Meleager's Economic Model

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Because I realize that some people don’t have enough time to read through this entire model, here is a summary...


In detail...
To skip to the good stuff click Here.

Introduction
This is yet another economic model (for Civ V) for your reading benefit. This model is unique in that:

• It includes documentation of the process used to develop the model
• It includes details of how nations could spend money, not just make money
• It streamlines game play whilst adding more strategic depth.

Of Course like any good mannered poster hoping to win your support I will defer some of the praise (and criticism) of this model to the Civ Fanatic’s Community as well as to Aussie Lurker for giving some brief feed back on version 1 of the model. I have tried to give credit to anyone who affected my ideas throughout this thread.

Following are the sections of this thread. If you want a quick read skip to sections 2 & 3 only.

1. Money makes the world go round
2. How nations make money (Taxes & Trade)
3. How nations spend money

I am eager to hear your feedback.






Money makes the world go round

The need for a better economic model
Currently in civilization economics have meant that war is the only way to win. Bigger Territory=> More money => Bigger Army => Bigger Territory … This is not only unrealistic, but it denies players a chance to have many of the game experiences that they would like to have in civilization. It also means that there is no way to have any economic victory condition since a player would have reached domination before then. The Fact is that any economic model which is tied to terrain will always have this problem, even if some terrain tiles are worth more than others. Some people have tried to change this with ideas such as Corruption which punish large players. But this is both painful and unrealistic as not all countries have economic problems like Russia. The solution is of course a huge revamp of civilizations economic model.

Requirements of the economic model
Before we can create an economic model we need to figure out the requirements of such a model. The requirements of an economic model which I have formulated are:

1. For simplicity, the system must work the same for a nation on the first turn as it does for a nation which rules the world
2. Bigger must not equal better
3. Quality must be just as important as Quantity
4. It must be simple and easy to use (i.e. minimal micromanagement)
5. Player must have control
6. The economy must be linked to what is happening in the game (global economic situation)
7. Players / Nations should have the ability (if they are smart enough) to alter the global economic situation
8. The Economy should reflect real life (this is the hardest of all the objectives as in real life there are millions of people around the world “micromanaging” the economy everyday)

Everything bellow is based on reaching these goals.

How nations make money

There are 4 basic ways that a nation can make money, each has been reviewed on this forum at least once – tile based (current civ3 method), taxes, state controlled trade, and privately controlled trade. The following table shows how these generally link in with the requirements above (note: I am sure there will be debate about this. This table is based on the general way these ideas are usually put forward.)



After reviewing this I have decided that in my model nations will make money using taxes and state controlled trade.

Layer 1: Taxes
[size=-1]Similar to an idea by Aussie_Luker[/size]
A Tax slider on a menu screen (see section 3) changes the amount of money brought in from your population (quantity), however, different citizens produce different amounts of money (quality). Citizens could have different status as follows:


[size=-1] Difference citizens could be represented by different faces on the city screen. [/size]

Citizens would get richer or poorer based on:

• Culture
• Happiness
• Health
• Civics Options
• Unemployment (see section 3)
• The national tax rate

Highlights:
1. Bigger is no longer better: Whilst bigger nations do get a lot of tax income due to their general population, it is possible to have a small size England, Switzerland or Japan with a large tax income.
2. Dynamic tax rate: The tax rate increases the short term tax income, but reduces the long term tax income – meaning that the player has the opportunity to balance the tax rate in a variety of ways, leading to interesting strategies (such as boosting the tax rate during war).
3. Easy to use: There is little additional micromanagement. The player must balance the tax slider on the civics screen, but apart from this the player simply works on the culture, happiness, health and civics of their nation – just like they used to (now they simply have one more reason for doing so).

Layer 2: State Controlled Trade

The old trade model is hidden away here:


This a new trade model for version 3, which includes …. A new resource model as well.

How resources will work

Resources on the map – Resources will appear in quantities (i.e. iron may come in 3, 4, 5, 6, … lots). This is as simple as having different images on the map. Resources may not be stockpiles (i.e. any resources that are not used or traded on a turn are wasted).

