Deus ex Machina: The World Market in SR2010 is an article by Il Duce discussing interacting with the World Market. It is a companion to “a comedy of manners: diplomacy in sr2010,†and that should be reviewed before reading this one. This article is not authoritative and is drawn from a very limited set of experiences and scenarios by Il Duce; specifically, this article applies to single player games against the AI.
The manual that shipped with the game describes a whole set of diplomacy and World Market interactions that were not implemented in the base version, nor were they added by Update 3: this article is current as of Update 3, October 2005. For clarity, and especially for new players, I have tried to cross-reference some of what the manual proposed with what actually happens in the game.
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Before getting into specifics on how to interact with the WM, let me provide my best understanding of what it is and how it operates. It appears that as the game was being developed, the WM absorbed several missions beyond the documented intent, and, it seems to me, some of those roles create certain conflicts of interest within the WM itself. Before letting this comment distress you, let me add that it makes the WM a particularly wily x-factor in the game. It can be far more capricious than the odd random event (Godzilla in the original Sim-City, for instance), in that the WM seems to have a secret agenda that can change as the game progresses. As long as you understand this, you can get along with it or make it work to your advantage.
As with regional diplomacy, interaction with the WM is largely a matter of posture – unlike regional diplomacy, it is not possible to address a request to the WM (regardless of what the manual said). As a case in point, I relate a replay situation. On the first play of this particular map, I left research alone, funding it nominally, avoiding research of techs, and keeping the active queue below capacity. Notably, I did not budget to expand research facilities. Play progressed ‘normally:’ that is, I got the occasional tech or equipment offer from the WM, and as I was careful not to disrupt too many commodity markets too often, I had a relatively stable set of markets to trade in. Not bad.
On a replay of this map, I expanded research facilities as quickly as I could reasonably afford to do, and funded projects to the maximum (while still keeping the queue underutilized). To my great surprise, I received about three times the number of offers from the WM, including a series of 90-day cash payments that continued to be offered on an ongoing basis. Essentially, the research commitment paid for itself and more. Tech offers also streamed in (like ‘Satellites’ at half-price). In the first year of the game, as I was struggling to develop agriculture to feed everyone without immediately inflating my economy, I received an exceptional series of commodity gifts, just as I was about to hit the bottom of my surpluses. I doubt if I could have cheated up as good a game as the WM handed out. But perhaps the most curious detail of this whole replay is that throughout both games, the WM Approval and WM Subsidy levels for my region, as seen in the diplomacy screens, were exactly the same in both games. Go figure. Perhaps these levels simply indicate potential? I would also mention that my “Regional Tech Ranking†(seen in the research detail panel) never exceeded 4. I wonder what would have happened if it had been 1 or 2?
So one thing is clear: the WM likes you to do expensive research. Another thing is also clear, which is that while the WM seems capricious and biased, it can be influenced to bias your way. And so the question I ask in this article is “How do I get the WM to demonstrate its favor?†Before getting into more specifics, let me cite another puzzling WM situation. (This item summarizes a discussion from the forums including my understanding of some developer feedback.) As mentioned in the first article, you may offer actual units to an ally in a diplo transaction. However, if the recipient is not adjacent, the given units have no path to the recipient, and they never leave your boundaries. Air units fly to the border but do not transit – they orbit until they crash. Land units just sit on the base they were released from, moving over to avoid crowding when necessary. However, if you give an ally a missile, it magically leaves your queue, and is delivered, just as any hard commodity is delivered--without actually being trucked along the highway to the recipient. This seems a bit contradictory to me, and I queried the developers. The answer was surprising--it was up to the WM. Quoting Balthagor (from the thread “A Nice Giftâ€):
Production goods are assumed to be transferred through the World Market. The idea being that no one would dare attack the World Market. Having the WM transfer units would be a little away from their "impartial" stance presented and would not make sense if they were boycotting you.
