Economic Rules Discution

[Nobody]

I propose we call production just that "Production" measured in tons. It's produced in factories. If someone want to build 754 tons of production he should be allowed to do just that.

So basically like BP from N3 or am I missing something? Can you elaborate a bit more?

Yes, but without using an (for an outsider) obscure abbreviation representing 1000 tons of production, I would use that directly. And no rule that you need to finish a whole "BP" before you can use it.

[snip]

OK, makes sense. I will have to think about the non-fractional part. I do like not being on a all-off or all-on system for factories. It will address issues that players have with growth. I would prefer to introduce fraction levels at 25% 50% and 75% of a total factory, and then have every unused 1000t add 25% of a factory that could then make 250 additional tons available in the next turn. I think this is a good medium between flexibility and simplicity. Assuming we go with quarters (which is by no means set in stone), that would mean it would take a year to pay of the investment. That seems reasonable to me. It also makes bookkeeping a bit simpler overall as we only have to deal with X X.25 X.5 and X.75 factories. Thoughts?

[Nobody]

I would like to get rid of any sort of grouping snip, that's why I don't want "build points" in the first place.

My idea is:
A has a production capability of 127459 t.
A builds ships and other stuff requiring 89357 t.
That means 38102 t remain unused. Now these may grow by up to x%. If x is e.g. 15% that makes 5715 t. A can get this increase for (low) y $ per ton (if he pays less he gets less). Or ff he has a lot of money A my spend an additional (high) z $ per ton to increase production further.

Sorry for the letters (unknown variables), but I don't want to propose any fixed values yet.

P.S.: I have to admit that I did not understand that last part with the X.** factories.
P.P.S.: You mean it takes a year before the new factories actually start production? In that case yes, good idea.

[snip]

Ok, I think I get it now. So to me, this would make sense if everything else (slips, drydocks, army stuff etc.) was payed for with cash only. Is that something we want to do? With regards to numbers, I think 10% of unused production rounded down to the nearest whole number would be best from a ease of use standpoint. As far as a $ cost for say 1000t blocks, I think it should be about 5-10x the monetary cost of IC (Im assuming that we are leaving the IC system intact aside from ajusting costs to purchase more). I would really like to keep purchasing in blocks for ease of bookkeeping, but am fine with "natural" growth as you propose resulting in "uneven" numbers.

In fact, we could almost work natural IC growth in the same way. Going with Foxy's idea of IC points being assigned to generate cash or research points, we then say any unassigned IC goes into generating new IC at some rate (10% for bookkeeping simplicity?) This would represent, like with your tonnage proposal, the portions not being taped for military use being used to grow the overall system. Thoughts on this?

[Nobody]

No I think we should keep using the production for everything that uses a significant amount of steel or concrete. It will also help to steady growth. Otherwise production could spiral out of control if you decide not to build any ships for a year.
(Note: i expect Production to be significantly higher than demand, at least in peace time)

Also i think research should be tied to production. Imagine a no production country: it has lots of ICs and would be leader in all tech fields, but wouldn't be able to use any because it can't build them.

I like "nice" numbers, but as a excel (actually OpenOffice) user I willing to except "odd" and over the time changing numbers, if that helps the system.

And I would still prefer terms, not quarters.

[snip]

So everything has a tonnage cost? That seems rather odd to me. Why not just keep BP, or some other point system, if that is the case? I get tying production and research (how could you figure it out if you cant build it), tho IMO this makes it simpler to have a BP-like system as opposed to a tonnage one.

I agree that whatever we come up with is all but going to require a spreadsheet. I would still like to keep that spreadsheet simple. I think a points system for production allows this.

[Nobody]

Why is that odd? 1 BP was 1000 tons of steel. If something needs a lot of steel we should account for it, shouldn't we?

