Inflation

[megapolis]

Every time I invest money in my economy my inflation rises. Is there a way to grow my economy without inflation? I have read every article in SupremeWiki but did not find an answer.

[DirtyClaw]

Short answer would be no. I can't think of any case IRL or in game where economic growth is not coupled with inflation. The economy grows, people have more cash, wages increase, they buy more things, demand increases, and prices rise.

[megapolis]

Well, IRL it's not that straightforward. Looking at Mother Russia I can say that inflation grew once economy rock bottomed ;)

[DirtyClaw]

Originally posted by megapolis:

Well, IRL it's not that straightforward. Looking at Mother Russia I can say that inflation grew once economy rock bottomed ;)

Thats an example of inflation by other means than economic growth, where in their currency is becoming devalued.

[DirtyClaw]

Thats one feature i'd love to see in supreme ruler are national currency and central banks. Part of what controls inflation in the U.S. and Euro is the demand for there currency, without that demand inflation could potentially run very high indeed.

[megapolis]

I don't need central banks but I want economy to be more transparent.

I don't understand what is included in Production costs. I really don't understand how comes that production cost for petroleum falls from $191 to $103 and at the same time production cost of metal ore grows from $579 to $604. And it happens while I lowered my GDP/c from $13196 to $11824.

I don't understand how comes that Electricity production cost raises from $228 to $230 overnight after I activated one Coal Powerplant that accounts for less than 1% of my output. Does it produce electricity from gold, not from coal?

[DirtyClaw]

Originally posted by megapolis:

I don't need central banks but I want economy to be more transparent.

I don't understand what is included in Production costs. I really don't understand how comes that production cost for petroleum falls from $191 to $103 and at the same time production cost of metal ore grows from $579 to $604. And it happens while I lowered my GDP/c from $13196 to $11824.

I don't understand how comes that Electricity production cost raises from $228 to $230 overnight after I activated one Coal Powerplant that accounts for less than 1% of my output. Does it produce electricity from gold, not from coal?

I agree, more information on production costs would be a great help. Myself and other players have noticed questionable changes with production costs.

[MrRipper]

I agree inflation can grow with good and bad economy in rl.

In game you can control it with taxes. Keep unemployment + 3,1% and you wont have inflation problems. Tax big businesses most sinse they got most money. But i must admit its some guessing. I dont know 100% for sure. Just my personal experience.

[DirtyClaw]

Originally posted by "_" NL:

I agree inflation can grow with good and bad economy in rl.

In game you can control it with taxes. Keep unemployment + 3,1% and you wont have inflation problems. Tax big businesses most sinse they got most money. But i must admit its some guessing. I dont know 100% for sure. Just my personal experience.

Can confirm this. Usually in game when i make it into the top 15 GDP/c my treasury stops increasing and every attempt to grow is just devoured by inflation. I have to intervene and absolutley destroy the economy with taxes and cut all social spending save maybe for some level of police and infrastructure. It seems maybe unbalanced, the drastic action you have to take in game to cool off your econmy. I think IRL the economy trembles and folds at just the hint that a new tax MIGHT be coming, or that the government may layoff 100,000 workers or cut your social security ect. ect.

[Storm_Chasee]

I already bent their ear on this topic in my research efficiency cost spiralling thread.

Dirtyclaw; there's a difference between having some modest inflation (2-5%) during a strong economy and the too high rates (8-17%) I see.

It's real hard to tell how much of the change in GDP/c value is due to inflation versus how much is real change.

I wish the developers would take inflation out and keep things in real terms.

[megapolis]

The fact is that all your economy is a black box. You invest some accountable money in it but you cannot predict outcome of this investment. For example you can only guess where does your money go. I mean that I know for sure about only two expense categories that lead to money drain from my economy. It is world market trade and loan repayment. For others I can only guess.

UN Membership? I suspect that these money leave my economy.
Intelligence? I can only guess that it leaves my economy. But still I can be sure only about money spent on espionage missions.
Foreign government/insurgency support? Same here. I can only guess. Maybe money assigned to this expense item goes to my corporations that produce weapons needed for insurgents and money stays within my economy.
Maintenance costs? Are they go to my Corporate or Small Business sectors or they are just buried somewhere?
Research costs? The same question.

Anyway, I can mention every expense item on my balance sheet and say that it is a black box. And I hate it. Ok, developers might think that we should find it out by trial and error but in this game every experiment that can be considered pure can take several days and still I don't see how can I make an economy that will be stable for at least an in-game month and use it as a base for experiments.

I understand every aspect of economy in Civilization. It is absolutely accountable. I understand every aspect of economy in Victoria II despite the fact that it is more complex. I even clearly understand economy in Eve Online! But here...

Really, every black box in every game is either solved by trial and error by players and this information is available on wikis and in guides or these games are totally unplayable since players cannot make conscious choices and give up playing as a result.

I am close to giving up playing since it is a total frustration. It is ok for me to spend a day on an in-game month but the fact that result of such a thorough approach is unknown frustrates me.

[MrRipper]

Well. You have to take into account there are also requests in past for different economy models in game. I think there are like 20 different models i saw in modding files.

Thing is only devs seem to think if its moddable, its low priority. As time progress more and more mods will come out.

[megapolis]

If developers really rely on modders then this game is doomed.
First of all I don't know a single mod in grand strategies I played that ended well.

Last night I was looking for a mod on Victoria II forum and found out that they all are discontinued on beta stage. Best mods weren't even ported on the latest Victoria II (Heart of Darkness). Unfortunately that was the end of Victoria II for me as vanilla crashes after certain amount of rebel units spawned. In my games it was around 1910's.

Euro Truck Simulator (not a grand strategy but the game I use to play) for example has a big modding community but again their mods aren't that stable.

Capitalism Lab introduced modding ability only three months ago. Hopefully it will have a good future but once I started making a mod myself, I understood that making a good mod is a full-time job since every number you touch changes all the balance in game and should be done by professionals.

And again once economy model can be modded there must be a good documentation on a current economy model. But I can't find it.

[MrRipper]

I cant find it either. I only gave some tips on devs forum after no one answered it for cpl days.

From my experience if you like to war once in a while run your country as a dictator would. High taxes, low social spending just enough to get a little pop growth and good supply levels. You can trick the economy a bit with lowering last 3 taxes to 1%. Those have less money..
I think if you like huge troops and war alot. Your better off as dictator. Well and no one disagreed with my answer. So just loose elections as democracy and play as dictator if you like something going on in world.

[megapolis]

I just want freedom. I know that every action has its own cost (political, economical, military - anyway it can be converted into money) and I want to know how to spend my money. It is ridiculous to have a treasury worth more than your country's GDP and being unable to use it because you just cannot measure long-term price and the outcome of your actions.

[MrRipper]

Originally posted by megapolis:

I just want freedom. I know that every action has its own cost (political, economical, military - anyway it can be converted into money) and I want to know how to spend my money. It is ridiculous to have a treasury worth more than your country's GDP and being unable to use it because you just cannot measure long-term price and the outcome of your actions.

Well i agree with you, but question is how to fix it. I mean theres like 1,25 fte left on BG studio i think. So with better tech buffs? You have any ideas about this?