Upgraded buildings being less productive.

[WalrusJones]

Has anyone noticed that half the industry upgrades are less efficient and more expensive then the previous industry state?

Like this is especially bad for chemical industries (Which start out barely profitable, but go deep in the red as increasing amounts of resources get piled on for diminishing returns,) and arms industry, but it even happens with steel where the first level steel mill is about as productive as the second level, but then the third and fourth levels are less productive.

Artillery 3 straight up has 5 pounds of expense for every 4 pounds of good it spits out. Its purely a wellfare act to run an artillery 3 factory.

Like, half the new processes we invent were adopted for being inexpensive, so its frankly bizarre how many of the upgrades are more expensive in every way then old tech (Using more expensive jobs, more resources per output rather then saving money...)

Starting to think this is why low tech high population nations are so overpowered compared to wealthy nations. More workforce and primitive production methods are strictly better, as only completely unrelated to industry techs (Tactics and ammo use techs) and your tax code contribute to power, and the industrial processes simply make you objectively weaker (Outside of mining.)

[Varagix]

That doesn't seem to be entirely true. Most of the production methods make the process more efficient for -some- resources, but not necessarily -all- resources. (Chemical plants tier 2 are more sulfur efficient and less iron efficient; steel tier 2 and 3 are more coal effcient but steel tier 3 is less iron efficient than either tier, etc) Regardless, they all increase output substantially without having to invest construction (time or resources) in expanding levels. It's not clear that one ought to be more powerful than the other given the opportunity costs involved (needing to invest more into construction), over immediate gains from tech.

And a lot of it is situational and relative. Going from Small Arms 1 to Small Arms 2 isn't really an improvement -unless- you already have a robust steel industry, and that steel industry gives good efficiency gains to a lot of other industries (steel tools are more iron efficient than pig iron tools; consuming overall less iron and some small amount of wood for Small Arms 2.

Wages matter even less than resources, since wages can always drop to accommodate what the buildings can pay so long as they can fill employment. It's only an issue if you have more competitive jobs elsewhere and a lack of qualifying people in other lower paying jobs.

Really in my experience the issue isn't so much the productivity of higher tier production, but rather the sudden spike in supply following the switch, which will tank the market if you're not already prepared for it in some way. Otherwise it's ok if the building in and of itself isn't -the- most productive, since just about every other industry has -some- production method that greatly increases -their- productivity through the use of the heavy industries. Take advantage of the opportunity savings to invest in construction in -other- industries.

[WalrusJones]

Some of these are a loss if you have optimal conditions though, I am talking straight base price evaluations.

Unless you are subsidizing resources a lot of these increase the total base price going into an industrial process by 70%, increase the wages by 15%, and only producee like 20-30% more goods.

These are processes that borderline took over their industries when they came out, and many of them are flat out a loss unless you plainly distort your strategy or use excessive subsidies to bring resource costs down far below what they naturally could be, have insufficient population to staff your factories and need more throughput at any expense, or physically can't afford more construction.

When some of these lines output 30% more base price then what goes into them at the start of a tree..... Down to 20-40% of the base price of their input goods. Others like luxury furniture start at 2x inherent profitability, but hit 2.5x by the end of their line.

Some upgrade trees simply have extremely high inherent productivity, but the ones where the people most famously brought down the costs of their industrial processes over this era... The basic productivity goes down (Average cost in-> Average cost out.)

Or well, you know, it starts being a process where baring you going insane on raw resource generation the industry should always pull a loss.

The bigger spike of goods dropping prices does hurt their productivity as well, but the in game defined basic processes slowly trending twoards being a loss is the main thing I care about, and its common for basically everything that isn't a luxury good.

[shiggies713]

i think building tall instead of wide only truly benefits you once you've passed laissez-faire, proportional tax, and most importantly, free trade. Belgium is a very good example if you power game them you can easily dominate every important industry.

[WalrusJones]

One of the most effective tall strategies I have tested used interventionism. Subsidize the wood, and a few other prone-to-failure resource buildings (IE: They can't be profitably be extracted via any process when your average wages hit around 25 pounds,) to flood the market with cheap resources, then enjoy your industrial boom right after this.

The dividends tax you get for using the optimal industrial processes (Usually the first and second,) can easily cover maximum military+construction pops on fairly low taxes.
(My persia was #1 in the world with no real expansion.)

The point here is the less efficient building upgrades (Base inputs in->Base inputs out being worse at base price) makes a lot of historically inexpensive and ubiquitous industrial processes a bad idea 9/10 times since resources tend to lose the ability to employ people long before the resource becomes cheap.

If you rush the vital pots, political process, and military techs, few production techs matter because most of them are reduce the wage, and input efficiency of producing a given good so you spend more resources making less in the end, unless you can't afford construction, or you are in a fringe situation where you have an unusual amount of one or two strategic resources.