Economic Faq bundle uploaded

Hi folks,

Tosa has posted a bundle of mainly economic info sheets made by me. These are for MTW (as of MTW/VI 2.01). They're in the 3ddownloads.com/strategy-gaming/totalwar FAQs - MTW area, specifically FaysMTW_Pack. Here's the ReadMe for it, but due to pasting, hotlinks in the original will not appear here (download it to see them):

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Many of these files are Excel (2000) format. There's a free viewer at Microsoft.

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Enclosed find:

1) Modelled province income. This takes the basic MTW province info and models how profitable a region is. It's a way to see the "abstract" worth of provinces, a.k.a. which provinces have the best income, all things being equal (trade and farms built up, governors equal acumen, etc.). I haven't seen anything else that deals with the highly variable issue of sea trade - this models it fairly well.

2) Province income analyzer - As opposed to the above, in this one you can plug in your variables and see your actual estimates. #1 is "in the abstract"; this one is "right now". This sheet is can be useful very early in a game when you're tight with money and wonder whether e.g. a region is worth building up and/or worth "peasant tax collectors". For what it's worth, #1 is simply a fixed example of this one - but precise in the way it's fixed. NOTE: This spreadsheet is not finished - it's taking me forever to finish it, which was delaying all the rest of this Pack, so I'm posting it in an unfinished state. It has a lot of functionality, but the best parts aren't there yet. I want to make it so you can precisely represent your current game and its income, if you so desire. Currently it just shows income across the board for provinces, given specific acumen and trade-port levels.

3) Farm vs. trade planner - This simple sheet computes whether it's more worthwhile to go for the next level of trade building (which includes building the next castle level), or go for the next farm level. Sea trading provinces can make tons of money, but it takes a long time to build the next castle level. A long-term high increase vs. a short-term low one - which is more profitable over time?

4) Border Info. While you can readily see the battle maps that an attack will have in the game, there's no simple listing available, and you can't see ocean invasion terrain whatsoever. Notice that e.g. attacking Algeria from the Africa Coast is the only way you can avoid desert terrain. This listing can also be used to optimize long-term invasion routes. In Word and .rtf format (the info is the same).

5) Vices and Virtues. I haven't seen anybody else who incorporates changes from the CHANGES.TXT file found in Loc\Eng. This list also shows "progressions" of related v&vs. I hope someone will suck my info into a nice web engine that's more usable than this simple spreadsheet.

6) All the rivers in the world. A simplified subset of info from #4.

7) Happy buildings. A teeny-tiny listing of the happiness (=loyalty) that certain buildings add. Also see peasant tax collector info, below.
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Also, a few helpful observations. First noted by yours truly, unless I'm mistaken:

1) Easy way to see how many years before farm or trade building amortizes

2) Easy way to see how much more money the next farm or trade building will bring in

3) Tax Rates vs. Loyalty vs. Peasant Maintenance (when is it "worth" it to have peasant tax collectors?)

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Questions/comments welcomed here!

Conquer on, bros! :duel:

RedKnight, I picked that stuff up a couple of days ago from a previous post of yours I could not then find afterwards :no:.

There is some really useful information in this pack for folks who like to organise their finances down to the last florin - probably all budding Accountants :yes:! I especially like the Farm vs Trade Build Planner. Would/will there be some means maybe to incorporate Mines into this equation too please ie. Farm vs Mine vs Trade Build Planner :idea2:? Don't you just love it when people are never satisfied with what you give them and always ask for more ~D!

I have just a little difficulty understanding what you mean by when it is "worth it" to have peasant tax collectors. Surely it is usually highly desirable to have a Peasant unit (or some similar warm bodies) just to keep the Loyalty up in most Provinces. Are you saying it may not be necessary to have Peasant units in a low income Province because you cannot justify their cost? But Loyalty may then get too low in that Province and you then have rebellions on your hands before you realise it.

Tomcat

Thx for these useful informations. ~:)

Hiya Tomcat and Icare83! Thanks for the kind words.

