Replacing Inflation

Afforess

Afforess

The White Wizard
Joined
Jul 31, 2007
Messages
12,239
Location
Austin, Texas
One of the other big economy topics, besides Trade Routes, is inflation. In normal BTS (and RAND) is simply increases with game turns. It saps your gold income. The advanced economy option adds some modifiers that influence the inflation rate, but the effect is to overall decrease the size of your treasury.

Why do we need inflation? I suspect the game developers saw that over time, the income levels of players would just rise and rise. Lots of buildings improve commerce and gold. The game gets seriously unbalanced if you can just hurry units and buildings every turn. Inflation is a way to push the scales the other way, and tax the success of the player. It applies to everyone equally.

This is dumb. Inflation in a real world sense, occurs when a government or external entity expands the monetary supply. "Gold" in the civilization sense isn't really even money. It's more a supply of government willpower & supplies. Why do I think it's not money? You can't simply throw millions of dollars at a cathedral and get it built tomorrow, in real life. So "Gold" isn't money. Plus, gold isn't earned by taxation. One can argue that the sliders are a form of taxation, and I certainly play with that concept with civic anger, but is it really? Do increases taxes in real life come at the expense of culture or scientific innovation? That's a stretch.

So inflation doesn't really make sense from a real world perspective. That's okay, plenty of mechanics are a bit silly. But it's also a bad game mechanic too. The way it works, is there is an inflation "rate", and your costs (units, city maintenance, civic upkeep) are multiplied by this rate. It doesn't matter how big or small your civilization is, all civilizations share the same rate. Because costs are different, the total expenses due to inflation are different, but the rate is the same. (Ignoring civics & random events that affect this). Because city and civic costs increase with the size of your empire progressively (each new city is more expensive than the last one) inflation is a progressive tax, discouraging larger empires. So far, so good.

One problem though. It does not take into account technological and progressional disparity. Let's say I am 1000 turns into the game and reach the Modern Age. Most other civs are trailing behind at early Renaissance. All civilizations have the same inflation rate. But because I am technologically advanced, I have access to more buildings that can boost :gold: and :commerce: . The more backward civilizations have the least ability to generate commerce, due to limited access to buildings and wonders. But if our civilizations are the same size, we pay equal rates of inflation! This increases the commerce gap and allows me to expand faster and faster.

I propose we dump inflation entirely. Lock it at zero the entire game. Instead, increase the base city maintenance costs, and base civic upkeep costs. And see how it goes.
 
And then try to create a real Advanced Economy which considers concepts that can temporarily affect your empire with Inflation?

Remove all time increasing Inflation modifiers. With this done the game is playable. Change the other modifiers that help decrease the ability to overexpand to do it more severely (Civics upkeep and City maintenance).

Then the game continues normally and we try to reach a new concept of Advanced Economy which puts certain civics and game mechanics to affect a temporary Inflation. I don't have much knowledge in the subject, but it seems to me a good RL mechanic to give more reality to the game.
 
Why not? Play-test it, yes :).
 
Spirictum said:
And then try to create a real Advanced Economy which considers concepts that can temporarily affect your empire with Inflation?

Remove all time increasing Inflation modifiers. With this done the game is playable. Change the other modifiers that help decrease the ability to overexpand to do it more severely (Civics upkeep and City maintenance).

Then the game continues normally and we try to reach a new concept of Advanced Economy which puts certain civics and game mechanics to affect a temporary Inflation. I don't have much knowledge in the subject, but it seems to me a good RL mechanic to give more reality to the game.
Click to expand...

I think we should use a separate term to make sure there is no confusion between the default BTS inflation and the new mechanic which you are proposing. I'm not sure what though.
 
Spirictum said:
<snip> I don't have much knowledge in the subject, but it seems to me a good RL mechanic to give more reality to the game.
Click to expand...

I prefer playability vs emulating RL or "reality" to or in the game. The game doesn't need to mimic the real world. And when players or devs get caught up in that mindset the game and it's replayability suffers. Otherwise I have no problem with this concept. I'd hope that AND does not become a real world simulator instead of a 4X Strategy and Tactics game.

JosEPh
 
JosEPh_II said:
I prefer playability vs emulating RL or "reality" to or in the game. The game doesn't need to mimic the real world. And when players or devs get caught up in that mindset the game and it's replayability suffers. Otherwise I have no problem with this concept. I'd hope that AND does not become a real world simulator instead of a 4X Strategy and Tactics game.

JosEPh
Click to expand...

I'm with you. First and foremost this is a game. The real world is an excellent place to draw ideas and help fill in the gaps. But if you want a "real life" simulator, there is already Caveman-2-Cosmos, and we are not trying to mimic that.
 
Actually HydromancerX has turned much of C2C into a Sim City simulator. I think that's his favorite game. It's where he draws his building ideas from.

And I personally would have a hard time calling C2C a real-life sim. Now LOR or RI seem closer to that here at CFC. Impo.

