|
Post by tbr on May 13, 2016 18:53:25 GMT -6
From medieval times to the early 19th century taxation was relatively primitive in European nations. And with the overwhelming majority of the populace occupied with not-so-productive farming for basic food there was not all that much taxable economic activity. What there was that was relatively easily taxable was long distance trade, mostly in luxuries. Tolls were the major income source of "hard cash" for all monarchs, from the "Raubritter" having his caste near a trade route in the HRE to the King of England.
But intra-european trade was still rather limited. This is where the colonies and later the far eastern trade ports came in. They did not posssess their importance because of the absolute size of the economic activity they permitted but because it was an activity of a type where the monarch could actually quite easily apply taxes/tolls/rents etc. From luxuries like silk or sugar to highly fungible natural resources like gold, silver, diamonds and gems the kings coud have their "revenue services" take their cut.
With the advent of the industrial revolution the relative importance of these income sources for the state's coffers rapidly declined. With growing specialisation among the domestic population more taxable internal and intra-european trade was being generated and with the "invention" of the income tax as well as the non (or not too) corrupt bureaucracy to collect it most of the colonies became net drains on the state budget, both because the explosive growth of the domestic national economy diminished their relative "economic size" and because many "colonial" goods could be substituted.
By the time of WWI there were very few profitable (that is to the nations as a whole, not to individual entrepreneurs and companies) colonies at all, even among the British "possessions". Nevertheless those individuals or small groups which profited from certain colonies often wielded disproportionate influence on national policy.
By the 1880s or so colonies had become more a matter of national "prestige" and a method to coopt impulses of certain parts of the "subjects". Britains stratified society for one would probably have experienced a revolution in the 19th century without the colonies that provided an outlet for the career and opportunity seeking among upper middle and lower upper classes. But with more democratic societies and potential for vertical movement without the "colonial detour" that aspect of the colonies also lost a lot if not all of its importance form the 1910s-20s onwards while the very same developments led to the development of independence and "democratic" movements in the colonies themselves.
|
|
|
Post by hidraulicodasilva on May 14, 2016 6:26:23 GMT -6
I really liked the article, especially the Japan part. I'd like to add though that Austria Hungary is not as feeble as it seems. It has torpedo research advantage which combined with subs and light forces can wreak havoc on the home front for any opponent. Also, the fact that it starts out as a local power means that cramped and short ranged ships are definitely an option, not to mention that having oil comes in quite handy. All this makes AH a nasty little piece of work with not much to lose and much to gain and a wide variety of fleet compositions and choices to make it happen.
The only major objective is not to get blockaded and to whittle down enemy fleet in a series of smaller engagements and raids. Fleet action is not to be undertaken until several favourable conditions are met, which is parity in capital ships quality or preponderance of light forces on my part, either thing will enable either a shot at destroyer attack or crushing their screen, trapping a CA or two and ensuring a victory.
As opponents go, Italy is politically fragile and crumbles under pressure, beating their cruisers and sinking their merchants will sooner or later bring them down. They also hang on to their pre dreads for quite a while, which is quite conducive to disastrous DD ambushes in fleet actions in Adriatic.
France on the other hand is much tougher customer but entirely beatable through careful attrition, especially when in later stages of the game BC encounters come into play.
I actually think that AH deserves some more severe form of punishment in defeat, such as loss of a port or two, or severe tonnage limitation, because this way the worst thing that can happen is just loss of ships and prestige, while in actuality a lot of real estate on AH side of Adriatic was seriously contested and changed hands and the very being of AH as a maritime power was at stake. Basically, while really fun to play with, AH kinda lacks any sort of major strategic dilemma, while with all other nations I racked my brain in multiple games to tailor my major goals and stay the course, with failure being crippled economically and unable to mount a timely comeback due to different scope of obligations and of course ending the game with less territory than i started with, which is basically unacceptable.
