Huge inflation

[mrt144]

Let's back up a minute here. I think what Firaxis did with BtS is to create a further level of the game. A concept I will call "national disruption." How can you pester your competition outside of war?

Privateers - can destroy ships and fishing nets
Blockades - reduce trade
Spies - wreak havoc
Corporations - wreak havoc

too bad the corporations are also a way to hurt yourself in the process, and not lightly either

 

[Nikis-Knight]

sorry, I'm still not getting it.

But you still only have $20

Say I made microwaves. My customer has now got a $20 microwave, which he can use to save himself many man-hours over the lifespan of the microwave versus cooking his food always the old fashioned way. That time is a net benefit, created wealth, that he could, at his discretion, put into his buisness or spend on leisure. With the $20's I get from many people, I can hire a microwave making specialist or device that can do the job faster than I (hypothetically). I have just created my own wealth in time saved and future microwaves sold. And the microwave specialist is probably making more money than in a job he was less efficient at. He will have more money. No foreigner bought intervened, and yet all involved profited. What is wrong with this hypothetical?

Let's back up a minute here. I think what Firaxis did with BtS is to create a further level of the game. A concept I will call "national disruption." How can you pester your competition outside of war?

Yeah, this is one way that corporations could function. I think they would be more fun if HQ income was lower, and the city resource effects were stronger. But either presents interesting strategies, I guess.

 

[acuoio]

In the 2 countries example, if the countries both had 10 people as residents then in:

- CountryA 9 out of 10 people work to produce cars+homes+food+tvs+DVD players

- CountryB 5 out of 10 people work to produce food+homes+tvs

In this case, the people of country A are richer and live a more luxurious life.

Can't define wealth like that. Someone with a DVD isn't more wealthier than a person without. A person with a DVD is poorer. [edit - partially true as the dvd still has value]. The money he spent on the DVD went somewhere else. But we can't think individually, only nationally.

In your example of Country A, the people may feel or appear wealthier, but the country is not. All the people did was dig up resources and reprocess them into something. You have more DVDs, but less metal/plastic. You don't make any money on it until you sell it over seas. Until that happens, all you've done is regurgitated stuff and not introduced anything into your economy.

This is why the Trade Deficit is such a huge economic indicator.

----------------------

Let me reillustrate my point about franchises. I go to Italy and open a McDs. I make a small investment in their community by paying out an initial sum of money to purchase land, build the store, and buy resources (buns, meat, potatos, etc). I then hire people and start selling my product.

So far, I've used US money to buy IT resources. Now I sell my products for profit. 100% of the money I received for my products came from Italians. I then take a portion of their money and give it back in the form of wages, taxes, and buying more resources. I take the extra money and give it to the US. It's now gone from Italy. What does Italy have left in terms of NEW money? Still the same small investment I made.

Meanwhile, my franchise is slowly leeching money from them. Frachises are let in due to consumer demand. Maybe there is a reason why the US has so little foreign franchises.

 

[Slax]

These things need simplification.

 

[Quornix]

Simple solution, that I've seen posted already, but which deserves to be repeated.

Remove Inflation from corporate expenses.

Rebalance the costs/benefits of corporations, given the lack of inflation.

Corporations should ideally be balanced so that the benefits it yields in any given city are typically somewhat less than the cost of maintaining the corporation. The HQ boost then would make it slightly profitable to have that corporation in a random city.

Without the HQ, it should still be wise to put certain specific corporations in certain cities if they worked well together, and a really bad idea in others. With the HQ, it should be wise to put the corporation in more, but not all cities.

This implies that the base gold cost of maintaining a corporation should be more than three times the HQ bonus, since, ideally, the HQ will be built in a city with +200% . The gold cost should also be slightly higher than the benefit of the corporation.

