Is this why my capitalists don't receive dividends?

Whether or not your capitalists receive dividends should not be because of this. No.

this is a interesting problem

I'm going to answer I'm taking a little time

I think you are perfectly right, but i feel it is not really finished, even tho it is the most in depth mod from an economic perspective.

chivu:

Exactly!

Your feedback is very interesting and it will allow me to talk about the limits of this mod, the limits of modding, the problems of the base game and other things.

Firstly regarding the finance part of the mod. This part is not finished, I am waiting for the next DLC or big update of Paradox to finish the work.

Why am I waiting? The biggest problem in this game when we talk about buildings, companies, capitalists, investment funds, shares,... Capitalism as it developed in the 19th century. This game is a communist game where the country directs everything down to the materials used to make radios. BASICALLY THERE IS NOT REALLY ANY CAPITALISM IN THIS GAME BECAUSE THERE IS NO PRIVATE OWNERSHIP OF COMPANIES AND BUILDINGS. From there we looked at the problem.

The solution to this problem should come with the addition in the future of private buildings where the player has not placed the possibility of changing the MP, building more or destroying buildings. The addition of company in update 1.5 was a last minute addition made by PARADOX, they themselves later said that the company mechanic was incomplete and that it was an introduction to private ownership.

I have solutions to resolve these problems myself, I could make private buildings... but that represents too much work at the moment especially since I want to rework certain aspects of the mod first.

The way I have implemented the actions at the moment is very incomplete, I will make modifications in the future to balance the system in this aspect.

I consider that I have sufficient economic and financial theories to be able to create a system that works. However, when I want to make something realistic that has an inability on everything I am limited because the game is not moddable on these aspects.

We can add as many countries as we want to make flags of all colors, put washing machines as country leaders but we cannot introduce an exchange rate into the trade income. It's just not feasible.

Basically the game is moddable in appearance but everything that is in the area of more in-depth mechanics is non-moddable.

For a long time I was extremely frustrated at not being able to do what I wanted on many aspects of the game, I decided to produce this mod. I even wondered if I should create a grand strategy game in the same way as Victoria 3 to introduce a real economic system.

Finally, I am going to respond to certain comments that I saw from certain people concerning Paradox and the problem of the game.

As a development studio Paradox must sell games. The Victoria 2 from 13 years ago could make it a more complex game because the players and expectations were different.

But today things have changed. Paradox is a well-known studio which makes big budget games and which must sell them.

When they made Victoria 3, they had to make a choice. We had to choose a compromise between making a complex game for the public who have been waiting for Victoria 3 since 2010 and the release of Victoria 2 "the purists, the old players" those who played ck2, vic 2, EU4, Hoi4,... (and older games) and a new audience which arrived with the new paradox games in particular with CK3 and in general to attract a new audience. So they had to make a choice between a complex game and a casual game.

And this game is for casual players. All the countries are the same, all the gameplay loops are the same, everything is automated...

There is no complexity in this game.

And I think this is the main reason for the very poor reception that the game received. In addition we can see that since the release in October 2022, paradox increases complexity and gives depth to the game I am thinking in particular of update 1.5 with the rework of the Army. Which offers greater depth to the army and that is a really good thing.

The game has multiple problems, too much ease, a completely useless trading system, trade routes which are completely automated whereas in the leak of June 2022, they were initially planned to be increased like the level of the buildings which was a very good thing and allows for example to put embargots on goods that a foreign country imports or exports in too large quantities,... there are plenty of problems like that.

But I hope that Paradox will do better things for the game in the future even if I fear that it will be a dead game when we compare the population that there is on CK3 (3X more), HOI4 (almost 10x more). The Victoria game series is not made for casual players, so...

You explained modding and the problems of moddability quite well. As a modder, I am quite familiar with the modding limits imposed by the various design choices paradox made.

What you failed to do, in my opinion, is adress what I wrote. You are generating money for capitalists that is free and costs nothing to produce. Everything is more productive and the gdp therefore higher with "public funded" as a production method. That is my point. Not the moddability of this game or anything else. I understand a lot what you were trying to do is not possible, but this wasn't my point.

> BASICALLY THERE IS NOT REALLY ANY CAPITALISM IN THIS GAME BECAUSE THERE IS NO PRIVATE OWNERSHIP OF COMPANIES AND BUILDINGS. From there we looked at the problem.

There is private ownership and it is wrong to say it is a communist game. Yes you are allowed to control alot of what is going on in your country, but there is private ownership. Capitalists or any other person that has ownership shares of a factory earns the money procuced by said factory. Not you, the country, but the pops themselves.

Now we could argue that me beeing able to build/expand/destroy factories is communist or state controlled, well maybe, but the profits of these factories goes to pops, not me the country UNLESS I passed laws that make my country ACTUALLY communist. This restriction could easily be fixed by you if you made it the default that the countries can't delete factories and can't build them. Like "laissez faire". This is already ingame if the player wants to play like that. You could just make it the default. -> "Can't destroy non government buildings"

My critique was not about the way you handle money. This is very indepth and great. Money supply and the worth of money itself is also fine.

I just arguied against the share system that you implemented with the "public funded" ownership type as it is inflating gdp, is already in vanilla and implemented called "ownership shares", and costs nothing to produce. You generate shares of a building and are selling these WEEKLY. This is FREE MONEY for said people that OWN the factory. They don't even lose their "share" of the building, they sell shares but don't lose them. This was my only critique.

