Standard of Living
Standard of Living (SOL) is a comprehensive economy and balance overhaul mod designed for multiplayer and deep-strategy enthusiasts.
Our core objective is to fix the static pop demands of the vanilla game, introduce real macroeconomic dynamics, and heavily penalize brainless snowballing.
We achieve this while keeping the vanilla game mechanics largely intact, ensuring that meticulous strategic planning remains rewarding throughout the campaign. You don’t need too much learning before playing with this mod!
Note: This mod is a continuation and complete rework of two highly acclaimed but discontinued mods: the original SOL based pop demands and Antisnowballing (AS). Massive thanks to the original authors!
In vanilla EU5, pop demand for goods is entirely static from 1337 to 1836, with development being the only, painstakingly slow, changing variable. This creates two disastrous economic realities:
- Magic Money & Stagnation: The national economy is just a mindless expansion of RGOs. There is no concept of "wealth in the hands of the people." Nobles and Burghers can hoard infinite savings without ever injecting it back into the market (e.g., French nobles accumulating astronomical wealth).
- Massive Overproduction: Combined with vanilla’s insane labor efficiency per building, the world is in a constant state of overproduction. Players are forced to spam endpoint buildings (like Libraries and Universities) just to sink goods and raise prices—essentially creating purchasing power out of thin air.
We have completely rewritten the demand system. Pop demand is now dynamically scaled across three dimensions:
- Income-Driven Demand: Demand scales based on the actual income of each estate in every location (un-taxed profits + wealth lost to the populace due to low control). We use strict non-linear functions to ensure values remain smooth and realistic.
- Savings Pressure: Demand dynamically adjusts based on an estate’s current savings compared to the national economic scale. The more money they hoard, the more they spend! This completely eliminates the "infinite saving" exploit and forces wealth back into the market.
- Institution Bonus: As a nation embraces institutions, its population becomes more "enlightened," linearly increasing their consumption demand alongside economic growth.
This mod creates ZERO "magic demand." Every increase in demand means estates are spending actual ducats from their pockets.
Where to check this in-game?
1. Location UI: Click any location -> [Pop] tab -> A new UI is placed next to estate satisfaction. Hover over it to see local SOL and demand details.
2. Situation Panel: The "Standard of Living" situation triggers automatically in the second month, providing a macro view of your nation’s economic demands.
Because the SOL system injects massive capital back into the market, economic growth accelerates. To prevent instant snowballing, we integrated and polished the AS mod features:
- -15% Base Tax Efficiency: Vanilla’s positive tax efficiency means extra money comes from nowhere. Now, you must develop your economy to overcome this base penalty.
- Winter is Coming: Winter food production is severely nerfed (historically accurate). Don’t panic, the AI suffers too! Strategy: Lower food purchase spending sliders temporarily when starving; long-term, prioritize Food RGOs and Farming Villages.
- Scaling Age Costs: Building costs and food consumption slightly increase as Ages progress. High-tier roads are extremely expensive, and building in low-control areas incurs massive penalties.
- War is Poison to the Economy: Besieged provinces suffer devastating debuffs. War Exhaustion ticks up much faster, and you cannot use the cabinet action to reduce WE while at war. High WE destroys fort defense, until100% WE forces an immediate surrender. Endless wars of attrition are dead.
Due to the negative tax efficiency and harsh food mechanics, you will find economic growth in 1337 Europe very slow. This is historically intended (14th-century Europe was plagued by war, famine, and stagnation).
By around 1400, through careful management, most nations will break even with vanilla tax bases, and the SOL demand boom will kickstart strong economic growth.
Recommended Settings:
First Playthrough: Set AI to Normal.
Once Familiar: Highly recommend setting AI to Hard or above (the AI is much worse at managing complex economies than a human player).
The workshop page has a character limit, so we have prepared a detailed changelog:
Click here to read the Detailed English Changelog on GitHub[github.com]
点击查看完整中文修改列表 (GitHub)[github.com]
Bilibili Video Guide (Chinese)[www.bilibili.com]
We aim to provide maximum compatibility with other mods. We only modify pop demands and some economic definitions.
- Save game: Completely compatible. But you might need a long time before pop demand numbers stablize.
- Incompatible: Mods that rework pop_demands.txt file.
- Incompatible: Mods that alter the Location UI (Pop Tab). However, the demand scaling still works if other mods disabled my UI design.
- Compatible: Almost everything else. I haven’t notice any critical compatibility problem. Please report any issues!
- Prosper or Perish: PP is a huge overhaul of economy. SOL-based pop demands part of my mod will OVERWRITE PP. Pop demands for Victuals will be scaled. Other parts of two mods will be COMBINED. The only problem is that winter is really harsh for everyone.
- Improved Trade & Buildings: ITB focuses mainly on trades. SOL-based pop demands part of my mod will OVERWRITE ITB. Other parts of two mods will be COMBINED.
- 1.1.x Economic Overhaul: This mod largely reduced economic base of a country, and lowered trade maintain cost. The two mods have no overlap. Full compatibility.
- trade routes and canals: This mod only modifies roads. The two mods have no overlap. Full compatibility.
Credits:
Built upon the foundations of Standard of Living (Discontinued) and Antisnowballing (Discontinued). Thanks to the original creators! Feedback is always welcome.
Revisions:
Old revisions of this mod are available below. Click the link to download.
