Economy & GDP/c

[mattpilot]

I'm scratching my head on this subject. Its the reason i ragequit a bit too often... mostly because i dont understand whats going on.

Simple Question:

Is it my goal, as the player, to try to achieve high GDP/c or keep it mid-to low range?

It seems like its unavoidable to get high GDP - the game depicts it as a good thing (bar fills up to the right and becomes green the higher it is). But having a high GDP kills your economy, as you no longer can produce at a profit. Tax dollars don't seem to make up the difference in lost production revenue. A bunch of negative aspects seem to be associated with high GDP, which leads me to think i should work at reducing its growth rate

If its my goal to have a functioning import/export economy that somewhat resembles RL, i gotta keep my GDP at somewhat a reasonable level. What i've found out is that the GDP level directly changes with the amount of stuff that gets PRODUCED .. or rather SPENT in your country.

- Building stuff uses up IG's and MG's ... increases GDP -> sounds reasonable, as you're giving back "money" or "value" to the people
- Producing Consumer Goods (and i'm assuming IG & MG's aswell) Increases GDP ... i only strictly tested with CG's.
But the thing is...Selling consumer goods to the people has no observable effect on GDP. Neither does the % markup you apply to the civilian products.

To test, if you want to quickly lower your GDP, simply set your CG factories to 0% (or 10% whatever) output. Doesn't matter if the civilian demand still gets met by imports or from stockpiles (or if at all)... you as the gov't are spending less, thus gdp drops. I find that this seems to be the only way to keep my "industries" profitable, and it just feels so illogical.

Perhaps i'm just a dumb brick in the wall, but i dont understand whats giong on, -> it feels wrong. The more i 'successfully' grow my economy, the more uncompetive it becomes. i'm ripping my hair out and flippin desks here

[Jakt80]

Bit of the same here, I'm another brick it seems. I've had a handle on it in sr2020, but since CW I can't really get it into gear properly, it seems. I too am at a loss, any guide that gives insight to how it works (not just if you do this it goes profit, but explains why and how) or hands on help would be appreciated.

[large_farva]

+1

[Hullu Hevonen]

The reason why your tax cant cover your expenses are likely because of the fact that all those buildings you build costs to upkeep. Therefor since you cant force you people to consum the extra products, you will have to export.

[Fistalis]

Simple Question:

Is it my goal, as the player, to try to achieve high GDP/c or keep it mid-to low range?

That really depends on what you're trying to accomplish. If you are trying to maintain an export economy then you need to keep your GDP down to keep production costs low. Higher GDP leads to workers expecting better pay. Better pay means higher production costs. Higher production costs means a reduction in competitiveness in a global market. This can be offset by some specific techs that increase output but those are likely far in the future in a standard 1936 game.

[mattpilot]

Never thought i'd get a reply after all this time ....

technically i still haven't (not from BG at least).


Is it to much to ask to be able to understand what the hell is going on with the economic system? Post some formula's or explain the relationships different factors have with each other and what the expected results are. How does the world of teh goats work? At the moment, from my vantage point, nothing makes sense.

I just did another test -> I wanted to see what effect the production facilities have on your economy. I've heard things about each facility takes up manpower/employes and how the production affects your GDP and stuff.... but i can't see a relationship. Take a small country, sell ALL your facilities. You will notice how your economy somehow improves. Hell, it even runs a better surplus than with all the facilities you used to own. Somehow unemployment is going down, inflation stable. etc...

THen mess with the social spending slider and you'll find out that this is basically the biggest influence on your economy - is it to low, your economy goes down the drain (high unemployment, deflation) ... is it to high, GDP goes through the roof.

I still dont know whether having a high GDP is good or bad in terms of the 'goat world' - the game depicts it as a good thing, but punishes you for having it.


Don't get me wrong - i love the concept of the game. I love the hex system and the combat .. i love what the engine allows you to do with your units. But not understanding the economy absolutely kills it for me. Judging by the BG posts to other issues on this forum, it seems BG has no idea how it currently works (hey, its an old engine, give them a break... ) and it seems its of no great concern either. All they gotta do is make sure the economy runs for 10 years during the WW2 timeframe by stacking it with handicaps, and if (i mean, when) it fails outside that timeframe all they gotta say is "oops, sorry, outside of the scope of the game"

[barkhauer]

High GDP/c is either good or bad depending on your overall circumstances. A nation with high GDP/c can make quite a bit of money selling goods to their own people. You can afford a lot of things, like a huge, high-tech army, etc. It's quite difficult to make profits exporting, however, so eventually the costs "put the brakes" on your growth.

