The Unified Economic Theory

The Unified Economic Theory (UET)
VERSION 1.5

The latest edition of the Unified Economic Theory, the Second Edition, may be found here.

The following is a "brief" overview of the Unified Economic Theory:

The terrain no longer produces "trade." Instead, wealth will be generated through the exchange of various commodities.

A city that has any surplus commodities will put those commodities up for sale in its market. This means that after consumption of the necessary food/consumer products for the city's survival, the remaining products will be up for sale in the market the city participates in. The city can end up keeping unsold products or buying back some of its own commodities (but at market value).

Food requirements will be constant, but consumer good demands can vary. Every point of population will consume 1 food per turn for survival, but the demand for consumer goods depends upon a global average ratio of supply to population. Failure to satisfy the demand for consumer goods will lead to citizen unhappiness. On the other hand, a supply of surplus consumer goods will generate happiness.

The sale of products generates revenue for the city that sold the products. This will be the basis of the trade and wealth a city generates.

A city's revenue will determine its purchasing power. Purchasing power is a measure of the monetary wealth available to a city; this monetary wealth determines how much the city can purchase from the market.

Markets are limited by transportation. The extent of a particular market is limited to the cities that are connected to it by sufficiently small tile distance, road, railroad, sea, or air. In addition, the number of movement points required to complete a transaction between two cities must not exceed a limit, although this allows trade to occur without roads if the movement limit is not exceeded. This limit may be eased by discovering transportation technology and upgrading roads.

Roads that allow cities to initiate trade will generate trade. Any road that allows a trade to occur is a trade route. Every trade route will generate trade along its length, simulating travel and shipping industries, and multiple trade routes can use the same path. This will allow that path to accumulate in amount of trade generated.

Upgrading transportation will increase the amount of "trade-route trade" generated. Therefore, railroads (and possibly highways?) will increase the level of trade generated by "trade-accomodating" industries.

The central government can subsidize or divert production to certain projects. In nonrepresentative forms of government, the central government may assist a city in a project by diverting shields from the local market supply to the city. In representative forms of government, the central government may offer monetary subsidies to a city to boost the city's purchasing power and therefore allow it to purchase more shields from the market to speed the project.

Local and provincial governments require maintenance. Not only will this serve to check the expansion of empires, these costs will model the effect of government employment on the economy. Notice, however, that these funds from the central government go into paying for local government workers that contribute to the city's economy. Therefore, these administrative costs actually increase the city's income and boost the economy!

City improvement maintenance increases city income. Again, these maintenance funds from the central government end up paying local workers that contribute to the city's economy. Abundant government activity therefore boosts local economies (at a monetary cost to the central government).

The economic conditions in a city are a base determinant of the happiness of citizens. Every X number of commodities (to be determined by playtesting for balance), as well as every city improvement, will "satisfy" the economic needs of a citizen, making them content.

The happiness of a city will be considered collectively. Combining the happiness statuses of all of the citizens of a city will determine its "overall mood," which will determine whether it has civil disorder or WLTKD.

Disparities in economic, cultural, or political situations can cause immigration within or between civilizations. Please see Post #170 (on page 9) for more details.

Military units consume 1 shield, 1 food, and 1 gold each in maintenance. Although seemingly excessive, these costs go back into the economy. The shields and food will be purchased by the central government from available markets with federal funds (at market prices), which will boost the purchasing power of all cities involved. The 1 gold maintenance per unit will also go back to the home cities of the units, to further boost purchasing power of those cities. (In addition, building military units actually uses up 1 population point each, so recruitment will decrease city populations while disbanding will increase them.) Military expenditures (the "defense budget") will clearly have major effects upon the economy.

There will be no more generic food or shields. All food and shields will be specified--ocean squares might produce 2 fish, grasslands could produce 2 wheat, "wheat resource" squares could produce 4 wheat, and so forth.

Types of food and shields that are in lesser supply in a market will capture the demand of more common types of food and shields. Therefore, although a unit of fish and a unit of wheat will both add one unit to the granary, a city producing fish would prefer to purchase wheat.

"Processed" food and shields will always capture the demand of unprocessed food and shields. Such food and shields are produced by certain improvements that process food and shields into their refined form.

All types of food and all types of shields have the same non-economic effects. Whether it is game or wheat or cattle, it will count as 1 food as far as population survival and growth are concerned. A unit of iron or stone or aluminum would all contribute one unit to the accumulation of production.

To trade with other civs, Trade Agreements or Trade Deals may be agreed upon during negotiations. This includes defining limited, specific, or complete trade agreements or even embargos, for the restriction thereof. For details, please see post #95.

The number of population points representing a city will be on a larger scale. In other words, population points in the UET represent fewer people than the population points currently in Civ. This allows for more precise fluctuations in population, such as for the military. Note that each population point consumes only 1 food.

A city may cover more than one square. In fact, every square that is being worked will have a "settlement" on it. The settlements represent the particular squares the city population has decided to work.

The "city square" will not house all of the citizens of the city. Instead, the citizens are housed wherever their settlements are.

The city square will function as a settlement for city production purposes, as well as the seat of the local government. Therefore, this city square is still important, for capturing it will unseat the local government.

The "city radius" is no longer limited to 21 squares. In fact, there will be no particular pattern at all, other than available space for settlements to expand on to. In theory, then, there is no hard limit on the size of cities.

A city's culture determines its ability to extend. In other words, cities with strong cultures have the ability to extend over larger areas and thus consist of more settlements; cities with weak cultures will find that expansion will result in eventual splintering of the more outlying settlements into their own cities.

More than one citizen can work the same square. A particular population point of citizens is limited in the number of resources that it can produce. Therefore, more fertile squares may require more than one population point to work to full utilization. The settlements of that square would be accordingly denser.

It is possible to occupy portions of a city. Since the city is now physically present on the map, but not as a singularity, it will be possible to occupy portions of a city, and toppling the local government of a city (by capturing the city square) will not guarantee a transfer of all of the settlements of the city to the captor. Whether this happens depends largely upon the cultural cohesion of the city before conquest.

Civil Disorder will not only be more visible, but will physically exist on the map. In other words, the settlements that are causing the disorder are distinguishable, on the map, from the rest of the city. Actually, happy settlements might as well also be distinguishable from merely content settlements.

Cities may be part of provinces. The advantage to this grouping is the availability of a provincial palace (which can reduce corruption and waste in the province), and the ability to define policy for a larger portion of a civ at once (possibly reducing micromanagement).

Settlements not belonging to any city are under the jurisdiction of the province in which they exist. This possibility arises from the fact that cities that expand too rapidly, without the cultural cohesion to stay together, will see outlying settlements break away from the city government. In these cases, they would be under the jurisdiction of the province until the player decides to reorganize them into cities or even separate provinces!


Please note that the original first post has been moved to my original second post location. This post was about to exceed the character limit!

The commerce on a square represents various minor resources that are sold throughout your empire. You pocket taxes. Players rarely want things too out of their control. That's why things like earthquakes weren't in CivIII. Although I do agree that food should be tradable between networked cities. maybe you could drag the surplus food icons in the domestic advisor screen.

I support this
good one

Sounds too much like MOO3, but I'll give it a try nonetheless..

First, let us consider that the basic resources currently produced by a worked tile are food, shields, and trade. My issue is with the production of trade--why is trade "produced" in the same manner as tangible entities like food and raw materials (shields)? Trade is a process, not an object, therefore I do not think it should be possible to directly produce it. Instead, I propose that trade be a result of *trading* tangible objects like food and shields. In other words, food and shields become commodities, which in effect renders all tile production to be economic--which, by the way, fits with the very essence of economies, which is to distribute goods. Economics is not purely about money--money is by definition simply a convenient and quantitative method of measuring the value of goods.

Click to expand...

I'm with you this far. Just a minor notion, though: Civ does not handle trade as an object. The trade produced by a tile represents objects being traded. This is precisely why rivers and roads bring more trade: they allow quicker and bigger trading of consumer goods.

There will be two sliders for shield distribution; the first slider governs all shields produced by a city. This slider will divide the shields between internal production and sale. However, internal production will also have a slider dividing it into the production of consumer goods and from heavy industry. The heavy industry production will be similar to the traditional Civ shields that accumulate to produce units or improvements. The consumer goods will be consumed by the population, in a similar manner as food. Obviously, people throughout history have demanded more than simply food for their sustenance. The number of goods demanded by each population point should vary by era, but the exact number should be determined after playtesting. In addition, the lack of consumer goods should incur some kind of sociological penalty, such as unhappy citizens. Again, the specific penalty should be determined after playtesting for balance.

Click to expand...