So, if a corporation costs, say, 30 per resource, the HQ income should be 5 , and the benefit should be worth about 20 in a random city. Net benefit of 5 estimated value if you have the HQ in your Wall Street city, net loss of about 10 if you don't have the HQ. The more resources you have, the less the benefit of having the HQ, but the better the payout in the right city (since that 20 worth of benefits may be worth 30 or more in the right city, or 10 or less in the wrong city.

EDIT: I forgot to include the benefits of a courthouse, so double the 30 per resource, or don't have courthouses affect corporate upkeep. Likewise, Free Trade gives a -25% upkeep cost, but that's more manageable, and gives a higher net benefit for corps while not giving them a free ride (15 HQ payout vs 22.5 upkeep).

This also allows you the opportunity to screw the other players over by putting the wrong corporation in the wrong cities, or any corporation in a city that shouldn't have one.

This defines (for me) a well-balanced corporation structure.

Having inflation adjust the cost of maintaining the corporation makes this balance impossible. As time goes on, you want fewer branches, as the marginal cities become net losers. And as far as I know, there's no way to just get rid of one specific branch office. You either get rid of all of them with State Property or keep them all and suffer from increasing costs.

 

[DrJambo]

Simple solution but one that ultimately needs a patch (i.e. talking a month or two). What would you do based on the XML files?

 

[polypheus]

All the people did was dig up resources and reprocess them into something. You have more DVDs, but less metal/plastic. You don't make any money on it until you sell it over seas. Until that happens, all you've done is regurgitated stuff and not introduced anything into your economy.

A DVD player or any other finished product is created wealth and is greater wealth than the mere metal/plastic that it is made from. To illustrate this point in the simplest way possible, how about if the whole of a country's finished products were reduced to metals/plastics, etc. I guess according to you the net wealth of that country is unchanged. That is absurd.

Another way to think about it is to treat the entire world as though it were one country. Do you also mean then that if thinking of it this way that since Earth doesn't export things to aliens that Earth can never create net wealth and we have the same wealth (of the total Earth) as we did when mankind first existed? That also is obviously absurd.

 

[homan1983]

Can't define wealth like that. Someone with a DVD isn't more wealthier than a person without. A person with a DVD is poorer. [edit - partially true as the dvd still has value]. The money he spent on the DVD went somewhere else. But we can't think individually, only nationally.

In your example of Country A, the people may feel or appear wealthier, but the country is not. All the people did was dig up resources and reprocess them into something. You have more DVDs, but less metal/plastic. You don't make any money on it until you sell it over seas. Until that happens, all you've done is regurgitated stuff and not introduced anything into your economy.

This is why the Trade Deficit is such a huge economic indicator.

----------------------

Let me reillustrate my point about franchises. I go to Italy and open a McDs. I make a small investment in their community by paying out an initial sum of money to purchase land, build the store, and buy resources (buns, meat, potatos, etc). I then hire people and start selling my product.

So far, I've used US money to buy IT resources. Now I sell my products for profit. 100% of the money I received for my products came from Italians. I then take a portion of their money and give it back in the form of wages, taxes, and buying more resources. I take the extra money and give it to the US. It's now gone from Italy. What does Italy have left in terms of NEW money? Still the same small investment I made.

Meanwhile, my franchise is slowly leeching money from them. Frachises are let in due to consumer demand. Maybe there is a reason why the US has so little foreign franchises.

A trade defecit IS an economic indicator I agree, but you still don't grasp the fact that wealth can be created.

Someone with a DVD IS more wealthier than someone without but you're confusing yourself by saying that the person who owns the DVD spent money on it whilst the other guy didnt.
The situation I explained to you is a *model*. In that model money doesnt exist. Money and currency is just a way of transferring "wealth" with the advantage that currency is in the most liquid form which you can then use on anything you wish.

Let me go to the grassroots and show you another example:


There are 2 villages, A and B - both have population 3.

