economy woes

[jefbethc]

I played the 1861 campaign as the Union. I invested in my economy infrastructure, I started rail roads, market centers, etc. I thought if I invest now by late 1862 my economy should be great. I bought no ships, enlisted soldiers at a minimum. My economy sank to ccc and stayed there. I could not enlist any more soldiers and I played the whole game with very small armies. Good weapons but few soldiers. I won in early 1863 but my economy was still ccc+, and it only rose after I let auto-manage take over the economy. I have been playing since beta and I am excited about the economic part but I don't seem to have a about clue how to nurture a strong economy. I tried high tariffs, low tariffs, high taxes low taxes. I cut back economic investments, etc all to low or medium. The economic ccc never budged. Any suggestions on how to create a strong economy? By the way the Confederate economy must have been bad as well because their recruitment never got past 120,000 and mine at the top was 118,000. I had a yearly surplus but was still in debt 1.2 Billion at 9.32 percent interest on the debt. Maybe economic growth can't pass up the interest on the debt. I don't know but at least it made the battles a lot more challenging.

[Chief Wiggum]

watch out for very expensive upgrades like mines, farms, etc..

spend slowly to make sure you don't get to a C rating

don't forget the print money tree

[Oubley]

118000 total troops? Haven't played the recent 1.11 patch but the other versions could get to 180k to over 200k rather quickly and still be in A or BBB+ type of territory (or whatever the high range of b's is).

The biggest initial drains seem to be Depots. I would suggest put them to red if you are not going to use them or leave them uncolored check. Putting them to like yellow or green is just going to drain needless money. The game likes to pull supplies even when you don't have troops to supply so you're constantly going to be losing money from resupply. When the war starts I tend to put st. louis and washingting to yellow, but pre war I leave uncolored, it seems to help early on.

I don't know if it really helps but my purchases tend to be like
pittsburg market
harrisburg market
columbus ohio market
indianapolis indiana market
cincinatti ohio market
st. louis market
(sometimes peoria, Il market)
prison at columbus ohio
prison at some iowa city along river by iowa/IL boarder (Davenport ???)
hospital washington dc
hospital st. louis
hospital cincinatti
(new at washington dc sometimes)
(news at st. louis sometimes)

In the current versions I hardly build any depots.
Maybe one at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and maybe one at Cairo, iL depending on my mood and the year.

I make the purchases sometime after the war starts.

2) at start of war move a lot of my ships into harbor/offscreen.

I tend to have only 1 main blockade force at start, build up smaller "river guards".

gradually build up Mississippi River fleet but AI seems to walk through fleets unharmed so it's more so don't get blockaded myself. I put

3) The enemy taking privateering or whatever it's called seems to tank your economy and funds (personally I don't really understand the why from a logistic/consumption flow perspective considering the surpluses and non need for supply the majority of the time but I've given up trying to reason it out and just accept it going to tank things right away instead of over time)

4) fleets seem to drain supplies on map, so I'd recommend on having only those that you absolutely need.

5) I tend to do smaller sized corps of about 10-15k worth of troops and and only a few that are closer to the 20+k range
I tend to go into the config files though to and adjust the range for reenlistment so it's something more like .15 for the low end and like .9 reenlist on the high end. Meaning if state has 100 loyalty, from my understanding they'd have 90% of guys reenlisting.

my brigades I tend to do 1.5 or the 2.2 sizes almost all the time.
In theory my plan is always to use the draft to fill the brigades up but I tend to end my games before I do the draft. Well its not tend to , I've actually never done a draft yet.

6)I tend to mod my weapons stocks, I give the union bunch of springfields and south a bunch of those mississppi rifles. To me it makes the game more interesting. and in reality only really saves about $50 million or so. I find it easier then fiddling with weapon ranges etc and I'm not even sure if the game recognizes weapon data changes so I find it easier to mod stockpiles. I don't touch cannons.

7) in config files I make it so prisoners consume no food. Since the game doesn't allow me to choose if I'm going to feed prisoners or not I have no qualms about making the consumption 0.

8) enlarge prison sizes because they are way to small. They aren't staying at holiday inns.

(I don't see myself as a monster only practical, citizens and soldiers first, if there are left overs resources then prisoners).

9) don't tend to upgrade much else. the occasional depot

10) I love to capture bridges and harbors more so then towns.

11) Ignore the yearly financial budget thing of deficit/surplus. It's trash, doesn't inlcude all the expenditures, and doesn't articulate when revenues are calculated.

I gave up hope trying to understand the budget when for 1 week duration game claimed I was making $5 million off my military somehow.

> Concnetrate on what credit rating is and what credit polices can be taken to give a boost

12) take tariff act thing in fall/winter '61. The game says it could lower overall economy over time but I've never had to play long enough to find out. Besides there is a slider where you can adjust values.

[jefbethc]

Thanks loads! I appreciate the advice and I will try to use your suggestions in the next campaign.

