Am i bad or is the economy *fart noise*

[goodwin315]

so far ive played 3 games as Great Britain trying to learn the game all starting in 1900, 2 in 1.01 and one in 1.02 with realistic budget. in all 3 of these games ive gotten to 1925-1930 and had to stop as i simply dont have enough money to play. i have to go to war to get enough budget to afford new ships and once the war is over even with all construction halted and the majority of my capital ships either RF or MB im running a negative budget. I understand that aircraft are very expensive and try to limit the numbers i use but even then im chronically short on cash. can someone please either reassure me that the economy needs work or give me advice on how I can have a effective navy without running out of cash.

[Procopius]

I mean, it's hard to tell you what you might need to be doing without having an idea of what you're already doing. What does your fleet look like? I play as GB almost all of the time, and I can usually support a battlefleet in the teens into the 1930s at least, before the need for carriers starts to cut in.

[goodwin315]

BB: 7 (1 building)
BC: (8 building)
CV: 2 (4 building)
CVL: 4
CA: 1
CL: 44
DD: 38
KE: 4 (12 building)
SS: 5

All but the corvettes are rebuilds and the armoured cruiser is a museum ship. i cant go into much more detail as im in a battle right now and have turned off for the night.

[amwhere]

Honestly, though, planes do require too much maintenance. 3 planes cost as much maintenance as a small DD.

[mycophobia]

Looks like you are building way too many CLs, without knowing their specification. Larger CL can be pretty expensive to maintain, if you want to satisfy the british colonial requirement, build cheap CL for colonial surface, or even dedicated colonial KEs are arguably a better idea.

When you rebuild, consider what you want to do with it, extensive rebuilds are very expensive, doing 9 at once basically cost as much as building 9 new ships on your monthly budget. Rebuild in batches, and don't change whats not needed. Scrap some very old ships if it just not worth it anymore.

Economy can be really tough for a few nations, I do feel UK/US/Germany are easier to handle tho (Argubly Germany/US is prob easier than UK since you don't have as much global obligations)


Also, the budget cut after a long war is essentially going to have to scrap some old ship at time, that is just how thing are. You are essentially overloading your economy during wartime anyway, so building too much during war will mean you have to make compromises during peace. That said, you can always plan ahead and stock up funds if you see war is coming to a close soon, so you can tank the red after the war.

[axe99]

I'm currently up to 1932 in a UK playthrough, with a very large fleet, and my current budget seems to be giving me no trouble. My national resources are 50,622 and my foreign possessions 4,658, and my budget (at peace but with two yellow bars) is 773,920 (although if you're not playing a very large fleet those numbers may be of limited value). I've got 730,000 tons of BBs/BCs, 80,000 tons of CVs/CVLs (with another 48,000 building), 72,000 tons of CAs with 24,000 building, 223,200 tons of CLs with 29,000 building, 100,400 tons of DDs with 21,000 tons building, and 67,300 tons of KEs and 33,500 building. What size fleets are you playing with? You seem to have quite a few CLs given the numbers of other ships, and it looks like you've spent a substantial amount of your budget on that (you've got more CLs than me, with a very large fleet and a CL-centric foreign stations approach)? Happy to answer any questions as best I can, but more data on your game would be helpful (size of fleet, size of your national resources relative to Germany and the US, actual tonnage of ships you have and whether you've gone for a speed priority with them, things like that).

One thing that stands out is 8 BC building at once. Speed is expensive, and unless they're super-small BC, that would put a strain on anyone's budget at the best of times, without the extra bB and 2 CVs. The most I've had going at once in terms of capitals would have been 6-7 BBs/BCs.

Some things that help save coin when not at war:

- CLs with colonial service, and 1700 KEs with colonial service, as your colonial service ships. There's some kind of 'reduction in foreign service tonnage effectiveness' for larger ships, and my RtW1 strategy of a CA-focussed foreign stations force severely screwed up my first RtW2 playthrough (this one is my second) and I finished in the mid-1920s when I decided it would be too much pain completely doing over the fleet due to my misunderstanding of mechanics.
- Look out for things that lower your budget in peacetime to avoid tension - these can sometimes be brutal.
- Only have limited numbers of aircraft in peacetime, build them up again once tensions rise.
- Take those 'plus budget' event options as long as it won't do horrible things to tension.
- put everything you don't need in mothballs or reserve when tensions are low.
- keep in mind that speed is the most expensive thing in the game - fast ships are very expensive, particularly early on, so only go for those extra knots if you need them.