In village A:
- one guy catches 3 fish a day and also bakes 3 rolls of bread
- one girl creates 1 house every 2 months
- one guy makes 1 piece of clothing a day

In village B:

- all 3 guys spend most of the day scouring around for food, perhaps if they can kill a deer then it could possibly be used as a sort of protective clothing.


Which village is richer? Well clearly village A is richer, because wealth is CREATED and not simply transferred.

So why do we use money?
Well in village A, maybe the guy with the fish doesnt want clothes at the time but wants a house, without money the guy who makes clothes can't feed himself unless he goes to the girl architect and makes a deal where "she makes the house for the fisherman, the fisherman gives fish to the cloth maker and he makes some clothes for the architect"
As we add more and more people this would become more and more complicated, so currency was invented as someone's entitlement.

If you sell a fish, you will get your "entitlement" to the amount of the fish, you can then spend on anything you like. And because we know that (in eutopia) money isn't created but only exchanges from one hand to another, then we can conclude that at the end of the day one big complicated "trade agreement" is done and everyone gets what they want and sells what they produce.


Having said all this, a trade defecit in a global market is a VERY important sign I agree, but your reasoning that wealth can't be created is wrong.

In fact if we take Earth itself, then it can be considered one big domestic market that is trade neutral. Does that mean that people themselves are as wealthy now as they were in 100AD? It doesn't need mentioning that in general people are living a more comfortable life with much more luxuries (a house, bed, entertainment, more services [barbers, restaurant, cinema], cars, planes, holidays).

Perhaps what you were grasping at was not wealth itself but relative wealth.
We know that everyone can't be rich, because the term rich is relative to poor. However if u did mean relative wealth then it has no place in economic theories but moreso in social justice which is a different [albeit important] topic.

 

[homan1983]

Another way to think about it is to treat the entire world as though it were one country. Do you also mean then that if thinking of it this way that since Earth doesn't export things to aliens that Earth can never create net wealth and we have the same wealth (of the total Earth) as we did when mankind first existed? That also is obviously absurd.

OMG spooky, thats almost exactly what I just wrote Except your version is much more to the point and concise. I still have a problem with that

 

[Quornix]

Simple solution but one that ultimately needs a patch (i.e. talking a month or two). What would you do based on the XML files?

I'd recompile the SDK and use that. Much faster from my point of view (and shouldn't be too hard to implement). Once I get BTS (should have preordered from GameStop -- they sold the one copy they got), I plan to do something like this.

EDIT: XML, I'd set inflation to zero, and increase the distance and number of cities maintenance a bit. I'd also double the maximum upkeep per city, and the maximum effective distance for maintenance.

 

[Flash1]

Hello,
I was just scanning the thread, I'll read everything later. Can the corp branches be seen by any other unit? And can you safely kill incoming corp. branches?

 

[Nikis-Knight]

Hello,
I was just scanning the thread, I'll read everything later. Can the corp branches be seen by any other unit? And can you safely kill incoming corp. branches?

You can see them, but only attack if you are at war, just like a religious missionary.

 

[homan1983]

Simple solution, that I've seen posted already, but which deserves to be repeated.

Remove Inflation from corporate expenses.

Rebalance the costs/benefits of corporations, given the lack of inflation.

100% agree. Maybe they never even considered inflation, maybe they expected a 50% inflation, whatever it was they should simply have it be fixed throughout the game.

Corporations should ideally be balanced so that the benefits it yields in any given city are typically somewhat less than the cost of maintaining the corporation. The HQ boost then would make it slightly profitable to have that corporation in a random city.

Somewhat disagree - but in principle agree. If this feature was like espionage, then I would agree that it should remain in general neutral for outside cities and somewhat beneficial for inside cities.

