economy reports make no sense
Posted: Wed Jul 06, 2005 1:40 am
First of all, I want to thank the devs. This is a very ambitious project and I'm sure a lot of blood, sweat and tears went into it. I think if some of the issues that are bothering me and I'm sure a lot of players are resolved that there is definite classic potential in this game.
That being said, I'd like to to post some questions and/or offer some constructive criticism.
I've been playing Prussia and trying to learn the economic system.
I noticed that textile production never seemed to match up with well, really anything. And its not a "fudge factor" - its orders of magnitude. So I did some experimentation - I compared what my development advisor reported as textile production, clicked end turn and then compared the expected production to the totals in the economic reports and actual growth in textile stockpile.
I am not at war and built no military units or developments. No trade routes either. All advisors are off. To my knowledge I consumed no textiles.
The first thing I noticed when looking at the development advisor is that several different numbers are presented for predicted textile production. The grey box on the advisor (national production) shows +48 - totaling up the production for provinces gives +25. Totaling up production from the Main Screen by clicking on each province producing textiles (at the bottom, top 3 production) gives +35. So already there is a problem. What do each of these numbers represent? Why are they different? I understand your advisors are giving "best guesses" and there is a fudge factor involved, but the numbers should be consistent.
Looking at the economy report from the next turn I see that totaling up province production shows +26 (very close to +25 above). The income report shows +48, same as the grey box in the development advisor. But here's where it gets really interesting. In the Adjustments area waste is listed as -34 (over 66% of production!). Finally the actual net increase in the stockpile is a whopping +14 - which is 48 - 34 waste. Waste is not documented at all and is currently consuming 66% of textile production - not exactly trivial. None of the reports agree with each other or the actual net increase in textiles.
Also, there seems to be no conversion from wool or cotton to textiles - both stockpiles keep growing each turn.
I didn't run the numbers on all commodities but none of them are even close to what I am seeing in the development screen and all display the problem with three or four completely different figures.
I understand there are fudge factors and events during the Move Phase could dramatically impact production but this is ridiculous.
There are a couple possibilities here:
1) I'm missing something obvious in which case I thank everyone in advance for your help.
2) I'm seeing what I'm seeing and this actually makes sense to somebody. The player should be able to access simple, clear information about expected production and what actual production was. I can understand differences between actual/expected production. What I don't understand is wild variations with no apparent relationship on the same report for the same commodity.
3) The other possibility is that what I am seeing reflects major bugs in the economics system. Only the devs know for sure at this point. Perhaps this is an issue with this saved game - although I've run into similar issues in every game I've tried to pay any attention to economics - which is why I took the time to post.
Can anyone explain to me what I'm seeing?
So far I've really enjoyed the pure military aspects of the game and had some great detailed battles but economics is arguably the decisive factor of any strategy game. Right now the economics in the release version currently seem to be seriously broken and that detracts from game play in a big way in a grand strategy game. Hopefully this will all be cleared up in the forthcoming economics guide.
That being said, I'd like to to post some questions and/or offer some constructive criticism.
I've been playing Prussia and trying to learn the economic system.
I noticed that textile production never seemed to match up with well, really anything. And its not a "fudge factor" - its orders of magnitude. So I did some experimentation - I compared what my development advisor reported as textile production, clicked end turn and then compared the expected production to the totals in the economic reports and actual growth in textile stockpile.
I am not at war and built no military units or developments. No trade routes either. All advisors are off. To my knowledge I consumed no textiles.
The first thing I noticed when looking at the development advisor is that several different numbers are presented for predicted textile production. The grey box on the advisor (national production) shows +48 - totaling up the production for provinces gives +25. Totaling up production from the Main Screen by clicking on each province producing textiles (at the bottom, top 3 production) gives +35. So already there is a problem. What do each of these numbers represent? Why are they different? I understand your advisors are giving "best guesses" and there is a fudge factor involved, but the numbers should be consistent.
Looking at the economy report from the next turn I see that totaling up province production shows +26 (very close to +25 above). The income report shows +48, same as the grey box in the development advisor. But here's where it gets really interesting. In the Adjustments area waste is listed as -34 (over 66% of production!). Finally the actual net increase in the stockpile is a whopping +14 - which is 48 - 34 waste. Waste is not documented at all and is currently consuming 66% of textile production - not exactly trivial. None of the reports agree with each other or the actual net increase in textiles.
Also, there seems to be no conversion from wool or cotton to textiles - both stockpiles keep growing each turn.
I didn't run the numbers on all commodities but none of them are even close to what I am seeing in the development screen and all display the problem with three or four completely different figures.
I understand there are fudge factors and events during the Move Phase could dramatically impact production but this is ridiculous.
There are a couple possibilities here:
1) I'm missing something obvious in which case I thank everyone in advance for your help.
2) I'm seeing what I'm seeing and this actually makes sense to somebody. The player should be able to access simple, clear information about expected production and what actual production was. I can understand differences between actual/expected production. What I don't understand is wild variations with no apparent relationship on the same report for the same commodity.
3) The other possibility is that what I am seeing reflects major bugs in the economics system. Only the devs know for sure at this point. Perhaps this is an issue with this saved game - although I've run into similar issues in every game I've tried to pay any attention to economics - which is why I took the time to post.
Can anyone explain to me what I'm seeing?
So far I've really enjoyed the pure military aspects of the game and had some great detailed battles but economics is arguably the decisive factor of any strategy game. Right now the economics in the release version currently seem to be seriously broken and that detracts from game play in a big way in a grand strategy game. Hopefully this will all be cleared up in the forthcoming economics guide.