An Economic Classification Framework

[Ultimocrat]

First off, some starting notes. I'm relatively new to the game, and this is a thread that is probably mostly of academic interest. I should clarify that I'm talking about Vanilla Civ in my examples here, but the framework ought to apply to BTS or Warlords, too.

The subject is, how do you classify an economy -- Specialist, Food, Cottage, Hybrid, etc. I've seen a lot of debate about whether an economy is hybrid, pure, blah blah blah, but I've gotten little actual edification. Also, after looking at some examples quantitatively in my own games, it struck me that players may be biased in their perceptions about the way that their own economies work in their games.

I would like to propose a classification scheme for economies in Civ 4, based quantitatively on steady-state economic output. For the purposes of this thread, economic output will be defined as total commerce produced, plus gold and beakers obtained, pre-multipliers, from tiles, trade routes, specialists and buildings. (Count the bureaucracy bonus on commerce, but no other multipliers).

Note that economies that rely heavily on bulbing or cashing GMs fall somewhat outside this framework -- they are dependent on bursts of activity rather than a steady state. Which is fine -- the purpose of this thread is not to make normative judgements in terms of different economic options (I'm still too new to this game to have made any firm ones, anyhow), but rather to be able to communicate whether you're running an "SE" or "CE" or "HE" in a common, quantitative language.

Now, as I see it, you've got five major, mutually exclusive, categories that contribute to economic output:

1) Commerce from worked tiles; not due to cottages
2) Commerce from worked tiles; due to cottages
3) Commerce from trade routes
4) Gold + Beakers from specialists
5) Commerce + Gold directly from buildings

(where by cottages I really mean cottages, hamlets, villages, and towns)

Okay, an example that contains all of these categories is Mecca:

I'll go over this in detail to try to be as clear as possible. For category 1), we have 3 commerce from floodplains, 1 from the sheep, 1 from the horses, 1 from the grassland, 1 from the hills, 1 from the city center, and +50% for bureaucracy, for 12. For category 2), we have 1 floodplain town for 4 commerce, +50% for bureau. = 6. For category 3), we have 8 commerce from the two trade routes, +50% = 12. For cat. 4), we have 1 gold each from the 4 priests, plus 5 gold each from the 3 settled great priests, for an output of 19. For cat 5), we have the palace, with the 50% bureau. bonus, for 12, plus the lucrative Hindu shrine, for 14 -- a total of 26.

Or, listing them as above, with their percentages, out of a total of 75:
1) 12/75 = 16 % (Commerce from worked tiles; not due to cottages)
2) 6/75 = 8 % (Commerce from worked tiles; due to cottages)
3) 12/75 = 16 % (Commerce from trade routes)
4) 19/75 = 25.3 % (Gold + Beakers from specialists)
5) 26/75 = 34.7 % (Commerce + Gold directly from buildings)

Now, I think it's best to just leave the numbers as they are -- clearly the city is heavily dependent on multiple sources for its economic output, so it's in some sense a hybrid economy. But the blanket "hybrid economy" label is rather useless, and the 5 numbers show much more nuance in the way an economy can be discussed.

If you add up the numbers for all of your cities, then you can classify your economy as a whole. In this game, I had four cities at this point, and the distribution of output comes out to be:
1) 29/147 = 19.7% from tiles
2) 6/147 = 4.1% from cottages (just the one town)
3) 24/147 = 19.0% from trade routes
4) 58/147 = 39.5% from specialists (and settled GPeople)
5) 26/147 = 17.7% from buildings

I would be very happy to see people talk in this language, or some language like it, rather than constantly bickering about what is or isn't an "SE", "CE", or "HE". Technically speaking, every economy must be a hybrid of at least two or more categories (When you found your capital, you automatically get 1 tile commerce and 8 palace commerce!). Numerical classification, again, allows for both more nuance, and more precision.

Also, the fact that I have distinguished between cottage commerce from tiles and non-cottage commerce from tiles is somewhat artificial -- it's really more out of a desire to isolate the part of the economic output that is attributable to cottages. You could break down category 1) into another category 2), or other subcategories, if you wanted to determine, say, the contribution of Coast and Ocean tiles to your total economy when you're Financial/Colossus/Archipelago.

Let me reiterate that I'm not looking for critiques of my above screenshot; I'm looking to spark a productive discussion about the dynamics of economies in general, an maybe have some comparison between the economic output distributions of late-game "CE" vs. "SE"s. I will re-post at some point in the next few days with an analysis near the end of a recent game I played, in which I had a very strong economy (2000+ beakers/turn with ~12 substantial cities, over 100 gold surplus per turn at 0% gold slider, year ~1900, Monarch, Asoka), and my own perception was initially that I played a nearly pure "SE", but I think in fact I may have gotten a comparable amount of commerce out of trade routes as I did out of specialists. I think such self-examination under a new light would be useful for both the "CE" and "SE" fanatics out there.

