Thoughts after completing a full game in the 1.9.6 beta

[strattonthebard]

IIRC, the devs did talk about it precisely on my terms (or me on theirs) – that in the end, as Gold in itself is just "the mint resource" instead of a product in itself, it encompasses other mintable resources.

I mean, you could consider having a journal entry on that and change the name to the good to reflect that it is Silver instead, but in the end, there are Gold mines in places where the resource is mainly Silver because of it just being a catchall to the "Minting" mine.

Right, the difference between the standards probably shouldn't be about changing the name of mines or anything. Although most of the issues that link into the currency standard debate like inflation and recession don't exist in the game currently so there's not much reason to include it without those mechanics

 

[LazyKatie]

The OP is talking about minting from GDP, not gold income. Minting from GDP which gives substantial amounts of free money to late-game economies which makes taxes irrelevant.

if you're getting so much minting from gdp that your taxes are irrelevant you're probably just playing a really small economy, the minting from gdp has a cap at 200 million gdp

 

[Desseabar]

IIRC, the devs did talk about it precisely on my terms (or me on theirs) – that in the end, as Gold in itself is just "the mint resource" instead of a product in itself, it encompasses other mintable resources.

By this logic, during the ACW, cotton plantations should start generating gold with cotton bonds

Right, the difference between the standards probably shouldn't be about changing the name of mines or anything. Although most of the issues that link into the currency standard debate like inflation and recession don't exist in the game currently so there's not much reason to include it without those mechanics

The "gameplay" switching from bimetallism to the gold standard should immediately make most silver mines unprofitable, evaporate a huge chunk of wealth, and constrict your economy, while staying with bimetallism for too long should lead to the global economy soaking up your gold and sticking you with all their soon-to-be-useless silver.

But again, I think the silver->gold recession is probably the least fun part of a gold standard to engage with. Liquidity, bank runs, and specie flows are a lot more interesting to interact with.

if you're getting so much minting from gdp that your taxes are irrelevant you're probably just playing a really small economy, the minting from gdp has a cap at 200 million gdp

200mn is still a lot, that's nearly 10x Britain's starting GDP. The current gameplay has a much bigger private sector and much smaller public sector share of GDP.
Checking through the wiki, minting is 5.2% of GDP. That's a lot of money! Per Our World in Data, that would allow 1900 France to cover the entire cost of its military twice-over.

 

[cyberrb25]

By this logic, during the ACW, cotton plantations should start generating gold with cotton bonds

I mean, cotton doesn't even generate cotton, but fabric. Which in itself should, for instance, be generated in a loom (which is a pre- and an industrial building). Neither does the Ranching, which should instead give leather or woold and not cotton. Those are other simplifications, outside the Gold and Silver we've been considering, to reduce the computation of additional goods in a market and their consumptions.

 

[Troyen]

Isn't gold income technically considered part of minting? Either way, they serve the same purpose, which is a continual spigot of money generated each week. I think the topic diverged a bit to discuss what minting means during the Victorian era and how that ties in with the gold standard – especially since 'minting' is free money in an era notorious for deflation.

Right now it definitely feels like minting is too generous: I don't think I've had 'very high' taxes on even once during 1.9, so I hope the next update pulls that back a bit.

What nations are you playing? For backwards countries minting is pretty critical since you can only squeeze so much out of taxes when your population has literally nothing. There are a number of techs that increase the value of minting, so if you're playing a microstate that starts with some of those researched, you'll have a different experience than countries which don't.

Also, keep in mind, even if you never play those types of countries, the AI does. I think players are able to get away with lower expenses or smarter expense allocation than AI countries, especially when you compare how much various countries spend in a typical war, as an example.

 

[Desseabar]

What nations are you playing? For backwards countries minting is pretty critical since you can only squeeze so much out of taxes when your population has literally nothing. There are a number of techs that increase the value of minting, so if you're playing a microstate that starts with some of those researched, you'll have a different experience than countries which don't.

Also, keep in mind, even if you never play those types of countries, the AI does. I think players are able to get away with lower expenses or smarter expense allocation than AI countries, especially when you compare how much various countries spend in a typical war, as an example.

Half of my 1.9 runs are unrecognized microstates; basically your entire government revenue comes from minting, especially since you have no construction expenses (because the marginal cost of one construction center is way too high when you get 10 CP for free). That basically means you can run with very low taxes for half the game, relying only on minting.

This results in the AI microstates building a bunch of buildings with no employment, so by the time anyone conquers Rwanda or Bornu there's an entire fledgling industry set up. Personally, I'd rather have lower minting so that it's harder to industrialize these areas; it felt a bit silly in my Rwanda run to have an entire tooling and steel industry set up before I'd even made contact with Britain.

