Economy needs a major balance patch

[ohthot1227]

It's completely okay for countries like GB's GDP to be higher with more colonies at start,
But as long as this is a game, there 'should' be a way for the 'weaker' countries to catch up if they 'play well' (ex, win wars, take their colonies, sink transports, keep own transports at maximum etc...).
But the gap between GB or USA and other nations just keeps growing to a unbeatable level.
No matter how I've constantly won wars and take thier land and keep my transport slider maximum the whole time.
And other countries like Austro-Hungary, Italia, Russia don't even mean much in front of GB's GDP spam.

I think something is a bit wrong with these mechanics....

[Lucky]

Economies of certain countries with certain governments are capable of growth in wartime at faster pace than other countries able to do in peace. However gap is only 1-2 percent (year).

And since you have asked for "a way for the 'weaker' countries to catch up if they 'play well'"... This is a very counterintuitive way of staying out of wars or limiting them to a minimum time. While making sure through carefully devised diplomacy that UK, US and France are bogged down in eternal fighting.

In the end it could be summed up by this:

1-2% overtake across 60 years is more managable than 7-15%.

[TREXINATUX]

You have to babysit the economy in smaller countries and build less ships. That's it. They are tightening the in game features and balancing things out. The pop-ups are important now and matter. How many ships you build matters. The economic tab is very important now. You cannot steamroll any more. This game was always going to become a hardcore simulation. In game fights will become more hard. Enemy fire will become more accurate. Enemy torpedoes will more often hit. Game will balance to become a tough challenge.

[ohthot1227]

Originally posted by TREXINATUX:

You have to babysit the economy in smaller countries

That's what I always do. I don't bully small countries rather support them in every way to make them a meaningful faction. The only problem being, the GDP system is so broken that nomatter what I do those small countries will be worthless compared to the 'GDP spam country' (GB or USA or France...)

Originally posted by TREXINATUX:

You cannot steamroll any more.

The problem is the GDP broken AI faction steamrollng everyone else. Not me.

Originally posted by TREXINATUX:

In game fights will become more hard. Enemy fire will become more accurate. Enemy torpedoes will more often hit. Game will balance to become a tough challenge.

Leave that to the 'legendary' difficulty option. not everyone want's to play like you.

[xtender5]

I'm not sure I agree with the basic premise of this. I've had games were, for example, Germany wiped the floor with France, reducing the French navy to two whale boats and a raft. I've had other games where France was a juggernaut that had conquered most of Germany and all of Italy and whose GDP paled the US. In quite a few of my games GB dissolved, as others here have pointed out.

So, I think that the key thing that you're correct about is that taking just any territories really doesn't matter. What matters is taking European territories. That is where all the money is. Due to the game mechanics, however, the player has almost not control of this, as this is a land battle thing. I have not yet been able to take a major enemy province by amphib invasion.

TLDR: It is possible to get your nation to be the top economy but you will probably not have a lot of control of that.

[Coheed]

Yup, latest German campaign has become rather stale again. Russia and the US have a GDP that's double anyone else's and are pumping out ships at a ridiculous rate, whilst on the other hand, both France and Britain have collapsed and half the world is ungoverned territory which can't be interacted with. Spain is languishing on, but only has two of it's home territories left and Cuba, so hardly a challenging enemy, and I expect would also collapse should I try...

Occasionally get notifications that the respective country is trying to regain control, but they inevitably fail a turn or two later. Got no incentive to fight on. My goal for the campaign was to try control most of Europe and Africa, but now there's no way to do this. So I'm just going through the motions of building a bigger fleet with nothing to do with it.

[mccoyco64]

i love the part where GB had 84 ships,, and the next turn they had over 400...

[Burnside's Sideburns]

I've never seen anyone say building ships hurts your GDP. If that actually true?

[Tomn]

The problem is simply that GDP growth is exponential with basically no way of modifying it other than being at peace. This inevitably means that all else being equal (i.e. the player hasn't tried very hard to curbstomp or blockade them early on), a nation that starts with high GDP and access to oil can rapidly develop a runaway economy that can't really be stopped.

This isn't actually a crippling difficulty problem for the player because the player can usually rely on their designs being superior and their tech focuses more relevant - but it DOES mean that any war against one of the runaway majors becomes a tedious chore of fighting one largely identical battle after another against endless, endless hordes of chaff before you finally, at some point, manage to convince them to back down. Again, it's not really a difficulty problem so much as it is "I've played the game extensively across nearly a week and have barely finished one in-game year with very little forward progress to show for it because the Royal Navy dies but does not stop coming."

[Tomn]

Originally posted by glythe:

This part is simply incorrect. The only way to play this game well with the current economy rules is to not fight anyone and hope that the AI all fight each other. You just "end turn" for 30 years and then play once you have a strong economy.

This is quite frankly a stupid system.

In theory, if the AI was decent at building ships, yes, that would be true.

In practice it's not that hard to design unstoppable superdreadnoughts and murdercruisers that mulch entire AI fleets for very few losses or damage so that a massive GDP simply means you have to kill more things before you can convince the AI to accept a peace treaty or get enough tonnage in theater to blockade and kill the enemy economy. As long as your own economy is strong enough to support a handful of good killfleets, you're golden.

Mind you, I'm well aware this isn't ideal and is at best one flaw in the game canceling out another. Ideally the economy should be balanced around it being possible to compete with the majors, albeit perhaps at a significant disadvantage, while the AI presents an inherent challenge even if they don't have a major economic advantage. But with the state of the game being what it is the AI having a runaway economy is merely "annoying" instead of "I literally cannot win at anything."

[Donner]

I just wish I knew how France's GDP could be at -12.5%. I was hustling along at 6.5% (rough numbers) and started losing transports, the loss went down to where I had only 91% of the transport capacity I needed, but now it has climbed back up to 96%, but the GDP keeps spiraling down, so consequently, I can't support the navy I have and can't build. This after I took all of Spain and its colonies and half of Italy and all its colonies.

This follows close on the heels of another game I took from 1930 to 1954, I had to quit the game, come back and my saved game was gone.

[chiyen]

Originally posted by ohthot1227:

It's completely okay for countries like GB's GDP to be higher with more colonies at start,
But as long as this is a game, there 'should' be a way for the 'weaker' countries to catch up if they 'play well' (ex, win wars, take their colonies, sink transports, keep own transports at maximum etc...)

You can, just expand early in an economical way. Also, keep your TR safe.

With save and loads... since this is a game, and that's a game's way.

[chiyen]

Originally posted by chiyen:

Originally posted by ohthot1227:

It's completely okay for countries like GB's GDP to be higher with more colonies at start,
But as long as this is a game, there 'should' be a way for the 'weaker' countries to catch up if they 'play well' (ex, win wars, take their colonies, sink transports, keep own transports at maximum etc...)

You can, just expand early in an economical way. Also, keep your TR safe.
With save and loads... since this is a game, and that's a game's way.

[UAD Campaign SS - China, WIP, Captured All Japan Lands, 1891_08]
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3158516055
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3158516216

[UAD Campaign SS - China, WIP, East Asia expansion, 1892 Year End]
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3159443394
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3159443444

[UAD Campaign SS - China, WIP, Conquered India, 1894 Year End]
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3161361303
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3161361490

(Difficulty: Legendary, no MODs)

[chiyen]

Originally posted by Donner:

I just wish I knew how France's GDP could be at -12.5%.

What you can do in the game, is drag them into war.

You can take their lands, sink their TR, or at least, keep them in war status on paper (and national budget / unrest).