Economic Victory?

As a near pure Economic player, I would like to see an Economic Victory- Made by gaining control of 80% of the world's supply of a single non luxury resource.
Also I'd like to see them able to trade food again.

I agree. I wish they did include an economic victory where every single country's economy was completely dependent on yours because yours is just so huge and well developed.

There was such a thing in Alpha Centauri, but it's never made the jump to Civ. Thankfully, they're at least adopting the AC government system...

Well, technically speaking you CAN trade food now, just not 'food units'. You could choose to trade wheat for corn, or beef for sheep or something along those lines. The idea is that every additional source of food a civ has access to means greater health benefits for the nation-which indirectly impacts on the growth of their cities. So, not only will food trade be important, it will be much MORE important than in Civ2 in many ways.

On the issue of Economic Victory, I too would love to see such a thing-and wonder if it can be modded in. Perhaps something a little more detailed than the 80% suggestion, though, as that may end up becoming little more than an excuse for war and conquest.
How about this for an idea-each basic trade in a good gains you X point per turn. Getting 'monopoly' access to trade with a particular civ gets you double the normal number of points per turn. Each additional deposit of a resource to which you gain access-through non-violent means-gains you additional points per turn. Each nation you have open-borders agreements with also gain you points, as do the number of Merchants and commercial improvements.
Lastly, having either a Mercantilist or Free-Market economy would double all of the points you gain each turn. The player who gets X,000 points first wins the Economic victory. How does that sound?

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

Wow.... Aussie, It took you a whole 3 posts before you got here!

I dont think the 80% idea is sufficient as getting 80% of a single rescourse is quite easy and, as Aussie said, it would just lead to war.

I do like the idea of an ecconomic victory though. Unfortunately, with the current economic model, getting the top economy is simply about getting the most land.

An economic victory would be nice, though I am not sure it will be possible to have one that militarism would not help. In fact, how can militarism not help for any type of victory, with the possible exception of diplomatic victory?

Maybe a per capita GDP of X could lead to economic victory? Maybe X could be the sum of all other civs' per capita GDPs, or somehow otherwise related to other civs. Similar idea might work for total GDP as well, although that would somewhat favor larger Civs.

Well, just think of it like this. You have oil- a lot of oil. Other countries have some oil, but you have more. What you don't have is gems. By engineering a necessary or luxury resource, or perhaps simply buying it or taking it as a prize of war, you could have oil imported into your own stockpiles.

Actually, the more I see of the game, the more I become convinced that, to some degree at least, the economy has been decoupled from sheer size of your nation-in terms of number of cities or landmass. It seems as though trade and economics is done more like it was in SMAC-where your Civic/SE settings, the number of trade deals you sign, how large the cities you trade with are, and how extensive your internal trade network are as-if not more-important to your wealth as how many cities or how much land you control.
The other part of the decoupling process is that land (and especially roads) no longer automatically generate income-but where income is more about the terrain improvements you build and the resources the tiles possess. Also, coupled with this is the fact that cities themselves now cost you money.
Its not perfect, I admit, but it is already 100% better than in Civ3, and could allow for an economic victory that doesn't rely on military conquest.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

Thinking about it, the spaceship victory is a kind of economic victory. I shall explain.

To get to spaceship victory you need (1) the relevant technology, and (2) to produce the relevant components before anyone else.

To get (1) you must either have generated lots of cash for research (cash generation -> economic power), or you must have traded with the AI (trade -> economic power). To get (2) you must have high productivity (productivity -> economic power).

Principle problem with all of this is to do with how wealth-increasing improvements work. Because marketplace and bank, which are traditionally seen as the economic improvements (hence Adam Smith's cancels their costs), have their effect on one set of income, while scientific improvements have their effect on a different and non-overlapping set of income, they cannot be complementary to each other. In real life, this is not necessarily the case. The only improvement I can think of that allows science and economy to be complementary is Wall Street, which can increase your overall spending power irrespective of what the money is spent on!

Making it even worse, factories and plants don't have any (positive) effect on your civ's finances, which is the closest thing to a measure of your civ's economy. Yet a nation's GDP must be strongly linked to the presence or absence of these improvements!

So really, Civonomics is a bit broken.

megabrainz said:

So really, Civonomics is a bit broken.

Click to expand...

Sho 'nuff. I figure that's partly a result of a lack of computational resources (on the average person's computer) and the difficulty of defining a model that is both comprehensive and simple.

Yup. It certainly makes my head spin to think about it.

Actually a military victory is an economic victory. The more money you have the more troops that you can support, the more troops you can upgrade, and the more alliances that you can by.

A culture victory is an economic victory. The more money you have, the more improvements you can ruch which results in a quicker victory.

A UN victory is an economic victory the same way a spaceship victory is.

In fact it is very hard to compete at all without a good economy. Whenever I play a game I struggle first to gain a good economy and then try for a victory because it is possible to lose battles, lose wonder races, lose wars, and even lose the space race if you haven't managed to make your nation's economy strong. Once your economy is strong victory is in sight.

That being said, I would like a "just economic victory" too.

DrMadd said:

As a near pure Economic player, I would like to see an Economic Victory- Made by gaining control of 80% of the world's supply of a single non luxury resource.
Also I'd like to see them able to trade food again.

Click to expand...

It's a good idea, but I think it would require an entirely new economic system that didn't involve gold. Doubt it will happen though

"Death to the fascist insect that prays upon the life of the people!" ~SLA

I think economy is too sophisticated a word to use for the Civ financial modelling thus far. It's not an economy; it's too primitive for that. I don't have a replacement candidate, though.

The economic victory would be a nice add-on

sence there are religions now... does that mean there will be a religious victory? like meeting god or somthing?

I have an idea for an economic victory:

-Control 66% of the world's gold
-Have one of all Strategic Resources
-Have one of all Luxury Resources
-Have Cautious or Better relations with all civs
-Have met all civs

What do you think?

Head Serf said:

I have an idea for an economic victory:

-Control 66% of the world's gold
-Have one of all Strategic Resources
-Have one of all Luxury Resources
-Have Cautious or Better relations with all civs
-Have met all civs

What do you think?

Click to expand...

very good idea

Definitely a good idea. I haven't got any ideas about how to implement it at the moment, except maybe the first player having twice as much gold as the second player

DrMadd said:

As a near pure Economic player, I would like to see an Economic Victory- Made by gaining control of 80% of the world's supply of a single non luxury resource.
Also I'd like to see them able to trade food again.

Click to expand...

IME, a strong economy allows you to more easily pursue whatever victory condition you desire. So, in a sense, you can win -- albiet somewhat indirectly -- with a strong economy.