The discussion went on to query how an “impartial†body could determine to boycott you, or why the boycott applies to units but not missiles, cash, or condiments--but that is not the point of this article: suffice to say that for the moment, the WM is just plain inconsistent--and you have to get along somehow.
The backstory for SR2010 indicates that the U.N. collapses and is replaced by the nebulous WM. In the real world of today it would be difficult to call the U.N. impartial. The U.N. often finds itself being pulled into positions on regional issues that are black holes – places nobody wants to be. In addition to acting as World Court and Global Police Force, the WM also functions as the Global Market. Following the backstory, I imagined that the WM originated as a conglomerate of securities, commodities, and currency exchanges, and followed similar protocols. This is hardly the case. The simulation of commodity markets in SR2010 is not very precise, although, if you watch closely, you will see that WM commodity offerings do fluctuate in quantity and price in a way that suggests that it is responding not only to events on your map, but on the global scene beyond the borders. That may be carrying it a bit far – suffice to say that economically the WM provides liquidity. After all who else would want all of those obsolete T-55s that you sell off as fast as you can?
The liquidity aspect of the WM is not to be taken lightly. If you have ever tried to dump a huge commodity surplus you will soon discover that the demand for your goods disappears – price notwithstanding, it just won’t sell. Likewise, if you depend too much on the WM to provide a necessary commodity you will likely find that the supply will dry up at the most inconvenient moment. Depending on your style of play, you can either solve these problems with force or with guile.
Depending on the maps you play, you will probably notice that all the “little†regions on the map start out with high WM subsidies and WM approvals. It seems like the WM favors the struggling independent principalities. But then, as you play into the third year or so, you discover that the big bully on the block is also the WM’s darling. My first illustration demonstrates that this is possible.
As with diplomacy play, if you set out to have a WM favor game, plan on a long patiently assembled buildup before any actual warfare breaks out. To begin, as mentioned in the diplomacy article, be very careful in your startup stabilization phase – do not crash markets, and be very careful to keep your inflation rate low. I do not mean to keep inflation low, as that is not really possible (including patch 3). Inflation levels of ten to twelve are tolerable provided that you get there SLOWLY. I would also suggest that you set the Interior minister’s priority to ‘encourage immigration,’ and nothing else. Mixing this with ‘domestic approval rating’ seems to cause unwanted jerk-ups in the social services budget, and jerkiness is not a good thing. You will need all of the population you can get, and the DAR is something you will influence by other means. Set the initial funding for social services at one or two ticks below the recommended level, and let the minister work out the mix of funding for the various service components: if you have the right minister you will never need to monitor the components, although you will need to satisfy yourself that as the funding is keeping pace with growth. I leave it you to select the correct minister – there are a couple that work better than that rest.
Likewise, in the first six months, always have your research funding two or three ticks above the recommended level. It will be your objective to keep notching this up until you see the “maximum spending reached†indication. When you can consistently fund at this level (for about two weeks), it would be time to add another research facility.
All of this sounds real nice--how do you fund it? First off, don’t even touch taxes. Set your Treasury Minister to “fight inflation,†and nothing else, and let them worry about it. Again, there are specific ministers that can do this very well. Trust your minister here. Your role will be to manage trade and the domestic markups – DAR and cash flow is your problem, not your ministers. You will also have to be directly and frequently engaged in regional diplomacy.
Depending on your initial conditions, quickly adjust your buildcap down by eliminating military installations. Slash and burn these. You will rebuild them when and where you need them. If you are a communist state, don’t worry too much at this point about MAR – your generals will understand what you are doing. If your buildcap is already low, relocate some reserves and deactivate bases if you can. (Be careful not to raise your maintenance load by activating a huge reserve – move them to other bases!) If you have large bases, assume that you will be replacing them with the next smaller model in better locations (which will also improve your supply layout and get provocative installations away from the borders). As mentioned in the diplomacy article, plan on lots of airstrips, supply depots, and emplacements, and have their locations mapped out in advance. This whole process will dramatically reduce your military budget for the first year. (I would also note that although the manual suggests that there is a limit on the number of reserves that can be stored at a given base, and the limit varies by base size, I have never seen this limit actually come into play – I wonder why they did that?)
