Treasury trade deficits and surpluses

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felinis
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Treasury trade deficits and surpluses

Post by felinis »

I am at war with everyone and have over-ridden all of my export boycotts, yet the Tresaury reports state that I am incurring the expenses of a trade deficit.

Isn't a trade deficit where you import more than you export? All of my import boycotts are still in place.

My surpluses are going somewhere, yet the Treasury trade summary states that none of my products have been sold.

When my treasury was losing money, the Treasury Income report was reporting a trade surplus. But when I re-activated a bunch of factories and dropped all export boycotts, the situation reversed - I started making a profit again, and Treasury started reporting a trade deficit.
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Balthagor
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Post by Balthagor »

This is not a bug, a full explanation is provided in this thread;

http://www.battlegoat.com/forums/viewto ... 3&start=15

The budget is precisely that, a budget. It tells you what it an average trade day would be. The previous day is the only thing affecting your treasury.
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felinis
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Post by felinis »

Chris:
You are talking about the wrong screen - I am talking about the income and expense screens.

You are correct, the thread that you pointed did explain the situation, and went on to conclud that there IS a bug.
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tkobo
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Post by tkobo »

What bug is that ?
This post approved by Tkobo:Official Rabble Rouser of the United Yahoos
Chuckle TM
Eric Larsen
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Bogus trade budget

Post by Eric Larsen »

There is a bug in the annual trade surplus/deficit budget estimate. It is completely devoid of reality for the first thing as it doesn't even come close to calculating a proper budget estimate for trade based on what you're really trading. It is the most misleading and uninformative bit of info in the game. I suggest you just ignore that phony baloney budget estimate. Thankfully it isn't actually used in the calculation of net profit/loss so since it isn't meaningful just ignore it as bogus disinformation. BG would be better served getting rid of it completely. In cases where you've honked off every other region and can't possibly have any trade at all it is clueless to this and keeps giving you that bogus trade surplus/deficit rather than the accurate zero trade it should calculate.

I used to complain about it but after applying my calculator to the income/expense items I discovered it is not included in any meaningful calculation. Therefore do as I do and just laugh at it as bogus disinformation and a bug BG just won't bother to fix.
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Eric Larsen
felinis
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Post by felinis »

Larson:

Thank you for the validation.
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Balthagor
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Post by Balthagor »

It's still not a bug, it works as designed. I understand that you disagree with the design, we continue to review that...
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Eric Larsen
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Fixing a Snafu

Post by Eric Larsen »

Balthagor wrote:It's still not a bug, it works as designed. I understand that you disagree with the design, we continue to review that...
Chris,
I know BG tried to make that trade surplus/deficit "reasonable" but it ended up being very unreasonable. I'd say the best way to fix it is to just multiply the previous day's trade by 365. Not perfect either but it takes into account actual trading activity and thus gives a closer approximation of what to expect over a year at that projected trade level.
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Eric Larsen
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Balthagor
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Re: Fixing a Snafu

Post by Balthagor »

Eric Larsen wrote:... I'd say the best way to fix it is to just multiply the previous day's trade by 365...
That could be even worse! Imagine you just put online 4 new industrial goods plants so your minister decides to decrease the current stock of industrial goods. He puts a large portion on the market and it sells. The next day you examine your "budgeted trade" and think, wow, I should be rolling in cash soon!

In most cases the daily trades over time will average out the equalling the budgeted trades. The exceptions would be when a player undercuts you on the market/your pricing is not competative or when there is no World Market. The second applies to only one map...
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Eric Larsen
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Another AI Mistake

Post by Eric Larsen »

Balthagor wrote:That could be even worse! Imagine you just put online 4 new industrial goods plants so your minister decides to decrease the current stock of industrial goods. He puts a large portion on the market and it sells. The next day you examine your "budgeted trade" and think, wow, I should be rolling in cash soon!

In most cases the daily trades over time will average out the equalling the budgeted trades. The exceptions would be when a player undercuts you on the market/your pricing is not competative or when there is no World Market. The second applies to only one map...
Chris,
Exactly why I never would allow the AI to control my economy. I find it really stupid for the AI's to dump huge quantities of product on the market, the really lame thing they all do at the beginning of every game. They sell off large quantities of important goods they are short on producing for a short-term cash fix.

The main point is that I would never put 4 new industrial goods plants online at the same time as that would indicate rather poor production planning on my part. However I do regularly place goods from my reserves on the market when I know I can get a good price for them and I can sell the whole lot, except for those times when I flood the market with a product to undercut the AI's. The next turn I wipe off my excess and drop my sales price back down below where I know the AI's will set their new price points. Too bad the AI's aren't smart enough to keep large blocks of goods off the market so that they keep their price points more secret.

That phony baloney annual trade balance is so out of touch with reality that it is nothing but misleading disinformation. You've seen some of my saved games where I've got $10 or $11 billion daily trade surpluses, day after day, month after month. What does the clueless annual trade surplus show for me but a puny $500 or $600 billion annual trade surplus when it should be showing $3.5 or $3.6 trillion trade surplus! :o Oops big screwup for sure that needs to be fixed. I sure as heck did not amass a $2.5 trillion treasury in 2 years with a puny half trillion trade surplus per year.

