Colonies

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SGTscuba
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Colonies

Post by SGTscuba »

I don't think there is much information out there regarding colonies so i'd like to build up some information on them.

I've noticed mine always seem to go bankrupt, no matter what I do. This leads me to the following questions:

1) Do AI produce materials and then sell them on the world market, I would have thought this would have balanced my colonies economy usually?
2) When they transfer goods to me, do I pay market rate or nothing at all or some other figure?


If they keep going bankrupt on their own devices, are there no tweaks that can be made to the Ai to make them balance their budget at least and have some positive cashflow?
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GIJoe597
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Re: Colonies

Post by GIJoe597 »

My understanding based on the manual wording is they do not sell on world market.

"Colonies will transfer to the parent region surplus commodity inventory."

Based on the same wording, it is my belief the Parent pays nothing for the commodities.


I normally do not fiddle with Colonies as I prefer Annexation, but lately I have been toying around with them. As the USA I have managed to stabilize Puerto Rico. I closely monitored their unemployment and what items they were short of. P.R. has abundant food and lumber resources with a high unemployment. They were short Electricity, I plopped down a Fusion Power plant, sent money and resources (Industrial Goods) to pay for it on 90 day increments, renewing, until it was complete. Once they had a surplus of Electricity, I watched their unemployment to see how it adjusted, still high. I then plopped down Agriculture and Timber in the best location increasing their capabilities many times over. As always, with treaties to pay for the construction (money and Ind Goods).

After several months, P.R.s Unemployment is down to 5.4% and the Domestic Approval Rating in climbing. I also gave them all techs which increase output, Infrastructure or Research.


When the dust settled, I noticed they were still losing money, however, I was also strapped for cash, having started with a huge Debt as the USA. P.R. had also managed to run up a debt of $63,000m. I am currently unable to assist them directly with paying it down as the world is a mess at the moment and we have been unable to intervene in a meaningful way, so far. (Five years into a 2017 start)

What I decided to do was look at the Resource Production tab > World Statistics. Using these numbers I determined what excess P.R. would have, deducted an amount to allow for a % of growth which they could need internally, the set recurring 90 day trade deals to purchase their surplus at slightly better than a 1 for 1 ratio.

I intentionally run a slight deficit on Agriculture and Timber and supplement my needs by purchasing from my Colony as much as I can instead of the World Market. As you can imagine, this benefits the Parent and the Colony. Once I am financially able to assist them in paying off their Debt, I will look again how they fair without the daily Interest fee on the Bonds.
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SGTscuba
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Re: Colonies

Post by SGTscuba »

Its a shame you cant set up permanent offers via the diplomatic options any more. I'd just buy it that way to support them otherwise.
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GIJoe597
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Re: Colonies

Post by GIJoe597 »

I have no recollection of having the ability to create permanent trade deals. I thought 90 days was the largest time frame available.

Still following P.R. and several months later from my earlier post above; They are now creating Bonds frequently, Debt is now up to $67,000m. I am unsure what they are spending so much money on. The information for Colonies is somewhat sparse in that regard. I would very much appreciate the ability to scrap facilities in Colonies. I am positive the Petro Power plants are not doing them any good.

Bottom line, if I cannot get Colonies to stay out of Debt I will continue my policy of Annexation. Less hassle and frustration.
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SGTscuba
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Re: Colonies

Post by SGTscuba »

GIJoe597 wrote: Jun 10 2018 I have no recollection of having the ability to create permanent trade deals. I thought 90 days was the largest time frame available.

Still following P.R. and several months later from my earlier post above; They are now creating Bonds frequently, Debt is now up to $67,000m. I am unsure what they are spending so much money on. The information for Colonies is somewhat sparse in that regard. I would very much appreciate the ability to scrap facilities in Colonies. I am positive the Petro Power plants are not doing them any good.

Bottom line, if I cannot get Colonies to stay out of Debt I will continue my policy of Annexation. Less hassle and frustration.
I *think* it was in one of the old SR games, maybe 2010 and 2020.