[Duck]

Originally posted by Chief Wiggum:

watch out for very expensive upgrades like mines, farms, etc..

spend slowly to make sure you don't get to a C rating

don't forget the print money tree

very true. And also watch your subsidies. What starts out as a relatively low cost grows out of control when maxed out as you escalate the policy tree. Going from industry 1 to 3, the max sub goes from like 10mm to 50mm. It can wipe you out. Cut your subsidies after you unlock critical projects.

[GreatScots]

I've done some fairly extensive testing on better long-term economic builds for the Union and my conclusion is, by and large, don't bother building buildings, especially buildings that require subsidies if you're playing vanilla. Most of this testing was done on the 1.10xx dev patch with mods to the campaign, but those shouldn't have altered the conclusions.The building costs are way too high in vanilla and you'll never really be able to recoup what you spend.

As you noticed, it's about credit rating, which is largely linked to debt (unrealistically in vanilla), and that's caused by the balance of revenue/ expenses. It's best to go hard in the paint on the economy tree. The Tariff, Revenue, and Bank Acts are very, very cheap for what they cost. Save all your econ subsidies for the Improve Credit Rating Project. Improve Credit Rating is ridiculously under-costed in vanilla, even though it's one of the most expensive projects. Military subsidies can go towards Org Reform and Improve Logistics. One surprise in all my tests was how good Trade Deals was for bringing in tariff revenue, especially with the Tariff Act. I feel like in other playthrus I never really noticed a difference.

You said weapons were excellent. Those can also be very expensive, especially if imported infantry weapons. Remember, also, that you need to re-buy about 25% of them each year because they break down.

As Duck said, watch your subsidies. In general, I'll have higher subsidy levels early in a campaign and dial them back later when I no longer have projects for them.

That's about it. If you want to know more I'm happy to engage in shameless self promotion: https://youtu.be/T05mmu0zXO4

[Duck]

Originally posted by GreatScots:

I've done some fairly extensive testing on better long-term economic builds for the Union and my conclusion is, by and large, don't bother building buildings, especially buildings that require subsidies if you're playing vanilla. Most of this testing was done on the 1.10xx dev patch with mods to the campaign, but those shouldn't have altered the conclusions.The building costs are way too high in vanilla and you'll never really be able to recoup what you spend.

As you noticed, it's about credit rating, which is largely linked to debt (unrealistically in vanilla), and that's caused by the balance of revenue/ expenses. It's best to go hard in the paint on the economy tree. The Tariff, Revenue, and Bank Acts are very, very cheap for what they cost. Save all your econ subsidies for the Improve Credit Rating Project. Improve Credit Rating is ridiculously under-costed in vanilla, even though it's one of the most expensive projects. Military subsidies can go towards Org Reform and Improve Logistics. One surprise in all my tests was how good Trade Deals was for bringing in tariff revenue, especially with the Tariff Act. I feel like in other playthrus I never really noticed a difference.

You said weapons were excellent. Those can also be very expensive, especially if imported infantry weapons. Remember, also, that you need to re-buy about 25% of them each year because they break down.

As Duck said, watch your subsidies. In general, I'll have higher subsidy levels early in a campaign and dial them back later when I no longer have projects for them.

That's about it. If you want to know more I'm happy to engage in shameless self promotion: https://youtu.be/T05mmu0zXO4

agreed, i neverseem to really see the benefits of building factories, mills etc. I tried upgrading the Chicago factory at a ridiculous cost, and a year later it is still building. It seems like industrial reform and mech ag projects are better suited to addressing economic short falls. I have never tried to rush the economic tree. I am going to borrow that one.

[Billy]

Whatever isn't produced at home will be imported. Note how nothing fails to be built or manufactured regardless of material shortages. Going into debt is how the developer intended the game be played or else there wouldn't be negative values for debt once you're out of it.

For anyone playing the Union, the #1 biggest boost to your economy will be selecting the Industrialisation policy pregame for the 20% extra population and raising your citizens average wealth, then tax the heck out of it. Expanding slowly while limiting debt until you can pass the Bank Act is key. Once you can build banks, turn on the Available Capital filter on the campaign map and begin to paint your territory red by building banks everywhere.

By the time you can build banks, good economy management should have your citizens average wealth around .6 or so. (If you slowly build economic buildings from subsidy money) Spamming banks will increase this to .7 and higher. You'll notice the description of your citizens average wealth in the finance tab go from poor or mediocre to prospering and wealthy over time.

Something to note... level 2 banks aren't going to significantly improve their function so don't worry about upgrading them. When initially building banks, focus on highly populated areas or areas that are densely developed. Roll out your banks over time to keep your debt down. DO NOT PRINT NOTES OR WARBONDS!!! It's harder to squeeze money out of the poor than it is the rich. You can see upwards of 800 million per year from income taxes alone.

Just like IRL, access to cheap money keeps the economy purring until politicians begin undermining their country by spending beyond its means.

[jefbethc]

Watched the video, WOW.....very cool

[LCcmdr]

Really appreciate your videos!!!