Matrix Games Forums

Can you please advise how the Historic base resources for 1900 were determined and give the sources so I can workout the historic base resources for 1890 myself, or provide the 1890 historic base resources for each country or make an option to select historic game resources for 1890 in the game.
Thanks
Vermin

Hello Vermin: I'm not a dev, but I think I can answer your question. The base resources for each country are set for best play balance, not historical accuracy. There is a 'historical resources' checkbox for the 1900 start but that isn't particularly accurate either. Brassey's Naval Annual listed the full naval budgets of all the powers at the end of each volume, in Pounds Sterling*. Here is 1890 and 1900.

1890;
Great Britain 14,557,856
France 8,750,709
Italy 5,100,000
Germany 1,914,379
Russia 4,354,839

1900:
Great Britain 27,787,720
France 12,507,661
Germany 7,461,364
Italy 4,532,758
Russia 9,121,321
USA 10,071,147

As you can see, Great Britain handily outspent everyone else. This held true until the big German naval expansion under Tirpitz really got going - The German budget did not surpass France's until 1908. And in the period 1890-1900 France, while much weaker than Great Britain, was much stronger than Germany or Italy.

I've tried giving Great Britain a budget = France + Russia, which amounts to 22,000 base resources in 1890 vs 17,500 in game. That unbalances play...no one attacks Great Britain more than once! You could try giving both Great Britain and France a 10% boost in base resources in both the 1890 and 1900 start - that is the boost given the AI when 'AI advantage' is checked. That doesn't unbalance things too much and will restore a bit of the edge they had IRL. But then you'll need to give Germany a 10% boost when Germany lays down her first Dreadnought to reflect the Tirpitz plan kicking in. It gets complicated...

*1 pound sterling in 1900 = about $215 of our depreciated dollars. The British naval budget in 1900 was about 6 billion 2026 dollars.