 

[oyzar]

What is the point of this really? Cottages are superior longterm but great people are awesome.. Specialist economy relies more on the great people than on the beakers/gold directly from the great people...

 

[madscientist]

It's a little hard to follow as you are mixing apples and oranges comparing Commerce, gold, beakers in the same breath.

Alot depends on what position the science slider is and what supportive buildings are present.

Example: A shrine allows you to run a very high science slider rate, as in your case.

No shrine requires something more, like a higher gold rate. The you have to consider building such as libraries and markets, and the specialists allowed.

Also when you bring gold in you have to consider gold output costs (such as reducing costs via courthouses or state property) and additional gold input (such as trading a resource for gold).

My point is that an economy does 2 things generate gold and beakers. economical concepts such as SE CE, TE, FE, HE are general plans and deal with either producing commerce which leads to gold/beakers or godla dn beakers directly. So going after certain percentages for specific things does not help much since everygame is different, at least to me.

 

[Ultimocrat]

"the purpose of this thread is not to make normative judgements in terms of different economic options"

You may want to reconsider your response, Oyzar, as it missed the main point of my thread entirely.

 

[Ultimocrat]

Madscientist, I understand your critique. Obviously multipliers are important, but I'm trying to give an overall economic metric, which I've termed as "economic output." It can't take all things into account, so I've tried to balance simplicity with thoroughness.

I'm also not suggesting that you should aim for certain percentages -- the map's going to dictate that to a large extent, and while you're right that "SE" vs. "CE" is a game plan, I'm suggesting that it's also interesting to look at the economic percentages, after you've executed that plan, and see how the economic production is actually distributed, not how you meant to distribute it. People have often applied the blanket statement that "a specialist economy gets most of its beakers from scientists," or somesuch. I'm suggesting that may not be the case -- in my specialist-heavy economy, above, I get more beakers from specialists than from any other source, but the bulk of my economic output is still not due to specialists (including the settled GP, and even considering the shrine as a +14 gold settled specialist). Base terrain and trade routes, I'm suggesting, may provide more than 50% of the total economy, even in a nearly pure "SE."

 

[madscientist]

Then you need to separate things into different groups:

Commerce: percentage from trade, working tiles, working cottages

Beakers: Percentage from specialists, buildings, % commerce from slider: then consider multipliers (buildings/civics)

Gold (let's leave it as income): Percentage from specialists, buildings, % commerce from slider: Then consider multipliers (buildings/civics) as well as gold income to your civilization independent of the city.

Culture: See above.

Espionage: See above.

The confusion is lumping commerce with beakers/gold then trying to get a percentage. So in your case, do percentages on your first three points; then seperately do a percentage of where beakers come from. The difficulty is that this changes constantly as the slider changes which is why people think in terms of stright commerce or specialists.

 

[Ultimocrat]

Sure, Madscientist, I can do what you propose, and understand that would consider the issue in its full complexity; my objection is that it is somewhat more complicated than what I suggest.

However, if I make an excel spreadsheet to do the calculation you suggest, perhaps people will use it, and then we can have some people give examples of the distribution percentages in their economies.

 

[seizer]

You forgot getting beakers/gold from building research/wealth. There's a significant window of opportunity where doing that is very competitive.

 

[Ultimocrat]

Fair critique, seizer; I will include in the spreadsheet as category #6.

 

[lilnev]

The reasons people often simplify to SE or CE are that (1) counting up all your commerce for all your cities is tedious to do, and tedious to explain to people just how you've counted and why you're giving them 5 numbers instead of 2 letters, (2) non-cottage tiles, trade routes, and buildings are mostly going to be the same, whatever the rest of your economy is doing. Yes, there are things you can do to increase them, but you have a lot less control than the CE/SE distinction, and they're generally not scalable. I love a Gem- and Seafood-based economy as much as anyone, but I seldom have the option to set up my next N cities in the same mold. And in those cases where non-cottage tiles, trade, or building do form an unusually large component, I'd add them as an adjective, or rarely as the main descriptor. A Gem-powered CE, for example. Your game is a shrine- and priest-based SE. The Great Lighthouse is sometimes strong enough to be my principle economy, at least through the early game, and in principle you could run a Colossus Economy. But those are rare enough to just name them when they come up, and otherwise assume that non-cottages and trade routes are contributing a typical amount, while you make active decisions whether to pursue cottages or specialists.

