Economic Rules Discution

[snip]

Ok, well it seems that most of the players have voted on what sort of econ system they want. A two part system, like that of N3, is the clear winner. With that, I am going to go ahead and start modifying the portions of the N3 rules that we want to have changed. I know research and the way that is handled is up for revision. Is there anything else the community would like heavily modified from the N3 rules. As stated previously, I want to use as much of the N3 rules as posible for the sake of speed. Before I get to into it, what aside from research needs to be heavily altered?

The N3 rules can be found here.

[Nobody]

My original idea was that BP/Production - or whatever we call it - should be something a nation has in abundance or hardly at all. Either way Money should be the limiting factor. What do other think?

One idea I have that could support such a system is the following (if some player agree to start with significantly lower production at game start):

• Production/BP are very expansive to build, but they grow on their own relatively fast - maybe only if unused
  
• IC or whatever produces money is relatively cheap to build and grows only slowly (if at all)
  In case of war, no increase in production should occur, you just use them more heavily.
  
  Whether research is tied to Production or IC is a different matter. I would choose BP.

[KWorld]

I haven't looked at tne N3 rules in detail so I can't comment on them directly.

Historically, there have been lots of countries that had the money to buy military hardware that couldn't build it themselves.  There are also a number of countries that have gone from importers or small producers to large producers in a relatively short period of time.  The countries that remained importers usually either had relatively small or infrequent needs for military hardware, relatively small amounts of industry or population, or both.  The ABC countries of South America fall into the small or infrequent need category, they didn't have large enough demand to make it worthwhile to create a substantial domestic arms industry when they could buy what they needed (and could afford) from other countries.  Modern Saudi Arabia lacks the industry and population to make it worthwhile setting up a domestic arms industry.  Germany, historically, went from having a very small navy to quite a substantial one in a reasonably short period of time, and (unlike some other countries) did it almost entirely via domestic production (can't think of any imports, but might be wrong).  Russia, too, went from a small navy to a much larger one, though in her case more foreign purchases were made as she was behind Germany in industrializing.  Japan is similar to Russia in this as well.

So, I'd say that it's certainly plausible that along this development curve you'll find a place where a country has enough domestic industry to build some, but not all, of what it can afford to pay for.  That's Russia and Japan in the 1890s-1910s: building some of what they need, buying other ships or things (guns, turbines, etc) abroad.

[snip]

My original idea was that BP/Production - or whatever we call it - should be something a nation has in abundance or hardly at all. Either way Money should be the limiting factor. What do other think?

One idea I have that could support such a system is the following (if some player agree to start with significantly lower production at game start):

• Production/BP are very expansive to build, but they grow on their own relatively fast - maybe only if unused
  
• IC or whatever produces money is relatively cheap to build and grows only slowly (if at all)
  In case of war, no increase in production should occur, you just use them more heavily.
  
  Whether research is tied to Production or IC is a different matter. I would choose BP.
  

I think how we set up the values can change based on wants. I like your idea, it makes international trade something important and integrated into the game without a overburdening separate system. I like having one thing as the limiting factor (and agree it should be cash) with the other tracked only to tell apart the true industrial powers from those who can afford the gilding of the industrial state, but not the core. Of course there would be the third category of nations to poor to really do anything, but those areas would never become player nations IMO.

Personally, I was thinking of replacing BP with an abstract "factory" the result would be the same (points to put to a project). Its a cosmetic change in all reality. What I would do to met your idea about growth would be to have unused BP/"factory output" be converted into new factories over a gradual rate. The monetary cost would still be high (so paying ones way into industrial might without help would take a long time) but having unused factory points be moved to a monetary investment into new factories at some ratio (ie. One unused BP becomes $50 to a new BP). While IC/Whateveritgetscalled would not have this ability, but be cheaper to outright build (half the cost of N3 IC seem a good place to start?) The TL:DR version; Industry feeds its own growth if unused, while cash needs direct investment to gain more. Am I close to what you are thinking as far as implementation goes?