However we know that State Property civics now give +1 which is ~+3
So SP has been significantly boosted from 3 (9 equivalent) to 4(12 equivalent). Whilst cottages was 7 + 1:hammers = ~10 equivalent

We also know that workshops and farms are built immediately whereas cottages need to build up slowly and are damaged during war.
This is why a cottage economy gave both:
- 1 more commerce equivalent
- gave 70% of its output in commerce form which is very fluid [can go towards taxes, culture, science or rushbuy in 3:1 ratio although not viable for worldwonders + projects]

We cannot simply convert 1 into 3 but its generally much easier to do the reverse so that alone is a pretty huge thing.

Now that a workshop gives an additional +3 commerce then I think that instead of "typically somewhat less" corporations should give "somewhat more".
Also understand that a corporation is fed with money and not all economies can feed it, and that it needs the person to use diplo/colonialisation/conquest/trade to get as much resources as possible.

And dont forget corporate executives cost to make and need significant amounts of to set up a branch.

Without the HQ, it should still be wise to put certain specific corporations in certain cities if they worked well together, and a really bad idea in others. With the HQ, it should be wise to put the corporation in more, but not all cities.

2 poblems:

1) you don't get to choose which cities they go to, although you can set up yourself as well - its the guy with the HQ that is gonna decide where it gets set up and he can keep setting them up in cities where you wouldn't want to

2) This is not a neutral feature like espionage that everyone gets; as mentioned above corporation is tied into a specific economic type and hence needs to compete with the others which have been boosted - and a dominant free market should even surprass a SP/CS as it did pre-BTS

Likewise, Free Trade gives a -25% upkeep cost, but that's more manageable, and gives a higher net benefit for corps while not giving them a free ride (15 HQ payout vs 22.5 upkeep).

Free Trade's bonus has nothing to do with corporations and shouldn't be taken into consideration. The bonus is just like SP gives +1food to workshops/mills and environmentalism gives +2commerce to windmills.
The bonus is exactly that - a bonus for adopting free market, if it were "required" then it wouldn't really be a bonus and couldn't compete with environmentalism.

This also allows you the opportunity to screw the other players over by putting the wrong corporation in the wrong cities, or any corporation in a city that shouldn't have one.

This defines (for me) a well-balanced corporation structure.

Corps should always provide a net positive. This is because a corporation/free market economy would otherwise be pointless to anyone except the HQ civ and everyone else would simply go SP/CS or Merc.

It should work somewhat like religion in that it provides a bonus to the people it spreads to and a bigger bonus to the HQ.
The question shouldn't be "will I lose out because a corp. is in this city" but rather "do I have the commerce economy to support a free market or should I go mercantilism or SP"
And for huge cottage economies that answer is YES, but for places with lots of farms and workshops then the answer is no.
One reason its no is that we go back to the fact that even though 1 ~3, its not as fluid and hence can't easily change form into whereas commerce can.

Having inflation adjust the cost of maintaining the corporation makes this balance impossible. As time goes on, you want fewer branches, as the marginal cities become net losers. And as far as I know, there's no way to just get rid of one specific branch office. You either get rid of all of them with State Property or keep them all and suffer from increasing costs.

Agree.
Even worst is that you can't get RID of them, they're always there - a bit like religions except that they did with corps what they didn't dare do with religions - some corps can't coexist.

If you go into state property, and later come out, the corps are STILL THERE

 

[Quornix]

2 problems:

1) you don't get to choose which cities they go to, although you can set up yourself as well - its the guy with the HQ that is gonna decide where it gets set up and he can keep setting them up in cities where you wouldn't want to

I don't have the game yet, but I thought that you could build an executive anywhere there was a branch, not just at the HQ. If I'm right, then you can take advantage of the spread to cities you don't want it, and spread it to ones where you do.

2) This is not a neutral feature like espionage that everyone gets; as mentioned above corporation is tied into a specific economic type and hence needs to compete with the others which have been boosted - and a dominant free market should even surprass a SP/CS as it did pre-BTS

It is a neutral feature, though. Corporations are no more tied to a specific economic type than workshops are, although for certain economies and civics, it's likely to be a better choice. The fact of the matter is that corporations are a way to turn into and . If you're running an SE, you likely already have the and taken care of, although if you've got enough cash, it may be worth it. If you're running a CE, though, you've got the economy to push corporations to their limits.

