Pride of Nations

[grumbler]

The the end of every turn there are dozens of messages about incoming and outcoming private capital and state funds.  Is there a ledger or summary screen that presents this information in a single chart?  haven't found one yet.

That's all presented, good-by-good, in the F4 economics screen.  The game needs a trade screen, I agree, because doing it nation by nation and trade region by trade region is much more work than it should be.

It isn't at all clear to me whether I should be trading for luxury goods to sell into my home market or not.  It seems to me that I am getting the same price I am paying, and I tax the exchange, so it seems good, but the more of this I do, the less capital I seem to have.

[Tamas]

Yeah the north pole thing looks like a new bug introduced with the public beta patch

They just replaced Samoa with North Pole instead of ramping up involvement needed to fire crisis.    How hard it might be to implement?   

Dude, that has been tweaked. No crisis until at least 15% penetrations or somesuch. The North Pole thing is a bug

[The Minsky Moment]

That's all presented, good-by-good, in the F4 economics screen.  The game needs a trade screen, I agree, because doing it nation by nation and trade region by trade region is much more work than it should be. 

I was looking for more like a single summary presenting all the private capital inflow and expenditures in line items, and same for state funds.  rather than have to scroll through all the messages which are not always in order.

It isn't at all clear to me whether I should be trading for luxury goods to sell into my home market or not.  It seems to me that I am getting the same price I am paying, and I tax the exchange, so it seems good, but the more of this I do, the less capital I seem to have.

If you get the same price domestically you paid for the import, then the net effect on private capital should be zero (capitalist pay for the imports but then get the money back in sales to domestic consumers).  But to the extent the import is taxed via tariffs, it would effectively convert some private capital into state funds.  I think.   

[grumbler]

I was looking for more like a single summary presenting all the private capital inflow and expenditures in line items, and same for state funds.  rather than have to scroll through all the messages which are not always in order.

I agree this is a gotta-have in order to figure out what is going on, because the F4 summary just gives estimates of what should happen, and its predictions are always wrong - but the reasons for them being wrong are unclear.  I always lose capital in the last few turns, when my setup and the F4 summary inictae I should be gaining it, by a lot.

If you get the same price domestically you paid for the import, then the net effect on private capital should be zero (capitalist pay for the imports but then get the money back in sales to domestic consumers).  But to the extent the import is taxed via tariffs, it would effectively convert some private capital into state funds.  I think.   

Yes - it is unclear whether what they call a tariff is really a tariff, or whether it is corporate tax.  The tooltip says that it is the same as the corporate tax, but on the value of imports rather than total consumption, and the latter tax is paid by the buyer of goods on the home market, not the seller (I think - the game isn't clear on this, but the general populace is unhappy about corporate taxes, not the wealthy).

In any case, I am running about $150 capital less each turn than I should be according to the projections, and can't figure out why.  If I bought everything and sold nothing on the international market, that still wouldn't make the delta, I don't think.  I think it must be taxation, but I'd like to know.

I'd also like to know why the world market seems so wonky.  Last turn, demand for manufactured goods worldwide was at 31, with 13 being offered.  I offered 18 MG from the US, and sold one... the demand remained the same, with more MG demanded than available for sale even including the ones I put up for sale and no one bought, and the price dropped 20% (from $15 to $13). 

Yeah, we need that actual trade ledger.  Trade is way too much of a black box at the moment (though goods not involving the player's country may be working - I have seen tea prices rise with a tea shortage, and then drop with a loss of demand).

[Drakken]

Seems the new patch is up in the Tech Forum.

[Ed Anger]

Just seen the Prussians move 600,000+ men and 800 cannons through my territory. To crush mighty Württemberg.

lolz.

[HisMajestyBOB]

Just seen the Prussians move 600,000+ men and 800 cannons through my territory. To crush mighty Württemberg.

lolz.

Serves them right for challenging Prussia's god-given claim to the North Pole! 

[Ed Anger]

Just seen the Prussians move 600,000+ men and 800 cannons through my territory. To crush mighty Württemberg.

lolz.

Serves them right for challenging Prussia's god-given claim to the North Pole! 

It wasn't even a crisis. It was a forged caucus belli and bam! next turn, war. Then there was a string of Prussian forces  all along the line where they was marching to get to them. I hope they enjoyed Innsbruck in winter.

[grumbler]

Something is seriously broken in the world trading system and national AIs; stell, in my current game, is down to $7 a unit on the world market, while it costs $12.1 to make.  World supply of steel on the market is 117, while demand is only 45 (and 40 of that is my own demand - the US).  If the AI is at all rational, it wouldn't be making steel to export at such a huge loss.  The cost of the minerals to make the steel is higher than the value of the resulting steel output, all by itself.

[The Minsky Moment]

Minerals seem to be in short supply at game start.  Problem may be shortage of minerals and AI not putting enough emphasis on mining them, thus driving up the production cost.

It does make a certain amount of sense that steel is oversupplied b/c it is desirable from the POV of each country to produce a surplus for industrialization.

[grumbler]

Minerals seem to be in short supply at game start.  Problem may be shortage of minerals and AI not putting enough emphasis on mining them, thus driving up the production cost.

It does make a certain amount of sense that steel is oversupplied b/c it is desirable from the POV of each country to produce a surplus for industrialization.

If minerals were not needed at all in manufacturing steel, it would still cost twice as much to make the steel as steel is getting on the world market.  Countries should stop making steel and buy it on the market under those conditions (certainly i am), and this would have the effect of driving up the price of steel and driving down the cost of making it.  Alternatively, countries should simply stockpile the steel they make.  The current system, where the player-country sells the raw materials for a steel plant for $102 (demand is high for all of those products bar the $12 worth of coal) and then buys the steel he would otherwise have made for $42 (and doesn't have to pay the $13 to his steel workers in that plant) is simply wrong. And the player can't just ignore the quirk because the artificially high prices for the raw materials means the player cannot affordably make steel himself.

The model just needs tweaking.

The other thing I find ironic is that opium is a luxury item, and one of the few available to the world early on, so I am buying all the world's opium (suck on that, China!) in order to keep my millionaires happy!    Cokehead fratboys FTW!

[The Minsky Moment]

I think they made the raw materials tight early on to encourage colonization.  But I agree that is just not right.

[Drakken]

Surrendered and bought the damn beast. 

[Norgy]

"West Point closed due to a lack of resources".



Pacifism won.

[Tamas]

I think they made the raw materials tight early on to encourage colonization.  But I agree that is just not right.

Uhm, actually, raw materials are, if anything, at abundance for most great powers. It is something we have been trying to properly adjust with the betas. You see, sure, you dont have that much coal mines right at the start with France, but presently the possibility to build on the rest of your reserves is mostly there so in a short time you won't need to import German coal. The agricultural situation is similar. It is, in my opinion, a bit too easy to keep your populace content with what you can produce on your own soil. But then again, it should not be that hard either, not in the 1850s at least. A tricky thing to balance, but at least in PoN's case "it could be better" and not "its completely fucked up" as with Vicky 2.