As far as I know, building up your industry also builds up your economy, right? Now then why would my shields we "economically" wasted upon heavy industry? Building a temple should bring money also - because of the buyers and workers and sellers. Construction would first of all bring more jobs. Secondly all the materials must be acquired somewhere - in practice mostly from companies delivering these. These companies would then get richer and so on and so on. The point being here is that it is very unrealistic to put some shields on sale, some on internal production that creates no money. The boost of internal production can create far more money than any sales could!

So far, the idea is not very complicated--sliders have long been part of the Civ games.

Click to expand...

There are no other sliders than those two in Civ3 . I agree, though: it is not very complex.

All of these calculations and trades between cities are automatic with none of them direct by the player, yet the player *can* still potentially play a direct role in the economy. Though varying slightly by government, the idea is that the player can use federal funds or federal "power" to assist cities or promote projects that have a priority. For example, if the construction of a barracks is not fast enough due to a city's low production or low purchasing power, the player can either "subsidize" the project with federal funds to buy additional shields from the market for the project, or as a monarch simply "force" the diversion of shields from the market to the city to speed production.

Click to expand...

This is the part that brings back the memories of Master of Orion 3. There you could subsidize projects of individual planets with federal funds. It is a good idea, but hardly any different from hurrying production. I will continue on this topic shortly..

Clearly such meddling can be costly, whether directly or indirectly, and therefore will probably be used only rarely, balancing the game through allowing the economy to run itself. The player's more general role would simply be to increase production of shields and food and encourage growth of populations to buy these goods. As a result, the player would most likely experience less micromanagement, despite the system's complexity, because there simply is not much the player can do.

Overall, I would just say that this economic system would be revolutionary not merely in its mechanics but by the philosphy that the economy should be complex enough to elude complete control, and that the player should only be able to "nudge" it in the right direction. Such a view would make Civilization *much* more interesting because grand schemes and plans can no longer be precisely calculated due to complexity, offering huge replayability value to the game. In addition, it has the incredible advantage of being fundamentally in-depth yet does not force excessive micromanagement due to the relatively few options available to the player. Therefore, I am convinced that this economic system would enrich Civilization more than anything, because everything follows from the basics.

Click to expand...

The problem with this is the fact that it has been tried out - and in my and many other people's opinion it failed horribly. It is not that easy to implement something like this. Why? Because people NEED to know what's going on. Most people don't want to play games whose rules they cannot fathom. The reason why chess is such a popular game lies in the fact that its rules are VERY simple, but the possibilities are endless. If you take away the rules, it gets frustrating to try to control something you don't understand.

In MOO3 the only thing I understood is that I should build those improvements and expand to good planets. My economy would either soar or not - with me being very perplexed about what caused which. Don't get me wrong here, I know that it is only realistic. What I am arguing is that what is realistic is not always the best. Civ is not a game about economy, its a game WITH economy. This is one of the things they forgot in MOO3. The rules should be simple, so that even those without a degree in Economics are able to figure them out and know how to play with them. They are simple now: you get more money by building roads, by increasing your population and by building marketplaces, banks and such. They are not wholly realistic rules, as you have vividly pointed out. But they are understandable. Something that the player can only "nudge" into some general direction without even knowing the exact consequences will only cause frustration in majority of players. A concrete and very important example of this is the fact that economic growth rate goes up and down. If a player tries to control each twist, the result is the same as trying too hard to control a car on ice: it will completely get out of control.

This is indeed revolutionary, but that revolution has been tried out in MOO3 already with disappointing results. It's not just that they failed in constructing the economy (I think they did it pretty well), but that they made it completely uncontrollable (even though in theory you could control even the tiniest part of your economy).

Perhaps it would work, but I wouldn't advocate the system simply because its realistic. If you want realistic economy, become an economist! A game should find a balance between realism, playability and simplicity. This does indeed lessen micromanagement, but so also would a game that was completely automated!

But I must applause you for this, nonetheless. It's the innovative ideas that count, even though they would never get implemented. Now if you would answer this (hopefully constructive) criticism, I would be happy to try to develop this further. If a balance could be found, this would indeed be a revolutionary change!

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

The summary post was about to exceed the character limit, so the original first post has been moved here! Sorry for the now un-chronological order of the first few posts in this thread!

ORIGINAL FIRST POST:

After reading some very interesting and insightful histories of the US and the world, particularly Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States, I think it may be much more interesting to cast Civilization from an economic point of view.

First, let us consider that the basic resources currently produced by a worked tile are food, shields, and trade. My issue is with the production of trade--why is trade "produced" in the same manner as tangible entities like food and raw materials (shields)? Trade is a process, not an object, therefore I do not think it should be possible to directly produce it. Instead, I propose that trade be a result of *trading* tangible objects like food and shields. In other words, food and shields become commodities, which in effect renders all tile production to be economic--which, by the way, fits with the very essence of economies, which is to distribute goods. Economics is not purely about money--money is by definition simply a convenient and quantitative method of measuring the value of goods.

Now that "trade" disappears as a resource, where would money come from? The selling of goods, of course. The specific manner and values associated with these exchanges should be handled by the developers after playtesting, of course, but here is the general idea:

There will be a slider for food distribution; this slider governs the distribution of surplus food produced by a city. The two ends are storage and trade. The more food is allocated to storage, the more quickly the city will grow, but the less income it can generate. Conversely, the more is allocated to trade, the greater the potential income of the city but the slower the growth.

There will be two sliders for shield distribution; the first slider governs all shields produced by a city. This slider will divide the shields between internal production and sale. However, internal production will also have a slider dividing it into the production of consumer goods and from heavy industry. The heavy industry production will be similar to the traditional Civ shields that accumulate to produce units or improvements. The consumer goods will be consumed by the population, in a similar manner as food. Obviously, people throughout history have demanded more than simply food for their sustenance. The number of goods demanded by each population point should vary by era, but the exact number should be determined after playtesting. In addition, the lack of consumer goods should incur some kind of sociological penalty, such as unhappy citizens. Again, the specific penalty should be determined after playtesting for balance.

So far, the idea is not very complicated--sliders have long been part of the Civ games. The somewhat complex portion comes in dealing with the trading part. The basic idea is that cities in need will buy from cities with surplus; the selling city then earns income from such a sale. All such processes will be automatic; the player will not actually direct any specific sale. The price of each commodity will be determined by the simple supply and demand conditions of each market (transportation would limit the extent of markets).

Another important concept is "purchasing power." The basic idea is that cities earn income through sales and purchase goods with that income--and only that income. Therefore, the more a city sells, the greater its purchasing power, and the more it can buy.

All of these calculations and trades between cities are automatic with none of them direct by the player, yet the player *can* still potentially play a direct role in the economy. Though varying slightly by government, the idea is that the player can use federal funds or federal "power" to assist cities or promote projects that have a priority. For example, if the construction of a barracks is not fast enough due to a city's low production or low purchasing power, the player can either "subsidize" the project with federal funds to buy additional shields from the market for the project, or as a monarch simply "force" the diversion of shields from the market to the city to speed production.

Clearly such meddling can be costly, whether directly or indirectly, and therefore will probably be used only rarely, balancing the game through allowing the economy to run itself. The player's more general role would simply be to increase production of shields and food and encourage growth of populations to buy these goods. As a result, the player would most likely experience less micromanagement, despite the system's complexity, because there simply is not much the player can do.

Overall, I would just say that this economic system would be revolutionary not merely in its mechanics but by the philosphy that the economy should be complex enough to elude complete control, and that the player should only be able to "nudge" it in the right direction. Such a view would make Civilization *much* more interesting because grand schemes and plans can no longer be precisely calculated due to complexity, offering huge replayability value to the game. In addition, it has the incredible advantage of being fundamentally in-depth yet does not force excessive micromanagement due to the relatively few options available to the player. Therefore, I am convinced that this economic system would enrich Civilization more than anything, because everything follows from the basics.


Any (constructive, hopefully) criticisms, questions, and thoughts are absolutely welcome, but please allow me some time to answer (Spring Break is ending!). In addition, you will probably notice that a number of details and "what if" situations are unexplained due to time constraints. Please ask about them!

____________________________________________

SECOND POST:

Excellent! I greatly appreciate all who bothered to read my long post and then bothered to offer very constructive criticism.

@mewtarthio:
I agree that Civ has tried to represent minor economic activities collectively through "trade" and that it makes perfect sense in such a context, but I question basing the entire system of trade on such vague precepts. Many major and interesting economic trends and motivations throughout history cannot be adequately portrayed through Civ's simple system.

@Shyrramar:
Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately, in your view) I have never played MOO3, so I do not know firsthand what you are referring to, but nevertheless I will try my best.

