I'm Rome in the 16th century, and I decided to ignore the historical goals to pursue how I wanted to run the Roman Empire. My territory basically consisted of France and Italy for the majority of time, but I recently conquered Egypt for reasons I can get into later. I have by far the best GNP and I have the second best GDP, just under the first place person. However the stars say that my economy is only two stars. In addition, when I try and move to the emancipation and free market civics (emancipation because my cottages haven't devoloped totally yet and getting one extra trade route in each city is better than no benefits) my civics go to 2 stars and I'm under threat of collapse.

My question is this, if I have the best GNP, which from what I've heard is suppossed to be the main factor in deciding your economic strength, how come I only have a 2 star economy?

it's mainly based on your evolution.
If you have been stagnant for most of your game, the rating slowly takes a hit

this is my history in a nutshell: I get carthage, the two beginning cities and 2 cities in France. My economy is bleeding but I build cottages in the french area in hopes of bringing it up. I'm quickly attacked by barbarians and I have to shift my focus from the economy to military until I build the Great Wall. The time from the military focus to the Great Wall is a farely long time. Then I try and build up my military further in hopes of settling spain despite the massive amount of barbarians. From the time of my military focus till now the military is so big its bleeding my economy even with the cottages. Then France declares its independence from me. I accept, but invade and reconquer later. Only after that do I reduce my military by a lot, and my economy still needs to recover because I had destroyed some improvements and done some whipping before France could declare independence. Finally after this period my economy recovers and I can claim the highest GNP.

So yeah, I would say from the beginning to 1000 A.D approximatly my economy was stagnant, but now its 1500 A.D about and shouldn't the stars go back up if my economy has been in surplus for a long amount of time?

My Rome game was basically trying to build Great Lighthouse, Colossus and Great Wall quickly so that my economy doesn't suck.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but you also need some resource trade with other civs and some agriculture (not just pure cottaging), unless you have commonwealth.

I think the economy hits are too severe. Even if you're backwards (like Khmer if you don't expand), which citizens in your empire would care if they're happy? It's called Gross DOMESTIC Product for a reason.

Also I think running negative gold balances should not be an economic hit (since I'm controlling the science rate, if I have loads of cash who cares?)

note that these stats are before I conquered Germany: I have the 2nd largest population, 3rd largest amount of food incoming. By the way, I rechecked the charts and I've had the largest GNP by far for the vast majority of the game, i've been #1 or #2 for the entire game when it comes to GDP, and I've traded most of my resources. Still my economy is only 2 stars. I mean come on, just because my economy was in the dumps for a short period of time in the beginning doesn't mean I should get 2 stars even when my economy is soaring. Not to forget that I want to switch civics but I can't because if I have the civics stars go down one for a short period of time France rebels and my economy goes down the tubes. This is rediculous. I mean, its a fun scenerio and I appreciate the effort put in, but can you tune down the amount of damage your economy stars take because of one short period of time?

You should take a look at the wiki:

http://wikirhye.wikidot.com/stability

Economic stability is probably the most obscure (and most oft complained about) feature of the stability system. I've been playing this mod for a few months and I have basically no idea how it works :)

I think this is the key sentence in the wiki:

Note: To balance the gameplay, GNP has to rise above a preset value before gaining any stability bonuses. To avoid these permanent penalties - you need to keep your GNP growing.

It's very hard to keep your GNP growing all the time when you take into account you need to increase production and especially food also. Since the penalties are permanent and cumulative, the problem is that much larger for ancient and classical civs. It can be infuriating, but then again it's not like these empires survived forever in reality.

I do also think that the economic penalties should be tweaked to be a little less harsh though :)

I was just wondering, what is Romes area for expansion before it suffers stability hits because in my last game I had an empire only slightly larger than the historical one but my stability was at 1 star

I've found that running commonwealth is pretty much essential for China.

Irish: Expansion also takes into account territories you don't conquer, and the rate you conquer them, the number of cities, combat results, and any cities lost.
See the wiki for a better list. Link is elsewhere in this thread.

I suppose you can't have more than two stars in economics if your population isn't permanently icreasing.

I have in 1350 a Roman Empire including North Africa, west Egypt, Italy, Germany, Poland, Austria, all the Balkans, Inca's and Aztech's empire, my economy is nearly the depression. In 1400 I'll win an historical victory but I want to prosegue the game. How to increase the economy? Without a solution the research will go to zero!

I have in 1350 a Roman Empire including North Africa, west Egypt, Italy, Germany, Poland, Austria, all the Balkans, Inca's and Aztech's empire, my economy is nearly the depression. In 1400 I'll win an historical victory but I want to prosegue the game. How to increase the economy? Without a solution the research will go to zero!

Do you mean your Economy rating is in the toilet, or that you're running at a deficit? Either way though, there's not much you can do - just build as many cottages/windmills and money buildings as possible.

If you're redlining on income you might want to gift a few cities away, or maybe change to Caste System and hire some Merchants? You'll take a stability hit either way though.

Actually it would likely help his (expansion) stability to get rid of some cities in Porland or the Americas or any other ahistorical areas. Depending on the number of cities he has, getting rid of any may help stability.


If it is the first case, this could help compensate in the short term.

Economy is a real pain, as once you are in trouble, it is pretty much too late if you aren't that strong elsewhere as it takes so long to improve. Or at least that is what I find.