Resources used for building – any unit that requires a resource will require a set amount of resources (for example, swordsmen will require 3 available iron) any resources being used for other tasks that turn are not “available” (i.e. each item of a resource can only be used for 1 thing each turn) Here is an example:
1 – 7 iron available… City A builds swordsman, 3 iron, 4 turns
2 – 4 iron available… City B builds swordsman, 3 iron, 5 turns
3 – 1 iron available… City C builds swordsman, 3 iron, 2 turns –NOT ENOUGH IORN, production halted
4 – 1 iron available… City A finishes, 4 iron become available, City C begins construction
5 – 1 iron available…

In this example after City A begins construction it uses 3 iron for 4 turns, so only 4 iron remains available. Likewise, after City B begins construction it uses 3 iorn for 5 turns leaving only 1 iron available. So when City C tries to build a swords man it can’t because there is not enough iron available. In a way, the available resources restrict the number of units / improvements that can be built at any one time.

Luxury Resources – We have seen that different citizens would produce different amounts of money. Now each of them could also require different amounts of variety or resources to keep them happy.
Lower-class – 1 type
Middle-class – 2 types
Upper-class – 3 types
Each citizen would also use 1 of each of those resources each turn.
Example, you have:
30 Lower-class citizens: need 30 of 1 type of resource
15 Middle-class citizens: need 15 of 2 types of resources
5 Upper-class citizens: need 5 of 3 types of resources
Note: It is possible to supply this entire civilizations needs using only 50 of resource A, 20 or resource B, and 5 of resource C because a luxury does not need to be mutually exclusive to only one citizen group. Also in the case where there is not enough resources, the Upper-class get them first cause they have more money to spend (except with communist like civic choices??)

Health Resources – Cannot define how these will work till I know how health works.

Trade

Markets – A market can be defined as the sum of every civilization the player can trade with. Many players will be in different markets and markets can change drastically during the game. The effect of this will be explained latter.

Supply – When a civilization has excess one type of resource it becomes available to everyone else in there market (by default – this can be controlled). Supply for a player is simply the sum of all the resources being traded in a market.

Demand – Civilizations will commonly need resources to keep their people happy or build improvements. When a nation does not have enough of these resources they look to import them. Demand is the sum of all the resources that need to be imported.

Players Prospective – From the players perspective people that they can trade with produce supply or demand of a resource. The amount that has to be paid is due to the amount that the buyers are willing to “bid” where everyone has to pay the price of the cheapest “bid”.

Technical Perspective – The following is how the trade actually works. That is how the price of an item, and the nations that will get it is calculated. This may seem complicated; this is because of abstract situations with interrelated markets had to be taken into account. If you do not understand the following simply assume that it works.

Note: The following occurs at the “top” of each turn. That is, it occurs at the same time for all players.



Changing The World Markets

So what can a player do to change the world markets?

Change Bid Price
Since people want a limited supply they are going to pay more to get their hands on it. Paying more raises the priority of your demand.

Change the amount you supply
If Civ B in the example above had of only supplied 2 resources they would have sold 2 resources for 5g each = 10g. They made more money by reducing supply.

Change the amount you demand
If Civ E had of demanded 3 more resources they would have stoped Civ F getting their hands on any (but they would have also have to pay more)

Embargoes
Embargoing a player effectively removes them from your market. Embargoes can have a HUGE effect on the game. In the example shown if Civ E and Civ B had an embargo against each other then Civ E would have only gotten 1 resource (for 5g), Civ F would have gotten 4 resources (for 2g each), Civ C would have gotten 3 resources (for 2g each).

Diplomatic Option – Invest in futures
Imagine if Civ A could have diplomatically bought 4 resources from Civ B @ 3g a turn each and then sold them. Civ B would be happy (they make more money), Civ D would be happy (they reach their quota), Civ A would end up losing money though.... but at the hands of a good player it could be a powerful tool.

