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Post by Ymbert Montgomery on Apr 30, 2020 0:04:55 GMT
Note that
a) characters with outstanding debts will have a choice of which kind of convert it too. (Even both kinds).
b) Characters with an old style investment loan outstanding will not be subject to these rules. Only debts taken out after the rules go live.
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Post by gaston on Apr 30, 2020 7:25:30 GMT
Well, no character takes out loans in the expectation of not being able to pay them back. All it takes is a little bad luck to put characters in that position. I think what we'll find instead is that, rather than attempt heroics as a means of paying off the debt, players will despair of ever paying it off and suicide their characters first as last... 5% per month is far too high. If compounded (which is effectively what you are doing to debtors if interest continues to be charged on all outstanding principals plus interest) then that represents an APR of 79.59 % - making loans largely irredeemable I expect. Even the 2% per month I suggested constitutes an APR of 26.82%, while the 3% per month you say is the historical rate works out as an APR of 42.58%. Added to this a charge of 30% of the loan as a default fee suggests that there is no expectation of it ever being repaid - which is bad business for the Shylocks. (It reminds me of the Baby-Eating Bishop of Bath & Wells if you've ever watched Black Adder II. He hated it when people paid their loans back, much preferring an excuse to have at 'em with a red-hot poker ). A default charge of 15% with an annual interest of 2 (or max 3)% looks much more workable (and much less likely to increase the suicide rate) to me.
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Post by Yves Eau on Apr 30, 2020 8:26:52 GMT
I disagree. Under different rules, I have generally calculated loans so that the crunch would not come before the start of the summer campaign, then trusted to good fortune to repay them from loot. Jean-Paul Marsaud was a case in point. When his luck at the front was insufficient, he had to remain there. He probably could have paid the interest then returned to Paris for a short while, at least, though the cost of replacing horses rather weighed on him.
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Post by gaston on Apr 30, 2020 9:37:19 GMT
Er...so in other words you take loans out in the expectation of paying them back eventually.
QED
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Post by Ymbert Montgomery on Apr 30, 2020 9:55:03 GMT
Well, no character takes out loans in the expectation of not being able to pay them back. All it takes is a little bad luck to put characters in that position. I think what we'll find instead is that, rather than attempt heroics as a means of paying off the debt, players will despair of ever paying it off and suicide their characters first as last... I think people taking out loans of 800L to buy their ways up the ranks probably know death is a high chance. This would encourage characters to take out personal loans for those, leaving personal loans for investments. This is based on game logic rather than historical logic. Very few characters with personal loans will ever bother paying them back unless they have a windfall. As such, they're essentially free money. With a 5% rate it would take the Shylocks 20 months to recoup their investment. In game terms, that's a very long time; it's almost a year in real time. So to stop this being too good a deal a higher rate is needed than the historical figure. The 30% default charge only applies to investment loans. Where the Shylocks absolutely do expect those to be repaid on time without issue. It doesn't apply to personal loans which, as mentioned, many characters will take out indefinitely. I'm pretty sure that's more leniant than my bank charges for unauthorised overdrafts!
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Post by gaston on Apr 30, 2020 10:29:52 GMT
Maybe you should switch...
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Post by Yves Eau on Apr 30, 2020 10:39:12 GMT
Much has changed in the UK banking sector in the last year. Overdraft rates are now more punitive for pre-arranged overdrafts, as the banks are no longer allowed to discriminate in favour of "good" customers. A 40% annual rate is pretty normal, now. (Though some have reduced rates temporarily to help people struggling during the economic shutdown.) That is around 3% per month. I would expect the Shylocks, being shadier operators, to charge more, at least for the sub-prime loans we are considering here.
No: with the hope of paying them back. I relied on good luck; avoiding bad luck would generally not be sufficient.
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Post by gaston on Apr 30, 2020 11:18:06 GMT
But they're obviously hoping they'll survive aren't they? Otherwise there would be no point in submitting orders. So they are obviously hoping to pay back the loan at some point.
Well, let's check that logic out shall we? Let's take the guy who borrows 800L you mention above and say, for the sake of argument, that he uses it to buy up Captain in the DG (eventually) and purchase the 3 horses he needs. (Actual cost 790 L)
A Captain in the DG earns 20 L per month.
At 2% monthly interest he'll have to pay 16L of it servicing the loan but, hey, he has 4 L per month left over to put towards living expenses.
At 3% he needs to find 24L per month to service the loan, meaning that he needs to find 4L per month from somewhere in addiiton to covering living expenses. (Lets hope he gets an allowance from somewhere).
At 5%, he has to find 40L per month - double his salary - to service the loan, in addition to living expenses. If he doesn't have an allowance - and a good one at that - he's screwed. If he's one of the 1 in 3 characters whose fathers are impoverished, he's really screwed. (Actually, if he was getting a good allowance he wouldn't have had to borrow to fund his rank and horses. Let's face it, he's really screwed... )
Sorry, but game logic would seem to suggest that 5% is way too much.
They'd recoup the cash they invested when the loan was paid back. Until it is it constitutes an investment giving a return of 60% per year at 5%. Even at 2% the return is 24% per year, which is nearly five times what an investment in land could be expected to provide.
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Post by gaston on Apr 30, 2020 11:21:07 GMT
No: with the hope of paying them back. I relied on good luck; avoiding bad luck would generally not be sufficient. Same difference really. Your not taking out the loan with the objective not paying it back...
