Textiles, wool, and cotton questions

[Beorn]

I am very foggy as to the making of textiles from wool and cotton
* as to what city quality inherently links up with the production of textiles
* as to what city development improves the production of textiles
* as to what good a stockpile of wool (or cotton) does you when it seems that you just get a few textiles and a lot of wool together, with all the extra wool permanently left over.

Obviously, I am missing a lot here. [:)]

7.1.2 says that cotton and wool are converted to textiles by trade labor in provinces. Each province can convert an amount equal to its population x its trade labor / 50. I don't really understand what "trade labor" is. I mean, "labor" is an untradable commodity, but I don't see what "trade labor" is.

Also, each level of factory increases the output of labor by 50% and thoutput of manufactured good -- iron and luxuries -- by 10% Each level of farms increases the output of agricultural commodities -- horses, food, timber(!), wool, cotton, and wine by 10%

But how about the rate of textile production? It seems like it is the agricultural slider that affects textile production, but textiles are not listed as being increased by farms, which makes inuitive sense.

It's all pretty murky to me.

[Naomi]

I hv similiar confusion, and I decided to bother myself less with it and keep the game going on. [:'(]

[kerguelen]

I would like to know the answers to these questions, too.
In my games it seems that the 'textiles' - slider also increases the production of wool. I think in the manual (but not in my game) it says that wool depends on agriculture, which sounds reasonable. However, the current connection with textiles causes the overproduction of wool, which everybody experiences and which makes wool as a commodity pretty useless. Different labour allocations for wool (agriculture) and textiles (textiles) would somehow model a production chain.

[LaVean]

This relects the designers bias that economic things are pointless and need tobe abstracted...so why have them at all if they are going to be so bad. Lets just set our sliders allto what ever the province produces best as the guide suggests and have done with things economic...

[kerguelen]

Be positive. There is a lot of economy compared to most other similar strategy games (the only one I kow of, which has more, is Victoria. Of course some things can be improved or fixed (the wool issue!), but I am sure that will be done soon. (Maybe most of the Beta-testers were wannabe generals and not wannabe-emperors [:D]).

[bluemonday]

ORIGINAL: LaVean

Lets just set our sliders allto what ever the province produces best as the guide suggests and have done with things economic...

Because you may need to adjust your production - if you need labor and don't need so much wood, you will be forced to re-allocate your manpower regardless of what a province is best at producing.

I agree with you that the slider system doesn't work so well because if you want to micromanage these levels you have to figure out how close you are to the next "level" of production: will six more manpower into iron get you an additional iron? If not, you have to find what the additional manpower will get - maybe wood is close to the next level, and those extra six manpower will make the difference. And you still don't know what hidden effects those extra six manpower are having "behind the scenes."

And a lot of the dependencies seem to not be spelled out anywhere, so if you're fiddling with one slider you start gaining or losing in other areas.

I think some of the interface issues have to do with the length of time this game was in development -- the economic interface with its sliders feels a lot like games I played 5 or 6 years ago. I think once the low-level code went into place, a lot of flexibility was lost.

I like this game a lot, but for what essentially was a one-man show (programming-wise, with one artist) it's simply amazing.

[Queeg]

The manual seems to go to great lengths to say that all the economic calculations are affected by random variables that aren't necessarily apparent on the surface. That could mean there's an inherent logic operating under the hood that the player can't appreciate. Or it could mean that the designers' reach exceeded their grasp a bit and that the pieces don't necessarily always fit together perfectly.

I remember when Victoria came out the Paradox forum immediately erupted into a very erudite and spirited dissection of the game's economic model, with the ultimate consensus being that it had certain serious flaws. Fortunately for me, I couldn't follow the discussion and hence never understood what any of the problems were. So I just went along, playing and enjoying the game. I still do.

I don't especially care whether the books in my games balance to the penny. They never have in my real life, so why should my games be any different. I certainly don't want to have to work harder in a game than I do with my checkbook. I can live with some rough edges.

To me, the question is whether the game, as a whole, still makes sense. So long as my choices and actions produce plausible results, I can live with the fact that I can't predict the results in advance down to the penny, soldier or horseshoe.

I understand that many folks would disagree with me. I'm just giving my perspective.

