I post this in this forum, may be someone is interested.
Two weeks ago there was an interesting thread in the general forum concerning the CG economic model and tech advance mechanics compared to the BG model.
The thread is
The ever-increasing costs of manufacturies
I tried to address some of the point yves stated in his posts with changes to the configuration files. I focused my effort essentially on these points:
lower trade revenues, expecially exotic CoTs;
lower money in general, but with focus in the second part of the game;
enhance role of monarchs skill in tech advance;
partially tone down colonization.
I'll try to explain breefly what i made. If someone is interested i'll put the modified files on the net.
All the modifications are tested in 1.08 CG Off-Hand games. Now i'm testing a game playing as England.
First of all i reduced exotic goods prices (goods.csv), expecially chinaware (20 to 4) and spices (20 to 5) to lower the weigth of chinese provinces on east-indies and Siberia CoTs. I even rise cloth and iron a bit to rebalance Europe and RotW economies.
Second i heavyly lowered the effect of infrastructure and trade technology on revenues (trade.csv and infra.csv); the increase is now 2% for each level, starting from 20% at level 0 till 40% at level 10. This drastically lower the money you gain with production and trade (montly income), expecially in the end game. From OH games i found the montly income in the end game is cut from 35% to 55%. I even modified tax_stab.csv in a similar fashion Real EU does to reduce yearly income. To compensate the overall reduction in yearly and montly income i reshape the "expected date" for land, naval, infra and trade techology to achieve rougly the higher level in 1792.
This kind of changes have these effect on the game (compared Offhand games results):
Exotic CoTs revenues are tone down. American CoTs rougly 40% less, African and East-Indies CoTs 80% less. This pretty well compensate the inclusion of cinese provinces in East-Indies and Siberian CoTs.
China, Mysore, ecc.. are no more the leading tech nation
In 1792 they are nearly the weakest.
The montly income is cut from 35% to 55% (around 1770).
Treasury (summing all nations) in the end game is cut by 50%.
The overall economy is reduced. Total buildings (bailiffs, cityrigths, etc..) from 1400 to 800 average, manufactory from 120 to 80 average.
I think the reduction of the trade and infrastructure modifiers is an interesting completition to the tax_stab modification introduced firstly in Real EU and now optional in ICG. This is true expecially in the end game, where trade and production revenues are very high and the AI tend to put a big part of the montly income in the treasury, partially overcomeing the reduction due to the tax_stab modifier (sadly i didn't find a way to lower gold income).
Moreover changing goods prices is an easy way to reshape the world economy to one's tastes.
Now the two remainig points, monarchs skill and colonitazion.
Lowering the effect of trade and infrastructure on the montly income i wanted to obtain two effects: less money in the end game, enhance the ratio between monarch skill and money in the budget for the tech advance so that monarch skills WOULD BE A FACTOR in the tech advance.
The reduction of the montly income alone is not enough to balance things; the best king contribute 36D montly to tech advance while, after all my modifications, the montly bugdet is 80-150D average(end game). IHMO to achieve a "king driven" technology advance i need at least a multiplying skill factor of 2 in the first century, 3 in the second and 4 in the last. This is a lot less than the impact the monarch skill has in the BG but a lot better than the "nobody cares" of the CG. Wouldn't be nice to have a rising Prussia-Brandeburg and declining Spain in the last century of the game?
Sadly i didn't find a way to do this. The game accepts skills higher than 9, i.e. no crashes when loading, but then in the budget window the value is cut to it's maximum allowed.
I even tryed an indirect way using historical events. The idea is that if you have a 5 MIL monarch that rules 10 years he contributes totally 600D to tech advance so to triple his contribute you need an event that add 1200D to tech advance. The "historical events" file has this kind of events but the contribute is not fixed, it's 1/4 of the current tecnology cost so you cannot even estimate the amount that is added.
If someone has an idea on how to multiply the monarch skill i would really appreciate.
The only change i made in the colonitazion area is to lower colonial dynamism. Other parameters are hardcoded. The result is not so satisfactory, merely eastetic. I mean no England in N. America in 1510, a little bit more Portugal's TPs in Brazil and France colonies in N. America but nothing that really change the game in this area. Moreover reducing colonial dynamism has the effect that the "open slot" are filled by minors like Papal States, Hanseatic League etc. I observed the same effect in Real EU, only one OH indeed, so this impression may be incorrect.
IHMO the colonization pace in OH games is not that bad. Problems arise when a nation is led by human player, and you can build a huge colonial empire with a single montly colonist. Ther's no way to have a challenging game in the new world been a colonial nation; to achieve this we need a loooot smarter AI.
I'll post results of my game as England, but it would take a week at least.