I note that you mention that "Civ does not handle trade as an object" and that it is merely a matter of representation. I agree, but I must say that Civ *does* still handle trade as an object in that it can be so easily manipulated. What I mean is that trade is a "representation" in Civ but these representations are treated as if objects just like food and shields. For example, a player could get X amount more trade simply but switching from using an ocean square to a gold square. Similarly, a player could get X more trade precisely through building X more roads. The concreteness and precise predictability of these actions just seem to me too methodical of a way to handle something abstract like trade. Finally, I would like the process of trade to be a *process*, not to be so easily representable by a single entity or symbol. I am, however, glad that you gave me that chance to clarify!

Anyway, the next comment concerns the apparent "unprofitability" of diverting shields to heavy industry. In my view, Civilization places ownership of all resources in the player's hands. The problem is that the role of the player does not correspond to anything in reality. Therefore, the food and shields do not belong to the "private sector" but instead to the "civilization" (the government, I suppose). I break this idea down into each local (city) government controlling its own resources, and therefore "heavy industry" does not generate revenue for the city because all of the exchange remains within the city. Considering the city as a whole, there is no net change of wealth since the buyers and sellers are both within the city, and therefore no revenue is generated. Recall that I had implicitly defined the new "trade" in terms of a city's income. Trade that results in no net change of wealth must accordingly represent no change in the city's income collectively. On the other hand, the "shields on sale" concept involves the exchange of goods between two distinct economic units; therefore the city selling the product can claim income. By the same principle, the city buying the product must have enough purchasing power to do so (recall that purchasing power is derived from the city income). Hopefully that explanantion was not too muddled--but any more comments are of course welcomed!

Next, allow me to clarify my idea of subsidizing projects. My idea of subsidizing a project is simply to boost a city's purchasing power with federal funds. The difference between subsidizing and hurrying production is that subsidization likely cannot complete a project in one turn (note that a city using subsidies to purchase additional shields per turn must buy from the pool of shields on the market--the same shields that are being sold by other cities! It is unlikely such a large number of shields is generally available on the market). In addition, the player can select the level of subsidization; these subsidies are ongoing costs per turn (just like real subsidies), unlike the lump sum cost of hurrying production. As for MOO3, I cannot comment as I have not played it, but I would hope that its system now seems different from this system.

Finally, I agree that a system that gives only vague control to players and offers unpredictable consequences would be disastrous and frustrating, but I honestly do not believe this system is difficult to understand. The details and my lengthy explanations may seem complicated, but they are merely numerous cases of the basic idea that production = money. In the Civ games, the elements of food and shields have been separated from money and trade, with the only trivial link of hurrying production with gold. This system strives to fix this illogical arrangement--recall that "money" is by definition only a measurement of the value of production. Therefore, the player has the rather simple economic objective of trying to produce more--more shields, more food, more strategic, luxury, and "bonus" resources (I will explain the role of resources in a later post)--and almost by definition more money is assured. This system's depth lies in the fact that the degree of success can be enhanced through using various mixes of production--diversification of the economy certainly helps. In other words, those who do not have a degree in Economics will still enjoy success through simple methods, but those who wish to go deeper and experiment will find themselves rewarded even more so. What I have proposed, therefore, is a dynamic economy, not the flat and uninteresting model Civ currently uses.

Hmm...that was a bit lengthier than expected, but oh well...
Hopefully that clarifies some points. But please respond, Shyrramar, with more of your excellent constructive criticism!

Originally posted by Trade-peror

Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately, in your view) I have never played MOO3, so I do not know firsthand what you are referring to, but nevertheless I will try my best.

Click to expand...

You should perhaps give it a try? It has that revolutionary economics-idea implemented. Not sure if it's done correctly, but atleast you would have experience to back up (or undermine...) your theory

Considering the city as a whole, there is no net change of wealth since the buyers and sellers are both within the city, and therefore no revenue is generated. Recall that I had implicitly defined the new "trade" in terms of a city's income. Trade that results in no net change of wealth must accordingly represent no change in the city's income collectively.

Click to expand...

Let me take you on a journey to the Fascinating World of Philosophy in this. Hopefully this will clarify and emphasize my point. First of all, let me say that I think we agree on the mechanics of economy vs. industry, but disagree on whether industry could EVER be separated for economy - as this is what I understand you are referring to by "internal heavy industry".

Isn't wealth a wonder? I have a lot of fox-pelts, you have a lot of axes. You would love to have some fox-pelts, but are a lousy hunter (sorry ). I am tired of smashing the foxes with rocks and strangling them with my bare hands, but I have absolutely no idea how to create appropriate weapons. Then one day we meet and agree for an exchange. I will give you five fox-pelts and you will give me one axe. Nothing has changed in real life (there are still the same amount of items in the world), but somehow the world is now a "wealthier" place. We have managed to agree to a "price" of foxes vs. axes. This price is something completely abstract, but still it can change the world, because it is "a process", "an agreement" and all that. Wealth is therefore something that begins to build up the minute two thinking and self-conscient intelligences meet and agree to a value.

Now what I am getting at with this is the fact that you cannot consider a city to be a unit - because a city is actually a multitude of people. These value-based processes will create wealth even if it happens in and only in the city itself. The net-value does therefore actually increase - even though the "objects" are only traded within the city (so one could say the net-amount of items is not of course increased, but the net-value of these items has). As in the foxes-to-axes-example, the net number of items has not changed, but something has: we have both become wealthier.

Another way to argue the point is that your logic would lead to results that you yourself would never accept: the increase in wealth (or economics in general) would not be possible on global scale either (actually wouldn't be possible at all). If you claim that trade within the city will not create wealth, you should also claim that trade within a nation will not create wealth and trade within a world will not create wealth. In cities the wealth is based on the exchange of items, work and such between people, in a nation the same is applied to cities.

With this I move to claim that production without resulting wealth is simply not possible within a community. There is no way that you could build something without distributing items with value and therefore creating wealth. It is the marvel of economics that causes this paradox. One could even say that wealth is generated by nothing, as nothing within the city (or another system) is changed apart from items changing their places. But simply the fact that I having two red balls and you having two yellow balls is a situation with less "overall wealth" than when we exchange one red ball to a yellow one - provided that we both think that owing two different colored balls is better than owing two balls of the same colour.

This long and perhaps somewhat dizzying explanation is supposed to be an argument for this: no "internal" production without generated wealth is possible. BUT of course, trade between cities may be more effective way to gain money than trade within a city.

Next, allow me to clarify my idea of subsidizing projects. My idea of subsidizing a project is simply to boost a city's purchasing power with federal funds. The difference between subsidizing and hurrying production is that subsidization likely cannot complete a project in one turn (note that a city using subsidies to purchase additional shields per turn must buy from the pool of shields on the market--the same shields that are being sold by other cities! It is unlikely such a large number of shields is generally available on the market). In addition, the player can select the level of subsidization; these subsidies are ongoing costs per turn (just like real subsidies), unlike the lump sum cost of hurrying production. As for MOO3, I cannot comment as I have not played it, but I would hope that its system now seems different from this system.

Click to expand...

I will disagree in this point also. It is in effect exactly the same result in your system than in the current one - but your system is more complex, albeit more realistic. You could say that the hurried project is finished in a turn - which is stupid, yes. But I say this is not the case. Hurrying a project when it is halfway done is in effect equivalent to hurrying it a little each turn and thus halving its construction time.

What I do agree, though, is the point where you say that the city would buy the shields from a common pool. This is a point well put. What I am seeing as a problem here is its complexity. It is actually very hard to distinguish the difference between using a common pool of money to speed up the job and using a common pool of trading/production/whatever. What I am saying is that paying a lump sum toward the goal of completing a half-done improvement is very similar to paying the lump sum in smaller quantities in effect doubling the construction rate. The lump sum comes from a pool generated by all the cities together whereas your quantities come from a similar pool thought differently.
Your idea is good - don't get me wrong, I like it! - but I fear it is too complex for having such little effects. It could effectively be replaced by all payments being per turn - so that you could either pay 100gpt for three turns to complete a project in three turns, or you could pay a lump sum of 300 while having four turns left. There is no need for advanced economics.

