Building ports for infrastructure is a trap

[BanDHMO]

3 years away from railroads and having developed my states to the infra cap, I started looking into economics of ports.

It seems like trash.

A single port costs around 1000 to maintain, giving 5 infra points. If these are spent on 5 tobacco plantations, that would employ 25000 workers costing about 1000 in wages. De-facto tax rate varies from 10-20%. So you are spending far more for the infrastructure than you will make back in taxes.

Just don't bother. Ports are for convoys, not infrastructure.

Am I wrong?

[6ap6apblckaAa]

Yep, known fact. Ports are about 100 times worse than rails. Unless you build them for convoys.
Another thing is building convoys for trade is also very questionable because you will pay a lot for a big route.

And get ready to discover real govadmin efficiency :)

[High Lord Denix]

I don't think anybody builds ports for infrastructure unless they don't have rails yet, it's just a no brainer, if you want infrastructure do you build the thing that gives you 5 or the thing that gives you 20?

[BanDHMO]

Originally posted by High Lord Denix:

I don't think anybody builds ports for infrastructure unless they don't have rails yet

Well, that's my point: even if ports are your only option, they are NOT worth it. You're better off stopping development and waiting for rails than building ports.

[High Lord Denix]

You're never better off stopping development, if that's the argument you're trying to make then you are just wrong.

Using your initial example even if you don't make the money back in taxes those buildings will create jobs with better wages than being a peasant and/or reduce the cost of the good they produce(swap out the arbitrarily picked tobacco plants with something useful like a logging camp or cotton plant to reduce construction costs) both of those things also theoretically increasing SoL and GDP, things you very much want to be doing at all times.

Are ports ideal? No. Are there situations where it's ideal to build them? Yes.
If you're 3 years away from railroads then build ports, if you're 3 months away just overbuild a little

[zacharyb]

Originally posted by High Lord Denix:

You're never better off stopping development, if that's the argument you're trying to make then you are just wrong.

So if you're about to go bankrupt you'll just keep building instead of pausing construction?

[High Lord Denix]

Originally posted by zacharyb:

Originally posted by High Lord Denix:

You're never better off stopping development, if that's the argument you're trying to make then you are just wrong.

So if you're about to go bankrupt you'll just keep building instead of pausing construction?

If you're about to go bankrupt you ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up somewhere else and have other problems, you should never be at that point if you know what you're doing.

[zacharyb]

Originally posted by High Lord Denix:

Originally posted by zacharyb:

So if you're about to go bankrupt you'll just keep building instead of pausing construction?

If you're about to go bankrupt you ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up somewhere else and have other problems, you should never be at that point if you know what you're doing.

Well some things you don't have complete control over like war, or if you have to build up quick you might have to get a lot of debt.

[High Lord Denix]

Originally posted by zacharyb:

Originally posted by High Lord Denix:

If you're about to go bankrupt you ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up somewhere else and have other problems, you should never be at that point if you know what you're doing.

Well some things you don't have complete control over like war, or if you have to build up quick you might have to get a lot of debt.

Do you not understand what context is? And that when I said "You're never better off stopping development, if that's the argument you're trying to make then you are just wrong." it was to be taken within the context of the post and not universally.

Regardless, what I said still stands, if you build up to quickly and go bankrupt that is 100% a "you ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up somewhere" issue, war should also never drive you to bankrupt unless you end up at war with Britain or something, don't over build/over mobilise your soldiers.

[Kapakc]

Originally posted by High Lord Denix:

Originally posted by zacharyb:

Well some things you don't have complete control over like war, or if you have to build up quick you might have to get a lot of debt.

Do you not understand what context is? And that when I said "You're never better off stopping development, if that's the argument you're trying to make then you are just wrong." it was to be taken within the context of the post and not universally.

Regardless, what I said still stands, if you build up to quickly and go bankrupt that is 100% a "you ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up somewhere" issue, war should also never drive you to bankrupt unless you end up at war with Britain or something, don't over build/over mobilise your soldiers.

