Chinese issues: Money! $$$

[hugolin]

Before the game started, I was lobbying for limitations on China MP and $, but alas the vote went 'leave it as is'.

Well now we're in Nov 1942, and I come back at the charge: I think the China MP to Gold model is flawed. As it stands, China has $15,500+ and 1,000+ MP. I think the MP is fine, provide it stays around 1,000, but $15,500? That is a lot of money. Have you ever, ever played a AoD or HOI game, as UK or USA or whatever, and piled up so much money? Perhaps Switzerland could have a bigger loot, given its historical role as the 'bank of Europe'. But taking any damn capital in the game will not give you $15,500...

The 'unused-MP-to-money' formula applies evenly to everyone, which is IMO a mistake. There are heated debate on manpower, ICs, resources, etc. and each had tons of fine-tuning over the years, but we're stuck with one generic calculation for this MP-to-Money thingy. I don't mind China not having to spend ICs on CG, but I mind China piling up heaps of gold, IMO it destabilizes the game.

In short: it's totally unrealistic and flawed and unhistorical that China is piling up so much gold.

The solution: China's money should be edited between each session to be a maximum of either $1,000, $2000 or $3000 max. (what do you think should be proper? I think $1,000, like the resources limit for puppets).

With Pedal perhaps coming back, and likely as China, I wanted to bring that forward in order to show how objective I am about this. Also perhaps the USA or someone else will capture Shanghai and have this unrealistic loot. $15,500 for China? Come on!

Anyhopw what do you guys think?

[sabbath]

By China do you mean the illegitimate Nanking occupiers, or actual free China?

Either way, they don't have a player right now, so is your issue that you don't want a human to be giving all the money away, or do you also not want people to trade for money from AI China?
If you just don't want the human players to give away the loot(actually for both cases), we could just have an honor agreement for players not to do that, and could check that they are not by either checking the save or the diplomatic trade screen.

Seems just as easy or easier and same effect as editing the money down?
-Edit: Actually I guess you are also worried about someone annexing/looting, that would definitely need an edit, maybe just once when annexed though.

I will look into the coefficient modifier, but I would guess it is as you say, changeable for the game but not individual nations.

[hugolin]

Thanks for the feedback. I think the coefficient number is fine for every nation I can think of except China, because of China's manpower/IC ratio, which is unique in this game. It has low IC, but high manpower, and a large MP growth, giving it eventually a huge money surplus.

And yes I mean both China.

Either way, they don't have a player right now, so is your issue that you don't want a human to be giving all the money away, or do you also not want people to trade for money from AI China?

Both. Plus looting, yes.
Axis: as Japan, you can send energy/metal etc. against money, but you get the resources back anyway because it's a puppet...

Allies: early on, China's very low IC means it can send all of its extra money to the Allies etc. until it's entirely cut off, which can take a while.

I've done both. It's silly. It's gamey IMO.

In China's current $15,500, I wonder how much comes from the capture of Chongqing? Nat. China was cut off a while back, so it must have piled up some good loot? I haven't checked, of course, but how much money are the Nationalists now sitting on? Because it may have lost its initial money, but if it kept its MP, which should have been still considerable, and with such low IC, it must have rebuilt a decent surplus?

[pedal2000]

I'm sure I could find something to spend it on! Soviet Tanks...Soviet Planes... Soviet Women!

[sabbath]

In Soviet Russia, prostitute effs YOU!

[hugolin]

@ Sab: you can easily edit this.

Open the save file, search for '15529' - and bingo. That's the exact amount of money China-Nanking sits on. I suggested to lower it to $1,000 (i.e. '1000' for edit purpose), but then no one chimed in to say what they think...

Also, I don't know how yourself you deal (and dealt) with Nat. China, anyway look into this. I think this nonsense lasted long enough. Every puppet and minors should be capped at $1,000, like they do with most resources.

[sabbath]

As far as I know nat china never had any significant surplus of cash when it was player controlled, it was all spent on overpaying in the extreme for resources from a few crappy neighbors when the beaches were cut off. They may have built up some now but I haven't been trading with them or anything.

[hugolin]

Is Nat. CHina sitting on gazillions of manpower? Load it if you can. Just curious...

[sabbath]

I wouldn't say gazillions, probably about what they started with. I don't really see what the problem is though, no one is going to play 1 IC china.

[hugolin]

The potential problem is the gold it generates, and how this can be abused through trade.

[sabbath]

I guess I don't see what the abuse is, if it isn't a player GIVING the money away, the computer is going to enforce a fair trade. In that case we should disable ALL trading.

[hugolin]

Here's the type if trade I talk about: to trade 5,000 energy (which we have aplenty, as in 'infinitely') against $500 or so. Rince and repeat. That's what I mean.

[sabbath]

What's wrong with that???? You can trade 5000 energy for 500 money to any country that has it and many countries have medium to large sized cash reserves, hence why I said you would have to disable all trading.

[pedal2000]

His point is that most countries who do that suffer for it, China can do it relatively profitably because of the way money works from excess manpower.

[sabbath]

I think maybe you are misunderstanding, are you saying China profits from buying resources for itself???

If so the same logic stands, China could buy resources from anyone, and it NEEDS to do that to stay alive, or are you suggesting that they should not be able to stay alive (ahistorical)? Even if you removed all their money to try and seal their death, nations could just GIVE them resources.