Finally, I agree that a system that gives only vague control to players and offers unpredictable consequences would be disastrous and frustrating, but I honestly do not believe this system is difficult to understand. The details and my lengthy explanations may seem complicated, but they are merely numerous cases of the basic idea that production = money. In the Civ games, the elements of food and shields have been separated from money and trade, with the only trivial link of hurrying production with gold. This system strives to fix this illogical arrangement--recall that "money" is by definition only a measurement of the value of production. Therefore, the player has the rather simple economic objective of trying to produce more--more shields, more food, more strategic, luxury, and "bonus" resources (I will explain the role of resources in a later post)--and almost by definition more money is assured. This system's depth lies in the fact that the degree of success can be enhanced through using various mixes of production--diversification of the economy certainly helps. In other words, those who do not have a degree in Economics will still enjoy success through simple methods, but those who wish to go deeper and experiment will find themselves rewarded even more so. What I have proposed, therefore, is a dynamic economy, not the flat and uninteresting model Civ currently uses.

Click to expand...

Well spoken . I have expressed my view on the complexity of this: I think that for a game to be enjoyable, one should understand the mechanics behind the rules in order to play within the rules. I leave it to those people I am so earnestly speaking on behalf of to judge if it is really so. I still want to emphasize that I like your idea and your theory, I really do, but I think it should not be a part of Civ.

Hmm...that was a bit lengthier than expected, but oh well...
Hopefully that clarifies some points. But please respond, Shyrramar, with more of your excellent constructive criticism!

Click to expand...

There's no problem in length, if it is all for a good use. I fear that it is I who should be making these apologies, not you! Thank you yourself for receiving my constructive criticism as such

originally posted by Trade-peror
Considering the city as a whole, there is no net change of wealth since the buyers and sellers are both within the city, and therefore no revenue is generated. Recall that I had implicitly defined the new "trade" in terms of a city's income. Trade that results in no net change of wealth must accordingly represent no change in the city's income collectively.

Click to expand...

What about sales tax?

Wow, what excellent responses. Unfortunately I do not have time at this moment to answer all of them, but I will get a few done (hopefully). Whatever I do not answer yet, please ask me again!

Shyrramar, I note that the essential basis of your argument is that "wealth" does not necessarily require a change in the net value/amount of goods, that internal trade will boost "wealth." I, however, must first point out that the definitions of wealth, according to the American Heritage Dictionary, are essentially either "All goods and resources having value in terms of exchange or use" or "An abundance of valuable material possessions or resources." Considering such defintions, I do not consider it true that the exchange of axes and fox-pelts, in equivalent amounts, has made anyone wealthier, because no one has anymore "goods and resources" than before. But before I go any further, I note that "value" and "amount" of goods are used almost interchangeably in your explanations. It applied perfectly to current Civ models, but my system requires that these concepts be separated. Therefore, you are in a way correct in saying that the fox pelt and ax trade has made us wealthier, but ONLY if the *value* of the axes or fox pelts begin to change. For example, let us recall the definition of money--a convenient and quantifiable method of measuring value (wealth). Therefore, let us convert the fox pelts and axes into, say $100 each. If we exchange the fox pelts and axes, in effect now $100 each, no one has made any money. We could trade the $100 bills infinitely and the net amount would remain the same between the two of us; as a result, wealth does not increase because none of us has increased our "goods or resources." On the other hand, if suddenly one of us valued the axes or the pelts more, then whoever has more of the more valuable item has suddenly increased "potential wealth"--in the end, we still only have the same amount of $100 bills between us until a foreign economic unit joins our little economy and recognizes the increased value of the more valuable item, but note that whatever wealth this new unit had is now reduced correspondingly to purchase the item but then increased by the same amount with the addition of this item under his possession. Again, the overall amount of wealth in this economy has not changed.

What, therefore, allows the creation of wealth in the real world then? A rather simple answer--the earth. It is not necessary to pay the earth to produce its crops or yield its raw materials; it may cost wealth to pay people to harvest and mine, but note that this wealth goes back into the economy. In the end, the earth has yielded its fruits for free.

Hopefully that somehow got my point across, but please ask for clarifications if deemed necessary.

For the next topic of cities being considered the basic economic units in my system, I unfortunately disagree with your conclusion, though I agree with much of your logic. I agree that cities are actually multitudes of people, but I must also say that creating a model for an entire civilization to have the individual as the basic economic unit would be too complex and cumbersome (as realistic as that may be). Therefore I do admit to some generalization--I simply do not agree with Civ's current OVERgeneralizations.

As for the fact that it may seem that my system would doom all economies to stagnation because net wealth would never change, I hope you notice that I have already explained this issue in my explanation of the earth yielding its resources for free. Similarly, the city's resources are free (the workers are part of the city economy themselves, so paying them really makes no net loss for the city--actually another good reason to consider the city the basic economic unit), and it can choose to consume them with no net change in wealth or sell them to get monetary wealth (note that "overall wealth" actually stays the same because the products sold are of value and have been removed from the city's possession). Yet the city's "overall wealth" will still increase over time because it will get more "free resources" from the worked tiles over time. That leads us to another necessary distinction--"potential wealth" and monetary wealth are not the same. Monetary wealth, in the form of currency, is an easily usable asset, and of a fixed value (we shall assume--currency exchange and fluctuation is too complicated for this model currently). Potential wealth is not easily usable since it is not universally accepted as a medium of exchange, but even more due to the fact that its value can change easily. As a result, conversions between these forms of wealth can create the differences that one party can claim as having "profited" even with no net change in the number and initial value of goods exchanged.

As is now (hopefully) clear from my point of view, wealth does increase even in global terms--just not through random "trade" but through fluctuations in the values assigned to goods, and the the fact that goods are produced almost as a function of time and population (level of exploitation). Therefore, the player's objective in maximizing overall wealth and particularly monetary wealth, is to take advantage of these value changes and strive to produce more and more.

Unfortunately, that exhausts all time I have right now (and space, perhaps) so please ask me about the unanswered topics in a later post! I greatly appreciate all the thoroughly constructive criticism I have received!

First of all I would like to point out, that English is not my mother's tongue, it is my second language. Therefore I may well use certain terms in the wrong places, with the wrong connotations and wrong meanings. An intelligent conversion therefore demands mutual co-operation: I must be extra-careful with the terms I use, and also be consistent in whatever terms I use. You, on the other hand, must endure . I will try to make my points clearer with the best of my abilities.

Originally posted by Trade-peror
Shyrramar, I note that the essential basis of your argument is that "wealth" does not necessarily require a change in the net value/amount of goods, that internal trade will boost "wealth." I, however, must first point out that the definitions of wealth, according to the American Heritage Dictionary, are essentially either "All goods and resources having value in terms of exchange or use" or "An abundance of valuable material possessions or resources." Considering such defintions, I do not consider it true that the exchange of axes and fox-pelts, in equivalent amounts, has made anyone wealthier, because no one has anymore "goods and resources" than before.

Click to expand...

You may notice that both definitions include the word "value", which is exactly what this is all about. I am arguing (albeit my use of words may have been misleading) that even without "material" increase of "goods and resources" there can be increase in "wealth", as wealth is dependent upon value - and value is what we as people assign to goods and resources, not something that is in the goods and resources to begin with.

Therefore my argument is actually this: although nobody has more goods and resources than before, there has been an increase in wealth, because we have assigned this wealth in our trading (there would be no point in trading without us assign a value to each of the items to be traded). Let us continue, then...

But before I go any further, I note that "value" and "amount" of goods are used almost interchangeably in your explanations.

Click to expand...

My apologies for the mistake. Value and amount are different things.

It applied perfectly to current Civ models, but my system requires that these concepts be separated. Therefore, you are in a way correct in saying that the fox pelt and ax trade has made us wealthier, but ONLY if the *value* of the axes or fox pelts begin to change.

Click to expand...

You are correct in your analysis, this is what I ment. Wealth is something that simply cannot exist without value, and value cannot exist without conscious beings.

For example, let us recall the definition of money--a convenient and quantifiable method of measuring value (wealth). Therefore, let us convert the fox pelts and axes into, say $100 each. If we exchange the fox pelts and axes, in effect now $100 each, no one has made any money. We could trade the $100 bills infinitely and the net amount would remain the same between the two of us; as a result, wealth does not increase because none of us has increased our "goods or resources."

Click to expand...

This is a bad example (Sorry.. ). First of all, money is not something that is equivalent with wealth. Money is something that is universally seen as representing a certain value. Let us not forget that money has value only if we give it value. Now you are in effect changing two items of the same value, which of course does not increase any wealth. If we people only changed money between us with a ratio of 1:1, how could any wealth ever arise?

The point in my argument is that we give different values to different goods. I wouldn't feel happy after changing a 100 dollard bill to your 100 dollar bill, because they are of the actual same value. Money is NEVER changed to money (there is no point, because money itself has no value). I would change my fox-pelts to your axes only because the axes had greater value to me than to you, and vice versa. It is the fact that we assign different values to our goods that generates wealth - even though there is absolutely no change in material amount of goods we two own.

