Hi guys, I know I been off air a bit but I been quitely monitoring your progress and its coming along nicely.
Economy confusion - Michigan scenario
I will give you some figures and see how its a bit confusing to the eye in why the economy is sometimes hard to understand. The is no production of buildings, missiles and units just a straight test in how to manage an economy.
These figures been run over a 8 month period, without building and so forth and also the daily figures are the same type of ratio. and been very stable at these figures.
Annual figures
Annual Income 118 Billion dollars
Annual Expenses 138 Billion dollars
Surplus/Deficit -20 Billion dollars
GDP 23 Billion
Treasury 2 Billion
Annual Trade is 12 Billion in the Black (took me some fiddling but I am happy to say I make more money in trade) but this is included in the Income of 118 million I added it up from the income sheets.
Now the confusing thing is after seeing all this what would your treasury expect to do, go up or go down.
Mine is very slow going up, not coming down fast as you would expect with those numbers. Now unless the GDP has some element to play in the income side of things, then I believe it should be reflected in income veruses surplus/deficit otherwise how you going to know if your economy is heading in the right direction and your treasury is increasing.
I am not an economics major so you perhaps will have to explain the relationship, but if you have to explain to me, you will have to explain it to everyone.
Relationship to treasury and surplus/deficit
Moderators: Balthagor, Legend, Moderators
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ardem
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ardem
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Balthagor
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Sorry I never got back to this. I did some testing and wasn't satisfied with the results and forgot to get back to it. I've done more testing and I'll need to talk about it with George but I think I can give you a basic answer. The numbers you need to be looking at are;
Treasury
Income
Expenses
Surplus Deficit
Budgeted Trade
Previous Day Trade
First we can eliminate a few. Income less expenses gives you the Surplus/Deficit. That one's easy. Something to be aware of, the Income and expenses DO NOT include the trade balance. That is why the budgeted trade is there. It represents the expected loss or gain from trade. In a perfect world, the change in treasury would always equal the surplus/deficit + the budgeted trade. However, since things are always changing, that number is only a guideline and can be ignored when analyzing the number. So here's what we have left;
Treasury
Surplus Deficit
Previous Day Trade
The next thing to understand is that the Surplus Deficit is from the previous day so you need to look at a few days in a row to catch the pattern. Here's some sample data from my test (If anyone wants the save game, e-mail me and I'll send it.)
<table border=1><tr><td>Date</td> <td>27th</td> <td>28th</td><td>29th</td> <td>30th</td> <td>1st</td> <td>2nd</td></tr><tr><td>Treasury</td> <td>1848</td> <td>1926</td> <td>1902</td><td>1924</td> <td>1847</td> <td>1927</td></tr><tr><td>Sur/Def</td><td>-109</td> <td>-117</td> <td>-117</td> <td>-117</td> <td>-125</td> <td>-126</td></tr><tr><td>Trade</td><td>47</td> <td>195</td>
<td>86</td> <td>140</td> <td>48</td> <td>197</td></tr></table>
Where it get's confusing is that if you add the Sur/Def and the Trade of the 27th to the treasury of the 27th you don't get anything close to the treasury of the 28th. Thats because on the 27th, you are seeing the Sur/Def and trade of the 26th.
Try taking Treasury of the 27th, add Sur/Def and Trade from 28th and you get the treasury for the 28th. Now it seems to drift by a few million as you go, maybe because I'm rounding my numbers, but it's not too far off. I'll go over the numbers with George and let you know if we find more issues.
Treasury
Income
Expenses
Surplus Deficit
Budgeted Trade
Previous Day Trade
First we can eliminate a few. Income less expenses gives you the Surplus/Deficit. That one's easy. Something to be aware of, the Income and expenses DO NOT include the trade balance. That is why the budgeted trade is there. It represents the expected loss or gain from trade. In a perfect world, the change in treasury would always equal the surplus/deficit + the budgeted trade. However, since things are always changing, that number is only a guideline and can be ignored when analyzing the number. So here's what we have left;
Treasury
Surplus Deficit
Previous Day Trade
The next thing to understand is that the Surplus Deficit is from the previous day so you need to look at a few days in a row to catch the pattern. Here's some sample data from my test (If anyone wants the save game, e-mail me and I'll send it.)
