Economic Concerns

[Naphtali]

Current Position

The war with the Mongols is going well and our our treasury stands at 181.

On the down side:
At 100% science we are -44/pt
at 60% science we are -17/pt
at 50% science we are -13/pt
at 40% science we are -6/pt

We are currently paying 9/pt for Units and are also building 2 more swords, an archer and a chariot.

In short I don't think that pressing on with the Mongolian war is sustainable at this time.


Moving Forward.

Extort Maths from the Mongols if we can (just getting our units out of there will save us 4/pt).

I know in another thread (on the barb swords NW of BW) I advocated posting the 2 non-BW warriors to prevent barbarians in the north, but we might be better served disbanding them and letting our chariots prevent barbs for a while. (Russian spy is really an explorer who's job is done, warrior4 has no experience so not much point keeping to upgrade) . When we decide to go back to war (or our culture expands sufficiently) the chariots can make it to the front quickly enough.

If we are ending the war serious consideration needs to be made on whether we need the extra 4 units we are currently building at the moment. (I'd argue that we probably don't given that every unit we build at the moment costs us 1/pt)

Currency needs to be a research priority in that it would give us a minimum +8 gold per turn from the additional trade routes in each city before we even built a market.

If we're ending the war, we'd probably be better served with a lighthouse in Auda City than the barracks that are currently being built. We could then utilise the coast tiles to generate cash and keep it growing. This would also free up the worker (after the pasture) to work on connecting and upgrading our 4 size 1 cities in the south.

 

[Naphtali]

If you can extort Maths from the Mongols this turn, the forest near BW/MG about to get chopped will be more productive too

 

[robboo]

I agree teh war shold stop. We accomplished wha twe wanted now we just need peace. Returning units back to our own territory will cut some of the costs...o f course the troops decisions are up to the current SoW who has yet to post an official thread.

When( or if) he does you might want to post in his thread to bring your concerns to his attention.

 

[donsig]

I agree teh war shold stop. We accomplished wha twe wanted now we just need peace. Returning units back to our own territory will cut some of the costs...o f course the troops decisions are up to the current SoW who has yet to post an official thread.

When( or if) he does you might want to post in his thread to bring your concerns to his attention.

robboo, I see you are still operating under the assumption that ONLY officials can make decisions in this game. That is absolutely and positively NOT true. If you (or any other citizen) want to stop the war and bring the troops home you have two options. The first you are aware of: convince the SoW to authorize it. Trouble is, this is not even automatic even if you get the SoW on your side, because if another citizen who wants the war to continue takes the initiative and gets a discussion going and starts convincing his fellow citizens to continue the war and (heaven forbid) posts a poll about continuing the war and a majority of citizens vote to keep on fighting then the Sow is bound to authorize continued fighting.

So, what's the second option you have for ending the war? Take the initiative and get a discussion going and start convincing your fellow citizens to stop the war and (heaven forbid) post a poll about ending the war and then if a majority of citizens vote to cease fighting then the Sow is bound to authorize and end to the war.

 

[robboo]

NO the war IS over( except for peace treaty).....that has already been decide by the citizens last term.( at least with out More plan approval per the approval poll.) I will personally file a CC against our president, censor and the SoW if they do not stop it without another poll to continue. The current SoW does not have the authority to continue and I would expect you and the other judicial offices to stop him from doing so. Last term my actions were limited to what I had submitted as a plan and that is what got the Declaration of War....now that plan is done and more approval is needed to attack any more cities.

My comment about troop movements is meant to be within the SoW duties to position troops where they think its correct.( barbs lookouts)

If I am SoS( I applied)...then you can expect a formal OFFICIAL binding poll as per the SoS duties. Right now I am waiting to see who the SoS will be and if the courts will approve of them before I start in our stopping this war.

The thing you might want to be concerned about is the lack of an offical threads( absence not logged either for most of them)...not what I think or what you think I think. My stance has always been the offficals carry out the citizens wishes.( again..find 1 instance where I did otherwise) If the citizens do not have any wishes that are know by the official then he/she does what they feel is right.

 

[donsig]

robboo, go back and reread my last post. This time replace phrases like continue fighting or keep fighting with phrases like move troops back into our territory. My point is that if you want SOMETHING to be done YOU can start a discussion or initiative poll about doing it. If a majority of your fellow citizens agree with you then the relevant official (whomever he or she is) MUST authorize the actions needed to bring that SOMETHING about. We do not need to wait for an official to act or sit around hoping he or she will do what we want. We tell the official what we want (through discussion and polling) and he or she does it. It is this concept that has been missing throughout this democracy game.

 

[robboo]

donsig...YOU have missed the point. The citizens have ONLY approved what has happened. SO thats it.. the war is over.

