How the heck do you run a budget surplus?

[RandyNewman]

see above :)

I'm asking because the only way to keep construction running is to run a constant deficit, but the credit ratings are kinda harsh and you go into default fairly early.
Like yeah, ofc I can run a surplus if I don't touch anything for the next two years, but then the economy stagnates because nothing is getting built*.

*I'm not asking for people to complain about how capitalist pops don't build things anymore. I'm asking how you're rake money in.

[Prometheus]

A little bit of deficit is good as long as you're intelligently pouring that money into future growth. Unless you're going to have to spend a very, very large amount of money soon due to a war or whatever, it's best to stay close below 0 pounds.

[Ellye]

Having your investors help you with the cost of your building projects help too, but that's only possible if you have a good number of highly profitable industries already so they can accumulate a good enough fund.

What type of building they can help you with depends on your Laws.

[TheDeadlyShoe]

The short answer is you don't. The long answer is that early on you need to scrape for revenue wherever you can find it in order to fund your economic expansion. That means trade routes (cost bureaucracy), consumption taxes (cost authority), and fiddling with taxes/pay as seems politically convenient.

[donalddawkins]

Deficit spending is the way to go. It's the main way to grow and industrialise quickly but you need investment in the correct areas. I tend to check what my largest/most significant pops are lacking and mass produce these items as soon as I can as it gurantees a domestic market, any surplus you have you can then export. From there your population should organically grow and your income should increase as well. Alternatively, you can mass produce say liquour and introduce a tax on it to make easy money.

In terms of deficit spending your spending money to make money; once you get later on in the game you can have it where your GDP grows fast enough that the credit limit can't catch up and you can deficit spend almost forever.

Another big mistake players make is overly investing in construction early on, it's extremely expensive, but if you do accidentally do this you can select the lower levels of the construction building to reduce the number of buildings being constructed at one time, saving you an awful lot of money!

[gilde.gothic [Elite_Man]]

The more population the more money, so as a smaller Nation you dont gain to much from Taxes, first and easiest thing would be to fully fill up your Gold Reserves and Researching Tech while your at it, then you can look at potential Trade Unions you want to create or join and then you can start by Producing something simple as Tools since you will need them for many things and then you are building as much as your Gold Reserves can hold the deficit of building, you can also go a little into the Minus thats not a big Problem.

When your done building let it pile up again and then use it.

In the case of building and having +- deficit either make sure to have a good Trade Partner that will need what you will produce then you can ignore Military spending or not have an Army, and build only a few Buildings only depending on the Market situation and your inner Economy, if you go to much into a defict higher up the Taxation or put Tax on certain goods, this way you will somewhat make + whenever your buildings finish and go on the Market while you go into a +- state when you are building again.

And as long as your -Pounds arent Red you dont go into credits.

Now after a period of time you get Capitalists and co depending on your Goverment Policy you can make use of their Investment Fund, which you can also use for buildings.
At the early start having a High Opinion with the Land Owners will give you additional funds to your investment fund which sadly cant be used for many things yet.

Oh and a hint if Building is to pricy dont build a building sector those will only improve the speed but it will cost you like 1k'ish per building. (rather go down the tech tree there is a certain tech that gives you build cap) Another Hint is if you hover over the building you want to build it will show you the total cost for example a Tools Factory somewhere in Qing costs 15,5k total pounds.

In Theory what the game wants is you are constantly losing and gaining money in certain intervalls mainly you build something you lose money now after its build you recover some money to use again, later on when ppl invest and help you lower the cost of building you expand more and then recover but while in recovery will be faced with stuff like overproduction,.. which will need fixing before expanding to far without the logistics.
Also which will be important later on is Infrastructure but early on build 1 to enable trains, then make use of them for buildings which need a little boost of efficentcy and boom it will help you. (and the more they will depend on it the more you will need to upgrade the Railroads) Oh and what many may not know you can interact with your Citys and if you are in dire need of Money and want to build and do not have many Trading Partners you can change your Market to the first option this will make more ppl work and require less goods thus make it for a certain period of time less expansive and may give you enough money.

And always remember its okay to go into a Defict as long its not for to long and you can recover via the Economy you build.
I hope that was somewhat helpful to you.

If not perhaps this Video is more helpful https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tn5XjEAhBWc

[lubed_assassin]

Originally posted by RandyNewman:

see above :)

I'm asking because the only way to keep construction running is to run a constant deficit, but the credit ratings are kinda harsh and you go into default fairly early.
Like yeah, ofc I can run a surplus if I don't touch anything for the next two years, but then the economy stagnates because nothing is getting built*.

*I'm not asking for people to complain about how capitalist pops don't build things anymore. I'm asking how you're rake money in.

