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Victoria3開発陣のQAリードで、経済学の学位を持つ Paul Depre がVic3の経済について解説してくれました。
本文を文字起こししました。
Before we started talking about the levers that you're able to pull in Victoria3,
you first have to take accounting of your nation - its assets and its liabilities, what things can help and will hinder your progress.
This includes taking an account of the natural resources available to your country, which pops you have,their qualifications and how that can translate into a growing workforce.
You also have to consider the status of your national market in the grander scheme of the world.
Are you an importer of goods,an exporter?
Are there barriers and other tarrifs that you have to break through to access those goods on the world market?
And then also you have to consider the IGs and the laws for your starting nation, who is in power and what obstacles might they put in your path to change your economy and your society to work the way you want it.
Knowing all this is important because knowledgeof your domestic market is essential in Victoria3.
It is the arena where your actions have the most profound impact.
Victoria3 can often be described as a line go up simulator.
This isn't strictly true.
But as long as your GDP is growing, the oppotunities of your nation grow as well.
But as that GDP grows and the wealth comes into your contry, you have to worring more about where the wealth is going, to which pops, because with that wealth they gain political strength.
And with that strength, they wil seek change.
But how do you make that line go uo? it's simple.
STICK TO THE BASICS.
Before you go down gallivanting for railroads and fanciest military hardware you can, why not feed you pops?
The main driver of Victoria3's internal economy is consumption.
There are four main consumers that you need to be aware of:
the government, which consumesgoods to provide service to its people, the military which consumes goods to provide protection to its people, your industry, which sonsumes goods to provide more advences goods to its people, and the people themselves, your pops, who at the start of game consume the most goods.
The biggest bang for your buck in investment is to provide those services to your pops, as that is a market that is not going to dissapear.
They will always be there and they will always need to eat.
As the pop's wealth increases, they get a taste for the finer things in life, but they don't immediately switch.
For example, they will switch out their homespun rags for those made solely in the textile industry, and as their wealth increases further, it will start switching that out for the luxury goods.
Silk, and all of its finery, to show their class.
The basic takeaway for any budding economist is this: There are some resources that are too essential to ignore, regardless of the grand pland you havefor your society.
You need to feed your people. You need to clothe your people.
You'll need tools and lumber to build the basic buildings of life or the advanced industry you intended to go for.
And as well, you will need to provide at least the most basic services for your society.
What goods and services you don't provide for your people will only increase its demand, and their call for it.
And that call may motivate the AI to become its supplier and trade into your nation.
To kick-start an industry there must be profit.
High prices signal that profit.
For example, let's talk construction.
High prices of timber is an inevitable result of starting a construction industry.
But thet money you spend on construction is agovernment expenditure, which is going to your pops and your lumber industry and has profound cascading effects to your economy.
Those high price mean that labor is now more valuable and labor will move into that industry.
As you expand that industry, you will still profit while prices go down because labor is there and this is a great way to stimulate an early economy.
Those pops who worl in the lumber industry will then take that wealth and use it to buy goods and services from other pops.
And if you can keep that mostly domestic, that money stays there.
And every pound spent by construction is more than one pound of GDP benefits to your pops.
Now while high prices of timber may be good for construction industry, it spells disaster for any goods that use it as an input, like your furniture factories, your paper mills.
And so it's a balansing act between keeping lumber prices high enough that your resource industries can be fully employed and productive, but low enough that there's a profit to be made in manufacturing.
As you start this manufacturing effort in your country, you wat to replace these subsistence farms because they're inefficient.
These secondary industries you set up, providing your basic services and needs, will eventually become the primary growth of your economic engine.
Construction can only keep you going while there's money to spend.
But eventually your furniture industries, your paper mills will take on and buy more timber than your construction sectors, meaning your economy will continue to be powered and employment will be maintained.
So what's your goal after you achieve the basics?
You specialize. Take another accounting of your nation.
Look at its natural resources, what other nations are buying on the market. Become the provider of that good.
So how do you determine your niche?
It could be a good that you have an abundance of naturally, be it tea tobacco or opium.
It can be a good that you have a technological advantage for.
You're the first ones to develop trains, that means you can sell locomotives to the rest of the market.
Be careful of picking your niche in a good that's deemed frivolous by the other nations and their pops, or that you have a large amount of competitors for.
Those risks are something you're going to have to overcome with more than just market power.
Now as you grow your industry, you found your niche and you push your economy more and more, you need to ask yourself the question: In which way will grow?
horizontal growth is a valuable choice when you have a construction industry already set up and you lack the technological pregress to invest into production methods.
If you have plenty of space and land, why not simply build more?
And if you have pops who needs jobs, well, this is the easiest way to accomodate them.
The downside is there is a finite limit to horizontal growth, unless you go conquering and expanding your market.
There is only so much you can build.
Vertical growth represents the use of technology through production methods to increase the marginal productivity of your farms and factories.
This comes at the cost of increasing the complexity of the input chain for that building.
New production methods require new resources.
It can start as simple as tools and go as complex as engines and electricity.
This will add to the complexity of your economy and what you need to provide to make it so.
Not only do you need these new machines, but you need the skilled workers who can utilize them.
You will need to educate your population so they can increase their qualifications and provide these new services for you.
But be careful. With increased literacy and increased wealth comes political idea, and your pops might start making demands of you as well.
Now it's undeniably risky to put all your eggs in one basket, but it's equally risly to put all those eggs into separate baskets themselves.
You need to find a middle ground, to have a main driver for your industry but not have it be the only driver for your industry.
How can this be achieves? Through the means of trade.
Resources that you're not able to set up the industries for or do not have the pops with the qualifications to provide can be gotten from other national markets.
Now be warned - as you make your economy more complex, as you add lines of trade across the map to both sell and provide you with resources you cannot get, each part of this transaction which is dependent upon an outside market can be disrupted by means outside of your control.
This is a risk you need to balance.
Victoria3 is an incredibly complex simulation but also an incredibly rewarding one.
If you utilize the knowledge shared with you today and better understand the levers, how you can use them, and think dynamically, you can build a society that doesn't merely react to the world, but actively shapes it.
