Revenue Sources

[BiB]

I think that's just the amount of merchants a nation has. Numbers behind the comma are used to determine when they get a new one and are saved that way. 2.833333 just means it has that many merchants. The 0.833333 means it is very close in time terms to getting a new one.

 

[BiB]

When it comes to ur issue, I have to agree with the common feeling that trade is way exaggerated in the game as source of income. How to exactly fix this is another thing. May need a lot of tweaking and testing as it may influence a lot. If trade income really goes down for example, tech development will suffer and so on.

 

[Sidney]

Re: Yes it helps, though not exactly

Originally posted by Savant
the answer I wanted to hear.

So, all in all:

1. trade is overstated

Adjustment of (1) goods.csv and (2) trade.csv can be used to reduce (1) value of COTs and (2) net trade from merchants in this regard.

2. infra effeiciencies vary widely between nations

The infrastructure tech settings can be used to refkect this. Several folks are editing events and this could be included for some nations to boost their infrastructure beyond random and monarch bonuses

This is correct.

[/i]
The major problem is what you conclude:

That is, I don't know of a way to minimize the benefit of trade without making it a "cost". As you intimated, the issue is the cost of merchants relative to returns in the COTs. The problem Cunctator's original settings had here are going to be revisited if COTs (goods.csv) and trade efficiencies (trade.csv) are set too low.
Also, the need is to maintain a balance such that minors are not disenfranchised 20 years into the game. A pacific minor surrounded by friendly majors should thrive, not face repeated instances of bankruptcy. As it is, trade is essential to minors being viable and less so for majors. Majors can draw on sheer size to capitalize on infra whereas minors require the trade to sustain themselves as viable political entities.
So we may have to "live with" some economic imbalance where trade plays a greater role than it actually did - especially with respect to majors. One alternative is to also lower the starting trade tech levels of majors and have them "catch-up" to minors so that minors enjoy a period of less fierce competition except among themselves.
Other opinions? [/QUOTE]

The cost of merchnats is really not that bad- unless the AI sends its own merchants like it does mine- and can be figured in by not lowering the costs of all goods as much.

Minors have too much cash anyway- at least based on their army build sizes. Minor powers are just that- minor. The game balance is off as a whole allowing them too large a role (Brittany has an army the same size as France's in my most recent game). If the trade changes force minor armies to be only 1/2 the size they currently are you've taken a major step towards reality. If your concern is poure game balance where minors need huge armies becuase of the similarly oversized major forces and diplomatic rules that make annexation too easy could you move minors into less expensive Build Groups to keep their build ability consistent relative to the decline in their revenue?

The oversized armies sit at the core of this problem. If the minors loose cash then they won't have any way to defend against the majors but if you try and keep them where they are while lowering funds for the majors then you increase even more an artifically overpowered set of minors.

 

[State Machine]

Savant

Problem fixed and new version emailed to you (and Cunctator).

If anyone else on this very interesting thread wants to test my tool, please contact me (PM or StateMachine@bigfoot.com). It is currently in a "beta" state. It needs to be run on different platforms to make sure it can, not to mention get any comments about features/utility, etc.

From my readme:

This utility monitors the EU Save Games folder, and archives save files as they occur to an archive folder. Archived save files are named with save year as a prefix. Multiple save files for the same year have a numerical suffix appended.

This tool adds convenience to players who make regular saves on their own (e.g. annually). With this tool, you can rely on the autosave mechanism in EU to perform the save, while getting a unique save file name for each save. This tool is also very useful for players who perform "hands off" games for research. An entire history of save games can be captured without human intervention.

 

[unmerged(2650)]

I left for a day and there's a bulk of info to catch up

I found the discussion very interesting. I haven't much to add, i've just expressed my thought about the need of trade and revenues decrease in other threads. As i can see there is a large convergence on this matter, starting from Real EU settings to finish with players 'house mods' (my setting may be classified in this category too). I started from a gameplay prospective and it's nice to see there is even an historical justification behind this reasoning.

