Economy 101

[terje439]

I will here post some screenshots from the game, and try to explain a few things conserning the economy.

NB! This game will only concern itself with economy, and is not an AAR in the normal sense. I will build a few things, change some settings and try to show how this affects the game. To easier do this, I chose a hotseat game, and have conducted NO combat whatsoever. I also chose to use the Confederacy as an example, but the principles are the same for the Union. If you have any questions, just post and I will try to explain.
It is also worth noting that there is no "correct" way to do things, but this is how I do things, and it works for me.
The game was set on "full general" settings with "advanced options" chosen. This greatly influences how things turn out in the game, I did this however as this allows me to show every economic option of the game.

[terje439]

The first turn. The Confederate economy is not good at all. My main concern is Labour and Iron production. Due to the difficulty settings I chose, Iron actually ends up negative. I need to alter my production...

Also note the diplomacy screens. At the moment I do not spend anything on this. Spending money on diplomacy has 1 downside but several upsides.
-
*It costs money...
+
*increased support from France or Britain might bring them into the war on my side (unless the "no european war" toggle is turned on)
*higher diplomacy levels increases the income I gain from my runners
*higher diplomacy levels increases the chance that the Europeans will send me extra stuff (cash, labour, horses, iron, research, weapons)
*some weapons can only be bought from Europe if the diplomacy level with the corresponding European country is high enough

[terje439]

Well, as mentioned we need more iron. I pressed the button in the lower part of the screen, labelled Ironworks. This will bring up a list of cities that has an Ironworks in them. An Ironwork is great, it DOUBLES the output of any iron mine in the city.
As we can see from this screen, two of the cities with Ironworks in them are not even set to produce Iron, this will need to be changed. To do this, I left click in the "Iron" coloumn behind the city name. This means that Augusta and Richmond will start to produce Iron instead of horses.
A city can produce EITHER money or labour + EITHER iron or horses. Chosing correctly is crucial!

[terje439]

Well, we also needed to gain some more labour.
The cities marked with RED all produce more labour than money, so those I chose to set to produce labour, not money. I do this by left clicking on the labour coloumn behind the city name.
The cities marked with BLUE produce an equal ammount of money and labour, so these cities I will use to finely adjust my income. Some of these will produce money, some will produce labour.

If you look at the "Net Income" line towards the bottom, you will see that my income has changed since the opening screenshot. My economy is now somewhat better, Iron however is still a major concern.

[terje439]

Compare the national net income with the opening screen to see the effects of the changes I have done so far.

[terje439]

So, what is costing me so much?
Well, the difficulty setting I chose is a really big drain on my economy. This is something I cannot alter however.
I also spend alot of cash on my INF units, just to keep them in the field. If only there was a way to alter this...

[terje439]

What I have done now, is that I've disbanded my ships (my navy is way to small to take on the Union anyway), and I have moved quite a few INF units into forts and cities instead of keeping them in the field.
You will see the effect in the next post.
But for now, also note the point marked with BLUE.
My reinforcement rate is 1440 men per turn. This is not at all good enough, after all a big battle might easily see me lose 10-20.000 men. We need to alter this as well.

[terje439]

See how my INF upkeep cost has decreased after I moved alot of INFs into cities and forts? This is because I pay to keep INF in the field, units in cities and forts take care of themselves.
Also note the small gain I got by disbanding my navy. Not alot, but those ships were not going to do any good anyway, so a penny saved is a penny earned etc etc...

[terje439]

Well, to further improve my economy I will need to start building various buildings.
I need more iron, so I chose to build a mine in Richmond. A question is, why did I build it in Richmond? (answer can be found further up, but I'll say it has something to do with Ironworks...)
I also need more reinforcements, so I build a camp in New Orleans. And again, why did I build it here? Well, the output of a camp is determined by the number of "men" in the city. As you can see, New Orleans and Richmond are my biggest cities with a "men" count of 6. This means that I will gain more reinforcements from a camp in these cities than in a camp built in Selma (as an example) as Selma only has a "men" count of 2.

