As the second edition of the Unified Economic Theory, this new model draws upon some ideas from the first UET (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=85582), yet incorporates a number of new concepts and features that will allow for even greater conceptual coherence and gameplay feasibility. Thanks to all who posted and commented in the old UET thread. Your comments and suggestions were valuable and contributed to this new edition.

I will be developing the UET II with periodic modifications and new sections, so please check back occasionally! And, as always, all comments are welcome and encouraged!

Unified Economic Theory, Second Edition (UET II)

I. Commodity Production

A. Resource Production
The base of the economy is the working of regular terrain tiles, which yields food and shields. Each citizen working a tile will consume 1 food for sustenance, and then send any surplus resources to the city center for consumption or export.

B. Luxury Resources
Some tiles may contain luxury resources, which, when obtained, will increase the happiness of those citizens that consume it. Each source yields a finite amount when worked, and these goods are then sent to the city center. At the city center, the luxuries may be exported to boost the city’s income, or consumed through certain structures. For example, Incense can boost happiness through its use at a local Temple. If the luxury is not used through a certain structure, then it is distributed to the local populace through a Marketplace.

C. Strategic Resources
Another type of resource that may be extracted from certain tiles is strategic resources, which are required in the production of certain units and structures. Each source yields a finite amount of the resource, which is sent to the city center for distribution or export. Special structures (“Workshops”) are prerequisites for certain units and improvements; these special structures will demand strategic resources and require them to be functional.

D. Food Diversity
There is no standard food; instead, there are variations produced by working particular terrain types. For example, Grassland tiles will produce food as Wheat; Ocean tiles, however, will produce Fish as food. Since both are food, both can be consumed to sustain citizens and promote growth. A city with a greater variety of food, however, will be happier than one with less variety. In addition, certain manufactured food products require certain types of food. Food prices will depend upon supply and demand situations for each type of food.

E. Shield Diversity
There is also no standard shield. Although all types of shields may be used for the production of units and structures, Workshops may become more efficient at using certain types of shields. These abilities are acquired through sustained usage of a certain type of resource or through upgrades. When a Workshop uses a shield “efficiently,” it counts as double in the accumulation of shields to produce units or structures. Workshops will particularly demand shield types that they specialize in. The price of each type of shield depends upon supply and demand situations for that type of shield.

II. Trade and Markets

A. Trade
When surplus resources are sent to the city center, they are either consumed by the local population or exported for income. Generally, the local population will consume as much as it can of the resources it has produced, then export any surplus to nearby accessible cities that have unfulfilled demand. When other cities purchase this surplus, the city that sold the products earns income.

B. Markets and Transportation
When two cities are close enough to trade (this limit can be alleviated through rivers, roads, railroads, etc.), they are considered a market. The supply and demand situations in each market determine the price of the commodities for sale there. While early markets will only include a few cities, later markets can cover entire provinces and even entire civilizations. It is generally advantageous to develop larger markets, since the variety and supply of buyers and sellers increase. Since transportation determines the sizes of markets, building and improving the arteries of travel in a civ through construction and research can be very beneficial.

III. Finance

A. Taxation
As trade occurs between cities, local populations generate and accumulate wealth. This wealth may be taxed by the central government through a number of taxes of various rates. While the income tax is the standard tax, there are also population, commodity, and trade taxes to provide additional revenue. Since actual sources of income are targeted in such taxes, robust trade is generally necessary for healthy tax revenues. Heavy taxation will reduce the ability of cities to make purchases, thus damaging the economy, and light taxation will reduce the ability of the central government to make purchases, possibly threatening the maintenance of infrastructure and troops. A balance, adjusting to changing circumstances, would work best.

B. Tax Collection and Transportation
Tax revenues take time to reach the capital city, and this time depends directly upon the transportation available. Although tax collectors will not be visible on the map, they will essentially be traveling from each city to the capital to deposit their revenues. This process is automatic, but will further encourage improvement of infrastructure, as well as discourage early overexpansion, before proper transportation technologies have been researched.

C. Tax Collectors
The central government may also convert citizens to Tax Collectors, which increase the speed at which tax revenues are collected and deposited at the capital city. An extra Tax Collector in addition to the local tax collectors will double tax travel time; two extra Tax Collectors will triple tax travel time, and so forth.

D. Tax Collection and Provincial Capitals
Establishing Provincial Capitals may ease tax collection because revenues may be deposited there instead, speeding the collection process. These funds are only usable within the province, however, as opposed to the central treasury that may be used anywhere in the civ. The only way to “transfer” these funds to the central treasury would be through a special provincial tax. Notice that the player fully controls the provincial treasuries as well as the central, so that may not be necessary.

E. Negative City Accounts
When a city owes tax revenue but has no funds to give, its balance will become negative to indicate that when funds do arrive, they are to be directed toward paying the taxes that the city still owes. With no tax revenues collected, tax collectors would not deposit anything in the provincial or central treasuries, in this situation. For example, a city owing 5 gold but without the funds to do so would have a balance of –5, and the tax collector would have nothing to deposit (since there was nothing to collect). There is no interest, no bonds have been issued—in other words, this “debt” is more of simply a “negative account”—and once the city receives funds, the tax collector will be sent out with the amount owed to restore the account to a positive state.

IV. City Infrastructure

A. Public City Improvements
City Improvements may be constructed either by the central government or by the city itself. Should the construction be funded by the central government, the player may choose the rate at which it will be constructed, with a greater rate resulting in the project purchasing a greater number of shields per turn, and therefore costing more (but generally getting the project completed more quickly). Notice that a greater rate will not guarantee quicker construction, if all available shields have already been purchased. All public city improvements will draw their maintenance fees from the central treasury. The central government is free to sell or upgrade any such facilities, however.

B. Private City Improvements
Individual cities may choose to construct city improvements for themselves. In this case, the city will simply allocate any excess shields or excess funds it has to the project. The selected project will generally benefit commerce, education, or happiness, although the player may override and select a project for the city. Once completed, private improvements are maintained by the city, but may also be sold by the city in times of financial crisis, or upgraded when resources are available.

C. Transferring City Improvements
Control of city improvements may be transferred from the city to the central government or vice versa, according to the player’s directives. Although ownership primarily determines who is to pay the maintenance fee (improvements will benefit the city they are located in, regardless of ownership), it also determines who has the right to sell or upgrade improvements.

V. Science

A. Education and Scientific Progress
The education level (or literacy rate) of the population will play a central role in scientific progress. For the sake of simplicity, the Civ method of having beakers accumulate to create a scientific advance will be used; the beakers will not be generated from trade, however, rather from the collective level of education in the civ, enhanced by facilities such as libraries, universities, and research labs.

B. Trade and Scientific Progress
Trading with another civ that knows of an advance being researched will contribute beakers toward the discovery of that particular advance. Trade with another civ that is more scientifically advanced in a category being researched would also contribute beakers toward the discovery of an advance in that particular category, although to a lesser degree than in the above situation with a specific advance.

C. Research Facilities
Although an uneducated citizen will still generate 1 beaker, a Library will increase the per person output of the city the Library is in by 1 beaker, and the other facilities will have the same effect on the beaker output per person. The maximum number of beakers a single citizen can contribute (under normal circumstances) is 4 beakers. Scientific wonders and special funding can change this number.

D. Research Direction
When harnessing the beakers of uneducated citizens, the research goal may only be set as a category, and a random available tech in that category will be researched. Beakers from a Library can be directed toward a specific goal, however, and a University can also receive research funding from the central government to speed scientific discovery. The most advanced facility, the Research Lab, allows Researcher specialists to be assigned to the facility to enhance the Research Lab’s effects.

VI. Population Organization and Placement

A. Basic Unit of Population – the Village
The basic unit of population is one Settlement, which will be represented on the map as a cluster of houses taking up the space of one tile. These units are equivalent to the current citizen “heads” in Civ. However, each population point, initially, can only extract a total of three units of any resources from a tile. Each unit of population consumes one food for survival, and demands (although does not consume) one shield for purposes of calculating market demand. In addition, each Village has a “food box” of 5 food to fill before growing into two population units (spreading onto an adjacent square as another Village).

B. Cities
Although Villages may function separately, often they are absorbed into the cultural spheres of nearby City squares. A City square is any square that contains a City Improvement or Wonder. Primary differences between City and Village squares include the fact that City squares have City Improvements and therefore special advantages over less developed squares, and also that they generate their own culture (due to these improvements). A City is also on a higher level of organization than a Village, having its own administration, treasury, and cultural tag that affect units or products that originate from the City.

C. Provinces
Provinces are large tracts of land that are initially organized by the player, who selects the cities that are to belong in a Province. Provincial Capitals, however, function much like cities--they are the center of culture for that Province, and house the provincial administration and treasury. As a result, the designation of Provinces in the beginning is important, since later on any changes would be due mostly to cultural shifts, and while the player can manually change the provincial boundaries, culture would determine the ultimate result of such changes.

D. National Capital
The National Capital is generally the cultural center of a civ, and houses the central administration and treasury. Most functions relating to foreign civs will also generally be performed or accessed here.

E. Population Density
There is no hard limit to the number of population units that can occupy a single square, but squares will tend to house only one unit of population unless the square is being underutilized, or the population cannot find any empty land to settle.

F. Coastal Villages
If a population unit is using a water square, then the population itself will be housed on a coastal square closest to that water square being used. This is a special case of high population density that will be common even in the beginning of the game.

G. Workers and Settlers
Workers are special construction units that are essentially mobile Villages, except that they cannot grow. They still require food for survival and may indirectly contribute to the demand for shields in the area they are stationed, because terrain improvements do require shields for construction. Settlers, which use up only one population point each, are also comparable to mobile Villagers, except that they cannot grow and do not demand shields, requiring only food for survival. Their function is to found cities that are far away, and they are able to resist foreign cultures as well as the cities they originated from.

Here (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=2074277&postcount=25) is the rest of the summary.

My question is a general one that we don't need to answer now. We can answer it later, at the end, or as we go along.

The question is how much of this will be user controlled, and how much of this would be automatically calculated.

I mean, it would be cool to be able to distribute your resources -- consume, export, stockpile. And we might be tempted to give the user control over this. In fact, we might give them the power to control it seperately for each resource! But before we get carried away, we might heed the reality of Civ 4's design and realize that Civ 4 cannot and will not be more complex than Civ 3.

So the idea is to minimize the choice complexity, while still creating new strategies and cultivating stronger feelings of a living-breathing economy.

