Inflation, what ways are there to handle it?

[Rabob]

So I have been playing a while, but inflation often bugs me.

You get inflation from:
- Gold production (relative to other income)
- Taking loans
- Events

And so far direct reduction in inflation are only with:
- Spending admin points
- Events

'Long' term reduction:
- Specific Advisor for -0.10
- Buildings (which are no viable option for a somewhat larger country)
- Tax assessor building, which is faaaaar too late game and often I don't even reach that tech lvl.
- Economic ideas I believe it was only -0.10
- Some how being able to become a pagan faith (reduces gold income by a lot)
- Increasing other incomes.

Are there any other ways to do something about it? I have played games where I just have 1 gold mine and after not that many years I already had a staggering 50% inflation because I get +0.25 per month.
At this moment, I am circling around every gold production province to just not get this inflation :S
The buildings to reduce inflation are either very late game and not worth it anymore or they hardly give a change. 1 reduction building with 100 provinces only gives 1% of the original effect if I am not mistaken. And -0.001 will not make much of a difference, especially if you keep expanding and reducing this effect.

So are there any other (viable) ways to keep inflation low or at least stop the increase?

[Rabob]

Originally posted by MGL ٭八٭ Kasai ٭準٭:

Inflation is just a number.

Yes, but all expenses are numbers as well... And if something costs 100 normally and because of inflation 150-200 per month and increasing. It is quite a difference

[Damedius]

I avoid it like the plague if possible.

If you have gold mines you're pretty much screwed unless you can pick up the advisor.

It only really starts to hurt once it gets higher though. There is an event when you get to 10 or higher that wrecks your country. I go it once, almost completey wrecked my game.

[Kitten Food]

You shouldn't let inflation get higher than 10%. It is really up to the player to pay attention to their inflation. There is no way you are gaining .25% per month from gold unless it makes up more than 80% of your total income.

Since gold inflation scales yearly according to the contribution of your total income(0.50x%Income), a smaller nation will usually gain inflation faster than a larger one. Gold will give a small nation much more income for the investment than a larger nation, but it comes with a cost.

My advice is to pay closer attention and pay the 75 admin points every 5 to 10 years to keep inflation under 10%. That isn't a big cost and letting inflation get higher will make you have to invest more points later when it "really" starts to hurt.

If you ever have a tier 3 Master of Mint advisor, take him (if you can afford it) since he will reduce inflation by about 3% during his tenure. Also, the tier 3 Master of Mint will most likely spawn his special event within his tenure, which will give an addition -0.10 to inflation for 6 years as well as give you +1 Stability or +50 Prestige.

Passively though, the Counting House is not worth the investment if you are trying to build it to save your economy. It will barely help in emergencies, but does let you 'wait' longer before having to spend ADM on reducing inflation. The smaller you are the more valuable the investment in that building.

In short, there isn't any workaround in avoiding inflation. It is natural to have it and trying to avoid Gold is not the answer. You have to reduce inflation manually, but there are steps you can do to mitigate the costs and the speed of increase. If you are really hesitant in spending 75 points every few years, then invest in Economic Ideas.

I hope this helps. If you want further clarification on something I wrote, feel free to ask. Good luck.

[Rabob]

Originally posted by Kite:

You shouldn't let inflation get higher than 10%. It is really up to the player to pay attention to their inflation. There is no way you are gaining .25% per month from gold unless it makes up more than 80% of your total income.

Since gold inflation scales yearly according to the contribution of your total income(0.50x%Income), a smaller nation will usually gain inflation faster than a larger one. Gold will give a small nation much more income for the investment than a larger nation, but it comes with a cost.

My advice is to pay closer attention and pay the 75 admin points every 5 to 10 years to keep inflation under 10%. That isn't a big cost and letting inflation get higher will make you have to invest more points later when it "really" starts to hurt.

If you ever have a tier 3 Master of Mint advisor, take him (if you can afford it) since he will reduce inflation by about 3% during his tenure. Also, the tier 3 Master of Mint will most likely spawn his special event within his tenure, which will give an addition -0.10 to inflation for 6 years as well as give you +1 Stability or +50 Prestige.

Passively though, the Counting House is not worth the investment if you are trying to build it to save your economy. It will barely help in emergencies, but does let you 'wait' longer before having to spend ADM on reducing inflation. The smaller you are the more valuable the investment in that building.

