Inflation

[Heresson]

Please, explain it to me:
- do I get it from % of income turned to gold, or also by turning city production to gold?
- how do I fight it? Can I decrease it? And how?

Thank You.

[Jaybe]

Inflation in Civ4 is a function of time. The only way you can reduce inflation is by getting the event (in BtS).*

I normally counter it by building wealth, or just have such a powerful economy that I can lower my science rate.

In BtS (at least in 3.17), inflation was substantially REDUCED from previous versions, such that it takes till about 2050 to get to 100% inflation. I'm currently playing the Hephmod Beyond mod at CFC, where it seems to be the old inflation (140% before the year 1900).

--
* That is my understanding. If someone comes out with info that it is based on something such as size of empire (number of cities / map size) I will be VERY surprised!

[snoopy369]

Inflation is not related to your income. Inflation is a direct increase in your expenses. I don't know if anything other than time is involved.

For example, if your expenses are 80gp/turn (costs due to city maintenance, unit maintenance, corporation maintenance, and civic upkeep), then your inflation at 50% (say) is 40gp/turn, for a total net expenses of 120gp/turn. If your income is 400gp/turn, then you have a net gain of 280gp/turn (commerce plus gold); if it is 800gp/turn, then you have a net gain of 680gp/turn, inflation is still 40gp/turn. Over time, at the same expenses, that 40 will go up to 42, 44, 50, etc., as the percentage increases.

You reduce inflation (as a number, not as a percentage), by reducing your upkeep costs:
* Using State Property if you don't use Corporations, using Free Market if you do
* Courthouses
* Taking steps to decrease unit maintenance - primarily by reducing the number of units you have
* Not spreading corporations where you don't need them

[rjmatsleepers]

Originally posted by snoopy369
Inflation is not related to your income. Inflation is a direct increase in your expenses. I don't know if anything other than time is involved.

For example, if your expenses are 80gp/turn (costs due to city maintenance, unit maintenance, corporation maintenance, and civic upkeep), then your inflation at 50% (say) is 40gp/turn, for a total net expenses of 120gp/turn. If your income is 400gp/turn, then you have a net gain of 280gp/turn (commerce plus gold); if it is 800gp/turn, then you have a net gain of 680gp/turn, inflation is still 40gp/turn. Over time, at the same expenses, that 40 will go up to 42, 44, 50, etc., as the percentage increases.

You reduce inflation (as a number, not as a percentage), by reducing your upkeep costs:
* Using State Property if you don't use Corporations, using Free Market if you do
* Courthouses
* Taking steps to decrease unit maintenance - primarily by reducing the number of units you have
* Not spreading corporations where you don't need them

I suspect that inflation is calculated before calculating the impact of the Organised trait. That is, Organised will reduce the civic upkeep (as advertised), but there will be no impact on inflation. Inflation will therefore appear to be a larger percentage of cost. Can anyone confirm this (or alternatively tell me I've got it wrong.)

RJM

[Blaupanzer]

rjmatsleepers, you have it wrong. Inflation is a fixed, but rising percentage applied to all expenses AFTER all modifications in same have occured, It's the last thing added to expenses and is based on all prior expenses. So Organized trait effects are applied to civic expenses prior to the application of inflation.

[Agran]

If the corruption affects your expenses, it shouldn't matter, what is multiplied first, because 1,x*1/2*upkeep is the same as 1/2*1,x*upkeep.

x=percent inflation

[Blaupanzer]

Agran, my point was that organized lowered civic expenses before inflation was applied to ALL expenses. Your arithmatic logic is correct, but incomplete when a trait only lowers a subset of total expenses.

[Heraclitus]

Re: Inlfation

Originally posted by Heresson

- how do I fight it? Can I decrease it? And how?

Thank You.

Decreases spending
(this means that in vanilla civ State Porperty was better than Free Market even without SP's productivity bonus)

Have some gold in reserve in case you get the reduced Fed event.

[joncnunn]

It was looking to me in the XML like you need to both be in FM and have a lot of gold in reserve just to have a chance of geting the event that allows the inflation percent to be decreased.

[Heraclitus]

FM?

Edit: Ohh the civic

Could you perhaps post the code?

[Agran]

@bp

I don't seem to get your point.

Assuming an upkeep of 100 gpt that would make reduced upkeep of 50 gpt. Then you multiply inflation say 2% you get 51 gpt for upkeep. 2% of 100 gpt for inflation results in 102 gpt, which is halved by organized to 51 gpt. The other expenses ar not effected by organized and inflation can be multiplied with each position in separate (a[b+c]= ab+ac). But of course there may be rounding differences, which would make a good argument, that you didn't quite point out.

It doesn't matter which way its coded , if there were no rounding differences.

[Hercules]

Hmmm thanks for the information on this issue.

[TriMiro]

I tried to bore on the forums about inflation some time ago and I found out one thing: no one knows how it works.

Build courthouses and generally big and strong economy and it should not be a problem.

[Hercules]

Originally posted by TriMiro
I tried to bore on the forums about inflation some time ago and I found out one thing: no one knows how it works.

Build courthouses and generally big and strong economy and it should not be a problem.

That goes without saying but you've said it so fine.

[joncnunn]

Other than being in FM and having enough gold to have a chance for the event there really is nothing you can do about inflation itself.

What you can do is reduce the underlaying costs by courthouses, watching the size of your army, etc. As you reduce the underlaying costs you also reduce the inflation on top of it.