An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Civilizations

[randomlink]

First I want to say that your ideas are brilliant and obviously very well thought out. You note that they're not perfectly worked through, but they are definitely a solid starting point. I've signed up now (finally) just so that I can respond.
My pessimistic side can't see how it all could realistically be incorporated in a Civ5 mod, but then I'm not a modder so I'm sure someone has the talent - or maybe these are elements that could be picked up one day in Civ6 (as some of it seems like digging out new foundations rather than just moving furniture around).

Anyways - one knee-jerk concern I have is with the suggested lack of control over the civil production queue (I'm guessing you have anticipated some players to be anxious about this - and by the way I skipped a lot of the conversation following your OP so I'm not sure if this point has been discussed already). Aside from my control-freak gene, this fear is also based on the fact (?) that the Civ5 AI just wouldn't be capable of running my civil production properly and it would end up pissing me off to the point I'd throw my computer out the window... but maybe that's just me. At the very least I think we'd have a lot more fascist dictators in the civ world if that was the path you had to take to prevent your starving, uneducated masses from building temples and museums instead of granaries and universities.

Basically, I think that with all of the under-the-hood complexities of your outline here it would not be a huge stretch of the imagination to develop some ways of retaining "influence" over civil production while still allowing simple gameplay AND getting across the social complexity you seem to be going for by allowing a kind of merchant class / organic social network to run civic development.

The following are just immediate reactions so you can probably think of better solutions in time (if you agree with the premise anyway), but here are some suggestions of ways to maintain varying levels of player control without giving up on social complexity:

1) Civic production is influenced directly by worker bias or whatever you call it (you know, the tick box list for civilian production focus). Although this would require a bit of data entry into every single freaking civic building to include relative value biases for each production focus... plus it would lock civic production to civilian production focus in a way the player may not intend (i.e. just because you want them to focus on food a little more than culture just now doesn't mean that you want them targeting granaries over monuments automatically).

2) Civic production is represented (seemingly, if not in actuality under the hood) as being organised by factions assembled under each of your advisors... so that much in the same way your advisors put a little gemstone thingy next to their preferred building, now they can just go ahead and build it as long as it's civic and as long as their faction is in power. This means that the current build is conducted by the faction that is currently strongest. You can influence the strength of civic factions directly by favouring their representative advisor through completing their mini quests, or also directly by putting your hard earned into their grubby hands to put them into power (as a cheaper alternative than buying a building outright, and with longer-term consequences as they remain in the lead until another faction overtakes them.
This could also make the advisors a lot more interesting and less annoying than they are now because instead of being, for all intents and purposes, just fancified hint popups they would then become (at least seem to be) autonomous leaders whose relative power you can (or not) monitor and influence according to your wants and needs in the bigger game.

3) Although different greater social policies (and techs) would impact on your ability to execute this, you could have some capability for coercion, propaganda & sponsorship of civic production in one direction or another. I.E... a communist economy + autocratic state is much more capable of coercing the production of certain civics over others, while a liberal capitalist state may be better able to sponsor what the leader wants to build. In the same way, the development of mass media would greatly increase your ability to propagandise, whereas building the kremlin gives a massive boost to coercive strength.
However, that doesn't mean that sponsorship can't happen in the first state and coercion can't happen in certain circumstances in the second. Perhaps the player's choice of government buildings can have some affect on their ability to influence the civic production queue as well, for example a barracks increases the capacity to coerce agreement on civic production while a courthouse increases the capacity to sponsor and a newspaper printhouse increases propaganda points.

Ok - #3 seems to be getting a bit vague so I'll stop now before I really go off on a tangent, but cheers for sparking this thread off; I think it would be a positive direction for Civ to take to put some of the adult-friendly gameplay back into a diplomacy system that can get a bit juvenile now.

