Balancing GDP growth

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way2co0l
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Balancing GDP growth

Post by way2co0l »

I wanted to start a thread for this and hopefully gather some support for it.

It's my opinion that GDP grows far too quickly and far too easily, even before the changes where the AI starts building new facilities on their own. I understand that high GDP growth is technically a good thing in game, but that doesn't change my argument from either perspective honestly. I feel it's just way too easy to grow your GDP insanely quickly, and very difficult to control it without completely gimping your country completely. The AI, due to the fact that they don't really know how to scale their growth back, will almost always reach hyper inflation pretty quickly and as the player, you have the choice to either match them or fall further back in comparison.

My request is that we scale back how quickly GDP grows. I'm not saying it shouldn't still grow, especially when at low unemployment and high inflation, but just to tune it down so that it grows at a less insane rate. By affecting both the player and the AI, I don't see any real balance issues that would come from this, and ultimately will slow down demand growth which will make it easier for the AI to continue to increase their production without adversely driving up their demand at the same time.
YoMomma
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Re: Balancing GDP growth

Post by YoMomma »

Dont think your the only one:

viewtopic.php?f=85&t=27670&sid=f3af27f9 ... 9057ceec6a

Like i said in like 20 other topics, implement settings of OP and AI is doing much better growing treasury instead of this suicidal stuff.
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evildari
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Re: Balancing GDP growth

Post by evildari »

I think that damage to facilities+population (especially civilian and industrial) should have a negative impact to gdp, depending on damage done in relation to the targets total facilities+population. Not to mention complete destruction or wmd use at a hex.
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YoMomma
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Re: Balancing GDP growth

Post by YoMomma »

Well that's kinda dramatic lol, ai doesnt repair and got too much gdp, so damaged facilities looses gdp. It makes sence, but dont see how AI becomes stronger because of it. Kind of waste..

The settings in the topic i provided exactly shows the flaws of the AI. AI will always put social expenses before everything to max it too 200%. Play few years and watch the regions in MP if you dont believe.

With these settings regions have inflation and gdp under control with lots of money to spend because of growing treasury. US in 2020 will make 10 trillion each day. Which may sound alot, but i can get them to 25 trillion a day. Just give a bit more competition to the player.

Thing is even with these settings China and India still operate at a loss in 2020, so i still think theres problem with social expences and population. Also China produces much less on agriculture per hex as 98% of the rest, so yeah stuff like that just leads to obsolete regions.
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way2co0l
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Re: Balancing GDP growth

Post by way2co0l »

Yeah but that's why I wanted to make an official post requesting it. I mean, if you can start in 1914, and within a couple of years have countries with GDPs that dwarf the starting GDPs for countries 100 years later, something is weird. :P It just grows too quickly, and too easily.

As for China producing less per hex when it comes to agriculture, I assume you mean the passive terrain bonus without having an actual building? I know that it's based on at least 2 criteria that I've identified. Hex supply and your relative GDP level. Or at least one of the things that are closely tied to GDP such as inflation/unemployment. Regions that have experienced high GDP growth, especially in relation to other countries in the world, combined with less supply in a hex can reduce the passive output of agriculture pretty heavily.

When it comes to buildings being damaged reducing GDP, I don't agree entirely, but in an off hand way I do. I want GDP to grow more slowly, and take more effort to make it grow in the first place, which would have the effect of making it easier to have GDP go down. Having facilities get damaged would reduce your production capacity which should make it more difficult to grow your GDP.

I agree though that the AI can still handle its expenses more intelligently. Paying more attention to their general budgets, debt levels, ect. I'm hoping that more work will be done in these areas. :D
YoMomma
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Re: Balancing GDP growth

Post by YoMomma »

Hmm it just doenst sounds right 'lowering GDP growth'' The GDP grow fast for AI for a reason, this reason needs to be tackled not the whole economy. How will 'lowering GDP growth' help China and India in 2020, while expenses for social and investments are still the same?
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Uriens
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Re: Balancing GDP growth

Post by Uriens »

Just to drop in briefly. I completely agree that growth of GDP/c is way too fast and economic game very often comes down to restraining inflation and trying to keep unemployement above 3.0.
How to tackle the problem though, not so sure.

