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

[D-A-C]

I am finidng this aswell, and it is having consequences for A.I warfare.

Basically all the majors, but in particular France and Austria are pouring money into fielding 40+ mercs at a time to extend their wars and help them overcome Coalitions and Alliances.

What this does in effect is makes a few of the major powers incredible difficult to stop, and France, especially if it can get going in the first 30 years basically becomes unbeatable, because of great generals and luck the longer wars go on and more battles there are the more likely it can reverse early defeats in those wars.

 

[VampireBoot]

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.

Edit the file in /common/prices. Change those values to what you want.

 

[Demetrios]

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.

Pretty much so. In my current Portugal game, to re-learn EU4 after a skipping out a few DLCs, it's 1560, I've forced most of the trade of the world to my home node, I've built everything in all my provinces around the world, have a standing army bigger than that of France with 100% maintenance and going way over my force limit, and I'm still pulling in 150 or so monthly. And I haven't added even a single European province from the start (and only a couple Moroccan ones). I'm thinking about loading it back up, but the more I think of it, there's so little challenge left that the main amusement I have is to see how much the Byzantines will take back (due to a crazy war settlement gift by Venice, they regained all of Greece, and have since pushed the Ottomans completely out of Europe and into Asia, and are now almost back to where they were in 1204) and whether the Timurids, who are literally next door to Delhi now, will manage to form the Mughals...

Goodness knows what would happen if I played Castile and took out Portugal early to have complete control of the Sevilla node, as well as getting way ahead of everyone in the exploration/colonization/trade game. Hmmm... next game idea...

 

[wolfing]

I think this also sort of 'nerfs' Merchant Republics (ironically). Usually they were weaker militarily but they had lots of money to make up for that (more mercs, more buildings, etc). Now that everybody is rich from the start, it sort of removes their advantage.

 

[Gustav91]

How about OPM Frankfurt. Killed and revieved ~1710, in year 1819, cash reserves 27K.

 

[mkeogh]

The "easy money" economy is a big disappointment. There is absolutely little or no incentive to wage war as to economic issues. I played an England/Great Britain game and quit in the mid 17th century because it got so dull due to never having to worry about money. I was routinely embargoed by my rivals and embargoed them right back, but so what? I never felt any sort of economic pinch. The Netherlands and I shared the English Channel node 50/50 which was making so much money that I never felt compelled to do anything to seriously challenge the Dutch for it. Hasn't economics been a factor in almost every war ever fought? Not in EU4- money is easy to get, easy to hold onto, and unless you're super greedy then they're really isn't much of incentive to try to get more.

Where is the strategy when you can build or buy everything you want? Yeah, MPs are a limiter, but that's it.

I'm really disappointed in the economic engine. I thought Wealth of Nations had improved things, but Art of War appears to have over-saturated the world with cash.

 

[Yaska80]

Agreed it is ridiculously easy to generate way too much income now (as European power). It kind of spoils the game for me too. 1.7.3 it was easy enought but now you're set from the beginning... The economy needs somekind of revamp, corruption factor progressively eating your income, inflation increase, downstream trade modifier revaluation... something that you don't swim in gold from the nearly beginning.

 

[Less]

Goodness knows what would happen if I played Castile and took out Portugal early to have complete control of the Sevilla node, as well as getting way ahead of everyone in the exploration/colonization/trade game. Hmmm... next game idea...

Hey, I did that just now.

Annexed Portugal, inherited lowlands, formed Spain (fed Aragon some of the Berbers ahead of time), then put the game on observe as soon as I had a CN up in Mexico and the Caribbean. By the 19th century AI Spain was making 800 ducats a month from trade. What's even crazier is that this was done entirely without Asia, India is dominated by a westernized Delhi and Hindustan who completely kicked out every European. All of that money comes straight from America and the upstream trade propagation Spain has from the 2172 light ships it employs. 600 ships alone patrol the English Channel (with 300 English Ships there as well). The USA formed and controls 95% of the Chesapeake Bay area, embargoes Spain and Great Britain to give them a -90% Trade Power modifier, and still Great Britain and Spain pull 90% of the trade value from the USA to the English Channel.