Possible Addition
[size=-1]Idea by Rodi D[/size]
Processed rescources. Some rescources are not found naturally but must be processed. To quote Rodi D...

Rodi D said:

The thing with my one [Economic Idea (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=126476&page=1&pp=20)] is introducing the concept of raw and refined resource. I think this is important for making smaller countries larger econmically then larger ones. To take a real world example look at trade between japan and australia. Japan is small and little natural resources, australia is big, lots of resourse, but small industrially, so australia sell japan coal, iron, steel ect at X million dollars, and japan sells australia cars, fridges ect 2X millon dollars, therefore making japan richer than it land area alone would allow. As you can see in game terms, both would be in a position to win the game. However if your a good enough player and you can combine both large land and large industry (like a mordern day usa) the you should win.

Click to expand...

This could possibly be implemented by city improvements that turn say, 2 aluminium into 1 cars. They would of course have lower priority then build queus and happiness.

How nations spend money

Every nation in the world has a budget, so why not in civilization. Why can’t you manage your education spending, put money into infrastructure or military? Currently you can manage your science spending and happiness whilst the rest of your money pools. I would like to see this change.

Sorry, no picture for this one (I will try to do one soon) but essentially you would have a page with all your basic details at the top and then a bar, split into parts between: Debt, infrastructure, culture and happiness, health and education, military, and science. You can change the allocated spending by simply resizing a bar. Bellow this will be details on each of these sections as well as a way to more carefully manipulate their budgets. The tax slider would also be included on this screen. It will be possible to spend more than you earn.

Debt
If you spend more than you earn in a turn the extra amount is added to your national debt. Each turn a certain percentage of this debt must be paid back (compulsory), extra money can also be added to this to get rid of your debt quicker. Debt allows a way for players to spend more money when they have to or to have countries (like those in Africa) which are berried in debt. Some data under debt:
National Debt: 1000
This is the current national debt. It may increase if you spend more than you earn or decrease if you pay back more than necessary. Any extra money at the end of the turn will go towards unpaid debt before going into your treasury. Likewise any debt will be taken from the treasury before being added to the national debt.
Credit Rating: C (5%)
The Credit rating will be based on how well you pay back your turns, how you manage your budget and the like. The percentage in brackets is how much you MUST pay to reduce you debt this turn this is based on the credit rating, difficulty, and a random number. The Credit Rating will also effect how much money you can spend over your income (E-10% - A-50%).
Repayments: 50 (+20)
Repayments are how much you are spending on repaying debt this turn (based on the slider) the amount in brackets is extra non-required repayments.

Infrastructure
Infrastructure will control the effectiveness of your tile improvements. Hence the production of your civilization will be tied to your economy. In a way this replaces rushing.
Mine Effectiveness: 52% +2 (+2%)
Mine effectiveness is the effectiveness of the mines in your territory. In this case the mines are operating at 52% hence producing 2 extra shields on each of the tiles they are on. The (+2%) is effected by the infrastructure budget, it is the amount that the mine effectiveness will change next turn.
Road Effectiveness: 52% 1/2 (+2%)
Rail Effectiveness: 52% 1/6 (+2%)
Road and Rail effectiveness work the same as mine effectiveness where 1/2 and 1/6 are the movement costs. [size=-1]Aussie_Lurker's idea:[/size]The Effectiveness of workers could also be changed by the infrastructure budget.(of course the more mines / roads / rails you have the more money you must invest in them)

Culture and Happiness
This will effect the amount of culture your buildings will produce as well as the happiness of your civilization. These also effect the chance of a citizen “upgrading”.
Temple Effectiveness: 43% 1 +3 (-1%)
This works similar to infrastructure, temples are operating at 43%, produce 1 happy citizen and are decreasing in effectiveness by 1% per turn (effected by the Culture and Happiness budget). They also produce 3 culture per turn.
Additional infrastructure for culture and happiness improvements: 11%
Temples and the like will be produced 11% faster (amount based on the budget)

Health and Education
This changes your city health as well as the national unemployment rate and the effectiveness of your scientific buildings (and the rate at which they are built).

