Game mechanics I'd like to know more about

[Tikinaattori]

Like title says, I've been wondering few things that I have no idea what they are doing, so I thought I'll ask if anybody else knows any better.

Mainly my newest fascination interest has been tourism. In my current game with China, I declared my very first war agains Japan ( btw, why China has no justification for war against Japan? ), and tourism went from 46% to 26%. The war itself lasted like a month or so, and Japan was colonized shortly after. Enemy never landed in mainland China. I got a nice and rich colony from Japan, but for some reason my domestic taxation also dropped about 10%( that's about 250 million daily ). So now China is making huge deficit daily, and it's GDP/c is also decreasing sharply. So does tourism really affects domestic taxation so much ( or UN rating, which also went to 0% ) and 70 million chinese workers got unemployed because tourism went down? Anyways, if I'm right, then tourism formula might be too punishing for communist/dictatorship countries that have to rely on domestic taxation more than democracies. So anybody has any ideas what tourism really does?

This leads to other consequence of that DOW I made, so what UN rating really does? Can I somehow resign from UN now that I have 0% UN rating, or atleast turn off that pop up that keeps on reminding me about that? Also what affects the UN fee China pays every day, and shouldn't that increase their UN rating gradually? I mean, China is the second biggest economy in the world in my game, so that's a lot of money they pay every day. If UN fee does not improve ratings, then why should they pay anything at all?

Next I'd like to know what pollution does, and where I can see what my current level is? Several research discoveries are lowering the pollution levels, so are those discoveries really doing anything at all?

My final question is about spheres and state department's government support section. I've been sending millions and millions in government support, but I'm still wondering what that really does? I have not selected any specific country to receive that money, so I assume I'm supporting our sphere ( or should I select USSR for that ). Still our only sphere members left are USSR, Norh Vietnam, North Korea and me as China. Most of the big USA sphere countries are already in bankruptcy, so I assume that we are spending about the same amount of money in the propaganda as USA and it's allies. So could somebody tell me how I could help USSR sphere to survive, other than conquering or colonizing the world, and has govenment support anything to do with that?

 

[Lithuanian2]

Those are the best questions ever. Looking forward to hearing answers. Also I think your taxation and employment dropped after you declared war mainly because of UN subsidies, which were at 0% after declaration of war.

 

[Barkhauer]

A couple questions first. If you've successfully conquered Japan in a month, can I assume you've built up for a while? Larger, more advanced navy and air force, lots of new buildings, etc? Also, if the USSR sphere has had time to collapse, what year is it in-game?

 

[Tikinaattori]

Hi, and here's some answers.

Year is 1968 and USSR sphere has not collapsed! China, NV and NK are still there and kicking...weak links have just abandoned us. Those silly europeans never really understood the brilliance in communism anyways

I assume I'm quite a lot ahead of everybody else in the science, and I used transport ships and WZ610 laser infantries for landing, and conquered every city in Kyushu in a few days. I did not had any airforce, but I had nuclear submarines waiting outside every japanese port. Then I transported WS-2 400mm MLRS artilleries to Kyushu from the mainland China, and that actually took more time than anything else in that war. When I started to move north from Kyushu, I destroyed a stack of japanese troops, and those probably were their last ones, because after that Japan surrendered. I did not count how many, but I think my subs sinked quite many japanese merchant marines. China did not loose a single unit in that war, and if I had known how weak Japan's defense was, I could have probably win that war in less than a week and a decade earlier.

So like you guessed, I had everything already built up and planned out. Japan was supposed to be my target #1 and India #2. Reason for those conquests was that both of them are filthy rich. Japan has 150 billion and India 570 billion in treasury ( in comparison, USSR has 5, USA 25 and my China 50 ), but lower GDP than China, so I thought I'll rather make them colonies. Then it would have been easy to trade all that money for techs and units, and make them excellent allies against capitalist aggressions...but unfortunately I could not find a way out from that budget crisis ( well, I could have conquered India too and just take all their money, but when you are making 250 million a day deficit and your GDP/c is falling, then even that kind of money would not have lasted for long ), so I took the easy way out and reloaded before the war. Damn those capitalists, their shady marketing schemes got me after all

But anyway, now that it has been mentioned, what is UN subsidy rate? I have it at 5.8% before the war. So what it really does?