I agree with Dh-epic. The ideas presented are very good, but intuitively to me, it seems like there will be a lot of micromanagement as a result of these features' implementation, especially in the harder levels, where computers probably are more capable than human players of calculating the optimal combination of various types of food/resources to generate the highest happiness level, to speed up productions...etc.


Again though, the ideas are really good.

I'm not really a fan of the diversity aspects of food, shield, and luxury production. This adds too much of a micro-economic factor, especially with the workshops. However, the trade idea is the start of how I am planning ot present markets. I am currently writing up a long, but complete explanation of a simplified system based on UET. It'll be ready in a few weeks. Just for when you read this, most of these transactions are done behind-the-scenes and really cannot be manipulated by players.

Here is my take on markets.

Connection is defined as this, connected to another city by road, river, harbour, or airport. Connections can be routed through several mediums and cities.
A Market is all the cities that are connected. THere can be multiple markets, but usually from one of these factors. These factors can leave cities out of a market or seperate it.
1) Cities whose civs are at war cannot share a market.
2) Trad-embargoes leave civs out of markets.
3) Transport mediums can be disrupted, such as if airspace around an airport is not safe, or a harbour is blockaded. This limits connections.

Trading Food and SHields in a Market:
Cities have optimal amounts of growth they want to experience. They will sell off extra food if they can.
Cities also have a certain amount of industry they want. First, is enough industry to provide products to civilians. Second is the industry required for growth. Third is the industry required to keep the infrastructure maintained. Fourth is the industry required for major new projects and unit training. The only thing that actually uses shields is the main build, but the city will try to have the number that is made up of those four factors. They will try to sell extras and buy if under.
Whenever a city sells food or shields to another city, that other city sells , the consumer city pays the vendor city one gold per unit of food/shield. Also, both cities get one trade arrow per unit of food/shield that was traded. If the city cannot afford to get what it needs, then you will get a pop-up asking if you want to subsidize the purchase of the necessary food/shields for twice the gold per food/sheild.
Order of selling in markets. Cities will always trade within their civ, then whatever is left to foreign allies, then to foreign markets.
Supply and demand works like this. If there is more supply then demand, then the city with the most surplus supply sells its food/shields for 1 gold per unit. This is continued until demand is more then supply. If there is more demand and supply, then the price per food/shield is raised to 2 gold per unit. If enough cities drop out because they do not have the money, then all the goods are sold at that price. This is repeated at each level of the market, so international trades tend to be me much more expesnive then domestic, encouraging export industries.

Resource Trading:
I do not like the idea of a finite and quantiifed resources. Here is the system that determines how much you earn, or pay, for resources. This system also ensures that no one can horde resources, but they can make them scarce and expensive.
Here are some tenets of the system. It uses the connectivity rules discussed above. The amount of trade arrows generated per city is now equal to the amount of gold that shifted cities.

Resource points. Your civs uses resources for more then improvements and unit construction. Some resources are fuels for domestic and military use. Oil especially will require a ton of RPs per city. EAch city and your military will have a different RP need for various strategic resources. For lxuruies, you need one RP per citizen and certain number based on improvements, for max effect.
All trade of resources domestically is 1 gold per 'resource point' used. YOu might have to subsidize some of these purchases, but for the original prices.
Here is how international trade works. There is a market-wide RP demand, that is determined by adding up all the RPs of the consumer cities(non-domestic in most cases, and citeis that have domestic source of resource). Then you divide that by the number of the resource avaliable. The number is then compared to a table that determines the gold per RP. If cities can pay, good, if they can't, they then have to suffer the consequences of not being able to provide. Normal price subsidies really come in handy here.
Export control. If you own more then one of a resource, you can control prices by allowing more or less of them on the market. Sometimes you might have to lower prices to prevent a world-wide depression which might encourage aggressive action against the resource whore. It also makes early trading nations rich.

I Like point 7, It will give a reason to the player(human & AI) to build cities close together(invading each others work area) because it will provide a larger amount of income due that the cities are more than close enoughf or trade. This will benefit com civs, giving them more gold but less shiel production. OTOH ind. civs may want to not have their cities invading each others work area for maximun shield output, but this means that cities are too far apart from each other thus not allowing as much trade.
The Human player(along with non ind or com civs) may want a moderate distance in between cities to not have too few gold or poor shield production.

This Idea could also create true trade routes, since an invading civ mav want to destroy a road leading to a highly shield productive city from a oil rich city, thus halting the tank production.
Taking care of this trade route may make us build forts along side them to protect them.
A If a trade route passes trought a city(or next to it) the city will get some gold as result of it. How much gold could be calculated as percentage of the transaction taking place between the two original cities or empires. The same would hapen if a fort is build along the trade route, the fort would need to be x tile away form any city on the trade route and any other fort in those x tiles will not benefit from this, The gold generated goes directly to the treasury unlike the city where it goes to the city itself to pay for any maintenace cost.

Sea trade routes will be determine by the number of turns that takes the fastes ship from the civ in control of port-city A takes to another port-city B and substracted from the number of turns that it takes for the civ in control of port-city B to port-city A. This will simulate that in reality sea trading is prefered over land trading.
Land-Sea trade routes then could be acomplished here.


Now this hole thing will be thrown off if railroads are allowed to keep an infinite movement rate.

I'd really like to see trade routes be a bit more of a combination between Civ 2 and Civ 3. Civ 3 automatically builds the traderoutes, which I like, but I like how in Civ 2, you know where the trade route is and they are possible to intercept and loot. I couldn't tell you how to do it.

But don't let that stop me from trying :)

When you establish trade between your civilization and a rival, it actually gives you a few options for trade routes based on the cities closest to one another. It calculates benefits based on proximity and speed of the trade route, and also calculates costs -- of the boat, for example. You pick the route that yields the best benefits for the lowest costs. Build multiple routes if you want.

e.g.: it costs 20 gold to build a ship that will yield 12 gold per turn in trade per turn for both civilizations.

After that, a ship-unit moves back and forth between the two cities automatically. You can give it extra defence by reinforcing it with an actual naval unit. And if you're an enemy, you CAN, in fact, attack and pillage the route, taking tons of money with it.

To trade halfway around the world? Well, you can either manage a long trade route by yourself (expensive). Or you can split the cost and speed up the route by going "through" someone else. E.g.: Venezuela trades to Canada by going through the USA. This would allow USA to leverage its position in trading, and become more of an economic powerhouse.

This UET stuff brings out the most rambling in me :)

one question. one thing i see coming up in your points is that cities can have thier own treasury, how will that mater, because what one city buys from another, the same amount of money is in the government

The gold given to the city due to its position on the trade route will serve the city to pay of its immprovents, buy food/shields. The gold generated will only serve that city, making it powerful and important.

Were you talking about the trade routes or the UET II, ybbor?

I think Ybbor is right. I don't think I like the idea of cities having their own treasury and seeing if they can afford certain items, etc. I like the direction you're heading, Peror, but I'd like to take it one step further. It seems that you're adding a hint of the game Pharaoh (or any similar type game), and I like that. Using that, I think this is where you could go:

Assume that all citizens can afford and do purchase the necessities of life: food, clothing, shelter. Instead of deciding the demand of goods based on what the city can afford, merely have it based on the number and type of citizens comprising the city.

Have three levels of citizens (and perhaps any number of specialist types): the Wealthy/Land-Owners/Aristocrats; the Middle-Class/Merchants/Trade-Smiths; and the Poor/Servants/Serfs.

BTW, this is all taken care of AUTOMATICALLY by the game engine.

What determines the wealth of your citizens?

Simple: merely by what is available to them for commodities. Do they have access to only one type of food? Do they have access to dyed clothing? Do they have access to jewels? Do they have access to Cedar wood? You get the idea. Other factors would be infrastructure, security, and the type of facilities and entertainment available.

This is where additional strategy could come from for deciding where to place a new city (if, indeed, the Settler model is kept). If a city starts near richer resources, wealthier citizens will be attracted to the city and emerge (some citizens are assumed to take advantage of business opportunities and thus become wealthy by trading to other cities/citizens).

What player input is there?

The building of roads to help establish trade routes. The building of religious structures, statues, and monuments to make the city more attractive. The building of civic structures to ensure peace and prosperity. The building of services to provide education and other desired “commodities”. Provide military protection from outside threats and building military structures that make citizens feel safe to conduct business and live in peace.

How does the player/civ pay for all of this?

The player no longer receives Gold simply as a direct output from the city based on the number of citizens and gold enhancing structures. The player, based on technology and government type, sets a tax rate. Taxing wealthier citizens provides more revenue than taxing poorer citizens. The player, therefore, has incentive to provide certain services and protection to his/her citizens to ensure the emergence of wealthier citizens. Government type can play a crucial role in all of this. Heavy handed versus feudal versus free-market. Each one would have its advantages and disadvantages and would only be available to the player as social “technology” progresses to allow these various developments.

I want to expand upon the “varying” food concept because I think it is a very good idea and can provide a much deeper game experience without increasing complexity to the player. I’m not sure how varied you would want to make it, but you could split food into categories. Say, GRAINS, VEGETABLES, FRUIT, MEAT, and SEA FOOD. Icons on the map may now represent, not food bonuses, but the fertility of the soil/abundance of food. Natural meat supplies (fish, game, etc.) run out over time if citizens are using that tile for food (this would be most important in the very beginning stages of the game when farming and irrigation may not be known to your citizens yet). When the source runs out, it is replaced by a farm: Grain farm, Vegetable farm, Fruit orchard, or Animal farm. Coastal cities automatically have fishermen working sea tiles with Fish.

The player does not choose the type of farm. The citizens start the farm that is best for that tile (Plains terrain might best produce Grain; Grasslands, vegetables; and the Tropics, Fruit), all determined internally by the game (and adjustable in the editor). Each tile (as it does now) has a base fertility for supply of food. Icons on the map could represent especially fertile areas for certain types of farms. Any farms produced on these tiles would provide an abundance of food. Animal farms could be produced on just about any tile and would produce a set amount of food based on technology. The game engine would automatically produce the best (produces the greatest amount of food) farm for that type of tile.

(The "expensive" foods of fruit and meat could not be traded for great distances until the proper technology is reached. This would make city placement more important in the beginning. Later on in the game, desert cities like Phoenix could spring up because all necessary commodities can be brought in through trade.)

