CGG1066
Minister of Finance
. . . ok, I'm going to admit upfront, that I'm a huge econ nerd. Which is one reason why I'm disappointed in CivV (although the military innovations make up for it). I believe that the suggestions outlined in this post - mainly through a completely reinvigorated trade system - brings economic depth, enables natural diplomatic relationships, encourages cooperation, and invigorates civics - even communism.
Now, I know there will be push back about this being too complicated because it’s outlined over several posts. But – please remember, a lot of the text is describing what goes on “behind the scenes”. I would argue that my economy is just as simple as the current system, but far more deep. It is easy to manage too: the choices the player has to make are (a) whether or not to trade and (b) what tax rate to impose. That’s it. Two simple choices. And for the low price of having to make just a handful big decisions you get incentives for diplomatic cooperation (to act as a foil against the 3rd grad bullying we have now), the ability to expand science and exploration without micromanaging units, and ways to leverage science into wealth.
I’ll also throw in other suggestions that won’t complicate the game too much, but add a lot more depth; such has how to integrate civics into the economic system and expanded diplomatic options. However, these ideas are NOT necessary to the economic improvements I describe.
There are several numbers thrown in as examples. I realize that there are balancing concerns which I haven't addressed; numbers are used to illustrate the concept.
Now, I know there will be push back about this being too complicated because it’s outlined over several posts. But – please remember, a lot of the text is describing what goes on “behind the scenes”. I would argue that my economy is just as simple as the current system, but far more deep. It is easy to manage too: the choices the player has to make are (a) whether or not to trade and (b) what tax rate to impose. That’s it. Two simple choices. And for the low price of having to make just a handful big decisions you get incentives for diplomatic cooperation (to act as a foil against the 3rd grad bullying we have now), the ability to expand science and exploration without micromanaging units, and ways to leverage science into wealth.
I’ll also throw in other suggestions that won’t complicate the game too much, but add a lot more depth; such has how to integrate civics into the economic system and expanded diplomatic options. However, these ideas are NOT necessary to the economic improvements I describe.
There are several numbers thrown in as examples. I realize that there are balancing concerns which I haven't addressed; numbers are used to illustrate the concept.
c5food
is a non-tradable).
/
. Knowing that the AI has to handle this in a way that prevents it from building a bunch of "useless" buildings, lets just say that it builds the building that increases the combined yield of these resources the most. Science/Cultural buildings should go in the government camp, because they cannot be evaluated with this criteria; or maybe be able to built in both, after all the
. In addition, taxes cause unhappiness
(call this a dead weight loss), which could also affect future production if there are more unhappy citizens (this is not a change from the current system). I'm also in favor of some of the ideas in the “anarchy bucket” thread, which dovetail nicely with this idea.
: Producing luxuries is more like strategic resources in that a tile will yield a small number. Multiple luxuries work to increase happiness, but with decreasing marginal effectiveness (the first one makes 3 people happy, the second makes 2 people happy, the third makes 1 person happy, and additional sources have no effect on happiness). When you trade, a luxury resource exchanges 10 commerce for each person it makes happy. Your civ will automatically sell a luxury to the highest bidder.
: This is my suggestion for tech diffusion: open economies will increase production of techs already acquired by one civ by 10%. The civ that already has the technology gets a commerce bonus equal to the number of beakers created by the trade (i.e., 10% of the total cost of the technology).
: As now, city state relationships are based on influence points. Each resource bonus created for the city state through trade translates into one influence point. After some time, you will create friendships/alliances with them after a certain number of influence points are built up (assuming you haven't lost points by trespassing a lot or declared war). As now, these points degrade from turn to turn at a set rate. This means that a CS would always friend/ally with their most valuable trading partner, but still retain a value for past trades. Another civ might happen to be a better partner for a particular turn, but if I have influence points stored up, the CS won't change it's ally immediately.
).