Edit: It just came to me that with new AI that builds research centers that problem is even bigger. I suggest reducing research center effects on GDP/c and unimployement to counter it.
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Re: Balancing GDP growth

Post by YoMomma »

About the research, i disagree on GDP, i like that ai build research centers (altho i played to few to notice it in my games) and i like how big this influence GDP/C. Look at tech level of countries like Switzerland, Belgium, Norway, Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark all on top of the food chain. They have little population tho, but big GDP/C, so if this influence employment in a big way, yea theres room for improving it.
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way2co0l
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Re: Balancing GDP growth

Post by way2co0l »

YoMomma wrote: Aug 13 2018 Hmm it just doenst sounds right 'lowering GDP growth'' The GDP grow fast for AI for a reason, this reason needs to be tackled not the whole economy. How will 'lowering GDP growth' help China and India in 2020, while expenses for social and investments are still the same?
It will help them because this skyrocketing GDP has a direct correlation to the costs of goods and social expenses. By limiting how quickly GDP grows across the board, (Not only the AI, the player's GDP growth being slowed as well) demand will increase at a much slower rate and social expenses won't rise nearly as quickly as they do now.

In my most recent test game which I began yesterday, I'm at the 1 year point in my game and already GDP growth has grown to surpass WW2 numbers. This increases demand and costs across the world with everyone having inflation between 16-20% and most of their unemployments are between 2.4 and 2.6. I believe it should be harder to employ that many people without excessive spending as having high unemployment is almost never an issue in game despite being a huge worry in the real world as it's almost impossible to make it grow, and pretty much automatically drops below 3% unless you seriously gimp your country to avoid it. This game creates a paradox in this regard, where most nations are struggling to limit unemployment but in game the struggle is how to make it grow. Unless you're spending excessively, it should not be dropping as quickly as it does, and as such, inflation should not be going as high as it does. But my argument is that even if it does grow this fast, the percentage effect that it has on GDP should be lowered so that it's maximum growth is brought way down. This will slow the human player down, minimizing their own advantages as this massive growth is usually used to pay for the advantages we develop to crush the AI with as they don't use them as effectively, but also help by reducing global demand and each individual countries expenses from social spending in the process. I feel like this is just a win/win across the board.

Edit: I agree that I'd love to see the way the AI balances their economies to be improved. I've even made suggestions to that effect in the past. I recognize that's a more difficult task than it sounds though as every change leads to a cascade of changing results that aren't always anticipated. I'd love for that to be done anyway, but in the meantime, I feel GDP growth needs to be slowed period, regardless of whether that's done or not, and I believe it's likely the simpler of the 2 tasks with the largest upfront benefit.
YoMomma
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Re: Balancing GDP growth

Post by YoMomma »

way2co0l wrote: Aug 13 2018
YoMomma wrote: Aug 13 2018 Hmm it just doenst sounds right 'lowering GDP growth'' The GDP grow fast for AI for a reason, this reason needs to be tackled not the whole economy. How will 'lowering GDP growth' help China and India in 2020, while expenses for social and investments are still the same?
It will help them because this skyrocketing GDP has a direct correlation to the costs of goods and social expenses. By limiting how quickly GDP grows across the board, (Not only the AI, the player's GDP growth being slowed as well) demand will increase at a much slower rate and social expenses won't rise nearly as quickly as they do now.
I have yet to see this skyrocketing gdp for China and India you are talking about. It's more massively dropping gdp, and facilities producing less and less they can never meet demand only increase cost. And China is massively punished with this since they are Communism. The 'fix' you are talking about with 'over' production, isnt a fix and might well be reverse in modern games. Synthetic (and natural) rubber produces less and less to, so it's not over production since all AI regions will try to meet their consumer demands and AI doesnt build synthetic rubber and i for sure doesnt export for a loss.
To counter this the AI of China massively invest in family subsidy with the last penny they have.
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evildari
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Re: Balancing GDP growth

Post by evildari »

