The starving aristocrats of Hohenzollern

[Me_]

Have you noticed that the nation of Hohenzollern is usually starving, including even its upper strata? I've seen their upper strata have a standard of living of 9 by the end game. What gives?

 

[yurcick]

Two reasons come to mind:
1) being isolated from its market messes with economy hugely so some people can be really poor
2) adopting an economic model without upper strata (be it coop ownership or planned economy) removes upper strata jobs, making these pops progressively lose wealth. Their size diminishes too, but this takes time and some poor aristocrats/capitalists are still left anyway

 

[GrounchoVilla]

I think the game suffers from not having free merchants who buy and sell wherever there is supply and demand. It means small countries with little port access can't really get a decent SoL without entering the right market

 

[Evethor]

Might also have no market acces due to the investment pool building way over infra cap.

 

[5iberys]

Hohenzollern is a puppet of Prussia, and because of that it is in the same custom union. However, it often happens that no land route connects Hohenzollern with Prussia, generally because the surrounding countries leave the CU or are annexed by another country not inside Prussia's CU. With 0% market access, Hohenzollern can only consume what it produces; setting a trade route would import goods into the Prussian market, not the de facto independent Hohenzollern market. However, with only a few thousands pops in the workforce, there is no way for it to produce enough goods to fulfill needs through subsistence farming, which raises prices and makes everyone poorer. Meanwhile, any building instantly overproduces goods, driving prices into the ground and destroying profitability, meaning owners, for example aristocrats, lose all their income.

 

[Cry_Havok]

Might also have no market acces due to the investment pool building way over infra cap.

This is a problem I have definitely seen with small subjects, they really like to overbuild and implode because there is no stop building decision making process if pop growth stagnates for any reason (Like a larger economy hooving up the pops)