Victoria 3 - Dev Diary #12 - Treasury

[Heliocon]

So I'm curious, will there be some kind of credit rating system where different countries are sorted into perhaps AAA, AA, A, B, BB, and BBB ratings, and those rating affect interest rate? For example, a AAA rated country would get a lower interest rate, since they're more well known for being able to repay their debts on time than say a B rated nation, even if both were to receive the same loan.

You don’t need to do this, and that system has only existed in recent history Post financial/greek crises. That being said, all you need to do is calculate debt or interest as a function of either income or funds, and have that ratio determine interest rates. Alternatively you can just have an interest rate scale as you borrow more, but have that influenced by weekly income.

 

[IsaacCAT]

You don’t need to do this, and that system has only existed in recent history Post financial/greek crises. That being said, all you need to do is calculate debt or interest as a function of either income or funds, and have that ratio determine interest rates. Alternatively you can just have an interest rate scale as you borrow more, but have that influenced by weekly income.

Not everything is supply and demand, there is risk in every investment and credit agencies were there to assess credit worthiness well before modern financial crisis:

Credit Rating Agencies: Overview and History

Three credit rating agencies have a long history in the U.S. Learn about what they do and how they developed.

www.investopedia.com

 

[Hugebull]

You don’t need to do this, and that system has only existed in recent history Post financial/greek crises. That being said, all you need to do is calculate debt or interest as a function of either income or funds, and have that ratio determine interest rates. Alternatively you can just have an interest rate scale as you borrow more, but have that influenced by weekly income.

Not everything is supply and demand, there is risk in every investment and credit agencies were there to assess credit worthiness well before modern financial crisis:

Credit Rating Agencies: Overview and History

Three credit rating agencies have a long history in the U.S. Learn about what they do and how they developed.

www.investopedia.com

It goes back much further than the 1800s.

When the United States became a Federation, had a President, and consolidated all State debt from the War of Independence into a single Federal Debt.
At that point, purchasing American debt became one of the most sought after investments on the Dutch Stock Exchange.

Nobody wanted to invest into a disorganized mess which was The United States under the Articles of Confederation.
But once stability to a wealthy land was brought, investment came from all over.


Yes there were not Credit Rating per say as we know it today.
But risk of investment has always been a big part of investing ever since investing first became a thing many, many thousands of years ago.

 

[Seelmeister]

It goes back much further than the 1800s.

When the United States became a Federation, had a President, and consolidated all State debt from the War of Independence into a single Federal Debt.
At that point, purchasing American debt became one of the most sought after investments on the Dutch Stock Exchange.

Nobody wanted to invest into a disorganized mess which was The United States under the Articles of Confederation.
But once stability to a wealthy land was brought, investment came from all over.


Yes there were not Credit Rating per say as we know it today.
But risk of investment has always been a big part of investing ever since investing first became a thing many, many thousands of years ago.

Exactly, while the idea of giving AAA ratings to sovereigns is a bit of a modern take, the principle that not all national debt should be viewed equally is a sound one. Already in the decades before the games timeframe, the ability of certain states to better manage their debts (Netherlands and the UK are two examples) gave them a considerable competitive advantage. This doesn't mean every country should have a credit grade as such, but I'd love to see some form of market sentiment in the game, I posted this earlier in the thread:

Is there any way in which market sentiment will influence the debt ceiling? For example, if you embarked on some radical domestic reforms, you might find that the debt ceiling you previous thought you had start to shrink due to concerns the market have with your ability to repay.

 

[GrafKeks]

I did not know about Watson, thank you!

But for the limited reading I have done, it seems rather outdated. My hopes are in Machine Learning technologies that learn by the experience. Imagine the well of knowledge from player actions that a game developer can have access to.

They could model some countries AI to behave like famous youtubers by analysing their playstyle. Scary.

EDIT: at the end, we will have invested millions and years to develop games that are able to replicate worldwide what four friends did sitting on a table playing a table game.

Watson is used for medical diagnosis now IIRC.

The best machine-learning algorithms currently used for games are unsupervised, neural and genetic, which is likely the best way to create them. And the actual weighted tree is kind of a black box as it becomes too huge to be human-readable anyway.

