Optimal Settings Economy

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mrgenie
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Optimal Settings Economy

Post by mrgenie »

I hate to admit I'm too stupid to come up with a solution, but I have to admit mastering to keep my country in surplus,
healthy economy, growing not faster as I can build, keep inflation under control, etc always has been a tricky one for me.

I found some settings that worked for some small period of time but within 1 or 2 days I had to start tweaking, changing settings
and eventually always went "red"

So I started to use the minister on controlling economy, didn't do much better than me. On some settings even worse!

Sometimes a minister went low on social spending to make sure 99% of the conquered regions revolt and you need
4 million troops just as occupation forces to maintain the country = bankrupt.

Especially when expanding too much eventually I hit the max and things just went so bad I had to release countries
for the sake of sanity and practically admit my defeat based on economy.

So I never achieved my ultimate goal:"find 1 single setting that makes sure over a long period of time inflation under control,
expand, keep economical growth lower than my economy can handle (overheated economy = demands go up faster than you can build)
keep people happy, get a healthy surplus on money, etc.

Until now!

This is no guarantee this works for other countries or games, but might give others a good start so I'll post it here:
State Cabinet:
- Government Support slightly over recommended
- total espionage slightly over recommended
Priorities: - Intelligence

Finance Cabinet:
- Lock Minister from bonds, everything else allow
Priorities: - Decrease Social Spending
- Increase Revenues
- Inflation Control
- Infrastructure
- Law Enforcement (getting this down is about the most stupid thing you can do, better surrender!)

Resources Cabinet Priorities everything off!
And lock industrial and military if you plan to expand and/or wage war

Reseach Cabinet
- lock minister from research spending and max it!
- enable 2 others
Priorities: - enable all but decrease spending

Defense Cabinet
- Lock spending and max it out
- everything else up to you really..I usually keep everything else off and micro manage
all units I set to disable minister control.. except during war.. I'll switch it on then.

The initiative doesn't have any function in the game:
FULL - reserve and deploy
NONE-LOW-MEDIUM-HIGH shouldn't reserve and deploy, but it does still. SO I assume it doesn't matter, you're always FULL!

Only way to prevent units from reserve and deploy = switch off minister control.

I posted this as a bug several times already but BG keeps ignoring it. But these "initiatives" are really just junk!
Just have it on high = same as FULL. so pick either one..
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Balthagor
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Re: Optimal Settings Economy

Post by Balthagor »

We haven't ignored it, we just don't have any good solutions yet. I'm interested to see if other players find your methods work for them and we will keep an eye to this thread. Thanks for sharing!
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mrgenie
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Re: Optimal Settings Economy

Post by mrgenie »

Balthagor wrote:We haven't ignored it,
Yeah I know. I know you're AI is the best out there when it comes to tactical war games and it's the fastest anyway with the millions of troops
presented in tens of thousands of units. No other game ever managed that.

I just like to exaggerate as a reminder :P
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Balthagor
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Re: Optimal Settings Economy

Post by Balthagor »

I hear, but putting words in my mouth makes me grumpy...

We are proud of the games we created, but it is by no means perfect.
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mrgenie
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Re: Optimal Settings Economy

Post by mrgenie »

Balthagor wrote:I hear, but putting words in my mouth makes me grumpy...
That's how it was meant :) Because you than have 2 options:
-1) reply and waste time
-2) ignore and fix it

to my experience, bug reports over the past you have chosen option 2 mostly.

So just a reminder to make you think I'm such a nasty guy, that you say:

let's fix the damn thing so he shuts up! :)

No but seriously, it's not a big issue. I just put all units on "minister controlled - off"

But the minister actually does handle a lot very well. I just don't want him to put units
in reserve or get them out. That part I prefer micro-management.