Also, I too wish they would flesh out the colonies system more. Usually I just annex for this reason. I'm only not this time as I need the tech from China and Russia.
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YoMomma
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Re: Colonies

Post by YoMomma »

GIJoe597 wrote: Jun 10 2018 I would very much appreciate the ability to scrap facilities in Colonies. I am positive the Petro Power plants are not doing them any good.
So you want to scrap petrol power on colonies for your profit but screw the rest of the regions? How about improving petrol plants. Since like everyone agrees they are the worst.

It's very frustrating you cant control facilities on colonies tho, but not just that, what about social services..
That being said some regions are very profitable in terms of self sufficient and providing parent with tons of resources. Kazakstan good source for oil and MG, Ukraine for metal, coal and MG, with potential for oil. Usually they still make a profit, or atleast stable, since like all regions if they have the money they will look to spend it. If i put a fusion power plant in any of those regions, yeah that will mess up their economy. Not every region can handle that like US. Do it with coal plants instead if you dont want to fiddle with the modding files.
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GIJoe597
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Re: Colonies

Post by GIJoe597 »

YoMomma wrote: Jun 10 2018 So you want to scrap petrol power on colonies for your profit but screw the rest of the regions?
Yes
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GIJoe597
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Re: Colonies

Post by GIJoe597 »

I decided to see what would happen if I stopped purchasing the excess from P.R. They seem to be selling on the world market as it lists them as the 2nd largest exporter of Agriculture and on the list as a Timber exporter. Perhaps they do sell to world market or it might be including what they automatically send to me. There is no information to support either theory 100%.
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YoMomma
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Re: Colonies

Post by YoMomma »

There is, you can see exactly what you get if you dont import/export from others.

Keep in mind tho, just like devs said, its not every day, but to save on calculations they did "smal numbers'' every other day or something.
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way2co0l
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Re: Colonies

Post by way2co0l »

Colonies can be an annoyance, it's true. But to provide clarity, they definitely do send you all of their surplus at absolutely no charge, and this will result in many colonies going bankrupt under certain situations. I recall that they try to match the parent nation's slider settings, taxes, social spending and the like, but if they don't have the money to do so then it could easily result in huge population loss.

As they don't make any money through exports, having them produce a surplus doesn't really do much good unless you continue to manually inject cash to pay for it, and anything they have to import has to be paid for. Colonies with larger populations and lower GDP's which keeps demand low can often do just fine simply by using their taxes to cover their expenses, but if you try to have them produce too many surplus goods to export to you then it can result in shortfalls.

It's possible to make your colonies relatively self sustaining without requiring cash injections, but it takes work, especially when you have many colonies to look after. If you look through the import and export tabs then you can see exactly what they are currently producing enough of to meet demand, and how much they are having to import of other goods in order to do so. The best thing you can do is build enough facilities in your colonies to meet their local demand while also minimizing any surplus and thus limit how much they're going to have to spend importing goods or producing goods that they won't actually get paid for.

Ideally I'd like to see the automatic trades be a 2 way street where colonies will automatically create trades to export their surplus goods to you as they do now, but additionally automatically request goods and cash from you to cover their shortfalls. This can put a burden on the parent nation in some instances, but I feel like it would allow for more stable colonies in the long run that require less micromanagement. If you have them build a bunch of resource facilities, it might require them to drain cash out of your treasury to pay for their upkeep costs, but as they'll be exporting their surplus right back to you, it'll ultimately pay for itself. Unfortunately it's not currently an option and you're going to need to keep a careful eye and make continuous cash injections into your colonies in order to keep them solvent, or else carefully manage their production so they aren't losing too much money that they can't just recoup through taxes.
SGTscuba
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Re: Colonies

Post by SGTscuba »

way2co0l wrote: Jun 19 2018 Colonies can be an annoyance, it's true. But to provide clarity, they definitely do send you all of their surplus at absolutely no charge, and this will result in many colonies going bankrupt under certain situations. I recall that they try to match the parent nation's slider settings, taxes, social spending and the like, but if they don't have the money to do so then it could easily result in huge population loss.