The critical point here is that you need to reduce the required funding levels before you reduce the actual funding, as it seems that MAR scoring is based on how consistently you fund to the level, but not on how high the level is. At the outset do whatever you have to do to get your expenses down – demonstrate your flexibility to the WM. I wouldn’t be surprised if you see a 90-day payment offer totaling 4 billion the day after you click the deactivate button.
The reduction in military at the outset seems difficult--be careful not to appear so weak that you provoke an early assault. This is where diplomacy and market etiquette come into play. This is also the time to start making very strategic overtures and alliances – handing out freebies to reduce belli at critical borders and establish some good diprelate – civrelate and treaties, if appropriate, will follow later.
Clarifying an assumption: good WM relations are based on good diplo with the other regions on the map. A high WM score is achieved by having 'many' treaty clauses and interactions with your allies. On the other hand, a high WM score is not necessarily a good WM relationship, as WM is capricious. Alliances require care and maintenance. Two ways to have a high WM score: start out as an underdog region, or become a protective 'big brother.'
The World Market sems to favor rulers that are flexible and savvy. Your military prowess has very little to do with it--remember, it’s Supreme Ruler and not Supreme General. How do you demonstrate this? There is an economic posture that seems to do well – this is not hard and fast, and there may be other approaches. (And while this is not an article on SR2010 econ, it is necessary to discuss some econ in depth.)
In the initial year, figure out what you need to do to keep the economy near self-sufficiency. One mechanism for doing this is to use the domestic markup to cool consumer demand for scarce items: as far as I can tell, this is all you should use it for. To keep these impacts (on GDP, hence DAR) to a minimum, mark down plentiful commodities as hard as you can – give your people all the timber they can eat, so that you can mark up that very scarce agriculture product. It seems that GDP scores off of the average cost of living, but does not score you down if people are eating timber and drinking petro. This allows you to buy time to build up the infrastructure you need while not alienating the population. You can verify this by watching both the GDP and DAR levels. If DAR is showing a red arrow, reduce markdowns on anything that you have in excess – like timber. Purchase as little as you can – adjust markdowns and markups on GDP goods until demand is just under supply on limited items, but the overall cost of living is as low as you can get it.
Now that you have found your surpluses, start adjusting efficiency until these are profitable sellers. As time goes by, I like to use ‘domestic sales’ as a budget limit for funding efficiency investments in one or two key commodities which I can sell--through the world market. Be sure you sell these products internally at--or even below cost. Again, all ‘domestic sales’ revenues should become efficiency investments to deliver truly huge margins on exports (as your cost of producing them is low, not that you are jerking the market higher) – this will allow your export revenues to weather just about any fluctuations and still return a daily profit. These profits should be used in turn to fund both research and military growth. Until you have this nailed down, don’t even think about building a light infantry unit. Besides, you want to wait until your research has developed better units that are worth building. If you are doing this right, your Treasury minister should be able to keep taxes low enough to keep ‘take-home’ GDP high.
One other point to consider is inflation and unemployment. Once you have found the throttle markups on GDP goods, be careful to limit production on plentiful goods, deactivating factories if necessary, and keeping productions levels throttled back. Produce just enough to keep cash flowing and accumulate a little surplus each day – somewhere around 104 – to 110% of demand. This will help to keep unemployment up and limit the acceleration of inflation. As immigrants arrive, you can step up production.
Look for an immigration inflow as early as possible, and keep them coming. (To measure immigration, I like to put a 4 buck tax on immigration, and then watch the immigration tax income daily. 4 bucks is the first tick, and it will not discourage immigration.) The key point is this – do not make a profit on your own population. Set immigration policy as appropriately as you can – refugee inflows can upset some populations culturally.
