Tax / Needs Pie Chart not accurate?

[stadtpark-hartmut]

My complaint:

Either the descriptions and tooltips are highly misleading, or the game mechanics don't add up / don't work as intended. After some investigation I came to the conclusion, that the "Needs-Pie-Chart" under the tax slider isn't in all cases showing the real values. And it behaves non-linear / wildly fluctuating for some tax-settings.


How I got there:

Originally I wanted to find out, why my swiss "fabric" factory was turning out so well, whereas every other factory was really bad.

So I learned on the the wiki ( http://www.victoria2wiki.com/Population ), that the demand for goods really comes from the people living in the provinces, where each province has different POPs (- citizens come in different professions, cultures and religions, where their profession decides about their needs, and their respective income then is the deciding factor what needs can be met / what demand can be executed.)

Since 90% of the population is poor, I was specifically interested in the needs of the "poor" POPs (Farmers, Labourers, Craftsmen, Soldiers): Life needs (Green), Everyday Needs (Blue), and Luxury Needs (Cyan). Although they where a little different for each POP / profession, in addition to their "life needs", which are met by basic resources that are not produced in factories, they pretty much all needed "regular clothes", "regular furniture" and "liquor" for their "everyday needs". The nice thing was, that the poor POPs for their "luxury needs" wanted just more of the same "regular" stuff, (instead of wanting the "luxury" clothes/furniture/wine as the "middle class" and "rich" would have wanted.)

So far so good: it explained, why the "fabric" factory was doing so well, and I decided that getting factories for "regular clothes", "regular furniture" and "liquor" were on my wishlist - and I really did get them (- with a little luck and some multiple replaying of some years from savegames; although my capitalists decided to put the furniture factory in a region without timber and lumber... - but that is another story.)



What I tried:

In order to not completely depend on the export market, I decided to maximise the demand of my own population. Naive as I was, I just started playing around with the tax-slider for the "poor" and expected according resluts: a change in the Green/Blue/Cyan pie chart. (My „effective tax“ was around 50% of the „slider-value“.)

My first idea was: set the taxes to zero for the poor, then they can fullfill their needs to the max, don't care about the middle class and the rich, since they are only 10% of the population (- oh well, but they are not just 10% of the POP, which I found out later...)

Taxes Zero: 50% blue, 50% green.
Taxes around 20%: wildly fluctuating: like 40% blue, 30% cyan, 30% green
Taxes 100%: 25-30% Blue, 70-75% Green.

FYI: I had the middle class on 100% tax-slider and rich on 20% (- played around with that too, to see if the fluctuation corresponds: and it does in a very unpredictable manner).

And: the difference in projected daily balance was from 30$-250$! So: how many more products would these 220$ buy? (or were it 440$, since half of what I collect as taxes doesn't reach my coffers?)


So that was strange: no cyan at 0%, maximum (around 1/3 of the pie) cyan at 20% taxrate, no cyan at 100%.

Why would the poor not at least partly fullfill their „luxury“ demand at 0%?


I decided to have a closer look, which on the first glance brought more questions than answers:
(Sorry for using $ instead of Pound Sterling – I couldn't find it on my keyboard.)

I was playing Switzerland from a normal start 1836, now it's 1870.
From 810k working male population, there are 730k in the "Poor" class: Farmers, Labourers, Craftsmen and Soldiers.

I look at the population screen (ordered by size) in the province of Bern. I only look at the "Poor" (Farmers, Craftsmen, Labourers, Soldiers) because they have the same tax-rate. The "official" tax rate is Maximum (100%), the effective tax rate is around 50%.

There are no farmers in Bern.

1. POP: Labourers (Iron), Size 111300, the tooltip over the „cash reserves“-column shows: Daily Income, Needs, Salary, with Salary 55$(!)
2. POP: Craftsmen , Size 18500, Salary 3.50$
3. POP: Soldiers, Size 4800, Salary 1.50$

As for the (differing) needs:
„life“ /„daily“ / „luxury“:
Labourers get 100% / 55% / 15%
Craftsmen get 100% / 18% / 6%“
Soldiers get 100% / 32% / 10%

So: 55$ only get you marginally more than 1.50$??
They must have factored in the „size“ of the POP!!