[terje439]

Well, if I want to make my army more efficent, I will need to build research institutes. So, I chose to build an engineering department in Milledgevi. Why just here you wonder?
Well if you look towards the bottom of the screen, you will see that I have pressed the "University" tab. This is because a city with a University will gain a +1 bonus to all research institutes built in the city. So, a research institute in these cities will net me +4 research rate instead of the normal +3 if I built them in a city without a university.

[terje439]

Entering any city will allow you to see how you are doing research wise. As in all other matters, the Confederacy is not doing well. If I hover the mouse pointer over any of the lightbulbs, I will get a brief summary as to why my numbers are the way the are.
National Income: this is the grand total for all research institutes of this kind in the entire nation. Building more institutes will increase this number.
Difficulty level: this is again due to my settings, and cannot be altered.
Governor actions: this will only be in effect if governors is in effect. In my game they are, and it seems one of my governors is interesting in improving my navy.
Net Income: this is simply all positive and negative modifiers added up.

[terje439]

Governors...They can be anything from your worst enemy to your best friend.
At this moment I really have to love Governor Lubbock of Texas, he is actually gaining me +15 labour every turn, a great bonus.
Governor Pettus of Mississippi is also doign ok, although I would have prefered it if he had chosen something else to support. (I have disbanded my navy after all...)
Governor Moore of Louisianna and Governor Clark of North Carolina both allows me to try to muster men in their cities with no risk of upsetting these fine governors. (more about muster later!)
Governor Brown of Georgia on the other side is doing me no good. Atleast his "opposing of volunteer muster" is not too big a penalty.
Some governors will take away from your income, or oppose research in certain areas. So keeping governors on your side is always a good thing.

[terje439]

Here we see the effect of the actions of Governor Lubbock of Texas.

[terje439]

Well despite the fact that I am not spending money on diplomacy, France still feels that my cause is a just one, and decided to send me 10 money. This is always apreciated!
Also Governor Pettus of Mississippi must have noticed that our navy is disbanded, and decided to throw his effort into engineering research instead of naval research.

[terje439]

One of my camps have finsihed building, and as we can see my reinforcement rate has increased to 1830 men per turn. This is still way to low, but atleast it is improving.
Also one of my blockade runners managed to bring in some money to our cause. The location the runners need to be, the chance of success and chance of taking damage, as well as what resource I can get changes more or less every turn, so paying attention to your runners can be a life saver!

[terje439]

Governors again...
Sometimes they will claim that they need certain things, it might be a specific building. or as here a certain number of brigades present in their state.
At times you will not be able to comply eith the governor as you cannot affort what they demand. As time goes by and their needs are not met, they will start to be more and more annoyed with you. Eventuall their demands will go away, but by this time, the relationship between you and that governor might have taken a severe blow.
So at times you have to decide, what is mroe important, saving your resources or keeping the relationship with a governor? Not an easy question, and there are no correct answer. You will need to be the judge of what to do yourself!

[terje439]

The report that pops up at the start of every turn will contain alot of information, so read through it.
More buildings have finished;
*the engineering department. Since we had a university in the city, this will net us +4 engineering research per turn
*a mine in Richmond. The ironworks there means that this mine will give us +4 iron (and not +2 as would have been the case without an ironworks).
*another camp. This brings our reinforcement rate up to 3330 men per turn. Still not enough (as the CSA you should go for atleast 10.000 men per turn, and preferably closer to 20.000!!)
The Europeans keeps supporting our cause, great more resources is always apreciated.
And our runners keep bringing in even more resources.

[terje439]

Just to show that the newly built mine do indeed provide +4 iron and not +2 since an ironworks is located in the city.

[terje439]

We keep improving the parts of our economy that needs it the most.
More iron and more reinforcements!

[terje439]

And back to governors (sorry about the fact that I jump to and forth alot!)

Governor Brown of Georgia is no friend of mine, now is there anything we can do to improve his feelings towards me?
Also note that Governor Clark of North Carolina now wants a school...