There is little difference between BPs, which are 1000 tons of production each, and production itself. Except that production can easily be an integer while BPs are better of to be floating point. Also assuming we want to make research more expansive, then we can more easily switch from say 1 research point per 1000 t of production to e.g 1 point per 1100 and later 1200 tons. (I think in this case the larger numbers are nicer)

[snip]

What I was referring to as odd was the use of Tonnage as the name currency as opposed to a generic industrial unit. Sorry I was not clear on that. I get, and want, things having both an industrial and cash cost. My main point of contention with this is the use of tonnage as the name of the currency. It just seems off to me to pay for things non-naval in a currency with a very naval name. Aside from the name (which is a minute point of contention), I really like the idea.

I have gone ahead and modified the N3 base econ rules, as found here, to reflect what has been discussed so far. Note that I have variables standing in for numbers at this point. Thoughts on this?

The economy of each country is described by three numbers:

- Population (unit of measure:  one million people)
- Industrial Capacity (unit of measure:  one IC)
- Factories (unit of measure: one Industrial Point (IP))

If a country consists of more than one geographic area - such as a homeland and colonies - each is described individually within sim reports.  A country can be split into adjacent regions if it is not considered to be completely integrated (due to geographic, infrastructure, or cultural reasons).

Population

The population of a nation can increase over time.  This is typically determined by the Moderators every two sim-years.  A nation can improve the likelihood of significant population increases through sound political and economic policy, or through specific immigration/family planning measures (which may cost money).  

A nation's policies - especially if prone to engage in war - can also cause population to grow at reduced rates, or perhaps even decline.

Industrial Capacity (IC)

Industrial Capacity is just that - the size of economy.  It abstractly represents a wide variety of industrial activity ranging from mining to banking to tourism.  

A player increases his industrial capacity by purchasing units of its in-game representation, IC.  Each IC costs $X, and produces income in the half-year following its completion.  Players may also earn IC through role-play.

The ratio of IC to population gives a general sense of how developed a region is.  Where population (in millions) exceeds IC, the region is under-developed.  Where the two are close to equal, the region probably has either a modern resource-extraction or agricultural sector or (rarely) a modern service sector (such as tourism or large religious pilgrimages).  Where the IC greatly exceeds the population (in millions), it is likely that the region is heavily industrialized, with large manufacturing and service sectors.

IC can be damaged or destroyed.  Damaged IC requires $X/2 to repair, and produces no revenue in its damaged state.  Destroyed IC is simply lost, although new IC can replace it.

Revenue

Revenue is generated in two six-month turns each year.  Revenue comes from each region's population and IC.  

Each IC produces $1 per half year.  

The population of the region produces $1 per million people, with a limit equal to the number of IC in the region.  

For every million people in excess of the number of IC in the region, only $0.20 is produced.  

Since populaton figures are rarely exact multiples of one million, revenue is likely to be rounded to the nearest hundredth of a dollar.

Example:  an underdeveloped country with a population of twenty-seven million people and five IC would generate $5 from the IC, $5 from five million people with corresponding IC, and (22 * $0.2 =) $4.40 from the twenty-two million people without corresponding IC.  Total revenue is then $14.40.

In peacetime, a nation can spend no more than 50% of its revenue on military projects or civil projects for which there is likely no immediate economic justification.  The remainder may be spent on economic development projects, most typically new IC or Factories  If a nation is mobilized to a war economy, this restriction is lifted.

Revenue can be carried over from the first half of a year to the second half, but not between years.  Unused revenue at the end of a year is lost (which is to say - taken by the government's finance department and put to uses other than those we have here).

Factories and Industrial Points

Factories represent the portion of an economy's capacity to produce capital assets (such as infrastructure or military equipment) that your nation's government has access to.  It is likely that additional capacity exists in your nation but is being used for more menial things such as building houses, paving roads, building civilian shipping, and so forth. Each factory produces a single industrial point per turn.

A player increases his number of factories in two ways. The first is by purchasing factories with cash.   A factory costs $Y, and  becomes functional in the trun following completion. The second way is though applying unused Industrial points to the creation of new factories. Each turn, 10% of the unused IP is turned into new factories.

