Company Man's Guide to ETW Economy

[coman]

I see you have acquiesced, so we're all on the same page now.

I'm not sure I was arguing. The problem I see is that I _WANT_ low taxes to benefit growth and wealth of the nation. It's not my fault that the representation of such a mechanic is too small in comparison to expansionism and direct taxes to be greatly beneficial.

Your point is absolutely correct.

Are you really named Jim Morrison?

ps. On a side note, if you read the start of this thread you'll see that my methodology for play has always been to keep taxes in such a way that they are used in national investment. Trade covers my war. The way I play, I aggressively defend trade and will engage in wars to obtain trade and to ensure it is kept open. Especially since you cannot count on the AI to defend their own. A Ship of the Line fleet will stay bottled up in a harbor being blockaded by 3 light galleys...

[JimMorrison]

I'm not sure I was arguing. The problem I see is that I _WANT_ low taxes to benefit growth and wealth of the nation. It's not my fault that the representation of such a mechanic is too small in comparison to expansionism and direct taxes to be greatly beneficial.

Well I think we all do. I know that I prefer to play an econ game, and develop all of my toys first, rather than a rushing game where I just swamp my enemies with early tech. The problem with Empire is that you can have the best of both - by ignoring the marginal benefits of reduced taxation, you can supercharge all other sectors of your nation, including research, trade, infrastructure, and military.

All in all, Empire is a grave disappointment on the strategic level - it is without a doubt the weakest economic game that we've seen in a Total War title (I mean even Shogun, was so minimalist, but it worked perfectly!). Granted, it seems that these are the types of glaring flaws that should inevitably be addressed in the first patch or two, but I am just shocked that it even shipped with an economic system that is so 1 dimensional, and so easily abused.

Are you really named Jim Morrison?

No, sadly.

ps. On a side note, if you read the start of this thread you'll see that my methodology for play has always been to keep taxes in such a way that they are used in national investment. Trade covers my war. The way I play, I aggressively defend trade and will engage in wars to obtain trade and to ensure it is kept open. Especially since you cannot count on the AI to defend their own. A Ship of the Line fleet will stay bottled up in a harbor being blockaded by 3 light galleys...

True, the AI is weak, even on Very Hard setting. It is capable of making some very bold moves, and it doesn't lack for trying - but it also often misses the obvious.

I'm not sure what you mean by taxes covering investment, and trade covering war. Do you simply subtract your upkeep from your trade income every turn, and then use that for military purposes? If so, judging by your screenshots thus far, you actually invest significantly less into infrastructure than I would tend to. My basic philosophy is that all funds go into available improvements, as long as the skeleton garrisons are in place. It's in those lulls between advancements, where suddenly money just pools up - I pump out a couple of stacks really fast, and go on a land grab. In my current Sweden game, I now have 2 stacks in India, progressing nearly unchecked, a full stack in Venice, having taken that and Rome, and 4 stacks at home, getting ready to blitz Poland. I'm still making a healthy profit, and even just decided to push every province to level 2 Fortifications, and Metalled Roads, just for the fun of it.

I just hope that CA is working frantically on a good patch, else I'll end up bored of this lovely game before it matures properly.

[coman]

My basic philosophy is that all funds go into available improvements, as long as the skeleton garrisons are in place. It's in those lulls between advancements, where suddenly money just pools up - I pump out a couple of stacks really fast, and go on a land grab.

I've played the game in just about every conceivable manner. My problem is my original goals set me out to play each faction to 50 years. Between crashes and boredom and loss of focus, I find myself losing interest before I expected.

As a simulator, as a nation-building game, the economy is terribly weak. The AI is poor. I have to work to try and play a realistic game where I don't run half or more of Europe in the first few turns. I am highly dubious that a mod can correct these flaws. While the game is fun, I was still playing M2TW before this came out and I have to say, I'm dubious I'd play this anywhere near as long as I have the past.

There is the old adage that game designers and developers must make a game that is playable by the most amount of people. But based on this design, that 'most amount of people' player base are dubiously uncaring about anything but blood sprays and body counts.

I am also kindling a deep mistrust of the developer that called this a revolution. I just don't see it. The scope is really no different than their previous game. Just lots prettier.

[JimMorrison]

Well, I don't know if you played the original Shogun, but really the strategic layer was very simple, and was little more than a framework on which to set up these glorious huge scale battles like had never been seen before in any game. It was wonderful.