Money is only used because it has universal, agreed upon value. Without money I could only exchange pelts with those that felt that they lacked them, which would also apply to axes. Money allows people to exchange valuable good without directly exchanging them. You could acquire money from someone by selling your axes even though I have enough axes, and then buy more pelts from me. I could then use the money to buy spices from someone who has no interest in pelts.

On the other hand, if suddenly one of us valued the axes or the pelts more, then whoever has more of the more valuable item has suddenly increased "potential wealth"--in the end, we still only have the same amount of $100 bills between us until a foreign economic unit joins our little economy and recognizes the increased value of the more valuable item, but note that whatever wealth this new unit had is now reduced correspondingly to purchase the item but then increased by the same amount with the addition of this item under his possession. Again, the overall amount of wealth in this economy has not changed.

Click to expand...

I agree that wealth is ultimately based on items and practice. Purely theoretical value is nothing, it must be backed up by something. 100$ is valuable only if in the end I could completely exchange it into material goods. This of course leads to the thought that wealth in the end "comes from somewhere", and indeed it comes, as you said, from Earth. Put this only emphasizes my point: every labour produces more wealth into the economy in question, because it produces something that is deemed "valuable". If I go and hunt more foxes with your axe, I become wealthier, because you will once again buy my pelts, whereas I need more axes because they break once in a while (this is a stretch of the example, but it is the idea that counts).

What, therefore, allows the creation of wealth in the real world then? A rather simple answer--the earth. It is not necessary to pay the earth to produce its crops or yield its raw materials; it may cost wealth to pay people to harvest and mine, but note that this wealth goes back into the economy. In the end, the earth has yielded its fruits for free.

Click to expand...

The earth does NOT yield anything for free. They are yielded via our labour. You could say that Earth exchanges our labour to its fruits - another simple economy there .

Hopefully that somehow got my point across, but please ask for clarifications if deemed necessary.

Click to expand...

I am unsure, because I see no real argument behind this. So I am thinking that perhaps this part has only been a misunderstanding. In the end I see you basically agreeing with me. I only misled you by not pointing out the origins of the items that are deemed valuable (you cannot put a value on something if there is nothing). I advocate that every single bit of work increases wealth, if value is attached to the work. I chop you some wood, you pay me for it, I buy food with the payment and chop you some more wood with the energy I got from the food. My work itself is constantly bringing more wealth to the economy, because you get richer all the time by getting yourself more wood (whatever you do with it) with something you see as a reasonable price (you probably wouldn't pay me outrageous sums

For the next topic of cities being considered the basic economic units in my system, I unfortunately disagree with your conclusion, though I agree with much of your logic. I agree that cities are actually multitudes of people, but I must also say that creating a model for an entire civilization to have the individual as the basic economic unit would be too complex and cumbersome (as realistic as that may be). Therefore I do admit to some generalization--I simply do not agree with Civ's current OVERgeneralizations.

Click to expand...

So you don't actually disagree with my conclusion, but only argue against its deployement into the game? I was only arguing that your realism is actually not realism, as you here admitted. But I think that it does not serve any purpose to generalize this by making trade within a city (or production consumed into the city) no trade at all. I think that all production, was it within cities or between cities, generates wealth. This only emphasizes your view that production should be the basis of wealth.

As for the fact that it may seem that my system would doom all economies to stagnation because net wealth would never change, I hope you notice that I have already explained this issue in my explanation of the earth yielding its resources for free.

Click to expand...

Noted. But this does not remove the conclusion. The line you draw between people being economic units and cities being those is completely arbitrary. This is what I was arguing against. I actually stated that net wealth MUST change WITHIN an economic system in order to make any economy possible AT ALL. This increase in net wealth within an economic system is due to Earth's production, which is in turn harvested by individual humans, traded by numerous humans that comprise a city. Those cities (that have wealth already in them because its citizens trade stuff among themselves with the help of Mother Earth) can trade amongst each other (but this is essentially only people trading together, albeit bunches of people). These cities then in turn comprise nations that can trade together. This international trade allows single humans to trade across the world with the help of intermediators. In essence it is still the humans trading, not the cities.

Similarly, the city's resources are free (the workers are part of the city economy themselves, so paying them really makes no net loss for the city--actually another good reason to consider the city the basic economic unit), and it can choose to consume them with no net change in wealth or sell them to get monetary wealth (note that "overall wealth" actually stays the same because the products sold are of value and have been removed from the city's possession). Yet the city's "overall wealth" will still increase over time because it will get more "free resources" from the worked tiles over time.

Click to expand...

Yes, but the wealth is still based on the labour of the citizens, correct? The paid workers have only a limited number of different choices: to buy food, to buy "luxuries" or to buy stuff for trade. All of these increase the overall wealth of the city. Buying food will make the food-provider richer, the buying of luxuries will make the luxury-provider richer and buying stuff for trade was already discussed earlier.

That leads us to another necessary distinction--"potential wealth" and monetary wealth are not the same. Monetary wealth, in the form of currency, is an easily usable asset, and of a fixed value (we shall assume--currency exchange and fluctuation is too complicated for this model currently). Potential wealth is not easily usable since it is not universally accepted as a medium of exchange, but even more due to the fact that its value can change easily. As a result, conversions between these forms of wealth can create the differences that one party can claim as having "profited" even with no net change in the number and initial value of goods exchanged.

Click to expand...

This distinction was discussed earlier in the analysis of money. If you feel that I have not understood this, you may explain, but I see this as essentially the same as my ranting about money being a poor example there .

As is now (hopefully) clear from my point of view, wealth does increase even in global terms--just not through random "trade" but through fluctuations in the values assigned to goods, and the the fact that goods are produced almost as a function of time and population (level of exploitation). Therefore, the player's objective in maximizing overall wealth and particularly monetary wealth, is to take advantage of these value changes and strive to produce more and more.

Click to expand...

I think you have made yourself much clearer than I. The only essential difference I see is the fact that I see internal production as wealth-generating, whereas you don't. I am trying to argue that intercity trading is impossible without incity trading. My point here is this in simplified arguments: If you are asserting that trade within a city does not produce wealth in the city, you are also asserting that trade between individuals is not producing wealth in the multitude of the people (which we also know as a city). Therefore if innercity trading is not producing wealth because interindividual trading is not producing wealth, intercity trading cannot produce wealth, as it is basically trading of city-individuals. This leads to the fact that nation cannot produce wealth because that wealth would only be a result of its cities trading amongst each other, which is not producing wealth with the same arguments as you used to argue that cities are not producing any wealth whilst trading only within themselves.

What I am saying is that you cannot deny the wealth-producing power of inner city trading without denying the whole of trading.

Unfortunately, that exhausts all time I have right now (and space, perhaps) so please ask me about the unanswered topics in a later post! I greatly appreciate all the thoroughly constructive criticism I have received!

Click to expand...

By all means, answer these points if you feel they need to be corrected/argued against or even (heaven forbid!) agreed upon . This is by far the most interesting conversation I have yet taken part in these forums. Sadly, it has very little to do with Civ

Here's a question for you, Trade-peror: What happens in the beginning of the game when all of your cities have plenty of surplus food (and none of them have surplus production), and you have no contact with other civs to trade with? Do you simply not make any money and thus are completely unable to research, finance military, and so on?

@ Shyrramar:

Oh! Of course, I should have looked at your profile location - "Fin(e)land." I am absolutely sorry for being so lofty and assuming about your use of English! I hope you will not be repelled by my own sometimes elaborate use (I've been learning English in schools for my entire life...) of the language...again, please accept my apologies for such a bad assumption on my part.

First, let me begin with some common foundations. We agree that no net change of goods is necessary to increase wealth because wealth is actually based upon value, and the changes in these values assigned to goods can lead to “greater wealth” without actual material gain. I do also agree that value is assigned, and not inherently “in” any goods or resources. So far, I hope everything is clear enough.

But here comes my first question—what determines the assigning of “value” to goods? Any book of economics would answer in a general term: demand. Demand drives the value of goods. For example, a resource that nobody wants will be worthless and will therefore have no value, in spite of its inherent material existence. A more interesting example is food. Let’s say that I have 1 loaf of bread valued at $2. In normal circumstances, everyone in my community would find that a reasonable price. But say I have this same loaf of bread with me and travel to a poor city with a population 10 times that of my own community. I can sell this exact same loaf of bread for more money, because there is so much more demand for food due to the many more mouths to feed. Because the competition for the food is thus greater, people will pay more to get it. As a result, the assigned value of the food has increased. Accordingly, I believe that value must derive from demand, and I hope that my examples have been clear enough. But if they are not, of course, then please ask me to clarify!