No longer is there a worker job of “Irrigation”. Citizens automatically produce farms -- as it should be! This, of course, would be a reduction of micromanagement. (As a side note, mines would also automatically be produced. Citizens automatically take advantage of economic opportunities).

So, the idea here is that citizens demand food and rich citizens demand a variety of food. Grains could be the cheapest type of food and supply all citizens. Vegetables and fish would be slightly higher and would allow for the transformation of Poor citizens into Middle Class citizens (based on other factors as well). Fruit and Meat would be the final level of food. It would provide more trade income than the first two (if excess is traded to other cities) and would allow the existence of the Wealthy citizens (based on other factors as well).

Technological advances automatically allow farms to produce more food. This would free up farm producing tiles for more productive ventures. In Civ4, you might now see tiles have “mini-cities” that produce x amount of shields because of local tool and dies, manufacturies, etc! Of course, the actual center, city tile begins to produce more and more shields as technology progresses. Industries/Factories automatically spring up to take advantage of new technology and supply of resources. The only way the Player builds these types of things is if his/her government is a command economy.

I LOVE this idea! It makes trade so much more important and gives a deep aspect to the “maintenance” of your citizens. You, as the player, ensure the establishment and security of trade routes so that your citizens have access to the greatest amount and variety of commodities. You provide the infrastructure for the safety and security of your citizens. You provide services for your citizens. And you provide educational and state-run entertainment for your citizens. All of it in order to care and coddle your citizens so that you may gain the max amount of tax income from the rich.

You could never have all rich citizens. The poor to middle-class would work on the farms, mines, and manufacturies. Each type of citizen would have its advantages/disadvantages and could be used for different things. Perhaps only poor to middle class citizens could be used for police officers. Perhaps a strong nobility could be extremely useful in a Feudal government and provide the best military for that era. Perhaps the poor make great military recruits. The possibilities are quite enormous and fun!

I think all of this would provide a much richer Civilization gaming experience.

Working Tiles and Shield Production

I think it can be fun and is important that players still choose which tiles citizens work. What determines what is produced on that tile? At first I thought it should be automatic, but then I began to realize that this would take too much control away from players, many of whom cherish the ability to tweak things just so.

My thought is that (based on technology), the player clicks on a tile for a citizen to work. Each time he/she clicks, the different possibilities are presented. Will it be farmed? Will it be mined? Each click shows you the food/shield result.

I’m trying to think about the production of shields and how that can relate to the game in the way that food variety could. I think it would be interesting to not have shield production directly dependant on the base resources of a tile and whether or not it is mined. It would be more interesting to see that because there is a supply of lumber, iron, copper, stone, etc. that artisans spring up in your city who produce x number of shields based on technology and the type of commodity supplied. In this way a locally resource poor city could be a big producer if it merely has an influx of the necessary resources.

Resource tiles (like Iron, Limestone, etc.) would automatically be mined if worked (that’s how the resource is obtained!). The amount of shields produced in that city would be determined by technology and the number of artisans/middle-class workers you have in that city. As industrialization takes place, even poor citizens contribute to a total increase in shields(instead of farms-food) (they work in the factories!).

These are all just random thoughts and would need some fleshing out.

one question. one thing i see coming up in your points is that cities can have thier own treasury, how will that mater, because what one city buys from another, the same amount of money is in the government

Exactly, but trade also generates 'trade arrows'(or whatever they are called in Civ 3, i just forget). This way internal trade between the food and production rich cities helps civ. Also, the amount of gold left after trading could be fed into a 'civilian wealth' model that could easily be used for seperatism and regionalism models. The point is that even internal trade costs money, and makes one city richer then the others. This will also feed into my full 'simplified UET model' based on trade that I will eventually finish writing, which includes an extensive section on population migration, of which wealth would be a factor.

Actualy, after reading Colonel Kraken's ideas, I now feel like introducing a possible migration model. If you feed the Colonel's food ideas into the desirability model(as you will see), it coudl make for really interesting planning.

Here is it

First I will discuss the population migration model:

*Concept) Cities will naturally have a limit to which they want to grow. This limit is based on technology, infrastructure, and the local economy. Whenever this limit is passed, citizens will attempt to migrate to a city that fits their needs. For migration purposes, nation pride weighs in heavily whether a citizen emigrates or migrates. If no city is found, they will make the difficult decision to form a new city(i.e. a settler).

*Technology Population Limit) As technology progresses, cities can support more people and products comfortably. Such technologies as Construction, Engineering, Sanitation, Steam Power, Motorized Transport, etc., will increase this basic support limit. I'm not going to list what this number is after each advance, but it shoudl probably start at 1 or 2.

*Facility Population Limit) The presence of certain facilities in a city adds to the amount of people it can support, the quantity of jobs it creates, and the overall desirability. Example of the second and third would be Cathedrals and Temples, which create an economy based off of increased religion(Roman city of Corinth is a historical example). Example of the first would be Aqueducts and Hospitals.

*Citizen Needs) Citizens in a city have certain basic needs. These numbers are just suggestions for right now. All citizens need food, so two is the default minimum. All citizens need shields to represent production of goods for consumption. The amount of shields needed would increase over time. These shields are still used for production, but must exist in sufficient quantity to satisfy citizen demand. Example: There is five citizens in a city, who each need one shield of production. The city produces ten shields a turn. Ten shields will go into the current construction project. However, if the city only produced four shields, one citizen would not have their basic product need met.

*City Desireability) All cities have a different level of desireability. Food of course is a give, the more extra food, the more desireable. Production is another, since the more production per citizen, the greater amount of products they will have. Commerce per citizen represents trade and income potential. Luxuries and facilities also factor in. If a luxury is local, it is valued even greater because of its cheapness. Facilities add in desirability points. Each city then calculates its desire ratings. The process to rank cities with the same desire rating is currently unknown to me, but it should involve culture and proximity to cultural sites.
New Edit: Greater product and food variety would really be important to add to desirabiliyt. Also, gold per capita would be important, making export cities very valuable.
*Migration) Citizens will try and migrate under certain conditions. First, they are unhappy and over the optimal population limit. Second, their basic needs are not being met. Third, another city has twice the desire rating of the city they are in and is not at or over the population limit. Whenever they do migrate, they will try to migrate to the best city they are connected too. Since multiple citizens will want to move to the best cities, the pecking order is domestic worst city, domestic cities, international worst city, international cities.

*Immigration/Emigration Policy) You would have some control of citizens going in and leaving your borders. You can set quotas on immigration from specific civilizations and limits on emigration. Of cours your immigration/emigraiton policy may make you unpopular with other civs.

*City Growth Policy) You would have some control of whether cities would try to do with growth. You could tell cities to Encourage Growth, Encourage Migration, or Encourage Stability.

*New Information) Each turn you would get a summary of the total amount of domestic and international migration. You would also get a summary of growth in your cities, so you could change policy whenever you needed to.

*Edit in - Urbanization) Toward the beginning of the Industrial Era, small cities will start to drain more into large cities with market connections.

*Edit in - Suburbanization) Toward the end of the Inudstiral Era, the wealthier elements of a wealthy city will go to suburbs. These are like cities, in that they are captured seperately from the main city and experience disorder seperate form the main city. They are special in that they are max size three, and only keep the food they produce, for shield and gold they pool with the cities resources and act like they are part of the city. They will still collect the majority of the gold as the wealthy sector. Modern cities will be limited to a certain size in the urban center, but can have suburbs anywhere in their cultural borders, but must be adjacent ot hte city or the cities suburb. Also, Metropolises in the suburban stages can work any tile in the cultural borders of the city.

For what it's worth, I think the extra food supplies could be accomplished as luxuries.

Most civilizations are based around some kind of grain. Rice in the east, wheat in the west, and corn in the new world, just to name a few.

Everything beyond that is gravy. That is, everything beyond that is a luxury.

Certain kinds of meats are a luxury.
Certain kinds of fish, fruits, even vegetables are a luxury.

You could actually simulate the effects pretty well in Civ 3. Make said tiles provide extra food, as well as providing a luxury. If you expand culture and trade in Civ 4, you can make "Japanese Fish" and "Brazillian Fruit" have specific cultural value, to the extent that people in America are demanding said wonderful luxuries!

For what it's worth, I think the extra food supplies could be accomplished as luxuries.

Most civilizations are based around some kind of grain. Rice in the east, wheat in the west, and corn in the new world, just to name a few.

Everything beyond that is gravy. That is, everything beyond that is a luxury.

Certain kinds of meats are a luxury.
Certain kinds of fish, fruits, even vegetables are a luxury.

You could actually simulate the effects pretty well in Civ 3. Make said tiles provide extra food, as well as providing a luxury. If you expand culture and trade in Civ 4, you can make "Japanese Fish" and "Brazillian Fruit" have specific cultural value, to the extent that people in America are demanding said wonderful luxuries!

Yup. That could work too. :D

Culture could be another thing gained in trading. Everytime a Luxury product of Civ A is sold to city in Civ B, the city in Civ A earns a Culture points. Major trading cities would blossom early on.

Also, in Civ now a city remember how many culture points of each civ it has for flipping reasons. Civ A could also put a unit of culture of Civ A in the Civ B's city. Trading cultures that invade other cultures would inherit partially familiar cities, rather then completely hostile and alien cities.

Culture could be another thing gained in trading. Everytime a Luxury product of Civ A is sold to city in Civ B, the city in Civ A earns a Culture points. Major trading cities would blossom early on.

Also, in Civ now a city remember how many culture points of each civ it has for flipping reasons. Civ A could also put a unit of culture of Civ A in the Civ B's city. Trading cultures that invade other cultures would inherit partially familiar cities, rather then completely hostile and alien cities.

Intriguing idea. Oooh, I'm loving the game depth being discussed!

Firaxis, you watchin'? :mischief:

Oh hell yes. I think trade and culture are hugely related. Once your products become world reknown, people get up and demand it: Columbus in search of Indian spices and Chinese silks, or American kids frothing at the mouth for Japanese Video Games.

There's one strategy to breaking down a foreign nation with embargoes, bans, and tarriffs. But the other strategy to bring down a foreign nation is to bring your culture to their doorstep -- adidas, pokemon, MTV, SUVs, it don't matter. Hegemony in the house, playa!