JosEPh
 
Just for information, with the changes I've imported months ago from C2C (changes by Koshling IIRC), inflation doesn't simply increase over time. It's coded to oscillate once it reaches some equilibrium (although I don't know how this equilibrium has been judged in first place), so it can grow but it can also get reduced. But if we find a better economy mechanic, I'm all in favour of removing TR and inflation.
 
45°38'N-13°47'E;13331561 said:
Just for information, with the changes I've imported months ago from C2C (changes by Koshling IIRC), inflation doesn't simply increase over time. It's coded to oscillate once it reaches some equilibrium (although I don't know how this equilibrium has been judged in first place), so it can grow but it can also get reduced. But if we find a better economy mechanic, I'm all in favour of removing TR and inflation.
Click to expand...

I just checked the code, but I am fairly sure the entire inflation logic is bugged due to bad merged code!

Code: 
	bool bresetInflation = false;
	if ( GC.getLoadedInitCore().getGameSaveSvnRev() <= 3484 ) //SVN 3484 is the first with the Inflation fix.
	{
		bresetInflation = true;
	}
	doInflation(bresetInflation); //true was only set during two week, to 'clean' the messed savegames due to inflation calculation bugs.

From CvPlayer. We don't have Rev 3484! So inflation is being reset every recalculation. Honestly I am not sure what we should be doing instead, but it seems simpler to remove inflation than try to fix the merged code.
 
C2C SVN 3484 was done by calvitix, here is the revision log/msg:

Slowdown and Inflation Fix

+ Remove validateCommerce() call in calculateUnitSupply() --> origin of slowdown
WARNING as validateCommerce() only called once per turn, it has to be Verified by Koshling
+ Fix the inflation calcul
+ Resetting the Inflation Values to 10000 when recalculing due to new DLL --> to fixe messed up DLL
WARNING this has to be removed in next build.
+ ten decimal Value in Financial Advisor replace with int

3487 By calvitix
Removing all validateCommerce calls

3488 By calvitix
Update the DLL, without any validateCommerce() calls

EDIT: @Afforess, I may be able to export the 3488 DLL if you want it. Attached!

JosEPh
 
JosEPh_II said:
I prefer playability vs emulating RL or "reality" to or in the game. The game doesn't need to mimic the real world. And when players or devs get caught up in that mindset the game and it's replayability suffers. Otherwise I have no problem with this concept. I'd hope that AND does not become a real world simulator instead of a 4X Strategy and Tactics game.

JosEPh
Click to expand...

Even though you argue to defend this simpler point of view, truly we more agree then disagree on the topic because playability is nothing without the emulation of RL and the emulation of RL is nothing without playability. We can't have CIV as the game with the best playability but no connection to RL, as we can't have CIV as the perfect copy of RL, but impossible to play.

But I prefer to think on RL concepts, and then try to simplify then into game mechanics, instead of adding simple mechanics and then try to justify then with any RL concept that fits.

Inflation, as CIV introduced, not only badly portrays RL Inflation as it is a bad mechanic overall. It's purpose is to simply put breakers in your economic growth, nothing more. And to that they called it Inflation. BtS came with the Inflation Random Event, the only thing that altered Inflation Value. Still didn't make a considerable change. As Afforess discovered, it even doesn't try to balance things between developed/undeveloped nations or big/small nations.

Getting rid of this and putting the breakers where they truly make a difference (Civic Upkeep that is related to Traits, Civics and Size and City Maintenance that is related to Micromanaging, Civics and Size) is a big step towards simplification and balance. It's a must IMO.

But Advanced Economy few concepts that I could dig on the mod (but not test) seemed fair and nice RL concepts added to the game. Barter ignored Inflation, Slavery reduced Inflation, Coinage increased Inflation. Hurrying buildings with :gold: increased Inflation.

I would love to have better ideas about the topic but it's one thing I know almost nothing. And it's not needed to remove Inflation, so carry on.

This is for when people try to help here defend a nice concept that can be re-introduced to the game (this time working properly).
 
How about changing inflation this way:

Still generated by the same way, but affecting the city maintenance costs and civic upkeeps.
Altough it may be not a very good concept, I still like the idea of "punishing players for too much hurry produsction with gold" :)
 
besides the things that Afforess said, there is one thing that is really annoying with inflation:
You cannot do anything about is. Unlike every single other mechanic or challenge in the game, the player has no way to interfere with it. It just throws a number at you, and thats it.
It gives a bad feeling, and I won`t mind getting rid of it.

I don't even think there needs to be some kind of compensation, because the overal effect was pretty insignificant, at least in my games.
 
Der_Zorn_gottes said:
besides the things that Afforess said, there is one thing that is really annoying with inflation:
You cannot do anything about is. Unlike every single other mechanic or challenge in the game, the player has no way to interfere with it. It just throws a number at you, and thats it.
It gives a bad feeling, and I won`t mind getting rid of it.
Click to expand...

Yep, that is the hallmark of a bad "feature". Inability to avoid or do anything about it makes it instantly disliked.

I think "inflation" is easy to replace.

First, increase civic upkeep costs 100%. Right now, I played a game where in the medieval era an UPKEEP HIGH civic only cost me 40gp/turn. That is not very high. Double that, and civic costs increase. Maybe players will actually notice the upkeep costs and choose accordingly then.