[LaVean]

Well in this game when you hit the magic 18 provinces under you control watch out for a corruption and waste percentage of 66%plus...your economy will implode and you will not have cash to build units...maybe the economic models will become more real to you then when you have all the resources but cash...In bith games I played this weekend I was able to get over 3000 per turn as income and was at at least 2200 being deducted for "waste" this is never discussed in the rules...there is no way to control or affect it...it is just you get to a certain size and kaboom.

Maybe going Empire should lower your waste...the Empire was much less wasteful than the Directory regardless of how many provinces the Directory might control.

[Queeg]

One elusive goal that all strategy game designers struggle with is how to prevent the late-game "steam roller effect," where the player achieves an unbeatable critical mass and the game devolves into nothing but a mindless game of lopsided conquest. In this sense, games tend to play out very differently than real life. Historically, it turns out, conquering the world gets harder, not easier, the more you conquer. Which perhaps explains why no one in history has actually done it.

The challenge for game designers is to design a game that at least makes it difficult for the player to do it and does so in an historically plausible way. The Paradox games do this in their own way. It may be that the waste penalty is the way COG does it. Remains to be seen, I guess, whether the implementation is as it should be. But I can certainly understand the intent.

[kerguelen]

how to prevent the late-game "steam roller effect,

EUii was really good in preventing this (high stability costs, lots of uprising, BB).

[sol_invictus]

Paradox tried but I think failed to combat the steamroller effect in EU1/2. I played through ver1.7 I think it was and it was still fairly easy to control the world, so to speak. It seems really hard to model in a game the real world difficulties of imperial overeach.

[Uncle_Joe]

I think the problem that Paradox encountered is that they allowed Minors to be fully playable and more or less tailored the game system to allow them to be at least competitive. This meant that the 'real' powers were vastly more powerful and thus the problem begins.

If they had stuck with the original concept of allowing only the assorted 'major' powers, the game could have been better balanced for them IMO.

[sol_invictus]

I completely agree; nobody needed to play the Incas and hope to conquer the Americas.[;)]

[kerguelen]

So you never tried becoming the world's dominating Power in HOI 1/2 playing Switzerland?

[sol_invictus]

I gave the HoI games a pass; just tired of WW2. I prefer Napoleonics and Ancients these days. I would have no desire to try to conquer Europe with Sitzerland and almost certainly wouldn't enjoy a game where that was even remotely possible.[8|]

[Queeg]

ORIGINAL: Uncle_Joe

I think the problem that Paradox encountered is that they allowed Minors to be fully playable and more or less tailored the game system to allow them to be at least competitive. This meant that the 'real' powers were vastly more powerful and thus the problem begins.

If they had stuck with the original concept of allowing only the assorted 'major' powers, the game could have been better balanced for them IMO.

Yes. Paradox tried to be all things to all people and lost focus on what the games were supposed to be about in the first place. Not so bad with EU/EU2 - an era when most any nation could plausibly compete over a span of 400 years. But they almost veered off course entirely with Victoria and HOI in trying to make everyone winnable. Fortunately, they stopped before they competely ruined those games.

[Queeg]

And the designer is criticized no matter what method he tries. EU and Victoria have been heavily cricized for the incessant revolts that dog the player as he tries to conquer the world. Now some folks are starting to criticize COG right off the bat for using a waste penalty. Even though both are perfectly plausible historically.

While players always say they want a game to be "realistic" and "historical," it turns out they really don't want that at all if it means that they have to divert their attention from their grand plans of world conquest to deal with trivial things like empire administration and revolts by the little people. And that's understandable. These are games, after all, which we play for enjoyment.

So the best we can ever expect is a compromise between gameplay and realistic tedium. We'll always be able to conquer the world. But sometimes it will be slightly more difficult than others.

[Uncle_Joe]

While I agree with the 'Waste' in theory, I'm not sure I necessarily like it's current implementation. It seems very arbitrary at the moment with little you can do to mitigate it.

But I'll reserve final judgement on it until we have the definate workings of the econ at our disposal. I also believe that Waste was added in late in the development cycle and that there simply hasnt been enough play done to fine tune it yet. That has changed now that 100's of people are playing the game (and posting). Hopefully the upcoming patch will address this and other econ concerns to most folks' satisfaction.