Economic headache of suddenly winning a war

[douglas]

I've been economically wrong footed a couple of times by winning a war   

To win, I've been pushing the budget to the maximum and keeping little cash in hand (but not in debt)
The enemy collapsed after being thrashed at sea and agreed to peace
In the peace, as is usual, my budget was cut sharply

BUT

Before I had any chance to adjust the expenditure the Finance Ministry became upset (and I lost all the prestige I'd gained in the war)

Is this an intended feature or a glitch?

If it's an intended feature, that's fine -I'll keep a healthy reserve incase of peace

If it's not intended, please can we have a chance to modify the budget before the Finance Ministry ruin our reputation?

[oldpop2000]

Feb 1, 2021 9:51:37 GMT -6 douglas said:

I've been economically wrong footed a couple of times by winning a war   

To win, I've been pushing the budget to the maximum and keeping little cash in hand (but not in debt)
The enemy collapsed after being thrashed at sea and agreed to peace
In the peace, as is usual, my budget was cut sharply

BUT

Before I had any chance to adjust the expenditure the Finance Ministry became upset (and I lost all the prestige I'd gained in the war)

Is this an intended feature or a glitch?

If it's an intended feature, that's fine -I'll keep a healthy reserve incase of peace

If it's not intended, please can we have a chance to modify the budget before the Finance Ministry ruin our reputation?

If the game is anything like real history and apparently it is, then defense budget's will be slashed and in fact, there can be economic downturns after wars. I've been through three wars and it happened each time. Wars are expensive and the population would like to get back to some normalcy. Plan and live with it. One of the first things I do after a war, is to put into reserve corvettes and older destroyers along with some of the capital ships. Reducing your training budget is smart since you just had a war. Research could be slashed but I would leave it alone; but you could reduce the spending in it.

[stevethecat]

Start winding down your fleet early, if you are thrashing the enemy then put unneeded ships on mothball as required, if you have crushed them so that they only have a few surface combatants left then you can really wind down your fleet in advance, no need to keep paying big bills on big ships if they are sat around with noone left to shoot at.

Aggressively reserving and mothballing ships as soon as a war swings in your favour really takes the sting out of the post war finance disaster. In a recent game I ended the war with 5 of my 8 Battlecruisers already mothballed, all airbases on reserve and saving about 20m per turn before peace was declared, didn't need the colonies so took the financial option and was barely any worse off.

Of course, that's presuming that you're winning!

[rimbecano]

The budget downturn after a war has been there as an intentional feature since RTW1, but it got to be a fair bit worse in the late game with RTW2, and I'm fairly certain it got even worse somewhere between RTW2 1.0 and 1.24. I'm not sure if the devs intended it to be as bad as it is now: a US player with about as much money in the bank as you can have --without the treasury department deciding you aren't using your budget and taking it away-- can be bankrupted within a few months of the end of a war even if they mothball *everything*. I think I once went from a surplus to about a 40M/month deficit after a late-game war. In RTW1, the US would generally pass Britain in naval strength by the end of the game in 1925. Now, you're struggling to keep up for about as long as the game remains playable (postwar deficits become crippling in the mid to late 30s), because every time you begin to catch up, there's another war, and when it ends everyone's budget collapses, but the UK's "naval preeminence" perk guarantees that they recover faster than you. If you try to speed up your recovery to get to a point where even that perk can't keep them ahead by choosing aggressive options for events that affect the budget, you just bring the next war upon yourself faster. It's probably my number one pain point with the game right now, as it makes the game unplayable well ahead if the official end date.

[oldpop2000]

Feb 2, 2021 10:43:32 GMT -6 rimbecano said:

The budget downturn after a war has been there as an intentional feature since RTW1, but it got to be a fair bit worse in the late game with RTW2, and I'm fairly certain it got even worse somewhere between RTW2 1.0 and 1.24. I'm not sure if the devs intended it to be as bad as it is now: a US player with about as much money in the bank as you can have --without the treasury department deciding you aren't using your budget and taking it away-- can be bankrupted within a few months of the end of a war even if they mothball *everything*. I think I once went from a surplus to about a 40M/month deficit after a late-game war. In RTW1, the US would generally pass Britain in naval strength by the end of the game in 1925. Now, you're struggling to keep up for about as long as the game remains playable (postwar deficits become crippling in the mid to late 30s), because every time you begin to catch up, there's another war, and when it ends everyone's budget collapses, but the UK's "naval preeminence" perk guarantees that they recover faster than you. If you try to speed up your recovery to get to a point where even that perk can't keep them ahead by choosing aggressive options for events that affect the budget, you just bring the next war upon yourself faster. It's probably my number one pain point with the game right now, as it makes the game unplayable well ahead if the official end date.

I put all ships, except the overseas locations, on reserved. Shutdown training for awhile, and reduce spending on research. It works sometimes. I don't build new ships but I will update older ones, budget allowing. Another procedure is to scrap older ships, and scrap the 4, 6 inch batteries. They are generally useless as the fleets grow with bigger guns. Once the budget is back up, then replace them with 10-14 inch turrets guns.

[douglas]

Feb 1, 2021 10:33:24 GMT -6 oldpop2000 said:

Feb 1, 2021 9:51:37 GMT -6 douglas said:

I've been economically wrong footed a couple of times by winning a war   

To win, I've been pushing the budget to the maximum and keeping little cash in hand (but not in debt)
The enemy collapsed after being thrashed at sea and agreed to peace
In the peace, as is usual, my budget was cut sharply

BUT

Before I had any chance to adjust the expenditure the Finance Ministry became upset (and I lost all the prestige I'd gained in the war)

Is this an intended feature or a glitch?

If it's an intended feature, that's fine -I'll keep a healthy reserve incase of peace

If it's not intended, please can we have a chance to modify the budget before the Finance Ministry ruin our reputation?

