AI builds even though there are no workers

[t.latzke(Ger)]

Something has been bothering me for a long time. The AI ​​is constantly building regardless of whether workers are present or not. It's great that the AI ​​builds and you don't always have to build everything yourself. However, the AI ​​NEVER builds things in a meaningful way. When will this be fixed???

[Burma Jones]

Probably never because the direction and management on Vic 3 is garbage, the game engine is trash and they lack the talent in their staff to make AI any good. They've never been able to in any game they've ever made, and Vic 3 is by far their most poorly made product with the worst leads they've ever had.

[ad5ian]

In my experience, the AI builds just fine. It is guided by profit. so by the market prices. If there's a profitable industry, farm or resource, the AI will build it and the workers from less profitable enterprises will move to work for the new profitable ones. There are always job seekers available.

[ad5ian]

Originally posted by Burma Jones:

Probably never because the direction and management on Vic 3 is garbage, the game engine is trash and they lack the talent in their staff to make AI any good. They've never been able to in any game they've ever made, and Vic 3 is by far their most poorly made product with the worst leads they've ever had.

Actually I left a very bad review, almost deleted the game, but gave it some more chances and learned its mechanics. Changed my opinion a lot. Still could have been so much better, but actually there's a lot of work and thought put into this game. Hopefully they will keep on working cause there a lot of potential.

[Biggus Dickus]

Just like the real world, no one can predict the economic future, especially when you have "publicly traded" turned on for production method. The AI builds depending on its own Pop needs and what it believes might be profitable in the future or even in the present, but things change and no one can predict these changes. Unless you are an isolationist market, you are subject to the changes and fortunes or misfortunes of other markets too.

[ad5ian]

This is the thing, if the factories, mines and farms exist in a province, the workers will just move around depending on what's on demand/profitable. AI will build every industry in every province. That's what I noticed. And this way I got the highest standard of living, so AI knows what it is doing, I had laissez faire and was building only the infrastructure, government building, I let the economy fully to the private investors.

[Alex]

No, the AI is utterly stupid, stop trying to defend Paradox, they don't deserve it.

Basically, the AI will look only at the "predicted earnings" stat, but will ignore all other factors like the avalaible workforce, local input capacity, etc. I've had the AI build factories in places where the total population wasn't sufficient to staff even a single one.

[ad5ian]

Originally posted by Alex:

No, the AI is utterly stupid, stop trying to defend Paradox, they don't deserve it.

Basically, the AI will look only at the "predicted earnings" stat, but will ignore all other factors like the avalaible workforce, local input capacity, etc. I've had the AI build factories in places where the total population wasn't sufficient to staff even a single one.

I am not even a Paradox fan. Only game of them I played was Victoria 2 and now V3, exactly because V2. Also I left a bad review, because V3 should have been something else, especially the warfare is a big fail. But why should you care where and what AI builds? Those investment funds will sit for nothing anyway, you don't have access to them. In my first play I went way beyond 1936 and the investment fund was over 500 millions, so AI builds tens of things at a time, and still more money comes into the fund than out. I think AI only stops building when there's no infrastructure or something like that.

[Alex]

Originally posted by ad5ian:

I am not even a Paradox fan. Only game of them I played was Victoria 2 and now V3, exactly because V2. Also I left a bad review, because V3 should have been something else, especially the warfare is a big fail. But why should you care where and what AI builds? Those investment funds will sit for nothing anyway, you don't have access to them. In my first play I went way beyond 1936 and the investment fund was over 500 millions, so AI builds tens of things at a time, and still more money comes into the fund than out. I think AI only stops building when there's no infrastructure or something like that.

Why do I care? Really? Because the construction point system is a huge bottleneck, maybe that's why? I don't need the stupid AI to clog it up with projects which won't be productive in the next 40 years.

For example, when I played a Japan, the AI kept building stuff on Sachalin, especially food processing plants. Except that the isle is barely populated and you can't even build grain farms there. But for a staffing of 0.5% working off of the subsistence farms, the productivity will be good.

[ad5ian]

Originally posted by Alex:

Originally posted by ad5ian:

I am not even a Paradox fan. Only game of them I played was Victoria 2 and now V3, exactly because V2. Also I left a bad review, because V3 should have been something else, especially the warfare is a big fail. But why should you care where and what AI builds? Those investment funds will sit for nothing anyway, you don't have access to them. In my first play I went way beyond 1936 and the investment fund was over 500 millions, so AI builds tens of things at a time, and still more money comes into the fund than out. I think AI only stops building when there's no infrastructure or something like that.

Why do I care? Really? Because the construction point system is a huge bottleneck, maybe that's why? I don't need the stupid AI to clog it up with projects which won't be productive in the next 40 years.

For example, when I played a Japan, the AI kept building stuff on Sachalin, especially food processing plants. Except that the isle is barely populated and you can't even build grain farms there. But for a staffing of 0.5% working off of the subsistence farms, the productivity will be good.

So the real reason is the construction points that the privates take? I agree, made me angry at first too, but now I think I know how to manage the economy to have enough construction sectors and points, so it isn't such a big of a deal anymore. Also when you started, you could have disable the private construction, so you use the investment pool funds yourself, but depending on the economic system. If you have laissez faire, those funds are for industry, if it's agrarianism, the funds are not for industry, but for farms etc.

[Alex]

Originally posted by ad5ian:

So the real reason is the construction points that the privates take? I agree, made me angry at first too, but now I think I know how to manage the economy to have enough construction sectors and points, so it isn't such a big of a deal anymore.

With how expensive advanced projects like powerplants and railroads are (800 points), it's never enough.

Originally posted by ad5ian:

Also when you started, you could have disable the private construction, so you use the investment pool funds yourself, but depending on the economic system. If you have laissez faire, those funds are for industry, if it's agrarianism, the funds are not for industry, but for farms etc.

Yes, I now have disabled the private construction altogether, and it's much smoother this way. The AI is far too linear and simplified in its approach. It wasn't programmed to account for MAPI, local resource availability, economy-of-scale effects or just the local workforce numbers. Probalby yet another mechanic which was cut short for the early release.

[ad5ian]

If you enact Command Economy, you can seize the investment funds all together. I mean, look at the laws. With Command Economy, the investment funds disappears and all the money and income goes to treasury. There's also Cooperative Ownership that's not as extreme, you can build everything with investment pool money, including infrastructure, but the investment pool still exists. Most gamers want to control everything, to be dictators, so they have the means to impose that system. :)
I think this game makes much more sense that we give it credit for. It's just a bit too complicated and still needs a lot of things added and improved, but still there's something solid in there.

[Alex]

Originally posted by ad5ian:

If you enact Command Economy, you can seize the investment funds all together. I mean, look at the laws. With Command Economy, the investment funds disappears and all the money and income goes to treasury. There's also Cooperative Ownership that's not as extreme, you can build everything including infrastructure, but the investment pool still exists. Most games want to control everything, to be dictators, so they have the means to impose that system. :)

Except that command economy will piss off all neighbours and the superpowers.

Originally posted by ad5ian:

I think this game makes much more sense that we give it credit for. It's just a bit too complicated and still needs a lot of things added and improved, but still there's something solid in there.

Well, if this was a beta, then I would understand the shortcomings. But, it was released as a "complete" game more than a year ago.

[t.latzke(Ger)]

If you play small nations, you will notice that there are also nations where the AI ​​is building massively, but only fewer 100 out of 5,000 people are working. Because there is simply nothing left. The AI ​​should stop construction when there are no more unemployed people or farmers. In addition, important raw materials are missing on the market.