Talking about my settings i'm still convinced it's the right way to go. This looking at my own litte experience (one played game). May be the range i originally choosed (20%-40% from level 0 to 10) is too much restrictive but i think a suitable range should not be very different. To me, playing as England, trading is still a viable option, even with the original merchant's deployment costs; indeed you are forced to behave in a different manner compared to the original game:

- Establishing a monopoly in your own european CoTs is not worth it because competition is fierce, better maintain level 5 with less investment to gain a small net revenue;

- Investing in other nation's rich european CoTs is barely on pare;

- You can afford a complete monopoly (20/20) in your own exotic CoTs with good revenues (good compared to the overall revenues reduction).

In the original game you can compete, as a player, virtually in every CoT and gain a big net revenue.

If you play a major this kind of settings makes the game more challenging and even more historical, if you play a minor you are strictly contained. But minor is just that, a minor oh well, this is my opinion indeed

Obviously this is my experience, other's may differ.

 

[Savant]

Been doing more HO runs

and what I have seen is the following based on these rough changes:

- edited goods.csv, trade.csv and infra.csv as described earlier (just some value changes have been made, but trend was maintained)

- edited AI files so that every nation has at least TRADE=10 for monopolistic tendencies; lowered those that were high to allow some competition; made England, Austria, & Poland more aggressive

- edited buildingcost.csv according to posts here as well as other "rules" I applied (to be explained later)

This is the pattern after some 10 runs:

1. More conformity to historical patterns of predominance among the great powers. Spain is still strong but not the moster she was. The "principals" as they emerge in 1700's are:

- Austria: Does much better; becomes "imperial" (tweeked its WAR= settings up)
- Russia: Expands to the east when not blocked by strong Turkey; reaches Lake Baikal 1650-1700 frequently; when blocked it eats away at Poland more quickly. These were run on IGC 2.0k so reduction of "obscurantism" events may propel Russian growth.
- England: Much stronger and "imperial overseas"; people have to pay for that pint of ale!
- Turkey: Mideast hegemon that expands across south med littoral; significant expansion into SW asia
- Poland: More often than not shows signs of decay by 1700; Russia, Austria, Brandenburg and Turkey frequently assault and pull away provinces
- France: Increased colonization; gets stronger as the game goes on; draws up to Spain by 1700
- Brandenburg: By 1700, she becomes a major most of the time by controlling a swath of territory going from Danzig to the Atlantic. Hannover and Hessen sometime thwart this, but most often Brandenburg is the undisputed primary German state.
- Portugal: Other than somewhat less colonial activity, does about as well as she had before
-Persia: Behaves better now with the strong Russia and Ottoman's often taking some provinces as the game progresses

These observations are positive and there are other good tendencies that I noted in an earlier post. Here is the bad:

- As we suspected, the tech advancement is hampered. This is especially so for Land Tech where the highest levels are 25-30 by game end. So Cunctator was correct in wanting to adjust the cost of tech levels down to compensate. Naval is not as strongly affected, strangely. Naval tech levels are almost always in 20s. I have not used Cunctator's tech files but they may prove helpful for this.

- Still spotty colonizing in Africa, India, and SE Asia. Goods.csv changes may have made these provinces less attractive. Western hemisphere colonization is unaffected.

- Still huge treasuries though not as bad as they were. Still, seeing China sitting on 40k of ducats by game's end just makes me shake my head.

BTW, I don't think the minors are overpowered (at least as I have seen them). Instead, the biggest problem is the power relationship between majors which is improved with these settings. Minors apparently are not making out like bandits as there are few with anything near 500 ducats in their treasury. 10-15 of the nations have >1000 ducats and these are largely the Indian and Oriental states followed by majors. Occassionally a minor like Brandenburg will have 1000 ducats, but they are the most successful minors.

I am going to do a few more runs using Cunctator's tech files (to see if that corrects for the tech problem which is most glaring) and then I can forward the zipped files to those who want to try them out themselves. If you would like a copy, let me know. I have yet to get a website up for downloading and don't expect I will have one until I get back from in late June.

Later today I will post settings for Buildingcost.csv and explain the rationale for assigning values.

 

[BiB]

Sounds good.

 

[Sidney]

Let us know when the new stuff is up as I'd like a copy of the zip myself.