Next, I observe that you do not equate money with wealth. I unfortunately, do not quite agree—and perhaps what I am about to say may be what you actually meant anyway, but in any case, allow me to lay out my reasoning:

I will start with the definition of wealth as “All goods and resources having value in terms of exchange.” Then, I cite the definition of money as “A medium that is an exchangeable equivalent of all other commodities and is used as a measure of their comparative values on the market.” Therefore, money can be used to measure the comparative values of commodities. If wealth lies in the value of goods, then money may be used to measure the “values of commodities”—which is wealth. In other words, money can measure wealth. Then consider that money is an “exchangeable equivalent of all other commodities” and that wealth is “all goods and resources”—which are commodities. Therefore, money is wealth.

That, however, is not all—recall that I had separated wealth into monetary wealth, potential wealth, and overall wealth. Money, by virtue of the word “monetary,” is obviously monetary wealth, and such a form of wealth is easily tradable and has the fixed value it is issued under. Commodities are potential wealth because their values can change. Overall wealth includes monetary and potential wealth.

With that spelled out, I do agree that money has value only if we give it value—which allows money to quantify the value of other commodities. For example, a book costing $5 is clearly cheaper than a book costing $10. If we did not have currency, how could we conveniently express the values of these books? Even more to the point, how could we express that one book has exactly one half the value of the other? “Approximations” would probably not hold up too well. And, of course, I am aware that the ancients used beads and fishhooks and arrowheads for trade. But notice that those are simply different types of money!

Back to the pelts and axes. I agree that we can become wealthier without any material gains, not through “trade” that spontaneously increases wealth, but with one of us (in fact, the customer) assigning a greater value to one of our goods, due to increase demand (from the customer, of course). Then the seller has certainly “profited.” Otherwise, values have no reason to fluctuate by themselves, and most likely not due to the mere activity of trading (imagine how easy it would be to make money if that were true).

Next, excuse my error of saying the Earth yields its resources for free. It actually should be “free.” Allow me to demonstrate:

Overall wealth = $o
Monetary wealth = $m
Potential wealth = $p

Say the Earth yields 100 bushels of wheat (+100 $p [wheat] for the city) and laborers are paid to harvest the wheat (-100 $m [wages] for the city, +100 $m [wages] for the population).
Then the laborers spend the money to buy food (-100 $m [costs] for the population, +100 $p [food] for the population) but the city owns the food supply and therefore sells the food (+100 $m [revenue] for the city, -100 $p [food] for the city). In time, the food is consumed but by then another harvest is ready. The process then repeats.

Recall that $o = $m + $p.

Note that the net change of wealth in terms of $o in every single exchange above is zero for the economy as a whole, with the exception of Earth yielding its 100 bushels of wheat. In fact, add all of the value exchanges above and you will see that the $o of the entire economy has increased by $100. This is what I mean by the Earth yields its fruits for “free.”

Note that the values above can be any values. If the workers were only paid $50, then they could only afford $50 worth of food; as a result, the income from the overall crop would drop to $50 (higher prices are useless because there is only so much money available to buy with in this economy, and the workers are the only buyers). Then each exchange involving food would only have the value at $50; this will cause every value in the above scenario to change to $50, and the result is the same—the overall economy makes a profit.

On to the next matter—my consideration of the city as the basic economic unit. I admit that theoretically trade should be based on individual people, since they are the actual basic economic units in reality. But I disagree with implementing such an idea because it is too cumbersome and difficult to be practical. I also admit that therefore I have chosen an arbitrary location to “draw the line” between theory and implementation of the theory. Yet this line must be drawn somewhere. For example, how would we determine the weight of a bottle of water? We can put it on an electronic balance and see that the weight is, say, 500 grams. If we then weight a single drop of that water, we see that the balance says 0 grams. But clearly that is not true because all matter has mass and therefore weight due to earth’s gravitational pull. Yet we cannot satisfy the deepest of theoretical needs and weigh the atom, or the nucleus, or the quark, or the lepton. I have similarly drawn the line at cities being the basic unit and have not gone down into the impractical theoretical need to consider individuals the basic unit. Our computers are not that advanced yet (I don’t think)!

Hopefully those explanations will led to the answers for just about all of the other points of contentions. If they do not, or you would like to discuss more issues, please post again! I appreciate your time and take immense pleasure in participating in this intellectual discussion (pretty rare these days ).

Oh, and this does have to do with Civ—the Civ of the (far, I’m afraid) future.

@ Mewtarthio

Sorry I was unable to answer your post earlier! Anyway, concerning the idea of "sales tax," well, I deem that unnecessary. For the more in depth explanation, please read my replies to Shyrramar starting with the second paragraph in my second post in this thread. But here is the basic idea: the ownership issue in Civ does not reflect reality; therefore there is no private sector and public sector--everything is owned collectively by "the civilization." Since the civilization includes all domestic buyers, sellers, intermediates, and government, then a "sales tax" makes no difference because the civilization is basically taxing itself and giving itself the revenue. With *foreign* civilizations trading, however, the issue changes. I have little time at this moment, but I will explain tariffs and customs duties in a later post.

Any more comments and questions are appreciated!

@Zurai

In the very beginning, the economy will be very small, because only a limited amount of trade is actually necessary--if you read my latest replies to Shyrramar, you will notice that I imply that sufficient demand in an economy is necessary before it can really "get moving." Demand is primarily driven by population; therefore, beginning economies will be tiny. So there will indeed be little or no revenue, research, or any of the other trade-related activities in the beginning. The plus side, however, is that a full allocation of food to storage would more rapidly increase populations to form the base of demand for products, and such growth will eventually provide enough workers for production to yield enough goods to trade with.

In addition, the particular "demand" for products from each citizen is calculated as an average of the availability of the product for each citizen in the market; therefore a food rich city will find reason to trade with a desert city, even in the very beginning.

Another interesting factor - not directly related, but I would like to see the establishment of "local governments" for cities, and these governments would require maintenance. Before that sounds like an unnecessary drag, note that the maintenance money goes straight into the city's economy and therefore boosts its income and purchasing power! If you have ever heard of Keynesian economics, then it will begin to make sense that increasing government spending can "boost the economy" by pumping money into the economy. This is the same idea!

Anyway, that was going a little too far probably, but hopefully you get the idea--indeed economic activities will be very slow or maybe nonexistent in the beginning, but activity will later accelerate dramatically once the proper foundations are laid. If that still is not too clear, or if you have additional comments or questions, then please post again!

Excellent replies to my concerns, there Trade-peror! What comes to the use of your language, I appreciate "elaborate" use of language (in fact I use it that way myself, which may of course not be perceivable through my use of English). You should not change your way of using language at all, just remember that I may not be able to achieve the necessary mastery of English language . Half of the books I read at university are English, so I have absolutely no problem understanding the texts, just perhaps producing them.

First of all I can now see we agree on the main points that I have defended. I will of course continue to comment on your ideas, but you should remember that the only reason I am not advocating this system is the few points I mentioned earlier:

1. People wouldn't be able to control their economy, which is of course as realistic as it gets, but Civ is not a game that should have rules that people are unable to understand. "Just increase your productivity" is too general a instruction to begin with. Perhaps some compromises can be made in order to make the game more understandable. I will return to this later.

2. This is still far too complex a system to use in a Civ-like game. It may be, though, that this simplicity is only resulting from "traditions", but I also think that a tradition shouldn't be broken (concerning games), if the traditional system is working. This should be "proven" as something that will indeed increase playability of Civ. Apart from you, obviously, I don't see the economic system of Civ as any sort of problem. Yes, it is a terribly oversimplified system, but it doesn't actually break any rules concerning economy. More people making more work still equates more wealth.

3. MoO3

Next, I observe that you do not equate money with wealth. I unfortunately, do not quite agree

Click to expand...

Yes, I agree to some extent. There is though a little bit of faulty logic in your argumentation. It is correct that value, trade, wealth whatever makes the money "equate" wealth, but it is not correct to say that "money" would generate wealth if there was no wealth to begin with! So what I am saying in logical terms is that you are correct in saying wealth implicates money, but not in saying they are equal (which is why I didn't EQUATE money with wealth), as money doesn't implicate wealth. Money has no value in itself, only as the intermediate of trade. Therefore there must first be trade and values for money to become an issue.

This is what I found erring in your example: you used money as something independent from existing values, which of course leads to the same conclusion: exchanging 100$ bills ad infinitum does not generate wealth.