Psychic spies from China
Try to steal your mind's elation
Little girls from Sweden
Dream of silver screen quotations
And if you want these kind of dreams
It's Californication

It's the edge of the world
And all of western civilization
The sun may rise in the East
At least it settles in the final location
It's understood that Hollywood
sells Californication

Pay your surgeon very well
To break the spell of aging
Celebrity skin is this your chin
Or is that war your waging

First born unicorn
Hard core soft porn
Dream of Californication
Dream of Californication

Marry me girl be my fairy to the world
Be my very own constellation
A teenage bride with a baby inside
Getting high on information
And buy me a star on the boulevard
It's Californication

Space may be the final frontier
But it's made in a Hollywood basement
Cobain can you hear the spheres
Singing songs off station to station
And Alderaan's not far away
It's Californication

Born and raised by those who praise
Control of population everybody's been there and
I don't mean on vacation

First born unicorn
Hard core soft porn
Dream of Californication
Dream of Californication

Destruction leads to a very rough road
But it also breeds creation
And earthquakes are to a girl's guitar
They're just another good vibration
And tidal waves couldn't save the world
From Californication

Pay your surgeon very well
To break the spell of aging
Sicker than the rest
There is no test
But this is what you're craving

First born unicorn
Hard core soft porn
Dream of Californication
Dream of Californication


Is this the new anthem of this idea or what?

Not getting off-topic, however, it is not necessarily related directly to UET.

I would like to see industry structures. For instance, the base unit could be riflemen (or infantry). This would mean that whatever becomes this would be the base unit for earlier ages. In order to produce any other units, you would have to build a structure allowing those units. In addition, you could make it that these structures automatically produce units at a fixed rate (for instance 1 horseman every 5 turns) and have a significant upkeep. If the owning player no longer wishes to produce the 'specialty' unit, he could stand down the structure to a lower cost or sell it to the city for a one-time benefit of gold.

This would much better simulate the actual production of nations in wartime footing. If you want tanks, you have to have tank factories, if you want bombers-bomber factories, etc. The only units you would get to build or draft would be the base units (e.g. spearmen, pikemen, musketmen, riflemen, infantry). All other units would have to come from the production structures. Making the upkeep of the structures a significant cost would prevent most players from trying to build all structures in all cities (they simply can't afford it!).

WOW! :eek:

What a wealth of responses! I will start from the beginning and try to answer all posts, although this may take several installments. Please be patient with me!


@dh_epic and ShadowWarrior:

You bring up a good point in mentioning that this intriguingly complex model would be unmanageable without a sleek interface and careful implementation. This is true, and I have thought about this, however, and my answer is that the player will only be responsible for the "big picture." In other words, the computer will take care of the actual, individual trades and deals, but only in the circumstances the player provides. The way the computer will figure the optimal combination (and I have thought about this process, which will not be as complex as it seems after I explain it later with a Comprehensive Example) will not be an advantage for the AI, because the player must use it as well. The difference lies in how the AI decides to allow these trades to happen compared to the way the human player allows trading to happen. Let the computer take care of the details and figure out the optimal combinations; but let the rulers decide how much configuring is possible.


@Sir Schwick:

As I read your introduction, I notice that you have grasped one concept that will make the UET II much more manageable than it seems--most of the details are calculated behind the screens. The player needs to worry only about broad policy, and the AI will have no advantage in its ability to work out optimal combinations, since that is not the player's responsibility and wil be handled automatically by the "private sector."

As for your market definitions, I agree with all of them, but I would like to add that I define the maximum distance in movement points, so two cities sufficiently close even WITHOUT roads may still be considered connected. In addition, researching technology that increases the effects of roads, as well as upgrading them to railroads, will benefit trade.

The trading and resource ideas are adequate simplifications that I would be content to see in the next Civ, but they do not represent what I regard as ideal. But realistically, I would not mind Sir Schwick's simplified UET for Civ4 at all! :)


@EddyG17:

Very true! The UET II does indeed allow for the physical presence of trade routes (which I shall explain in greater depth later), and guarding these trade routes is critical.

I am glad that you understand that I implied that cities will have their "own" treasuries. This is essential for the concept of taxation, which I shall post shortly.

In addition, railroads will NOT have infinite movement points. I currently imagine them to be using 1/9 or 1/10 of a movement point. That detail can be refined later, however.


@dh_epic:

I consider trade routes to be a byproduct of trade, rather than something that is manually and deliberately constructed. I do think there are many exciting possibilities with your system, however, so I will see if I can work them into the model I am currently considering. I will be posting the section relating to trade routes soon, hopefully.


@ybbor:

As EddyG17 has mentioned, the city treasuries are independent of the central government. This will make more sense when I post the section on Taxation.


@Colonel Kraken:

I have played Caesar III (which is similar to Pharaoh, and, by the way, 1602 A.D.) and I think that model is excellent as an approximation of economic effects, but not necessarily the actual flow of the economy itself. Please allow me to explain:

If mere access to a greater variety of commodities will create a wealthier class, what intuitive limit exists to prevent one unit of commodity from enriching large numbers of citizens? Such a (currently hypothetical) situation would not be reasonable, especially if it made no difference whether 1 or 100 units of a commodity were available to a market.

I believe you noted, however, that I mentioned that a greater variety of food commodities, regardless of amount, would increase happiness. I am not refuting myself, however, because the happiness benefit is immaterial, and therefore can be considered qualitative. With variety increasing the wealth of citizens, however, is mixing the qualitative aspect of variety with the quantitative aspect of actual wealth.

For example, a more Pharoah-istic model might have a city of 5 with 3 types of food have 3 wealthy citizens. This means that the wealth of the city has incresaed by 3. Yet if the actual food is considered, how can 5 Wheats be considered greater wealth than 2 Wheats, 2 Fish, and 1 Cattle? The answer obviously depends upon the prices of each commodity. But that theoretically means that with the greater variety, the wealth might actually decrease, if the Wheat cost more than both fish and cattle. If all food prices are uniform, then 5 of any food is just as valuable as 5 of any other combinatinon of food. These quantitative concerns have led me to having greater variety increase happiness (proportionally), so that the benefit of greater variety remains, but the quantiative loopholes with calculating wealth are eliminated.


Anyway, time runs short for me, so I will continue this discussion with you a little later, Colonel Kraken. Even though I have highlighted a possible shortfall, your model still has many benefits that I would hope to work into the UET II model.

I find the food ideas intriguing. I don't think that game found on a tundra square should run out/convert to farm since that wouldn't be consistent with real usage of tundra. If there is game on a non-tundra forest tile, there should be a chance that the game will run out each turn after the forest is cleared. If it is left as forest, the animals should stay.

Chocolate (cacao) should be added as a luxury/food.

@Colonel Kraken:

I am glad that you find my food diversity idea appealing. I had two purposes behind it--allow for more robust trade through increasing the variety of commodities available, and through encouraging economic diversification.

I was thinking of dividing the food types by terrain, so that terrain diversity would be beneficial, and eventually no particular terrain would necessarily be "better" than another. (By the way, I also decided upon shield diversity to solve the problem of Civ players always eventually cutting down every tree in sight).

I like the idea of worked tiles automatically building tile improvements such as roads, irrigation, and mines over time. Although the worker should still be able to perform such functions, they would only be used in special cases, since it would be a waste of effort to manual build if it will automatically happen.

I also agree that technology should improve productivity, although the amount and whether upgrades are necessary are debatable.

As for the player choosing tiles to work, I think it should be possible, but be rather costly, since it would be a forced moving by the central government. While I will better explain my Urban Sprawl model in a later section, I will simply mention, for the moment, that the player would order a citizen on the map to "unsettle," move the citizen to the desired location, and then "settle" to begin working the tile. Clearly such moves would waste at least 2 turns that could otherwise have been productive for a particular citizen. In addition, tile improvements built by citizens but then abandoned when the citizen moved out would begin to deteriorate after a number of turns from lack of maintenance. Only manually constructed improvements will not deteriorate even when not worked, because they will incur a small maintenance fee!


@sir schwick:

The idea of gaining culture through trade is an excellent idea! I do not necessarily think it should be limited to "luxuries," however, because luxury status has been quite relative throughout history. (Is salt as valuable today as the salarium of ancient Rome? Likely not.)


@rcoutme:

The idea of production facilities is one of the main features that distinguishes the UET II from the first UET. I am surprised and glad that you have already picked that up! :) I will include more detail in a section later.


@ManofMiracles:

With what I currently have in mind, no resource would be exhaustible (the rare exceptions, such as oil, may be discussed perhaps later). Therefore, Tundra would provide Game for as long as the forest survived. In fact, it would be a specialty of tundra--food from Grasslands would be Rice (?) and food from Plains would be Wheat, so the Game from Tundra would actually be quite valuable if it was in much smaller supply than Rice or Wheat. The same applies for shield production--only Forests can supply Wood, so they are still valuable in the face of more plentiful Stone from Hills or Mountains.

I ran out of space on the original summary post, so here are the rest of the sections:

VII. Culture

A. Levels of Culture
The levels of culture in a civ depend upon the levels of population organization in the civ. For example, a civ with only villages a few cities would have only some local and mostly national culture, while a civ with villages organized into cities organized into provinces would have local, regional, and national culture. Having more levels of culture, however, does not increase the actual amount of culture in a civ; having more levels simply increases the cultural resilience of components of the civ when threatened by other cultures.

B. Source of Culture
The fundamental source of all culture is the urban infrastructure of a civ, specifically the City Improvements that generate culture and the Wonders. The placement and concentration of these buildings ultimately determine the cultural patterns of a civ.

C. Culture and Trade
Trade is critical not only for the wealth it produces but also for its ability to spread a civ’s culture to other cultures. When a foreign culture consumes the products of a civ, then the foreign culture becomes more tolerant toward the civ’s culture, a factor that can make cultural domination, diplomatic relations, and even military conquest easier.

D. Culture and the Military
Since all units are derived from the population, and all population units have culture, military units also carry the cultures of the population from which they were recruited. When dealing with foreign civs, this usually only involves national cultures, but stationing troops to quell rebellions or resistance in provinces or cities of the same civ can involve exchanges of local and regional culture. In any case, culture spread through the military, unlike trade, does not always increase toleration. Generally, if a military unit’s culture is stronger than that of the culture the unit is occupying or suppressing, then the military unit’s culture will become more tolerable to those conquered. If the occupied population’s culture is stronger, then there will be significant resistance, both militarily and culturally, against the military unit. One important exception to these two rules is when a military unit pillages or otherwise destroys improvements or any part of the population being occupied--in these cases, the victimized population will also resist.