Military
This will change the strength of your military units.
Military Strength: 67% (+3%)
So every military unit is operating at only 67% of its strength value (so a unit of strength 8 will only have strength 5, this is increasing by 3% every turn. (of course the more units you have the more money you must invest)

Science
This is the good old science slider.

This budget allows for extremely specialized nations (such as nations which go into debt to fund their wars, or nations which specialize in funding their infrastructure).

Hi Meleager.

Hope you don't mind me posting here. I have had a brief look over your Economic model and-though there are areas that I am not so keen on-I do heartily agree with the overall gist of it. I reckon that DH_Epic and Trade_Peror would also be pretty cool with your ideas too !
The only real downside is, its highly unlikely they will put it into even an expansion of Civ4 ! Heres hoping we can mod it in though 'cause, if I see an economic mod from you, you can bet that I will most likely download it !

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

Thank you Aussie_Lurker, it is no problem posting at all. I was actually anxiously waiting for a responce. Just out of curiosity what areas arn't you keen on. I am always looking to improve (infact i added your worker idea in, not long ago, from another thread ).

On a particular note, I like the overall thrust of your trade model, but truly believe it would work even better with two extra considerations:

1) Non-Binary Resources.

To use your example, the Civ in question has bought all of the worlds coffee. Now he has more than his nation actually 'needs', which means that this civs cities are now more efficient (improved production and reduced city maintainance costs). The choice is now up to the player as to whether he wishes to 'On-sell' some of the excess, or simply benefit from his improved situation.

2) Having your trade Screen as an adjunct to the diplomacy screen as a means to buy, sell and trade goods.

Again, to use your example, you have indicated via your trade screen that you are prepared to sell a resource at a particular price. When your turn comes around again, you will get an indication in your screen of any interested parties, whom you can then go into the more advanced diplomacy-with your initial price as a starting point. Here, though, you can more 'refine' your trade deal to suit your specific needs. Hope that makes sense?
EDIT: Oh, of course you would also have the option to simply 'Accept' the basic offer, without any need for extra diplomacy.

The things I am most happy with are your taxation system-as you already know-and your allocation of money into various Departments. Great minds think alike on those two areas, I feel.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

1) I spent a lot of time thinking about the rescources and if I would change them (stockpile rescources and so on) however I think that this idea is worth going into furthur. My ideas are to possibly make units that require that rescource cheaper or to make cities happier (but at a constantly reduced rate - i.e. 2nd rescource = 50% improvement, 3rd = 25%) etc. I will think about these ideas for a while. The main thing is to be carefull that it doesn't get to the point where no body sells rescources due to the benifits of keeping them.

2)This idea is also one worth thinking about but I like the basic idea. My main concern was that it would stop the streamlined rescource trade but then you added the edit in.

I will certianly think about these, you almost need to play a 'virtual' game in you head to figure out how some ideas would work.

Well, Meleager, I should state from the outset that I am no fan of Stockpiled Resources. For starters, its too much like RTS-and even worse when you consider just how many resources we are talking about in Civ.
As I stated in the other thread, my feeling is to just have a resource size-from 1 to 5-which determines how many cities the resource deposit can support.
For Luxuries, exceeding this limit should simply increase the chance of the luxury deposit being depleted.
For bonus resources, the limit determines the maintainance cost of the city and the number of turns to takes to build all units and improvements.
For Strategic resources, the limit again determines the maintainance cost of the city and the build time of the units and/or improvements which specifically require it.
Like Luxuries, though, exceeding the limit for strategic and/or bonus resources increases the chance of them being depleted.
If you are under the limit-OTOH-then you get bonuses: to happiness and health for luxuries; and to maintainance and production times for both bonus and strategic resources.
For both being under or over the limit, there should be a 'law of diminishing returns', a point at which the bonus/penalty begins to taper off, though where that should be I am uncertain.
Anyway, hope that makes sense Meleager.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