 

[Barkhauer]

A couple of observations:

1. If you've built your economy into #2 on the planet (per original post) you surely must have jacked up your inflation and GDP/c from game start (China is initially quite poor.) Adding that much territory, that quickly, will severely depress GDP/c for several reasons, which will in turn lower your treasury revenue and production revenue (when GDP/c drops, your people have less income to tax, and less to buy marked up commodities with.) Is it reasonable to assume that you had a higher GDP/c than Japan before the invasion?

The good news is, if you spun Japan off as a colony, your GDP/c should EVENTUALLY return to pre-war levels, provided you haven't annexed much territory/population.

2. Prior to colonizing, you would likely have been expending enormous quantities on repairing the damage you did to Japanese facilites and buildings when you captured them. This would show up as both hideously increased treasury costs (labelled "construction"), and usage of industrial goods. This quite likely turned into imports, as even a super-power China would be unlikely to have sufficient surplus of industrial goods capacity to rebuild all of Japan (a very densely urban and industrial nation) in a timeframe as short as a month.

3. Tourism is a minor part of your GDP/c in the described situation. It is directly affected by your relations with the rest of the world. Declaring unjustified wars will trash it, as you have seen. However, it is not a dramatic factor for most economies, and the more you rely on exports, the less you should care about tourism. Generally, the more developed your economy and the larger your population, the less important tourism is. Greece depends on it. The USA does not.

4. Check your research costs. If you're as advanced as I think you are, you've probably gone overboard building research facilities. Having more than 8 or so increases your efficiency costs exponentially. I've had 30+ research facilites as the USA translate into a yearly research budget over $3 trillion. Consider closing/scrapping some facilities, and/or reducing the sliders. You really don't need to have them set over the halfway mark to rock the world in research with 5-8 facilities.

5. If you are playing 7.2.2, the above all applies. If you are running the 7.2.45 beta patch, beware that the economy is a "work in progress" and you having these budget problems isn't actually your fault.

 

[Barkhauer]

Sorry, just realized I missed one of your questions. UN subsidy rate (I believe) affects the price you pay when importing goods. Trashing your relations with the UN (declaring wars without justification, letting the war last long instead of signing a treaty, annexing, etc) will reduce this. Signing treaties and conducting successful diplomacy will (oh so very slowly) restore it. This can, of course, have a substantial impact on your financial situation if you are, for example, importing loads of high-priced industrial goods to rebuild conquered territory.

 

[Lithuanian2]

But if you are a kind leader, it's very easy to get un rating back. I annexed Finland as Sweden and then got invaded by USSR in a long successful war, annexing all eastern europe countries and my un subsidy rate was 20%+. But I was at very good relations with most of the world. The only bad thing I did was annexing Finland. Which was forgotten in a few years.

By being a kind leader, I mean high social expenditure. Sometimes it was even on a max while taxation was at about 50%, sometimes less, sometimes more. I managed this by having many allies who send me loads of money when I'm in trouble. I think it's not good, though. It's too easy. If you have 20 strong allies I'm sure you could live with 100% social expenditure and 0% taxation. So I don't think this is very good. It's nice when allies help, but they do this too often, perhaps.

 

[Tikinaattori]

Hi, and thank you for your answers. I'm currently using the beta patch, and I know they are still tweaking the economy part, so hopefully some of these problems are fixed before release.

I probably should have been more clear in my posts, about China's situation, because this tax drop happens as soon as I start the war. The very next day. This has nothing to do with expenses or anything like that, because expenses stay almost the same, but tax incomes drop. I still have the old save game before the war, and a quick test shows that my domestic tax income drops from 2596 millions/day down to 1598 millions/day and GDP/c will immediately start it's tailspin after the DOW.

It's not any specific tax, but all of them drop from low income tax to pension tax. Defense budget rises by 28 millions per day with annual preparedness ( this one I knew and I had saved enough to get by ), and will return to original levels after the war. Unfortunately domestic taxation does not return to pre-war levels, and GDP/c will keep on falling. Granted, I only waited couple of months to see if things would get better, but it was getting worse every day because of dropping GDP/c, so I quit. I don't have the save file after the war anymore where I'm at peace again, so I can't give the exact figures of those ( EDITED: I suppose that 250 million final deficit I saw, is because I made every possible alliance with Japan after I colonized them which maybe raised my UN rating a little ).

Actually I got really interested about this, and took it to multiplayer and declared the war as Japan and then switched back to China to see the results. And look and behold, domestic taxation is now 2853 millions per day. My tourism stayed the same and my UN rating raised from 5.8% to 8.8%. So what ever in UN is causing this, it is way too powerfull and destroys the game balance totally. I mean, I could understand if UN sanctions are made against trade income, but it should not have anything to do with domestic taxation.