I think the saving grace of Empire, is how smooth the battles run on lower machines. I'm due for an upgrade, and the strategic map stutters and skips, and barely will run. Battles are quite smooth for me though. Multiplayer is a very enjoyable aspect of the Total War series. Some of my favorite gaming moments, were from back in the day doing MP battles in Shogun.....

But still, this game has "still in beta" and "due for a big patch" written all over it. I just hope it doesn't take them too long to get a good patch out. Bad press and bad reviews of a very buggy and seemingly incomplete version of the game could drive down sales, and the last thing we need is for this franchise to end, they still have so many places to take us - if they can figure out how to.

[coman]

Jim,

Before we digress too far off the economics topic (and we're allowed to after contributing helpful stuff!) the one thing we can take for granted, if tCA doesn't fix this, you know for a fact eventually a player mod or group will.

I will be looking into it personally on the strategy and economic side, as well as naval models.

[JimMorrison]

Oh very true, they have the incredible decency to make these games immensely moddable.

I just don't relish having to wait a year before everything comes into place (my experience, the most ambitious and large scale mods take at least that long to develop) before I truly enjoy the game.

Oh and a bit more on topic, the way that I run taxes so far, is I start with Upper at 3 (15%) and Lower at 1 (5%), until I have about 10 provinces with all of their Towns emerged. Then I push taxes as high as happiness will allow, and simply Exempt any new province that needs to get Towns out.

It's worth noting that the distinctions of Nobility, Upper Class, Middle Class, and Lower Class do actually mean something. Once you move past AbMon, you no longer gain a bonus from all of those leader traits that add to Nobility happiness. Likewise, I think we've seen that moving to CoMon, you lack a Lower class, making it much easier to research your Enlightenment technologies. On the other hand of that, while in AbMon a Pleasure Garden gives +1 Nobility happiness, and +4 Lower Class happiness - in a Republic it gives +4 to both Middle and Lower Class. So all 3 governments have different strengths to play to, as far as how to get your happiness up, so that you can push taxes (and/or research).

[Siven]

Ok, so as England i get 2 trade lanes per port, for every trading port in England AND Scotland as it is connected to England(capital) by land correct?

So if this is right the trade port in Ireland is pretty much useless except for giving more region wealth which tbh doesnt help ireland much.

Would it be worth changing the dockyard in south England to a trade port and changing the trade port in Ireland to a dockyard?

[Thamis]

So basically how I perceive the tax model and economy here, is that the national development and region wealth should be reversed.

Lower taxes on the rich should result in the ability to make major capital improvements on a region. The poor don't open factories, or produce ports, or start massive textile mills that increase the regional wealth by 25%. The wealthy do. If the population was responsible for this growth, per the way it's implemented, the entire wealth of the port, or the mill, would be centralized by the government and not captured via a tax revenue. Stupid.

The poor make constant shifts upward over time to a middle class, then eventually over several generations may be able to establish themselves in the upper class. This is at least how the world worked in 1700-1800 and I would dare say up to 1995 in the United States and still how it works in many non-credit/capital devouring countries.

The game's economic model disregards the population and therefor invalidates the requirement of managing a population entirely after the resource points are available. Who cares about the millions under your care once you've got your final village.

As a result the game needs to account for lower taxes = more individual spending, more individual savings and that means your "Town Wealth" should consist of both classes of population increasing their own wealth over time. While there may be some argument that there is no mechanism in most countries in 1700 for the lower orders to better themselves, like I said, a family that had a milk cow fared much better for a variety of reasons. They worked harder, lived longer, had smarter, healthier children that contributed more...

This is incredibly stupid. Whoever thought this up needs a new job title.

I'm the one who thought this up.

Admittedly, it's a very gamey mechanic. It might as well have been reversed, it absolutely doesn't make a difference.

The reasoning for putting the population growth on the lower classes and the town wealth growth on the upper classes is as follows:

In the 18th century, the lower classes were mostly subsistence farmers. They paid taxes in food to the King. If they were taxed more, they had less food. Thus they couldn't reproduce as much.

The upper classes though accounted for probably 90% of the money. They were the ones improving cities, building roads, paying for large projects. If they are taxed more, they have less money to improve how things are. Town wealth growth goes down.

But as I said: It's a game mechanic, not a simulation of history.

A few clarifications...

The tax effect is always on the "upper active" and "lower active" class. So in a Republic, upper taxes go on the Middle Class.

Coman is right in his guide... Keeing your taxes lower will give you significantly more money later. If you keep your taxes on "normal" for most of the game, you will easily end up with 50% of your tax income coming from town wealth, and the other 50% of your tax income coming from region wealth.

