Building a Better Economy
Day 2,088, 08:05
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Published in USA 
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by
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by Syz2
There’s a problem
Ask anyone what is wrong with eRepublik and the economy will be mentioned more than anything. They will all tell you it’s broken, it needs changed. You can try to say it will improve with this or that, but without something big changing you would just be putting a curtain over the atrocity that is the eRepublik economy.
People have often given ideas about how to improve the military module, such as terrain modifications, owning a squad, etc. They still do. And in the end we got guerrilla fights. Some of you might like it, some of you hate it, but at least you can say they put some attempt at making it a little more interesting to fight. But very few people talk about how the economy could be overhauled (beyond adding energy bar factories or removing WAM or some other thing). Maybe putting out some constructive criticism here will help them attempt improvements like they did to the military module.
What do we need to fix?
To solve a lot of the problems of the economy module, imagine this: What if rubber plantations produced rubber? What if iron mines produced iron and oil rigs oil?
That's right. This game needs more than just weapons and food. The way it’s set up now gives new players no room for profit. The game is designed so that people will be able to produce more than they need so they can sell products for money. Else there wouldn’t be an economy because no one would sell things. Of course the problem is that there are lots of people selling things, and not buying things because they produce more than they need. The only reason products are bought at all is purchases from new players, for government/party programs, or to produce rockets. The rocket factory is probably the only thing Plato did that has actually definitely helped the economy so far, along with the not-as-helpful but still helpful airstrikes that require food.
Plato’s first solution to the overproduction problem was to create a bot that buys products from the markets. Unfortunately we are stuck with his new solution, since he took the buying bot down due to governments using it to harvest VAT tax money that it generated. This new solution is to simply ignore the problem. Ignore it and let the deflation happen. Now we are stuck in a situation where there are lots of products no one wants to buy, products that the rich have access to and the poor cannot get without stuffing money down Plato’s wallet.
Let’s make this better
How can we have a less stagnant and more dynamic economy? There are two improvements which help this. One is to give people something to do with their products, hence rocket factories and airstrikes. This is something that could still be improved. The second is back to my suggestion of rubber plantations making rubber, and aluminum mines aluminum. We need more types of RMs. This would benefit us.
With more than one type of RM, rich producers can’t just buy a RM factory when they need more RMs. They will need to find suppliers of all the requirements for their product. Now to actually prevent manufacturers who are rich enough from buying all RM factories anyway, bonuses should be localized. If a player produces rubber, they need to move to a region with rubber bonuses to get those bonuses. Manufacturers will need to buy materials off the market to produce things.
What does this get us?
Prices will no longer be so dependent on the highest quality product. If the required materials are different (high quality weapons like tanks might need rubber but the lower quality weapons may not) then the lower qualities can actually be useful to produce, and not be dependent on how much q7 has affected the RM price to be a waste of money or not. Rocket factories gave lower qualities some value, but it’s still clear currently with the profit margin that q7 that it is the price that affects the economy. With this change, one RM becoming scarce from a bonus loss or fewer suppliers could make higher qualities unprofitable while the lower ones stay profitable.
The economy would be less stagnant. Now that manufacturers will have to buy cheap RMs from territories with other bonuses instead of producing their own, people will be buying things. They will buy them so they can use them. Overproduction as the major issue will melt away as people will be able to sell things again. RM producers will be selling materials, and buying the products made from their materials, while others buy the materials and sell the products. Governments will increase in VAT tax revenue as trade increases.
And new players will not struggle. They won’t have to be making products that are worth less than the RMs making them, or struggling to sell some RM that so many other people are selling when not enough buy. New players can start off making an RM factory. Since producers will actually buy RMs now and there will be less production in a single RM, they can actually sell it competitively.
These changes will make the economy less stagnant, more fun and dynamic, and more strategic. Please Plato add more RMs like rubber and iron, and make bonuses localized to regions. These two changes, provided you don’t find a way to do it wrong and it turns out better than the guerilla fights did, will make the economy much better.
The economy won’t get any better if you let Plato keep doing what he’s doing. So don’t forget to vote and shout!