[Logi]

The main problem IMO for N3 was the fixed and low rate of growth. An economy grew only when you fully deposited all the money of the investment ($75) and never before then so you have this jump in productivity that should really be starting when the first investment began.

The second thing was that the cost was too high and the return too slow. It took 75 years to return the investment if underdeveloped and 375 years if developed. There was no point to building the economy because it made no noticeable return. Economies need to be able to grow from the anemic 1% to the overheating 13%.

So if we are returning to the N3 style economics, the investment cost needs to be more than halved and the return more than doubled to be feasible. Remember, underdeveloped economies should be able to grow 10% of their economy in size each year for many years if they focus on almost nothing else. In N3, even if the RRC poured all its cash into IC, it would only grow 0.8% a year. In real life that would be the equivalent of a failing economy.



Now as for the BP, I think BP should delegated to certain production.
For example a country with 4 bp can devote 2 of those to shipbuilding, 1 to aircraft production, and 1 to army. The 2 BP in shipbuilding and only be used for ships and nothing else. To convert a BP devoted to shipbuilding to another field like army, you would have to spend a certain fraction of the BP creation cost to convert it.

In this manner we can simulate the specific construction facilities of RL (tank factories can't make ship, etc.) whilst being abstract enough to make bean-counting easy.


As a variant on Snip's idea, we can change the above to be slightly different. Unused BP produce new BP but only for it's own category. Air BP produces Air BP only (which makes sense if we think of unused BP as "free" cash the factories have to expand their operations).

I have something more detailed and different for the economy in mind, but I'm still thinking. I'll post that soon.

[snip]

You do point out some flaws in the system, but I once again point out that the system works. You really sound like you want a more complex economic model. That just wont work. Not only would the new system need to be devised, tested, tweeked, tested again, and so on, its preceved complexity will serve to drive away new (and maybe old) players who dont hold degrees in Math or Economics. The BP idea is interesting, but I think it strays into the relm of being to complex. That turns the system from a 3-part (Pop/IC/BP) to a five part system (Pop/IC/ABP/FBP/NBP). That is far to complicated for what we are doing. This will not become a pencil and paper Victoria II. If you want that, then you have come to the wrong place. The N3 model, with its known quantities, will be the base for the N5 system. They will not be exactly the same, as there are faults that need to be corrected. That is what we need to figure out, how to correct some of the faults without overly burdening the system. When in doubt, simplicity will rule the day outside of dedicated naval matters (ie. Refit rules)

EDIT: I forgot to add this in as well. The problem with having such sharp economic growth (as in OTL) is one of game balance IMO. It is much easier to construct a system around a relitivly fixed way and speed of economic growth and balance it for the long term in conjunction with the other rules that rely on the base economics then it is to try and bend the rest of the rules into fitting a system where growth can cascade out of control or be just a drop in a very large bucket. This is another argument in favor of the simplicity side of things, with I think needs to remain paramount in the rulemaking process.

[Desertfox]

I second that BP's should be for and only for shipbuilding, everything else can be covered by IC's.

[Logi]

You really sound like you want a more complex economic model.

I want one, but that is not at all what I proposed. What I proposed is to increase the rate at which the economy can grow. If you read what I wrote, one of the richest underdeveloped country could only afford to grow 0.8% even at full cash investment. That means every other country grew less than that - in effect, some countries can't even change their economy even if they did full investment. It would be so tiny that it would be negligible.

That just wont work. Not only would the new system need to be devised, tested, tweeked, tested again, and so on, its preceved complexity will serve to drive away new (and maybe old) players who dont hold degrees in Math or Economics.