 

[Lithuanian2]

I could understand if UN sanctions are made against trade income, but it should not have anything to do with domestic taxation.

Actually if a country is dependent upon foreign products, then if prices rise, people will have to spend more money on those products so less will be left for taxes. It wouldn't be so catastrophic however.

 

[Hundane]

about China's situation, because this tax drop happens as soon as I start the war. The very next day. This has nothing to do with expenses or anything like that, because expenses stay almost the same, but tax incomes drop.

Actually I got really interested about this, and took it to multiplayer and declared the war as Japan and then switched back to China to see the results. And look and behold, domestic taxation is now 2853 millions per day. My tourism stayed the same and my UN rating raised from 5.8% to 8.8%.

You should look at your DAR on both games. Happy people produce more and IIRC are less likely to shirk paying their taxes.

UN rating is a good indicator of how well the rest of world likes you as a whole. The better your UN rating, the more likely you will receive trade offers from other regions not alligned to you and deals from the UN. It may also effect your World Market selling and buying but Im not 100% sure on that.
I had watched those numbers on several games when playing SR2020, it seemed to work something like this. If you have a product at x amount of dollars and 10 other regions were also selling at that same amount, the buyers would buy from the region with the higher UN rating first then down to the lowest. When buying, I could always pay more and get product (if available) but If I tried to pay market price for products, It would seem that other regions could get product and more of it while I got a less amount or was left out completely when I had a low UN rating. I really couldnt ever verify that though because it was unknown if those regions were actually selling/buying at the same price as my region. I also couldnt determine if your allies had a preference for your region or for their other allied regions. I havent watched this very closely on the SRCW games because the info that shows whos buying and selling isnt there any more.

 

[Tikinaattori]

Alright, I had 56.7% DAR when I was at peace. If Japan starts the war, my DAR rises to 62.4 and if China declares, my DAR drops to 20.1%. This probably explains the huge drop in taxes. It seems to take a long time for that DAR to return where it was, but slowly my tax rates are returning where they were. Drop in GDP/c seems unavoidable, so just have to take that as a price of war. So I apologize, the game seems to be function just fine ( it's understandable that your people are not thrilled if you start totally unjustified wars ), it was just me who was too hasty and did not understood the mechanics correctly

Thank you for the info Hundane!

 

[Lithuanian2]

When in my game as Sweden I've declared wars on countless countries and am currently employing 13 max loaded research centers + max military spenditure and... my economy is pretty good at 50% social expenditure and 50% taxation. The game is too easy. I don't know why but I win all wars easily. Even against USSR. Maybe they don't max military budget? Maybe they have serious supply problems? I just point my troops to the capital of the enemy and they slowly go there and take it with minimal losses. It always works. I mainly produce mechanized infantry units. I'm not even flooding. When I had 100+ units i stopped producing most of the times.

 

[Tikinaattori]

I've noticed the same thing too, but I only play with medium military difficulty, and higher diffulty settings probably give more challenge.

But there's few thing that I've noticed, and one is that AI has troubles concentrating it's strength. It usually brings units one by one to get slaughtered, and I assume it has much higher loss tolerance than what I'm using ( none ). Also AI is totally ignorant of any sea threats their merchant marines encounter. One pack of submarines can sink hundreds of units in the same spot, and AI still keeps on bringing more. Big countries like USSR seem to be special cases too, since they really don't use all their units. There could be a full blown war in their european front they are losing badly, and still hundreds of units are just idling at siberia doing nothing. Maybe AI is a bit too paranoid and afraid to leave any border unsecure...

 

[Lithuanian2]

I agree about the unit concentration problem. It's a really big one. A concentrated attack on a unconcentrated enemy is always devastating. As for loss tolerance, I think it's always medium for AI. i know that loss tolerance is not something in the formula of my success because it's always medium-high for me. I like my units to take much damage before returning for repairs.

 

[Balthagor]

FYI, on very hard the AI does concentrate its forces more but there is always the concern of having the AI deploy forces in "logical" ways. Problem is that logical is predictable. Plus, human players will focus massively in one area and take risks of leaving themselves open in other places. If you built the AI this way we'd be told the AI is stupid and leaves itself open

AI programming is, as one would expect, very difficult.

I've taken some notes form this thread to pass along to our programmer. I sadly can shed little light on the internal mechanics of the economy, that's George's design.