They can't copy playstyles properly as even with supervised you can't tell the reason why ( They can partially "copy" ). Also a youtuber's playstyle would get blown out of the water anyway if the MLA is trained properly -> self-play reinforcement learning, superhuman performance in games even if the MLA's reaction time etc is constrained to human levels has been possible for some years now.

The AI also needs millions of hours to learn a really bad learner in the end, it just happens that it needs very little human-time to get those million of hours.

 

[Hugebull]

Exactly, while the idea of giving AAA ratings to sovereigns is a bit of a modern take, the principle that not all national debt should be viewed equally is a sound one. Already in the decades before the games timeframe, the ability of certain states to better manage their debts (Netherlands and the UK are two examples) gave them a considerable competitive advantage. This doesn't mean every country should have a credit grade as such, but I'd love to see some form of market sentiment in the game, I posted this earlier in the thread:

I completely agree with reforms causing issues with debt.

This has always been one of the biggest problems faced with Anti-Capitalistic political movements and revolutions.
(When I speak of Capitalistic, I mean the usage of cash and capital as the primary form of personal and economic interaction between people and institutions.)

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Time to use over-simplifications and strawmen examples for the sake of conversation:

If you have a country that ends up with a landslide victory for the Socialists. A party that campaigned on anti-bank, anti-1%, anti-mega corporation, anti-monopoly. And also for increasing the taxes on the wealthy, breaking up monopolies, and nationalizing certain industries, etc etc.

We have all heard it, and there are plenty of reasons to be for it. That is not the point for this.

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The point is this.
Your country still owes other countries money. Your country still owe money to private citizens of your own country, and to people of other countries.

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If you run on a platform of seizing foreign interests or industries in your country. Or perhaps running on outright cancelling foreign debts.
You are going to face some serious issues on every front.

People from your country will be angry, because their bonds will now be worthless.
Foreign business will be angry, as you are going to take what they built and did.
And foreign Nations will be angry, as you owe them loads of cash directly.

And what is absolutely certain, is that nobody is ever going to invest in your country ever again.


Which locks up the entire anti-capitalistic "revolution". As your entire movement of mass appeal is forced to do one of two things.

Either screw it all, and plunge your country into isolation, blocking you off from all foreign trade. And probably result in invasion depending on your location and size, as people want their money back.

Or, you betray your own revolution for the sake of survival. Crippling and corrupting the entire movement.

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This is what happened to Thomas Jefferson and the Democratic-Republican Party during the "Revolution of the 1800".
Where they were going to get rid of the national bank.
They were going to get rid of the Federal navy.
They were going to get rid of Federal taxes.
They were going to get rid of the Federal army.
They would get rid of big money, big capital, and big manufacturing.

And instead, to create a Virtuous Republic of farmers and craftsmen. Where no bigshot Banker-Capitalist would be able to leech off the hard work of good men.

But already one year later, the entire thing cracked apart. He was going to fight the Barbary pirates, but he had refused to complete the warships that had been under construction under Adams. Causing the whole thing to end in failure.

And by the time we get to the War of 1812, the entire ideology of the Democratic-Republican Party proved itself to be a complete failure. Killing the entire movement and party.

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Your ideas and ideology may be brilliant, but the more sweeping it is, the harder, the more impossible it is going to be to implement it.


In Victoria 3, if you start eating the rich. Then debt should become an issue for you.

If you build a country that is able to rid itself of capital completely in some perfect Socialist dream. Good for you. But people still think you owe them money.
Throwing the bill in the trash does not absolve you of the money you owe.

It would be like Michael Scott shouting "I declare bankruptcy!" in The Office. It means very little.

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Is this going to be modelled?

Probably not at launch. Perhaps down the line as some DLC that improve debt and "Command Economies" or whatever the kids call it nowdays.

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If you have a business friendly country that is open to foreign investment, and the country is stable and has never defaulted their debt ever.
Like the United States today.
That should lead to some obvious benefits.

If your country, and the government debt in your country, is the safest thing to invest in on Earth. Then that should have some serious benefits.
Compared to a country that goes bust.