As mentioned in the first article, be sure to accumulate some surpluses that you can use for treaty trades, and be careful not to saturate markets with your goods, or you risk raising belli from your competition. It is not clear what effect cumulative belli has on WM’s opinion of you, but it couldn’t hurt to not accumulate gratuitous belli.
Does a high GDP, DAR, and good immigrant inflow equate to globally high civrelate? I don’t know, but it’s hard to imagine that it doesn’t. These things certainly lead to a strong midgame, specifically that you’ve demonstrated ‘rulership’ capability. I noted in the diplo article that high dip and civ ratings from smaller non-contender regions indicate a willingness to capitulate to your rule. It seems to me that WM doesn’t so much favor a big bully as it favors a ruler who might be able to play a larger role on the next scale map.
In the midgame, then, assuming that the WM is favoring you with lots of gifts, how should you conduct yourself? Certainly excellent regional diplomacy is mandatory, and you should have a capable military to back you up. Just don’t throw your weight around. Share your gifts. In particular, if the WM hands you techs that are social, be sure to gift them out to your closest dependents - sparingly. It's pretty clear that acquiring techs that improve social fabric (such as Hydroponics or Minimally Invasive Surgery) will bump up your own WM score. Tactic here is to trade away mediocre military techs for these - so as to bump up your own wm score while not improving the wm score of your counterparty - that is, do not trade away a social tech to acquire one, if you can avoid it.
Boycotts: One item that I did not cover in the diplomacy article is boycotts. As a rule, I would prefer to hand out a subsidy treaty to my allies as I withhold product from the market generally as opposed to placing a boycott on a specific region. This would probably be even more applicable in a multi-player game where a secret cabal might be acting to relay my product to a boycotted region anyway. I don’t know that this is a better tactic, but I suspect that the WM dislikes heavy-handedness generally.
WM Darlings: As you watch the news go by, you will often get the impression that the WM is particularly fond of a specific region, and this will not always be evident by the WM Approval or Subsidy bars for that region. Where it does not conflict with immediate positions, I tend to take this as a clue and jump in with diplo overtures to that region.
Spurious Offerings: WM likes to offer the designs for sub-level techs at various prices. These are difficult to play. One way to deal with them is that if I am currently operating on a WM subsidy, I buy. After all it’s their money I’m spending, and they know it. I usually give these away, especially to WM darlings. Honestly, how much damage can giving the design for “Basic Towed 105mm Howitzer†do? This is especially true if I get three simultaneous WM proposals (yes it happens), including a money deal, a funky tech, and some cheap units. I always take the obsolete unit deals, and then sell them after a polite interval. Never say no to the emperor.
Nuclear and chemical weapons: Perhaps it’s just cultural with me, but I avoid these like the plague. I do not proliferate WMD techs, and I rarely attempt to obtain them. The World Market really does not like them. It just depends on your style, but if you are looking to play a diplo game, these really hurt your chances. On the other hand, I rarely get nuked. In fact, it never happens. Want to see your ratings go up – destroy (do not sell) any WMD’s that come into your possession. Something tells me that a truly supreme ruler would probably avoid WMD’s.
As you will have discovered, all of the WM Relations panel buttons seen in the manual are disabled and do not appear, with the exception of leaving (or rejoining) the WM. You will also hear about regions being boycotted by the WM. Obviously these players are not looking to win via diplomacy and so these tactics are out of scope in this article. I have no experience of this.
Most of the other items hinted at in the manual now occur as random unsolicited events: Various forms of aid, either as gifts or as discounted items can arrive in your mailbox. You can not request a vote on anything: I believe that there is a provision in the scenario editor to provide for this sort of thing, but I am not aware of any scenario that incorporates the feature. The WM does not make loans – it just hands out grants. You can not request a specific tech. Typically WM Tech gifts are of low offensive value, but not always.
If the WM favors you will you ultimately win? I don’t know. WM favor is a nice thing to have but it isn’t clear that it gives you an advantage that you hadn’t already developed for yourself through your able leadership and general good character. It just makes it a bit cheaper to win a bit sooner.