YoMomma wrote: Aug 13 2018 About the research, i disagree on GDP, i like that ai build research centers (altho i played to few to notice it in my games) and i like how big this influence GDP/C. Look at tech level of countries like Switzerland, Belgium, Norway, Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark all on top of the food chain. They have little population tho, but big GDP/C, so if this influence employment in a big way, yea theres room for improving it.
i see also rather the issue in the rise of GDP/Capita than just the absolute GDP
- i would think that with an unchecked population increase (you know - no education - and ... forward immigration) GDP/C would fall
here the only sure way to reduce GDP/C is to deny your population food/timber/oil/electricity/consumer goods
I'm at the 1 year point in my game and already GDP growth has grown to surpass WW2 numbers
but i think its not needed to see if GDP levels evolve like in history, it is another history once you un-pause the game.

also i seen the computer player construct one new research lab (in my mod, and it even respected nobuild=1 and did not build the cheaper version, there went my plan to buff the computer player)
my mods
http://www.bgforums.com/forums/viewtopi ... 79&t=25932 (even techs and units for everyone - AI will own you too)
http://www.bgforums.com/forums/viewtopi ... 79&t=29326 (MARSX2)
way2co0l
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Re: Balancing GDP growth

Post by way2co0l »

YoMomma wrote: Aug 13 2018
way2co0l wrote: Aug 13 2018
YoMomma wrote: Aug 13 2018 Hmm it just doenst sounds right 'lowering GDP growth'' The GDP grow fast for AI for a reason, this reason needs to be tackled not the whole economy. How will 'lowering GDP growth' help China and India in 2020, while expenses for social and investments are still the same?
It will help them because this skyrocketing GDP has a direct correlation to the costs of goods and social expenses. By limiting how quickly GDP grows across the board, (Not only the AI, the player's GDP growth being slowed as well) demand will increase at a much slower rate and social expenses won't rise nearly as quickly as they do now.
I have yet to see this skyrocketing gdp for China and India you are talking about. It's more massively dropping gdp, and facilities producing less and less they can never meet demand only increase cost. And China is massively punished with this since they are Communism. The 'fix' you are talking about with 'over' production, isnt a fix and might well be reverse in modern games. Synthetic (and natural) rubber produces less and less to, so it's not over production since all AI regions will try to meet their consumer demands and AI doesnt build synthetic rubber and i for sure doesnt export for a loss.
To counter this the AI of China massively invest in family subsidy with the last penny they have.
I just loaded a 2020 game to get an idea what you're talking about, and I concede that China seems to have issues, but I contend that it's for entirely different reasons. There's a reason why America's GDP is growing at game start and that's because they're spending enough to bring down unemployment and thus get GDP growth up. China and India aren't bringing in enough money to spend on the same scale that would result in a similar proportion of their population to be employed. Despite their larger populations, they are seeing the smaller American population outproduce them in pretty much every good, not to mention the larger military, more numerous military fabs, more research facilities for more concurrent research, ect. America has more to spend on its smaller population, but China and India are at a point where they simply can't employ the same percentage of their pops without extreme social spending. I agree that this is a problem, but it's not one that my proposed GDP "fix" would make worse. I still believe it would help even them if they managed to get to the point where they were able to employ their population effectively, because once they do so, they would experience the same skyrocketing GDP that America is (in 8 months game time their GDP has already grown by 25%) and that would then drive up the demand for goods and the costs for their social services which are (as established) obscenely high in order to achieve this in the first place so it would effectively ensure that these 2 countries are screwed. lol.

I contend that the real problem here are the baselines for this scenario. The minimums that are in place for the modern era. I know that these baseline minimums are adjusted as you move through the eras, and it looks like they are too high at this point which requires too much spending from India and China despite their weaker GDPs in order to maintain decent social spending. The cost is simply exceeding the income they get from taxes and preventing them raising them to the levels they need to be in order to achieve and maintain growth. The baseline costs should be lowered so that their weaker GDPs result in lower social expenses, saving them money to invest in higher social spending ratings and I anticipate their problems being fixed. They really just need to be spending less so that they can spend more. haha. That sounds so weird to say, but yeah, the cost to achieve the ratings they have are too high, and by making it cheaper for them to get those ratings, they can spend more to get to higher ratings, which is essentially what they need to be able to do.

