Mege Huge Economy Bug

[The_Blind_One]

okay perhaps this wasn't ur intention of the economy and domestic markups combined with DAR effects.

I complained in another thread that domestic markups couldn't be higher than 100%, so I became frustrated because I wanted to tax oil to 200 or 300%. In order to do this (and just for fun) I created a playerset file that had domestic markup standard at 1000%!!!!

That resulted, (tested with Benelux from europe scenario) into an annual income of 4 trillion dollars!!!! (about 5 to 6 times the national gdp for a country) this resulted in aproximately 1 trillion expenses, wich left me with an average of 3 trillion surplus.

Clearly my people were still buying consumer goods, eventhough they were taxed to 1000% and somehow they managed to find that money, wich all flowed right into my treasury

Also I noticed that my DAR was hovering around 40%!!!! mostly 39, but I quickly regained that when I invested some measly 200 billion a year into social services making them happy again while I was taxing 1000%!!!!

Very nice, but very exploitable aswell.

So my proposed fixes.

- Allow us to set domestic market to any % we want
- Make domestic markup on goods have a MUCH bigger impact on DAR, more relative to the expected % social services (european countries tax alot so they increase trade balance and improve social services with it, or fund war )
- Make domestic markup WAY more relative to the amount of goods that will be purchased. (aka more markup = less goods bought)

But above ALL!!!!

The first rule of economics isn't even implemented in this game!!!

What goes in, must come out.

So if my people earn $30.000, they shouldn't be able to purchase their neccesity's for $300.000!!!!

We really need a big overhaul of this economic model, or make it more sensable,

At the moment, it's really profitable to just TAX the **** out of people.

Did I say that my people NEVER complained about high prices and not being able to afford? nope I didn't, that's because they can afford somehow miraculously. Only if I raised overal tax % above 44.5% would they complain about high prices....

P.S

The entire playerset values can be manipulated and can make ur country the richest one in the game :S without causing inflation or anything!!!

[tkobo]

I complained in another thread that domestic markups couldn't be higher than 100%

Actually this seems to be scenario and region dependant.Many regions can indeed have a markup far above 100%.
I believe 600%+ is possible in some regions.



Africa,Middleast, Balkans,and South America are examples of regions in which domestic markup can be well above 100%.

[The_Blind_One]

Africa,Middleast, Balkans,and South America are examples of regions in which domestic markup can be well above 100%.

That's because their gdp/c is low, and most likely they don't have enough production to meed demand.

Just try it with a western country, I can bet u can tax electricity to 100%, but u can tax it even more as soon as u can't meet demand enough.

Still it's retarded!

[bergsjaeger]

As a US region i was able to tax about everything over 150% with a GDP over 30000. And there wasn't even a demand for any of them.

[The_Blind_One]

As a US region i was able to tax about everything over 150% with a GDP over 30000. And there wasn't even a demand for any of them.

my goodness people, it's no longer the issue if u can or CANNOT tax...all I'm saying, the system is broken, the taxbug gives us UNLIMITED amounts of money aslong as u use the playerset file to manipulate and u put infinite taxing without problems

[George Geczy]

It's true that the economic model was not tested against "off the charts" domestic markups. I'm not entirely convinced we should allow players to set the markups into unreasonable rates (ie 1000% in a high gdp region), but we will include in Update 3 some adjustments to make sure such high markups are properly handled.

Within the normal markup ranges, the demand and DAR takes into account the raw cost, the markup, the earnings per person, and the tax rates (lower taxes means more disposable income, which can then be spent on goods, etc). In some cases domestic sales per person plus taxes per person will be higher than the earnings per person, thanks to the wonders of personal borrowing (hey, it's how the US economy works!)

"- Allow us to set domestic market to any % we want"
Gotta think about this one. The range presented is intended to be the entire 'acceptable' range, though I understand your point.

"- Make domestic markup on goods have a MUCH bigger impact on DAR, more relative to the expected % social services"
We will increase the effect of radical markups on DAR

"- Make domestic markup WAY more relative to the amount of goods that will be purchased. (aka more markup = less goods bought)"
This is already happens to a certain extent, but not enough on radical markups. This will be corrected as well in Update 3.

"What goes in, must come out."
Most of the economic model works this way (with the buffering of factors such as personal borrowing etc), though the radical markups (which are really a hack, since it can't be done in the UI) managed to break this rule.

Thanks for notes on this...

-- George.

[The_Blind_One]

"What goes in, must come out."
Most of the economic model works this way (with the buffering of factors such as personal borrowing etc), though the radical markups (which are really a hack, since it can't be done in the UI) managed to break this rule.

I know borrowing is accounted, but once u start borrowing 10000% of ur income I think it's a bit TOOO much .

It seems the population can borrow without end and that needs to be fixed, maybe add a consumer debt? when it raises to high that ur economy crashes and demand plumets resulting in a huge economic crisis. It's what america is doing right now, borrowing beyond paying back for to long and that will kill us all!!!

Anyways I just don't think they should have the ability to borrow as much money as they do.

And thanks for looking into it

now get update #3 out!!!

[George Geczy]

On further investigation, it appears your test also uncovered a bug that isn't really a bug....

Apparently when you set the markups to 1000% in the hack to the player settings INI, you also set the markups on non-consumer goods (ie, ore, industrial goods, etc). These 'industry to industry' sales are supposed to go through at no mark up, and the User Interface does not allow you to set a consumer sales markup on these items. You got around this UI restriction by editing the file, and the economics routines were not built to expect this. In effect, the markup should not have been counted on these items, and so what you were doing was creating "money from nothing". It wasn't the consumers paying for it, it was some mysterious wormhole

Back to Update 3 testing...

-- George.

[The_Blind_One]

On further investigation, it appears your test also uncovered a bug that isn't really a bug....

Apparently when you set the markups to 1000% in the hack to the player settings INI, you also set the markups on non-consumer goods (ie, ore, industrial goods, etc). These 'industry to industry' sales are supposed to go through at no mark up, and the User Interface does not allow you to set a consumer sales markup on these items. You got around this UI restriction by editing the file, and the economics routines were not built to expect this. In effect, the markup should not have been counted on these items, and so what you were doing was creating "money from nothing". It wasn't the consumers paying for it, it was some mysterious wormhole

Back to Update 3 testing...

-- George.

Makes me wonder george, can't we put taxes up to 1000% for anything we want through that very same playerset ini hack? that would still allow us to suck money from a wormhole