Dear Woolly Overlord: Fix the Economy

[Sketchy]

Above is the total market index over the past year and a few months.

 

The games economy is dying due to a massive surplus in resources and a low demand in comparison. This is a problem that has persisted for a long time and will only grow the larger our nations grow.

 

Even with regular global wars, the amount of consumed resources would not be enough to match that of the amount produced, and it also damages cash income more, and therefore purchasing power, driving down the prices even more.

 

At this point nothing short of game dev intervention can really save the economy.

 

Solutions:

• New projects, especially projects that are war related, with large resource costs (both raw and refined) and small cash costs.
• Split projects apart and create multiple upgrades (suggested by Keegoz in another thread I believe)
• Reduce the overall cash cost of war by reducing damages and unit costs, increasing purchasing power post war.
• Increase the overall resource cost of war, by increasing the unit costs for different unit types and increase the amount of resources consumed on attacks.

 

For Example:

Current Planes Cost: 3 Aluminium, $4000.

Current Ships Cost: 25 Steel, $50000

 

New Planes Cost: 10 Aluminium, $100.

New Ships Cost: 20 Steel, 20 Aluminium, $1000

 

 

At this rate the market will continue to crash as the surplus of resources increases at a faster rate than we a consuming them. The game needs more resource sinks for BOTH refined and raw resources.

Edited June 6, 2017 by Sketchy

[Charles Bolivar]

Great suggestion and I hope to see it or something similar implemented.

[Kastor]

Lower infra costs as well, as it'll lower war damage and create more wars.

[Vack]

Lower infra costs as well, as it'll lower war damage and create more wars.

 

Could make it so infra now costs resources as well but reduce the cash price.

[Kastor]

Could make it so infra now costs resources as well but reduce the cash price.

Could make it so infra now costs resources as well but reduce the cash price.

Could make it so infra now costs resources as well but reduce the cash price.

Could make it so infra now costs resources as well but reduce the cash price.

Could make it so infra now costs resources as well but reduce the cash price.

That might make the market too high.

[Yang]

No, don't increase the unit prices. The costs already scales with city counts. When you increase the prices it's not so straightforward to reduce them again later.

 

I'd propose adding things that increase the number of units in war. The propaganda bureau or intelligence agency is a perfect example. It increases costs for a war, but only where it's more than the enemy.

 

Something like a Weapons Research project would be good too. Maybe uses up like 50 gas/day, but gives significant military advantage.

 

Adding units like aircraft carriers. One carrier could increase % of damage but cost something along the lines of 500 steel each.

 

Maybe add improvements that use power, so more slots need to be used for power plants. This would burn more fuel and lower supply.

 

Maybe something that converts resources to credits.

[Jessica Rabbit]

Make attacks, nuclear power plants and hungry citizens consume +50% more resources.

 

 

Good to see somebody called this out.

[Charles Bolivar]

100 infra could be whatever the cash price for it is plus 100 steel. Increase the alum cost of planes and food usage of population and it should relatively be fine.

Edited June 6, 2017 by Nemesis

[Sketchy]

No, don't increase the unit prices. The costs already scales with city counts. When you increase the prices it's not so straightforward to reduce them again later.

 

So do the amount of resources you can produce. That is kinda the point.

 

The only resource sink in the game that is really effective is war. And people are producing way more resources than we are consuming in war. This trend will continue as we all grow larger and the surplus grows bigger.

[Apeman]

Upkeep on military units for resources. And all the rest look awesome too.

 

Make it so nation's can only refine 2 of the four resoirces

Edited June 6, 2017 by Apeman

[Patty]

Maybe make the domestic policies have disadvantages as well just like the war policies. It can help create more diversity for nations while also fixing the problem mentioned in the OP. For example:

 

 

Manifest Destiny..

Current:

Manifest Destiny is the pursuit of rapid expansion. This Domestic Policy reduces new city costs by 5%.

 

New:

Manifest Destiny is the pursuit of rapid expansion with disregard to infrastructure. This Domestic Policy decreases new city costs by 5%, but increases infrastructure costs by 5%.

 

 

Open Markets..

Current:

Open Markets is the pursuit of maximizing gains from trade. This Domestic Policy increases your gross income by 1%. (Edit: Maybe have a reverse of this one too...?)

 

New:

Open Markets is the pursuit for focussing on increasing gross income at the cost of resource production. This Domestic Policy increases your gross income by 1%, but decreases your gross resource production by 1%.

 

 

Technological Advancement..