OK, Meleager, I am going to go to the next level. Again, I will use your coffee example to show my thinking.
Lets say that your civ has around 10 'Units' of Coffee (around 2 deposits of Size 3, and 1 of size 4). You want to place coffee on the open market, so you click on your 'Local' Coffee icon, bringing up a 'Coffee Square' in the Selling area of your example screen. Underneath this will be two boxes-one for indicating how many units you wish to sell, and another for indicating the price per units you are asking. You decide to put 3 units@4gold/unit as your asking price.
When your next turn starts, you see your 'Trade Icon' flashing-indicating you have 'Trade News'. You enter the trade screen and, right at the bottom, you see 2 'New Offers'. The first is from a civ offering to buy your coffee for 3gold/unit for 6 units. The Second is from a civ offering to 'Negotiate' for coffee. Next to each offer will be 3 'hyperlink' buttons. The first will be 'Accept', the second will be 'Ignore' and the third will be 'Negotiate'. In the case of the second offer, however, the 'Negotiate' button will be greyed out because the Approve button will essentially serve that function.
Lastly, although the first offer sounds good, you have to weigh up the value of the trade, versus the risk of some of the resource deposits becoming depleted if you trade away too much of the resource.
Anyway, I hope that clarifies my thoughts on this matter.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

I like that you have different types of citizens with differing degrees of education (and perhaps other differences) that yield differing amounts of revenue and resources. That's a valuable thing that civ should have.

I think the trade model you describe is caught in a halfway no man's land between the civ3 total control model and a more realistic, market-based model that operates without direct government action. I don't think you can have it both ways. Either you control buying and selling of resources directly, or you don't control it directly at all, and rely on things like free trade agreements, embargos, and the like.

I don't think the trade examples work. With respect to the first, as you buy more of a commodity, its price should go up. It should be impractically expensive to corner the market of coffee, for instance. With respect to the second, if you buy all of the coffee and then sell only half of it, is unlikely that you will make more money than you paid for all of it. That would have to be a heck of a demand curve. Besides, why would any civ sell the commodity to you if they could get a better price from someone else (i.e., the price you paid)? With respect to the third, what's to keep the other civ from dropping their price to match yours? The model is unbalanced because it only works if the power is in the buyer's hands; it sounds like the buyer can quit a deal at any time, but the seller can't.

I believe the effectiveness of infrastructure and military and all of that gets far too complex for a general simulation like civ. It would be better suited for a pure economic simulation or a pure military simulation.

Ok dude I'm gonna explain something to you.
What your seeking is just a set of possibilities based on a system that works like this.

The player has citizens gather resources.
These resources make up the players national economy and production abilities. An economic chart migh tlook something like this;
Metals
Earths
Hard earths
Fertile earths
Textiles
Foods

The types of states these resources can be are as such;
resources, value resources, materials and products.
You gather resources. You can sell/distrbute them as raw materials.
Ship them to your cities with commercial demand to turn them into materials and products.

The types of resources
Metals:
copper
iron
tin
nickle
alumanium
titanium
chromium

Value metals:
gold
silver
tungsten

Producible materials:
bronze
brass
steel
kevlar
teflon

earths:
petrolium
zinc
phospherus

value earths:
oil
plutonium
uranium

Materials:
lubricants
combustives
gasoline
motor oil
napalm
isotopiates

Hard earths:
Granite
Formica
Shale
Obsidian
Marble
Sandstone
Limestone

value H-earths:
coal
sulfur
quartzite
calcite
Diamond
Ruby
Emerald
Sapphire
Ebony

Materials:
clays
glasses
(need refreshment of memory)

