observations: public beta 1.01-Oscar

[yellow ribbon]

[color="Red"]mea culpa: I DO HAVE TO APOLOGIZE. with increased probability i got it running. the remainder is OBSOLETE [/color]


lets start this again, just played the first 16 months during cleaning my flat...
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I dont get the new reforms against militancy, BUT "SEND THE TROOPS"

thus militancy is 9% now,after using the normally given reforms!


pity, this problem was reported in forums the whole week.
thread will be extended after problems in GC are tested again, as always

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EDIT:

i stand corrected:

TESTED GC WITH ANOTHER NATION, HERE

"Improve education system"

IS GIVEN !!!


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EDIT 2:

have tested it again. used GC US too.

this time i had still the SEND TROOPS reform from the very beginning, it has probability of 35
(everyone will have it, it requires only 50 units money in stock)

after months the education reform appeared, probability is 25 (needed stock of money was given with more than 750 for turns already)

i never saw social protection within 18 months of gameplay which has also probability of 25 (needs stock of money of 500, thus given for sure since education reform was already there)

eval contentment is both larger then 40

eval res. (money) for social protection is lower than for education

eval res (Capital) should have been fulfilled, but not every turn.

900 for mainte. cost plus about 1300 from net trade balance (thus PC in stock was certainly over 2000 in the second year)

either i am a raven with no luck at all, or my car is standing on a black cat or an ancient native cemetery...

DEVs? have you changed anything i havent acknowledged in the file???
when does the game check for the values?

[Ebbingford]

I'm playing as Britain with a new campaign started with 1.01o.
I can see 4 social reforms on the F1 page of the ledger. Improve education, send troops, electoral census and increase social protection.
What nation are you playing with?

[yellow ribbon]

first i had GC US running

now GC PRUSSIA with two of the new reforms against militancy for some months now

few minutes ago i saw someone reported similar at Paradox last night

i will keep testing it, my first observation is at least a very restricted one now.

(as always: fresh installation from DVD, patched to 1.01 then the new beta patch)

EDIT:

electoral law (F1), banning child labor (F6) and referendum and plebis (F1) were never an issue, so we can limit it to the "NEW" reforms against militancy only.

you have all of them, i had only one of them in the first one and a half year, now i have two of them after few months.
thus we can pin it down, that they at least pop up in F1 in a different way. maybe thats the only problem *hope*

[yellow ribbon]

love the idea of the "lower the inflation" decree but it needs to be altered...

to do list:

the amount of money you need for it is announced wrong,

since i see the CMN file shows 150/500

the popup window shows 100/55000 (no mistype here its 55K)


wish list:

also the message is wrong

you get a "opt_notify_Decree15Passed" only

EDIT:

in my point of view i would tend to increase the needed private capital to pay for it...
why? you can use it max. twice a year, economic sunrise is faster. in the 1860s you would have that much capital, that the most economies dont have any problem to pay 500-PC.

this low price for it is badly low chosen if you think about that the most ideas you implemented lead to the point that a simple cotton farms price may increase to over 2000 PC (2K) in the 1850s already (without inflation, just by the all-5-structures-jumps)...

[yellow ribbon]

i am not certain whether it is WAD but i do have still some provinces with a dev level of 9% and ROAD indicated, mostly in the indian territory in western USA

[Sir Garnet]

yellow ribbon, what do you mean by "evaL" and "res." in the following?

"eval contentment is both larger then 40
eval res. (money) for social protection is lower than for education"

=========

I'm working on a China AAR so there are no decrees or laws of any kind - no change.

Just paying to reduce inflation, even if it is just state funds, seems the wrong approach in game.

[yellow ribbon]

hello sir garnet,

you will have it in a minute in your email account, to much copy and paste here

[Caccio]

I really appreciate the new F11 listing of economic structures, especially the calculation of "margin". I've been keeping track of all this until now using an Excel spreadsheet, at a cost of at least 15 minutes per turn. Now I can concentrate on making war, and spend less time making my citizens and capitalists happy!