 

Current:

Technological Advancement is the pursuit of increasing scientific knowledge. This Domestic Policy decreases National Project costs by 5%. (Seriously, who uses this one?)

 

New:

Technological Advancement is the pursuit of increasing scientific knowledge. This Domestic Policy decreases National Project resource costs by 5%, but increases the amount of money a project costs to make. (Maybe have a reverse version of this domestic policy...?)

 

 

Imperialism..

Current:

Imperialism is the pursuit of growth through military dominance. This Domestic Policy decreases Military Upkeep Costs by 5%.

 

New:

Imperialism is the pursuit of growth through military dominance at the cost of proper military training. This Domestic Policy decreases Military Upkeep Costs by 10%, but increases the amount of MAP it costs for each unit by 1. (Maybe have a reverse of this one too...?)

 

 

Urbanization..

Current:

Urbanization is the pursuit of industrialization and development. This Domestic Policy decreases Infrastructure costs by 5%.

 

New:

Urbanization is the pursuit of industrialization and development of current cities rather than new ones. This Domestic Policy decreases Infrastructure costs by 5%, but increases the cost of creating a new city by 5%.

 

 

(This took forever to write out so I'd appreciate if someone were to let me know what they think of this. Thank you!)

Edited June 6, 2017 by Catsby

[Patty]

eh I think it's p good, imperialism I wouldn't say is worth it though

Maybe I'll increase it to 10% then

[Ripper]

Manifest Destiny..

New:

Manifest Destiny is the pursuit of rapid expansion with disregard to infrastructure. This Domestic Policy decreases new city costs by 5%, but increases infrastructure costs by 5%.

 

 

Urbanization..

New:

Urbanization is the pursuit of industrialization and development of current cities rather than new ones. This Domestic Policy decreases Infrastructure costs by 5%, but increases the cost of creating a new city by 5%.

 

This will not change anything really. The classic tactic is to choose Manifest Destiny 5 days before building a new city, then building the city, then changing to Urbanization and then building the infra for the new city.

 

 

Open Markets..

New:

Open Markets is the pursuit for focussing on increasing gross income at the cost of resource production. This Domestic Policy increases your gross income by 1%, but decreases your gross resource production by 1%.

 

I won't disagree with this that much. It's like converting resources to cash that way, so it's aligned with what you want to achieve.

 

 

Technological Advancement..

New:

Technological Advancement is the pursuit of increasing scientific knowledge. This Domestic Policy decreases National Project resource costs by 5%, but increases the amount of money a project costs to make. (Maybe have a reverse version of this domestic policy...?)

 

I thought that the problem was the abandance of resources. 

You should do the opposite actually. Increase the resources needed and decrease the money cost.

 

 

Imperialism..

New:

Imperialism is the pursuit of growth through military dominance at the cost of proper military training. This Domestic Policy decreases Military Upkeep Costs by 10%, but increases the amount of MAP it costs for each unit by 1. (Maybe have a reverse of this one too...?)

 

Well... this is a huge tactical disadvantage for someone... And it's irrelevant to the current topic. It doesn't solve the resources issue.

[Keegoz]

https://politicsandwar.com/forums/index.php?/topic/18958-please-add-new-projects/?p=314823

 

^That's the thread with my suggestion for the project upgrades for reference

[Darth Revan]

I'm Darth Revan and I support this message. 

[Patty]

Well... this is a huge tactical disadvantage for someone... And it's irrelevant to the current topic. It doesn't solve the resources issue.

Eh I had to just include them all...I hate my OCD

[Joel James]

War projects seem to be a bit of a slippery slope to me. The whole idea of not putting in a "tech" mechanic in PW was to make wars more competitive by reducing the advantage older players had. This would change down declares from a tough battle for the smaller nation to an outright slaughter. 

 

I do see where you are going in the slump in the market. While this is not a fix, and by itself is a worse scenario than we have right now, but how about a guaranteed minimum sale price for each resource? This would mean that a resource would always have a base value, and if it is sold to an NPC, it would pull that resource out of circulation altogether. The minimum price doesn't even have to be all that high.

 

The only other thing I could think of is introducing a resource storage improvement, which would not only limit the amount of resource you can hold, but would make resources vulnerable in wars. That being said, I can already say that the idea would be hugely unpopular. 

[WISD0MTREE]

Upkeep on military units for resources.

Please do this. 

