Proposal for economic subgame ruleset -taxes

Proposal for economic subgame ruleset

Prime Faction/Government Faction (based on government civics)

Base Number Civic Cost: Expenditure for government in gold
Base Number Happy Faces:


Despotism: 5 % of tax
Hereditary Rule: 10 % of tax
Representation: 15 % of tax
Police State: 15 % of tax
Universal Suffrage: 30 % of tax


Allied Factions/Faction cities (based on legal civics, local vs. central autonomy)


Barbarism: 5 % of tax
Vassalage: 20 % of tax
Bureaucracy: 10 % of tax (10 % more to prime faction in tax bonus)
Nationhood: 10 % of tax
Free Speech: 5 % of tax

Non-Prime Faction/Opposition Faction (based on labor civics)

Tribalism: 10 % of tax
Slavery: 5 % of tax
Serfdom: 5 % of tax
Caste System: 10 % of tax
Emancipation: 20 % of tax


Religious dynamics (based on religion civics)

Paganism 5 % of tax
Organized Religion 10 % of tax
Theology 20 % of tax
Pacifism 5 % of tax
Free Religion 0 % of tax

Market dynamics (based on economy civics)

Decentralization:Remaining % of tax spent on faction city governments
Mercantilism: Remaining % of tax spent on tax benefits for tile-owners
Free Market: Remaining % of tax spent on tax benefits for traders
State Property: Remaining % of tax spent on prime faction government
Environmentalism: Remaining % of tax spent on environmental programs

Economic Subgame for Tileowners:

1. What is left after all taxes has been dealt with (based on in-game number and above taxation key).

This amount of wealth can be spent on laborers etc (non tile owners taking jobs), purchase resources, food, hammers, happiness and health.

2. Each tile-owners lifestyle dependent on food level on tile

1 Food - survival
2 Food - live comfortably
3 Food and above - trade away anything above 2 food

3. Each tile-owners spending power dependent on gold

Every second gold is untaxed and kept at estate by tileholder, rounding up.

4. Each tile-owners building production based on local hammers

Every second hammer is untaxed and kept at estate by tileholder, rounding up

For example:

Mansion will cost 20 hammers over time
Palisades will cost 10 hammers over time

5. Each tile-owners building production based on local health and happiness

Health provides local village to serve tile
Happiness Provides local palace
Freshwater provides 0.5 health
Coastlines provides 0.5 happiness

bonus health/happiness may be used for tourism, pilgrimage etc.

I think it is much too complex but I hope you prove me wrong.

I was merely mapping out the extent of it. I still think a system based on food, gold, and hammers could work out (scissors, rock & paper principle).

I think a simplified version of this may work. Also remember, the base equation based on civics is easy to make, as we are to play perhaps within 5-6 civic sets this game.

One civic category (Economy)that dictates our taxes to the Prime-faction and one (religious) that dictates the influence of the Church should suffice for taxing and say tithes. The rest can effect RP rights and such. Until we have the knowledge of currency I think we should stick to the resource only economy. Become an apprentice, learn an art and begin making an income from your master. With cultural expansion and new settlements we will be gaining resources steadily. We can't just IMHO throw a system out there this complex when we don't even have a currency to tax yet. Rightly so we should wait until we have mastered the tech then the territories can begin generating wealth for their land-owners.

I think taxing non-primefaction trading guilds say one yield per week would be a good way to start off great traditions like a lottery or even bribes.

I agree, no gold for landowners until currency. However, Happy Faces and Health would count as making their lives more comfortable, and hammers allow them to build some local buildings.

Lord Civius said:

I think it is much too complex but I hope you prove me wrong.

Click to expand...

As long as there is someone willing to run it/track it and someone willing to muddle through it - let 'em go for it.

DG II had a fairly strong RP element because someone did run/track these things and provided some nice focus to the RP. Subsequent DG's have failed to have such strong RP because of the lack of those two elements.

-- Ravensfire

I've had a night to think about it and a restructuring of the Trading Guild system could move things along at a better pace. First of all the force behind any economy is supply and demand. So it will be wise for us not too overinflate the economy early. With that being said a limited introduction of gold (which already exists metagame) will not compromise the RP principles.

There are currently 2 categories of trading guilds Merchant and Craftsmen. Adding a third will give us our

Rock, paper and scissors

Click to expand...