[yellow ribbon]

...there is still the hickup with the education reform, i described it for patch MIKE.

education reform accepted, a new icon for social protection pops up in F1. of course this icon is a blank without further textfield.

[lodilefty]

Is the overlay of the F-key buttons WAD or bug or wonky installation on my sysyem?

Running Oscar, Vista

[ATTACH]16005[/ATTACH]

[yellow ribbon]

nope, this is common with the overlay and was reported few times.

the buttons even overlay in the end of the turn processing phase.

however, since there are quite a few hardheads reluctant to the use of hotkeys, for them its even a great advantage, no need to shuffle the window

[tux]

It now works right, that you only get subsidy of goods, coal and steel when you have less than 30. But no import ban decision comes, although the stock is full up (several hundreds).
Why can I build any structures in China, without having any contract with her?
Other countries were correctly working with this, they tell me, I have no commercial agreement.
There is still trouble with the contentment. As Prussia again, I am in 1860 and forming the north German Condederacy with the result of getting regions like Bremen, Holstein at contentment level less than 10.
How do I get them ASAP to higher level?

[yellow ribbon]

i know there is a ongoing discussion at Paradox already, but not all here are using both forums...

to make the point here too:

what happened to the SUPPLY WAGONS ???

some report they dont have them at all, no option to build.

i have to claim, for "GC US"

i DO have them, but only 8 wagons for all the 30 corps i could build...

(dont get me wrong, i have already tested it once and a CSA army of over 600 combat points lived from two wagons for nearly a year. however, its quite important for colonial action.)

[Ebbingford]

Supply wagons are a hinderance for colonial troops......

If you have couple of colonial units on their own they will not run out of food.
If you stack them with a supply wagon, they will.
The supply wagon doesn't have the "colonial" ability that the colonial troops do.

[yellow ribbon]

Ebbingford in generally you are right, but not in particular situations.

i am no beta team member and i am grateful for your remark, however i do play this game for over three months and consider some points as follows:

1.) some nations DO NOT EVEN have colonial troops, only the expeditionary brigades. the latter ones are mostly not even able to win a fight against a 5 combat points unit of cherokee or in Hawaii or in Samoa etc...

there is some 3:7 ratio they win, but most times in my games, they got their nuts kicked (despite it, i like the system, the advantage tribes have early in game)

you need sometimes troops against rebels in Russia, China, USA and so on too!

THIS IS ALSO COLONIAL WAR, whether you like it or not. these are no national states before 1890/1900.

furthermore this expeditionary units, despite the mountaineer ability, may run out of cohesion before even reaching the destination and be badly ambushed.

i have seen both numberless times and normally attach the expeditionary unit to at least a light cavalry brigade plus supply wagon.
i did the same to explorers whenever i have to deal with NW America (as US and UK), despite my chain of depots in every third province.

i lost plenty of brigades in my first games, and believe me i have enough experience from BOA and AACW.
since then i use brigade only to cover supply lines, not for combat at all.

2.) my observations over time hold true as long development level and military control are not secured and you can build even an anchorage.
(what behaved a bit buggy, and therefore people got used to attach supply wagons anyway)

i know that depots et al even generate some supplies, but this is NOT enough if you attack in three provinces with brigades at the same time and do need to march over 20 days to even one of them.
often enough at least one of this units is down before entering the province.

in Russia and north America for their long distances, or playing Belgium were losses are painful, its a nice thing to have some supplies in my back.

i mean, i have even seen brigades pillaging province for province in north america and despite it being dissolved due to lack of supply

saw enough reports of people even using them as chain, transporting back and forth refilling supply wagons.

3.) if AI gets scripted supply wagon, why my numbers are down (in case our observations are reliable).

i described it once form my GC ACW playing the US. i encircled a stack of over 600 combat points, over 30.000 men in Florida. they had no province under control only three totally sealed (land and sea) towns left.

and what happened? right! they lived from the flow of an anchorage and two supply wagons for about a year.