Oh, and tax rate has no effect on trade whatsoever.

[coman]

I'm the one who thought this up.

And you should be proud of it. It's a step in the right direction. Literally to the right. This is the Ronald Reagan trickle down tax model, by the way and not really period appropriate. Also, make sure the English wear pink socks in the next release.

I totally get what you mean by it matters not at all, but from a position of immersion as a gamer, particularly those that enjoy similarities to reality we are modeling happiness and growth. Lower taxes should have a significant impact on your town and national wealth.

A country that sits back, trades, taxes quite leniently and spends government money on the population should be exceedingly rich, educated and ... oh hell, they're the Dutch.

A few seeds I would put into your head, such as modifying town wealth as to whether the region is at war with a neighboring region, war with a distant region, at peace, or rebuilding.

Moving forward the capability to set trade treaty terms, adjust pricing of goods might add fun.

Lower class population serves no purpose after your region has developed all towns. So in effect the population doesn't matter, ("Hello, would you like to go to Virginia yet?") outside of keeping unrest managed and it really does bother three or four of us players.

Thanks for posting and clarifying, I love dialog and to be perfectly honest - I really have spent more time playing on the strategic map than the tactical map... Keep up the good work.

coman

[Thamis]

I agree that the model has its limitations. The original proposals were wildly more complicated ("I was young and inexperienced..."), but we toned them down so that they're simple and straightforward.

There are a lot of things we could have done but didn't (either they were too complicated for the player, or they were too complicated to implement - ie. too expensive). We consciously avoided making a mindbogglingly confusing behemoth of a strategy map like Europa Universalis III. Total War is a triple-A mass market game (currently the only PC game in the UK top 40 charts by the way) and that's why we aimed to make a game that gives interesting strategic options without being complicated.

The fact that you had to write this very insightful guide into the economics for people to finally understand how it works probably means that the economics game is still far too complicated. Ideally a game shouldn't require a lengthy guide to explain the economics.

I'm still not sure whether the bottom-up tax model is appropriate to an essentially pre-capitalist society. I still think the decision to reduce growth with lower class taxes is sound... for the 18th century. I might be wrong though... there are a quite few stools in classrooms with my name on them, too.

[coman]

I don't mean to be critical, really. It's so much more than I was expecting and the fact I wrote and discuss this guide is because there IS a system there to play with.

I know it's hard to compromise with budget and planning so I appreciate what we do have. The trade portion, basically everything covered in the original post is brilliant and for a video game, exceedingly logical (at least to me, you and a couple of other people who don't come to TWcenter).

I personally prefer to play ETW as a non-expansionist in Europe. My background in history and economics show that there was very little ever gained after the medieval period in actually doing this... Now the colonies! That's a different story.

I look forward to trade wars, diplomatic arguments of imports/exports and may end up spending time looking at that myself or simply waiting until a later game.

Is there the capability for the AI to care about trade posts and trade revenue? I am concerned that perhaps not, since there is no "land" to take. I have seen the AI aggressively pursue them, but never fight over them.

OOH: I remember a question I had that I was really hoping for an answer on. What calculation is used to determine trade partner revenue? Could you spend 10 minutes explaining that model? Please?

coman

[Thamis]

The AI is constantly being improved. Expect to see these improvements in the future. Sadly I can't comment any more on that.

Luckily for you, I have just written an internal documentation on trade. Let me take out anything that's company-internal and present you with the basics:

Income from International Trade Routes

The income gained of international trade routes depends on four factors:

1. Commodities:
The number of commodity units shipped to the other nation multiplied by the commodity price.
The commodities show up as individual commodity pips in the trade screen.

2. Combined Wealth:
The combined wealth of the two factions (based on the wealth of all their regions), square rooted and multiplied by the campaign variable "trade_route_value_combined_gdp_proportion" as defined in campaign_variables.
The combined wealth shows up as "other goods" pips in the trade screen.

3. Resources:
For each resource that one nation has which its trade partner doesn't have, the "having" nation gets a bonus to the trade route income. These values are defined in the resources table.
The resources show up as "other goods" pips in the trade screen.

4. Time:
The longer a trade route lasts, the more money it generates. The time factor accumulates by multiplying the current value of the trade route by a growth percentage ("trade_route_value_accumulator_proportion" in campaign_variables) and adding the result into the aggregate time factor.
The growth percentage may be modified by technologies, through the bonus value effect "trade_route_all_mod_growth_rate" as defined in technology_effects_junction.
The time factor shows up as a time pip in the trade screen.