[Ogaden]

The answer is war, everyone isn't warring hard enough

[Psweet]

The answer is war, everyone isn't warring hard enough

 

Honestly, I think this is it.  I remember when I first joined, world wars were every two or three months, and the prices were going UP, not down, because they were expensive in terms of the militaries as much as they were in rebuilding infra.

 

Now?  We just finished our first world war since *the end of last summer*.  It's June now.  We went three seasons with only one war to speak of.  Nations are getting so fat that the cash cost of rebuliding are beggaring the resource costs of actually fighting, and there's so much of a glut of resources from the 7-odd months that there was peace that when everyone tried to offload them during the recent war, prices imploded.  

 

We need more war.  It seems plain to me that this is really the only solution.  It makes for fewer whales, and it makes for more consumption.  It attacks, in other words, both heads of the problem, supply and demand.  

 

The question of how to stimulate war in a game that traditionally tends to consolidate power and shun aggression in favor of massive dogpiles every year or so, I leave to the rest of you.  I got nothing there.

[Vack]

Honestly, I think this is it.  I remember when I first joined, world wars were every two or three months, and the prices were going UP, not down, because they were expensive in terms of the militaries as much as they were in rebuilding infra.

 

Now?  We just finished our first world war since *the end of last summer*.  It's June now.  We went three seasons with only one war to speak of.  Nations are getting so fat that the cash cost of rebuliding are beggaring the resource costs of actually fighting, and there's so much of a glut of resources from the 7-odd months that there was peace that when everyone tried to offload them during the recent war, prices imploded.  

 

We need more war.  It seems plain to me that this is really the only solution.  It makes for fewer whales, and it makes for more consumption.  It attacks, in other words, both heads of the problem, supply and demand.  

 

The question of how to stimulate war in a game that traditionally tends to consolidate power and shun aggression in favor of massive dogpiles every year or so, I leave to the rest of you.  I got nothing there.

 

You heard it Sheepy, pls make more war thx.

 

The game is fundamentally different now than it was in the past, things change, nations grow and people are generally more cautious about wars now. You gotta know that leaders aren't gonna up and alter their philosophy towards having wars just because the market is falling. A fundamental problem with this game, which I believe Alex is trying to do differently in StateKraft, is that everything is for the purpose of war. Adding an RP dimension, such as idk, an open "Olympic Games" where you pour resources in and whoever pours the most in wins some credits, might be a decent resource sink that is inconsequential to the existing mechanics.

 

Maybe introduce a permanent buy offer, like if there was an AI that you could always rely on to have a buy offer on food for 100 ppu, food would only ever be traded at above 100 ppu.

 

But yah, war is not the "only" answer to the market problem.

[Felkey]

Could do something where infra upkeep requires resources that scale exponentially with the amount of infra you have rather than a linear amount. Would make it more difficult and expensive to get more than 1 or two industries going in a city. That way we would continue to use resources in peace time as well...

[Dr Rush]

Could do something where infra upkeep requires resources that scale exponentially with the amount of infra you have rather than a linear amount. Would make it more difficult and expensive to get more than 1 or two industries going in a city. That way we would continue to use resources in peace time as well...

There is another way of going about this which I'll go over in another thread.

[Azaghul]

You heard it Sheepy, pls make more war thx.

 

The game is fundamentally different now than it was in the past, things change, nations grow and people are generally more cautious about wars now. You gotta know that leaders aren't gonna up and alter their philosophy towards having wars just because the market is falling. A fundamental problem with this game, which I believe Alex is trying to do differently in StateKraft, is that everything is for the purpose of war. Adding an RP dimension, such as idk, an open "Olympic Games" where you pour resources in and whoever pours the most in wins some credits, might be a decent resource sink that is inconsequential to the existing mechanics.

 

Maybe introduce a permanent buy offer, like if there was an AI that you could always rely on to have a buy offer on food for 100 ppu, food would only ever be traded at above 100 ppu.

 

But yah, war is not the "only" answer to the market problem.

The same thing happened in (That terrible game that is totally irrelevant and I shouldn't be bringing it up anyways).  Wars every couple months for the first year or two, then they spaced out.

 

Sheepy needs to find some way to reverse this trend.

[Azaghul]

Could do something where infra upkeep requires resources that scale exponentially with the amount of infra you have rather than a linear amount. Would make it more difficult and expensive to get more than 1 or two industries going in a city. That way we would continue to use resources in peace time as well...

I've suggested some kind of "consumer resource" that converts manufactured goods to money.  This works too.

 

I don't think making certain projects more resource intensive is the answer, because it's not a consistent resource sink.  Once most nations have it, it'll no longer do much.