EDIT: By the way, on one hand this could all be seen as wanting to have cake/eat cake in the sense that you then get to control two production cues simultaneously if you play your cards right according to whatever solution (#1, 2, 3... 1000, n)... but this is not really my focus here - it's more the fact that certain buildings and choices would effectively be taken away from the player in the original concept and I want to figure out how to make those choices into part of the game again (while still in the spirit of the OP). It's ok to say that these aren't things the Govt. controls in reality so they're not things the player should control in game... but then it is a game, so it would be ideal to aim that instead of taking this player choice and turning it fully into AI/automation you could rather turn it into something with elements of both AI and player "influence" (not control) so that this could be a whole other aspect of the game for players to puzzle out. And it's likely to tie in with a lot of the other economic tweaks you've come up with such as trading with city states and other civs as perhaps your acquisition of luxuries and strategic resources could factor into your influence over factions (for example). Of course, noobs could still completely ignore all of this and let the automation carry it all out like it will carry out everything else if you default everything, but there would be a planned system for players to game this element if they choose to.

 

[CGG1066]

Hi randomlink - Welcome to the forums, and thanks for your kind words!

I think you focused on the dilemma pretty well - there really isn't a good mechanic to "nudge" what is built in the civil que. It's a little problematic to have no control, because the player cannot take ownership of what is built and - as we know from what puppet states choose to build - frustrating when the "wrong" buildings are selected.

First off - I'm not sure if it is necessary: (a) there should be enough "ownership" from the government que. Rather than feeling like there is a loss of control, I think players would be relieved that they essentially get these merchant buildings built without ever having to divert resources from units/other buildings (letting them focus on what he really wants to build); (b) the AI should be able to make better choices in the civil que - to avoid "useless" buildings - because the types of buildings in the civil que can all can be evaluated under the same criteria. In the simplest instance civil buildings would only be those that contribute to //. Then the AI could easily just pick which building increases one of those the most. This also allows for city specialization - if a building gives a bonus to production, it get priority over a food building if the city is focused on production - because the gain is greater (e.g., if a city produces 20 and 10 , and it chooses between a building that adds a 50% food bonus and a building that adds a 50% production bonus, the later wins because a bonus of 10 > than a bonus of 5 .

Things get more complicated if you add cultural buildings to the mix, as in order to prioritize cultural buildings between resource buildings, the AI has to assign some implicit value to culture in terms of // - and different players would likely have a different value depending on whether or not they're going for a cultural victory or not. (Despite this - I really would like cultural buildings to be civil, but if there is no good mechanic, it won't work).

But - let's assume that there should be a mechanic to "nudge" production (and I get the impression that most people would like to). Your suggestion #1 seems to be the cleanest and simplest idea out there. I would like to avoid any complicated mechanic for sure.

One possible solution, however, is to have the above described calculation, but also have it take into account build time (on second thought, build time should be built into it regardless). The player then could subsidize some buildings - or class of buildings spending money to make them 10% cheaper. This would not only decrease the resource demand, but the faster build time would make it more likely a subsidized building is selected.

 

[thectexperience]

Nice work CGG. I like the ideas about different civs getting trade bonuses depending on what they specialise in producing.
I assume you aren't going to push the discussion to the level of civ-specific currencies that would determine the quantities traded? Complicated, yes, but it would make for some interesting new demands on the diplomacy screen:

eg. for Civ A...
1) Demand Civ B invests bonus in Civ A's government bonds?
2) Demand Civ B allows its currency to float on the international market?
3) Spread rumour to Civ B of potential economic crash in Civ C

Nice ways to turn military power into without having to actually send out an invasion party, especially on massive maps.

 

[Camikaze]

Nice work CGG. I like the ideas about different civs getting trade bonuses depending on what they specialise in producing.
I assume you aren't going to push the discussion to the level of civ-specific currencies that would determine the quantities traded? Complicated, yes, but it would make for some interesting new demands on the diplomacy screen:

eg. for Civ A...
1) Demand Civ B invests bonus in Civ A's government bonds?
2) Demand Civ B allows its currency to float on the international market?
3) Spread rumour to Civ B of potential economic crash in Civ C

I'm curious as to how you would want civ-specific currencies to work. I'm all for complication, but only to a certain extent. I'm unsure as to whether this would cross the line or not.

