I see some people post runs with ridiculous high GdP and they always have this laws. Seems to be a nobrainer choice? Especially using protectionism doesn't seem to have a point
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They are the best laws for economic growth for most countries except maybe very small ones and subjects that want to gain independence. This has been true since the investment pool was introduced because laissez faire creates money out of thin air through the bonuses to investment pool contribution efficiency given to capitalists.
Laissez faire is only really bad when you're a subject and your overlord can exploit it to buy up all your buildings and make you economically dependence. Protectionism might be useful when you're a very small country and you don't want local industry to be suppressed by trade.
Laissez faire is only really bad when you're a subject and your overlord can exploit it to buy up all your buildings and make you economically dependence. Protectionism might be useful when you're a very small country and you don't want local industry to be suppressed by trade.
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Actually it’s less meta now than it used to be with previous patches.
i wouldn’t discount Protectionism so much. Free trade is better the larger you are because you have more of an economy to throw around and are generally more competitive in trade. But If you start as a small backwater nation and have free trade it’s actually pretty easy to get a harsh trade deficit because the GP’s are dumping goods on your unproductive market. So I think it has some uses.
However Laissez-faire is still probably meta king, despite its nerf, because of the free money modifier.
i wouldn’t discount Protectionism so much. Free trade is better the larger you are because you have more of an economy to throw around and are generally more competitive in trade. But If you start as a small backwater nation and have free trade it’s actually pretty easy to get a harsh trade deficit because the GP’s are dumping goods on your unproductive market. So I think it has some uses.
However Laissez-faire is still probably meta king, despite its nerf, because of the free money modifier.
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Since Vic3 only represents goods prices as a balance of buy and sell orders, and is often quite modest with how effective stronger PMs are, it's rare for local business to struggle against imports, and need to close down or be saved with tariffs.
Like just because a country somewhere can use cheap workforce, and cheap inputs to produce lots and lots of clothes, and flogs them onto the Global Market, it doesn't mean your local textile mills are at any risk - they just might make less money, but their employment level will stay the same, the wages will remain untouched and investment pool will probably be just fine, as it's only one small component of it.
Really you only use tariffs to protect cheap input goods from being exported, or to limit good substitutes into getting into your market, especially when you have a company for something.
Weirdly the biggest use of Protectionism people have, is that you can still run 0% tariffs, but use "no tariff on [good]" for free points in treaty discussions (half of the reason why I don't feel bad about not having the DLC).
Like just because a country somewhere can use cheap workforce, and cheap inputs to produce lots and lots of clothes, and flogs them onto the Global Market, it doesn't mean your local textile mills are at any risk - they just might make less money, but their employment level will stay the same, the wages will remain untouched and investment pool will probably be just fine, as it's only one small component of it.
Really you only use tariffs to protect cheap input goods from being exported, or to limit good substitutes into getting into your market, especially when you have a company for something.
Weirdly the biggest use of Protectionism people have, is that you can still run 0% tariffs, but use "no tariff on [good]" for free points in treaty discussions (half of the reason why I don't feel bad about not having the DLC).
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I feel like in general AI should be more protectionist and less happy to give out investment rights.
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I literally just had a game this weekend where I had shipyards downsizing because I was getting flooded with British ships. It made my Suez Canal lose prosperity and I lost the bonus. So it definitely does happen
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I would love for the game to model some of the downsides of lassiez-faire someday, particularly in the late game with monopolization decreasing productivity and the boom and bust cycles and depressions of the gilded age and onward
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It can happen, yeah. There's also the whole thing of the player flooding the market just to see how much of an effect they will have on other countries, it was a thing even before trade rework... but it's rare. Military/Civilian Shipyards are like one of the weakest buildings in terms of profitability, so them closing down first, and not handling the drop in revenue is understandable. Losing Canal company prosperity bonus is also a big deal, but if not for that... would you really even feel that anything happened?
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Broadly yes though I think that people are still often undervaluing the benefit of interventionism, if I had the choice I would at least always have interventionism in place when setting up a new company due to the usefulness of state monopolies
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Probably not, but I think that’s more because the complexity of Victoria’s simulation makes it difficult to understand the effects of certain actions.
For example I wasn’t aware how much market share I was leaving on the table before I started experimenting with subventions as Russia. Everything was profitable, every building was employed, prices were neutral. So it all looked fine to me. But then I turned iron export subventions on just to see what would happen. My GDP jumped 10% and I went from a 4th or 5th place exporter to the number 1 exporter that controlled 99% of the world’s Iron market.
Maybe it’s a failure of UI not giving us enough economic information, but I think there are subtle things we are missing with the new trade system in place. Unless you are watching it like a hawk, how would you the player even notice declining wages in an industry or your local industries losing market share? Maybe you do, but I’m not combing through my buildings writing wage numbers down so I can compare their growth later.
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As trade no longer involves the direct exchange of goods between countries, but through international markets, protection trade may be possible by keeping the trade centre PM outdated.
LF limits your tools too much. Some countries may have too powerful landowners. If I want to limit them, I'd build the most profitable agrarian building myself, and not privatize them. While actively privatizing industries, to promote industrialists.
Another case is foreign investment. Foreign companies and regional HQs would buy privately owned levels. And I prefer them to build new levels instead. On intervention I can nationalize buildings and monopolize key industries.
Another case is foreign investment. Foreign companies and regional HQs would buy privately owned levels. And I prefer them to build new levels instead. On intervention I can nationalize buildings and monopolize key industries.
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Did you ever have your investment pool build a bunch of buildings of the same type at once, so that they end up lowering the price of their output goods so much that they eventually end up unprofitable and get auto-downsized? That is a boom/bust cycle, and in my opinion the investment pool is already too willing to get into those as it is.
I agree that the game could do a better job representing monopolies that are not government enforced though.
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That will likely never happen, and that's a good thing since those boom/bust cycles were mostly caused by governments' monetary policy rather than by laissez-faire itself, and the game has no monetary policy.
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Well, yeah. It's a game about the industrial era where Britain went around trying to promote "free trade" knowing they would be able to flood your market with their stuff, maing themselves rich. The US also got in on it, though free trade didn't necessarily mean the same thing back then as today. But the simplest and shortest version is that countries with more industrial capacity and more advanced manufacturing methods loved free trade because those other businesses couldn't compete and they gained millions of potential new customers.
Think about how much European and American companies have been tripping over themselves trying to get into the Chinese market today.
Think about how much European and American companies have been tripping over themselves trying to get into the Chinese market today.
Containerization so profoundly changed the game in the late 20th century that comparing modern trade dynamics to those of the 19th century is fairly challenging.
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While Free Trade has real advantages, as a big economy, I consider Mercantilism to be a good substitute when Free Trade does not have the requisite political support.
When playing a big economy, I ultimately want to dump goods on other markets. Mercantilism has the same trade advantage for exports that Free Trade has on everything.
When playing a big economy, I ultimately want to dump goods on other markets. Mercantilism has the same trade advantage for exports that Free Trade has on everything.
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