4.) not sure about that point, but from AACW i remember that in winter supply wagons are kinda buffering to additional damgae from harsh weather conditions
the additional damage is there in PON, do supply wagons supplies absorb some of the damage, if yes may i ask again:

how comes it to 8 supply wagons but over 30 corps in my GC

[Caccio]

It makes perfect sense: the colonial troops are so busy selling the stuff in the wagons to the natives, to augment their lousy pay, that they forget to forage for, or to defend, themselves. I actually saw this happen in Vietnam in 1971, almost got myself shot on the spot for interfering.

[yellow ribbon]

oye, now i understand the game! thx.

now i acknowledge why Cuba is my strategic objective already in 1852. your fine colonial troops did that and i have to get my slaves from the west indies immediately instead of Africa... robbed there from Cubans obviously...

shame where is thy blush

[Caccio]

Yes, Ribbon, that's what the Monroe Doctrine is all about: The good ole US of A safeguards the entire Western Hemisphere and as much of the rest of the world as we feel free to offend, in the name of Truth, Justice and the American Way!

[Ebbingford]

@Yellow ribbon Yes, you are right about supply wagons, you should have to stack them with troops for all the reasons that you say. The supply system in all AGE games is top notch

I'm just saying that at the moment they are broken regarding colonial troops.

[yellow ribbon]

ok, you know i am an economist...

explain me following riddle, please...:

as seen above, you need to accumulate capital before you get reforms

as i mentioned few days ago, in three years your maintenance costs in a medium sized economy are that high, that some export trading leads to violation of the threshold regarding the trigger of economic crisis with certainty.

i accept, that you prolonged the time between crisis and gave us the possibility to reduce the inflation by a reform. thank you therefore!

AI is keeping on to generate inflation by building faster than they can...

BTW:
nice joke, to pay 500 PC to reduce 5% inflation, meanwhile 1% inflation generates 200 to 300 additional PC.
(despite of all sarcasm, i am glad that inflation lost some linearity in its effect)

somehow, the AI does not want to use the reform anyway!

US is a protective economy, i do not trade with Austria, i cannot even do it, i cannot reach them for months now...
tariff set to the upper limit, maritime tax also, i do everything to play a historical limited trade volume...

all in vain, 20% additional inflation ???

i give you that, it needed plenty of months before the crisis reached me this time, most of the world got it already.

now i observed it again. AI does barely deal with inflation, or very very slow...

i never saw them using at least the new reform.

last patch i mourned about, that they kept on with subsidies, this is gone by WAD changes in subsidies.

they do not even appear as long you have goods in stock, am i right?

so you have stolen 3% lowered inflation, gave us 5%-10% lowered inflation, but somehow AI is not interested in it....

and i mentioned it before, a medium sized economy, even the russian, can deal with the 20% inflation in the mid 1850s, [color="Red"]since world trade volume and domestic demand do not change at all...[/color]

now the riddle:

HOW THE HECK DOES THIS FIT TOGETHER for sake of gameplay ?????????




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EDIT:

i am reluctant to use Paradox forum, due to personal bias. however, since this post was link there, i answer here to cover both places:

Monsabert, please dont quote me to that point int the where-is-the-coal-thread.

first, i am aside to the devs what limited structures, input and output means in game. i would even alter it, to make the fast rise of economies even harder in the 1850s. and modded it last weekend that England and Belgium are the prime producers of steel before 1861, just by stealing the structures from the list of other nations.

not the player, nor the Ai is supposed to build everything as fast it is possible. both do...

what i asked for military, to delete a division from the pool after you build a few brigades, is also true for structures. strategy not mounting numbers, not if you have to play 1600 turns!

one structure of luxury OR one of steel, arms, military gear... comparative advantage plus enough MFG structures and resource sites.
for balance, thats not practical now. for my mod, hell i would love it, then prices will really mean what they are supposed to be...