But again, right now we are probably going to have a standard interest rate with a standard debt ceiling based upon size of economy. Like what we have in EU4.
It is simple, they can make it work.
And it does the job alrighty enough for the game out of the box.


Later it is a mechanic that can get some love, like every mechanic that is going to be in the game.
But for now, they need to make every mechanic work, and work in a way that simulates real-life enough to.... enough to be enough.


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Sorry for any typos or strange sentence structure. The sun rose, making it hard to proofread.

 

[IsaacCAT]

And what is absolutely certain, is that nobody is ever going to invest in your country ever again.

Never say never again. There are many examples of middle ground reforms that have pissed off some and not others.

Moreover, not only reforms can scare investors. Spain and other countries defaulted on their debts but that did not stop foreign countries buying their debt again, albeit at an increased cost. Iceland broke an agreement with debtors recently that didn’t recover their loses.

A full revolution ala Cuban style is only the radical way to do it.

Having your debt risk rated is a good thing.

Either screw it all, and plunge your country into isolation, blocking you off from all foreign trade. And probably result in invasion depending on your location and size, as people want their money back.

Sadly, I have not seen foreign investment nor foreign finance as a thing that developers will add to the game. It will be a perfect CB.

 

[Hugebull]

Never say never again. There are many examples of middle ground reforms that have pissed off some and not others. Spain and other countries defaulted on their debts but that did not stop foreign countries buying their debt again, albeit at an increased cost.

A full revolution ala Cuban style is only the radical way to do it. Iceland broke an agreement with debtors recently that didn’t recover their loses.

Having your debt risk rated is a good thing.


Sadly, I have not seen foreign investment nor foreign finance as a thing that developers will add to the game. It will be a perfect CB.

I was using "never" as a violent word to try and push the point.


And "soft socialism" exists throughout the entire developed world.
On one side they wave the red flags and the red labour rose. Speaking of the workers and unions and all the rest.
Then once they get into power, it is all about money, debt, expenses, and finance. And all the other realities that no one can get rid of.

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Of course once stability has returned and trust increases, etc etc, there will be some money coming in. But it is going to be expensive for the defaulter. Just as you said.

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The crash of 07-08 shattered many illusions. No one talked about the Euro being a global currency after that.

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I know very little about modern Cuba. But what I do know, is that I don't want to live there.

But, for full judgement we will have to wait until America and Cuba hold hands again.
And then we can see the end result of the Cuban Revolution, to see the final result of the whole thing.

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Victoria 2 has a "Repay debts" CB when a Country goes bankrupt. Although I never, ever went to war because of it.
But that is probably a discussion on small scale warfare, and how Paradox tends to make every war into a world war of total death and horror. But that's for another time.

And I think there is a CB if a country nationalizes the foreign industries. But that could be a mod, I honestly can't remember.

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But all of this talking is only possible to be touched upon in a potential DLC down the line.

Although putting all of real-life into this video game is not possible. Even simulating everything in a simplified way is going to be impossible.


But I would absolutely love if they gave us depth to debt.

 

[GrafKeks]

Then once they get into power, it is all about money, debt, expenses, and finance. And all the other realities that no one can get rid of.

Central Bankers can create reality then, are they literal gods?
Neither politics nor economics are hard science, which does not imply they are unimportant, but they are man-made, their guidelines man-made. They become part of a man-made system once they get into power.

I know very little about modern Cuba. But what I do know, is that I don't want to live there.

But, for full judgement we will have to wait until America and Cuba hold hands again.
And then we can see the end result of the Cuban Revolution, to see the final result of the whole thing.

I wouldn't want to live in Cuba either, but I wouldn't want to live in the USA either. Neither socialism nor capitalism are inherently inefficient it depends on the government enforcing them ( and how the government creates incentives for research a.k.a public education and research funding, and subsidies for big corps ).

 

[qaqq2q2]

View attachment 750684

Hello and welcome to another development diary for Victoria 3! Today we’ll be covering a topic that tends to be very much in the mind of governments of all eras: Money! Specifically, we’re going to be talking about income, expenses and debt, and how they function on the national level.

