Suggestion: There should perhaps be a base chance for discovery on the "Import-Substitution Industrialization" invention.

[Xylephony]

At present ISI (under Government Inventionism in the Commerce tree) is only unlockable if you have an economic policy other than Laissez-Faire, or a trade policy other than Free Trade. I get why this is and it makes sense, however ISI is the only means to actually perform oil liquefaction which is a major source for oil lategame. I feel like there should be a 1% base chance on discovering the tech, so even laissez-faire nations will eventually, after a long delay ideally, get the unlock. Especially since the Market Functionality tree is basically useless after Market Regulations, it would make the tree slightly more appealing. The only risk is that coal liquefaction becomes so widespread that coal demand skyrockets to unsustainable levels, but we can test around that.

[ujtcelvn]

A 1% invention chance per month still leads to an expected invention time of 5.75 years, which isn't THAT long of a delay... If I moved the synthetic rubber and sulphur factories over to Market Functionality, would that make the tree more appealing?

[Xylephony]

Of course, though it might also limit long-term access to sulphur and rubber, and it doesn't actually make much sense unless their unlock chances were treated the same as ISI (in other words, mostly restricted to protectionist and planned economies). Economic theory works for ISI because it's an autarchic mechanism, but if the other two factories weren't treated as such then there'd be no reason for them to be housed under economic theory.

Is it possible to have unlock chances that are decimals? I feel like it's not and that it has to be whole numbers, but if not then a 0.5% unlock chance would be reasonable I feel.

[ujtcelvn]

their unlock chances were treated the same as ISI

I did do that, which makes sense for synthetic rubber at least. Sulphur should actually be a byproduct of fuel processing but I can't make a factory have TWO outputs....

A 0.5% unlock chance is unfortunately not possible, I tried.

[Xylephony]

Then yes I'd say having them in there makes the tree more valuable, though the fact remains that it's still extremely undervalued for nations which don't have protectionist parties in power. It's not exactly common, but it's also not rare to have laissez-faire parties dominate your government by that point of the game, to the extent that getting a different economic policy can be difficult.

I don't really know that there's a way to make those techs more valuable for laissez-faire nations in a way which is consistent with what the tech is meant to represent, though. Customs unions really got their start beginning in the late 1930s so I was thinking that Econometrics could be the requirement for proposing certain regional customs unions, but the benefit of that is also questionable I feel. If the reward is just a pittance of RGO throughput or tax efficiency it's not really worth even modeling, and in the former's case could even contribute to overproduction which we want to avoid. Maybe for Laissez-Faire nations that have Government Interventionism there could be a somewhat rare event to increase relations with another nation that has L-F and Government Interventionism, and the MTTH decreases with Econometrics? The 1900s through the 1930s was really primetime for the pre-WW2 interconnected global market, and bilateral trade relations and "economic diplomacy" was a much more pressing consideration at the time for whether military force should be applied in foreign policy. That's not exactly a great reward, but it's at least something unique the tree would do for L-F.

[ujtcelvn]

Maybe for Laissez-Faire nations that have Government Interventionism there could be a somewhat rare event to increase relations with another nation that has L-F and Government Interventionism, and the MTTH decreases with Econometrics?

This could work since HPM's democratic peace decision was removed anyways.

[ujtcelvn]

Event added.