One more point about this. I was referring to money as an abstract term. I was not considering pelts and axes as money (they can certainly be seen as such), but only "valuable goods". Money is something that is made to represent the "value" of goods as you correctly pointed out. It has very useful uses (as we have seen throughout history!), one of which is the fact that we can "measure" wealth - whereas without money comparisons would be impossible. If we have three people, one owning axes, one pelts and the third spices. The spice-person could see the axe person as totally poor, because he has nothing the spice-person values. But that is not true, because the axe-person can buy pelts from the pelt-person and trade them for spices. Money represents the wealth of the person better, because it takes into account the potential of that person to buy the spices, if it he couldn't do it just then.

Say the Earth yields 100 bushels of wheat (+100 $p [wheat] for the city) and laborers are paid to harvest the wheat (-100 $m [wages] for the city, +100 $m [wages] for the population).
Then the laborers spend the money to buy food (-100 $m [costs] for the population, +100 $p [food] for the population) but the city owns the food supply and therefore sells the food (+100 $m [revenue] for the city, -100 $p [food] for the city). In time, the food is consumed but by then another harvest is ready. The process then repeats.

Click to expand...

I am undecided about this. I must think this over very carefully later on. What I am thinking is that the city shouldn't first of all sell their goods for the same amount of money they spend on wages and that the workers shouldn't use all their money on food. If this was the case, then of course we would say this city is not getting wealthier, as it consumes everything it produces. What if it didn't, would the system begin to put out wealth on its own? If it didn't, why would any city be richer than others because they had marketplaces and such? What do you think, do my modifications have any effect?

Okay then, about the city being a basic unit. We agree on everything except the result I do agree that people being basic units is more complex IRL, but on the other hand I don't see it affecting your system. The only modification is that inner-city trade is less profitable than inter-city trade (as you pointed out). It shouldn't be totally unproductive in my opinion. But that's all about that - I got my point through and understand your arguments and motives.
But about the weight: what's really keeping me up at nights is the fact that sub-atomical particles have no weight (they are not subject to gravitational force - they have a mass though), and these non-weighting particles comprise a weighting atom. So all weights are based on the existence of non-weighting particles! And why is it so that mass comes into play only in atoms, not in sub-atomic quantum-world? But to be honest with you: this is one of the least problematic phenomenon of quantum mechanics!

@Zurai

In the very beginning, the economy will be very small, because only a limited amount of trade is actually necessary--if you read my latest replies to Shyrramar, you will notice that I imply that sufficient demand in an economy is necessary before it can really "get moving." Demand is primarily driven by population; therefore, beginning economies will be tiny. So there will indeed be little or no revenue, research, or any of the other trade-related activities in the beginning. The plus side, however, is that a full allocation of food to storage would more rapidly increase populations to form the base of demand for products, and such growth will eventually provide enough workers for production to yield enough goods to trade with.

Click to expand...

I will add my emphasis on this. A very small and unproductive community does not generate wealth almost at all. When all production is production of necessary food-supplies, there is actually no trade and no wealth. This shouldn't be seen as an argument for the impossibility of this system, though, as even the first "shield" (as it is now) is creating wealth. In my point of view, this alone should generate wealth, in Trade-Peror's view this is not enough - some of the production should be directed elsewhere. But as a sum up: a newborn city should have little or no trade-revenue, and this is only realistic.

Oh man this is not for me to long to read no time...

But i think there should be techs that will improve mines , gold mines and other because mines in the modern era require less workers and they gain more gold...

@ Shyrramar

Very good points, Shyrramar! I am glad you take time to read and critique my opinions. Also, I am relieved that you do not find my language too “elaborate” or otherwise incomprehensible. Any intelligent conversation requires understanding.

Anyway, it is gratifying to see that we agree with some of the main concepts, for the details can be refined with time. Please allow me to now comment on the matters in your previous post, which you have conveniently numbered (and I will number my replies accordingly):

1. I cannot quite agree with the statement that players would not be able to control the economy; in fact, I will venture to argue that players have *more* control over the economy. While “just increase your productivity” is admirable advice (rather similar to the Civ advice of “just increase your number of roads”), the player actually has much more control, in being able to stimulate certain industries rather than just the generalized “trade” in Civ. What I mean is that my economic system allows people to fine-tune their economy by promoting specific industries (such as certain luxuries or certain strategic resources) to generate more revenue, and allows the player to therefore experiment with different mixes of industries for financial solvency. In Civ, there is only one way to increase trade directly—build roads. In Civ, whichever country has the most roads and population to use those roads wins the economic contest; with my system, each civilization can specialize in certain industries, allowing small civs to just as effectively compete with large civs, making economic strength comparisons much less cut-and-dry. Anyway, I remain convinced that my economy gives more control to the player than the Civ economy, but please have me clarify unclear points and point out any faulty logic of mine.

2. Interestingly, your conclusion essentially matches the conclusion that can be derived from the above explanation—my system is more complex than Civ’s system of economics—but the analysis of the degree differs. In other words, you deem this system too complex for Civ; I feel that this system is complex but quite playable and usable in Civ. Since the player is *not* actually involved in specific deals and trades in the economy, the player really does not have much micromanagement and routine tasks to attend to. Therefore, this system is not too impractical for implementation in Civ. Of course the details of some Civ concepts would have to adjust, but I see no conflict in basic ideas (as I know them, at least).

I also expect that you may see what appears to be a contradiction—I say my economy affords more player control, yet I also say that the player would experience less micromanagement. This, however, is not a paradox because I have essentially given the player more control over the direction of the economy (by allowing experimentation with the “building blocks”—the specific industries) but not allowing the player to get too involved in routine deals that are made according to the directions of the economy—set by the player.

By the way, I *do* think the Civ economy violates some economic laws. For example, one strategic resource in Civ can supply an entire Civ, regardless of that Civ’s size. This infinite supply, when graphed, has no “production-possibility frontier,” which is a key consequence of the Fundamental Problem of Economics—the Problem of Scarcity. Recall that economics concerns how to most effectively distribute *limited* supplies of a commodity to the largest portion of the market. Roads have the same problem—the trade supplied by roads is infinite once built and thus violating.

Allow me to dispel any contradictions that I may seem to have advocated. I have indeed said in previous posts that the Earth essentially yields resources for “free” and will not run out. This, however, is not an infinite supply contradiction because the commodity of *time* is expended. Each production source will yield its goods in only certain amounts per turn. But Civ roads also take time to build, correct? Certainly! But they only incur a cost once—to get them built. After that, they incur no cost whatsoever and continue to produce trade and wealth “out of nothing.”

3. I note that one conclusion you have drawn from my explanations is “…it is not correct to say that money would generate wealth if there was no wealth to begin with!” This is true—and I am unfortunately not able to determine how I may have seemed to express the opposite. As for “money doesn’t implicate wealth,” well, I actually think it does. If one has money, one has wealth. Then you mention that “money has no value in itself,” to which I do not quite agree—money by definition must have value. What I believe you actually meant is the medium used as money has no value in itself. That is true—but once the medium no longer has value in exchange, it is no longer money at all, by definition. Conversely, we for example now have “electronic money”—the electric signals and data bytes are valueless inherently, but once we assign them value, they become valuable in the exchange for commodities and therefore become money. If that did not make sufficient sense, then please ask me for clarification!

Also, I say that value is ultimately subjective. In the example of the spice person seeing the ax person as poor, the spice person sees the ax person as having no value because the spice person has no use for axes. The ax person IS poor if the only customer the ax person can have is the spice person. In your example, that is not the case due to the pelt person, but the idea remains—the value of a commodity is based on the value the customers (market) for that commodity assign to that commodity.

Then to my numerical example of the “Earth’s free resources” effect. If the city were to sell their goods for a different amount of revenue then that spent on the workers, then there are two possible consequences—it would accrue debt or my original effect would not change. If the city increased prices, it would not be able to extract any more revenue because the workers are the only buyers and the workers’ source of income is limited—by the amount the city pays them to harvest. If the city were to decrease prices, the city would ultimately lose money because they have artificially lowered the value of their goods.

Of course, everything changes when other economic units are introduced. Then the city can truly earn or lose overall wealth; even more important is when some of the other economic units are foreign—that is how the civilization can “truly” gain or lose overall wealth (at the expense of other civilizations, possibly).

By the way, I must also say that I do not see intra-city trade to be “totally unproductive,” just irrelevant to the civilization-wide economy. Please read my second reply to Mewtarthio explaining the Civ “ownership problem.”

Finally, I agree with your sum-up of the effect of my system on new civilizations—its cities should have little or no trade, which is only realistic. This realism will not detract from game play, for it only shifts the economic races to a later date, with no net result of fundamental conceptual change. In fact, it allows more time to lay the foundations that will later have subtle but powerful effects—perhaps a method of rewarding strategic and clever players!