 

[Savant]

The buildingcosts.csv file I have been using

is posted in the "Additional candidate files for the IGC" thread.

Feedback is welcome even if it is just based on looking at the values and not actual use.

 

[Mohe]

Re: Been doing more HO runs

Originally posted by Savant
and what I have seen is the following based on these rough changes:

- Still huge treasuries though not as bad as they were. Still, seeing China sitting on 40k of ducats by game's end just makes me shake my head.

While I am not sure about my own feelings on these changes. China's continued massive surplus seeems realistic in one warped sense:

In this period Chinese taxation and the administration of economic resources was for very complicated historical reasons very low, resources were mobilized in about the most inneffective manner imaginable (by European standards at least, however from the chinese pov it was a very rational system that worked extremely well until European powers appeared afteer the time period of the game). In effect the China was using a different economic model than other states, and yet in earlier periods (especially the Song dynasty) it had shown the ability to be very efficient in creating state revenue when the situation (massive northern invasions)

The point of all this is that it seems quite historical to me for China because of it's limitations on spending to generate huge surpluses that could be mobilized in thge event somebody tries to invade

 

[unmerged(2650)]

Obviously i'm eagerly waiting these files

You can send it at mmelacini@infinito.it. Thanks. If you want i can post it with mine's.

I'm very interested in changes you made (ai files & buildingcosts) to change the way each nation act through the ages to follow a more historical path.

As we suspected, the tech advancement is hampered. This is especially so for Land Tech where the highest levels are 25-30 by game end. So Cunctator was correct in wanting to adjust the cost of tech levels down to compensate

This is the reason i changed land and naval tech files. I applied a different decrease rate in the 'expected date' to reflect different behaviouor with land and tech. I used this approach: -40% to the 'year delta' choosing 1492 as base date for land tech, -30% for naval tech. This is tailored for 1.08 to reach roughly the higher level in 1792 for HO games.

 

[unmerged(1689)]

Re: Re: Been doing more HO runs

Originally posted by John Meixner


While I am not sure about my own feelings on these changes. China's continued massive surplus seeems realistic in one warped sense:

In this period Chinese taxation and the administration of economic resources was for very complicated historical reasons very low, resources were mobilized in about the most inneffective manner imaginable (by European standards at least, however from the chinese pov it was a very rational system that worked extremely well until European powers appeared afteer the time period of the game). In effect the China was using a different economic model than other states, and yet in earlier periods (especially the Song dynasty) it had shown the ability to be very efficient in creating state revenue when the situation (massive northern invasions)

The point of all this is that it seems quite historical to me for China because of it's limitations on spending to generate huge surpluses that could be mobilized in thge event somebody tries to invade

Good point. By using the IGC events that reduce relations with the other Asian nations periodically, their money really only is good to respond to invasions. As it should be.

 

[unmerged(2650)]

Sidney

1. Early on (from 1450-1650) the far largest share of gov't revenues came from a direct tax (usually an annual land tax) in almost all cases. Follwoed by excise/tolls and finally customs duties. The UK figures for 1690 (1250 land, 750 excise, 475 customs) propably respresent a ratio typcial of a commercial power pre-1700 since the UK was (even in 1690) better at extracting indirect revenues. I would have to think the ratio would be even lower for France or Russia. Spain is a mess because of the artificial influx of so much silver from the new world. In some states- smaller German states along the Rhine and in Denmark tolls for river/sound traffic were probably higher.

2. After 1650 trade in general began to accelerate as did the rates of excise taxes. This is due to two factors- first a generally better economic climate that promoted trade and internal production but perhaps more importantly the volume of these indirect taxes grew out of proportion to the rate of trade becuase the strengthening of cnetral gov't in places like France, Brandenburg-Prussia and Russia reduced the shrinkiage in tax revenues as it flowed up the hill (now this in no way implies it was effecient but merely that they went from getting maybe (fake numbers but illustrative) 1% to more like 2% which still doubles your revenue so it looks good).
<snip>
In answer to you question I would say that the growth between trade and infrastrcuture is relatively stable throughout the age with both increasing as a ratio to direct taxation from 1650 and on.

look at my post in the "Tweaking teh economic...." thread, i posted some graph and tables.