Water Conservation is Bad????

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The_Blind_One
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Post by The_Blind_One »

Balthagor wrote:still not fully caught up on the thread, but one thing I should mention is that the per person demand for goods can be adjusted both for the overall scenario and for the individual regions.

In the Player Configuration file there are two places to do this. To change the demand for a product for all regions use the value wmprodperperson[X]; where X = the product's number (zero for agri, one for ore, etc). If this value = 1 then any region who's GDP/c = wmgdpc; from the configuration file will demand 1 unit per person daily. If they have a higher GDP/c they will demand more and if it is lower they will demand less on a sliding scale.

The second place is in the section that shows production efficiency and opening stock values. The value for demandppmod[X]; can be from 0.00 to 1.00 and makes the demand for the given region a percentage of overall demand equal to the value given. Using the above example, if a region has 0.5 for this value then they would demand 1/2 a unit per person daily. This value is not always used since it defaults to 1.00 if not added. It can be seen in the configuration file for the world scenario. An example of where this would be useful is in places like the mideast where timber is in much lower demand since alternate materials are used for construction. If you have two regions in a sceanrio that have very different demands this value can make it easier to balance them.

I've included this to try and provide a better understanding of how the game mechanics work but I should mention that the second value that allows adjusting per region demand was added very late in the development so is not widely used. We would have needed perhaps six months to review all the scearnios, know what percentage they each needed and rebalance them. Overall the delay would have had so little effect on gameplay it was considered unimportant. However, anyone designing their own scenarios may wish to use this values and if someone wishes to update existing scenarios this is something they could play with.

(I've made myself a note to add some of this to the wiki...)
Yep, I've been fiddling with those numbers for ages :D with succes ofcourse.

My only real concern is that certain regions have double if not triple the possible economies that others have.

In the world scenario for example ''India/Pakistan'' has a modifer of 2.5 for consumer goods!!! That means that they can SELL 2.5 times MORE goods to their population, resulting in huge net profits and a huge ability to tax the hell out of your population without actual demand decreases.

That grossly unbalances the game once u get india/pakistan on the road to wealth and economic prosperity.

Consumer goods contribute about 7000 NET profits if ur gdp/c is 21000 and you stabalised demand. With India this could easily be 16000 net profits!!! unrealistic :D (that 16000 is PER PERSON!!! so with 1 billion people...you do the math! :o ) (want to fund a war? :D u got cash!)

Boosting consumer demand changes the game dynamics completely. I've changed the demand from 0.25 to 0.3 tonne consumer goods. That results in the ability to tax alot more, alot more money gets into circulation wich rockets ur gdp/c upwards resulting in booming inflation, not to mention that your net profits increase dramatictly.

Anyways my 2 cents :D
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Balthagor
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Post by Balthagor »

I did a little more research on this topic over the weekend and found some basic facts about it.

First, I can confirm it works as stated. In the tech description it lists a 10% reduction in per person demand and that does occur. There is also no "phase in" time on this tech from what I saw, you ge the 10% immediatly.

As for its overall effect on the economy of a region, It does seem to be subjective. If you are making money on sales of water, you could loose out on a profit opportunity as water sales decrease. If you are in a region that can't afford to import the water and are selling it at negative markup to try and keep DAR up, this will save you money (same DAR level for less water given away).

It really becomes a question of what we want the tech to represent. Here it seems to be only a reduction in use. We could look in future versions at having this tech add a basic 1% back into the "general GDP/c" of a region to represent the redistirbuted money. If pollution is added to the game there is a potential here for pollution reduction.
Chris Latour
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Eric Larsen
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Thats' what I asked about originally

Post by Eric Larsen »

Balthagor wrote: Here it seems to be only a reduction in use. We could look in future versions at having this tech add a basic 1% back into the "general GDP/c" of a region to represent the redistirbuted money. If pollution is added to the game there is a potential here for pollution reduction.
Chris,
This was the original problem I saw and reported when I started this thread. Where the heck did the money go that came from the savings of not having to buy as much water? I saw that it reduced domestic sales a whole bunch for water but I did not see any increases in the purchases of other products. Money saved through conservation would still be available for purchasing other products but in the game it just seems to disappear down a black hole. I live in an area where we do have to do "voluntary" water conservation from time to time and the water companies don't just fold up and go broke nor are there long lines of newly displaced water workers. What we save in money during conservation programs we get to spend on other stuff, like games or food or spiffy watering systems or cars and now gas.