Fertile earths:
evergreen
deciduous
conniferus
orchardous
brushuberus

value F-earths:
saps
waxes
resins
fibers
jade
ivory
turkoise
gypsum
saltpeter

Materials:
dies
fibers
saltpeter
fertile oils

textiles:
Cloths
Fabrics
upholstries
leathers
furs

foods:
grains
roots
poultries
cattles
wilds
fish
fruits
vegs.
dairies

This would make up the economic chart.
The only details of management would be what improvements are built, economic systems chosen, governmental control and population effort.
When citizens are not in a city, yet out mining, as a simulation of "looseness from distance" allows no interference by the players control.
THough whilest in a city, population placing upon improvements for management can cause either discontentment, crime, or other various negatives til **** hits the fan. Ofcourse that is if you are going against demand. If not, then the balance continues, and when peaks are reached(you have surplus/monopoly franchise/tarrif tax rights/exclusive trade rights, then great things may happen.
Other than that, your citizens may automatically select a job to perform based on demand.
Demand should be built on the principles of impression.
First off, A code needs to be written, perhaps a rating code, for resources, pertaining to the values they give different aspects of society.
A rating scheme might look something like this:
metals (from 1-10)
Strength
Mallebility
Durability
Weight
Scarcity

Timbers: woods/forrestry
Strength
fiber durance
buyproduction
harvest rate

Textiles: cloths leathers fabrics
Strength
Insolation
Elegence
Fatigue

Fertilities: oil, petrol, dies waxes, resins, lubricants.
Safety
extraction
chem. relation
storage


foods:
provision
health
fatigue(freshness life).
taste

SO by giving these trades a basic common sense scale, economic systems in general are easier to implement, because the concept means just how to manage the gaining and distribution of these resources.

The player doesn't have to manage this down to the bead, so please don't allow yourself to get thrown off by it, this is just the cosmetic face of the control to manage that produces many astethics people seem to desire with their suggestions.

Kurioku said:

Ok dude I'm gonna explain something to you.
What your seeking is just a set of possibilities based on a system that works like this.

Click to expand...

Well, thanks for telling me what i am seeking cause i couldn't figure that out for my self. /sarcasm
Personally Kurioku, I think you need to learn the KISS principal.

apatheist said:

I think the trade model you describe is caught in a halfway no man's land between the civ3 total control model and a more realistic, market-based model that operates without direct government action.

Click to expand...

I am more trying to go for is a streamlined version of the current civ 3 model. But you are right I may need to look over the whole trade model again, at least it is better than the current civ3 model.

The consensus seems to be Taxes = Good, Budget = Good (with the exception of apatheist), but Trade = Needs Work. But I am fine with that and I will have a look at it.

The Buget is more simple than it sounds. I think I will reword it once I have made a picture for it.

To be fair, Meleager, its more like Trade=More work, but definitely leaning heavily towards Good. i.e., you have all the underpinnings there, its just the details which need work. Also, your trade system would help end that constant 'check up on diplomacy' situation, which I admit I do in Civ3. It also allows some small seperation between 'Diplomacy' and 'Trade', whilst not completely seperating them out.
Also, though I obviously agree with your taxation and budgeting model, I would like to throw into the ring, once again, my idea that rather than tiles producing cash directly, that they instead produce income based on what each tile produces. Though, like Taxes, the value of food and hammers produced by a tile depend on the 'Quality' of the city, rather than its sheer population. Hope that makes sense.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

I agree with Aussie Lurker (!). Instead of tying productivity to budget, tie productivity to the quality (education, wealth, etc.) of your population. The quality of your population, of course, is a consequence of other policies you have, such as building libraries and universities, securing luxuries, etc.

I really enjoy reading about new models, not just random ideas, and your economic model is no exception, Meleager!

Overall, your model would be a significant improvement over Civ's current model. If you don't mind, however, allow me to make some conceptual suggestions.

Meleager said:

There are 4 basic ways that a nation can make money, each has been reviewed on this forum at least once – tile based (current civ3 method), taxes, state controlled trade, and privately controlled trade.

Click to expand...