E. Cultural Rebellions
When a portion of a civ is sufficiently overwhelmed by a nearby foreign culture, it will attempt to “flip” over to the foreign culture. To do so, this portion rebels against the civ it is currently part of, and as soon as peace is made between them, the rebellious portion becomes a part of the civ that overwhelmed it culturally.

F. Cultural Adherents and Sympathizers
When a nearby foreign culture is stronger than the culture a Village is originally part of, the Village can become tolerant of that culture, and eventually even become an adherent of that foreign culture. In the case of scattered Villages, these adherents would immediately join the admired culture. However, with Villages part of higher administrative organizations such as cities or provinces, the entire city or province must be overwhelmed for a switch of political allegiance, which would involve a Cultural Rebellion. Even with such non-independent Villages, a cultural “conversion” is still possible. In such a situation, the Village would become a “sympathizer” with the foreign culture that it admires, but would remain under the political control of the original civ. Note, however, that war against the admired foreign culture would spark a rebellion among these sympathizers, and any propaganda efforts on the part of the admired foreign culture are much more effective in areas with many sympathizers. Considering such possibilities, these intercultural elements of the population would significantly influence diplomacy.

G. Immigration
When immigrants settle, either in a different part of their native civ or in a different civ, they carry their culture with them. Within a civ, a lot of immigration could promote cultural unity, and with foreign civs a lot of immigration could increase the number of sympathizers in that civ.

VIII. Crime

A. Crime and Economic Conditions
The fundamental cause of crime is unsatisfied demand. This occurs when there is not enough money to purchase needed commodities, and tends to be a result of poor economic conditions in a city. When a city's income and production are too low to supply its population with the goods that it demands, then crime may occur as the products are simply seized. If food is too expensive, crime may occur as food supplies passing through a starving population are seized. In addition, high population density and unemployment contribute to crime. Depending upon the level of trade-related improvements in the city, crime can also damage city infrastructure, resulting in the diversion of funds for repairs.

B. Crime and Markets
With crime, a certain percentage of demanded or traded products are "stolen" and then either consumed or sold. If sold, then these products still affect supply and demand for the concerned commodities, and affect pricing.

C. Crime and Government Regulation
Crime does not affect the net economic activity of a city nearly as much as it affects the ability of the government to regulate trade. The primary distinction between crime and normal trade is that crime is illegal, and that it is therefore not subject to government interference in the form of taxes or regulations. In other words, crime is much more damaging to the government than the population.

D. Crime and Social Disturbances
Crime increases during periods of social turmoil, such as during civil disorder, rebellion, or anarchy.

E. Crime and Citizen Unhappiness
Crime causes unhappiness according to how many citizens are involved in crime, and how many citizens are affected by it. The percentage of affected citizens unhappy is the percentage of the population involved in crime. Usually, this means increasing crime leads to increasing unhappiness; at very high levels, however, unhappiness may actually decrease, as the number of criminals outnumbers the number of non-criminals. The criminals are not distressed by crime!

F. Crime and the Black Market
Crime associated with a particular item is a function of that item's unsatisfied demand. The greater demand that is unfulfilled, the higher the percentage of that product illegally traded. Smuggling is crime that crosses borders. With drug and arms trading, the clients are those citizens with unsatisfied demand for those products, and the suppliers are foreign citizens that produce the desired products and then sell them to the clients. Since the products are most likely banned or otherwise regulated, but are being traded illegally, all of this counts as crime.

G. Reducing Crime
Education, police stations, and courthouses can all decrease the level of crime in a city. The base percentage of criminals in a city is the percentage of traded goods stolen in a city. Education reduces the pool of potential criminals, and police stations and courthouses reduce the percentage of stolen traded goods.

IX. Corruption and Waste

A. Corruption and Government Revenue
Corruption, primarily a function of political efficiency, occurs as a certain percentage of government revenues is diverted. These funds go back into the city, but are only used for illicit purchases. Therefore, corruption contributes to crime.

B. Corruption and Political Conditions
Corruption also increases with civil disorder, rebellion, and anarchy. Since only corruption is directly related to government, distance from capital (and/or Forbidden City) and number of cities only affect corruption.

C. Reducing Corruption
Courthouses and more efficient government forms are the primary ways to reduce corruption; sometimes, reducing the number of tax collectors can also cut down on total corruption, since the percent of taxes siphoned away with corruption is based on the amount of tax each tax collector collects. With an insufficient number of tax collectors, however, tax collection and receipt may become somewhat sporadic.

D. Waste and Economic Output
Waste determines the percentage of base production that is actually successfully manufactured without defects. Regulating waste is therefore important for economic production and activity. In addition, waste can manifest as pollution on squares close to their sources. Although waste is always dumped onto unsettled squares first, too much waste and overpopulation could force waste to be dumped onto settled squares, with social consequences such as health deterioration.

E. Reducing Waste
Waste is primarily a function of technology. Higher technology results in lower waste, although higher education levels can also help.

I don't know if a game like (and on the scale of) Civ can handle (or would want to handle) taxation on several levels or in several different types.


Yet if the actual food is considered, how can 5 Wheats be considered greater wealth than 2 Wheats, 2 Fish, and 1 Cattle?

I think you misunderstood me concerning how citizens become wealthy. This is not what happens in Pharaoh. As the variety of food increases (along with more infrastructure and facilities!), wealthier and wealthier citizens move in (and come into existance?). If only wheat is available (no matter the quantity!!), you will not see wealthy citizens. If Wheat and Fish are available, you will see well-to-do citizens. If you have Wheat, Fish, Meat available, some of the wealthiest citizens will be satisfied --and I emphasize: AS LONG AS OTHER FACTORS ARE PRESENT. (entertainment, jewels, beer, education, courts, temples, etc). Blending this concept into Civ, I think, would make the game very interesting.

I'm not saying the model I presented (or from Pharaoh) is optimal, it was just an idea. I believe we are actually on the same page. The idea is simply that wealthier citizens desire a greater variety of commodities (as you suggested!). If these commodities are not available, wealthy citizens will live elsewhere (or not come to exist).

I know this is simplistic and may not benefit us for the Civ game. I don't like, however, merely having more variety of commodities only affect happiness. I think it would be interesting to make it necessary for there to be a variety of food and an influx of luxuries (and access to desired facilities, entertainment, etc!) in order for a city to maintain (and attract!) wealthy citizens. I think that would just add a wonderful richness (no pun intended) to the game.

I'm liking the ideas that are coming out, here. And yet, I can't help but think that many tax rates would really mess up the game. Would it be any less complicated if there were three modes for any resource / luxury?

- free market
- taxed
- illegal

So you could tax greek silks, or all greek luxuries, or all foreign silks. You could tax tobacco within your own borders, and make all opium illegal.

And because these laws change so very little in reality (although the tax rate varies a lot, which we make no distinction over) it would be the kind of thing you could decide on once and leave alone for centuries.

Or is this still too complicated?

@Colonel Kraken:

Sorry for misstating the Pharoah link (it just shows how long I have not played it…), but I think you have grasped the essential problem I have with that model anyway—the fact that wealthy citizens “move in” upon supplying food variety and other accommodations. While this works well within the context of Pharaoh or Caesar III, where the player is controlling one city out of many, in Civ what the players have IS all there is in the world (barbarians are a different matter for a different discussion).

I do agree that wealthier citizens demand greater amenities and will move to where such amenities are available if the need arises for them. I will discuss this further when I post my section on immigration.

Anyway, I think ultimately we have something very similar in mind. It may simply seem that we are currently thinking in different directions simply because I have not quite decided how I want demographics to be worked in yet. Notice I have yet to say anything about citizens being designated as “wealthy” or “poor” or any other class. This will require some thought. Any new suggestions, even as I consider your current ones, are welcome!


@dh_epic:

It seems as if I have not presented my taxation concept correctly, for I think I have confused you (and Colonel Kraken as well). Please allow me to clarify.

There basically will only be one tax rate, most likely the income tax, but the other taxes and their rates are there if the player wishes to derive more revenue. In addition, the option of having the specialized taxes gives players another tool to influence conditions for their civs. It is perfectly possible (and probably much safer) that players maintain a single, reasonable tax rate and then spend accordingly, rather than invite fiscal chaos and economic instability with wild and impulsive tax policies. Yet in emergencies, players may find special taxes to be invaluable. In any case, I think more gameplay options, especially for experimentation, would enhance the strategic depth of Civ.

Here is some elaboration on my taxation concept:

VIII. Taxation
As trade occurs between cities, local populations generate and accumulate wealth. This wealth may be taxed by the central government through a number of taxes of various rates. While the income tax is the standard tax, there are also population, commodity, and trade taxes to provide additional revenue. Since actual sources of income are targeted in such taxes, robust trade is generally necessary for healthy tax revenues. Heavy taxation will reduce the ability of cities to make purchases, thus damaging the economy, and light taxation will reduce the ability of the central government to make purchases, possibly threatening the maintenance of infrastructure and troops. A balance, adjusting to changing circumstances, would work best.

IX. Tax Collection and Transportation
Tax revenues take time to reach the capital city, and this time depends directly upon the transportation available. Although tax collectors will not be visible on the map, they will essentially be traveling from each city to the capital to deposit their revenues. This process is automatic, but will further encourage improvement of infrastructure, as well as discourage early overexpansion, before proper transportation technologies have been researched.

X. Tax Collectors
The central government may also convert citizens to Tax Collectors, which increase the speed at which tax revenues are collected and deposited at the capital city. An extra Tax Collector in addition to the local tax collectors will double tax traveling speed; two extra Tax Collectors will triple tax travel traveling speed, and so forth.

XI. Tax Collection and Provincial Capitals
Establishing Provincial Capitals may ease tax collection because revenues may be deposited there instead, speeding the collection process. These funds are only usable within the province, however, as opposed to the central treasury that may be used anywhere in the civ. The only way to “transfer” these funds to the central treasury would be through a special provincial tax. Notice that the player fully controls the provincial treasuries as well as the central, so that may not be necessary.

XII. Negative City Accounts
When a city owes tax revenue but has no funds to give, its balance will become negative to indicate that when funds do arrive, they are to be directed toward paying the taxes that the city still owes. With no tax revenues collected, tax collectors would not deposit anything in the provincial or central treasuries, in this situation. For example, a city owing 5 gold but without the funds to do so would have a balance of –5, and the tax collector would have nothing to deposit (since there was nothing to collect). There is no interest, no bonds have been issued—in other words, this “debt” is more of simply a “negative account”—and once the city receives funds, the tax collector will be sent out with the amount owed to restore the account to a positive state.