As was mentioned all the way back in Dev Diary #2, Money is one of the principal resources you have to manage in Victoria 3. This in itself is of course nothing new (money of some form playing a role in almost every Grand Strategy game we’ve ever released), but the way money works is a little bit different than what you might be used to.

In most games, money tends to be a resource you accumulate for a specific goal, until you have enough of it to achieve that specific goal. For example, you might want to build a building that costs 100 money, and your monthly income is 10 money. That means in order to build said building, you have to wait for 10 months to accumulate the 100 money needed for the lump sum cost to order the construction of said building.

Now, you might be asking, why am I explaining such a simple and obvious mechanic that undoubtedly every single reader of this dev diary is completely familiar with? The reason for this is because in Victoria 3, there is no such thing as a lump sum cost - instead, it’s all about your weekly balance. At the end of every in-game week, your country’s income and expenses are tallied up and the result is then applied to your Gold Reserve or National Debt. This also means that all forms of expenses, such as construction, also work on a weekly basis - you do not need any cash ‘on hand’ to start construction of a dozen buildings at once, but if you don’t have the revenue to support it you may find yourself quickly going into debt.

America’s lack of an income tax in 1836 sharply limits its potential for government spending
View attachment 750685
​

The Gold Reserve is your country’s national stockpile of cash. If you are free of debt, any money that is left over in the weekly budget after expenses are subtracted is used to increase the Gold Reserve. Conversely, if your expenses exceed your income, this money is taken out of the Gold Reserve to balance the books.

Though it’s certainly never bad in itself to have a sizable Gold Reserve, it isn’t necessarily the best idea to continually run a large budget surplus - each country has a Gold Reserve Limit, which is a ‘soft-cap’ over which each surplus pound has diminishing returns on the Gold Reserve - if you have an enormous stockpile of gold, a surplus of £10k may only increase your stockpile by as little as £2k, meaning that you’ve simply wasted the rest of your money. Hence, a country that finds its gold reserves filling up may want to consider finding a way to reinvest some of that money to avoid such wastage.

The Spanish Gold Reserve has grown to the point where further stockpiling is becoming very inefficient, and they should really try to find better uses for some of that money
View attachment 750686
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So what if you’re running a deficit and your Gold Reserve has all been tapped? Well, this is when debt comes into play. Beyond that point, each pound spent in excess of your income will result in automatically taking on debt. While this may sound like something that you should avoid at all costs, that isn’t necessarily true.

While you do have to pay interest on your loans, interest rates in Victoria 3 are relatively low, and so long as you avoid hitting your Debt Ceiling, growing your economy through deficit spending can actually be a very valid strategy. This is because the increase in revenues from minting and taxation may very well end up exceeding the interest payments, not to mention the benefits constructing new industries can have for your population.

The Debt Ceiling, unlike the Gold Reserve, is not a soft cap - once you hit it, your country will be in default, which is a terrible state to be in and can only be recovered from if you manage to slash your expenses enough to put your weekly expenses back in the black (or if another country steps in and takes on your debt, which can have its own undesirable outcomes for you… but more on that later). It’s also possible to simply declare bankruptcy, but because the money you are borrowing against is actually the cash reserves of your country’s buildings (which is actually what determines the size of your Debt Ceiling), this will have immensely negative consequences for your domestic industry.

Even though Britain has taken on several million pounds of debt, this isn’t too much of an issue - their advanced economy allows them a high debt ceiling, and the interest payments is only a small fraction of their spending​

View attachment 750689

To wrap up this Dev Diary, I’m going to briefly touch on the main forms of income and expenditures, though this is by no means an exhaustive list! Some forms of income and expenses (taxes and salaries, specifically) also have a ‘level’ setting, where you can for example squeeze more taxes out of your population at the cost of reduced legitimacy and increased radicalization.