[coman]

The AI is constantly being improved.

I'm glad this area has a stakeholder. Whee!

Luckily for you

I woke up this morning saying, "Today's my lucky day!" - seriously.

That is essentially what I expected; you're modeling supply and demand to a degree and controlling that by an external variable. Awesome.

I use the terms Resources as non-trade sources of regional income. I use the term Export to signify those commodities that are only of value in Trade agreements. I use the term Imports for those items being removed from trade posts. (Brilliant idea, by the way, those trade regions...).

Is the trade value calculated bi-directionally? It appears the value is based on your export revenue, but perhaps as you noted in your piece, is this import revenue as well to make up shortfall in the host countries "commodities"?

Thanks so much.

Cheers,

coman

[Thamis]

Both countries export commodities to each other. Each country gets the money for its own commodities, but not those of the other nation. If nation A exports 100 tobacco to nation B, and nation B doesn't export any commodities, then nation A gets a lot more money.

The combined wealth factor is (logically) equal for both sides.

Resources are indeed those without a trade value (sheep, iron, gold, etc).

[coman]

Fantastic. So it is a bidirectional revenue stream - thus really does earn the diplomacy relationship bonus. No one, or AI in their right mind wants to casually break a profitable trade agreement.

[JimMorrison]

Coman is right in his guide... Keeing your taxes lower will give you significantly more money later. If you keep your taxes on "normal" for most of the game, you will easily end up with 50% of your tax income coming from town wealth, and the other 50% of your tax income coming from region wealth.

Well, it's absolutely true, that "later" you will be "more" wealthy.

But it's not realistic for the goals, and timescale of the game.

To grow your Town Wealth to be half of your income, with your Industrial technology fully developed, is totally unrealistic, except in the smallest of provinces. To compound this problem, actual growth of income through taxation > recruitment > conquest, is FAR more lucrative. With both tax sliders set to 5% to maximize growth in both sectors, it's hard even to keep up with your economic upgrades, let alone defend yourself - you can forget about claiming other resources at any reasonable rate of speed.

The Total War games have always revolved around combat, and conquest - they are military strategy games at heart, no? Shogun's strategic layer was little more than RISK, and Sun Tzu was the only adviser that we needed, guiding our hand. I love that the economics have slowly played a larger part - believe me, I do. But they absolutely must justify themselves. They cannot be overly "gamey", and they really should not be little more than a mini-game. Currently, that's how the economic model in Empire works. It's a simplified economic game that you can have some fun with if you want, but that is entirely superfluous to the primary military portion of the game. Focusing on immediate gains, and on taking and holding territory (painfully simple even on Very Hard/Very Hard), growth of the economic sector as a whole grows far faster - so it is futile.

For perspective, in my current game (kind of on hold, patch coming....?), it is not yet 1750, Sweden has a total income of ~22000 (~3000 from Town Wealth), and I have almost achieved the 40 provinces needed for World Domination victory.

The game desperately needs 2 things, above all others, currently - first, it needs a more aggressive, and responsive AI. When you start taking territories, your neighbors need to get itchy much faster than they do. But not a global effect, you can't have people embroiled in world war after their first few land grabs, but their neighbors should become beliggerent. And second, the economy needs to be rebalanced to make it harder to be so aggressive right out of the gate, as the player. Don't just provide a mediocre but superfluous reward for focusing on your populace (note, I did not say "economy", you always push economy hard, or you lose, in war), but provide direct incentives to do so. My best suggestion would be to slightly reduce incomes from many sources, and to either balance this with slightly reduced upkeep costs for military units, or with a slightly higher "King's Chest" value. Then, increase the baseline Town Wealth Growth factors, and/or alter the modifiers for tax rate. Make 5% tax have no reduction to Town Wealth Growth, same as Exempt, and make 10% have fairly little. In my current game, Town Wealth grows even at 20%, I don't believe that it should, and 25% should be a fairly harsh decrease to Town Wealth.

And I agree, the setup is kind of silly, really. Not only is it Trickle Down Reaganomics, but history proved that it doesn't work - yet somehow in Empire, it works fine. Remember, the Total War player community, the heart and backbone of it - adores realism and historical accuracy (personally, I would prefer more flexibility in history, since as players, we change it from day 1 anyways), so to include mechanics simply because they seem to achieve the desired gameplay result, is not enough - they need to model something approximating what we surmise to have existed.