Rounded:
110k/55 = 2000 personell per $
8.5k/3.5 = 5300 personell per $
4.8k/1.5 = 3200 personell per $

Now the dimensions of the „glasses“ (water / beer / wine) / „needs fullfilled“ statistics seem more like it.


BTW: At 0% Taxrate the Salary is doubled.
And it buys more „daily“ and „luxury“ stuff. So yes: it does seem to work after all.

The only thing that doesn't fit is the „pie-chart“ in the tax / budget screen: shows no luxury needs fullfilled, even if it has to be some percentage (- even with all the farmers from the poorer provinces...).

[Lembley42]

Could be that the pie-chart is broken, although it seems to work roughly (which is more or less its use anyway). That it works somewhat is observable if you play something like China, where everybody is miserable due to no real acess to the market - eventually your rank is high enough / world production is big enough that your people can buy stuff from it, at which point needs are pretty well covered.
Dont forget that having the money available doesnt do too much good if there are no actual goods to buy - and if those surplus goods they can afford more must go through tarrifs, they can afford less too.

However, while I love Victoria for its brilliant, yet simple and effective "Statistical-Twins"-Pop System, it really doesnt make any sense not to tax the ♥♥♥♥ out of your people, impose high tarrifs, subsidize your industries to protect it and just sphere stuff.
The economy is a global-gold-standard, so you want to increase your share of total money - you need to focus export, to get more money in. To give the money to populations, make them buy stuff, which leads to production, which creates more resource-imports. So you're giving products to your people basically that could otherwise traded with other countries population for their money - basically missing out on it.

Social spendings are low, even on max everything, and whether the people are able to buy what they want or hardly getting by is really none of your concern. They'll rebel anyway, although its more often when they're pissed. But even thats only marginally a factor, since rebels are really weak.

So, in short, the best way to enlargen your domnestic market, is to expand Spheres, to wage wars and grab important resourcelocations. Up from midgame, resource availability is the deciding factor in production, potential demand is pretty much always greater.
Plus, sadly, in the lategame everybody begins to ♥♥♥♥ money out of their asses. Even with the super-expensive navy, its hard not to accumulate dozens of millions.

[stadtpark-hartmut]

On a side note:
If roughly 3200 soldiers get payed 1$ a day, that (incidentally?) is the size of one brigade! So one brigade of soldiers (without officers and without ammunition / small arms / canned food supply) cost about 1$ a day. (Soldiers/Officers pay slider sits at 90% - I can't go to 100% as Switzerland after activating the "Geneva Convention" decision / event.)



Continuing my main inspection of salaries / costs per working day:

When I looked at the salary of the farmers at first glance I was thinking the catholic get payed less than the protestants - (salary 0.74$ vs 30.38$...) - and then again I noticed the size of the POP :-) - 1512 catholics earned 0.74$ whereas 71632 protestants worked for the 30.38$... - so
2043 personell per $ vs 2360 personell per $... seems the catholics earned more than 10% more than their protestant counterparts per person... (- I didn't factor in unemployment... - probably they all earn the same).

So the interesting thing is: farmers and labourers per person earn more than double what factory workers (craftsmen) get! And farmers and labourers earn more than soldiers at 90% pay.

So all the more important to set national focus on craftsmen, if you want more of them in your factories!


Now I look at Artisans:

3017 Artisans (Paper) earn a salary of 4.79$: that is 629 persons per $!
3453 Artisans (regular furniture) earn a salary of 9.15$: that is 377 persons per $!
611 Artisans (luxury clothes) earn a salary of 2.06$: that is 296 persons per $!

So Artisans earn / cost about 9-17 times more per day than craftsmen! Even though they buy a little different stuff than the "poor", they should still be able to afford some needs, even if I tax them "double": 100% tax slider is double that than a 0% tax slider! (so don't worry: you do not really tax your people 100% and starve them to death...).


Demand side vs Supply side economics:

The profits of the factories are distributed between capitalists, clerks and craftsmen.
In the end a lot of it gets deposited into the National Bank by the Capitalists (- which I tax at 20% nominal / 10% real), which you can also see in the tooltip on capitalists "cash reserves" as "Savings in Bank".

This money is then used / taken out by the capitalists, when they want to build or upgrade factories (- which sadly they don't in my game, probably because there are not enough craftsmen there anyways, and because I do the upgrading myself, before the working places get overcrowded).
This money is also used, when the capitalists want to build railways - which in switzerland only works at level 4 (1870), because of the (-3) malus of the mountainous regions. So once the clock strikes 1870 and I research 4th level railroads, instantly the whole country gets to build them, because my capitalists have like 500k $ in the bank! Nice!


