1.03 Precious metal worth 50 pence on the WM?

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Possibly WAD, but odd enough that I thought I would mention it.

I noticed that the number of provinces producing precious metals had been drastically increased. This is fine, though personally I never had problems getting enough of the stuff in 1.02 (it was just expensive, that's all). There also seems to be a new event that increases the output of existing provinces -- at least, I've never seen the event before, and now I got it twice in one game.

What does concern me is that the amount of precious metal on the market is so high that it usually costs £0.50 on the world market. It's often the cheapest commodity, down with rubber in the early days of the GC when no-one's ever heard of electric gear.

It seems to me that, whatever price problem in 1.02 was being fixed, things have swung too much in the other direction. Unless a "lot" of precious metal is tiny, it seems way too cheap. If the lot is a troy ounce, it should be something like £10.

 

[Derek Pullem]

Meanwhile I will do and post some per capita actual income and actual expense calculations for wealthy and middle class POPs under your last release and post those.

So WM stockpiles really do exist? Then dumping large quantities on the market logically would depress prices until worked off, but that doesn't seem to be happening.

Sir Garnet

WM stockpiles do exist but the size of these stockpiles do not affect prices. So the price will fall on the day you sell your excess stock but only on that day.

 

[Kriegsspieler]

Derek --
I ran a game as France up to 1890 with your modified needs files from 2/26. There seems to be a wall that you won't get over easily, because my capitalists were still getting only 70% of their life needs, while all of the poorer classes were averaging 100% of life, 50% of everyday. It appears in the end that the income distribution formula will have to be tweaked a little in a future patch.
Or . . . ?

 

[Derek Pullem]

I know - I've got a revised set that I'm testing now. It means we have to reduce the needs for capitalists and aristocrats by much more to "balance" income with a flat tax.

There is an issue with the current system which makes taxing lower class at >> 50% relatively risk free. So the optimum set up is actually regressive for taxation i.e. tax the poor. Which flattens out the needs.

I do think that upper class income should be increased by as much as a factor of 2. However, as Clerks are promoted the number of middle class "shares" in the Population actually increases so that Upper class POPs will normally get poorer (without a corresponding increase in national income).

Its hard to get the set up right as we really need to get late game experience too.

 

[Kriegsspieler]

I agree on all counts, although from what you say it sounds like continuing to play with the needs and setting the tax system to be more regressive may be a good solution. I will see if I have time to try that.

 

[Sir Garnet]

My tests indicate income is not the issue. The capitalists and aristocrats take in far more in after tax reported income than they seem able to spend, while clerks seem able to spend about what they receive. Capitalists can't always even buy the same grocery basket as clerks, even though they have more income. The missing cash does not show up in cash balances, bonds, or anywhere else I can see either.

Sir Garnet

 

[Derek Pullem]

My tests indicate income is not the issue. The capitalists and aristocrats take in far more in after tax reported income than they seem able to spend, while clerks seem able to spend about what they receive. Capitalists can't always even buy the same grocery basket as clerks, even though they have more income. The missing cash does not show up in cash balances, bonds, or anywhere else I can see either.

Sir Garnet

I'm very interested in your figures. Subjectively this is what I think is happening too. I just can't see where the extra cash is going (or not going) to the capitalists.

I would (for example) be very intersted if the total purchases came to 10% of expected. Johan has been known to slip a factor of ten occasionally before

Are you basing the missing money on the 25:4:1 rule or have you found a way to identify POP cash income (rather than expenditure)?

 

[EUnderhill]

I'm very interested in your figures. Subjectively this is what I think is happening too. I just can't see where the extra cash is going (or not going) to the capitalists.

I would (for example) be very intersted if the total purchases came to 10% of expected. Johan has been known to slip a factor of ten occasionally before

Are you basing the missing money on the 25:4:1 rule or have you found a way to identify POP cash income (rather than expenditure)?

I am trying to do this (and more), but I need a quick heads-up on default income. Thanks

 

[Sir Garnet]

Are you basing the missing money on the 25:4:1 rule or have you found a way to identify POP cash income (rather than expenditure)?

This is from income per class indicated in the tax slider tooltips, then divided by the actual number of persons in that class. With no aristocrats left, the only rich are capitalists. This does mean going in and counting the number of workers in each relevant POP, then dividing by 100,000 to get the per 100K numbers to relate to the per 100K expenditure numbers in the POP menu. With no taxes and neutrality on tariffs, all their income should be available for consumer goods but it does not appear to be.

 

[unmerged(23737)]

Hi Derek,
i've experienced a silly thing the last days with the modded demands in my mod... as we've discussed it before i've added furniture and clothes to life needs of upper classes!
So in my game in the pop screen it shows me 100% life needs fullfilled but still furniture and clothes are shown as red?!
What's this?
Both goods are avaiable on WM and i don't know why game shows 100% because it seems that two of the demands are'nt completely fullfilled.

 

[Derek Pullem]

Hi Derek,
i've experienced a silly thing the last days with the modded demands in my mod... as we've discussed it before i've added furniture and clothes to life needs of upper classes!
So in my game in the pop screen it shows me 100% life needs fullfilled but still furniture and clothes are shown as red?!
What's this?
Both goods are avaiable on WM and i don't know why game shows 100% because it seems that two of the demands are'nt completely fullfilled.

Some people assert that when a need is partially filled it counts as completely filled for the % calculatation i.e. the % shows which of the needs are being bought not which are satisfied. If you look at the numbers closely you may see the number in red changing from 0.1 to 0.2 (unless the need is <0.1)

I don't know for sure if this is the case but I'd rate it as more likely than not.