and before you answer, be aware, i totally agree with shortage of coal problem i generally.
whole world trade volume is not enough to sustain my scripted RR. i shut down steel mills and arms shops and have a 1600 coal units buffer within two years (GC US).
then i build shops, after resource extraction structures are used up. strategy, slow progress against clumsy AI, end of 1865 i lead in all fields but military.



second, i told both, Pocus and Generalisimo, that "we" are working on a non-complex mechanism of an alternative price system, whats due to given reasons will possibly stay a private undertaking and mod and not going to be public here (PARADOX was meant) or at AGEOD.

we have a very unstable system implemented yet, most problems from the lack of the functions of price and money are solved somehow with it. most important was ever increasing import prices.
for the moment we think about using this as a basis for inflation, not spent capital.
feasibility studies are necessary therefor, and a more stable mod to... i have to rely to programmers, i did only the mathematical background and the economic reason

so, if i nudge (good book, read it) them (the Devs) in the same direction, its my private interest as player and mod-crew-member
the mod would go to hell, if they keep up the ever increasing structure costs and artificial inflation business, especially if they dont solve the problem with the AI, which i mentioned today, last week, and predicted some weeks ago....



third, sorry but as deeper the mine, as more coal you will need to gain coal from it... FIRST you want to have the water out of the mine, than you want to go down searching fro the coal seam... would you?

[yellow ribbon]

DEVS.....

change log says:

"Economic crisis will appear less often. AI should be able to cope better with inflation impact."


player (ME!) says...

above i mentioned a crisis happened starting in about 1852 due to AUSTRIA, lately jumped over to me after many turns / months, ended shortly after...

now its early September 1854 in the very game i picked up again, here commuting in a train...

guess what,

unless you invented national crisis too (THIS IS A SERIOUS QUESTION)---



i DO have a message that RUSSIA has too much cash and therefore initiated

a MAJOR ECONOMIC CRISIS

no wonder, still i havent seen any message the AI would use the reforms and chgfr confirms my observation...

i used EVERY MEASURE and still have 4 percent of inflation after 2 years, due to the 20% inflation penalty

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sorry lads, this is the most stable patch, i am grateful and consider it as basis for further mods...

but for the moment i think as an economist, as a former paratrooper and former officers candidate...

i will strive to find a drunken grizzly to play with him for a while.

i need distraction, or i will be driven to...

[Jamitar]

I installed oscar during economic crisis and I think it never ended for me. I reached a peak of 64%. now 45% WHAT COULD I DOOOOOO

[yellow ribbon]

depends...when this was an problem few patches ago, i just kept on to 1878 with half of my economy on strike at the same time...

thats what i told them more then once, this artificial system is a self-sustaining a dead horse.

you have in a normal game only the option to lower inflation, its a reform u can use only twice a year at maximum.
after 2,5 years you still have a new crisis possible and you a back to xxx-%inflation...

Anyway, i played it as GC US even with 124% inflation, but AI is ruined, cannot handle it.

[Kensai]

Any news regarding final v1.02? Oscar was quite good fixing many aspects. If they only manage to iron out these AI inconsistencies...

[yellow ribbon]

kensai, its not the AI itself, its the added content of the last patches.

a inflation which is non and not even a hurdle considering a game where a experienced player can start with over 100% inflation AND the every-5-structures rule and still can just keep on

and economic crisis triggered by the same mechanism its gives you penalties in...

i see it in the utmost unstable mod we have. AI is playing aggressive (not in foreign direct investment and colonies), Ai is playing as you can wish it in a kind of 5 or 10 years campaign, grew as fast as possible...

but this economic crisis systems for reasons i have mention and explained, in combination with the originally designed trade system... with predictable reasons... ouet:

...sorry the grizzly asks for another round...