My other proposal would be to rewrite how the number of cities maintenance works. Right now, every city you build increases the "number of cities" maintenance amount in every city. So the value is the same (nearly the same, it also takes into account city population) for every city in the civilization. This seems sort of strange.

What I propose is that number of city maintenance depends on the city number. The city number being whether it is the 3rd city you founded, or 10th, or 1st, etc.

I'd use this formula for maintenance: z ^ ((x^0.5)/(y^0.5))

The z is the base number of city maintenance cost. The y is the target number of cities for the world map size (tiny map target cities is 3, gigantic is 10, it's in the XML). The x is the city number.

So on a standard map with a base city maintenance cost, Z = 5 and Y = 5. This means your first city "number of city" maintenance cost is 5 ^ ((1^0.5)/(5^0.5)) or 2.05 GP / turn. Pretty low.

4 more cities later, and lets say you build your 5th city. Your maintenance for that city is 5 ^ ((5^0.5)/(5^0.5)), or exactly 5 gp/turn.

Then lets say you acquire 5 more cities (for a total of 10). The maintenance in the 10th city is 5 ^ ((10^0.5)/(5^0.5)), or 9.8 gp/turn. Still higher, but not extreme.

Let's say you go on a war of conquest and capture 20 more cities. On the 30th city you acquire the maintenance will be 5 ^ ((30^0.5)/(5^0.5)) or 31 gp/turn. Fairly high, but not unmanageable.

Keep in mind each city has a separate number of cities cost. So while the 5th cities might be 5gp/turn, you also must add the 4th city, plus the 3rd city, plus the 2nd city, plus the 1st city. It adds up to around 15 gp/turn total. In the scenario with 30 cities on standard map size, the sum total of maintenance for all cities would be 614gp/turn.

That sounds high, but don't forget plenty of civics and buildings reduce the base maintenance cost, so likely by the time you have 30 cities, you can also reduce the base costs. Also that is for the standard map size, not large or gigantic. (On a gigantic map, total number of city maintenance costs with 30 cities would be only 240gp/turn)
 
Actually, number of cities maintenance sounds like apportioning operating overheads equally among all cities, which is adjusted via population, such that bigger cities are assigned a bigger portion of the overheads.

But you are suggesting newer cities should get bigger and bigger portion of it.

If I am MacDonald and have 100 branches in a county, opening a new branch will definitively incur higher total "number of cities maintenance", but the amount apportioned to that branch shouldn't be much higher compared to a well established branch, which sounds like what your suggestion is implying.
 
platyping said:
Actually, number of cities maintenance sounds like apportioning operating overheads equally among all cities, which is adjusted via population, such that bigger cities are assigned a bigger portion of the overheads.
Click to expand...

The population adjustment is relatively small. In a worst case scenario it will only increase the maintenance by 2-3x the base cost (for a size 30-50 city).

platyping said:
But you are suggesting newer cities should get bigger and bigger portion of it.
Click to expand...

Exactly right.

platyping said:
If I am MacDonald and have 100 branches in a county, opening a new branch will definitively incur higher total "number of cities maintenance", but the amount apportioned to that branch shouldn't be much higher compared to a well established branch, which sounds like what your suggestion is implying.
Click to expand...

Well I don't think MacDonalds and cities is a perfect analogy, but in any case, I still disagree. If you have 100 branches, the logistics is much simpler than 1000 branches. Perhaps after your 101st branch, your shipping facility can no longer service 100 trucks of frozen food at the same time, and requires a massive overhaul to create a second shipment center. That would make the 101st branch much more expense than the 100th.

In short, your argument is wrong. ;)
 
When a overhaul to the logistics system is needed, the total overheads is increased, and thus overheads apportioned to each branch is increased as well, rather than apportioning all the Inceased cost to just the new branch.

That is how the current system works. When a new city is added, all cities get a slight increase in "number of cities" maintenance.

But in your system, neither x, y nor z of an existing city will increase.
 
platyping said:
When a overhaul to the logistics system is needed, the total overheads is increased, and thus overheads apportioned to each branch is increased as well, rather than apportioning all the Inceased cost to just the new branch.

That is how the current system works. When a new city is added, all cities get a slight increase in "number of cities" maintenance.

But in your system, neither x, y nor z of an existing city will increase.
Click to expand...

If the fact that the newest city bears the brunt of the new maintenance costs bothers you, it would be trivial to sum up the total maintenance costs with the same formula, then divide the total sum evenly across the cities. The net maintenance for all cities would be exactly the same, but the spread would be different.
 
I have never bothered to get my head around this economic aspect of Civ but BlueGenie in this thread and in particular this post is suggesting we may have been using the wrong part of the Civ system to fix some problems we have with city maintenance in particular. This has been happening since the old RoM days and is because we did not know what th tool was for so kept using a hammer when the screwdriver was needed.

Yes I know it is not about inflation but city maintenance but you brought up city maintenance as a replacement mechanism for inflation.
 
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