In short, there isn't any workaround in avoiding inflation. It is natural to have it and trying to avoid Gold is not the answer. You have to reduce inflation manually, but there are steps you can do to mitigate the costs and the speed of increase. If you are really hesitant in spending 75 points every few years, then invest in Economic Ideas.

I hope this helps. If you want further clarification on something I wrote, feel free to ask. Good luck.

I believe 0.25 was something which I got as a catholic cusco/inca or one of those african countries. You have a lot of low base tax provinces with gold.

Is there a special reason to not let inflation reach more than 10%? Other than costs I have not seen a difference namely.

Tier 3 is not something I can afford, unless I take more gold mines of course :p
Does the tier 2 have some events against inflation perhaps?
Economic ideas is of course nice for the inflation reduction, but it does not help me anywhere else and with 0.05 - 0.15 inflation which I get for a big country the advisor is often unreliable.

Originally posted by Damedius:

I avoid it like the plague if possible.

If you have gold mines you're pretty much screwed unless you can pick up the advisor.

It only really starts to hurt once it gets higher though. There is an event when you get to 10 or higher that wrecks your country. I go it once, almost completey wrecked my game.

Is the event specific to certain countries/religions? I have never seen it?

[Bole]

You summed it well, there is nothing more to my knowledge.

Have a Hosokawa game going on where i had massive problems unifiying Japan due to some issues with vassals declaring wars and then when i had to take out massive loans to be at the point of unifying Japan i was backstabed by Korea and to make long story short i have spend so much on mercenaries that it took me literary hundreds of years to deal with inflation. I am now at 1750 sth and own all islands down to complete Malacca trade node but it is still somehow tougg, specially sinca Japan is in poor tech group and you need those admin points badly.

Starting Ethiopia game and i am eying those gold mines in south africe, ... this will be interesting how to keep inflation at bay.

[Kitten Food]

Originally posted by Rabob:

Originally posted by Damedius:

There is an event when you get to 10 or higher that wrecks your country. I go it once, almost completey wrecked my game.

Is the event specific to certain countries/religions? I have never seen it?

This is in reference to the Financial Ruin events. There are 2 types of them, one is generic and the other is associated with the Exploration idea group (since you can get gold from new world and pagans easily). I can explain them in more detail, but basically don't go over 15% inflation and neither of those will ever occur.

As far as the special advisor events, only tier 3 unlocks them. They are 1 time events that are associated with that tier group.

Still, even with all those gold provinces, you can manage inflation it will just be more costly than a normal nation. Economic is essential if that is what you are dealing with. Don't forget that you don't just choose idea groups just soley for the unlockable ideas, it is also for the policies. Economic has some very good policies as well as the National Bank event which pretty much allows you to construct mass building project with ease.

[Nyatasha]

The only solution to reduce inflation is to mint more coins.

Joke aside, the above solutions will suffice ;)

[Surimi]

If you have a small empire with lots of gold provinces, you could try building counting houses once you get the tech. Having a counting house in every province you own is equivallent to a master of the mint or economic ideas. The downside is that as your empire grows you have to build more and more counting houses, which might actually end up costing more admin points than reducing inflation directly.

[Dustpuppy]

The reason you want to keep inflation below 10% is because the bankruptcy event can trigger after 10%.

[Bole]

As expected playing ironman Ethiopia 110 years in i am not very far from 10% in inflation, but this time not due to loans as with Hosokawa but as expected due to Mutapa and Kilwa gold. Having god like starting ruler dead after 12 years and best ruler in admin points since him was 1 point - that didnt help. Going for John Prestor achievement but those Ottomans really look scary. I have complete east Africa down to Mulapa either cored or vasalized, half of Arabia and will be going after Mamluks first thing when i play again. Just hope i dont piss off Ottomans as they are really scary and already down to Suez.

But yeah, inflation is pain and modeled actually quite good. I am now paying big money for tier 3 inflation advisor and had to opt for trade ideas instead of exploration to decrease reliance on gold. Admin points are badly needed as i just managed to get to admin tech 7 105 years in.

[the_panther]

If you are a small/medium nation with gold mines, you really need the Economic idea. That alone will keep inflation down to a managable level.

Oh, and do not take loans. Wait a better time to war instead of going deep into debt.