Factories can be damaged or destroyed; when damaged, 1 factory requires $Y/2 to be repaired.

Players may earn new factories as a result of significantly enhancing gameplay, such as introducing new, participating players.  This is at the discretion of the Moderators.

Using Industrial Points

Industrial Points are not, themselves, a tradeable commodity, nor can they produce a generic tradeable commodity.  As noted above, they instead represent capacity to produce specific items - specifically, those items for which a IP cost is noted in addition to a cash cost.

When making use of his nation's own IP, a player simply notes in his sim report how much IP is being used in each project (ship, army unit, research, etc) purchased or under construction, or for specific items being stockpiled.  As noted above, any unused IP at the end of a turn is converted into a number of factorioes.

When making use of another nation's factories, a player must declare what those specific items he is purchasing.  The second nation may charge the player for the right to make use of those factories - but this does not count against the cash price of whatever item the player is building.  It is strictly a surcharge for the second nation's profit.

Example: Gran Colombia is building a 4,000 t cruiser locally, at a cost of $4. As its own IP is already completely in use, Gran Colombia orders 2,000 t of parts from the Hapsburgers. The Hapsburgers charge $3 for the right to make use of their industry. This $3 is strictly profit for the Hapsburgers - the Colombians must still pay the full $4 cost of the cruiser just as if the parts were all coming from their own factories.

Specific items may be stockpiled indefinitely, without cost, but their future usage is restricted:

-Infrastructure components (Hangers, Airstrips, Ports, Slips, Docks, ect.) can only be used to build or repair those specific types of infrastructure.

Example: Gran Colombia stockpiles 2,000 t of structural material for port construction.

-Army, Ammunition, and Airship components can only be used for a specific nationality, generation (and type, for armies) of unit.

Example: Gran Colombia stockpiles 500 t of ammunition for a baseline GC infantry Corps.

-With respect to ships: specific machinery, armament (plus mountings and their armour) and functional miscellaneous weight (fire control, wireless) may be stockpiled and used where the player sees fit, provided the player is willing to accept that the equipment may not be "current" when installed. Armor and hull components may only be used to build or repair a specific type and class of ship.

Example: Gran Colombia stockpiles a coal-fired 1905 vintage 4000 hp turbine powerplant, and 1,500 t of hull components for a Puerta Espana class protected cruiser.

Specific items may be removed from stockpile and scrapped, per warship scrapping rules, at any time.

[snip]

Seeing as this has garnered no comments over the past few days, Im going to assume that this is ok.

[Nobody]

Actually I too stressed to look at something this lengthy. Also it appears to be a confusing mix of old, new and very old stuff.

[snip]

All I did was sub in the idea of factories/industrial points instead of BP and I removed the monetary cost to construct IC and BP/factories and replaced them with variables.

[Desertfox]

Well one thing I was thinking is that after all this is mainly a naval sim, hence I would suggest keeping BPs or equivalent only for shipbuilding, and use some money system for everything else. WW has worked great for a long time with just tonnage.

[Darman]

From the perspective of the Ottoman Empire and Austro-Hungary, particularly the OE, with long land borders, their ability to maintain a large army doesn't depend on BP it depends on cash, so the OE has a choice: buy a large warship from overseas or raise an army corps.  The navy requires the infrastructure support the OE can't really build themselves very easily (not a lot of BP).  The army requires only cash.  So you can in theory make the OE flush. 

[snip]

Well one thing I was thinking is that after all this is mainly a naval sim, hence I would suggest keeping BPs or equivalent only for shipbuilding, and use some money system for everything else. WW has worked great for a long time with just tonnage.

Opps, missed replying to this :-[

I feel that if we are going to a two currency system, we should go "all in" on it. As we are not making the currency just tonnage, other things do require industrial output and I feel we should continue to use that.

[Tanthalas]

Snip the reason we shifted to the light tonage for cost is the inflation algorythim in SS gets "funky" after about 1910 (as in the cost of the exact same ship starts to realy get out of hand with possible economic growth).