A massive hike of the tax level to the highest level is a sure-fire way to both raise money and create political radicals
View attachment 750693​

Main Types of Income (not an exhaustive list):

• Minting: All countries can generate some cash flow by printing or casting new currency in relation to their GDP. Minting provides all countries with some income - particularly those who have domestic Gold Fields - but is in itself insufficient for funding anything but the most minimalist of governments.
• Income Taxes: A form of taxation collected on income, where a certain % of the wages paid to workers in buildings is paid to the government.
• Poll Taxes: A form of per-capita taxation where a fixed sum of money is collected on each member of the workforce. Poll Taxes are very regressive since they collect the same amount regardless of income.
• Land Taxes: A special type of Poll Taxes that are only collected on certain types of Pops, such as Peasants.
• Consumption Taxes: A tax that is levied directly on a specific good that is consumed by Pops. Levying Consumption Taxes costs Authority.
• Dividend Taxes: A tax that is applied to dividends paid to Pops with an ownership stake in a Building. Tends to be a very progressive form of taxation, as usually only well-to-do Pops have ownership of buildings.
• Tariffs: Tariffs are something that we plan to have in the game as a way to profit from goods being exported from your market, but we’re not ready to talk about exactly how this will work yet.

Main Types of Expenses (not an exhaustive list):

• Government Wages: The salary cost of employing Pops in your Government Buildings such as Government Administrations and Ports.
• Government Goods: The material costs for your Government Buildings, for example the Paper needed by Government Administrations.
• Military Wages: The salary costs of Pops serving in your army and navy.
• Military Goods: The various goods needed by your army and navy, such as Small Arms for Barracks.
• Subsidies: The cost of subsidizing specific buildings to ensure they remain competitive.
• Interest: The cost of making interest payments on your loans, if you have any.
• Construction: The cost of constructing new buildings, both in goods required for the method of construction and wages paid to Pops working in the construction industry.

Well then, that’s all for today. Next week we’re going to be talking about a topic that touches on both economics and politics - Standard of Living. See you then!

beauty

 

[Spartakusbund]

And by the time we get to the War of 1812, the entire ideology of the Democratic-Republican Party proved itself to be a complete failure. Killing the entire movement and party.

Did it? It was the only political party for at least a decade (and maybe more depending on when you want to say the party split into Whigs and Democrats).

I definitely agree that the war shifted political ideology with the rise of nationalism and Clay’s American System, but it was the Federalists who died off thanks to the war, not the Democratic-Republicans.

 

[Hugebull]

Did it? It was the only political party for at least a decade (and maybe more depending on when you want to say the party split into Whigs and Democrats).

I definitely agree that the war shifted political ideology with the rise of nationalism and Clay’s American System, but it was the Federalists who died off thanks to the war, not the Democratic-Republicans.

The Federalist Party was already dead as a national force years before the war.

During the entire Adams Presidency, they just kept stepping in it. I love the man, he is one of my favorite Founding Father.
But he was a one-man-army. And the entire Federalist Party just kept mucking everything up.

From the Alien and Sedition Acts, and just one thing after another.
And the death of George Washington in 1799, killed any sort of national support of the Federalist Party. He was the one face they could actually use to get votes.

They still continued to exist as a party for a good while, but only really in the cities of New England.

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James Madison, who is also one of my favorite Founding Father.
Already before the White House was burned, had he realized the fact that the whole ideology had to change.

And when he himself had to escape the British.
He brought some real changes to what it meant to be a Democratic-Republican.


So the Democratic-Republican already began to splinter into hard sub-factions.


It was seen as necessary to have Federal taxation. As the United States had no funds to wage war.

It was seen as necessary to have a Federal Army. As in the field, nobody knew who were the superior to who. Leading to State Militia and Federal Militia refusing to even fight alongside each other.
So, Canada. Which should have been a swift and easy conquer, blocking the British off from North America entirely. And so, winning the war.
Ended in pathetic failure.

It was seen as necessary to build a large Federal Navy. The only part of the whole thing that had been some success, had been the limited naval skirmishes. But obviously, they just did not have the ships to do anything significant.

It was seen as necessary to have a National Bank, to actually interact with the world and in so actually make money for the nation.


So the National Republican Party was already born as a faction, if not the strongest faction within the Democratic-Republican Party.
It just wasn't official at first.
But the split and policy was already there.

