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Let's take an example of a 3rd world country with some potential and I'll give you a walk-through on how to balance the economy and make it grow. This is a good example because it'll use most of the fundamentals of the economic system.

For our country we'll choose Botswana. Why? It has a lot of potential. It's small, poor, and needs a lot of work, but has some good sides. Notably: Precious Stones.

Note: if you need approval to win an election, raise healthcare and education for a couple months, then lower it after the election.

  1. Pause the game. We need to set everything up. If you are playing multiplayer, no biggie, but pause if you can.
  2. Stabilize inflation. The inflation rate at the start for Botswana is around 8-9%. If the inflation had been much higher, we would have raised the interest rate to very high levels, but for now we want it high enough to lower the inflation rate down to about 2%, so we'll start it at around 30%, then down tweak it to slow the drop of inflation when it gets down to 3% or so.
  3. Set all spending to highest except for Research, Propaganda, Health Care, and Education... set those to nothing. Research and Propaganda won't be required for a long time, and the other two are just too expensive right off. We'll raise those over time.
  4. Set taxes to 80%. Forget about the pain it'll cause your people, because you need the cash more now for their benefit. Your people will absolutely hate you for a while... but they'll get over it.
  5. Set the taxes on anything you can't produce (tobacco, fossil fuels, and plastics) to 30%. You can't hurt your production growth so you may as well benefit from what you can import. On the goods that you grossly overproduce (minerals and precious stones) set taxes to 50%. Everything else set to 10% so that you make a little, but leave plenty of room for growth. Early in the game very few sectors have market availability and you can get away with murder.
  6. At this point we are ready to unpause and let our massive changes work themselves out. Un-pause for a month (until February 1) and let's see what happens... pause at the start of Feb.
  7. Inflation down 2%. That's dropping nice and fast... in another month or so we want to start slowing it. Budget balance should be around 2.4 billion. We could make even more if we made our two big exports gov't controlled... but the free market is keeping the production from crashing despite our 50% taxes... so we'll leave it. Besides we need good relations with rich countries and becoming more leftist makes it hard. If you look at the graphs (the button on the middle of the bottom), you'll see that Telecom and Infrastructures are growing nicely, human development is starting to creep up, diplomatic relations shot up (thanks to foreign aid), and that approval started at 0% and is raising (to roughly 8%).
  8. You have about 200k in debt, but can easily pay that off with your income. Sit and wait. Pay off your debt. Monitor inflation. Debt will be paid off likely sometime in March. At this rate by June you'll have around 500 million bucks in cash... inflation will be between 2 and 3 percent and we're ready to slowly lower interest... and approval above 25%. You will be earning as much in tourism as you are paying out annually. Now is a good time to drop income taxes to about 75%.
  9. Let the simulator run 'til you get inflation in check and roughly stabilized.
  10. The immediate goal right now is to become a friendly nation to the world's rich nations... and to make yourself a viable investment option. Get corruption low, get stability high, get economic health high, and enact laws that are kosher with the world's rich dudes.
  11. Right click on the globe and change the Thematic Map to Diplomatic relations. Look around. Green means they like you red means they hate you. Most countries are mildly pleased with you... 30 or so in relations. We need MUCH higher than this to get aid. Under "Internal Laws" set freedom of demonstration to permitted and set child labor to not permitted. Click ok, un-pause, and watch relations. You'll have to click on another country and back to see the changes. Most of southern Africa hates you for the child labor law... and most of SE Asia hates you because of the demonstration law. However, North America and Europe are in love with you now... and they have the cash.
  12. Let things run for 2-3 months. You may need to drop interest as low as 0% to get inflation to hold steady. You should have a lot of cash on-hand. Let's spend all of that and take ourselves into temporary economic hardship so that we really look like poor bastards. Go to resources and go to Cereals (the most important). Spend all of your money increasing production. Spend until you are in debt up to half your yearly surplus. (ie: you can get out of debt in 6 months). This should take you from a major importer of cereals to an overall net balance. You are feeding your own people! You are also badly in debt. For now that's good.
  13. Now we go on a begging spree. Ask for economic aid. You want to get at least 9. Only 9 economic aids will assist you at a time, but you want a couple more in case someone backs out. What those do is for each one you have active the country pays for 10% of the cost of your expenses. This is government, education, health, environment, all of it. This is in cold hard cash that you can spend how you like. Ask all the rich nations to give you economic aid... a few might. Don't worry if a lot say no. After you are done asking let your economy run for a year. Get out of debt then continue down the food groups increasing production in the agriculture section. After a year or more go back into debt again and beg again. By that time your relations are higher, your corruption is lower, your stability is higher, and inflation should be in check.
  14. Once you have all that economic aid... you are home free. Spend like mad on your economy. Start with cereals and move down the list. Increase production until you are meeting your own demand. By the time you get to meats you'll start to see your countries per capita income grow rapidly. You'll also notice that by the time you finish the sector you are on you have to "touch up" the sectors you've already finished because they are growing. You shouldn't have to touch the services sector (and I wouldn't) they grow on their own when the HDL is high. Watch inflation during this... as growth kicks up you'll have to make adjustments.
  15. Once you have a powerful economy you can start to do some things you want. Conquer someone... purchase territories that produce plastics, tobacco, etc.... whatever. You've been spending a lot of money on foreign relations and you can likely conquer one nation without TOO much flack... especially if you pick one that is disliked. Find a country that produces any and all resources that you have a "0" production in. Since you don't have any research... build up a little cash and go on a shopping spree. Buy every tank and attack helicopter available... focus on quality artillery, anti-air, and infantry vehicles. Get at least 1/2 of the soon-to-be-annexed countries infantry. Train all of the vehicles to max... train the infantry to second degree. During this time you may go into deficit... this is acceptable as long as you can come out of it. Invade, conquer, annex
  16. Now you have a newly minted economy to re-balance.
  17. Now that you are strong and stable... raise research spending to max and leave it there. If your HDL isn't at 100 (and it should be close), get it there.
  18. Have fun!