That's why I'd love to see this issue addressed and fixed so I don't have to put all units
on "minister controlled - off" because the minister is very helpful actually.
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Balthagor
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Re: Optimal Settings Economy

Post by Balthagor »

Well it's not something <I> can fix, I'm not the programmer. But I try hard to give him a list of things to work on that is manageable within the resources we have.
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YoMomma
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Re: Optimal Settings Economy

Post by YoMomma »

These settings seem to work very well. I tried them for AI regions in a multiplayer i play. Inflation keeps in check so regions actually improve their treasury instead of maximising social spending resulting in shortages worldwide for regions in need.
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mrgenie
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Re: Optimal Settings Economy

Post by mrgenie »

Balthagor wrote:Well it's not something <I> can fix, I'm not the programmer. But I try hard to give him a list of things to work on that is manageable within the resources we have.
I know you personally are not the programmer. Does that matter in a team?

There are those that handle the coding and those that handle the nasty fellas like me :)

I mean, you need feedback from the users that's how it is. Can't as programmer foresee everything.
It's that feedback, that's part of programming. Impossible to do without. But if the programmers
start handling feedback, development will stop practically. So it's really not 1 person: the programmer,
but everyone around him as well. I know this, as I programmed myself in 2 larger teams and
in the beginning I tried communicating with users myself and it just takes away all your time.

So with "you" I mean the whole team, as the feedback is part of the coding :)

We're all as important as taking our jobs seriously!

Btw, a little side note:

IO conquered Russia. Released them *to big to swallow at once* so used the good stance I have after
releasing them to keep my eastern front secure.

And AFTER releasing them, they have their "Initiative on the 2nd lowest stand" so while at war
with others, they don't use their units to fight anymore. (this initiative I checked on other regions)
is for all regions conquered and released. Basically making them brain dead.

So I logged in as multiplayer and raised the initiative and from there on they play proper again.

Don't know if this is intended or a bug to make released nations 'dumb' so you might wanna check on it.
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mrgenie
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Re: Optimal Settings Economy

Post by mrgenie »

ADD for starting with a small country and optimal economic settings.

With a small country you easily run out of money even when your economy is actually doing great simply because you can't afford a huge army.

When you have time to develop your country first, fine using the settings above I mentioned.

But when you're participating not in a local war but in a global war and need 500+ units it'll cripple your economy.

using the above settings will increase your GDP to highest on the planet in prolonged wars and huge armies (don't ask me why) so you need to cut your GDP. If it goes up to fast:'cripple economy again'

to handle this:
lock social spendings
put all social spending OFF = 0 USD into them
but keep up:
Education (need this for research)
Infrastructure (need this to keep your armies going)
Law Enforcement (Only need this if you conquered enemy territory to prevent insurgents)

These 3 are really something you can't cut on!

With these 3 over 100% and the rest to zero:
1) you'll have a huge surplus to fund a prolonged war
2) cut your GDP (else demand is increasing like a rocket)
3) keep inflation under 1%

I found that taxation is doing best in both the "unlocked social spending" as well as the "locked social spending" around 55% My minister keeps it at this level most of the time. But occasionally
happened only twice, he got everything all of the sudden to 100% when you're running low on money (under 1,000 M)

If that happens, set taxation back to 40% and he'll figure it out around 55% again until you drop again under appr. 1,000 M

The 55% is pretty consistent with above settings but like I said, occasionally all of the sudden it jumps to 100% everything. So you might wanna keep your money stash over 10,000 M or so.

OR, allow him to buy debt which I never tried before because of my personal HATE against government DEBT!

I have my personal reasons for hating debt by the government and apply this in game as well, but in game you might wanna give it a try if you have nothing against debt.
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Anthropoid
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Re: Optimal Settings Economy

Post by Anthropoid »

Which game are you guys talking about? Supreme Ruler Ultimate, latest update, or with the Great War DLC or what?

The economy is definitely challenging but the challenge is really more tedium than anything else isn't it?

Main thing is to get your entire country up as close to 100% supply as possible. Once you accomplish that, everything else falls in line. I only ever turn on Ministers control of anything very briefly to see what settings he would choose under a given directive: gives me a benchmark for what settings I should use if I want to achieve that particular directive.