There's no "score" bonus worth noting for growth or high GDP/c. Your popularity will grow when it raises, and decline when it falls. Most of the profits in the game are to be made when managing the change from one state to another.

[Hundane]

Is it my goal, as the player, to try to achieve high GDP/c or keep it mid-to low range?

The best thing to do is to slowly increase your GDP/c.

[mrgenie]

The question to have the optimal settings for taxes and social spending on the long run has been made many times.
Also for SR2020, SR2010 and SRCW..

I never saw or found an answer.

[burock82]

I totally agree with the topic! It will be better to know with some formulas! because even if you sign a free trade agreement with a big country or a small country in terms of economics, it does not affect the country's economies. I always thought that signing free trade agreement allows the both side to purchase goods from each other. For example as Turkey i have a free trade agreement with UK and UK can buy cheaper products from me ! or you may consider the reverse case. But what i can see free trade agreement has no effect on game mechanics.

[Aragos]

When I worked on Pride of Nations, one of the things we did was create a "strategy guide" for the game.

SR needs a strat guide badly. An intro one for new players, and a detailed one as well.

[mrgenie]

When I worked on Pride of Nations, one of the things we did was create a "strategy guide" for the game.

SR needs a strat guide badly. An intro one for new players, and a detailed one as well.

2nd that!
Especially the detailed on economics..

In SR2020 I somehow always managed to get a surplus, as long as my GDP remained low...
but in SR 1936, the more land I annex, the less money I make..
if Germany conquers half of Europe, it really doesn't matter what tax-social I put..
whatever money I setup on sales..
I just go bankrupt, even on the easiest economy setting..

I think, on easiest.. even a wrong economy setting should make a surplus if you have 100% your units
in reserve, not researching anything, etc.. but simply can't get a surplus..

when I enlarge my GDP from 300 to 600.. the costs double or even more..
but the sales on products where I can make money with, they increase by 2 or 3% by doubling the GDP..

So, the only solution: the larger the country gets, to lower your GDP as much as possible.. the lower
the GDP the more money you make..

very weird..

I always hear those economics talking:"we must increase our GDP so the income for the government grows and
we grow out of debt" but in the game this is completely different:" We must DECREASE our GDP so the income
for the goverment grows and we actually can maintain a small army of a few thousand people for a country that
expanded over half of Europe..

other example.. when I switch power supply make-over between 40 and 60%.. you'd expect if you bring down
electricity prices people use more.. they don't really in the game.. also, you expect: ok, if they don't use more,
the people have more money on consumer goods and buy more.. well they don't..

so it actually pays off the let them pay 200% for everything.. which is weird.. in reality that would cripple economy and government incomes..
while in the game that's the way to get a high income..

[Aragos]

taxes play a huge role. Above 50% or so, consumption goes down. So, if you lower Oil to 0% profit, but raise taxes to 95%, the people still won't buy more--you are taking all their money away.

[mrgenie]

taxes play a huge role. Above 50% or so, consumption goes down. So, if you lower Oil to 0% profit, but raise taxes to 95%, the people still won't buy more--you are taking all their money away.

I actually never set taxes over 30%.. I've tried putting them at 0% but if I put them from 30% to 0% the demand increases only
by a few %.. not worth mentioning.. so usually my taxes average around 24-26%..

But if you know the formula to get good positive on economy.. please feel free to post it here online! :=))


Right now I'm running it in the background, will let it run all day.. at following settings:
Low Income, High Income, Corporate and Small Business at 29%
Sales 19%
Unemployment and Property Tax at 3%
Pension Tax 4%

Social Spending (Since there is no % I simply estimate the % roughly):
Healthcare 33%
Education 20%
Infrastructure 60%
Environment 15%
Family Subsidy 20%
Law Enforcement 10%
Cultural Subsidy 10%
Social Assistance 10%

Domestic Prices:
Agriculture 30%
Timber 30%
Petrol 180%
Coal 10%
Electric 10%
Consumer 30%

With these settings, I'm running positive and GDP is stable.. neither increasing nor decreasing..
will see at the end of the day what happened ...

[Aragos]

Yeah, I wish I knew it too!

I usually play the USA but am doing a Japan game now. Oddly, Japan is much easier to manage economically than the USA. I wonder if the USA has been somewhat nerfed to prevent the USA AI from overrunning the planet.