 

[EUnderhill]

Some people assert that when a need is partially filled it counts as completely filled for the % calculatation i.e. the % shows which of the needs are being bought not which are satisfied. If you look at the numbers closely you may see the number in red changing from 0.1 to 0.2 (unless the need is <0.1)

I don't know for sure if this is the case but I'd rate it as more likely than not.

I have to disagree. My clergy in Brazil were sometimes getting some glass, and the need percent only varied within three points. If the need were being treated as completely filled, it would have been about a nine point swing.

 

[EUnderhill]

This is from income per class indicated in the tax slider tooltips, then divided by the actual number of persons in that class. With no aristocrats left, the only rich are capitalists. This does mean going in and counting the number of workers in each relevant POP, then dividing by 100,000 to get the per 100K numbers to relate to the per 100K expenditure numbers in the POP menu. With no taxes and neutrality on tariffs, all their income should be available for consumer goods but it does not appear to be.

So by this logic, a nation with no rich POPs, like Hamburg, looses 5/6 of its income?

 

[Derek Pullem]

So by this logic, a nation with no rich POPs, like Hamburg, looses 5/6 of its income?

No, no, no

The income should be shared out pro rata.

Rich get 25*POP size shares
Middle get 4* POP size shares
Low get 1* POP size shares

So for Hamburg Middle class get 80% total income if middle class POP size = lower class POP size

 

[Sir Garnet]

Rich get 25*POP size shares
Middle get 4* POP size shares
Low get 1* POP size shares

Yes, I think talking about shares is the right way to discuss the point. I was going with the readme, which said Middle get 5 shares. Is that correct or a typo?

Aloha,

Sir Garnet

 

[unmerged(2037)]

I had found a very strange thing yesterday. I have played my GC thru 1890 with rich taxes set to zero. In 1890 all my aristocrats and capitalists were getting 78.3% of their life needs satisfied at zero tax and zero tariff. Then I changed the rich tax level to 30 % which was equal to ~500$ daily. It was quite a surprise to me that the poor capitalists were able to pay such a sum and thus I looked at their needs satisfaction, and surprisingly it did not drop by single percent. It remained exactly at 78.3.
It seems to me that the rich get really 25 times more cash to be taxed than the poor, but AFTER the tax is deduced (and it does not matter if it is 0% or 30%) most of their cash mysteriously disappear and is not available to them.

The POP life and everyday demads were tweaked down for this game, so that the life needs of rich is only marginally higher than those of the poor and the middle. And while farmers and craftsmen are getting 100% life and everyday needs, have 100$ reserve and can afford some luxury, capitalists seem to have much less cash to spend although they have a substantial tax base. Also I have noticed that as my country become more industrialized, poor and middle strata becomes richer, while the rich get poorer.

IMO there must be a bug in the source code. The tax computation is probably correctly sth. like that:
rich_tax_collected = rich_tax_percentage * (25*rich_POPs)/(25*rich_POPs + 4*mid_POPs + poor_POPs) * total_income

but the computation of remaining cash that should be:
rich_cash = (1-rich_tax_percentage) * (25*rich_POPs)/(25*rich_POPs + 4*mid_POPs + poor_POPs) * total_income
is probably bugged (missing 25 in the numerator comes to mind)

I know the equations are somewhat simplified as there are no tax efficiencies taken into account, but I hope they express what I mean quite well.

 

[EUnderhill]

I had found a very strange thing yesterday. I have played my GC thru 1890 with rich taxes set to zero. In 1890 all my aristocrats and capitalists were getting 78.3% of their life needs satisfied at zero tax and zero tariff. Then I changed the rich tax level to 30 % which was equal to ~500$ daily. It was quite a surprise to me that the poor capitalists were able to pay such a sum and thus I looked at their needs satisfaction, and surprisingly it did not drop by single percent. It remained exactly at 78.3.
It seems to me that the rich get really 25 times more cash to be taxed than the poor, but AFTER the tax is deduced (and it does not matter if it is 0% or 30%) most of their cash mysteriously disappear and is not available to them.

The POP life and everyday demads were tweaked down for this game, so that the life needs of rich is only marginally higher than those of the poor and the middle. And while farmers and craftsmen are getting 100% life and everyday needs, have 100$ reserve and can afford some luxury, capitalists seem to have much less cash to spend although they have a substantial tax base. Also I have noticed that as my country become more industrialized, poor and middle strata becomes richer, while the rich get poorer.

IMO there must be a bug in the source code. The tax computation is probably correctly sth. like that:
rich_tax_collected = rich_tax_percentage * (25*rich_POPs)/(25*rich_POPs + 4*mid_POPs + poor_POPs) * total_income

but the computation of remaining cash that should be:
rich_cash = (1-rich_tax_percentage) * (25*rich_POPs)/(25*rich_POPs + 4*mid_POPs + poor_POPs) * total_income
is probably bugged (missing 25 in the numerator comes to mind)

I know the equations are somewhat simplified as there are no tax efficiencies taken into account, but I hope they express what I mean quite well.

I have been suspecting there to be a problem in the finance system having a bug somewhere. Will be working to confirm. Thanks

 

[Ex Mudder]

Derek, I checked again and the only thing in misc.txt that addresses income is Basic Income = 2.5. The help file reports the income sharing ratios as 25x, 5x and 1x, but it looks like that's in the code so we can't adjust it -- maybe Johan could stash them in misc.txt next patch? It would be great if fixing income allocation solved the problem, though it appears that the needs had to be adjusted as well.
Sir Garnet

Hmm... that explains how you can tax poor pops at 100% and they still have enough to eat (you only tax income above basic income, income above basic income comes from total production). Also explains what I saw in another thread about the 25:5:1 split, which only works is you subtract 2.5 from the numbers.