Too much money in the game now? (after 1.8)

[Bud_Backer]

Certainly playing the major nations seems to be childishly easy from an ecomomy standpoint early on. I haven't progressed far enough to say what happens much later but every nation I chose so far is comfortably able to keep military and naval maintenance at full continuously and still bring enough money in for construction if improvements, becoming a defender of the faith, etc.

At first I was excited as it gave me more freedom but in retrospect I feel as if the challenge has been reduced.

 

[SchwarzerKaiser]

I think the problem is the removal of Supply & Demand. Before 1.8 for example, trade goods like Sugar, Tobacco and Cocoa were very valuable at the beginning, but once colonization of the Americas proceeded, these trade goods would gradually lose their value. With the fixed prices in 1.8 and the generally higher prices of trade goods (most trade goods had a base price of 2 before 1.8, now it's 3), these goods retain their value. Plus, more provinces mean more areas for these goods to spawn in, causing the colonizers in Western Europe to amass great riches naturally (additionally, they all have end nodes). The "quantity" aspect just isn't represented anymore in the price.
Due to the higher prices of trade goods, production income in all areas of the world increases as well (not sure about the amount).

 

[Mef]

I think the problem is the removal of Supply & Demand.

Wrong. Supply and demand was balanced so that most goods would not change price significantly unless it was intended.

 

[solidprice]

Of course lucky nations and trade nations are rich.

But mp still keeps it capped and balanced and allows the ai to not be "in debt" as much. By God that was so annoying!
Now I can actually pay off my allies debts like a parent dose for their children and get them actually help me in wars!

 

[SchwarzerKaiser]

Wrong. Supply and demand was balanced so that most goods would not change price significantly unless it was intended.

My post referred mostly to trade goods common in the Americas that would become less valuable the more provinces produced them due to supply scale, while now, they keep their high price almost all of the time, allowing nations in Western Europe to accumulate money even faster via trade.

 

[Mef]

My post referred mostly to trade goods common in the Americas that would become less valuable the more provinces produced them due to supply scale, while now, they keep their high price almost all of the time, allowing nations in Western Europe to accumulate money even faster via trade.

That's correct, but that difference is not caused by the removal of supply and demand. The new system could handle that just as well

 

[VampireBoot]

Bad generic trade goods (fish, cloth, wool, etc) have much higher prices than before, leading to way higher production and trade income in Europe. Reducing their base prices back down to 2 solves a lot of the issues.

 

[Squirrelloid]

There are several issues:
-Increase in base prices
-Lack of decrease in prices as a good becomes more common
-Trade routes faster around Africa, allowing massive pull from end nodes to quickly pull all the trade income north. (Notably, both Mauritanian Coast and Kongo's trade nodes were removed, so Ivory Coast pulls directly from S. Africa and goes directly to *all* the European end nodes. This makes it easy for Europe to drag almost all of Africa's coastal trade away.)

 

[wolfing]

There are several issues:
-Increase in base prices
-Lack of decrease in prices as a good becomes more common
-Trade routes faster around Africa, allowing massive pull from end nodes to quickly pull all the trade income north. (Notably, both Mauritanian Coast and Kongo's trade nodes were removed, so Ivory Coast pulls directly from S. Africa and goes directly to *all* the European end nodes. This makes it easy for Europe to drag almost all of Africa's coastal trade away.)

Is there an easy way to mod it to like half values? what file should I change? It's really unplayable to me now as it just feels wrong to have so much money, it takes away a whole layer of strategic economic planning, and trade-offs and decisions on what to spend or not to spend.

 

[highsis]

Agreed. Too much money.

 

[grumphie]

i think the overal volume is fine. nations being on the rich side is fun - they bounce back from defeat better and raise larger armies. it's also not to the poitn where large nations have infinite bank acoounts - i regulary see large european majors go deep into debt. it does need osme rebalancing tho - there are a few nations(ottomans, bengals, england, lubeck node and end nodes in general) that are disproportionally rich right now.

 

[DukeWilleo1630]

I've actually started using support rebels and war subsidies to threats against rivals, at least

Very true. Considering how hard it is to get Power Projection, it helps to have lots of money to blow on rebel supporting.

 

[WKIII]

And the money becomes so useless in late game.

I know that many countries spend money on so many things like Education, Cultural Development, Social Welfare, Industrial Subsidies, Market Regulations, Church Donations, Healthcare, Berucaritc Salaries, Transportation and many other things which could be implemented in this game to add some more value to the worthless golden ducat of EUIV.

 

[DukeDayve]

In my game as England I had over 5,000 ducats after playing for 20 years. That was with the huge navy and a large army. Even with both navy and army sliders fully switched on I was still pulling in 12-15 ducats a month. I had built markets, docks and armories in every province and still had over 5,000 ducats after 20-years.

In a game as Songhai, however, I was perpetually broke. I was lucky to get 2 ducats a month with only a tiny army (9 units).

 

[Incompetent]

In single player, there's always been too much money in the late game, but it does seem the date at which you have excessive income as a major European power has moved a lot earlier.

I think ongoing expenses need to go up more over the course of the game. For instance, I think buildings should be more powerful, but cost maintenance (especially unique buildings like the Embassy), of course with the option to destroy them if the cost becomes unaffordable.

Also, the starting base tax (=> income) of Europe is too high. It should start lower, with some systematic way for base tax to increase over time based on economic development and/or to simulate population growth.

 

[balmung60]

That's correct, but that difference is not caused by the removal of supply and demand. The new system could handle that just as well

But it doesn't because the New World goods only get more valuable, barring perhaps a few hiccups due to the Little Ice Age event and the supervolcano event.

 

[Andy578]

some seem to have got a big boost and others have lost a little. seems to be due to the new trade nodes, England for example is now swimming in cash but Burgundy took a bit of a hit now that it has to compete with England in the node

 

[Gaamel]

France is swimming in cash in 1.8. Just move the trade port to Bordeaux and annex Bretagne + 3 Spanish provinces -> congratulations, you own 100% of the trade node, which is directly linked to the Caribbean and Ivory Coast.

In 1550 I'm already bored of my game, I wanted to go to the Far East to bring back the spice income in Europe but it's pointless : I have 5k ducats and nothing else to build (all manufactures are done). Nerfing the trade value of trash goods like fish and naval supplies would be a good start. Cutting in half the "transfer from traders downstream" would be a good solution too (especially in land nodes like Wien where you can't compete with swarms of ships downsteam).

 

[Squirrelloid]

i think the overal volume is fine. nations being on the rich side is fun - they bounce back from defeat better and raise larger armies. it's also not to the poitn where large nations have infinite bank acoounts - i regulary see large european majors go deep into debt. it does need osme rebalancing tho - there are a few nations(ottomans, bengals, england, lubeck node and end nodes in general) that are disproportionally rich right now.

Portugal has effectively infinite cash now. I won a war against them where I could take 100% of the warscore in cash (10k), and they weren't even close to emptying their pockets.

 

[Novacat]

Cash has always been stupidly abundant in EU4... This is mainly due to the limiting reagent being monarch points as opposed to money, and the only thing that costs money but not monarch points are armies and navies.

It gets even worse once you blob up and get manufactories built everywhere, which multiplies your already abundant cash multi-fold and soon your swimming in ducats.