Here is a portion of Section I. that I would like to add:


I. Resource Production
…
In order to be consumed or exported by the city, the goods have to be delivered there; this causes a delay in the arrival of the goods at the city from the time they were produced. Therefore, far-flung cities should be avoided in the early stages of the game to avoid inefficiency, and improving transportation infrastructure becomes very important.

While I agree that more tax rates offer strategic depth, you have to concede the possibility that many people aren't interested in it, not to mention that players who master it will have an advantage over those who show no interest. Adding more options doesn't give more freedom, to point out the paradox of making gameplay more complex.

I think there needs to be a middle ground for warmongers who just need their economy to roll so they can build troops, not for those who want to build an economic powerhouse.

Your points are well taken, dh_epic. Perhaps some may not find the taxation concept interesting enough to engage their attention. Therefore, possibly having it set as an option might be better (I am beginning to notice how this is proposed to fix just about any problem! :D )

The fact that players who learn to master this will be better than those who do not does not bother me to any considerable extent, however. Certainly players who have explored their options more extensively and found more tools for success should be thus rewarded. This is the case in all games, in any case, including Civ. If I mastered tech brokering, for example, and competed against a player that did not, then I would certainly have an advantage.

I do understand your point regarding whether the taxation idea is interesting, however. This I do not know, but I for one do not find tech brokering to be particularly entertaining or relevant to the role the player assumes in a game like Civ. Yet rulers, in reality, are expected to have financial policies that include taxation.

By the way, I notice that Civ currently offers no inherent rewards for being a builder, but plenty for being an expansionist warmonger. Might it be too much to include this domestically-aligned concept to start balancing the scales? ;)

Here are some possible sections regarding city improvements:

XIII. Public City Improvements
City Improvements may be constructed either by the central government or by the city itself. Should the construction be funded by the central government, the player may choose the rate at which it will be constructed, with a greater rate resulting in the project purchasing a greater number of shields per turn, and therefore costing more (but generally getting the project completed more quickly). Notice that a greater rate will not guarantee quicker construction, if all available shields have already been purchased. All public city improvements will draw their maintenance fees from the central treasury. The central government is free to sell or upgrade any such facilities, however.

XIV. Private City Improvements
Individual cities may choose to construct city improvements for themselves. In this case, the city will simply allocate any excess shields or excess funds it has to the project. The selected project will generally benefit commerce, education, or happiness, although the player may override and select a project for the city. Once completed, private improvements are maintained by the city, but may also be sold by the city in times of financial crisis, or upgraded when resources are available.

XV. Transferring City Improvements
Control of city improvements may be transferred from the city to the central government or vice versa, according to the player’s directives. Although ownership primarily determines who is to pay the maintenance fee (improvements will benefit the city they are located in, regardless of ownership), it also determines who has the right to sell or upgrade improvements.

Trade-peror, I'd be the first to endorse this idea for its ability to make a "builder" strategy interesting and rewarding... You never hear anyone say "maybe this expansion thing is the wrong strategy". I'd like to see a game where there are multiple equal strategies to win, multiple paths to victory that are equally profitable, with advantages and disadvantages.

But forcing someone to master a strategy that they don't find interesting is a surefire way to lose them, and kill off a huge part of your audience.

The tech trade strategy is annoying, I agree. But it's easy to learn and makes perfect sense right off the bat. The learning curve is very natural. You start when you realize you can make a lot of money off a tech, and move very quickly to "tech brokering".

Forcing the player to grasp the drawbacks and benefits of taxation is not something that comes naturally. Therefore, it has a steeper learning curve. And, for any interface, the steeper the learning curve, the more important it is for the user to be highly motivated to learn. (e.g.: people don't want to have to read a manual to learn how to program their VCR timer, but they WILL spend years mastering photoshop. one is clearly more engaging than the other.)

We need to find something that pleases us without alienating everyone else.

Trying not get off-topic, but I have point out, that these ideas (whether good or not) are questioning some basics of the Civilization. Namely, that there is no real private/autonomic/automated civil sphere in the Civs. All activity is controlled by the player or the AI. so, any radical trade and social reforms in Civ4 - if it is to be more REALISTIC - would mean that thousands of units (caravans, wagons, cargo ships, freight-trains, aircrafts, camions; immigrants, mercenaries) would move autonomusly (either invisible or visible); and dozens of private facilities would appear and disappear independently in your cities. It seems to be hardly available in a turn-based game, which grasps more then 6000 years and the whole world.
Anyway, food diversity, more tile infrastructure and trade routes are very intriguing ideas. i think, the creators of Civ4 should study the system of Caesar III, SimCities and Stronghold. Some parts of the foods variety (and commodities)were already included in SM's Colonization; and some parts of deeper tile infrastructure were included in SM's Alpha Centauri, not mention Civ1 and caravans.
Still, some vital questions are to solve:
immigration,
economic concessions in an other civ's territory,
smuggling,
social circumstances (like the Alpha Centauri's social engineering chart - as in many threads mentioned)
demographics (birth rate is determined by much more factors than food)
interceptable trade routes
raw materials processing facilities (thus making a cities production independent of shield amount in radius).
religion

some of these themes were spoken of here in this thread, but I am afraid, that the programmers won't change the basics of Civ, so leaving the game in a state of command based civilizations.

@dh_epic:

Of course, I must concede that taxation may indeed be uninteresting to some, but I had envisioned it as simply being a tool in time of need. Perhaps if I described the interface a little, this may appear less complicated:

Most likely there would be some kind of advisor in charge of finances, and the tax screen could simply list all the different types of taxes possible in the game, with checkboxes next to each one. In the beginning, only the Income Tax would have a check in the checkbox, and the player can set whatever rate might be suitable for the Income Tax. Perhaps the rate at which it starts is already a good one, so the the player leaves it alone, and does not bother about the rest of the taxes. It is a simple principle that taxes sap money from the cities, and the cities are the ones that fuel the growth of the civ.

If later, a war breaks out, the player may decide to raise the Income Tax level. Should the player also want to limit trading with the offending nation, perhaps a Tariff could be checked and imposed upon that nation's goods, or an Embargo. These measures would allow the player to raise more revenue and to punish enemies.

Or, the player may want to start a massive expansion program. Noticing that the largest cities have overflowing treasuries, the player may check the box next to the population tax, set a rate, and thus fund the construction of improvements in smaller cities.

In any case, taxation really requires very little management, since it is not a constant game concern except in special situations, and the entire procedure is a matter of clicking checkboxes and then setting rates for those checked taxes. There would be some column that would show how much could be raised, and perhaps figures like the treasury amount and current flow of funds would be available for easy comparison and planning.

some of these themes were spoken of here in this thread, but I am afraid, that the programmers won't change the basics of Civ, so leaving the game in a state of command based civilizations.

I think most of us in this thread have this concern as well. We would like to have the issues you bring up be addressed in Civ4 to add more depth to the game. But, I'd dare say, most of which we are discussing here is merely smoke in the wind. I fear also that all the basic tennants of the game (build Settler, make city, build improvements, food=pop, etc.) will remain virtually unchanged and only new "revolutionary" ideas will merely be pasted on top of this. In effect, I see that Civ4 will be "Civ3 Revolutions" or some such, where the new game is merely an expanded and revised version of the first.

Regards,

CK

The UET sounds a bit like the Caesar game series. And yes, that did require a huge about of micromanagement.

@Colonel Kraken:

I think you have grasped the essential problem I have with that model anyway—the fact that wealthy citizens “move in” upon supplying food variety and other accommodations.

I do agree that wealthier citizens demand greater amenities and will move to where such amenities are available if the need arises for them. I will discuss this further when I post my section on immigration.

Notice I have yet to say anything about citizens being designated as “wealthy” or “poor” or any other class. This will require some thought. Any new suggestions, even as I consider your current ones, are welcome!


As I thing about the matter more deeply, it seems to me (and I had actually considered this as I was writing it out) that you are correct: allowing for wealthy citizens only when there is access to certain amenities is not a good model for Civ.

Certainly, wealth is always a relative matter anyway. Locally one can be considered wealthy, but when compared to those in other societies (or even in the same one), they may not seem wealthy at all.

I think it would be fun and maybe even essential to have this distinction of class or wealth, as it were. Different strata of citizens demand different things and have different expectations --in addition: a more prosperous citizenry brings in more tax revenue. There's an added incentive here to ensure the safety, security, and infrastructure for a prosperous society.

The advantage of a wealthy citizenry is a stronger tax base. The downside is that such citizens have many more expectations and are more difficult to keep happy. This could have a BIG influence on war weariness. Lose the variety of food/luxuries/infrastructure and the citizens became discontent. Having a feudal society may not be as prosperous but it may have the added advantage of having little war weariness. Basically, the ideas that exist now, but in a more hands on, in-depth level.

I'm not sure at this point what game mechanic(s) determine how citizens become wealthy, etc. Perhaps things like Government type, Economy type, infrastructure, trade opportunities, local jewels/precious metals, government policy, etc. I think this sort of thing would bring out a much richer Civ experience, allowing the player to see and understand more clearly the different effects his/her policies and decisions make on the citizenry and the nation as a whole.

The UET sounds a bit like the Caesar game series. And yes, that did require a huge about of micromanagement.

I think the idea here is that we add some of these in-depth concepts to the Civ game without necessarily having the player worry about every aspect of it. While certainly these builder type games come with a lot of complexity, I believe it is merely a result of the narrow scope of the game and not necessarily because the concepts exist.

The ideal, then, is to add some of these concepts in such a way that they add to the Civ experience but do not burden the player in minutae and do not steer the player away from running the nation as a whole.

We could make it like the city-governors in civ.
I didn't know a bout them until i clicked in the green face icon by mistake. (not true)
What I'm trying to say is that at the start of the game every thing will be already set out, tax rates polices, Not too high, not too low. Only if you think you can do a better job than the computer is doing for you then you go ahead and mess around with the financial advisor.

I think the idea here is that we add some of these in-depth concepts to the Civ game without necessarily having the player worry about every aspect of it. While certainly these builder type games come with a lot of complexity, I believe it is merely a result of the narrow scope of the game and not necessarily because the concepts exist.

The ideal, then, is to add some of these concepts in such a way that they add to the Civ experience but do not burden the player in minutae and do not steer the player away from running the nation as a whole.
One of the biggest complaints about the present game is the need to MM every city every turn in order to win at the highest levels. If some of these concepts were introduced you would just be trading a concept like corruption or happiness for the individual wealth of citizens. Either way, in order to success at the highest levels, you will probably need to do some sort of MM.