Including the idea that the Federal Government should spend Federal Tax money to build national roads.
And also that there should be protectionist tariffs to encourage domestic manufacturing.


All of this. Every single one of this.
Goes directly against what Thomas Jefferson believed, and what the Democratic-Republican Party stood for.

Reality caught up to blind ideology. The second it was tested, it failed.
Which splintered the entire party.

And the only reason they were not swept away by the Federalists, was simply the fact that the Federalists mucked everything up long before that was ever possible.




And as politics operate on a delay, it opened everything up for Andrew Jackson to come thundering through the entire political life of America.

As so often happens, Populist leaders are never the cause for anything.
Populist leaders are always the result of the failures of the current leaders.

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Time to oversimplify, it is late and I am going to bed.

The hardcore independent farmers did not want this new focus of the Democratic-Republican Party, so they chose Jackson and the Democratic Party.
While the splinter faction of the Democratic-Republican Party brought in the old Federalists, eventually landing on the name of Whig.

 

[Spartakusbund]

The Federalist Party was already dead as a national force years before the war.

During the entire Adams Presidency, they just kept stepping in it. I love the man, he is one of my favorite Founding Father.
But he was a one-man-army. And the entire Federalist Party just kept mucking everything up.

From the Alien and Sedition Acts, and just one thing after another.
And the death of George Washington in 1799, killed any sort of national support of the Federalist Party. He was the one face they could actually use to get votes.

They still continued to exist as a party for a good while, but only really in the cities of New England.

They started to recover regionally thanks to the Embargo Act and its aftermath, but that was reversed by the fallout over the Hartford Convention and talk of secession in the middle of a war. Though I agree they were no longer viable as a national party long before then.

James Madison, who is also one of my favorite Founding Father.

That loser midget got rinsed by Cockburn.

So the Democratic-Republican already began to splinter into hard sub-factions.

Here I disagree. There weren't factions at first. Even hardcore states rights guys like John C. Calhoun were talking about the need for internal improvements and national development after the war, for the reasons you cited. It wasn't until later that factions developed around either ending or continuing the American System.

All of this. Every single one of this.
Goes directly against what Thomas Jefferson believed, and what the Democratic-Republican Party stood for.

I mean, yes and no. Yes, it was a departure. But so were a lot of things that Jefferson himself did when he became President. I'm not seeing the War of 1812 as a hard breaking point from that perspective.

The hardcore independent farmers did not want this new focus of the Democratic-Republican Party, so they chose Jackson and the Democratic Party.
While the splinter faction of the Democratic-Republican Party brought in the old Federalists, eventually landing on the name of Whig.

I'd quibble here too. Poor farmers did not like some elements of the American System, like Bank of the United States policies that limited the issuance of paper money. However, opposition to things like federal taxation and internal improvements came from the Planter class, not Jefferon's poor benighted Yeoman farmer. And Jackson, though he ran as a Populist, did not actually fight for that class's interests. He did not initially move against the Bank of the United States precisely because it would open up a division in his base between the hard money (planter) and soft money (farmer) factions. When he was eventually compelled to move against BUS during the Bank War, he followed up on it not with soft money that would have helped those independent farmers, but with the Species Circular which cut them off from loans and threw many of them off their land.

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Good talk. Thank you for posting about history with me.

 

[Hugebull]

Here I disagree. There weren't factions at first. Even hardcore states rights guys like John C. Calhoun were talking about the need for internal improvements and national development after the war, for the reasons you cited. It wasn't until later that factions developed around either ending or continuing the American System.

I mean, yes and no. Yes, it was a departure. But so were a lot of things that Jefferson himself did when he became President. I'm not seeing the War of 1812 as a hard breaking point from that perspective.

I'd quibble here too. Poor farmers did not like some elements of the American System, like Bank of the United States policies that limited the issuance of paper money. However, opposition to things like federal taxation and internal improvements came from the Planter class, not Jefferon's poor benighted Yeoman farmer. And Jackson, though he ran as a Populist, did not actually fight for that class's interests. He did not initially move against the Bank of the United States precisely because it would open up a division in his base between the hard money (planter) and soft money (farmer) factions. When he was eventually compelled to move against BUS during the Bank War, he followed up on it not with soft money that would have helped those independent farmers, but with the Species Circular which cut them off from loans and threw many of them off their land.