Free Trade's bonus has nothing to do with corporations and shouldn't be taken into consideration. The bonus is just like SP gives +1food to workshops/mills and environmentalism gives +2commerce to windmills.
The bonus is exactly that - a bonus for adopting free market, if it were "required" then it wouldn't really be a bonus and couldn't compete with environmentalism.

It does have to be a consideration when it comes to balancing corporations, though. If it were, say, -50% rather than -25%, then given the setup I suggested, you'd be paying 15 at the branch and making 15 at HQ, so spreading the corporation is always a good idea. Of course, with additional resources, this becomes less clear, but let's say the FT bonus was no corporation upkeep. The balance would then be broken in FT, because you'd always want to spam as many corporations as possible everywhere you could -- all bonus, no drawback. I was just pointing out that the current FT bonus doesn't break the system I'd suggested.

Corps should always provide a net positive. This is because a corporation/free market economy would otherwise be pointless to anyone except the HQ civ and everyone else would simply go SP/CS or Merc.

Corps don't have to always provide a net positive. They just can't always be a net negative. If, with the HQ, 3/4 of my cities would be better off with the corporation, but without the HQ, only 1/4 of my cities would be better off with the corporation, I'd have to decide whether it was worth it. Of course, each of us might have different corporations, either competing or not. Is it worth it for me to stay out of SP? It depends on what I need at the moment.

It should work somewhat like religion in that it provides a bonus to the people it spreads to and a bigger bonus to the HQ.

But religion has a negative -- diplomatic relations. Since corporations don't seem to affect this (I don't have the game), some other tradeoff needs to be put in place.

The question shouldn't be "will I lose out because a corp. is in this city" but rather "do I have the commerce economy to support a free market or should I go mercantilism or SP"
And for huge cottage economies that answer is YES, but for places with lots of farms and workshops then the answer is no.

See, I'd like there to be two different questions:
1) Given the current overall state of my civilization (including which corporations are in which cities), should I be in FT, Merc, or SP?

2) Should I spread this corporation to this city?

If someone else spreads a corporation to a city you'd rather not have it be spread to, that will affect question 1. But if the cost isn't overwhelming (like it is with inflation included), you've got a lot more "maybe" to deal with. And "maybe" is what makes for interesting rules.

 

[mrt144]

solutions
obviously this is a new resource consumption cost idea.
initial cost before resource consumption = 10
cost per resource = 2

parameters
6 resources consumed
2 corps per city
10 cities
HQ income = 300
total cost=440
game year = 350
other maintenance = 125 (civic upkeep, units)
foreign expenses = 100

((565*(350*.0045)+565)-300+100 = 1254
((565(1+.0010)^350)-300+100 = 601 this is with compound inflation
((440+(125*.0045*350)-300+100 = 436 this is with corp costs not calculated

now assuming state property
corp costs = 0
upkeep = 250
foreign= 100

250(350*.0045)+250+100= 743 current
250(1+.0010)^350+100=454 compound inflation
250(350*.0045)+250+100= 743 no corp costs counted

this might show that a compound inflation rate is better because with corps you pay more than normal and without them you pay less, but dont get the benefits.

 

[Quornix]

this might show that a compound inflation rate is better because with corps you pay more than normal and without them you pay less, but dont get the benefits.

I'm not sure that it shows much about compound inflation vs. standard inflation. You're just showing that a smaller inflation value (+41%) costs less than a higher inflation (+157%).

Although I'm not sure where you're coming up with the base costs for the two civs (250 vs. 125) either. The 440, I thought, was the base upkeep without corporations, but then you're looking at very different base costs.