Why would I want to help the people that want to continue the war by posting a poll. As it stands right now...my side is the one that the SoW is bound by. Its up to the other side or the current SoW to try to get more war approved. (I am happy with the status quo)

After we get a cease fire..our troops get popped out of the Monglians lands..where he puts them then is UP TO HIM as long as he doesnt violate any existing treaties.


I see no need for discussion...since I am happy with the situation as of now. I am waiting to see what our new SoW plans before taking away his CoL mandated power. Something that I wish more of you would have done during my terms. Its called respect for our citizens and for our officials..Let the officials do their jobs and then if you are not happy start discussions and polls to limit them to the majority opinion.


I dont write nice and fancy and my point is loss in typos ...but do you understand. I want the new SoW to return form his logged absence on May 3rd and tell us what he feels about the direction we are heading before we start telling him how to do his job. Lets hear him out..he might agree.

 

[Naphtali]

I was just trying to get some discussion going on how we're going to resuscitate our economy...

I really don't think you two are as opposed as you are making out.

I'm new to this game but it seems clearl to me that a citizen's first point of call is to try and persuade the ellected official to a course of action. If that fails and the citizen cares enough that they want to start an initiative then they can go down that route, but it would be unnecesarily cumbersome (not to mention making ellected officials powerless) to do that for every possible decision.

Essentially why use the force of an initiative or similar when discussion and consensus would suffice?

 

[robboo]

I was just trying to get some discussion going on how we're going to resuscitate our economy...

I really don't think you two are as opposed as you are making out.

I'm new to this game but it seems clearl to me that a citizen's first point of call is to try and persuade the ellected official to a course of action. If that fails and the citizen cares enough that they want to start an initiative then they can go down that route, but it would be unnecesarily cumbersome (not to mention making ellected officials powerless) to do that for every possible decision.

Essentially why use the force of an initiative or similar when discussion and consensus would suffice?

Thats what I am saying exactly....donsig.. is this what you are saying too??

 

[ice2k4]

Well Naphtali, I'm only a month into this game, and all I see now, is discussion threads being swamped with judiciary agruments, usually from donsig (no offense.) Back to the discusion we are having, as Governor of Auda City, I'm going to ask the SoW if he minds if I change the production to lighthouse, as soon as I found out if I'm going to be included in a state or not. I also agree that we have many units that simply aren't needed. I'm not sure if we should disband all of them though.

 

[GenMarshall]

Right now, the war should be our priority for we need money in order to conduct this war. If not, our troops would suddeny vanish due to insufficant funds. Is this the reality that we want? No. I beleive we should make sacrifices inorder to win this war against the Mongols.

As a citizen of this nation, I dont want to look forward in a land conqured by the Mongols and speaking Mongolian.

 

[Pajka]

Unfortunatelly I'm very busy these weeks and I don't have time to go through all the threads, but I noticed this one and I'd like to comment.
1) Code of Laws with Courthouses can save us much more money than Currency with Markets can gain for us (if we want to reseach and don't go for 100% gold rate)
2) We should end the war and not conquer any more cities because it would increase the city maintenance that it would kill our research. We need courthouses before we found or conquer some more cities!

 

[dutchfire]

the profit from currency is +1 not the ability to make markets

 

[Naphtali]

Unfortunatelly I'm very busy these weeks and I don't have time to go through all the threads, but I noticed this one and I'd like to comment.
1) Code of Laws with Courthouses can save us much more money than Currency with Markets can gain for us (if we want to reseach and don't go for 100% gold rate)

Don't forget that Currency also gives +1 trade routes per city. That's a nice boost to the economy before we've even built a building. I haven't done the maths but you'd need to build quite a few courthouses in our cities least able to build them at the moment to outweigh the trade route bonus plus even just the 1 market in Boaring Wallow (which doesn't have much to build at the moment)

2) We should end the war and not conquer any more cities because it would increase the city maintenance that it would kill our research. We need courthouses before we found or conquer some more cities!

I agree. I just think we'll probably want both currency and code of laws before we can afford to expand. I'd be surprised if currency then CoL isn't better than the CoL then currency.

bah, beaten to the punch by dutchfire

 

[dutchfire]

I think we have more things to build in the cities that would need a courthouse with more priority. And if we research currency first we get a bonus for the code of laws research. I don't know how much exactly but isn't it around 10% or something like that?

 

[Pajka]

You might be right as the difficulty we play at is rather low. I haven't checked the save, I just talk generally.
- Higher diffuculities and more cities => higher city maintenance costs => higher effect of courthouses
- Many cities & few neighbours => you won't find enough foreign cities for all traderoutes => many national trade routes which yield low commerce bonus => lower effect of additional trade routes