I just want to say that I'm not trying to argue that you're wrong or something here about AI spending or how it chooses to produce goods or manage its economy in general. There are quite a few things I'd change about their behavior if I could. But I continue to stand by my original statement that my desire to slow down GDP growth is entirely separate from what you're talking about, and would only be beneficial even in the long run for later era games. My proposal would not make the existing issue any worse but would improve things for almost every other country in every other era. I don't see a single way my suggestion might effect anything negatively.
Last edited by way2co0l on Aug 13 2018, edited 1 time in total.
way2co0l
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Re: Balancing GDP growth

Post by way2co0l »

evildari wrote: Aug 13 2018
I'm at the 1 year point in my game and already GDP growth has grown to surpass WW2 numbers
but i think its not needed to see if GDP levels evolve like in history, it is another history once you un-pause the game.

also i seen the computer player construct one new research lab (in my mod, and it even respected nobuild=1 and did not build the cheaper version, there went my plan to buff the computer player)
You're right, I don't think it needs to follow history exactly, but I would prefer it to be at least plausible. The kind of GDP growth I observe in my games is often a worldwide doubling for GDP in a years time. This is obscene and not at all realistic under... well, any realistic circumstances. lol. And it's not like it stops after that first year. It keeps growing at this breakneck speed.

And now, if it was just a matter of numbers and didn't really have much effect on the game, I'd say it wasn't a big deal. Even if there weren't players like me that would like to be able to maintain more realistic growth for our own countries, even if we're discounting all of us on those grounds, the effect it has on the game is noticeable. The way consumer demand and social spending increases as a result of this growth seriously impacts these countries abilities to manage a proper budget or anything. As the modern world example YoMomma was pointing out, large population countries such as China and India that have high costs for goods and services puts them into a spiral where they simply won't be able to maintain what they have, especially if they don't build and grow their economy as quickly as a player would. The player can more easily manage a large population country with a skyrocketing GDP because they will be building facilities to cover their demand. Conquering countries that will bring in the goods that they need. In a better position to maintain the spending they need to in order to maintain it. The AI cannot match the same human effectiveness here, which I mean, is kind of to be expected. But it makes the game SOOOO easy for a human player who just skyrockets their GDP, uses that initial tax income to build/buy their new army, and then go win. I'm convinced that the only reason it's at the level it's currently at is because it was felt it would make it more fun for the human player to be able to go out and conquer more quickly. It's pretty much an easy button path to victory, and why I personally (and I know there are others as well) refuse to use this strategy choosing instead to try to limit our growth instead for the challenge. It's INSANELY hard to limit your growth. Well, except for the more modern scenarios where the baselines start off so much higher so your expenses are kinda locked in at a rate your current GDP can't currently maintain. But for other countries and older time periods, trying to limit your growth is incredibly difficult. You really have to gimp your country in so many ways in order to manage it. I feel like it's harder than it should be.
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Re: Balancing GDP growth

Post by Leafgreen »

Silly question, but what if the AI turned off production for xyz facilities if it's cheaper on the market? Wouldn't that lower GDP from laying people off?

But that just leads to the weird market pricing, a good can be in demand and few sellers and actually drop in price.
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way2co0l
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Re: Balancing GDP growth

Post by way2co0l »

I mean, yes, it would by a minor amount, but the whole problem IMHO is how easily you get below 3% unemployment, even if you're tightly controlling spending and have no construction going. And to make it worse, being under that and having the high inflation that goes with it doesn't just increase the rate your GDP grows, it increases it dramatically. I personally dislike both sides to this issue. I dislike how difficult it is to control unemployment even with tightly controlled spending, and I dislike how drastically GDP grows through inflation into ridiculous numbers in completely unrealistic timeframes. It's not just somewhat unrealistic, it's just shy of impossible in any realistic sense if not actually. But it happens almost regardless of what you do, and you actually have to put in a ton of effort if you want to stop it. This is backwards IMHO. It should very much be the other way around. You should be having to actively spend to try to avoid high unemployment, and GDP should grow slowly unless you're making serious efforts to boost it through investment.
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