Union Economy

[Glitch]

I'm currently involved in a PBEM with a friend nearing on 1864 and I clearly failed to build up my industry (as the Union).

Under the Interior tab, how do I know what builds will generate the most money income going forward?

Additionally, besides placing transports in the merchant square, how do I further effectuate my economy?

I'm tracking that I need to place telegraph lines in 75 developed areas to get them to 80.

[Captain_Orso]

You do not build industry to make money. You build industry to increase the output of a specific product.

If you do not have enough money, raise taxes or issue bonds.

[Gray Fox]

Creating a "Rich" region does not create more cash. The region produces more GS and ammo and has a reduced probability of an epidemic, but that's it. So spending money to build Telegraph lines won't get you more money. If you accrue a surplus of 500 WS, additional production will be sold at the rate of 50 WS for 50 cash each turn through an event. In 1861, the Union should build every ocean transport available and place them all in the "merchant box". It takes several turns for this investment to create a return, so 1864 may be a little late for the effort.

[pgr]

To second Fox, the best investment for money problems, is transports in the shipping box. (WS is nice to build sometimes, as the $50 bonus for surplus can be handy, but it's more of a happy side effect.)

Also, promote loyalty in your money making places, esp the gold mines out West. Also remember the CSA has it worse than you! (Finally, take some of his money makers! NO, Charleston, etc.,)

As for the money decisions, take them of course, but mind the inflation. (Heck you can even make it go more than -10% if you manage things right.)

[Glitch]

Thank you!

[BigDuke66]

How much money does a transport unit yield in the shipping lanes box?

[Gray Fox]

IIRC, it's approximately two units of either dollars or WS.

P.S. I checked my test record and it is approximately 2 units per ship, not per unit. so about 5 per unit.

[BigDuke66]

So only 2 Dollars? That means 11 turns to get the 22 money back.
Besides transports, raising loyalty in money making regions and taxes & bonds, any other way to make money?

[Gray Fox]

Some structures you can build produce money, but at a really bad ROI. I think that an armory, a powder mill and an IW produce $1.

[Captain_Orso]

I did an analysis of what Transports in the Shipping Box actually bring way back in AACW. I don't think the rules for this have changed in CW2.

I only took Transport Squadrons into account, because you can only buy squadrons (2 ships), but I'll refer to them as Transports, because I'm too lazy to write squadron all the time

Transports bring not only money, but also WSU (War Supply), depending on how much WSU of which you have on hand and are producing per turn. If your WSU on hand and production is way down, Transport will exchange some of your money income for WSU income from shipping. I don't recall the details, but I don't think you get more than about 1 to 5 - WSU to $, and you won't necessarily get the WSU every turn IIRC, but that might be wrong. I just don't recall exactly.

So how much of which you get is very conditional, and in my analysis I simply counted money and WSU together for simplicity.

There's a very steep Diminishing Returns curve for Transports, which flattens out very quickly. So the first Transport in the box brings just over $20(!!), while adding a second has both bringing almost $16 each.
At 6 it's nearly $10 each.
At 10 it's just over $7.6 each.
At 15 it's just over $6 each.
At 23 it's almost exactly $5 each.
At 25 it's $4.88 each, which is where I quit testing.

IIRC Union NM was about 100, and NM affects the returns was well. The higher your NM, the better the returns.

So with 25 Transports in the Shipping Box with about 100 NM you should get about $122 each turn.

Raiders in the Shipping Box will reduce income greatly. I've experienced in a PBEM game losing upto a quarter to a third of shipping income per turn with between 3-6 Raiders in the box, IIRC. So if there are Raiders in the box, you dang well better send in some hunter-killer squadrons to chase them down

[BigDuke66]

Thanks, just wondering if the merchants also have a diminishing effect on the returns so that it may not be wise to add too many transports as there are 9 Union merchants squadrons by 63.

[Captain_Orso]

Thanks, just wondering if the merchants also have a diminishing effect on the returns so that it may not be wise to add too many transports as there are 9 Union merchants squadrons by 63.

Merchantmen are the same as Transports, only you get them through events and/or through options. IIRC buying Transports is cheaper then the option to requisition Merchant men, which costs money, so unless you are really pressed to have them--and I can think of very few reasons--always buy Transports. Plus, you can pull Transports from the Shipping Lanes to use them to transport troops for an invasion, and later return them to the Shipping Lanes.