<table border=1><tr><td>Date</td> <td>27th</td> <td>28th</td><td>29th</td> <td>30th</td> <td>1st</td> <td>2nd</td></tr><tr><td>Treasury</td> <td>1848</td> <td>1926</td> <td>1902</td><td>1924</td> <td>1847</td> <td>1927</td></tr><tr><td>Sur/Def</td><td>-109</td> <td>-117</td> <td>-117</td> <td>-117</td> <td>-125</td> <td>-126</td></tr><tr><td>Trade</td><td>47</td> <td>195</td>
<td>86</td> <td>140</td> <td>48</td> <td>197</td></tr></table>
Where it get's confusing is that if you add the Sur/Def and the Trade of the 27th to the treasury of the 27th you don't get anything close to the treasury of the 28th. Thats because on the 27th, you are seeing the Sur/Def and trade of the 26th.
Try taking Treasury of the 27th, add Sur/Def and Trade from 28th and you get the treasury for the 28th. Now it seems to drift by a few million as you go, maybe because I'm rounding my numbers, but it's not too far off. I'll go over the numbers with George and let you know if we find more issues.
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ardem
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- Location: Sydney, Australia
If trade isn't included then it would be the reason why it is going up, but the problem then is the income sheets don't add up, to the accual income unless I missing some figure, or the trade component in that figure differs from the trade deficit. When I get home I load up the save and give you some hard figures of that screen.
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George Geczy
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- Location: BattleGoat Studios
- Contact:
Trade (exports/imports) are the big difficulty we've had in reporting budget numbers in a reasonable way.
Even though all numbers reported are 'annual estimates' (that assume that the rest of the year will be approximately in line with the recent past), most of the non-trade budget items will give you a good idea of whether your treasury will be going up or down in the short term.
Trade is a different matter, because so much can affect it:
- Are you selling only surplus, or are you selling off excess stock? (At the start of a scenario, your cabinet minister may sell off stock to raise cash, depending upon the priorities that are set - currently, 'Increase Treasury' is a default Economic priority, which leads the Minister to sell stock even if you may need it later).
- What is the market like - is there lots of World demand, or is it tough to sell your excess? Is someone undercutting your price? Is some other region dumping product, or buying it up in bulk?
- Does your minister have special instructions to stock goods, increase stockpiles of key commodities, etc?
- What else is effecting your stock of goods - is military production or facility construction ramping up, or down? are new industries coming online? Are you in a 'shooting war' where supplies and replacements are required?
All of these factors (and other factors too) make the 'budgeted trade' a complete guess value that can change day to day. As well, since a minister often tries to get the best price for goods being sold, he/she may hold off sales for a few days waiting for the price to rise, so sales to the market can often happen in 'bumps and spurts'.
Some of our economic reports still feature a defective trade balance number, though we have been trying to improve things by reporting the budget numbers (income/expenses) separate from the trade numbers where we can. This will improve further in the next beta version.
Even so, the unpredictability of trade can mean that a region that is projecting a deficit will end up with an increasing treasury, or a region that is projecting a surplus will have a shrinking treasury (but maybe growing stockpiles of goods it can't sell). And all of the numbers are still 'estimates' based on where it looks like the trends are going - things that can change on a moments notice as you make decisions on production, construction, etc.
-- George.
Even though all numbers reported are 'annual estimates' (that assume that the rest of the year will be approximately in line with the recent past), most of the non-trade budget items will give you a good idea of whether your treasury will be going up or down in the short term.
Trade is a different matter, because so much can affect it:
- Are you selling only surplus, or are you selling off excess stock? (At the start of a scenario, your cabinet minister may sell off stock to raise cash, depending upon the priorities that are set - currently, 'Increase Treasury' is a default Economic priority, which leads the Minister to sell stock even if you may need it later).
- What is the market like - is there lots of World demand, or is it tough to sell your excess? Is someone undercutting your price? Is some other region dumping product, or buying it up in bulk?
- Does your minister have special instructions to stock goods, increase stockpiles of key commodities, etc?
- What else is effecting your stock of goods - is military production or facility construction ramping up, or down? are new industries coming online? Are you in a 'shooting war' where supplies and replacements are required?
All of these factors (and other factors too) make the 'budgeted trade' a complete guess value that can change day to day. As well, since a minister often tries to get the best price for goods being sold, he/she may hold off sales for a few days waiting for the price to rise, so sales to the market can often happen in 'bumps and spurts'.
Some of our economic reports still feature a defective trade balance number, though we have been trying to improve things by reporting the budget numbers (income/expenses) separate from the trade numbers where we can. This will improve further in the next beta version.
Even so, the unpredictability of trade can mean that a region that is projecting a deficit will end up with an increasing treasury, or a region that is projecting a surplus will have a shrinking treasury (but maybe growing stockpiles of goods it can't sell). And all of the numbers are still 'estimates' based on where it looks like the trends are going - things that can change on a moments notice as you make decisions on production, construction, etc.
-- George.