Better to recruit the laborers and engineers in the construction sectors than to recruit armies :o

[BanDHMO]

Originally posted by High Lord Denix:

You're never better off stopping development, if that's the argument you're trying to make then you are just wrong.

Using your initial example even if you don't make the money back in taxes those buildings will create jobs with better wages than being a peasant and/or reduce the cost of the good they produce(swap out the arbitrarily picked tobacco plants with something useful like a logging camp or cotton plant to reduce construction costs) both of those things also theoretically increasing SoL and GDP, things you very much want to be doing at all times.

Are ports ideal? No. Are there situations where it's ideal to build them? Yes.
If you're 3 years away from railroads then build ports, if you're 3 months away just overbuild a little

Interesting take. I haven't considered it because I'm a Subject, so I'd be increasing the availability of lumber or tobacco on the Spanish market, and so only get a fraction of the effects.

Suppose for the sake of the discussion, you had your own market, though. What happens when railroads come? Do you then delete the ports or keep them? Obviously, you don't want to keep losing money forever. I know they can be turned into anchorage mode and become cheaper, but that would take out a lot of infrastructure out of your state suddenly and cause problems. You'd have to build state railroads, probably, no?

I mean, I get the point that there are side benefits to more development earlier, but building ports for years and eating a nearly 1K loss on each of them is going to bankrupt me really quickly. I haven't run the numbers for this, but it sounds like a way to kill the nation's finances.

if you build up to quickly and go bankrupt that is 100% a "you ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up somewhere" issue

Hmm, now you're arguing against your own point, which was that you should always keep building and stopping is never the right move. Turns out, you shouldn't be building too fast or that's a screwup (which I agree with, in future games I may hold off on some development capacity even if I could afford it earlier and try to hit full infra usage right when RRs unlock).

But seeing how that hasn't happened in this game, I think it's right to stop. The only caveat I have is that ports may be necessary later for convoys, so it wouldn't be a total waste to build some if I can mothball them when RRs replace them. So long as it's few enough that my budget can stay healthy.

[High Lord Denix]

Developing your nation is the entire point of this game, if you ever stop doing it you're doing something wrong, as long as you are making a positive balance you should be building something, at the end of the day it doesn't matter how much ports cost you as long as you can build one without going negative and make use of the infrastructure, what you do with them after you replace them with railroads depends on to many factors to make a blanket statement about.

Why do you people like taking things out of context so much, is this some weird trolling? I'm not arguing against my own point, I was just a little vague because I assumed people would know what I mean, my bad, if you build up(construction capacity) to quickly and go bankrupt that is 100% a "you ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up somewhere" issue.

[Jason]

I agree that ports are not the right building if you only want to increase infrastructure BUT if you need infrastructure and you don't have much excess convoys, it is a reasonable move to build some ports. Excess convoys help keep your economy up during war from troop movements and sunken convoys. But yeah, if you already have plenty of convoys and just need infrastructure, rails or streetlights might be better.

[BanDHMO]

Originally posted by jlane0710:

I agree that ports are not the right building if you only want to increase infrastructure BUT if you need infrastructure and you don't have much excess convoys, it is a reasonable move to build some ports. Excess convoys help keep your economy up during war from troop movements and sunken convoys. But yeah, if you already have plenty of convoys and just need infrastructure, rails or streetlights might be better.

Nicely summarized. And thank you for the streetlights tip. Pretty easy to overlook that one.

[6ap6apblckaAa]

Streetlights are great (the cheapset infra in game) but is a hell to manage, because they also produce a lot of services making ucenters unprofitable. Unless you are a small country or subsidizing all ucenters, you'll struggle with that.
Generally, this problem roots in one of the stupidest mechanic in the game - urbaznization with ucenters auto leveling up, forcing you to check them constantly and still failing, because your control is very granulated (4 pm choices for services basicly).