Now this is just belittling. This is addition and subtraction, 2nd grade math. It has none of the difficulties of Math or Economics majors. There are no Taylor series, no derivatives, no series, no Gaussians, no Laplace transformations. There aren't even supply and demand curves and that's economics 101. Your argument against this proposal is a logical fallacy of exaggeration. It is frustrating to see the same argument used over and over again even for the most basic of proposals.

That turns the system from a 3-part (Pop/IC/BP) to a five part system (Pop/IC/ABP/FBP/NBP). That is far to complicated for what we are doing. This will not become a pencil and paper Victoria II.

1. What I just proposed is not anywhere near the complexity of Victoria.
2. It's not a 5-part system, because it's standardized. All 3 (ABP/FBP/NBP) are the exact same for building, repairing, and destroying. They are BP, the only difference is they can't be interchangeably used. It isn't a great leap in complexity to do this to prevent ridiculousness like having all army production one year and all ship production another.
3. Far too complicated does not hold water when many rules of N3 are FAR more complicated. For example, the gun creation rule or the IC/Pop conversion rule, or the Army cost and upgrade table. These are all FAR more complicated than making a distinction of what type of stuff you can use a BP for. They involve several orders more math than what I proposed.

In fact, the things I disliked the most were the tiny maintenance numbers associated with army or ship costs because you had to take out excel or a calculator to do those in the sim reports. The system of BP I just proposed needs no such thing.

EDIT: I forgot to add this in as well. The problem with having such sharp economic growth (as in OTL) is one of game balance IMO. It is much easier to construct a system around a relitivly fixed way and speed of economic growth and balance it for the long term in conjunction with the other rules that rely on the base economics then it is to try and bend the rest of the rules into fitting a system where growth can cascade out of control or be just a drop in a very large bucket. This is another argument in favor of the simplicity side of things, with I think needs to remain paramount in the rulemaking process.

I think you have the order of importance switched around. It is much more important for a simulation be fun than for a simulation be easy to make. But we can have the best of both world by making a simple but dynamic world. Having a fixed rate of economic growth that no one can change makes it much less attractive to playing because you can never shift from your original position. No matter what you do, you will almost always be the same strength as you were in the beginning making playing anything other than a major power not worth it.

For a dynamic sim, the world must be able to radically change from it's starting condition and not just through war. In fact we want that because a world where economic growth is unfeasible encourages war.

There are 2 ways a world sim can change. 1 is through war, and the 2nd is through economic progress. If we forcibly limit economic growth, what we are doing is in fact encouraging war. We don't want war to happen often since it slows down the sim. Then if we try to eliminate the ability to really make war by scripting everything, we have something no different than a word game and we might as well not have any rules.

Rather, we should allow both to balance. It is perfectly possible for a nation spend all it's money on economic growth but then it has no defense. The possibility of an attack should discourage that. In addition, N3 already had a way of balancing that. Developed nations grew at 1/5 the pace of a developed nation. That means even if nations went ball-out competing to build their economy, invariably it would slow down to a 1/5 of the underdeveloped nations. That means for example, if a undeveloped country can manage 10% growth, a developed nation can only manage 2% growth.

That means France in N3, a nation of $279.53 in revenue per half-year (the wealthiest nation in N3) who only gain $5.59 in revenue per half-year even on full investment. Alternatively that would mean a nation of semi-undeveloped industry like Maoria ($80.7) would be able to grow by $8.7 every half-year - but soon slowing down to $1.74.

What would that make for ballooning economies? Let's assume the economy of a undeveloped nation is $100 and they grew at 10% a year without fail (never drops into the developed region). It would take 8 years to double the size of their economy. Now let's assume that there's a similar sized economy in a developed nation ($100). It would take 35 years to double their economy. That's right a developed nation takes 35 years to double while it is significantly more possible for a undeveloped economy to catch up before becoming developed (nations don't just radically increase in pop so there is a limit for undeveloped nation growth).

However, 8 years is not a small amount of time, it took 3 RL years for N3 to progress 7 years - to the point of the Chinese Civil War. That's is a huge amount of time that players have to overcome to balloon their economy. It is still, however, much better to play with than 0.8% growth.