As they don't make any money through exports, having them produce a surplus doesn't really do much good unless you continue to manually inject cash to pay for it, and anything they have to import has to be paid for. Colonies with larger populations and lower GDP's which keeps demand low can often do just fine simply by using their taxes to cover their expenses, but if you try to have them produce too many surplus goods to export to you then it can result in shortfalls.

It's possible to make your colonies relatively self sustaining without requiring cash injections, but it takes work, especially when you have many colonies to look after. If you look through the import and export tabs then you can see exactly what they are currently producing enough of to meet demand, and how much they are having to import of other goods in order to do so. The best thing you can do is build enough facilities in your colonies to meet their local demand while also minimizing any surplus and thus limit how much they're going to have to spend importing goods or producing goods that they won't actually get paid for.

Ideally I'd like to see the automatic trades be a 2 way street where colonies will automatically create trades to export their surplus goods to you as they do now, but additionally automatically request goods and cash from you to cover their shortfalls. This can put a burden on the parent nation in some instances, but I feel like it would allow for more stable colonies in the long run that require less micromanagement. If you have them build a bunch of resource facilities, it might require them to drain cash out of your treasury to pay for their upkeep costs, but as they'll be exporting their surplus right back to you, it'll ultimately pay for itself. Unfortunately it's not currently an option and you're going to need to keep a careful eye and make continuous cash injections into your colonies in order to keep them solvent, or else carefully manage their production so they aren't losing too much money that they can't just recoup through taxes.
Pretty much this. Although maybe any surplus you would pay for at your normal production cost?
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way2co0l
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Re: Colonies

Post by way2co0l »

To be honest, I don't see a problem with forcing the parent nation to pay for the surplus goods their colony sends them. The fact that your colony will simply send any excess money right back to you kind of means that they only wind up keeping what they need to cover other costs and resolves a lot of issues. At the worst it becomes a redundant exchange with you paying for the goods, and then having them send all that money back to you because they don't need it. Most of the time it will be exactly what the colony needs to stay solvent with minimal micromanagement which only the player can do anyway, so AI colonies are just screwed period. lol. This could resolve that.
SGTscuba
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Re: Colonies

Post by SGTscuba »

way2co0l wrote: Jun 20 2018 To be honest, I don't see a problem with forcing the parent nation to pay for the surplus goods their colony sends them. The fact that your colony will simply send any excess money right back to you kind of means that they only wind up keeping what they need to cover other costs and resolves a lot of issues. At the worst it becomes a redundant exchange with you paying for the goods, and then having them send all that money back to you because they don't need it. Most of the time it will be exactly what the colony needs to stay solvent with minimal micromanagement which only the player can do anyway, so AI colonies are just screwed period. lol. This could resolve that.
I do like to keep them solvent as they then tend to research unit designs that I cannot access.
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way2co0l
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Re: Colonies

Post by way2co0l »

Same. For me personally I just hate watching the massive depopulation that tends to occur when they run out of money to continue funding their social spending.
GIJoe597
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Re: Colonies

Post by GIJoe597 »

More colony control options is the answer. As a parent I need to be able to set the colonies sliders somehow. If I want to tax my colonies into the dirt I should be able. If I want them to be tax free havens that should be possible also. With the ability to set their sliders it would be possible for them to survive without the parent needing to subsidize them.

Although, I cannot help wondering what would happen if the Colonies did not automatically send surplus to Parents. There is already the rule they must accept all trade deals with Parent. If I need something from the Colony I can force them to trade. Perhaps let them keep their stuff to sale/use as required. We then have the option to force a trade if Parent deems it necessary.


EDIT: on looking back over the patches I saw this line in 9.0.50
  • Fixed bug preventing regions selling colony stocks to market (ie rubber) causing hoarding
They do indeed sell to World Market. Now the question I have is, what criteria is used to determine "surplus/excess"?
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