[Cohnman5]

I recently installed Oscar over a game started on M and now I have a never ending financial crisis with half of my factories and farms on strike. When I have money, I have no goods, when I have goods I have no money. How do I stop my population from striking and asking for reforms that I can't deliver? The irony is that my inflation rate is down to 2% and I have lowered my tax burden to less than halfway with the various sliders. Should i just start a new game and lose 10 years of turns or is there a magical fix for the financial crisis problem? I have tried to build sewers and telegraph lines to stop the strikes, so far nothing is working. HELP!

Update. Restarted a new game on Oscar-O and most problems have gone away. Still a shortage of coal, but manageable. Viva La France!

[yellow ribbon]

first, THERE IS NO NEVER ENDING CRISIS...

i have observed it myself and read it in various forums, that you have a message which country triggered the crisis, plenty messages up to over 20, to which countries it has spread...

but in my case only the message that businessmen in country of crisis origin are more confident and only less than half a dozen messages that the crisis ended in some minor countries...

i guess there was just no message explicitly for your country or you jumped over it, or you took the wrong words to express yourself

however, fortunately in my game came a message and told me that i am in a second, then a third crisis within the 1850s... with..yeap, ONLY PATCH OSCAR

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second, THERE IS NO REAL inflation in game.

all effects of the normal gameplay make it already more expensive to build, as the crisis event 20% penalty. unless you play a minor country, you will have the money just few turns later.

thats one of the reasons why neither the player, nor the AI WILL EVER CARE...

the happiness problem, the militarism, the self-fulfilling economic crisis... a nuisance, which is mounting numbers within years... no more not less

if a country would have 15% bonus on initiate cost from administration quality, but would maybe have 20 basis points penalty from world economic crisis the system would show itself, why i can just swear and cuss when i talk about it...


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third:

a different problem are the strikes, most possibly not araising from economic crisis itself

please tell us/them which nation you played.

make a screenshot from the F6 ledger and show it here, its quicker than much talking about numbers and makes a first analysis more easy

and just accept that the "reforms" form MIKE/NOVA do differ from OSCAR...

problems nearly solved in MIKE got even more unpleasant in OSCAR

what you are describing sounds close to that why i abandoned to play with NOVA, but amplified from the reform problems....

EDIT:

AND PLEASE, if you write it once, they will see it... no need to do it twice in different places.
that makes it not easier for them, nor gives it more time to them, if they are too busy to read simultaneously in the forums

[Queeg]

Grand Campaign as US (fresh install w/ Oscar), I have the following reforms available in mid-1850:

Government: (1) Send Troops, (2) Electoral Census and (3) Referendum & Plebicites.

Military: (1) Army Appropriations Bill, (2) Navy Appropriations Bill and (3) Re-Enlistment Bill.

Commercial: (1) Steel Imports Subsidy and (3) Drainage of Wetlands.

Social: No Children Work.

[yellow ribbon]

hello Queeg,

as i wrote above the old/normal reforms are totally out of question and there as always


it is only about education, social security and send troops. these have scripted prerequisites before they appear.

send troops will be there for everyone, only 50 state money needed and high probability of 35 points

for the rest, i experienced twice that i had not seen one of them for over one and a half year while for 6 months the needed money was there for sure.

one of them i saw only in one out of two test runs.
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however, there is no problem but to take into account that you need money and private capital to get the reforms the first time and you may need some luck too... i "increased" my luck to get the reforms

a further reform, against inflation, will only appear if you have more than 10% of it...
(oh, to a certain dev, i found it funny, i reported it here within 48h but you were still surprised when they told you at Paradox days later that the text for inflation had false values... tz tz tz...)


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if you have steel as subsidy you are lower than 30 units, are you?

[Laruku]

Playing as Spain, I have a WORLD ECONOMIC CRISIS in December 1850, due to "having the USA capitalists so much money". I'm afraid of going on. So, GAME OVER until next patch. I hope this "crisis" is not a way to cool down the economy of the human player...

I played with Japan, patch h, and no crisis in 20 years. And I reached 3rd in prestige...