I'd be all for having something that adds some money back to the economy when we get conservation techs. It would be nice if the actual money saved could mostly go back into the economy but that would take some calculating to figure out that amount. I'd settle for a 1% addback if that's the best that can be done for now.
Thanks,

Eric Larsen
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Balthagor
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Post by Balthagor »

In truth, it only hurts your economy if you're making money off of water sales. The money that they spend "elsewhere" is not part of the government economy so it doesn't come back to your treasury.

As George mentioned to me, that would be like Bush saying "we're making good money on petroleum these days, we need to keep our dependancy on it high!" :P
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Eric Larsen
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Don't Read his Lips

Post by Eric Larsen »

Balthagor wrote:In truth, it only hurts your economy if you're making money off of water sales. The money that they spend "elsewhere" is not part of the government economy so it doesn't come back to your treasury.

As George mentioned to me, that would be like Bush saying "we're making good money on petroleum these days, we need to keep our dependancy on it high!" :P
Chris,
While money saved through water conservation is not part of the "government" economy it is part of the "private" economy and that money doesn't just disappear in real life. The savings from conservation does not disappear from the economy and the savings will get spent on other products and SR2010 should properly reflect the advantages of conservation. Regardless of whether some product is a money maker or not conservation does help economies to grow. I've seen how they really help when you're meeting new peoples and adding them to your population. Without conservation you could go from being self sufficient to being a big importer really quick when adding a lot of new population quickly.

I like George's quip but look at the truth of the matter. While reading his lips we never, ever hear the word "conservation" pass them so in fact he is telling the oil industry to keep pumping and gouging us as fast and furious as they can and he will keep us dependent upon foreign oil so his oil pals can makes gobs of money.
Thanks,

Eric Larsen
The_Blind_One
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Re: Don't Read his Lips

Post by The_Blind_One »

Eric Larsen wrote:
Balthagor wrote:In truth, it only hurts your economy if you're making money off of water sales. The money that they spend "elsewhere" is not part of the government economy so it doesn't come back to your treasury.

As George mentioned to me, that would be like Bush saying "we're making good money on petroleum these days, we need to keep our dependancy on it high!" :P
Chris,
While money saved through water conservation is not part of the "government" economy it is part of the "private" economy and that money doesn't just disappear in real life. The savings from conservation does not disappear from the economy and the savings will get spent on other products and SR2010 should properly reflect the advantages of conservation. Regardless of whether some product is a money maker or not conservation does help economies to grow. I've seen how they really help when you're meeting new peoples and adding them to your population. Without conservation you could go from being self sufficient to being a big importer really quick when adding a lot of new population quickly.

I like George's quip but look at the truth of the matter. While reading his lips we never, ever hear the word "conservation" pass them so in fact he is telling the oil industry to keep pumping and gouging us as fast and furious as they can and he will keep us dependent upon foreign oil so his oil pals can makes gobs of money.
Thanks,

Eric Larsen
I've been playing with my own modified techtree for months now. I have complete excell sheats on my computer wich calculate the money that is freed from lowering demand.

So when u research water conservation, it takes away demand and the value of this demand is replaced with an equal value of EXTRA demand for consumer goods.

I balanced my game in such a way that when ur economy is making 21000 gdp/c it stays making 21000 gdp/c, be that more demand in consumer or water :wink:

I do hate the limitations on the effects u can add to a tech (limited to 2 atm). Some techs effect 2 demand modifiers but doesn't replace the monetary value. Ohwell :D That's why I've got a modified one :wink:
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Post by rhjyyz »

In the WWIII configuration file, I tried changing the demandppmod value for a region from default (it was blank) to .50 . I didn't observe any change in demand.

It should cut in half the civilain usage for electricity, no?
Is there another entry to change? I am trying to change the electricity demand for a region (not the whole scenario)
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Balthagor
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Post by Balthagor »

so you changed demandppmod[7]; ?

And then you saved it to .CSV and imported it?

Once imported if you select "refresh" you should see the demand drop immediatly, but that will only decrease the demand from your ppl, not what the finished goods need for their production...


... why is this subject in this thread?...
Chris Latour
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rhjyyz
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Post by rhjyyz »

Sorry, you mentioned the variable earlier in this post, that's why I mentioned it. I posted in another one just to make sure it got looked at.
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