Ciao
Two weeks ago there was an interesting thread in the general forum concerning the CG economic model and tech advance mechanics compared to the BG model.
The thread is
The ever-increasing costs of manufacturies
I tried to address some of the point yves stated in his posts with changes to the configuration files. I focused my effort essentially on these points:
lower trade revenues, expecially exotic CoTs;
lower money in general, but with focus in the second part of the game;
enhance role of monarchs skill in tech advance;
partially tone down colonization.
I'll try to explain breefly what i made. If someone is interested i'll put the modified files on the net.
All the modifications are tested in 1.08 CG Off-Hand games. Now i'm testing a game playing as England.
First of all i reduced exotic goods prices (goods.csv), expecially chinaware (20 to 4) and spices (20 to 5) to lower the weigth of chinese provinces on east-indies and Siberia CoTs. I even rise cloth and iron a bit to rebalance Europe and RotW economies.
Second i heavyly lowered the effect of infrastructure and trade technology on revenues (trade.csv and infra.csv); the increase is now 2% for each level, starting from 20% at level 0 till 40% at level 10. This drastically lower the money you gain with production and trade (montly income), expecially in the end game. From OH games i found the montly income in the end game is cut from 35% to 55%. I even modified tax_stab.csv in a similar fashion Real EU does to reduce yearly income. To compensate the overall reduction in yearly and montly income i reshape the "expected date" for land, naval, infra and trade techology to achieve rougly the higher level in 1792.
This kind of changes have these effect on the game (compared Offhand games results):
Exotic CoTs revenues are tone down. American CoTs rougly 40% less, African and East-Indies CoTs 80% less. This pretty well compensate the inclusion of cinese provinces in East-Indies and Siberian CoTs.
China, Mysore, ecc.. are no more the leading tech nation
In 1792 they are nearly the weakest.The montly income is cut from 35% to 55% (around 1770).
Treasury (summing all nations) in the end game is cut by 50%.
The overall economy is reduced. Total buildings (bailiffs, cityrigths, etc..) from 1400 to 800 average, manufactory from 120 to 80 average.
I think the reduction of the trade and infrastructure modifiers is an interesting completition to the tax_stab modification introduced firstly in Real EU and now optional in ICG. This is true expecially in the end game, where trade and production revenues are very high and the AI tend to put a big part of the montly income in the treasury, partially overcomeing the reduction due to the tax_stab modifier (sadly i didn't find a way to lower gold income).
Moreover changing goods prices is an easy way to reshape the world economy to one's tastes.
Now the two remainig points, monarchs skill and colonitazion.
Lowering the effect of trade and infrastructure on the montly income i wanted to obtain two effects: less money in the end game, enhance the ratio between monarch skill and money in the budget for the tech advance so that monarch skills WOULD BE A FACTOR in the tech advance.
The reduction of the montly income alone is not enough to balance things; the best king contribute 36D montly to tech advance while, after all my modifications, the montly bugdet is 80-150D average(end game). IHMO to achieve a "king driven" technology advance i need at least a multiplying skill factor of 2 in the first century, 3 in the second and 4 in the last. This is a lot less than the impact the monarch skill has in the BG but a lot better than the "nobody cares" of the CG. Wouldn't be nice to have a rising Prussia-Brandeburg and declining Spain in the last century of the game?
Sadly i didn't find a way to do this. The game accepts skills higher than 9, i.e. no crashes when loading, but then in the budget window the value is cut to it's maximum allowed.
I even tryed an indirect way using historical events. The idea is that if you have a 5 MIL monarch that rules 10 years he contributes totally 600D to tech advance so to triple his contribute you need an event that add 1200D to tech advance. The "historical events" file has this kind of events but the contribute is not fixed, it's 1/4 of the current tecnology cost so you cannot even estimate the amount that is added.
If someone has an idea on how to multiply the monarch skill i would really appreciate.
The only change i made in the colonitazion area is to lower colonial dynamism. Other parameters are hardcoded. The result is not so satisfactory, merely eastetic. I mean no England in N. America in 1510, a little bit more Portugal's TPs in Brazil and France colonies in N. America but nothing that really change the game in this area. Moreover reducing colonial dynamism has the effect that the "open slot" are filled by minors like Papal States, Hanseatic League etc. I observed the same effect in Real EU, only one OH indeed, so this impression may be incorrect.
IHMO the colonization pace in OH games is not that bad. Problems arise when a nation is led by human player, and you can build a huge colonial empire with a single montly colonist. Ther's no way to have a challenging game in the new world been a colonial nation; to achieve this we need a loooot smarter AI.
I'll post results of my game as England, but it would take a week at least.
Ciao