If the game is anything like real history and apparently it is, then defense budget's will be slashed and in fact, there can be economic downturns after wars. I've been through three wars and it happened each time. Wars are expensive and the population would like to get back to some normalcy. Plan and live with it. One of the first things I do after a war, is to put into reserve corvettes and older destroyers along with some of the capital ships. Reducing your training budget is smart since you just had a war. Research could be slashed but I would leave it alone; but you could reduce the spending in it.

That's my point, up until the most recent upgrade I was able to do that. Win the war and immediately adjust the spend to match the new circumstances. Now I get hit by prestige loss BEFORE being able to change anything ...I guess I'm going to have to run a larger buffer treasury

[landcrab]

Feb 1, 2021 10:33:24 GMT -6 oldpop2000 said:

Feb 1, 2021 9:51:37 GMT -6 douglas said:

If the game is anything like real history and apparently it is, then defense budget's will be slashed and in fact, there can be economic downturns after wars. I've been through three wars and it happened each time. Wars are expensive and the population would like to get back to some normalcy. Plan and live with it. One of the first things I do after a war, is to put into reserve corvettes and older destroyers along with some of the capital ships. Reducing your training budget is smart since you just had a war. Research could be slashed but I would leave it alone; but you could reduce the spending in it.

Since I started having wars every with 2-4 years pause (unsure of how quickly you can initiate war), my economy improved dramatically. My tactics is to use wars to build large reserves of cash (but not to trigger event where your overall budget is slashed) which will carry me in the first 6 months of post-war peace.

Now, I dont play with largest fleets and it may make things easier but using the same methods oldpop2000 mentions above me, I never went into low numbers after 1930 (I stopped current campaign in 1953 since there is nothing to unlock).

[talbot797]

This is a great read, I think it should go in the Strategy section though...

[cabalamat]

Feb 2, 2021 10:43:32 GMT -6 rimbecano said:

The budget downturn after a war has been there as an intentional feature since RTW1, but it got to be a fair bit worse in the late game with RTW2, and I'm fairly certain it got even worse somewhere between RTW2 1.0 and 1.24. I'm not sure if the devs intended it to be as bad as it is now: a US player with about as much money in the bank as you can have --without the treasury department deciding you aren't using your budget and taking it away-- can be bankrupted within a few months of the end of a war even if they mothball *everything*. I think I once went from a surplus to about a 40M/month deficit after a late-game war. In RTW1, the US would generally pass Britain in naval strength by the end of the game in 1925. Now, you're struggling to keep up for about as long as the game remains playable (postwar deficits become crippling in the mid to late 30s), because every time you begin to catch up, there's another war, and when it ends everyone's budget collapses, but the UK's "naval preeminence" perk guarantees that they recover faster than you. If you try to speed up your recovery to get to a point where even that perk can't keep them ahead by choosing aggressive options for events that affect the budget, you just bring the next war upon yourself faster. It's probably my number one pain point with the game right now, as it makes the game unplayable well ahead if the official end date.

I don't find this at all.

I normally keep about 2-3 months revenue in reserve and this sees me out when wars end. Having a reserve is often important for other reasons: if a war is immanent you might want to quickly build lots of sub/destroyers/escorts, airbases, increase docks etc. 

It's also useful when the government wants you to build lots of BB/CL/DD etc.

Generally when a war ends I quickly move everything back to my home area and put it in reserve of mothballs. This fixes any problems with lack of money.

[rimbecano]

Feb 13, 2021 6:43:54 GMT -6 cabalamat said:

I normally keep about 2-3 months revenue in reserve and this sees me out when wars end. Having a reserve is often important for other reasons:

But that's just the thing, other than late game end-of-war budget crashes, the reserve I keep would be good for *years*, and for any budget crash I ever had in RTW1, it would have kept me afloat for a year or so while I figured out how to rebalance my budget. But I had one war in RTW2 where I went from a healthy surplus to a 40M/month deficit at the end, which wiped out at least a third of my reserve in the interturn, and left me with no time to recall ships from foreign theaters for mothballing.

[cabalamat]

Feb 13, 2021 7:48:08 GMT -6 rimbecano said:

Feb 13, 2021 6:43:54 GMT -6 cabalamat said:

I normally keep about 2-3 months revenue in reserve and this sees me out when wars end. Having a reserve is often important for other reasons:

But that's just the thing, other than late game end-of-war budget crashes, the reserve I keep would be good for *years*, and for any budget crash I ever had in RTW1, it would have kept me afloat for a year or so while I figured out how to rebalance my budget. But I had one war in RTW2 where I went from a healthy surplus to a 40M/month deficit at the end, which wiped out at least a third of my reserve in the interturn, and left me with no time to recall ships from foreign theaters for mothballing.

So how much were you spending on shipbuilding during this war? i tend to not start to build big ships during wars.

[w2c]

My problem with the economic effects is that while you're at war and enjoying the large increase to your budget, much, if not most of that increase is spent on maintenance costs so you don't get any real benefit out of the increase. The same goes for your opponent/s as well, but every other nation in the world gets a similar bump to their budgets without the added expense to their maintenance. So while you're fighting your war, risking your ships, paying more for maintenance and repairs of damaged ships, losing ships you have to replace, ect, the AI nations are getting free money to build new ships they have no risk of losing and don't have to pay increased maintenance for. And since the AI never fights wars amongst themselves, the player never gets to benefit from similar situations so it's only the AI that does.

[thomasmacmoragh]

Also a Trick you can use is the halt construction on some of your ships, and if your already in the red, scraping some will give you some fast cash. Mothballing some ships would realistic;y be necessary, Even with out the budget cuts, you would likely not have them man power to crew them any way