Well they still build things just not the same way. you get to spend their investment income if you have the right laws. right before my last crash i think they had like 7 million sitting there for me to spend. You can also auto build most buildings just set them to auto expand.

[Oubley]

Can you still do things with a deficit like real life or is it more like "game functions" were deficit starts turning things off?

[D34DLY]

i've found gold mines are good for raising income.

also, research the 2 banking techs that give +10% minting (works extra well with the gold mines.)

And I'm not sure on this, because I am new to this, but basic industry like farms and logging seem to give modest gains.

One thing that especially causes your income to go negative/red is increasing your construction capacity, so use sparingly.

[gilde.gothic [Elite_Man]]

Originally posted by Oubley:

Can you still do things with a deficit like real life or is it more like "game functions" were deficit starts turning things off?

Well as long you got a credit you can keep going eventually you can end up getting bankrupt and that will remove all cash reserves you had and if there are upgrades or building stuff in the progress they will stop but hey you prob will do make money again if not then F

[RandyNewman]

Thanks for all the advice.
I think I got it down now, I was just confused for a second because I was playing as Brazil

[winddbourne]

Originally posted by Oubley:

Can you still do things with a deficit like real life or is it more like "game functions" were deficit starts turning things off?

You can still do things.

Running a deficit short term isn't even really bad in this game since you don't want to stockpile too much gold but . . . The interface I'm keeping my eye on, and wish I could pin, is the one that comes up when you hover OVER your positive or negative balance.

The game does a decent job of giving you a clue when to look but that screen tells me exactly when I need to pause and unpause my construction. I've started pulling it up the moment I get the white negative on my screen, especially when trying to develop places like New Granada or Tibet which start out extremely poor.

If you have been running a surplus for a while you are going to have a construction fund you can eat through, and then your gold stockpile starts going down to pay for things . . . but after that the game automatically starts taking out loans and you have to pay "interest" on that.

If your economy sucks that interest is a trap. It can raise up your fixed costs to the point where the "white" deficit becomes a "red" deficit and you aren't able to make your money back by just pausing your building projects.

Then you have to lower wages, or put a consumption tax into place on some product in your market, or find a new trade route that can turn a profit, or find some other way to save money.

I've only played for about 14 hours so far but one thing I've already seen is that if I start running the game at speed five I need to watch it like a hawk, otherwise everything can look like it's going great and then . . . Economic Doomsday is upon me.

But that's what I really love about the game. It's far from perfect but it's got so many moving pieces to play with and they are all connected together in surprising ways. I just wish the interface was able to make things a bit more clear and that the tutorial system was a bit better at explaining everything.

I only JUST realized that I probably should build rail lines in all of my provinces to supply the transportation input before I tell my mines and farms to use those rails to speed up my economy.

Transportation input deficit? What? OMG . . . Gotta fix that. It was a fun moment, but I really didn't realize I had to build the infrastructure as a development "building" within the province and level it up enough to support my industry. Oops!

[Ninephoenix]

Whether you should run a deficit entirely depends on your interest rate. You can see it in the assets tab.
A small nation with say a 20% interest rate should never take out credit. But a large recognised nation with a <5% rate should definitely take advantage.

[nanda.ag]

Humme so far I haven't run out of my gold reserves may be don't go ham on construction sectors ? Build up slowly? ,😅 But again I have only played as Burma and haven't even got to 1900 so what do I know

[lubed_assassin]

Originally posted by RandyNewman:

see above :)

I'm asking because the only way to keep construction running is to run a constant deficit, but the credit ratings are kinda harsh and you go into default fairly early.
Like yeah, ofc I can run a surplus if I don't touch anything for the next two years, but then the economy stagnates because nothing is getting built*.

*I'm not asking for people to complain about how capitalist pops don't build things anymore. I'm asking how you're rake money in.

over expansion is your enemy, gdp and minting is your friend so are puppets. Laize faire is beast in the long run.

Here's one of my screen shots i took, capitalist build plenty, the computer can't build much more cuz it crashes. Got a new videocard so ill try to load my game. I was at 4 billion GPD before i stopped from boring long days.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2883265882

[teron]

Split your construction industry into multiple states, so that you can step up production methods without killing your early game economy and income.

Then also work at reducing the material input costs for your construction.

You also want to do consumption taxes on things like services, intoxicants, and luxury goods.

It is also a good idea to move your tax system from Land Based to Per Capita. Since Per Capita taxes less based on land and more on income. So it captures more money from your industrializing pops.
After Per Capita, you want to move to Proportional Taxation which gives the most income. Gradual Taxation is more for shifting the tax burden from your lower strata pops to your higher strata pops.

Also you want to change the building ownership when you can. One good tech is Mutual Funds, which allows you to change ownership to capitalists. Since they reinvest some of their earnings into the investment pool.