Economy and Demographics

[ImperiorIL]

So, we all know the exploit with the:
Petrol (elec) => Hydroponics (agri) => Bio Fuels (oil) => Petrol (elec)

In fact, if anyone played the game for a few dozen hours, you probably noticed that producing an abundance of goods for cheap is a sure fire way to global poverty.
Whereas producing them in the most inefficient way possible assures high gdp/c and lots of money.

This problem should probably be addressed at some point in a patch. And one example of a fix that would make it a lot more sensible would be to add purchasing power.
So, people aim to buy a certain amount of consumer goods, say, 0.3, but at market prices, so they have a purchasing power for consumer goods of 22820 * 0.3 * ( 1 - tax rate ) = 6,846 * ( 1 - tax rate )
This way, if you produce cheaper but sell at the same price, people will buy the same amount despite the higher markup, and likewise producing more inefficiently doesn't increase their purchasing power, they will buy less goods as the price goes up.

It would also be extremely easier to balance and tie this demand with to gdp/c such that it followed the current mix of switching from an economy heavy in agriculture and timber to being heavy in oil and electricity... But give the player the option to expand their domestic market such that people in a country with 150k gdp/c won't consume only very slightly more than in a country with 20k gdp/c.

Similar small tweaks in formula would be amazing for demographics, as right now the demographic pressure is almost inexistent in all but the richest of countries. Natural growth is tiny even in poor countries that should have a very high natality rate, and there is actually no way to improve on that other than a very small impact by investing in healthcare and family subsides. The later of which seems to do very little despite its price tag.

As an experienced modder that spent ~900 hours in the Ultimate version alone, I'd be super curious to know what formulas are currently being used for most things. And would actually love to modify C++/C#/Java code and test new formulas too. It would be amazing to be able to tweak the game, as the engine is really solid, but there are so many small niggles that just can't be addressed in the .sav files. For instance the way AIs only support 2 types of resource production buildings for each resource and very rarely build them always having demand surpass consumption in rich nations with lots of immigrants. In testing in pacifist worlds and scenarios, the only thing keeping demand from far outstriping the meager production games that rich nations have is that the game constantly increase global production capacity of certain goods if global demand is higher than supply.

Eg: in a scenario with a single rubber plantation and a lot of industry, the production of said plantation grew by some 10-20% a year until a single plantation produced enough rubber for the whole world. This system all but guarantees there is never scarcity or a struggle for natural resources.

Starting discussions on how to tweak some formulas and AI behaviors would be amazing. Exposing part of the simulation code and letting us (fans) tweak it would be super duper amazing. But even just acknowledging and remeding those issues would already be super nice. Supreme Ruler 2020 and Supreme Ruler Ultimate were two of my favorite games ever. It just bothers me that it feels like part of the compromises made for SRU really took away from SR2020 where the market felt real, where prices could fluctuate wildly, and where it really felt like prices and gdp meant a lot more, were due to lack of play testing and just tweaking and trying new formulas to see what sticks. I think now that the game is very stable, and most historic scenarios set in stone, there is a lot of room to adjust the AI behavior and some of those formulas into something more solid and honestly more interesting to watch and mess with as a player.

PS: if water was ever to be added back, and I know the chances of that are extremely slim, a sensible way to balance it is that Agri Facilities should use it as input, meaning agriculture wouldn't be trivial, and would put pressure on water/electricity.
PPS: way too many technologies are dead ends with no effects. Some that could probably use a token bonus like +1% culture bonus or similar.
PPPS: there is almost no consequence to pollution, pollution should probably scale to have a gigantic impact giving an incentive not to spam dirty oil and coal.

[Balthagor]

Work was done on this during development, but you're not the first to say that we still didn't get it right. Unfortunately, development ended on this title a couple years ago, it's 8 years old now. There won't be any more updates.

I can say that we'll definitely be making changes to the economic model for SR next gen, so the feedback is quite welcome and will be useful.

[ImperiorIL]

I'm glad to hear feedback is useful. As I've been eagerly looking forward to the next historical game in this franchise ( SR2030? ), I I'd love to contribute and show appreciation to help it be the best game it can be.

If I were to add further to suggestions for changes in the economic model, I'd argue that a more complex chain of production and supply system would really add to the nation building aspect. And this would mostly involve allowing the engine to support any number of synthetic types. Eg:

Ore -> Refined Metal
Oil -> fuel/electricity (early game unlock, flexible)
Gas -> electricity (can't be used for fuel, good later in the game)
Water->Grain->Animal Products (more wealth = higher ratio of animal products)
Industrial goods + rubber + others -> Vehicles ( consumed by civilians + military vehicles )
Industrial goods + electricity + ore + others -> Electronics ( very expensive to set up, high markup due to low competition )
Water -> clean water (the wealthier you are, the more treated water it demands, most industry consumes untreated water)

Just generally, helping the game feel like you are nation building. Making it feel like resources have more trade offs and giving a feeling of reward when you set up an automotive industry in your country.
The satisfaction of going up the ladder and refining your ore/oil, or of using your vast water resources to produce more agricultural goods... You know, having a set of incentives and natural advantages that you can harness for growth.

As for supply, the main issue is that it vanishes too quickly, it doesn't get used, and it is generated too quickly. Roads and rail simply do not have a strong enough effect.
By tweaking a few values, such that it is transported much easier through roads/rail but less easily through bare ground, you can greatly change the math of where it is worth it to build infrastructure. (making it's impact on production stronger too)
And by having supply dissipate slower, but having units and buildings reduce the supply in a hex they occupy, you end up creating a dynamic where mustering 500k soldiers in a few hexes is no longer optimal, and building 1 airport and surrounding it with 500 consumer goods factories won't result in perfect flawless supply... You will have incentive to actually think when placing facilities, and when controlling unit groups, and you have incentive to expand your infrastructure for more than roleplay.

Right now, if you have 1 hex that has a supply of 1.0 (100%) you literally have no incentive to build anything that increases supply for like, 16 hexes... Building something in the middle of a meadow, or a city, building somewhere with a port, or an airport, or by the road, it will all have ~>.9 supply.