[axe99]

Also, as Mycophobia said, Britain can be a bit fiddly to manage. Economically it's not so bad, but there's a lot of shuffling and rebuilding to meet colonial obligations (but these same colonial obligations make for a game that can create interesting situations across the globe, which is why they're probably my favourite big nation to play). Germany is probably the easiest 'small' nation, as virtually (or actually? Can't remember) nil colonial obligations, good tech and a good and growing economy. US is a bit less geographically spread out than Britain, but also has a fast growing economy and is a late game monster, if you want to monster the AI .

[pcasey]

I'm not sure my emotional state mirror's the OP (I'm really enjoying the game and not feeling all that prone to profanity at the moment), but I do agree with his underlying point.

Playing as Germany, my economy grows happily up until about 1925 and then stagnates ... like I've had the same 480k naval budget for the last 20 years from like 1930 into 1956.

A big part of the "fun" of the game is building ships, and if budget flattens out by the early 1930s all you can really do is scrap a few perfectly good ships to build a couple more only moderately better ones. Otherwise all you end up doing is pressing "new turn" and occasionally referring your ships when they get 10 years old. The budget has to keep expanding to let me keep building a larger and larger navy with more and more modern/fancy ships ... that's the core fun game mechanic (for me at least).

[goodwin315]

Ok more info...

The 8 BC‘s are 2 classes of four that are merely in for a 4 month fire control upgrade

8 CL are anti DD cruisers and the rest are colonial ships as I’ve taken pretty much all of Africa and all of Germany and Americas colonies excluding the Philippines.

In peace time my budget struggles to get over 520k and sits at around 720k at war.

Overspending in the early game doesn’t seem to be a problem, for the first 10 years I can lay down a class and pay for it fine, the next 10 years I’ll lay down classes and complete them in segments (eg my 6 r class BB were all layed down in 1916 but built 2 at a time) which is fine but for the 20’s I barely have the cash free to build one BB/BC

And the fart Noise is meant to be a silly raspberry :’), no tilting here freind, I’m really enjoying it until I get stuck

Edit- I only play on very large

[ramjb]

Some pointers here:

Very large fleets take a very large ammount of resources per turn in maintenaince alone. When tensions are low the naval budget will be quite low too, and at times it'll be hard to keep the ledger on the black. There are ways around it however.

-Mothballing: judge which are the ships you want to be ready if a war was to start next turn. No, "all of them" is not a proper answer, or at least a practical one . Take your oldest ships, those that you don't consider top flight, and mothball them. Say, you're in 1935 and you have a couple 12'' battleships you built in the mid 1900s. Those are not world beaters anymore, but they're still costing you a lot. Their crew quality will plummet but the upkeep cost will be slashed A LOT. As tensions go up, reactivate some of those as budget allows.


-Reserve: A less drastic approach than avobe. Cuts maintenaince in half, yet still allow you to keep decent crews on them. interesting as a middlestep between mothballing and keeping a ship active, or when tensions begin to grow yet you still want to save budget for new construction.


-Scrapping: some ships are just not worth it to keep around. Predreadnoughts can go once you have a proper dreadnought battleline. Very early dreadnoughts get obsolete quite fast once bigger guns come around, in general any battleship with guns under 14'' doesn't cut it anymore from the 30s onwards. Cruisers from the coal burning days can be kept on the line for a bit longer through proper rebuilds and new machinery but eventually they end up costing a lot more than what they're worth, and there's little hope to keep those ships viable (and worthwhile) through rebuilds. Don't get too attached to them - send them to the torch, it'll free money you'll be able to use for new construction.


-Cost savings: In general you don't need all your bases full of planes every turn. Consider those which are key and staff them and fill them with planes. Those which are not key will be your "shuttle" bases for the times of war, when your naval air force expands to meet the threat. But on peace don't go overboard with planes - they do cost a lot in maintenaince (and yes, this is accurate, aircraft were/are very expensive to upkeep). Keep a sensible force according to the situation, if you keep a war footing airforce 24/7, your budget will notice.