 

[LazyKatie]

By this logic, during the ACW, cotton plantations should start generating gold with cotton bonds


The "gameplay" switching from bimetallism to the gold standard should immediately make most silver mines unprofitable, evaporate a huge chunk of wealth, and constrict your economy, while staying with bimetallism for too long should lead to the global economy soaking up your gold and sticking you with all their soon-to-be-useless silver.

But again, I think the silver->gold recession is probably the least fun part of a gold standard to engage with. Liquidity, bank runs, and specie flows are a lot more interesting to interact with.


200mn is still a lot, that's nearly 10x Britain's starting GDP. The current gameplay has a much bigger private sector and much smaller public sector share of GDP.
Checking through the wiki, minting is 5.2% of GDP. That's a lot of money! Per Our World in Data, that would allow 1900 France to cover the entire cost of its military twice-over.

well keep in mind, you have a lot more to cover than just military in your expenses, most notably construction is the main thing your budget will generally be going towards, but even that aside there's also unis, government admins, the subsidies if you're running any, and welfare if you have it

 

[Voidian]

My late game income as multicultural Brazil

Minting is neat and all but... 368k isn't a whole lot compared to everything else.

It's close to government dividends and I played as LF for several decades, I have almost no government buildings.

Medium taxes, graduated taxation.

 

[yurcick]

While having limited options to spend money is one of the game’s problems, still, a much more important factor is very unreasonable taxation levels and overblown state income.
Countries tax 20-40% of pops’ income in mid 19th century, like it’s some Soviet Union already.

This has game design base. Basically, in early game versions there was nothing to do but build, and building required money. Now the situation with “player mostly building stuff” is still there, but not nearly as terrible as 2-3 years ago, and I hope that broad balance around government income and expenses eventually gets changed to something more realistic.

 

[z3rO_]

How is it physically possible to not know on how to spend money? Even as a small backwater country? I have minting, money from pacts, and max taxes and I still have to wiggle my construction on and off to not go into debt. Nothing to say of actually having a military and navy!

I would wager you should instead use your massive minting income to build more construction sectors or bigger army. If you try to build stuff at a proper pace money is always a problem, and a pathetic 200k won't solve it.

 

[Amina144]

Quite disagree.
The game has positioned itself as a simulator from its inception.
The last thing we need is forced specialisation. There are plenty of natural reasons and incentives for specialisation, and the game needs to represent them, and not become some gamey arcade of "choose your bonus for this playthrough".

It tires to position itself as a simulation but it is very poor at it. That is why it is adding stuff like Companies.

 

[maruta074]

The wages of the executive branch increase as the game progresses, but the price of paper remains almost constant. Also, towards the end of the game, there is a surplus of taxation capacity but a shortage of administrative power.

Considering these factors, I think the overall balance can be improved by reducing the amount of paper consumed by the executive branch and reducing the taxation capacity acquired through technology. The tax revenue system can be considered afterwards.

 

[yurcick]

It tires to position itself as a simulation but it is very poor at it. That is why it is adding stuff like Companies.

I get your point that it's weird that the player is now focusing on companies so much. And it's unrealistic that they are all pros, no cons. But I can't say I'm against companies completely.
Yes, they're gamey, but they're less gamey than when they were introduced, the vector taken is good.

There are like 4 necessary steps left to make me absolutely in love with them
1) separate investment pools and proper money tracking. Companies should not borrow from IP, companies should not put anything into IP
2) more companies in general to dilute the importance of each individual one, possible organic emergence of companies
3) removing insane throughput/construction bonuses they've got (or at least make them 3-5 times less powerful), and instead, make companies the drivers of innovation and vessels of innovation spread. So that they don't have any built-in bespoke advantage, but their buildings tend to have more innovations applied to them and thus more effective
4) adding political angle to them. Instead of insane clout effects executives now have, companies should struggle for monopolistic (or at least business-friendly and worker-unfriendly) laws, petition and lobby their governments, and in extreme cases, organise coups

The third point is the most expensive in development, but I'd argue we need it anyway.

 

[Athius]

How is it physically possible to not know on how to spend money? Even as a small backwater country? I have minting, money from pacts, and max taxes and I still have to wiggle my construction on and off to not go into debt. Nothing to say of actually having a military and navy!

I would wager you should instead use your massive minting income to build more construction sectors or bigger army. If you try to build stuff at a proper pace money is always a problem, and a pathetic 200k won't solve it.

I had restored Poland and maxed out (and teched-out) all my construction sectors in all states. I had all salaries at max and taxes on lowest. I was giving money away to AI nations to get them in my powerblock, my only real potentially infinite expenditure.