Obviously I did give it a big head start by my actions, and the AI deserves credit for knowing how to work the trade system half-decently and (ab-)use the mechanics. Still, the income feels a bit much for what isn't much more than the historical Spanish Empire. I can only imagine how insane the income would get for a player, who would properly barge into India/Asia and set up trade companies. It's worth noticing that the only European trade node other than England/Sevilla that has a decent income is Constantinople at 50 ducats. Virtually every other node in the world that the Europeans can get near becomes a wasteland, with the majority of nodes getting 90% of their trade sucked away.

Equally surprising is just how much money England makes even though it barely controls anything beyond the English Channel, which Spain still controls 2/3rds of. It's sucking up a ton of value from Lubeck and eastern Europe, countries that can't afford a trade fleet.

 

[Autoclave]

can anybody provide some comparable stats? Like playing the same nation before and after 1.8? I am in no position to evaluate it, perhaps just to mention how powerful lightship spam + trade power propagation is.

On the other hand pure provincial trade power is boring. It's just conquer more and more, while with lightships, you can do some nice naval warfare, which i do enjoy.

 

[nicechinos]

That's not buff across the board. Fur trade has been nerfed taking money of Novgorod, Muscovy and Sweden.

 

[wolfing]

That's not buff across the board. Fur trade has been nerfed taking money of Novgorod, Muscovy and Sweden.

Actually Sweden is (for whatever reason) the country where I noticed how ridiculous the rain of money is now.

 

[saegoto]

yeah, there's too much money. I think downsteer needs to be helved or rework. also trade goods are too expansive in my opinion. only fish and wool are poor.

 

[unmerged(229158)]

Guys, there is no debate or doubt here. This is something Paradox must fix, else there is zero challenge here and they will soon lose all their customers. I'm sure they're fully aware of the trade income imbalance. The only question is, when will it be fixed. The game absolutely pointless to play right now because of this.

 

[StatikShocker]

I blockaded the ottomans 100% and sieged out everything other than anatolia. they maintained their 40k army. and continued to make money, at 20 war exhaustion.

 

[unmerged(229158)]

I blockaded the ottomans 100% and sieged out everything other than anatolia. they maintained their 40k army. and continued to make money, at 20 war exhaustion.

Blockades do not work. It's a known bug (there are MANY in this patch). They say itll be fixed in the next patch.

 

[StatikShocker]

Blockades do not work. It's a known bug (there are MANY in this patch). They say itll be fixed in the next patch.

jesus. well I can say that Byzantium is still succeeding without blockades lol might be because I had a ton of money too, lol. merc armies and 50 galleys on 4 provinces? advisors too? it was pretty easy.

 

[hashinshin]

In related news, people might actually buy advisers larger than +1, and actually support rebels once a game.

More money is a good thing, money was so tightly restricted that large portions of the game were unusable, IMO.

 

[Hirron]

Part of the problem is how strong downstream trade has become. Right now prior to any expansion / colonization all end nodes except Venice will pull in majority of trade from every attached node. This provides a large, early bonus to trade income which multiplies even more as game moves on.

Trade should require investment. Not having a capital located in an end node.

In my own game Portugal owns start provinces. Tangiers. 3 provinces in brazil, 4 light ships.... and 150g/turn from trade.

Without owning anything of note outside of its own provinces Portugal manages to make more than all of Frances production.

Downstream trade combined with the new multiplier for trade in home node leads to all the trade benefits of colonizing the ROTW without any investment.

Playing as Aztec having colonized entire eastern seaboard, half of Caribbean, all of Mexico and the entire cost of the gulf of Mexico I get about 90g/month with a trade fleet of 70 and first tier trade on entire Chesapeake bay

 

[Autoclave]

on the positive side, this thing compells me to go for naval wars and wipe all those light ships in the end trade nodes. It's a very lucrative deal. In fact, i now find reasons to go to war not just for pure conquest. 50% of trade power from England for the next 10 years? sign me in.

It's 1670 and i am making 450 duccats in Lubeck. How does that compare to anything?
Oh, and supporting rebels to get some power projection in countries like spain/england, costs me quite a lot.

 

[panionios]

I don't believe I'm going say this, but yes: Too much money.

Can we do sth about it Paradox? Thanks!