Edit: Edited to sound a bit less antagonistic.

[Logi]

I have to note, if you really find the limited category of use for BP so unfathomably hard, we can still do as Fox suggests and make BP ship only and the rest is cash based.

[snip]

It's not a 5-part system, because it's standardized. All 3 (ABP/FBP/NBP) are the exact same for building, repairing, and destroying. They are BP, the only difference is they can't be interchangeably used. It isn't a great leap in complexity to do this to prevent ridiculousness like having all army production one year and all ship production another.

They may be close to the same thing, but the same they are not. Look at some of the pre-N3 threads (I would link, but dont know exactly were the info is. Will look later). They had in N2 a multi-BP type system. It got caned for simplicity. It is in effect five currencies because they are not freely interchangeable. This adds to much complexity to a multi-currency system, which is inherently more complex then a single-currency system. If multipul BP types were removed before, there were valid reasons for it and I do not want to introduce them again.

What I proposed is to increase the rate at which the economy can grow.

That is being addressed.

Now this is just belittling. This is addition and subtraction, 2nd grade math. It has none of the difficulties of Math or Economics majors. There are no Taylor series, no derivatives, no series, no Gaussians, no Laplace transformations. There aren't even supply and demand curves and that's economics 101. Your argument against this proposal is a logical fallacy of exaggeration. It is frustrating to see the same argument used over and over again even for the most basic of proposals.

Note that I said preceved. It does not matter how easy the system is in reality if it looks imposing from the view of someone with little to no knologe of how it works. I know even Wesworld's system was intimidating enough at first glance to keep me away for some time. That is one surefire way to scare off new players. New players are something that is absolutely needed should the sim last a long time.

Far too complicated does not hold water when many rules of N3 are FAR more complicated. For example, the gun creation rule or the IC/Pop conversion rule, or the Army cost and upgrade table. These are all FAR more complicated than making a distinction of what type of stuff you can use a BP for. They involve several orders more math than what I proposed.

Once the basic econ rules are tuned, these other complex areas will be addressed. We just need to deal with the most basic structures first.

I think you have the order of importance switched around. It is much more important for a simulation be fun than for a simulation be easy to make. But we can have the best of both world by making a simple but dynamic world. Having a fixed rate of economic growth that no one can change makes it much less attractive to playing because you can never shift from your original position. No matter what you do, you will almost always be the same strength as you were in the beginning making playing anything other than a major power not worth it.

A sim can be both fun and easy to make. Now, it may not be prefect for all. That is a given of any system. I doubt we quantify fun the same way. As the gamemaster, I am conserned both about the fun factor and ease of making/use factor. When we boil it down, the game is (IMO) a sim designed to give the players an interactive environment to design ships in SpringSharp. Our views may differ.

However, 8 years is not a small amount of time, it took 3 RL years for N3 to progress 7 years - to the point of the Chinese Civil War. That's is a huge amount of time that players have to overcome to balloon their economy. It is still, however, much better to play with than 0.8% growth.

Once again, the system is being looked at to alter how growth occurs. After that, then other problem areas can be adjusted.

I disagree that the sim will be "not fun" if it does not exactly follow real-life trends. Now, I am going to look at problem areas to see if there are ways to make them both more organic and simple. In the end, simplicity will be the deciding factor for reasons already stated multiple times. If in the end, the system that is implemented is not to your satisfaction and you find it not "fun", no one is forcing you to say. We are all here to partake in a sim. I for one would like to move on from rules bickering as quickly as possible with a working system so we can begin play.

[Logi]

It is in effect five currencies because they are not freely interchangeable. This adds to much complexity to a multi-currency system, which is inherently more complex then a single-currency system.

It is in effect a 3 currencies, not five because the exchange rate is constant amongst the currencies.