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Good talk. Thank you for posting about history with me.

That part about Madison are fighting words. And probably the most violent phrase I've heard on this forum
The man took part in writing the Federalist Papers.
He's a good man.

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Nobody ever resisted the building of a road. But there were hard political splits on who were to build that road.
If they allowed for the Federal Government to raise taxes to build road in the individual States, then that would completely alter what the loose Federation was meant to be.
There had already been resistence to removing the Articles of Confederation, but the big issues had been brushed away by the fact that the Constitutions explicitly says that everything not spesifically mentioned in the Constitution, is going to be handled by the individual States.

But then right away, people like Alexander Hamilton pushed for policy that went against that, such as the creation of a National Bank. Because the Constitution gave the Federal Government the right to regulate inter-state commerce (I can't remember the exact wording.)
Which, to Hamilton, implied that the Federal Constitution gave them the right to create a National Bank that could do all the things a National Bank can do, because it was all implied by the Constitution.

So this time did see a massive expansion in what the Federal Government could do. Which overall, caused a massive rift between the Urban Federalists of the "big" cities in the Northeast.
And everyone else.
Especially the Western Farmer showed great distrust to this whole thing.


People of course want roads. Roads are awesome. But they stood by the fact that the States should be the ones to build them.
Because the more work and the more purpose the Federal Government was given, the more power it would have.
Until, inevitably, the Federal Government would be all-powerful.
And everyone outside of the Urban Core of Elites would be treated as second rate citizens, and essentially colonists. Required to produce the resources to the Urban Centers.
And then told to keep quiet.
.....
Like we have today.


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I stated in the first comment to this about how there was immediate "betrayal" in the "Revolution of 1800" by Jefferson himself.

His entire movement and party had been riding on ideology and not reality. So by the time they were given absolute power to enact everything they ever wanted.
Where Jefferson and his crew were now able to truly make the United States into what they dreamt it could be.

But it immediately failed.


Removing large Banks should have been a liberating movement of liberty and joy. Instead it became a nightmare.
So already after having been in office for just a few weeks, the entire dream of the Jeffersonian Nation, of Independent Virtuous Farmers, where there would be no banks, no moneyed classes, no big city financiers.
And no strong arm of the Federal Government in military matters.

Yet the dreams of the movement shattered the second they got into contact with reality.

At every challenge, the regretable truth was that the systems of Alexander Hamilton, proved themselves to be... inevitable and necessary to the functioning of a Government.

And the dreams of Jeffersonian... well, essentiall Jeffersonian Anarchy as a system of government and politics, failed.

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Jackson won Indiana and Illinois in 1824, and he was 1.5% away from winning the Popular Vote in Ohio. These were not lands of Planters, but pretty new farmers. Farmers who lived very far away from Washington DC.

And of course in 1828, Jackson absolute swept the entire election.

With the National Republicans struggling to re-invent themselves.


And when we get the Whig Party in 1836, the whole thing was an absolute mess.
Although, even if the Whig's had all united. They still would only have gotten 49% of the vote. Compared to the 50.8% of Van Buren. And only 124 Electoral Votes, compared to the 170 of Van Buren.
Although, if there had been unity among the Whigs, then that could of course have changed the vote outcome. But as it stands here it would not have been enough. But the two parties were pretty close at this point.

With the Democratic Party dominating the Western States, as well as the South. (Not all, but most). And even having the Democrats take New England States, who had not even put Jackson on the ticket those years before.


And then finally in 1840 we get the Whigs in power. And from then on at least there was decent popular balance between ruling party and opposition party.
Yes there would be plenty of Electoral landslides, but in popular support they would remain decently balanced.

Which, in a hopeful world, should have created a decent balance between necessary Federal centralization and necessary State rights.
But of course, we know that just 20 years later, the whole system would be altered forever.

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And what is really interesting, is that there was no Northern-Southern split until 1856. Although the Southern vote then with Buchanan swept all the way up to Indiana and Pennsylvania.
But then 4 years later, we see the hard split in North-South that we know from the Civil War.

