Economics questions

[KWorld]

Guys,

A couple questions on the economics rules as they sit:

1 - the numbers for buying more IC seem ..... odd.  The way they work, with the escalating cost, substantially penalizes those countries that lack a large number of colonies, and benefit those countries with the reverse situation (at least as long as the colonies don't rebel).  This seems odd, considering how Germany, the US, etc, grew very industrially powerful without major colonies.  Not having been here for Navalism 1-3, is this oddity intentional, intended to force everyone to compete for colonies?  Or is it something that looked good with the international situation from those sims and now looks odd (at least to me)?

2 - A somewhat similar question for BP: was the intention here that growing BP is very hard?

[Darman]

Guys,

A couple questions on the economics rules as they sit:

1 - the numbers for buying more IC seem ..... odd.  The way they work, with the escalating cost, substantially penalizes those countries that lack a large number of colonies, and benefit those countries with the reverse situation (at least as long as the colonies don't rebel).  This seems odd, considering how Germany, the US, etc, grew very industrially powerful without major colonies.  Not having been here for Navalism 1-3, is this oddity intentional, intended to force everyone to compete for colonies?  Or is it something that looked good with the international situation from those sims and now looks odd (at least to me)?

2 - A somewhat similar question for BP: was the intention here that growing BP is very hard?

I agree that it is odd, and it penalizes those countries that ought to be growing rapidly, especially the ABCs, with low populations but high incomes at start.  The reasoning was that they didn't want just a flat rate for ICs, they wanted to encourage investment in the colonies. 

[Jefgte]

I agree too.

Navalism 1-3 rules were made probably to help colonial expansion & have conquest wars.

Jef

[KWorld]

I suppose this leads to the following question: do we want to try to encourage this sort of competition over colonies, in a simulated time period where colonies became less and less important historically (except perhaps for particular rare resources)?   And where the map makes it difficult for certain countries (Germany, for example, Austria-Hungary, Russia, etc) to even try to steal colonies from other countries (directly, anyway)?


The other oddity I was seeing with the cost equation is that it benefits very low-population areas and penalizes high-population areas (because of the square root).

[Darman]

I suppose this leads to the following question: do we want to try to encourage this sort of competition over colonies, in a simulated time period where colonies became less and less important historically (except perhaps for particular rare resources)?   And where the map makes it difficult for certain countries (Germany, for example, Austria-Hungary, Russia, etc) to even try to steal colonies from other countries (directly, anyway)?


The other oddity I was seeing with the cost equation is that it benefits very low-population areas and penalizes high-population areas (because of the square root).

I like the idea of contesting for colonies, i think it needs to be encouraged to swap colonies back and forth and fight for colonies.  If we did restart navalism then I would argue no colonies at all at start. 

[Jefgte]

I like the idea of contesting for colonies, i think it needs to be encouraged to swap colonies back and forth and fight for colonies.  If we did restart navalism then I would argue no colonies at all at start. 

"Conquest of Paradise"

That is a pleasant idea.
Buy kingdom colonies or conquest by wars vs other big countries.
Restart early (1880) & have 1 report per year.
Wars must be short & negociations most common.

Jef

[KWorld]

I like the idea of contesting for colonies, i think it needs to be encouraged to swap colonies back and forth and fight for colonies.  If we did restart navalism then I would argue no colonies at all at start. 

"Conquest of Paradise"

That is a pleasant idea.
Buy kingdom colonies or conquest by wars vs other big countries.
Restart early (1880) & have 1 report per year.
Wars must be short & negociations most common.

We certainly could do something like this.  Set up would take a little bit of time, though.

[Jefgte]

I think that 1870 technos are too old - (steam frigates).
Use 1880 ships are better - That's time of early serious BBs.
in 1880 We could SS early BBs with 2T2 , not in 1870.
5 years to built the Fleet & report start in 1885.

Just in my head but not realy important for me...

:)

[Darman]

What if we started in 1880 because, like Jefgte said, we want semi-modern battleships, not steam frigates.  But our Year 1 is 1880 and there is no Start Up.  In 1880 every nation starts with twice their budgeted income in cash and BP and we build from there.  Why?  Because then everything is equal and it presents a challenge.  Do you start your navy with smaller vessels that are fast to build?  Or do you take the extra time to build larger more powerful vessels? 

[Jefgte]

Like I wrote, I propose 1880-81-82-83-84 to built the fleet - for France, 60BP per year - total 300BP.
First anual report in 1885.
(Same countries BPs as the last restart)

Jef

[Darman]

Like I wrote, I propose 1880-81-82-83-84 to built the fleet - for France, 60BP per year - total 300BP.
First anual report in 1885.
(Same countries BPs as the last restart)

Jef

Start Up takes time.  That is why my proposal gets rid of it.  All you need are the starting numbers. 

[KWorld]

One thing I'd like to see is the really big countries (like Russia, the US, Canada, Australia, China, India, etc) get divided up into pieces, so that they're not homogenous lumps.  Germany would probably benefit from this as well.  This makes me tempted to use one of the various online Diplomacy maps (like a modified version of this one: http://www.dipwiki.com/?title=Imperial), but I'd have to recalculate the population numbers for all the areas outside someone's home country (players could do that themselves for their countries).


On the issue of start-up time, if we reset the start time to 1880 and reduce the amount of colonization, there's going to be a bit of time to work on setting up for start-up, because the map will need to be updated and the starting income and (maybe) BPs modified because of those changes and the lower populations of 1880.  If, for example, France no longer controls most of Africa (maybe she has Algeria, for example, but nothing south of it), there's going to be an impact.

[KWorld]

If we want to get started quickly, but we also want to make the game a bit more of a free-for-all, the way to go might be to stick with 1900 as the start date (we can reuse our population data and designs), remove most colonies from the colonial powers, and probably split Russia, the US, and Germany into smaller areas.  The countries that lost colonies could get IC in compensation to keep up their incomes, or we could adjust everyone downwards.

[Jefgte]

I like the map for starting.
Restart when you want, I SS accordingly...

:)  :)  :)

[KWorld]

I like the map for starting.

Which map?