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Post by Ymbert Montgomery on Apr 30, 2020 15:10:10 GMT
But they're obviously hoping they'll survive aren't they? Otherwise there would be no point in submitting orders. So they are obviously hoping to pay back the loan at some point. To an extent I think this is a semantic argument. But I'd agree with Yves that there's a difference between "expecting" and "hoping". If you borrow money on the grounds you'll either strike it rich or die trying it's the latter. And when we have players who enjoy working out the odds on everything, I'm of the view that many of them are fully aware that their chances of surviving are less than getting a new character. The really obvious question here is why a character with a low allowance is taking a loan of 800L in the first place, to buy up as many ranks as he can in the most expensive regiment outside the actual Guards. If he limits himself to a loan of 400L a month and a Captaincy, that's 350L, leaving him 50L left of the loan. And 4L to find on top of salary, along with living expenses. In fact, from my perspective this actually strengthens my argument. It shows that loans are currently being taken as a gamble (a well-to do PC taking out 800L despite only having an income of 70 a month) rather than a loan. I think the disagreement here probably stems in least at part from more core disagreements about game elements. From this you seem to be of the view that the default should be for a military character to take out loans to the max and use them to get to the highest allowed rank in a regiment. I'm of the view that should be less the case, not more. On Impoverished characters, they're pretty screwed either way. This just means they have to make the decision on what to do earlier rather than in six months. Which is already pretty much what happens. Those PCs with a high Mil A tend to head for the front when they get the chance, those without it tend to find less expensive careers to join. That doesn't seem an issue to me; it makes sense that an improverished character would feel the need to go to the front. Less so than better off characters would treat doing so as a game of roulette. However, in real life terms that's ages. (We're about to come up to 18 months). A 5% loan would take 10 months of real time for the interest paid to reach the amount borrowed. A 2% loan would take 2 years and 1 month of real time. I can't promise anything (none of us know where we'll be in our lives in two years) but I'm at least hopeful the game will still be running. Still though, in practical terms, a loan that take 25 months before characters are out of pocket is pretty much going "here, have some free money". Even 10 months I think is pretty generous on that.
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Post by gaston on Apr 30, 2020 16:22:38 GMT
Two reasons:
1) 800L was the figure you'd previously mentioned
2) He wants to live long enough to pay off the loan.
Risk averse as I am, if running a military character I don't like sending him to the front with death mods of less than +4, no matter what SL he starts with. Usually that means a majority in the ALC or better - though the extra chances of mention and loot in the DG and KM (which now means the DG in Liminal since the KM rarely goes on campaign) are attractive if possible to secure. I guess the lowest 'safe' regiment in Liminal is the CPC, a Captaincy plus horses for which would cost 750 - but that would still require a loan of 800L while providing only 18L per month to service it.
How long (in either real or game terms) it takes for the amount of interest paid to equal the loan principle is pretty immaterial. Provided the lender doesn't die (or in fact, provided he doesn't die without sufficient assets to cover the loan amount) the Shylocks aren't bothered whether the loan ever gets paid off or not. An annual return of 24% per year (which is what 2% per month would bring in) is a good investment. An annual return of 36%, which is what 3% interest a month would bring in, is a great one. And an annual return of 60% per year at 5% per month is phenomenal - better than you could expect from Arms or Finance (what happened to the schedule for commerce investments, by the way?) other than in a very exceptional year, and better than could be expected from most foreign expeditions (with less risk to boot).
It's all academic for me (at least for the moment) but I can't help but feel that 5% will provide such a heavy ball and chain that it slows down characters' progress to an undesirable extent.
Anyway, we've been right around the houses on this one now, so I'll leave it there. Your call at the end of the day.
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Post by Ymbert Montgomery on Apr 30, 2020 17:07:07 GMT
I think you're right we've been round the houses on this, but just wanted to highlight something. Risk averse as I am, if running a military character I don't like sending him to the front with death mods of less than +4, no matter what SL he starts with. Usually that means a majority in the ALC or better - though the extra chances of mention and loot in the DG and KM (which now means the DG in Liminal since the KM rarely goes on campaign) are attractive if possible to secure. I guess the lowest 'safe' regiment in Liminal is the CPC, a Captaincy plus horses for which would cost 750 - but that would still require a loan of 800L while providing only 18L per month to service it. That is remarkably risk averse. But while it's +3, not +4, there's actually a way to get that +3 modifer at a lower level. French Guard (+1 Death Modifer) as a Captain. That's 290L including the Horse and gives you a +2 Death Modifier. However, the advantage of infantry regiments (deliberately, as it's the only advantage they have!) is a command position at lower levels. So you use Cautious tactics, bringing you up to +3. It's actually possible to get that up to +4; certain of our more cowardly PCs like using infuence to get their commanding officer to use cautious tactics as well. But we'll assume it's a +3. When we take into account the fact that we now have removed completely incompetent NPCs from command (MA 3 and above) I'm pretty sure that survival rates are better than they'd be in a standard game with +4.
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Post by huillaume on Apr 30, 2020 17:17:55 GMT
; certain of our more cowardly PCs like using infuence to get their commanding officer to use cautious tactics as well. Its not cowardy. A good officer cares for his men and does not want to have them killed.
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Post by gaston on Apr 30, 2020 17:33:23 GMT
...and probably the reason that I've _never_ lost a character at the front, without ever having to resort to poltroonery either (which can be a fate worse than death if caught...) Hear! Hear! Everything comes to he who...survives.
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Post by huillaume on May 29, 2020 12:31:13 GMT
Another question: Should someone tak at the 5% montly as told, when are this money paid (in the turn sequence)? - pre-monthly, at the same moment loans are taken/paid: if so, they are not paid the month taking the loan, but are the month paying it
- post-monthly : if so, they are paid the month the loan is taken, but not the month it is repaid
- other (specify, please)
And while not related, it's ald oabout money and turn sequence: should one character win the lottery, when in the game sequence is the money collected? Suggestion: post-montly, with battle plunder.
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