The more I think about it, the more I like the game:
All these nice factories and railroads and cheap consumer products are only possible, because the workers don't get the money, but the capitalists get it. So as the government I have to put the taxes on the middle class (- and later when the infrastructure is build on the rich), to let the poor afford some lifestyle too.



P.S.: in the real world money is created as credit out of thin air: no need for savings / profits from the past: you use the profits / savings from the future now!

We need to change that. Separate money creation from the giving of credit:
This is the biggest reform we need in our societies today!

http://positivemoney.org/
http://www.monetative.de/

[stadtpark-hartmut]

More ony my game:

As switzerland I can't have colonies, because I don't have a port.
And I can't have my own sphere of influence, because I am a secondary power.
Instead I am in the sphere of influence / zone of France.

I haven't played to the end yet, so I don't know if everything gets worse from now on, because the rest of the world out-grows me, or if I could get a port in a second playthorugh via war...

Question:
A thing I always wonder: if I subsidize my factories: do they still fire people, but not the last one, or do they just keep on hiring in good times, but never fire people in bad times? The latter is my impression, which keeps me constantly busy: subsidising, when the employment is low (- so that the factory won't close), but unticking the box, when it is high: because if I forget to have a look at it, and the factory suddenly makes a loss, I want them to react / fire people, and not run at a loss full steam ahead!

[Lembley42]

I'm aware of how the game works btw :P

At any rate, I'd though suggest to you to tax the capitalists / middle class fully, and if you want to lower any taxes, do it for the lower classes (which are the main drives for revolts - and else, why lower taxes?). Money as state reserves are just the most useful. Money on national banks wont work and will cost interests when loaned out by you (though lower), money in the population will not let you buy arms and supplies. The game is awesome in creating an actually economic system, but its still a simplified one in which "getting money" & "making sure you get all supplise you need" are the only things of interest.

At least I go for State Capitalism/Planned Economy and organize the economy mostly myself - capitalists in this game are god awful stupid. Plus I know ahead of whats needed. Clicking shift & the + on a factory causes all factories who are near full employment to upgrade by the way (just in case).


And yeah, creating money by credit is somewhat strange - although, money is nothing else than the promise to be able to pay with it (the english pound has "I promise to pay the bearer on demand the sum of ten pounds" on their papers, which is a good example I feel like) - so not so different. Plus you might argue that if in a monetary system, you dont want to artifically slow down economic growth by scarcity of available credit - if there is demand for more Milkshakes, there is enough supply of the ingredients and you need another machine to produce enough but you dont have the money it would be stupid if you couldnt buy it because of lack of money - a non-hard resource.
Question is, if the reserve of 10% that a bank has to have is not a bit loose, especially in times of such busy printing presses. But I havent studied economics, so I'll refrain from remarks there.

Buts its an interesting topic, question just is, how the positive / negative works in the current system out. Personally, I think we have to rethink our economic system as a whole - yes to a market system, no to capitalism in very short terms. If "making profit" is viewn as a god-given standard, something is off it seems to me. And why not introduce more democratic measures in the economy? I feel like its part of basic liberties that the people can have a saying in what happens with the exchanges the company got for their fruits of labor.
The old stuff "they cant react fast enough" and "everybody will just pay themselves out hard" and so on was said about politics too - and it works rather well, better than other systems at least.

[Lembley42]

Only saw your second post now, I believe (never reallly had a chance to try it out though) if you puppet or maybe even sphere some nation, you get its colonial range - a good opportunity to test it out and tell me :P

If you subsidize, the state will pay the difference if the factory is making a loss - so they never fire people and the factories just keep growing. Since most goods eventually pay out good, I from time to time close down manually the worst drainers. If you got budget and hover over "Subsidies" you see the biggest receivers listed from top to bottom - usually Paper Mills, the refined wood (forgot the english name of it) are way up, while occasionally machine parts rush up (although machine parts are a thing on its own - amazingly profitable when there is demand, the next day making horrific losses. Still good to keep 1-2 factories though).
If you check like that every 5-10 years later on, your subsidies will be moderatly low and your Industry Score skyrocket.