@Sir Bugsy:

Colonel Kraken has expressed my take on the UET's level of micromanagement well. In many cases, micromanagement is due to faulty implementation of concepts, rather than the concepts themselves. My main idea in reducing micromanagement in concepts with a lot of depth is to have the computer always and automatically find the optimal settings for the player, but only in the conditions that the player has made possible. This way, players cannot be performing the tedious minutiae, but can still directly influence the development of their civs.

I do also see the very valid point that automation does exist, but the higher-level players will nevertheless micromanage. My method of preventing that is simply NOT ALLOWING players to directly control anything lower than the general policy level. For example, the player will not need to go through every city to ensure that tiles are being used properly when growth occurs; the citizens will not even be movable unless it is directed to unsettle, move, and then settle again, thus making this micromanagement not worthwhile for its steep costs. However, the control has not been eliminated, because the player still has the option. Basically there will be no more "tricks" to get more out of your cities; every move is legitimate, known, and will have appropriate costs and benefits.

In addition, I am actually not too sure hwo the citizen wealth factor will work yet. Any suggestions would be welcome!


@EddyG17:

I do envision a system of management that has vaguely the same concept as city governors, although it is not the same because the city governors in Civ actually govern policy. The type of automation I would tolerate is, in Civ for example, the moving of strategic resources to all connected cities, rather than the player moving caravans around.

I'm liking the general direction, but just throw up one more new but still related cautionary note...

There are interfaces with a learning curve and those without. War is very easy to understand and has a simple learning curve. Not to mention people are highly motivated to learn because, well, it's war, and pretty much everyone thinks war is really interesting. Hundreds of Hollywood movies can't be wrong.

Economics can potentially have the worst of all worlds. It's hard to understand how the economy works, and hard to understand how giving a tax cut to the rich could stimulate your whole economy, as much as understanding how imposing a tax on a foreign resource could make you an economic powerhouse. To make matters worse, only a select few are highly motivated to learn. People love money and that can motivate them, but playing with the economy for a lot of people is like looking for porno in your high school biology text book: somehow not as fulfilling as you hoped.

But the key word is "potentially". There can be improvements to the economic model that make the learning curve less steep, to make it more fun to want to learn, or both.

Automation is not a solution. If someone who keeps getting their butt kicked wants to know how they can get ahead, and someone tells them "master your economy", you can practially hear the disappointment coming out of their ears.

But I'm not against this idea in the least, I really want someone to make it work.

There are many strategies in Civ that take a bit to master, but they are easy to grasp or seem highly appealing to learn, or both. We can take cues from past Civs as we imagine our ideal Civ 4.

@dh_epic:

Once again, I find your points to be valid, and it is unfortunate how economics is sometimes difficult to grasp, and only a few will bother to try beyond the first attempt.

I rather suspect that the general population may not seem interested in economics simply due to its lack of exposure. A typical student, for example, will not even encounter an economics class until the 12th grade in much of the U.S.! Many subjects take a long time to "sink in," and exposure when young appears to play a role in making this process easier.

Anyway, I mention automation only for those who complain the UET may be too much work for the player in terms of micromanagement. As I have explained in the previous post, there will be a degree of automation that is built into the game, just as in Civ, where the player need not manually move strategic resources around due to automation. This "built-in automation" should cover enough levels that the player only needs to set policies and not have to constantly tackle specific tasks.

As for "mastering the economy" as advice, I definitely agree that it would be most unhelpful and discouraging, to say the least, especially as the word economy has almost a bad connotation when it comes to management. However, it need not be that way. For example, if someone is "getting their butt kicked" due to a chronic shortage of money, then the answer could be raise taxes. Or have new taxes. Or sell off improvements. All of these possibilities should be quite intuitive, and one major advantage is the connection to reality, where all of these possibilities are real and in fact have been tried out throughout milennia of history.

Looking at a bit of history, in other words at the record of human behavior, players should be able to see many strategies that the ancients used successfully (and not so successfully) have similar effects when applied in a historically authentic game! Then would players truly feel as if they are making history, in the "historical what-if" game of Civ.

Back more directly at the topic at hand, the only alternative I can think of, as I have mentioned previously, is to allow "Advanced Taxation" be the feature that would allow this level of depth. Though I am not too fond of the idea of making every controversial idea an option, I suppose it would not hurt.



EDIT: How about the three sections I have proposed regarding city improvements?

Wow, heavy thread. I haven't worked through all these ideas, but thought I'd comment on one thing: people keep mentioning the need to avoid "complexity". Now, I understand the point of avoiding micromanagement, but I LIKE complexity - at least to the extent that it means a deeper gaming experience. I really don't agree with the "rule", that I guess comes straight from Firaxis, that CIV 4 can't be any more complex than CIV 3.

I realise that one risk with complexitiy is that it makes the game harder to learn and could turn off the newbies. But this could be handled by having the higher game levels reflect increasing complexity (and not just cheating by the AI). I suppose it would be a hassle to program, but it would be great to have additional layers of complexity come in at higher levels. And as someone above said, you might find that as the mental gymnastics get harder, the computer gets an advantage - well that's fine isn't it - if it is also related to going to harder levels?

So I say let's push for increases in complexity, and only avoid increases in micromanagement. And I hope Firaxis is listening.

Whew, I think you have something Lewsir. But I'm worried Firaxis won't see it that way. There's already a low enough probability that they'll take any idea on these forums. That's why I'm trying to follow "their vision" as much as possible when I come up with ideas.

Just throwing out something here,

A good economic advisor could be a huge benefit. "Sire, Germany has much more money than us!" "Sire, we recommend raising taxes on a luxury." Or even "Sire, Germany's oil is outselling ours!" "Sire, we recommend lowering the price on our oil." When you put it in simple terms like that, even the average player can get into the game. The user is encouraged to try playing with the tax rate, and they experience small rewards for it. This can lay the foundation for them playing with their economy more and more as they try to get more advantages.

Or maybe I'm just getting my hopes up.

What happens when you have a command economy (change gov type to communism)? Or is the civ system already a command economy?

I agree that complexity should not be analogous with complicated. A complex trading system could be implemented, providing that the player need not make more than one or two decisions in a game then they do now. Also, a good complex system should offer the player a way to further define their strategy. A good example is Medieval: Total War. The combat and strategic systems are both full of complex ideas and interactions. Also, there are multiple strategies, some of which cancel out others. I understand how to play MTW, but I am always learning new things.

OK T-P, I have FINALLY had a look at your new UET, and I MOSTLY like what I see, but would like to add the following 'caveats', if I might:

1) I think that resource consumption by a city should depend on the 'wages', 'working hours' and 'Rations' that you set in the 'empire manager' (think CtP I and II), this average would then be varied by 'government type' and 'demographics'! If an 'Environmentalism' SE setting is incorporated, then this will effect consumption as well!

2) Although I agree with 'resource diversity' I think it can be a little less 'specific' than you want it to be. For instance, with food, you could have 'marine produce', 'cereals', 'livestock', 'fruits and vegetables' and 'forest products'! For shields, it might be 'metals/alloys', 'stone/minerals', 'rare earths', 'wood/pulp' and 'forest products'. What proportion of each type of shield/food you have would depend on what proportion of your shields/food you were deriving from a specific tile! For instance, a city surrounded by hills and mountains might have lots of 'stone/minerals', 'rare earths' and 'metals/alloys', as well as a small amount of 'livestock' and 'fruits/vegetables', but be lacking in 'wood/pulp' and 'forest products'. A city with lots of the latter would earn a great deal more money than trading to a city with equal or greater amounts of this produce!

3) Connected to (2) I still feel that vectoring shields and food is a very good idea, and that a city's food/shield diversity will be reflected in the diversity of the 'central trade pool' which, in turn, will effect the value of shields/food in international trade!

4) As I have said in your previous UET, I think that especially rare shield/food types should act as 'pseudo-luxuries'-in that they generate happiness if delieved to a city that doesn't have any of them! So, for example, you vector 3 units of 'forest product' shields to a mountainous city-boosting happiness there by, for example 6%! This might work as the first 4 units of an 'exotic' commodity will each boost happiness by 2%, and the following 4 units will boost it by 1% each! After a city is recieving 8 units of a resource, it is no longer considered a 'luxury'! The pseudo-luxury status of exotic commodities will, however, effect the base price asked and offered for it!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

@Lewsir:

I very much agree! Complexity, as long as it is not cumbersome and tedious, is what separates the excellent games from the mediocre, for depth and replayability are the hallmarks of games worth playing for years to come.

Of course, as a veteran Civ player, I could handle more than newbies, but it would obviously be a mistake to alienate such a substantial share of the market. Therefore, lessening micromanagement will be key. Such a goal is not easily reached, however, and I recommend modifying core concepts to allow for streamlining, rather than trying to fix fundamentally flawed features.

That is why the UET II is necessarily so radical in concept. I doubt that Firaxis would adopt the UET II in its entirety, but I would expect ideas here to seep in eventually.


@dh_epic:

YES! A powerful economic advisor (perhaps even split into tax, infrastructure, and foreign trade advisors) would be essential for newbies to more quickly pick up the nuances of the economic engine. Although I am confident that basic concepts should not be too difficult to understand (especially because reality may be used as a reference!), the advisor could help players develop deeper strategies.


@GeZe:

The Civ economy for certain is a command economy as it stands. In the context of the UET II, however, a command economy would still keep players from managing the lowest and most tedious levels of their economy, for the sake of reducing micromanagement. While that is more of a topic of governments in the context of the UET II, to be discussed in greater depth when I find time to posts sections on the matter, I would say for the moment that a player that uses a command economy would not have to deal with the "private sector" mentioned throughout the UET II, in that the private and public (player-controlled) sectors would merge.


@sir_schwick:

I completely share your view that complex is not synonymous with complicated, and the former is most desirable for offering strategic depth and abundant replayability.


@Aussie_Lurker:

Actually, the idea of wages, working hours, and rations rather reminds me of the Pharaoh and Caesar series. The problem with incorporating some of the concepts from those games into Civ is that Pharaoh and Caesar are narrow in scope and historical focus, but Civ needs to be general enough to cover the whole history of the earth. Therefore, wages and working hours may be too specific for the ruler of an empire to set for all of the individual production facilities under his general jurisdiction. The concept of modifying rations does not even apply in more modern eras. It would be very interesting, however, to somehow generalize such considerations and apply them to Civ!