This is Hail_Timmler's Guide to new players, by an experienced player. But before we continue, want to remind everyone I am using the Realism Mod, and anyone who wishes to follow my guide accurately has to download the Realism Mod before continuing. The link for the mod is here at Wikipedia.

Having said that, I hope you enjoy my guide and if anyone has any queries regarding my guide.

An excellent example of a Third-World country is Kazakhstan. It has an adequate population base and great economic potential. But, it's greatest advantage is its ability to conquer its surrounding countries in a quick sudden effort. It's other great advantage is to get an easy Alliance with the Russian Federation, who can pump out huge amounts of arms, at affordable prices, quickly. So, let's get started and follow the steps:

  1. Pause the game. Start setting your Interest Rate to 0.5, and Tax Rate to 49.9% as Kazakhstan needs money desperately. The general population will not enjoy this hike, but can be easily solved by legalizing Abortion, and Freedom of demonstration.
  2. Unpause the game and watch your cash flow. If there is still a money deficit (losing more money then you are gaining), then adjust the Budget accordingly. Wait about 6 months, then pause the game again.
  3. Don't set any global taxes to your economy. It hurts your people, economy, and is self destructive in my view. If you have the banked money to do so, increase production in sectors where you need it, but don't go too far into debt, because the more debt you have, the more money you lose off your income.
  4. It's time to start building a military! Train whatever military units and covert forces you have at your disposal to Level 1 Training. Buy some units on the international market, as Kazakhstan cannot build anything other then Infantry at the beginning of the game.
  5. Set the budget sections of Tourism and Foreign Aid to the most you can afford. If you have the Realism mod, expanding will be much easier, as you can simply trade land to surrounding nations for free, and then peacefully annex them. But, this takes all the challenge and fun out of it. If you want a challenge, do not do this, but realism mod is still worth downloading.
  6. By now, your general situation should be improving, and you should have an adequate military, a decent economy, and a good standing on the world political stage. It's time to invade Uzbekistan!
  7. Invading Uzbekistan shouldn't be hard if you bought a lot of Tanks and Artillery on the Global Market. Train them up, and attack the Western side of Uzbekistan. They should attack back, but if you have good long-range and armor superiority, then you should win. Having a good Anti-Aircraft capability doesn't hurt either.
  8. The international community will be a little pissed off with you, but it shouldn't matter. Invade, then annex Uzbekistan. Now, stabilize the political and economic scene in the country.
  9. You should now be a major power in central Asia. Secure an alliance with Russia, and you should be well on your way to becoming the world's greatest superpower!

Hail Timmler 2/1/07


Other Tactics.

A good tactic when you have completed the top article is to seize war-torn powers. I will use china as an example.

China is quite aggressive. In my game, they attacked many nations in quick succession. Obviously, the world didn't like this, so they retaliated. You would join the larger allied side against in this case, China. See, the other nations in the alliance will not invade China itself They defend against whoever china was attacking. Here, you would seize all of China. Annex it, and the world will not despise you, because in essence, you are doing them a favor. Rinse and repeat and you have conquered all.

Hogdriver155 4/2/09


Some Other Ideas

When starting your game be careful and pay attention to the diplomatic relations overlay the most. It will give you a very good overview of who to attack first if you are a country that must continue to expand. As a general rule of thumb is most of western Europe is an enemy of the nation it is safe to attack because if your relation are good enough they will come to your aid and if those relations are not that great, then you can expect to not see resistance.

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