|
|
|
Post by smacktoward on May 15, 2016 14:01:59 GMT -6
I actually think that AH deserves some more severe form of punishment in defeat, such as loss of a port or two, or severe tonnage limitation, because this way the worst thing that can happen is just loss of ships and prestige, while in actuality a lot of real estate on AH side of Adriatic was seriously contested and changed hands and the very being of AH as a maritime power was at stake. Yeah, AH does illustrate a problem in RtW's design assumptions, namely that the game assumes that wars won't become existential-threat-level dangers to a power's very existence without a lot of build-up first. This means that a power like AH, which should be near the brink of collapse right from the start, paradoxically has a decent starting position; having nothing to lose and only two natural enemies, she can play very daringly for a very long time without any real risk. It strikes me that a simple solution would be to just start AH at a very high level of domestic dissent, as a nod to the internal fissures that were already tearing it apart in the real world by 1900. That would make early wars a more frightening prospect for the AH player, since a couple of lost battles would make reaching the "government collapses, game over" end state a real risk right from the beginning.
|
|
|
Post by smacktoward on May 15, 2016 14:15:11 GMT -6
During the age of sail, colonies were important to guard trade routes to sources of economic resources. However, with the advent of the railroad and roads, countries like Germany, Austria-Hungary, Italy, Russia, Turkey and France, not to mention Spain had an alternative mode of transportation for their goods. The trans-Siberian was very important for Japan to get goods from Europe. With the advent of steam and iron ships, this process went even further. Colonial activity by this time was more about prestige than actual economic need. The wars referenced, even the Russo-Japanese was not critical to the economic needs of losing nation or either side. The Japanese had sources of natural resources for her burgeoning industries. As to the requirement for food and living space, there was plenty of room on the home islands to expand to, the war was about prestige. This is all true, but kind of beside the point. Even in 1900 any rational consideration of the value of colonies would have concluded that they were more trouble & cost than they were worth, but the enthusiasm for them wasn't driven by rational consideration; it was driven by nebulous, emotional concepts like national pride and prestige instead. Great Powers had colonies, so if you aspired to be a Great Power, you had to have colonies too, full stop. And if you already were a Great Power, you had to hold on to the colonies you already had, because if you lost them you would magically stop being a Great Power. (Note that a similar line of emotional thinking attached to battleships, which led directly to the destructive naval arms race of the period. Why did Germany, a continental power, need battleships? Because Great Powers had battleships.) This was a pretty dumb line of thinking, but it unquestionably was how both leaders and the general populations of most nations understood the world at the time. So any attempt to model the era has to grapple with it, because even if it wasn't real in an objective sense, its lodgment in the minds of people made it real enough to drive policy.
|
|
|
Post by julianbarker on May 15, 2016 14:45:28 GMT -6
Importantly, Germany pride meant colonies, which meant Germany had to contest GB naval power or forever be trapped as a continental power with no colonies. Also, power is generated by economy and in 1900 Germany, as much as GB recognised that control of the sea meant control of world trade. WW1 proved that point. This is the same driver for current Chinese naval development, and the very reason the US has for the last century built a navy that will allow it to control the seas in any part of the world.
|
|
|
Post by zardoz on May 17, 2016 2:11:20 GMT -6
Interesting, there were also people in Germany who thought in a different direction.
Bismarck did not want colonies because he saw the danger of potential conflictes with F and GB. Vizeadmiral Galster wanted a focus on submarines and mines. However, both were not able to convince the Kaiser
|
|
|
Post by director on May 20, 2016 14:33:27 GMT -6
Don't forget the role of German shipping and industrial magnates like Ballin, who thought colonies would stimulate German commerce and industry.
|
|
|
Post by marcorossolini on May 20, 2016 22:09:03 GMT -6
Interesting how the great states of Europe are the ones who didn't have large colonial empires but were instead great because domestically their economies were so powerful (i.e. Germany)
|
|
|
Post by director on May 21, 2016 0:19:41 GMT -6
The great states of Europe (including Germany) were mostly unable to afford a large army and a large navy. France is one (partial) exception in that Germany tacitly supported French colonial efforts after the Franco-Prussian War and Germany actually is the other. Germany's naval race was threatening her army spending and overall economic health in the years before WW1 and it is uncertain whether she could have continued to expand her fleet at the same rate for much longer.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Jun 16, 2016 13:10:49 GMT -6
In fact, the monetary benefit is actually a negative in some ways because if you refuse to take a colony as reparations after winning a war then the game awards you twice the monthly income that you would get if you had acquired the colony. hi jwsmith: I'm wondering did u find this out via testing?, as I wasn't able to find such info in the manual. Reason for asking is I want to have ability to expand my base resource (hence naval budget) by winning as many wars and contend with the big guys as a small nation. If taking a colony isn't the best course for doing it, i think i'd prefer not to take them instead.