As for resource diversity, I actually do not want specific products (for the same reasons of scope mentioned above), but I am just using specific names to represent broad categories of products, in that familiar names such as simply "wood" and "iron" may be easier than saying "forest products" and "iron alloys" (considering there is "pig" iron, cast iron, steel, etc.). In Civ, I assume that "spices" covers cinnamon, rhubarb, peppercorn, and whatever other spices are used for similar purposes.

Cities with different products would naturally benefit more greatly from trade than cities with similar products due to the mechanism of supply and demand determining price. I doubt a hard-coded rule needs to be imposed to allow for such effects.

As for the idea of rare food types acting as “pseudo-luxuries,” I am currently thinking of having the variety of food commodities affect happiness, which means that your idea is indirectly implemented, in that increasing the level of rare food types would most likely boost the variety of food in a city anyway. In addition, my suggestion avoids the rigidity of having to designate what and how much food is considered rare. Also, I am thinking leaving the price level to be determined solely by supply and demand. Other factors would influence the price through modifying either demand or supply.

Here are some new proposed sections concerning scientific advances:


XVI. Education and Scientific Progress
The education level (or literacy rate) of the population will play a central role in scientific progress. For the sake of simplicity, the Civ method of having beakers accumulate to create a scientific advance will be used; the beakers will not be generated from trade, however, rather from the collective level of education in the civ, enhanced by facilities such as libraries, universities, and research labs.

XVII. Trade and Scientific Progress
Trading with another civ that knows of an advance being researched will contribute beakers toward the discovery of that particular advance. Trade with another civ that is more scientifically advanced in a category being researched would also contribute beakers toward the discovery of an advance in that particular category, although to a lesser degree than in the above situation with a specific advance.

XVIII. Research Facilities
Although an uneducated citizen will still generate 1 beaker, a Library will increase the per person output of the city the Library is in by 1 beaker, and the other facilities will have the same effect on the beaker output per person. The maximum number of beakers a single citizen can contribute (under normal circumstances) is 4 beakers. Scientific wonders and special funding can change this number.

XIX. Research Direction
When harnessing the beakers of uneducated citizens, the research goal may only be set as a category, and a random available tech in that category will be researched. Beakers from a Library can be directed toward a specific goal, however, and a University can also receive research funding from the central government to speed scientific discovery. The most advanced facility, the Research Lab, allows Researcher specialists to be assigned to the facility to enhance the Research Lab’s effects.

Great thread!

What I miss in this theory is an elaborate concept of unemployment.

In Civ3 unemployment is at best represented by waste (inefficient shield output), corruption (inefficient trade output), government (variable output on tiles) and resisters (angry non-priducing citizens) in occupied territories.

I would like to see all this consolidated in an unemployemnt rate displayed in the demografics chart. This rate effects the output rates of production, trade, science, luxury and food. But of course not so that 30% unemployment cuts 30% of income. That is way too hard.

I think it can work this way:
The unemployment rate has a general drive towards 0% for each turn that passes, but there are a number of things that can make the unemployment rate increase, such as: (these are just suggestions)

- Sudden break in trade deals.
- Long term use of producing growth (not buildings or units) in the cities
- Loss of special resources
- Incredible rapid population growth in highly developed cities
- Destruction of city improvements
- Rapid changes in taxation
- Rapid changes in spending
- ???

This will work as an incentive to plan and think many moves ahead, but I don't want this effect to be very influential in the game play. One should be aware of the dangers of getting a too high long term unemplyment rate, though, such as unhappyness and all that comes with that.

Wow, it just so happens that I have a spare second right now to look at CFC (I have been away for months), and the UET remains! :eek: :)

Anyway, I have heard from others wanting to introduce a definite factor of unemployment. I, however, consider this is to be more of a resulting statistic than an actual economically significant factor. Please allow me to elaborate:

It may appear that unemployment is a factor unto itself. For example, when Wall Street hears that unemployment has increased, stocks fall. This, however, is not due to some factor called "unemployment" that is causing damage. The fact that unemployment increased simply signals the fact that population growth has outpaced economic growth, or that the economy is not vibrant enough to support the current population, or some other economic/production problems. These factors causing unemployment are what are actually affecting the bottom lines of the Wall Street firms and causing their stock to lose value. No "unemployment" has directly caused damage--in fact it may be easier to think of unemployment as a measure of how much damage other concrete factors may be causing overall.

Therefore, I would consider having unemployment as a "barometer" of the strength of the economy. In a way, that is the reverse of what you are arguing, since policies should not attempt to reduce "unemployment" directly, but should try to remedy factors leading to the unemployment rating. However, this would still incorporate your fundamental tenet of concern for maintaining a low unemployment rating, since high unemployment would carry negative consequences. The difference is that "unemployment" is not causing the consequences directly, but whatever is causing the high unemployment rating is causing consequences. Either way, lowering unemployment (by fixing its causes) would be a priority.

In a game context, the unemployment rating would be an indication of whether the economy is keeping pace with the population. Therefore, a lower unemployment rating means that there is enough food going around, and the civilization is engaged in fruitful trade and production. A higher unemployment value would indicate that the average amount of food available to each citizen has decreased, and possibly that important industries are not are productive as they should be.

Overall, I would say that we are on the same plane in terms of the fundamental concept, but different in its representation in the game. What do you think about my proposal? I am very interested in hearing your critique and suggestions.

And another thing--you may note in my signature that I said that I would not be back on CFC until July of 2005. Well, I am still quite busy, so my CFC visits will be pretty sporadic, but I still encourage new posts and will eventually get around to replying! ;)

I like that idea very much, but...

The structure of your idea, as how to calculate the unemployment rate, is perhaps closer to reality, but I would actually like to "simplify". My suggestion is structurally wrong on the mathematical level, as many things in CIV are, so we just have to pretend that if A happens, something in the line of B would occure, even if we know that in CIV, what happens in terms of math between A and B is so far from reality as you can get. In my proposal, the mechanics in the game make unemployment a real cause in the way that a certian mishaps work as triggers, and then the output of production is calculated with unemployment as a part of the equation. This could be implemented easily.

Certain mishap ----> unemployment ----> output
(Trigger)...............(part of eqation)........(result of calculation)


In your suggestion the mechanics are as follows:

..........................------> unemployment (as a measure of econ. strenght)
..........................|
Certain mishap---------------> output
(Part of the equation).............(Result of the calculation)

The strength of your idea, is that it grasps the fundemental causes of unemployment. The weaknesses are that

1) unemployment itself is not a part of the eqation anywhere. How would you like to see 30% unemployment be represented in the game other that by a number on the demographics chart? You'd like to see that, based on the economics of the game, unemployment is not needed as a part of the equation as it is already represented in all the other factors that you would like to include. Structurally, I too would like to see this kind of advanced equation in place! But why is unemployment no part of the equation at all? Why shouldn't it be? The basics in the game should ideally be what the sims do. Pieces of actions. Unemployment will then be the number of Sims that potetially could be a productive part of the economic system (your great scheme!), but instead are wandering around doing other things. God knows what they'll be up to! But they're up to something, and those action should be a part of the eqation some way or another.

2) There is no trigger mechanism anywhere. This system is too stable! With an unemployment rate based on everything, there must be a major disaster to influence the rate very much, like anarchy or atomic pollution. It may very well be that stock fall due to the underlying factors of the unemployment rate and not the rate itself. That alone does not, however, lead to the assumption that unemployment is not a factor to be included in the output equation.

To conclude, in your suggesion we have a number - the unemployment rate. It is a measurement of something. The higher it gets, the worse we are off in certain respects, and it tells us to take some form of corrective action. I like that. That could work. And I like that to be the interest rate of the central bank. What do you think of that? My suggestion is therefore: Let us have both! Your idea and mine, and they will simulate somewhat different concepts.

Well, if they used REAL numbers to represent a city's population then it would be VERY EASY to represent unemployment. This way, you could have tiles require a certain # of people per shield and/or food it produces. If a resource is on that tile, then it requires even more people to work it (as it produces more food/shields than a base tile). In my model, you can also adjust the amount of food/shields you get from a tile-though the amount is limited by the 'base production value' of the tile AND your population! If you build a tile improvement, it reduces the amount of people you need on a tile, per shield/food it produces (plus, it gives you more leeway in over or under-exploiting the tile).
Now, if you also give units and buildings a population cost, then you actually SEE what % of a city is employed or not. Employment costs you money in terms of maintainance and wages, but unemployment also costs you in terms of increased crime and unhappiness, and poorer cities (until you build 'The Welfare State', all unemployed people would be assumed to have an EP of 0-irrespective of the average wage you set for your empire!) So, it becomes very close to the real-world situation of balancing your budget, against the social problems created by unemployment!
Sorry if that all seems a bit garbled, but I hope you like my idea :)!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

@Deathgoroth:

I am glad that you see space for some compromise and improvement upon my ideas, rather than immediately rejecting them for being different from your own ideas. It looks like we are all set to have some logical and reasonable conversation! :)

Interestingly, I did consider the fact that unemployment, as I have defined according to real economic theory, would merely be a statistic in the game, with no direct influence on any game factors. However, I also considered what the effect of the figure of unemployment has on the economy and society of the real world, and the answer is fairly obvious--the direct material effect is none, but the psychological effect is dramatic. As much as Civ is only a game, I want it to be a game with logic, where things can be figured out because they make sense, and therefore the logical next step upon realizing this aspect of the effects of unemployment is to consider how it might affect game factors in Civ that are psychologically based. The most obvious would be the happiness of the population, and for more modern times, the "confidence" of investors in the stock market.

In other words, I propose that the unemployment rate indeed be part of the equation for psychological factors in the game, particularly citizen happiness. This could easily apply throughout history, for even when people did not have the media and information of modern times, they could still see if half their villages were idle and starving. A more modern phenomenon would be the "investor confidence" factor that may affect the effectiveness of stock markets. Unemployment, among other things, would be appropriate as direct "parts of the equation" in these cases. Thus, the unemployment rate actually would have a tangible effect in terms of gameplay.

However, I would like to, if possible, avoid "random" relationships that bear little connection to logic or reality. For example, the unemployment rate should not lower production, because generally the process is the other way--lowered production results in unemployment. With your previous post, it appears that you suggest using the unemployment figure as the interest rate of the central (national) bank. While I do not see unemployment as being directly proportional to pre