It costs $75 to buy a Air BP, $75 to buy a Land BP, and $75 to buy a Naval BP. The exchange rate is some undetermined value X and that is the same amongst all BPs. You costs X to change an Air to Land, and X to change a Land to Naval. If BP was a parameter, they would be different in only one point, their purpose. Everything else would be the same.

Note that I said preceved. It does not matter how easy the system is in reality if it looks imposing from the view of someone with little to no knologe of how it works. I know even Wesworld's system was intimidating enough at first glance to keep me away for some time. That is one surefire way to scare off new players. New players are something that is absolutely needed should the sim last a long time.

That has a lot less to do with the amount of rules than the way the rules are presented.

Information becomes a problem only when it is difficult to find the specific thing you are looking for in it. In Wesworld's rules, there is a ton of information only relevant to the start of the sim, examples, and poorly down tables. It makes it hard to distinguish the meat of the information because you have to sift through all the passages that don't apply to you.

N3 is an improvement over Wesworld's rules not because they are simpler but because they are easy to search through. There is more formatting, no examples, and clearly distinguishable and well-formatted tables. That is why I wasn't scared off - not because the rules are simple (which they aren't really) - but because I was able to just read the rules without being distracted with examples and tables that I didn't then need to know.

N3 also splits the rules into more threads so I can search more easily and has the headings of passages in different formats (Italicized) so I could tell more easily where one thing ends and the next begins. That's the main concern in scaring off players with rules IMO, not the actual rules themselves.

I disagree that the sim will be "not fun" if it does not exactly follow real-life trends. Now, I am going to look at problem areas to see if there are ways to make them both more organic and simple. In the end, simplicity will be the deciding factor for reasons already stated multiple times.

You missed my point completely. The sim is "not fun" not because it's unrealistic, but because the player's decisions have so little impact on the sim's geopolitical landscape. You simply CAN'T get bigger unless you are so lucky as to be big already and have small neighbors that people hate (Italy vs New Zion). Otherwise, you are stuck - there is no point to you playing that nation.

Your simplicity is OVER simplicity and you make the sim so static that there might as well be no sim at all. I mean, why bother making sim reports for a nation when it's never gonna change? You might as well make a nation and have people make random ship designs without hassling them to make sim reports.

If in the end, the system that is implemented is not to your satisfaction and you find it not "fun", no one is forcing you to stay. We are all here to partake in a sim. I for one would like to move on from rules bickering as quickly as possible with a working system so we can begin play.

Great to know your opinion is shut up and agree with me or get the hell out.

[snip]

Im done arguing about this for now. Changes are being worked on and we will need to wait to see the final form that those take.

However...

Great to know your opinion is shut up and agree with me or get the hell out.

If I wanted to, I could do the rules behind closed doors and present it as a take-it-or-leave-it system. I want community involvement as we are all here together. I would hardly call that agree or get the hell out.

[Logi]

If in the end, the system that is implemented is not to your satisfaction and you find it not "fun", no one is forcing you to stay. We are all here to partake in a sim. I for one would like to move on from rules bickering as quickly as possible with a working system so we can begin play.

Did you read what you wrote? You basically said if 'You don't like the way I'm doing things, don't play.'
Then you followed it up by basically saying 'I'm done talking to you.'

That's hardly the attitude of "I want community involvement as we are all here together". And you are in fact basically doing the rules behind closed doors since either ways you are completely unwilling to accept anything that differs from the N3 system. Even in the polls there was no option other than choosing between the Wesworld system or the N3 system. You've already decided what you want the sim rules to be!

[Nobody]

You know what's worst?

Two people fighting each other to the bitter end while both are basically right. It's also sad.



Back to topic. While I think that flavored BPs make sense I don't think they are worth the effort, even though they appear to be very simple. They look like something that makes the different between a small table and one that is screen-filling. Also they would probably only matter to countries with a very low production anyway.

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.

[snip]

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?