Debt Spiral

[Emelio Lizardo]

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3163887713

Now even when I declare bankruptcy I'll still have a negative cash flow of 1k just from government spending. That's my administration, a university, and ports. this is on minimum wage too. No construction facilities.

I just can't see how to cut costs or drive up income.

[Lateralus]

Your interest payment relative to your national income is quite high. I would suggest you avoid going into debt in the first place. If you want to carry on this save, then I recommend either scaling back your construction sector or cancelling all construction until the debt is paid off.

In this situation I would just load a previous save and try again with a better strategy.
Show us a screen shot of an early save before you go into debt. I want to see your budget at that point in time.

[Emelio Lizardo]

I'll have to start over and see what the inflection point is. The impression that I'm getting is that government buildings need a whole lot of population and industry to generate enough tax to support them.

There's just something wrong with how the simulation is constructed, I think.

[Lateralus]

Originally posted by Emelio Lizardo:

The impression that I'm getting is that government buildings need a whole lot of population and industry to generate enough tax to support them.

Yeah well at least, in this scenario, you might need to lower government expenses where possible, while focusing on building your GDP. This will probably mean a lower SoL for some time, or until you have your industry booming. Then catch up on government services later.

[Emelio Lizardo]

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3163918052

So, I did my bankruptcy and eliminated the interest payment, deleted one of three ports in hawaii. And deleted one naval port. That was just enough to get positive. but the next bank robbery event will put the nation under.

I think any nation has to have a minimum income of 3k just to cover the eventuality of the robbery event. Cause that's two years of -2.5k

[Alex]

They should have scaled that to the GDP. Otherwise, those are some kind of supervillains, stealing half the treasury at once.

[zakdoekje]

1. you are building goverment buildings which will increase your weekly cost and not gain u any money
2. because you are building goverment buildings you are unable to use your private invenstment fund which seems to be over 200k
3.start building private buildings such as the logging camps. this will drain the fund but also increase the weekly private invenstment fund in the long run
4. i belive the first 10 construction units are free dont build more unless you can afford 11 construction units

[Alex]

The game has a lot of balancing issues, but they become even more apparent if you're playing as a small state. Solution: don't.

[Emelio Lizardo]

Well, it's a learning experience. Actually, Hawaii seems to be pretty viable for a small island nation. Particularly if the French make it a partial puppet, It gives access to the French market for a relatively small monthly fee. Unless there are some other issues, being puppeted seems a pretty good deal.

[Khan Boyzitbig of Mercia]

From what I have seen just getting into a major's market as such a nation will do wonders for the economy, I often puppet Hawaii If i'm playing as Australia and their GDP shoots up about 200k.

Downsides of being a puppet include the master deciding to simply annex you for no real reason and getting pulled into the master's wars (and suffer from any convoy raiding or market access shortfalls) among other things. Always a demand for your goods though, at least some of them.

[Emelio Lizardo]

The French went through quite a few wars and none affected Tahiti/Hawaii. The final one included a war goal of divestature of puppets and so Tahiti lost the French market.

As a tiny nation the hope is that none of the major powers have an interest in annexation. Even a good mid sized nation like Brazil would fare badly when a major takes an interest in it, so on that matter the tiny nation may have an advantage in being tiny.

[Emelio Lizardo]

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3164409276

End of the game feels like a participation award. It lacks context and history, and comparison to relative efforts.

[Das_Daw]

Originally posted by Emelio Lizardo:

The French went through quite a few wars and none affected Tahiti/Hawaii. The final one included a war goal of divestature of puppets and so Tahiti lost the French market.

As a tiny nation the hope is that none of the major powers have an interest in annexation. Even a good mid sized nation like Brazil would fare badly when a major takes an interest in it, so on that matter the tiny nation may have an advantage in being tiny.

Well yes, but mid-size nation have an advantage as well: If the AI attacks you, more often than not it will hit an infamy threshold (25 or 50 AE), because your incorporated states will have a decent infamy tag attached to them. With each of these thresholds broken it is more likely that you will be able to draw other big powers into the war, especially if you have improved relations with one of them in advance. So the advantage of the mid size nations is that they are often times big enough war targets to attract other big nations attentions. (Note: Any big daddy you cuddle up to need to have an interest in your region to be able to help you, if you do not have a defensive pact or alliance with him, which enables him to participate in a war regardless of interest spheres.)

PS: If you are looking for beginner nations: Chilie is also a good point to start. Reasonable size, gold mines, not on the radar of big nations for a while, a bit of room to play around with colonialization, good starting point for reasonable ambitions (hegemony in SA) etc.