I agree that state incomes can be roughly divided in this manner. However, my view is that trade is the ultimate source of income and that all of these factors can be combined into one concept of trade. For example, in my UET II model, tile-based commodity production is the basis of trade, as products are exchanged between parties such as cities or even civilizations. In the course of this trade, however, the government may impose taxes, thus profiting from private commerce. State-controlled trade would merely be the government buying or selling these commodities. For gameplay and conceptual coherence, some type of unifying structure like this would allow for far more gameplay possibilities.

Currently, I am not decided on whether I support having citizens of different "qualities," but if that is to be the case, I would suggest that the method of determination be intuitive, rather than arbitrary, as could be the case if more than a few artificial parameters are used.

I do like the idea of departmental spending, though how specifically that money affects performance and is distributed should also be intuitive and obvious.

The idea of debt is also very intriguing, though I don't quite support the way you have suggested its implementation, mainly because the source of the loan money is unclear. In my UET II model, I have a distinction between public/government funds and private/population funds. One possibility is that the government (the player) can sell bonds to shift some of those private funds to the government. Alternatively, an international monetary market may exist, where civilizations make loans to each other. Either way, I would suggest that the source of the loan money is obvious and determinable in gameplay terms. The credit rating idea would be helpful for deciding how successful these ventures are, though.

Next on Rileys Believe It Or Not.....
Meleagers Economic Model has been upgraded!!!!

yep, its finally here, version 3.0

I'd had the ideas for a while but I was too lazy till now. The major change at the moment is in the [ancor=Trade]trade[/anchor] section, although I plan to make some changes to the other sections as well (for the most part just rewording not actuall changes). Its a bit abstract (and unique) so I might need to explain it some more.

I hope you enjoy it, and comments are ofcourse encouraged.

VERY nice economic system but there are some things i disagree/suggest

1- i think you should allow ppl to default on their debt. in the 1700s/1800s Spain defaulted over and over again and put many a great lending house out of a job, and a fortune

2- Who is lending the money? I understand your economic system mostly relies on ingame features, but i dont like borrowing money from an invisible hand, but there will never be many nations that can afford to lend money, so my suggestion would be various lending houses and banks that independently form in ur cities, or they could be special citizens like tax collectors or entertainers--lending money to other civs and to u (at a lower rate ) This would be a way to allow small, rich countries to prosper by offering low interest loans to other nations.

3- this kindof works in conjunction with #2, but i think an idea for economic victory would be if a certain percentage of the world owes you a certain percentage of total world gold.

4- i dont like your idea of numbers of resources, mostly because it will **** up over-crowded games on tiny maps, unless, of course, resources are made unrealistically common

5- you SHOULD be able to stockpile resources and luxers because that would allow someone to destroy someone elses economy by building up there supply of a resource, than flooding the market with it, causing unemployment and maybe depression in other countries that rely on that resource.

6- if ur easy trade thing is worked out they should make AIs more willing to sell resources and pay in gpt, but thats not really related

-great ideas tho

I love your model and think it would add incredible depth and strategy to the game... or completely ruin it.

I remember many a game of Civ3 slaving away in the modern era with about 8 minutes a turn, and this system would definitely increase that problem. I mean, now we would have to worry about checking the world market to make our civilization as profitable as possible, closing the gap between the upper and lower classes, monitoring state trade, domesticallly using resources as efficiently as possible, etc. And are any of these options really fun, at least to the common consumer? Turns could easily turn into 15 minute greuling sessions of projections, trial and errors, and insanity. Do we really want our civ games to be over 100 hours long (Please don't answer that).

With the introduction of the civics system as opposed to the government system, the developers are really going out on a limb for game balance. They have to scrutinize all of the different possibilities to make sure that none of the configurations in tamdem with any of the civilizations or even map settings turn out to be unbalanced to the point of breaking the game. I would be very surprised if out of all of the settings, one wasn't unbalanced to the point of being game-breaking.

Hate to be the skeptic here. I actually think that it would be possible to mitigate the problems to a minimal level, but I'm not the one who's going to program that. Again, great job with your idea. Keep it up.

mokeysonice said:

VERY nice economic system but there are some things i disagree/suggest

1- i think you should allow ppl to default on their debt. in the 1700s/1800s Spain defaulted over and over again and put many a great lending house out of a job, and a fortune

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Such a system would require a greater idea of dept then I have envisaged. Also I want people to not have any "easy" way out.