-Colonial work: upkeep rockets if the ship involved is operating far from your home base and your home yards. While keeping foreign battlesquadrons active in foreign key ports is necessary (gibraltar in the mediterranean, singapore in SE asia, for instance, for the british), they're going to cost you a lot more than if those ships were based at home. Consider keeping those squadrons as lean as possible on capital ships for any given moment. Also, for colonial work you want to use ships as cheap as possible: a class of cheap to maintain specific colony-work cruisers  (not very fast, not armed to the teeth so their upkeep shoots up too much, but big enough to cover tonnage demands) will also do a lot to save you upkeep.


-Tech deals: if you're at the forefront of naval technology a lot of potential customers will come and make offers for it. Weigh what you sell, but non-key technologies (such as weigh saving measures, etc) I never hesitate to sell even to potential short-term enemies.


-Tensions: try to keep them high, without needingly going into a war each year and a half (lol). A tension scale with 4-5 nations in the dark green and another one in the yellow will give you a much higher budget than if everything is on the green.


Keeping a budget stable while still expanding your navy is one of the most fun challenges of the game imo. And yes, it's perfectly possible to keep a massive fleet going while still having a budget in the black . You just have to keep in mind all of the avobe .

[goodwin315]

The biggest mistake I’m seeing from all your comments is that I’m keeping my airforce at 100% all the time, also I tend to only use RF rather than mothball unless it’s a obsolete ship like my dreadnought pattern BB or ships I’m saving to be CV’s, I’m gonna start my 4th game with this in mind and see how the it goes.

[ramjb]

May 30, 2019 22:10:39 GMT -6 amwhere said:

Honestly, though, planes do require too much maintenance. 3 planes cost as much maintenance as a small DD.

You're not paying upkeep for those 3 planes. You're paying for the planes, the pilots, the reserve pilots, the staff, the repair shops, aircraft parts, repair crews, ammunition, ammunition stores, ammunition handlers, fuel, and the cost involved in shipping ammo, plane parts, personnel, fuel, etc, from your home nation to wherever the planes are operating from.

Airforces are expensive to maintain .

[exgavalonnj]

I realized in my first play through as 1920 Germany too late that it was planes bankrupting me, med bombers and floatplanes cost a fortune.

[axe99]

May 31, 2019 0:16:49 GMT -6 goodwin315 said:

The biggest mistake I’m seeing from all your comments is that I’m keeping my airforce at 100% all the time, also I tend to only use RF rather than mothball unless it’s a obsolete ship like my dreadnought pattern BB or ships I’m saving to be CV’s, I’m gonna start my 4th game with this in mind and see how the it goes.

Aye, planes cost a bomb - I've just gone to war with Germany and Italy in 1935 and filling up the airbases in northern europe and the Med, plus carrier forces, gives me 1,153 planes, costing me 11,466 a turn.  That's more than my entire peacetime maintenance up until not so long ago (maybe mid-late 1920s?)  In peacetime I cut squadrons hard.  I also reserve and mothball hard (I plan to win wars eventually, rather than in the first six months), maybe half the battle line reserved, half mothballed?  It does mean the first six months of a war can be a bit hard going though, as the crews are coming up to speed.  Good luck with Germany

[JagdFlanker]

i put all my aircraft sqns down to 4 planes during peacetime and ramp them back up to max just before or at the start of a war - except for my CV sqns, those are always maxed out to be ready for the next war. if you have too many sqns disband some

just because you *can* build an airfield doesn't mean you should. don't be afraid to scrap an airfield after a war, especially if you don't plan on fighting a specific opponent again. (it would be interesting if you were able to 'mothball' an airfield, and at the start of a war you can make it active again after 1-2 months for a lower cost)

just because you can build different types of aircraft doesn't mean you need all of them - i don't build floatplane sqns, once medium bombers become available i stop using flying boats and let my KEs handle subs, and you only need fighters on bases that are close to enemy airbases

don't put aircraft on airbases that are away from the action, and don't be afraid to scrap air bases which are not going to be used once a war starts - if you are playing France and a war starts with Germany, you don't need any aircraft in the Med, and you might as well scrap every 2nd or 3rd airbase in the area to save cash since there will be little to no action in that area