The financial center as a whole is only there to generate inflated gdps. It is interesting what you tried to do but my point was that it makes no sense, at least to me.

What I asked for was your explanation of what it should represent or how it should work. Instead you told me that modding this game is hard. I know it is and I really respect the work you put into this mod. I am just not getting the "financial center buys shares" and "factories produce shares" loop of your mod.

EBTX_

Instead of making your own game, you should make a mod for VIC3 that people make a one time payment of $5 or whatever you feel the mod is worth, then completely overhaul the game like that.

No point in making your own game which would take far longer to actually work on whenever a perfect vessel is already around.

Origineel geplaatst door Mazutaki:

You explained modding and the problems of moddability quite well. As a modder, I am quite familiar with the modding limits imposed by the various design choices paradox made.

What you failed to do, in my opinion, is adress what I wrote. You are generating money for capitalists that is free and costs nothing to produce. Everything is more productive and the gdp therefore higher with "public funded" as a production method. That is my point. Not the moddability of this game or anything else. I understand a lot what you were trying to do is not possible, but this wasn't my point.

> BASICALLY THERE IS NOT REALLY ANY CAPITALISM IN THIS GAME BECAUSE THERE IS NO PRIVATE OWNERSHIP OF COMPANIES AND BUILDINGS. From there we looked at the problem.

There is private ownership and it is wrong to say it is a communist game. Yes you are allowed to control alot of what is going on in your country, but there is private ownership. Capitalists or any other person that has ownership shares of a factory earns the money procuced by said factory. Not you, the country, but the pops themselves.

Now we could argue that me beeing able to build/expand/destroy factories is communist or state controlled, well maybe, but the profits of these factories goes to pops, not me the country UNLESS I passed laws that make my country ACTUALLY communist. This restriction could easily be fixed by you if you made it the default that the countries can't delete factories and can't build them. Like "laissez faire". This is already ingame if the player wants to play like that. You could just make it the default. -> "Can't destroy non government buildings"

My critique was not about the way you handle money. This is very indepth and great. Money supply and the worth of money itself is also fine.

I just arguied against the share system that you implemented with the "public funded" ownership type as it is inflating gdp, is already in vanilla and implemented called "ownership shares", and costs nothing to produce. You generate shares of a building and are selling these WEEKLY. This is FREE MONEY for said people that OWN the factory. They don't even lose their "share" of the building, they sell shares but don't lose them. This was my only critique.

The financial center as a whole is only there to generate inflated gdps. It is interesting what you tried to do but my point was that it makes no sense, at least to me.

What I asked for was your explanation of what it should represent or how it should work. Instead you told me that modding this game is hard. I know it is and I really respect the work you put into this mod. I am just not getting the "financial center buys shares" and "factories produce shares" loop of your mod.

This IS a Communist game and who says otherwise is lying to themselves.
I have total control over the economy from day one. I decide who the "owners" are in a factory. Calling em "owners" is already silly. Aristocrats and capitalists are the same! They are aparatchicks appointed by me. Only difference is some modifiers towards "investment fund" plus some others.

Paradox stepped on the rake with their idea of who their target audience is. EU4, HOI4 etc. are all casual "war" games and PDX decided to treat vicky 3 the same way and that was the mistake. People expected Vicky to be the more complex series that gets into nitty gritty of economy and politics.

I do find it ironic how the social/political sim of Vic3 is literally just basic Marxist principles, yet the reason people are calling the game communist is because the player has more (arguably non-diegetic) control over the economy than just enacting the fiscal and monetary politics of the government. This would be similar to arguing that the game only supports the one-party dictatorship government style because the player does not get a game-over screen when the leader or ruling party changes. Nonetheless, it's kind of a good point- after all, I am interested in the additional challenge of fiscal and monetary balancing using this mod over just hand-waving it away. But it relies on the assumption that the player just *IS* the government while PDX games take more of a god-game approach. You're also controlling the "invisible hand of the free market" a bit or some ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ so that you can play the game as you want, rather than be entirely forced by uncontrollable social/political/market forces to find and make correct decisions given those current conditions.

Regarding the financial instruments just printing GDP, I wonder if it already is balanced (or can be balanced) by the fact it exposes you to the 5th crisis (financial crisis). Which, if you rely too much on printing infinite growth using stocks/bonds, would make your economy vulnerable to a financial crisis causing an economic crisis. Or maybe I'm just bad and if one is actually competent they can make their stonks line go up with no consequences, not sure.

The Dev team have stated that they made this game on materialist principles it is a communist game the total control over the market the lack of personal savings which would be needed for a capitalist system the co-op's are the only capital workers will ever have and in the base game communism works because material conditions right now are the only thing your pops care for. It makes the game work a truly free market would take most of your autonomy away and leave you with indirect unwieldy control over everything outside of the state.

The potential for market crashes should help for now however the game is only so good there are thousands of small economic processes that could be different to make the game more realistic why don't you also complain that gold has the same problem it lasts 1 week to then never be seen again or how you never get the true horrors of the slave trade or great famines why not complain about the lack of road systems and canals or the nebulous services that always die towards the late game becoming abundant rather than becoming the majority of the economy like they did IRL.

Its a great mod in scope, ambition, and enjoyment for what almost amounts to a full overhaul PDX is the problem this great work is just 1 project, make your own if you are not happy