What's next now that the patch is out

[Raidhaennor]

I have one minor issue (I hope this is the right thread for it).

I find (found) the prompt about the formation of a protectorate a bit confusing. The first few times I received that message (playing as Sweden in the 1792 scenario), I thought the message "X is inviting you to form a protectorate" meant that they wanted ME to be protected by THEM. Of course considering the countries making that offer were rather small (I think Algeria the first time, and the Dutch Republic after that) and even less powerful than me, I refuse, thinking "Well, this is preposterous". After receiving a similar message from Brunswick, wich I was trying to befriend, it occured to me that my understanding of the message was incorrect.

My fault I guess for being used to games where the ai makes ridiculous demands[:D]. But still, I thought it might be useful to have some indication, in that message, of who is supposed to become the protector.

[Franck]

Anthropoid, using what I posted here is my expected value for textile:

Gp would go at (about) 2 for 1 for almost all commodities.
Wool would go between .75 to .4 for 1 of all ''normal'' commodities.
textitle beieng worth 5 (or 4 I might have forgotten) wool you can make the calculation yourself.

So, lower bound: 2GP for one normal ressource*1.5 for the wool*4 for the textile transformation rate (assuming 4 to 1 here)... 1 textile is worth 12 GP

Higher Bound: 2GP for one normal ressource*3 for the wool exchange rate*4 for the textile transformation rate (assuming 4 to 1)... 1 textile is worth 24GP.

SO I never said textile is worth 1 to 2 GP (edit, I actually just saw that I did say that... But that was a typo!!!)... I wanted to say textile should be worht between 12 to 24 GP...

Wool and Cotton:
Lower bound 2GP*1,5=3GP for one cotton/wool
Higher bound 2GP*3=6 GP for one cotton/wool.

So wool/cotton is worth about 3 to 6 GP in my mind...

  The behavior I see from the AI follows along with this overall economic analysis I'm writing down. The first time I set up a wool for gold deal with Britain she gave me about 33 gold for 1 wool. Next deal she would only give me 31. France at the same time (only two existing wool deals going) would only give me 26. Next deal with GB stuck at 29, and so on. I presently have about 10 wools going out for about (probably) 250 gold coming in, mostly with deals to GB and France. At the same time, Sweden, Austria, Prussia, any of the small countries would only trade me a max of about 3 or 3 gold and usually only 2 gold per wool.

Take the exemple from mus... You have extra wool... You are ready to trade it. Average world price would be about 3gold for that wool. Now I could consider england going at 4 GP to 1 wool to make sure it gets the wool it wants... But there's no points going 33 gold!!!

What is actually funny about this system is that in some instance it seems to follow modern economic theory. (ie marginal utility of a comodity falls the more of that commodity you have...) But I really believe that Mus has the right of it... AI doesn'T consider the ''world market'' only it's situation.

And gold is much more valuable than you seem to think... Try to run a country without ''exploiting'' this feature (because I believe it'S an exploit) you'll find out that you'll feel ''out of cash'' and that you might be willing to exchange wool or some other stuff for 3 to 6 gp as I stated in the beggining. I have started to play like this... And I tell you, if you keep in mind the irrational behavior of the AI, once you'll be far enought in the game with some power you'll feel forced to exchange wool for 3 to 6 gp (more likely 3).



ANother problem: In modern economic theories: If you value wool to GC on a 1 to 3  ratio (ie Prussia in your exemple), if internationaly price is higher than 1 to 3 (wich is the case in your exemple) you should be willing to trade wool. While if the international price is lower than 1 to 3 you should be willing to buy wool on the international market. Whatever the starting situation is, you will buy or sell on the international market until the international price reach 1 to 3. Then, in your exemple... Prussia was ready to sell wool for 3 gold. UK should have bought it there not from you... As it does sell wool to for GP, marginal utility of GP will fall while marginal utility of wool will go up. This phenomenom should keep going until all countries have valeu the wool to GP the same. At this point the ''market'' is at an ''equilibrium'' and no one as advantage in trading anymore. In such a system it would be imposible for you to get 33 gp for one wool!

(In modern microeconomics terms) at the ratio 1 to 3, marginal utility of wool for Prussia is equals to the marginal utility of 3GP. If you can get more GP for a single wool, you are incressing welfare by doing the trade... (ie since both marginal utilities are equals if you can get more than 3 GP for one wool you are increasing utility by doing that trade.) Now, as you get more GP and less wool, wool becomes more and more important... It's marginal utility rise, and GP becomes less and less important, it's marginal utility falls. Now your not willing to trade on a 1 to 3 anymore... Let's say your now willing to trade on a 1 to 4. You'll do this until ALL countries (even those wich whom you can't trade) have this same ratio. I higly doubt that the international price of wool would settle at a 1 to 33 ratio!!!!!


Anyways, I believe I'm getting lost in pretty basic microeconomic theory here... As I said I'm an economic student (doing my master right now) so I like talking about these kind of stuff. The only thing that can be said about the economic system is that IT DOES NOT represent real life markets. In a PBEM, we should reach a market equilibrium but to many people ether don't take the trading system seriously or ask for preposterous things like 33 GP for 1 wool because they can get that against the AI!!!!!! (add to that the always shifting politcal alliance, embargoes etc...)

[PDiFolco]

ORIGINAL: Marauder Jack

Gil R. you are right to some extent.  Napoleon was rushed to power because the Revolutionary leaders were losing support from the people.  Maybe if you could add a feature where Napoleon only enters if the National Moral drops below -500 or some such occurance?  If the revolution kept the people happy and winning in battle, he would have become a general only by some such necessity, not being born in France.

Pretty good and historically correct idea ! Really Bonaparte arrived as some kind of new, promising leader, after his Italy campaign in '96-97 then the Egypt expedition in 98, at a time France was somewhat losing faith after nearly 10 years of revolutionnary struggle. Having him enter as an event with increasing % chance as nat morale drop or glory decrease would neatly simulate that.