Also, I'm fine with lumping commerce/gold/beakers together, but I'm less comfortable leaving out GP points. The whole point of commerce is to generate beakers, and the whole point of gold is to pay required expenses so your commerce can become beakers. But lightbulbs give beakers very directly. If I'm bringing in 60 commerce from cottages, slider at 0% to pay my expenses of 60/turn, but I'm cashing in a GS for 1500+ beakers every 6 turns, that is not a cottage-based economy. Your counter would probably be that each lightbulb is a transient, are we're only counting steady-state. But when the transients add up to exceed the steady-state component over a substantial portion of the game, I think they have to be accounted for.

I enjoy theory, however, so take this in the spirit of good debate.

peace,
lilnev

 

[lilnev]

And while we're being exhaustive, don't forget pillage money -- impis rule! And selling resources for cash (I've sometimes covered more than half my expenses, perhaps 20% of total commerce income). And selling techs for cash. Or does that count as "non-steady state"? It's often a major source of income over a significant portion of the game. And don't forget the Goody Hut Economy (GHE). Not very sustainable, so I recomend it as the first component of a Transition Economy. OK, I'll stop being silly....

 

[DaveMcW]

Someday someone will make a mod that adds up everything for you.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

The fact is Base Flasks/Gold from Specialists/Buildings are substitutable as Base Commerce

more specialist/building gold allows more commerce to be moved from gold slider to research


The fundamental difference in economies is between a "Specialist" and a "Commerce" economy
That fundamental difference is the degree of city specialization

Commerce has the same Gold v. Research* throughout the entire empire
With Specialists, different cities can have different Gold v. Research ratios (different # of Merchants v. Scientists or some cities have Shrines/HQs + others don't)

So I could see a few VERY basic 'metrics' for an economy
1. Specialist v. Generalist
Specialists+Shrines+HQs v. Tile commerce+Trade Routes+Minaret/Sankore buildings+Hammers*

More specialist economies benefit more from National wonders (Wall Street/Oxford) and can save money on booster buildings (build research boosters in research cities and gold boosters in gold cities)
*I'm including Hammers in generalist because the buildings for it are the same

2. Research source (Flasks v. Espionage points)
*Research here means either Flasks for self research or Espionage Points for stealing... both being ways of getting techs
(Has anyone ever tried using gold as the primary method of getting techs, ie don't self research OR steal any techs... just buy them for gold from others)

3. Civic set
Cottage/commerce Boosters (US, FS*/Bur, Emancipation*, FM/Env)
Specialist Boosters (Rep*, Caste, Pacifism)
Hammer Boosters (Caste*, SP*)

*Strongly associated with this type of economy

Overall I agree the general descriptors of CE and SE are the two best 'general' economies

Espionage Economy is a special case of both (good for SEs because spies give 4 EPs and 4 flasks)

Shrines/HQ are a good addition on any of them (and can make up most/all of the gold supply)

Hammer Economies seem under powered (best for their Total flexibility of getting hammers)

Other sources of gold/research such as Spiral Minaret/Sankore are unlikely to make up the majority of the gold+flasks generated and aren't available until mid game.... I'd include them as a modifier

 

[Ultimocrat]

Thanks for the comments, especially lilnev.

non-cottage tiles, trade routes, and buildings are mostly going to be the same, whatever the rest of your economy is doing

That's really the aspect that I'm most curious about. Do they really add up the same way in most games? I just haven't played long enough to be sure of that, and I don't see much discussion of those aspects, yet I do know from experience that they can add up to large components of the economy.

Anyhow, if anybody cares to make sense of it, here is an Excel spreadsheet with two vastly different economies broken down in terms of their contributing factors, as per Madsci's suggestions. There's a little bit of rounding imprecision in the calculations, because it's not possible to split apart certain contributions uniquely.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/130020/civ4calculators.zip

(One of the worksheets (Qin, 1110) represents what you would have called a Colossus economy, I suppose, lilnev; though it would still run passably without the Colossus)

 

[Ultimocrat]

Also, I agree with you lilnev, I've seen no adequate treatment of the commensurability of GPP and commerce (or gold or beakers) in the forums. My gut approximation would be to give a roughly 1:1 exchange on average, if the GPP will at some point in the game produce a Great Person. But I know that they're much more valuable than that early, and less valuable late.

 

[lilnev]

That's really the aspect that I'm most curious about. Do they really add up the same way in most games?

I didn't mean that they'll contribute the same from game to game. But for a particular empire you'll get about the same amount from non-cottage tiles whether you're configured as an SE or a CE. Both will choose to work those Gems, both will get one extra commerce for riverside tiles (whether it's improved as a farm or cottage), etc. The main exception would be trade routes if a SE wanted to be in Mercantilism whereas a CE didn't.

peace,
lilnev