By the way, it may not be true that subatomic particles have no weight (if you have heard of Einstein’s red shift, then you know that gravity can bend light, and light is made up of photons, which are subatomic particles), but actually that may not even be relevant, because weight is only a force. Theoretically, a particle could easily have no weight simply by not being in a gravitational field (although there is no hope of finding such a spot). At least the particles have mass! If they had no mass, then we would have a problem…

Please continue to post any thoughts, comments, and questions! All are appreciated!

The problem is, it's not limited to just new civs. It affects every single civ with satisfied cities and no contact with other civs (EDIT: or even every civ that has a very small dissatisfied:satisfied ratio), such as when playing an archipelago map. In my opinion, this is a grand example of "too much complexity, not enough gameplay".

Originally posted by Trade-peror

1. I cannot quite agree with the statement that players would not be able to control the economy

Click to expand...

OK. I will not press the point, because I do not agree . I think that if I was to argue forever with this, then people would only deem this idea complex just because our talks are long and near incomprehensible! So if you allow me, I will leave the topic of complexity for now.

I also expect that you may see what appears to be a contradiction—I say my economy affords more player control, yet I also say that the player would experience less micromanagement.

Click to expand...

You can relax: I don't see it as a paradox. More control does not equate more micromanagement (and vice versa! More micromanagement can actually have negative or no effect to control).

By the way, I *do* think the Civ economy violates some economic laws. For example, one strategic resource in Civ can supply an entire Civ, regardless of that Civ’s size. This infinite supply, when graphed, has no “production-possibility frontier,” which is a key consequence of the Fundamental Problem of Economics—the Problem of Scarcity. Recall that economics concerns how to most effectively distribute *limited* supplies of a commodity to the largest portion of the market. Roads have the same problem—the trade supplied by roads is infinite once built and thus violating.

Click to expand...

On this, I WHOLEHEARTEDLY agree with you . I just didn't link it to this topic. I have actually addressed this point in "A new resource system"-thread somewhere in this forum (Civ4 - ideas...). You should check it out! I will not comment it here, but your comments are more than welcome there.

3. I note that one conclusion you have drawn from my explanations is “…it is not correct to say that money would generate wealth if there was no wealth to begin with!” This is true—and I am unfortunately not able to determine how I may have seemed to express the opposite. As for “money doesn’t implicate wealth,” well, I actually think it does. If one has money, one has wealth. Then you mention that “money has no value in itself,” to which I do not quite agree—money by definition must have value. What I believe you actually meant is the medium used as money has no value in itself. That is true—but once the medium no longer has value in exchange, it is no longer money at all, by definition. Conversely, we for example now have “electronic money”—the electric signals and data bytes are valueless inherently, but once we assign them value, they become valuable in the exchange for commodities and therefore become money. If that did not make sufficient sense, then please ask me for clarification!

Click to expand...

Yes, I may have been inspecific in my wordings (I don't care to check it, I assume it is so). I did mean the medium that is used as a money, but you are correct: money in definition has value. I was actually thinking about non-valuable dollar-bills there. Although I think you understand this, I still believe you used money as such when making the example. But I won't start a fight about that. Glad that we agree on this!

Also, I say that value is ultimately subjective.

Click to expand...

Yes, I think so too (and have actually expressed this). But you cannot take away my pelt-man just for the case of example, as you would indeed be correct: the axe-man has no wealth. My point was that he DID have wealth, as there indeed WAS the pelt-man. My example was about the system of three, not system of two. I don't see currency as very relevant to a system of two, as the money would have only the same value as the goods offered - and by money I once again mean the medium. Money is only useful when there are different values put on things by different persons, so we need a medium to "measure" the wealth one has.

Of course, everything changes when other economic units are introduced. Then the city can truly earn or lose overall wealth; even more important is when some of the other economic units are foreign—that is how the civilization can “truly” gain or lose overall wealth (at the expense of other civilizations, possibly).

Click to expand...

I honestly cannot understand what you mean by this . You are saying that when units are people, there would be no wealth within a system of these units: city. But when the unit was cities, then wealth would arise? This simply makes no sense. I understand, that in a closed system you are arguing that no money can be generated (in a city, where the people form a closed system). But you must understand, that a system of cities (a state) is not an open system any more than a city is? Neither is the system formed by governments. The same rules apply, only on grander scale. Cities bring nothing new to the economical system, only twice the amount of people - twice the wealth. The city is JUST a collection of people, there is nothing magical in cities. If a collection of people trades with a collection of people, there are people trading with people -> the same rules apply. If this weren't the case, wealth just wouldn't be possible.

It may seem that cities are different from people, but they are not. Neither are nations. If a city lacks something, the people of the city lack something, if a nation lacks something, it is the people that lack something. It is of course a bigger trade if 10000 people want to buy your furs than when one person wants to buy them, but the rules are essentially the same. Or is there something here I am missing?

By the way, I must also say that I do not see intra-city trade to be “totally unproductive,” just irrelevant to the civilization-wide economy. Please read my second reply to Mewtarthio explaining the Civ “ownership problem.”

Click to expand...

Okay. This is partially an answer to my abovementioned concerns. I don't agree about the relevance, though, but it is your system!

By the way, it may not be true that subatomic particles have no weight (if you have heard of Einstein’s red shift, then you know that gravity can bend light, and light is made up of photons, which are subatomic particles), but actually that may not even be relevant, because weight is only a force. Theoretically, a particle could easily have no weight simply by not being in a gravitational field (although there is no hope of finding such a spot). At least the particles have mass! If they had no mass, then we would have a problem…

Click to expand...

This is way off topic, but what the heck . Weight is different from mass, as you quite well know: I was ONLY referring to weight. A hunk of rock does not have weight out of gravitational field. What I was referring to is that if there is an atom in gravitational field, the subatomic particles have no weight, as the gravitational field does not affect them. But the atom would have a weight. Now the funny part is that an atom consisting of non-weighting sub-atomic particles does have a weight. There are gravitationally neutral places in the universe, although there are no places without gravitational pulls. As gravitation is a force, it can be nulled by two equally strong but opposite gravitations. This of course is not relevant here.

I am very familiar with the red shift, although it has no relevance here, as you commented. I was referring to sub-atomic particles within an atom. I am actually quite unsure if the gravitation does indeed have an effect that is only neutralized by the quantum-mechanics's own rules, or if it does not have no effect. I think that the bending of light has something to do with the fact that it is moving. A non-moving photon would not be affected by gravitation, if I am not completely mistaken. The problem with photons is that they cannot be made to stay still, if I remember correctly - because their velocity is a constant. Other sub-atomic particles can be non-moving. Anyway, I am not familiar with this particular phenomenon, so I'd best just shut up

"This is way off topic, but what the heck . Weight is different from mass, as you quite well know: I was ONLY referring to weight. A hunk of rock does not have weight out of gravitational field. "

lol, I was thinking the same thing, but decided not to be nit-picky about it. I'm glad there are others out there with an anal-retentive science block in thier heads.

btw, how do you get the lines and quote system to work?

Originally posted by rcoutme

lol, I was thinking the same thing, but decided not to be nit-picky about it. I'm glad there are others out there with an anal-retentive science block in thier heads.

btw, how do you get the lines and quote system to work?

Click to expand...

Well, I could argue about the non-nit-pickyness of the difference between weight and mass, but what the heck. The game seems lost anyway

Are you using the quick reply or not? If you are, I suggest that you use the actual one.

By pressing the "quote" button in the upper-right corner of a message, you will have the quotes placed, but it will quote the whole text. You can delete parts of it and even cut it to parts (but you will have to add the quotations manually then).

In the actual reply-screen there are "tags" above your text-input-screen. You can either press these and use the "close ... tag(s)" to quote, but you can also write them yourself. All of the tags work so that they are "begun" and they are "ended". The ending has a slash / in the tag to represent it. So if you wanted to quote something, it would go as follows:
[ QUOTE ] This is your quote [ / QUOTE ]. This are deliberately detached so you could actually see them. To have bold text, just do this: [ B ] bold text [ / B ]. Same idea applies to other tags. An example:
[ QUOTE ][ I ] Originally quoted by whoever: [ / I ]
[ B ] This is the quote right here. [ / B ][ / QUOTE ]

Hopefully this helps! If they are still not working, I have no idea of the problem, as they have always worked fine for me. The idea is by the way very similar to HTML-code, if you have ever worked with that...

EDIT: You can use the tags in quick reply also, but then you must type them yourself (I actually usually do) and remember them by heart.