Civs to Self-Sufficient

[Blackbird_SR-71]

Well I was thinking about trade in Civ3 and i realised it has basically no worth in the game. Lets face it each civilization is self-efficient. Really all you have to do is just get some resources and your pretty much guarenteed to never need to trade in the game. Trade Embargos for this reason is why they are worthless.

I suggest we make resources so they are stockpiled. This has been mentioned before by countless people and is a good way to stop life-long amounts of resources. We also have to make war much more harder to sustain. Maybe morale will take a chance in this and if the war is going unsuccessful morale will go down and prices for sustaining the war will go up.

what ways do you guys think we should make countries more dependent on eachother?

 

[sir_schwick]

The reason trade is not prevalent is because it is not profitable. In history trade was usually lucratively profitable. Make trade very profitable, and you make embargoes hurt.

 

[Civrules]

Usually in my games, trade is very profitable indeed.
In fact, that's how I become so wealthy because I'm getting hundreds per turn.
When these trades come to an end, it definitely hurts me.

 

[sir_schwick]

That is the first time I have ever heard of someone using trade to great profit.

 

[Blackbird_SR-71]

We could make economies rely on raw material to function and getting cut off of a resource would really cripple an opponents economy.

 

[Albow]

I think that there should be bonuses associated only through trade deals ... like in SMAC, when there was a pact, each city had a chance to gain extra income from 'passive' trade (ie not controlled) ... this represents the additional tax income from private trading ... if this became more important then war would definitly hurt the coffers.

 

[Trade-peror]

I would completely support an economic system based on the exchange of products, as it would allow economic specialization and encourage more robust international relations.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

I too feel that trade and diplomacy are still too non-essential to the game. Having either an abstract OR a realistic private sector economy, which runs parallel to the state economy-and which provides you with income whenever you set up a trade deal-would be a great start, because then an embargo would be doubly painful- (A) because of the lost revenue from private sector trade income and (b) because of increased crime and corruption that results from the 'private sector' trying to work around the embargo (e.g. organised crime providing people with certain luxury items they get from the black market !)

Other ways to make civs less self sufficient would be:

(i) to distribute resources in a way as to make it VERY hard for a single civ to have ALL of the resources it will ever need over the course of a game.

(ii) make it harder to FIND resources. Resources should NOT simply appear when you get the relevent tech. They should have a chance of appearing anytime in the game, but they should be easier to find if you invest the money to LOOK for them-and the scarcer resources should ONLY be found if you LOOK for them.

(iii) Quantify resources, and make the chance of a resource disappearing dependant on the SIZE of the resource, the SIZE of the nation that is using the resource (i.e., # of cities that recieve it) and the amount of SPECIFIC demand the resource is under (for units and improvements). This would make it very difficult for a nation to rely on a single source of a particular product.

(iv) Make older luxury resources become less effective over time, forcing nations to seek out new luxuries over the course of the game.

(v) Allow nations to trade commodities as well as resources (i.e. shields, beakers and food). Combined with a greater degree of city and nation specialisation (i.e. bread-basket nations, commercial hubs, industrial heart lands etc) this will make nations that specialise in one area seek out other nations for their other needs.

(vi) allow nations (and individual cities) which lie in between two or more trading nations to recieve a % of the projected 'value' of the trade route, in gpt.

Just these ideas alone would force greater cooperation even between fairly competitive nations, and make war and embargoes a much more effective means of ruining your enemies.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[dh_epic]

I agree that trade has to mean something and has to count for something if the Civilization game is going to have any kind of meaning.

The danger, of course, is that you make trade interdependent in a half-assed way. One superpower depends on one tiny nation for something, so they just invade them. Then they become self sufficient. Then they isolate themselves from the world, only stepping out for a convenient alliance or a convenient war. Then they win.

Maybe the above scenario is realistic, but it's not exactly fun.

But hey, it would be an improvement on what Civ has now.

It would be even better if trade had an artificial bonus for being foreign trade, as opposed to domestic. But even if they didn't do that, it would still be an improvement.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

But in the system I've put forward, it is much more likely that even a Superpower will have to rely on more than JUST one other nation for what it needs-and if they piss these other potential allies off, then they will be royally screwed, superpower or no.
Also, the intrinsic and underlying benefits of trade proposed here would make isolationism just too costly to maintain for too long.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[Kayak]

If the amount of resources were limited to a # of units per turn (as has been explored in other threads here), then a civ could be self suficient in a limited way, but would need to trade for additional units in order to expand and grow. This could be implemented both for strategic and lux resources. For lux sources, a civ would desire more over time as it became more wealthy thus increasing the need to trade for it.