Merchant Guilds
Craftsmen Guilds
Food Guilds (for lack of a better word)

I don't have time to get inta all the details right now or I'll be late for work. Simply put food yields will represent edible animals, crops etc. Hammers will represent yields like copper, iron etc and gold yields will bring gold into the game to balance supply and demand. For instance a horse may be 1 gold but a pound of Silver may be 2 gold. It allows some resources to be more valuable than others,. Sorry gotta go what do you yhink so far.

ravensfire said:

As long as there is someone willing to run it/track it and someone willing to muddle through it - let 'em go for it.

DG II had a fairly strong RP element because someone did run/track these things and provided some nice focus to the RP. Subsequent DG's have failed to have such strong RP because of the lack of those two elements.

-- Ravensfire

Click to expand...

Yes as long as we keep it simple enough that new players can join in without an economics lesson and 1-2 DGers helps with records and keeping the game up to date..

I think pressing the "guild" term on absolutely everything would be a misnomer.

We are effectively talking about a Landowner Class (Aristocracy, Gentry), an Artisan Class (Construction, Craftsmen) and a Patrician Class (Traders, city specialists of various types such as Merchants, Priests, Engineers, Scientists and Entertainers).

The Aristocrat Class (Landowners) are those owning tiles outside the city
The Artisan Class are those building units and buildings inside the city
The Patrician Class are those producing slider-based services inside the city

We can apply a very easy and fundamental income model:

Landowners earn 0.25 gold per food per turn above 1 food (Population growth gives more labor etc, so the demographic increase indirectly helps landowners)
Landowners may use hammers within their tile to build local structures with a principle similar to the city buildings, just in a smaller scale. These hammers tend to be between zero hammers to 5-6 hammers at the maximum for mined iron ores.
Landowners retain all the gold they earn within their tile, and may spend it for added hammers and foods, or to buy new land, even sponsor a military unit or pay for their own workforce.

Stone Age Buildings for a landowner may be:

Tile Building (City Building) - where hammer cost for tile-buildings are 1/4 of the city building costs.

Tower (Palace) 40 (160) ***********************
Barn (Granary) 15 (60) Adds 50 % food production
Shrine (Temple) 20 (80) *********************
Warriors Camp (Barracks) 10 (60) Halves the number of accumulated resources lost in case of foreign army incursion
Horse pen (Stable) 15 (60) May contract other cities outside on district for trades
Seers Hall (Monastery) 15 (60) **********************
Village Hall (Court House) 30 (120) May initiate long term delivery contracts of food, resource and hammers
Tablets (Library) 25 (90) Gives 1 % of the beakers in gold, rounded up to 1, per technology gained
Quay (Lighthouse) 15 (60) Gives 2 gold every turn a ship is standing next to the tile
Trading Company (Market) 40 (150) Gives 10 Gold every time a foreign unit (barbarians or foreigners) passes by, and 20 gold if it lands on the tile
Statue (Obelisk) 10 (30) **************************
Palisades (Walls) 15 (50) Shelters buildings from barbarian or foreign pillaging, but if pillaged tile, palisades are lost

These tile buildings are basically built as they are done in the main civ game, just on a smaller scale, only utilizing what is available within a players tiles. These buildings are available up to Code of Laws.

There will also be a couple of tile-related "miniwonders", we may call these "marvels", of which only 1 can exist within the realm, these are the equivalent of national wonders.

These miniwonders are related to the unique opportunities near Arete

Provincial Palace (Forbidden Palace) 60 (250)
Provincial Epic (National Epic) 60 (250)
Provincial Dining Hall*** (Reliable access to 0.5 horse, Reliable access to 0.5 pig and reliable access to 0.5 fish) - Cost 50
Arete Transport Company (Reliable access to 0.5 horse and 2 food) -Cost 50
Arete Chariot-makers (Reliable access to 0.5 horse and 3 food) - Cost 50
Arete Thunderdome Fertilizer (Reliable access to 0.5 pig) - Cost 40
Arete Meat Company (Reliable access to 0.5 pig) - Cost 40
Arete Dryfish Company (Reliable access to 0.5 fish) - Cost 40
Arete Gravefish Company (Reliable access to 0.5 fish) - Cost 40

Within Arete, there can be only 2 food companies per source of food, which is a natural limitation. This means, there is a cap of 2 companies for each, horse, fish and pig.