Honestly, if I were doing the entire thing, I would shy away from this pseudo-communistic style of economic building. Biggest example - in game, we (WE = the government) build a gold mine. Then we tax a small portion of the gold that is produced, and what? 60-70-80% of that gold just goes to the population? This isn't 21st century Finland, giving the people kickbacks from the oil trade. If the government built a gold mine in 1700, people would be strip searched on their way out, and 99.9% of that gold would go straight to the coffers. Town Wealth, would then become an abstracted sum total of all of the civilian owned businesses, and everything that the government builds, should have governmental purpose - and have a cost of operation, and a potential revenue that is wholly and entirely returned to the government itself. Then I would add in a system of tariffs and trade duties, to make the trade system much more dynamic and alive. Make the government behave like a government, and the people behave like people.

Oh, on the subject of people behaving like people - I am shocked and amused that population is to a great degree, useless. Wealth and income are not derived from population. Once you have all of your Towns emerged, there is absolutely no purpose to care about population, and optimal taxation eventually = maximal taxation.

I apologize if my criticisms seem harsh, and/or my suggestions seem impossible. I was an early adopter of Shogun, and I dearly love the TW series - and I have immense respect for CA, and all that you have accomplished in the genre. It is for this reason that I am so critical, and so worried about the viability and success of this title.

<3

[Thamis]

@JimMorrison:
Wait for the next patch. The economics have received a rebalancing there. The patch after that will improve it more.

I've stated this before: In a capitalist society the trickle down economics is proven not to work. Agreed. In an economy where nobody but the upper class essentially had any significant amount of money, the lower classes are dependent on the money of the upper class. The lower class was not taxed in money, but in victuals.

It's a game, not a simulation of history. It was never meant to be a realistic simulation. You can switch the tax effects around in a mod if you like, if you prefer it. But before you call it more realistic, please do read up on 18th century economics and taxation... you might be surprised. Don't use your knowledge of modern-day economics and apply it to a precapitalist society.

[Jet Jaguar]

I agree that the model has its limitations. The original proposals were wildly more complicated ("I was young and inexperienced..."), but we toned them down so that they're simple and straightforward.

There are a lot of things we could have done but didn't (either they were too complicated for the player, or they were too complicated to implement - ie. too expensive). We consciously avoided making a mindbogglingly confusing behemoth of a strategy map like Europa Universalis III. Total War is a triple-A mass market game (currently the only PC game in the UK top 40 charts by the way) and that's why we aimed to make a game that gives interesting strategic options without being complicated.

The fact that you had to write this very insightful guide into the economics for people to finally understand how it works probably means that the economics game is still far too complicated. Ideally a game shouldn't require a lengthy guide to explain the economics.

I'm still not sure whether the bottom-up tax model is appropriate to an essentially pre-capitalist society. I still think the decision to reduce growth with lower class taxes is sound... for the 18th century. I might be wrong though... there are a quite few stools in classrooms with my name on them, too.

I think that the economic model in E:TW is superior and more realistic in many ways than other games that are often called more complex or deep.

Dividing the population into upper and lower classes was a great decision for a game set during this era.

Because E:TW has tactical battles (and is a best seller), people tend to assume that the economic game lacks depth; in Empire this is definately not the case. Many aspects of the economy in E:TW (upper and lower class distinctions, for example) are completely absent in Europa Universalis III (as are trade routes between nations, different tax rates, emerging towns and several other things). And although EUIII has many more regions, E:TW's regions have much more developement options, like emerging towns, farms and ports; and many more improvements just for the regional capital itself. Also keep in mind, that a unit can only occupy a single location in an EUIII province; in E:TW, there are several locations a unit can be at within a region/province.

By the way, thanks for your comments about the economic aspects of the upcoming patches; very glad to hear it.

also: I must confess that I would have really liked to have seen some features of that original, more complex economic model that was toned down. Could some ideas or features that were left out be modded in possibly? For us players that enjoy complicated economics? Thanks in advance

[coman]

It is for this reason that I am so critical, and so worried about the viability and success of this title.

Please, next time, do not high-jack a developer in my thread and rant.

Not appreciated.

[coman]

Don't use your knowledge of modern-day economics and apply it to a precapitalist society.

Thamis,

I use the term "ducat" for "upper class money" and "milk cow" for "lower class money". As I've indicated before, I appreciate the system that is in place.

I mean this tongue and cheek: ETW teaches everyone about conversion from agricultural monarchies to early capitalist markets. Your end of turn pop-ups and building cards tell me so!

Good day,

coman