Passionate inquiry: Inflation in Cyber Nations

[PingPongPay]

I was reading another thread and there was a discussion of how useless money is when you're in the upper echelons. Basically, you have nothing to spend your money on. But firstly, it must be understood that people spend their money to better themselves or their alliance. In this case, I'll be looking at the former. There are two ways to better your condition: spend your money in a manner that will result in you making even more money or investing your money to increase your power. Simply put, you can spend money to create more money or to increase your power.

In Cyber Nations, the case is almost always to increase your ability to make more money. This is made worse by the fact that infrastructure both increases your money and your power (Nation Strength). If you're going to reduce the amount of inflation, you're going to want people to invest in increasing their power instead increasing their profits. By investing in power, people are spending money and the CN dollar retains its value. So how would you go about this?

Now this part of my discussion is more of a suggestion than anything. If we take a look at the real world, power is defined in both economic and military terms. In Cyber Nations, it's almost exclusively economic. We need to make the military more expensive (by a lot). In addition, we need to increase the amount of NS the military contributes. For example, the price of nukes should be ten times greater than they are now and they should add ten times more NS. The price of soldiers, tanks, CMs, and aircraft all need to increase (along with the NS). The price increase could be a function of technology. As you get more advanced technology, the cost of buying a soldier and the cost to maintain that soldier increases. The same applies to every other military quantity.

Having a military is something that a nation cannot do without. Increasing the price of the military will decrease the rampant inflation. Increasing the amount of NS the military gives encourages people to invest into the military even more, further decreasing inflation.

[Nymraud]

This is more of a suggestion topic, but I agree with it.

[Scorp]

Yes, military is a very simple way to decrease inflation. Nations needing to pay millions for trades, in a way, decreases inflation also.

[Syzygy]

i agree that Nukes should add 10times the NS they do now, they are the weapons with quite some impact. also i agree that the costs for CMs, Aircrafts, Tanks and Soldiers should be increased (to give military-cost-reduction resources a true meaning). Right now Soldiers, Tanks, CMs are just wasted and spammed, because they are THAT cheap, nobody cares for them.

[Delta1212]

i agree that Nukes should add 10times the NS they do now, they are the weapons with quite some impact. also i agree that the costs for CMs, Aircrafts, Tanks and Soldiers should be increased (to give military-cost-reduction resources a true meaning). Right now Soldiers, Tanks, CMs are just wasted and spammed, because they are THAT cheap, nobody cares for them.

Indeed. I keep my military at max for the NS boost because I barely notice the effect on my economy.

[idriveavw]

a very interesting take on countering inflation. i like it. hi-tech soldiers and equipment would obviously cost more to buy and train, so why not make soldiers cost more when your tech is higher? this could be a very good addition to the game. i approve. also, this should be in the suggestion box

[Saborn]

i agree that Nukes should add 10times the NS they do now, they are the weapons with quite some impact. also i agree that the costs for CMs, Aircrafts, Tanks and Soldiers should be increased (to give military-cost-reduction resources a true meaning). Right now Soldiers, Tanks, CMs are just wasted and spammed, because they are THAT cheap, nobody cares for them.

As it stands, my upkeep costs for military on hand (So soldiers and aircraft) is about an even 1% which is basically insignificant. Perhaps a system whereby these costs scale more as a nation grows would be in order.

[Magicman657]

As it stands, my upkeep costs for military on hand (So soldiers and aircraft) is about an even 1% which is basically insignificant. Perhaps a system whereby these costs scale more as a nation grows would be in order.

Since the tech military bonus cap doesn't exist, this would actually work and would make sense.

[winstonopai]

Having a military is something that a nation cannot do without. Increasing the price of the military will decrease the rampant inflation. Increasing the amount of NS the military gives encourages people to invest into the military even more, further decreasing inflation.

But why would a nation want to continue to buy military if it gets more expensive, as you suggest? Yes, military would help with nation strength. ... and? If nations are in stable alliances and relatively safe, your suggestion would encourage them nations to stop buying military and instead focus on infrastructure, or tech, or just donating cash to their alliance.

A large nation needs to be militarily capable, but usually doesn't need to be overly concerned with their military. Remember how tech used to be "empty strength"? If soldiers/tanks/CM's/nukes counted for more NS-wise, then the military would become "emptry strength". Why buy soldiers if you rarely go to war? There is no reason to. Once a nation has basic protection for itself and is part of a large alliance, there is really no incentive to keep a large military unless the alliance gets into wars frequently, which most larger alliances do not. Raising the price of the military would just discourage nations from buying military items, leaving them with even more cash and even less to do with it.

[Drai]

The way you portray military would make it more of a possession idea rather than an actual war tool, and I don't think that's what the game should be like in any way.