I don't recall a "control inflation" directive though?
mrgenie
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Re: Optimal Settings Economy

Post by mrgenie »

Anthropoid wrote:Which game are you guys talking about? Supreme Ruler Ultimate, latest update, or with the Great War DLC or what?

The economy is definitely challenging but the challenge is really more tedium than anything else isn't it?

Main thing is to get your entire country up as close to 100% supply as possible. Once you accomplish that, everything else falls in line. I only ever turn on Ministers control of anything very briefly to see what settings he would choose under a given directive: gives me a benchmark for what settings I should use if I want to achieve that particular directive.

I don't recall a "control inflation" directive though?
Great war latest updates.

100% supply is only the solution for some countries for a while. I know this because just for fun I had several computers I own running a few scenarios I modded to be sure no one would beat my country and see what happens economically.

If you play 20+ years into the future and conquer everyone declaring war to you you'll find out there's a lot more to the economy to keep it up and healthy.

The main thing actually is this:
over the years costs rise because upkeep, maintenance of your nation and army rises with more modern technologies.
to handle these costs you need increase in sales and turnover = net profit
net profit comes from GDP mainly.
But increased GDP also means people buy more products from you, more power needed, more ore, more timber, more consumer goods.
So if GDP rises to fast, you'll lack in production and this eventually cripple your economy.
If GDP rising to slow, you're costs rising faster compared to your income = cripple your finances.

so basically it's about balancing production vs demand
rising costs vs rising income
try to keep inflation at low rates close to zero without going negative (not sure why but going negative ALWAYS resulted in selling 100% of your army to run positive and it'll be fixed later
into positive inflation again but meanwhile everyone would be able to attack and conquer you)

To maintain this balance isn't important for people only playing 5 or 10 years.
It's however extremely important if playing 10+ years or even decades.

Also note, while playing economical difficulty at "normal" this isn't an issue either.
At easy or very easy you'll always run +++++++ big time regardless what you do.

Normal you just run ++

hard difficulty meaning already you can only fund an army big enough not being overrun. Bit more and you'll run --

Very hard difficulty on economical setting with some countries give you ++++ for 5 or 10 years still if just doing nothing except conquer and expand
but most countries running at very difficult already give you ---- from the start but either way, 10+ years at very hard they all run -----
if I only focus on 100% supplies. That just is good enough up to normal difficulty but not good enough for hard or very hard.

At least in my games I really need a lot of balancing on hard & very hard settings to make sure I'll run positive while keeping GDP growing slowly without
overheating economy in which case my whole production flatten down because eventually 100% of all production isn't enough to maintain population + production.

Once armies start running with 0 military supplies:game over" ever if you managed not negative on money.

Also later in game no one selling you resources anymore.

so it's all about balancing out really.
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Anthropoid
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Re: Optimal Settings Economy

Post by Anthropoid »

Ah hard economic difficulty eh!? A masochist! :)

Normal is plenty of micro-managing for me, thank you very much.
seathom
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Re: Optimal Settings Economy

Post by seathom »

After watching you tubers play a bunch of games, I finally played my first game (have had the game for probably 5-6 years!). I played TGW campaign as Russia on Hard-Hard-Hard but found it easy, easy, easy. No problem, so I tinkered with Germany and Italy on VH, VH, VH. Yuuuge difference on the economy and it looks to me more of an exciting challenge. My only concern is Industrial Production. After the war ends and reconstruction begins in earnest the supply of Industrial Goods was extremely limited (playing on H,H,H) so growth needs to be tempered (I like that....very realistic). Does playing on VH make it just more difficult for me to expand economically, or will it cause the world to be utterly incapable of expanding Industrial Goods production?
YoMomma
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Re: Optimal Settings Economy

Post by YoMomma »

Instead of turning this into a bragging topic or the 100th topic about issues with economy, i would rather see feedback on OP proposed settings, so this can be implemented asap for AI. It seems the AI remember the settings in mp so thats good.
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seathom
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Re: Optimal Settings Economy

Post by seathom »

I do apologize for asking a question to which I do not know the answer. Instead of answering it, I appreciate your insufferable condescending remark. Thanks for helping me enjoy the forums.
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