Building a better economy
http://www.erepublik.com/en/article/2303154/1/20
Ask anyone what is wrong with eRepublik and the economy will be mentioned more than anything. They will all tell you it’s broken, it needs changed. You can try to say it will improve with this or that, but without something big changing you would just be putting a curtain over the atrocity that is the eRepublik economy.
People have often given ideas about how to improve the military module, such as terrain modifications, owning a squad, etc. They still do. And in the end we got guerrilla fights. Some of you might like it, some of you hate it, but at least you can say they put some attempt at making it a little more interesting to fight. But very few people talk about how the economy could be overhauled (beyond adding energy bar factories or removing WAM or some other thing). Maybe putting out some constructive criticism here will help them attempt improvements like they did to the military module.
What do we need to fix?
To solve a lot of the problems of the economy module, imagine this: What if rubber plantations produced rubber? What if iron mines produced iron and oil rigs oil?
That's right. This game needs more than just weapons and food. The way it’s set up now gives new players no room for profit. The game is designed so that people will be able to produce more than they need so they can sell products for money. Else there wouldn’t be an economy because no one would sell things. Of course the problem is that there are lots of people selling things, and not buying things because they produce more than they need. The only reason products are bought at all is purchases from new players, for government/party programs, or to produce rockets. The rocket factory is probably the only thing Plato did that has actually definitely helped the economy so far, along with the not-as-helpful but still helpful airstrikes that require food.
Plato’s first solution to the overproduction problem was to create a bot that buys products from the markets. Unfortunately we are stuck with his new solution, since he took the buying bot down due to governments using it to harvest VAT tax money that it generated. This new solution is to simply ignore the problem. Ignore it and let the deflation happen. Now we are stuck in a situation where there are lots of products no one wants to buy, products that the rich have access to and the poor cannot get without stuffing money down Plato’s wallet.
Let’s make this better
How can we have a less stagnant and more dynamic economy? There are two improvements which help this. One is to give people something to do with their products, hence rocket factories and airstrikes. This is something that could still be improved. The second is back to my suggestion of rubber plantations making rubber, and aluminum mines aluminum. We need more types of RMs. This would benefit us.
With more than one type of RM, rich producers can’t just buy a RM factory when they need more RMs. They will need to find suppliers of all the requirements for their product. Now to actually prevent manufacturers who are rich enough from buying all RM factories anyway, bonuses should be localized. If a player produces rubber, they need to move to a region with rubber bonuses to get those bonuses. Manufacturers will need to buy materials off the market to produce things.
What does this get us?
Prices will no longer be so dependent on the highest quality product. If the required materials are different (high quality weapons like tanks might need rubber but the lower quality weapons may not) then the lower qualities can actually be useful to produce, and not be dependent on how much q7 has affected the RM price to be a waste of money or not. Rocket factories gave lower qualities some value, but it’s still clear currently with the profit margin that q7 that it is the price that affects the economy. With this change, one RM becoming scarce from a bonus loss or fewer suppliers could make higher qualities unprofitable while the lower ones stay profitable.
The economy would be less stagnant. Now that manufacturers will have to buy cheap RMs from territories with other bonuses instead of producing their own, people will be buying things. They will buy them so they can use them. Overproduction as the major issue will melt away as people will be able to sell things again. RM producers will be selling materials, and buying the products made from their materials, while others buy the materials and sell the products. Governments will increase in VAT tax revenue as trade increases.
And new players will not struggle. They won’t have to be making products that are worth less than the RMs making them, or struggling to sell some RM that so many other people are selling when not enough buy. New players can start off making an RM factory. Since producers will actually buy RMs now and there will be less production in a single RM, they can actually sell it competitively.
These changes will make the economy less stagnant, more fun and dynamic, and more strategic. Please Plato add more RMs like rubber and iron, and make bonuses localized to regions. These two changes, provided you don’t find a way to do it wrong and it turns out better than the guerilla fights did, will make the economy much better.
The economy won’t get any better if you let Plato keep doing what he’s doing. So don’t forget to vote and shout!
Building a better economy
http://www.erepublik.com/en/article/2303154/1/20
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Comments
in one word, want u fix the economy? Starts with re-implementing V1 then add some new industries (banks, ebars production, bazooka components, guerrilla stuffs etc...) that would be great!