|
|
|
Post by jwsmith26 on Jun 16, 2016 14:32:32 GMT -6
Skwabie, no, I have not tested this myself. I mentioned it because it has been claimed by several other forum contributors.
I think if you want to contend with the big boys you'll probably need some colonies, not for the financial gains but rather to allow you to project power into regions other than your home region. If you can get the big guys to come to your home region to fight, then colonies don't offer much benefit.
|
|
|
Post by ddg on Jun 16, 2016 16:53:13 GMT -6
I'm responsible for the claim that declining colonies after a victory is more economically rewarding. I played a game as the United States through to 1925 diligently recording a lot of information each turn (believe me, I started regretting this after a while), which led me to that conclusion. This Google Drive folder contains the sheet in which I recorded that information (RtW Data Tracker) and two zipped versions of the save—one after I won, if you'd like to view the postgame stats, and one on the final playable turn, if you'd like to play on. The other sheet, Rule the Waves Information, is just generally useful information about the game, including technologies, starting conditions for each nation, and information about the various colonies; its purpose is chiefly so I can access that information without having to open the game each time. RtW Data Tracker is divided into four worksheets: General Info records my prestige and national unrest each month as well as detailed economic information about each nation. Dock Size and Oil should be self-explanatory, but to fully understand the other fields, you need to know a bit about how RtW models your economy. Your nation's naval budget is determined by three things: its domestic industry ("Base resources"), its colonial production ("From possessions"), and a scalar that models how much emphasis the government places on the navy ("Navy share"). The budget is given by the formula (Base resources + From possessions) * Navy share, modified by the budget setting you chose at the beginning of the game (small, medium, large, and very large budgets scale against one another in the ratio 2:3:5:7).
Technology Development records when I acquired each technology compared with the availability date given in the game's files.
Ship Inventory records each nation's total number and tonnage of each ship type built and building on a monthly basis. I know there are a few errors in this set where I failed to record some information for some months.
Ship Disposition records the number of ships of each type each nation deployed in each region each month. With a good visualization, you could easily see how nations redeploy their ships during wartime.Under General Info, if you scroll to March 1913, you can see what happened when I won a war against France. The French government collapsed, giving me 10 points worth of stuff to take. I took 9 points worth of colonies and "From possessions" shot up by 225,000 (25,000 per point). Meanwhile, "Base resources" climbed 50,000 from the leftover point. You can also see France's "From possessions" decline by 225,000, but its "Base resources" remain the same. It's worth noting that, compared with the nation you're fighting, each "point" you get in victory results in a net shift of 50,000 between the two of you: Either you gain 50, or you gain 25 and they lose 25. However, that only holds true with respect to the nation whose colonies you're taking—compared with every other nation, you're only seeing a net shift of 25,000 per point from taking colonies. Originally, I intended to perform a major analysis on the economy of the game and produce some attractive data visualizations for ship movements and the like, but I suffered a loss of motivation. If anyone else would like to make use of this data, please be my guest.
|
|
|
Post by jwsmith26 on Jun 16, 2016 17:43:01 GMT -6
ddg, that's a nice set of data. I'll have to examine it more closely.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Jun 16, 2016 19:26:25 GMT -6
ddg - Thank you!
Indeed very nice data sets, it should be very useful and i see what you're saying about the 50k gap. awesome. I'll definitely take a more purposeful approach to taking possessions in order to balance base resource and force projection.
|
|
|
Post by axe99 on Jun 17, 2016 17:16:29 GMT -6
Great data ddg, and thanks for the analysis - I was pretty sure from experience that declining colonies meant a great increase in base resources, and that the nation that was defeated wasn't hurt (or at least wasn't hurt much), but nice to know how it works precisely .
|
|