Chariotmakers gain 5 gold per chariot produced.

Lord Civius said:

I've had a night to think about it and a restructuring of the Trading Guild system could move things along at a better pace. First of all the force behind any economy is supply and demand. So it will be wise for us not too overinflate the economy early. With that being said a limited introduction of gold (which already exists metagame) will not compromise the RP principles.

There are currently 2 categories of trading guilds Merchant and Craftsmen. Adding a third will give us our

Merchant Guilds
Craftsmen Guilds
Food Guilds (for lack of a better word)

I don't have time to get inta all the details right now or I'll be late for work. Simply put food yields will represent edible animals, crops etc. Hammers will represent yields like copper, iron etc and gold yields will bring gold into the game to balance supply and demand. For instance a horse may be 1 gold but a pound of Silver may be 2 gold. It allows some resources to be more valuable than others,. Sorry gotta go what do you yhink so far.

Click to expand...

Maybe Farming Guild?

Alternatively, consider this:
-- Traders (move good from one place to another)
-- Merchants (sell goods)
-- Crafters (produce goods, includes farmers)

That would cover the three major aspects of economics. I would seperate Trade from Merchants due to the impact that both had. Traders might not come often to a town, but when they did, the impact was large. That leads to tension between Merchants and Traders. both depend on Crafters to produce the goods, but Crafters cannot depend on just one - Crafters give a more consistent market, but Traders can be a larger return (at higher risk). Traders also depend on Merchants for their supplies, plus also getting goods from Merchants.

-- Ravensfire

I agree to the trader- merchant divide with Ravensfire. I therefore suggest that "Trading companies" can only be attained by any of the three main classes as a mini-wonder or a sort of dedicated investment of accumulated means.

Craftsmen all rely on techs and access to resources to craft these:
This is an area for the ones not owning land can choose only.

There are also an industry for military equipment:

Charioteers (per unit of chariots built, 1/6 of the hammers in gold)
Bowyers (per unit of archers built, 1/6 of the hammers in gold)
Club-makers (per unit of warriors built, 1/6 of the hammers in gold)
Boat-makers (per boat built, 1/6 of the hammers in gold)
Masons (per building built, 1/10 of the hammers in gold)
Carpenters (per building built, 1/10 of the hammers in gold)
Tailors (consumer-based, 0.25 gold per 1 population) Dyes
Cooks (consumer-based, 0.25 gold per 1 population)
Woodcarver (consumer-based, 0.25 gold per 1 population)

Patrician Class is more tricky to properly portray in such a model.

Merchants
Priests
Scientists
Engineers
Citizens

All these gain a "Great People Bonus", which is divided equally on the patricians of a city within the same specialist class. A great person earns the total amount of gold produced in the same turn it emerges, and is distributed equally on all within the same specialty class. This is a rare occurence, but may be lucrative.

Merchants are also the only ones that can broker resources (food, hammers, gold, resources)
Priests are also the only ones that can
Scientists are rewarded 1/20 of the beakers a research provides, divided by the number of scientists in place, in gold.
Engineers are the only ones that can build roads and land improvements by utilizing workers, and would get 2 gold for each contracted road and 5 gold for each tile improvement they contract.
Citizens are also the only ones that can sell their labor (hammer) to any tile outside the city

For example, Seymoo of the Philosophers Legion and a landowner aristocrat, may decide to develop his property. However, there is no hammers to develop it, so he may decide to use his single gold for 14 turns to build up some capital. 15 turns times 1 gold gives 15 gold, for which he purchases 15 hammers . His Barn, a tile-version of Granary, halves the waste of food, so he can live on 1 food per turn only, as opposed to 2 turns before. This means that the next 15 turns, he can put away 15 food and 15 gold, and trade the food for gold as well, or other resources.

There could also be a revenue for tile-owners having a tile being worked by the city, for a premium of 0.25 gold per tile per turn.

I am already doing an economy type game for church members only. Although the rewards are based less on the game and more on RP.

I really like this idea. (Rest of post deleted to hide my ignorance)

I love the classes concept
I'm thinking about the fourth class:
The Knight Class (or Samuri Class?), those who have at least one unit to control (distributed by the government or sponsored by landlords), and they could receive a basic income from the country or landlords, and protect them from babarians and enemy units. Fight for honor or money...

The fourth class would require Vassalage and such. At the minimum more units and higher tech.