Tomcat, I'll see if I can work in mines. They are pretty simple in concept - all level 1 mines amortize in 10 years (except gold, which is 14) and all level 2 mines in 18 years (except salt, which is 16). Also, their incomes are readily seen by viewing their info - level 2 is always twice that of level 1. I'll see if I can work them in. RTW is about out, though (due out Thursday, right?), and we'll have to see how that impacts my play time... probably tons! :charge:

The answer to "Are you saying it may not be necessary to have Peasant units in a low income Province because you cannot justify their cost?" is "yes". You're entirely correct that you may want peasants (or whatever) to avoid rebellion - but that's another issue. Of course, we all try to avoid rebellion - unless we WANT a province to rebel. :knight: My little analysis just shows when it is in fact economically worth it, IF you want to base your decision on that alone. I usually only do this early in a game when money is very tight, and I am watching every province, making peasants for tax collection only as needed... so I'll use enough peasants to keep a province at Very Low if it's not worth it, and Very High if it is. Later, I can afford to move piles of peasants around without watching pennies as much. The difference is that now I know where the break point is, IF I want to use it. Ultimately it was a simple analysis to do: 3 peasant units raise loyalty from V. Low to V. High (4, really, if you take the auto-tax window into account). 3 peasants cost 111/turn (~4 cost ~150), whereas going from VL to VH increases income (relative to Normal) by 50%. So, what's 111 or 150, 50% of? 222 or 300 Normal... and I also listed the other tax incomes for a province that has that as Normal.

Yours in conquering - efficiently! ~:cheers:

Thanks for the explanation RedKnight. I understand much better now having only played MTW for less than a month and hence my questions re peasants.

Of course comparing farm income with trade is a bit like comparing fixed income with variable income - since trade can go up or down extremely rapidly, as I have now found out, whereas farm (and mine) income is stable. Thus although your spreadsheet may appear to show it better to upgrade a farm, the reality may be it is better to upgrade trade first if this trade is going to increase rapidly with an increasing fleet of ships. Or the "enemy" may have different ideas and scotch your well laid trading plans as the Italians did to me for a while!

That is why I thought it may be a good idea to incorporate mines into the equation as well. I have seen the payback periods tabulated in Frogbeastegg's MTW Primer. So thought it would be even better to compare them with farms on a dynamic spreadsheet to help get the best use out of limited finances early on.

Btw, I understand about Rome, though I shall be giving that a miss for a bit. Too much going on with MTW for me currently :juggle2:.

Tomcat

You're absolutely right - there may be additional things affecting income, such as a rapid increase or decrease in the number of trading partners. Trade (for seaports, not for inland provinces) is definitely more labile. Farms can change a little but too, though, depending on acumen, stewards, and of course tax level.

The "province income analyzer" can be used to model what a province's income will be, if the number of ports it trades to, changes. It's a rough tool, though - it would've taken making a regular application to model MTW economics (including ports) quite accurately.

Enjoy! ~:wave:

Great work, RedKnight. Now to find a way to get the Excel-sheets running...

Thanks, Ludens! I thought the border info is nice too - hadn't seen that anywhere else.

If you don't have Excel, there's a link to a free reader in the README. On the other hand, let me know if there's a spreadsheet you'd like to use, but don't know how, or it seems broken...

I'm working on RTW now. VVV! :charge:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by RedKnight

If you don't have Excel, there's a link to a free reader in the README. On the other hand, let me know if there's a spreadsheet you'd like to use, but don't know how, or it seems broken...

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Thanks, I hadn't seen that. The problem is that office 2000 seems broken: when I try to start Excel, the computer says it needs to install it. But now it gets really strange: I managed to open Excel without installing it! :dizzy2: Anybody knows what is going on? As far as I know, office has been installed on this computer and I have not deleted it.

I would like to reinstall Excel, but the only office-CD in this house is an illegal copy and I am against using illegal copies.

Oh well, back to gazing longingly to the screenshots of RTW and hoping that I can soon buy myself a new PC.

go to openoffice.org, download openoffice (about 80MB), install it and you wont have problems...
it s absolutely free, smaller and at most points better then ms office...
(for example you can convert to .pdf with 3 clicks)

Thanks, Havoc. I will give it a try.

Hmm... can you get Excel to open again, Ludens? ~D Then you can just point it at the files and open them. Sorry but I don't know what's going on, otherwise.

I've heard folks mention OpenOffice before, so that's always an option - thanks Havoc!