Assuming the same base costs for each civ, you're looking at:

FT w/ 250 standard and 250 corporation upkeep (after the -25% for FT, and no foreign, since that affects both equally):

(250 + 250) * 2.57 = 1285, minus corp HQ income
250 + (250 * 2.57) = 892, minus corp HQ income

FT w/ 250 standard and 500 corporation upkeep

(250 + 500) * 2.57 = 1927
500 + (250 * 2.57) = 1142

FT w/ 250 standard and 750 corporation upkeep
(250 + 750) * 2.57 = 2570
750 + (250 * 2.57) = 1392

SP w/ 250 standard and 0 corporation upkeep
250 * 2.57 = 642

Now, with my suggestion, that 250 corporation upkeep is about 8 resources consumed across all cities (30 /resource/city). At most, that's 8 offices, each giving 5 * 300% HQ income, so 120 income, after building effects.

With your number of cities/corporations/resources, it would work out to:

6 resources/city = 180 upkeep * 10 cities = 1800 *.75 (free market) = 1350
2 corporations/city = 10 *300% income * 10 cities = 300

1350 + (250 * 2.57) = 1992 - 300 = 1692 upkeep.

That's a lot, but you should be getting an excellent payout, roughly 20/resource/city = 120 * 10 = 1200 worth of payout, in a non-gold form. So about 492 net upkeep (after the value of having the corporations is removed).

That 492 is compared to the the 642 upkeep with State Property, and it may seem a bit unfair. However, the SP civ has other benefits. Without the FM bonus, the upkeeps compare at 942 vs. 642. More upkeep for the corporate civ, which gives the corporate civ a reason to be selective in which cities get the corps and how many of each resource they have. Flood the market with corn, and you may have lots of food and no money. It's the idea behind the agricultural subsidies that we've got right now, except rather than burn the extra, or pay people not to make it, you can just trade it to other civs.

 

[danieldaniel]

@acouio & Nikis-Knight

I think both of you are right somehow, but Nikis-Knight is "righter". You two just differ in what you call "value".

Of course if no money comes into the economy from the outside or from the central bank, the amount of money in that economy stays the same. That is the amount of money, not its value.

But, if I work, the outcome of my work is increasing the real value of the economy of my country, even if its sold within the borders of my country.

Think about this:
The whole economy of my country consist of two people, 20$ and a microwave. The microwave costs of course 20$. Next I build another microwave: Now each microwave costs 10$. I still have only 20$ in my economy, but now they are worth double as much as before, now they're worth two microwaves instead of one.

The real "value" of an econmy is made of the goods and services, that's what is called the Real Economy, and its what matters. Money is just what makes goods and services flow, but in itself is nothing.

Just think globally instead of thinking in the USA. Following acouio's reasoning, if no goods or services are sold to the outer space (assuming no money creation from states/central banks), money just changes hands within the earth, therefore the earth's econmy does not increase its value, therefore our economy is still worth the same as 1000 years ago...

...Unless you tell me the value of the world's economy was created only by states and central banks as they injected cash into the economy. In that case let's just print money non stop!!! right? (although some value would be created in the beginning, through money's multiplicative effect)


This discusion has nothing to do with the games I guess, since CIV is not realistic, and is not meant to be. But I agree corporations have been very poorly implemented and they work just the opposite as they are in RL.

 

[mrt144]

the state property with synergistic civics (and thats where i derived the hypothetical costs) shouldnt cost more than free market with corps working by itself. thats counter t everything so far.

 

[Flash1]

I was thinking, Why can't any government decide which corporations it will allow inside its borders?

 

[Nikis-Knight]

You mean in real life? That's called Mercantilism, or for a more modern approach, "protectionism." It's usually done with tarriffs, rather than fiat, though the end result may be the same. It's quite inefficient, since if foreign companies produce goods cheaper, your people are better off doing something else and trading for them anyway.
In game? Because then you upset the people trying to screw you over. No really, that's what the mercantilism civic is for, but if you want the benefits of Free Market, you need to be, well, free.