Before 1856, the split had been more like it is in modern America today, in simplified terms of course, where the split is between Urban-Rural.
Again, in simplified terms of course.


My entire posts are filled with over-simplification. They are already long enough. If we started writing entire academic papers in a Dev Diary, the mods would probably not like us very much.
But at least now we can still pretend this has something to do with.... whatever this dev diary is, I have forgotten already.

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Although it must be said that I am not too familiar with the time period beyond the 1820s yet. My interest and knowledge is primarily found before Jackson on this whole matter.

 

[simsulla]

Q0. It breaks my hart that the there is no concept of banks (national bank) in Vic3 Having banks that can go bust, with interest as income, and credit risk on lending, would avoid this "black money holes" and caps outlined in this DD, as well as for a fundament for currency exchange rates.
Has banks been discussed, if so, what was the reasoning for not having them? The 19th and 20th century without banks is unimaginable to me!
Q1 I don't understand the reasoning behind the gold reserve cap penalty. Why not just model Gold as a good that the money that is saved goes in to buying. And if there is excessive saving you just will get less of it (as well as the other way around on selling it on using your gold reserves for consumption).
Q2 Are interests a static or a variable - i.e. a nation with excessive debt and price inflation would tend to have a higher interest rates?
Q3 Is it possible for nations with gold reserves to make directed loans to nations with debt?
Q4 Saving money to your gold reserves seems on a national level to be deflationary, whereas taking out loans to be inflationary on a national level. Since there are no national currencies how does this effect international trade pricing?

btw this is a nice design decision "the money you are borrowing against is actually the cash reserves of your country’s buildings". Please ensure that interest is payed to the owners.

 

[SeekTruthFromFx]

This looks amazing and the fact that the UI takes the focus away from the cash-in-hand Treasury will make Vicky 3 feel quite different from PDS games set in earlier eras.

 

[WhatThatStandFor]

At the moment we don't have this for most countries, I'm split on the idea in that it would be a nice historical detail but at the same time having countries start the game in a dire financial state may not feel good gameplay wise.

This is the same line of thought that lead to us having Aboriginal open sea armadas in EU4 Leviathan. Please make a game rule for this "Historical Debts, Y/N"

 

[YossarianLives]

WIll it be possible for deveolping countries to proactively seek out foreign loans to raise their debt ceiling? Exspecially for countries in Asia, foreign loans were essential to jumpstarting aggressive industrialization and other modernization projects which would have otherwise been impossible with only access to domestic capital (though obviously there were major diplomatic and political strings attached). It would be nice to have this tool at our disposal when playing as say Iran or Japan.

 

[bendkok]

Are there any way to denounce your debt? For example, after a socialist revolution I doubt the new regime would be willing to pay of the debt of the old regime. Or maybe Haiti would denounce their historical debt to France.
If so, what would the consequences be for country denuoncing their debt?

 

[Fawr]

At the moment we don't have this for most countries, I'm split on the idea in that it would be a nice historical detail but at the same time having countries start the game in a dire financial state may not feel good gameplay wise.

I think it would be a bit of a pity to not simulate starting debt. To me debt is something you can use to make countries feel different to each other in realistic ways. For example Haiti was paying its debt off for the whole game (from 1825 to the 1940s). Play Haiti without its massive debt raised to compensate former slave owners in France feels more like you are just playing "random Latin American country #7" rather than playing real Haiti. Its a bit like in Vicky2 playing Prussia means you have a potentially unfun war of unification to look forward to, playing France means you have an unfun reduction in your population growth, playing Austria means you have unfun independence movements - but these penalties are actually what add flavour to these countries and makes every game different.

Does the game differentiate between debts to your own people (eg Britain's Napoleonic Debt) vs debt to others (Haiti's debt to French banks)? Interest on Britain's debt helped give its capitalists a constant flow of money to invest, while Haiti's debt just went overseas. Haiti's debt also had political consequences if it wasn't paid, while Britain's debt would have internal consequences. If its not in the base game, maybe a thought for an expansion.