered nation like France or GB is boring because you have literally everything there. Plus, I love "From the ashes" style campaigns like a new independent nation rising to greatness

I'd advise just playing a coastal nation then. I'm currently playing a Formosa (Min Taiwan, released from Qing) run and already making every attempt to conquer the whole of China before the end date. (it's 1922 and all but 3 states in South China already belongs to me) Maybe it'll happen, maybe it won't. I try to circumvent the truce by provoking Qing to intervene in my other wars, and then pray that my 'actual' war target doesn't yield.

Early game was as challenging as challenging can be. You're stuck on the island without option to trade or invade anyone (since you have 0 interest quota, you can try invading Qing if you're superman...), and on the island there're just 7 units of wood, no industrial resource whatsoever. Getting rid of the landowners monarchy and getting out of the island was my first task. Next came grabbing industrial resources in Indonesia, and trying to transition from wood-based to iron-based economy.

The only strength of Formosa is being part of East Asian culture group, and can integrate Chinese or Japanese land in 5 years. But to take advantage of this at all you first have to grow elsewhere... where you need 20 years to integrate land.

Or try an Indonesian minor, just don't try Bhutan or inland Ethiopian minor. I don't see how you can possibly do anything there.

ps. about the lack of workers. I had that too when I was trying to work the mines in Indonesia. A combination of 'encourage resource industry' decree and subsidies and later less labor-intensive production methods had to be used, and micromanaged to a degree. I could only stop micromanaging when I started getting more population from Africa and later China.