2- Who is lending the money? I understand your economic system mostly relies on ingame features, but i dont like borrowing money from an invisible hand, but there will never be many nations that can afford to lend money, so my suggestion would be various lending houses and banks that independently form in ur cities, or they could be special citizens like tax collectors or entertainers--lending money to other civs and to u (at a lower rate ) This would be a way to allow small, rich countries to prosper by offering low interest loans to other nations.

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Perhaps a better way of thinking about dept is a negative balalance which must be paid back (at least in part, every turn). They wont continue to get money forever, eventually they will reach the point where their "repaiments" equal their income (and they have class E credit rating) hence they cannot put any money into their depatments and that will cause real strife (an army with 0 strength). I was thinking of the idea of giving civs with a positive balance a profit bonus to perhaps replicate the idea of real dept. The problem is that the current system avoids the ideas of private venders in order to try and keep the idea as simple as possible.

3- this kindof works in conjunction with #2, but i think an idea for economic victory would be if a certain percentage of the world owes you a certain percentage of total world gold.

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economic victory -> absolutely!

4- i dont like your idea of numbers of resources, mostly because it will **** up over-crowded games on tiny maps, unless, of course, resources are made unrealistically common

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since tiny maps have less players they require less rescources, and hence are no more crowded then large maps. This is really something for the map generation department.

5- you SHOULD be able to stockpile resources and luxers because that would allow someone to destroy someone elses economy by building up there supply of a resource, than flooding the market with it, causing unemployment and maybe depression in other countries that rely on that resource.

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If you could stock rescources their would be no need for trade. I want to make nations depend on other nations for rescources, they cant just declare war because they have a huge stockpile.

6- if ur easy trade thing is worked out they should make AIs more willing to sell resources and pay in gpt, but thats not really related

-great ideas tho

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thanx

Volake said:

I love your model and think it would add incredible depth and strategy to the game... or completely ruin it.

I remember many a game of Civ3 slaving away in the modern era with about 8 minutes a turn, and this system would definitely increase that problem. I mean, now we would have to worry about checking the world market to make our civilization as profitable as possible, closing the gap between the upper and lower classes, monitoring state trade, domesticallly using resources as efficiently as possible, etc. And are any of these options really fun, at least to the common consumer? Turns could easily turn into 15 minute greuling sessions of projections, trial and errors, and insanity. Do we really want our civ games to be over 100 hours long (Please don't answer that).

With the introduction of the civics system as opposed to the government system, the developers are really going out on a limb for game balance. They have to scrutinize all of the different possibilities to make sure that none of the configurations in tamdem with any of the civilizations or even map settings turn out to be unbalanced to the point of breaking the game. I would be very surprised if out of all of the settings, one wasn't unbalanced to the point of being game-breaking.

Hate to be the skeptic here. I actually think that it would be possible to mitigate the problems to a minimal level, but I'm not the one who's going to program that. Again, great job with your idea. Keep it up.

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This was one of the ideas constantly on my mind. But I dealth with it by limiting the amount of turn-by-turn management the player has to do...
1. taxes have a greater long-term effect. Whilst you may want to do some short time changes i can't imagine it being a regular thing
2. scince people get richer based on things like culture & happiness (things you focus on anyway) their is no more micromanagement then currently exists
3. scince changes to the budjet sliders have low short-term effects they are something to only have to set up when you make strategic choices (or when something goes wrong)

i'm sure that some people would go micro-crazy but hopefully it wont be needed.

the area which been counting is at its greatest risk is trade. I'm thinking that the trade advisor could be improved to take alot of the basic maths out of it (like calculate the cheapest luxury combinations to satisfy your people). But it is one area that would definately need some fine tuning.

thanks for the feed back. keep it up. if anyone has any ideas about the trade advisor or dept please let me know.