Economy Observations, Tips, Etc.

[andrewt]

With the removal of global food supply, what buildings are people specializing in and prioritizing to build an economy? I'm going to just make a bullet list of my observations and thoughts.

1. Trading ports are awesome. 700 wealth + other bonuses is worth it for the price.
2. Farms are better than at first glance. The values listed are for barren fields. Anything above that has a multiplier, up to 3.0x for very fertile fields.
3. Silver/gold mines seem terrible this time around. For their cost, a lot of other improvements provide better bang for the buck.
4. Police stations are a must, especially with modernization and because it takes much longer to convert newly conquered provinces of the opposing faction.
5. At first, I thought the market chain is always better for inns. Now, I'm thinking the gambling den chain is better for later provinces with significant permanent resistance to invaders. By the time you get to a permanent +2 or above, you can be fully modernized already, rendering the minus to modernization pretty irrelevant. The market chain gives better income, growth and enough happiness to offset its modernization penalty. The gambling den chain gives a minus to modernization (irrelevant once you hit the final tier, I think) and up to +5 happiness. That more than offsets the industrial chain.

[quadalpha]

... and I was wondering why fertility of farms had stopped making a difference!

[Peasant Phill]

How about the industry chain?

[Jungle Rhino]

Gambling Den chain also strikes me as a useful way to prevent modernisation if you want to keep pumping out experience Kachi units at discount prices ;)

[andrewt]

How about the industry chain?

I'm at around turn 50 in my game and haven't bothered yet. I've been fully modernized for quite a few turns now but haven't researched the +2 happiness/repression techs in the 3rd or fourth tier because there seem to be better stuff to research. I've been mostly building inns (market line) and police stations in my provinces. The next unlock is pretty expensive at this point in the game so I'm upgrading ports, specialty buildings and inns first. Somebody who's better at math could crunch the numbers more to see if the tax increase is actually worth it versus upgrading inns.

[Madae]

Somebody who's better at math could crunch the numbers more to see if the tax increase is actually worth it versus upgrading inns.

Which are we talking about here? Craft buildings? Or Inns? Mines? For the latter two, it's always worth it if you're willing to spend the time to wait for the payoff. You say mines are bad, and I say they are great. I had one province making 13000 a turn thanks to its gold mine. A 500 gold increase for 10,000 gold pays itself off in 20 turns, but this is not counting the increase in taxes from a flat percent bonus to your income. The Geisha 10% tax bonus will turn 13000 into 14300. You will see a bigger payoff in that regard depending on the amount the province makes by itself.

For the former (craft buildings), that will depend solely on your trade routes, which can swap hands and change at any given moment during a game. You will get something from Britain, France and the US, but I don't have solid numbers on those.

With 4 "years" (in reality, like 40 turns) from the end of the game, I was making 25000 gold a turn, and had so much money I couldn't spend it all. All I really did was get my towns up to level 2, build a station and a market, and then upgrade whatever trade resource they had, in addition to building a port.

[Nelson]

A 500 gold increase for 10,000 gold pays itself off in 20 turns, but this is not counting the increase in taxes from a flat percent bonus to your income.

Are you referring to a provincial wealth increase of 500 or an actual tax revenue increase, which is a fraction of the wealth? With taxes at 30% the revenue on 500 wealth would be 150, would it not?

[andrewt]

Which are we talking about here? Craft buildings? Or Inns? Mines? For the latter two, it's always worth it if you're willing to spend the time to wait for the payoff. You say mines are bad, and I say they are great. I had one province making 13000 a turn thanks to its gold mine. A 500 gold increase for 10,000 gold pays itself off in 20 turns, but this is not counting the increase in taxes from a flat percent bonus to your income. The Geisha 10% tax bonus will turn 13000 into 14300. You will see a bigger payoff in that regard depending on the amount the province makes by itself.

For the former (craft buildings), that will depend solely on your trade routes, which can swap hands and change at any given moment during a game. You will get something from Britain, France and the US, but I don't have solid numbers on those.

With 4 "years" (in reality, like 40 turns) from the end of the game, I was making 25000 gold a turn, and had so much money I couldn't spend it all. All I really did was get my towns up to level 2, build a station and a market, and then upgrade whatever trade resource they had, in addition to building a port.

I think province income is revenue * (tax rate*(1-administrative costs)). When I say mines are bad, I meant in comparison to other buildings. Right now, it costs around 5k to upgrade my gold mine from 800 to 1400 wealth. In comparison, upgrading a port to a trade port adds 700 wealth and assorted other bonuses for around 3k. Upgrading inn to market is around 2k for 360 to 720 and upgrading from 720 to 1260 is around 3k. These have other bonuses as well.

Upgrading the city line increases the tax rate in addition to giving an extra build slot. I was wondering how big of an increase that would be compared to upgrading something else.