Yes there will be times when I dump a little more reserve stock on the market and that would make my trade surplus go up a little, but multplying the previous day's trade by 365 is far more accurate than that convoluted inaccurate unreasonable annual trade estimate that is currently shown. Sometimes simpler is better and when you use real numbers you get real results, when you try to make up some harry high school formula from unreal numbers you get nothing but unreal results.
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Eric Larsen
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Balthagor
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Re: Another AI Mistake

Post by Balthagor »

Eric Larsen wrote:... You've seen some of my saved games where I've got $10 or $11 billion daily trade surpluses, day after day, month after month...
Aren't they all on the World Level that I indicated is an exception due to no WM?
Eric Larsen wrote:...multplying the previous day's trade by 365 is far more accurate than that convoluted inaccurate unreasonable annual trade estimate that is currently shown...
Sorry, I disagree. If I want real numbers, I don't look at a budget. When's the last time you heard of any government who's final numbers actually matched their budget...

The budget does what it was designed to do.
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An Everyday Aberration

Post by Eric Larsen »

Balthagor wrote:Sorry, I disagree. If I want real numbers, I don't look at a budget. When's the last time you heard of any government who's final numbers actually matched their budget...

The budget does what it was designed to do.
Chris,
If the annual budget estimate for trade was meant to obfuscate the truth and to mislead players then "Mission Accomplished". I find it rather hilarious that you are so worried about single day trade aberrations when in fact the estimated annual trade estimate is an everyday aberration.

While budgets are meant for planning purposes and are to be taken with a grain of salt, the annual trade estimate is just disinformation at best. It is thoroughly misleading and doesn't come anywhere near close to reality. Explain to me how "reasonable" a budget estimate is that is so far from reality? If I've got $10 to $11 billion a day trade surplus then I should have something like $3.5 to almost $4 trillion a year in trade surplus. When the program shows a mere $600 billion annual trade that's a significant error in estimation.

The big problem with your unreasonable "reasonable" annual trade estimate is it does not take into account dormant production capacity. Maybe I've got a ton of product in reserve and can afford to burn off excess reserve product by deactivating production so that I'm burning through my excess product. Your clueless annual trade estimate will calculate incorrectly that I'll need to import that product during the coming year when in fact I'll never need to import that product because I can crank up my production at my whim. Because of that fallacious assumption my trade surplus gets reduced unfairly and incorrectly.

Still multiplying the previous day's trade by 365 will produce a far more accurate annual trade suplus/deficit than the current system. You could do a weighted moving average by deducting 1/365th from the annual trade balance and then adding in the previous day's trade. That would smooth out any single-day trade differences. Ofcourse the first year you'd need a formula that would add up the days so that the denominator matched the short year for the first year. After that divide by 365 and then add the previous day's trade. Far simpler and far more accurate than the convoluted inaccurate everday aberration that's currently in abuse. If you're going to provide information to us atleast make it as realistic as possible. As it is I just totally ignore that fallacious trade estimate because it is irrelevant disinformation. A perfect example of "Garbage In Garbage Out".
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Eric Larsen
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Balthagor
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Post by Balthagor »

I find it equally hilarious you remain fixated on this one issue…

If you run the game for 365 days the total previous day trades should be roughly equal to the annual budgeted trade. That is what the budget is designed to show. Your examples I suspect again return to the world map which I continue to indicate is an oddity due to the lack of World Market. Or then it is a region affected by boycotts/undercuts something I also indicated causes the value to reflect only your potential situation, not your current one. We are aware that the program does not factor in boycotts to its estimates, doing so would prove exceedingly difficult.

The budget estimate still has absolutely no effect on the day to day financial transactions therefore it remains merely an indicator for the player, one I have used a number of times.

Your suggested addition of “previous day trade” from multiple days is not possible, there is no historical data stored by the program.

As you indicated that you “totally ignore that fallacious trade estimate” I don’t see what harm it is doing, it is clearly not impeding your ability to play the game…
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tonystowe
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Re: An Everyday Aberration

Post by tonystowe »

Mr. Larsen,

I want to be the first to congratulate you on the correct use of the words Obfuscate, Aberration, Fallacious, and Convoluted. Write each missive as if it were your last I always say and for this effort I can see a "Gamer of the Month" award in your near future!! :D

Eric, your passion for the economic model in this game equals that of my passion for the military model. I consider both your and my view points as that of looking at this game through a soda straw! As we intensely focus on our area of expertise (if you will allow me to call it that) we fail to see the big, "one over the world", picture!

In closing, I enjoy your posts and please don't take this as nudging you wrong. :wink:

Tony
Eric Larsen
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Don't forget the spelling

Post by Eric Larsen »

tonystowe wrote:I want to be the first to congratulate you on the correct use of the words Obfuscate, Aberration, Fallacious, and Convoluted. Write each missive as if it were your last I always say and for this effort I can see a "Gamer of the Month" award in your near future!! :D

Eric, your passion for the economic model in this game equals that of my passion for the military model. I consider both your and my view points as that of looking at this game through a soda straw! As we intensely focus on our area of expertise (if you will allow me to call it that) we fail to see the big, "one over the world", picture!

In closing, I enjoy your posts and please don't take this as nudging you wrong. :wink:

Tony
Tony,
Don't forget to congratulate me on actually spelling those words correctly too! :wink: To me the economics is the foundation of your region and getting that right makes everything else flow more smoothly. I actually enjoy playing the game sans the military aspect, but don't get me wrong I do like the military aspect too. Just lots of micromanaging when it comes to clobbering time. I'm learning how to play nicer with the AI's to make them more competitive. I'd just like to see the game made better by making stuff more realistic.
Thanks,

Eric Larsen
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