I have a better idea, lets double tax an until now tax isent product, that will do it! Wait why not arrange it that no one would actually knows how it works? Better yet, lets make ppls CCs disappear when they click the work button!
Nice going, good job plato, economy fixed!
v+s
v
very good idea !
v
The game actually used to have different resources like iron, oil, lumber etc, for some deranged reason they removed them and consolidated into food and weapon RM. I definitely support bringing those goods back.
In V2 all the companies actually produced the resources they are named for. But when Plato updated to V1.5, they dumbed everything down and introduced WRM and FRM.
more products would be fun! however it would not "fix the economy" because the economy is not broken, it is doing what capitlism does! prices go towards margin cost!
Its not like real life economy at all. Its stagnant, and has no where to adapt to like a real economy. Prices are just an effect, they aren't what makes or breaks an economy.
I still think most players do more influence every day! It means the gross product is increasing. Though this new tax system helps the wealthy the most so I am rather excited, the rich get richer!
Yes, basically go back to V1.
As a consumer I see no problem with the economy.. products are cheap and readily available.
Newer players don't have enough income to buy the products, cheap as they are. I don't have enough money to supply myself. If you buy gold or are a high enough level to make medals easy its not a problem at all. But producers lose money in production, and many people like me just can't acquire money with it so deflated and a stagnant economy.
"Producers lose money in production". Really? If a producer thought he was losing money by producing, why wouldn't he just choose to NOT produce?
Not always. But unless you are wealthy enough to have spent a ton of gold on a q7 or q6 factory, it isn't. Crunching the numbers for a q7 factory really quick, under our current bonuses, one employee will pay off your factory in 7 years. For something not so profitable like a q4 factory it will be 17.8 years for one employee working to pay it off. The lower quality you go the longer it will take to pay off. Sure with WAM it will not take as long, but since there is work tax now I just calculated it with the current job salary of an employee because work tax takes assumption.
The reason people have them is probably either they plan on playing that long, they didn't crunch the numbers, it was different back then, or because they are supplying people through commune and so have people depending on production.
Q5 weaps used to cost 1 gold each.. now you can buy abt 25 Q7's for 1 gold? 5 fights at max vs 250.. New players and old alike can now afford much more than they could back then.
Was that when q5 was the highest quality? Wages were 20 times higher when I joined a year ago. But there was massive delfation starting then when the buying bot went off. Everything got cheaper because wages went down and money is worth more. Whether its better than it was before or not, its still bad. Even with producers selling products at a point that they will quit before it pays off, newer players still can't afford them. I'm a year old player and can't afford them.
Plato says. THIS GAME NEED MORE TAXES! MORE TAXES MAKE GAME STRONK!
They need to fix the multi issue first, how are we supposed to beat the price of a company with employe that work for free ?
for airstrikes, they could demand the same amount of supplies from each division, that way the airstrikes are harder to get and require more food since each division will require the same amount of food. In order to do this, theyd have to lower the flat amount the country has to donate. Divide the amount of food already donated for airstrikes and divide it equally into all 4 divisions and then go from there.
hm, i just thought, highest cost raw producing building, if raw price goes to .06, wam 300*.06-2=16, hire worker 16.5, so, if they use average wage, half the month it would be better to hire a worker than wam! and the other half better to wam than hire a worker 🙂 lol this will make the game much more complicated,
Economy would be nice, but perhaps getting our country back is a might more important lol. Looks like we are just about to be wiped for the third time very soon 🙁
voted!
Its a supply and demand problem. Your solution is basically to increase demand. That is fine.
The work tax was admin's failed attempt to reduce supply.
Ahhhh well. Better luck next change.
Best change ever! Love to see my ccs going down! Economy is finaly fixed!
Wtf? , change a tax isent product to double taxed one?? There is no logic behind this....
It is meant to reduce the overproduction in the economy. But it will not because all countries will head toward 1%. So no real effect.
Dont complaint we now have a RAW tax! No one seems to know exactly how it works except that they notice their CCs go down when they click the work buttom!
DONE ECONOMY FIXED
TKS PLATOT!