Nice ways to turn military power into without having to actually send out an invasion party, especially on massive maps.

This aim is a very good one.

 

[CGG1066]

Nice work CGG. I like the ideas about different civs getting trade bonuses depending on what they specialise in producing.
I assume you aren't going to push the discussion to the level of civ-specific currencies that would determine the quantities traded? Complicated, yes, but it would make for some interesting new demands on the diplomacy screen:

eg. for Civ A...
1) Demand Civ B invests bonus in Civ A's government bonds?
2) Demand Civ B allows its currency to float on the international market?
3) Spread rumour to Civ B of potential economic crash in Civ C

Nice ways to turn military power into without having to actually send out an invasion party, especially on massive maps.

Thanks for the kind words! Once upon a time, I did think it would be cool to include monetary (as you may know, interest rates are the primary input for determining currency values) in addition fiscal policy, but I've really written off the idea. Monetary policy is really complicated, 99% of the people will just be annoyed, and implementation in any meaningful way would require building a whole background economic model of inflation, aggregate supply and demand, current accounts, etc., which would truly be resource intensive.

Plus, exchange rates should move towards purchasing power parity (PPP) in the long run anyway (sort of), so it isn't something that really needs to be built into the model.

Note: we can actually see some of the non-obvious consequences of these problems in your list of diplomatic options. Option (1) and (2) are actually very opposite each other - by buying foreign assets, Civ B would actually be devaluating their currency - like China is today, rather than letting it float. When trade is concerned, it's not clear why Civ A would want a stronger currency.​

That said - I actually have thought about (and support) the creating (or rather formalizing) bond issues (if you played SimCity 4 these were essential). You don't need different currencies to do this. Already - you can trade a lump sum for GPT, but the program does not recognize this as a loan so prices it really strangely. If the program just said - oh - this is a loan, had a base interest rate of 10% and adjust it up or down based on relations/some calculation of the ability to repay (based on current GPT or reserves), it would be rather straight forward. Defaults have diplomatic consequences. CSs can ask for these for improved relations and - in the event of default - ask for loan forgiveness. Unlock such agreements with banking or economics and there you go.

An alternative idea (or perhaps, in addition to foreign sovereign debt) is to so the same thing with your population. Where you just get a lump sum from the people and pay it off GPT, with a huge unhappiness penalty if you default. I really think that adding anymore effects to this (e.g., to , ) would be a bit too much though, and haven't really thought through this, or how it would interact with foreign debt issues.

The game play effects of this are great! Not only does it create the strategy of managing spending over time, but it reduces the "wasted turns" when you are just waiting for your treasury to grow to buy the next thing.

 

[Camikaze]

That's quite a good point with trades (the fact that they really should be looked at as loans). Defaults would be an interesting concept to bring into such trades, but would rely on civs not building up masses of gold; it wouldn't be a viable mechanic if civs never actually got down to 0 gold.

 

[CGG1066]

Well - default could only apply to lump sum/GPT "trades", but it could be extended to cases where a resource was given and was cancelled (if that option also becomes available, or if the producer loses access to that resource).

Besides, the diplomatic aspects of default are really aside the point (they can be rare to non-existent) - the main game-play benefits are the fewer wasted turns waiting for your gold to get up for the next Colosseum, and managing money over time, etc. But defaults could add a bit of flavor as well as punishing those who borrow lump-sums than declare ware to suspend payments (other mechanics would also be used in this event to prevent gaming).

 

[Varvar]

Very impressive work CGG!

As a fellow economics nerd, and a free market enthusiast I would have definitely preferred a better thought out economics system.

As it is we are running a totalitarian government - deciding what our citizens produce, research, who they trade with etc... Hell we even have the option to avoid the growth... effectively telling our citizens to stop reproducing hehe.

The best policies for a strong economy (based on reading Deity games, and my own experience) are in the liberty and freedom trees, yet our government is never really free and routinely engages in genocide: razing cities.


I personally rather liked the Civ 2 civics for example where (in my non pro opinion) democracy and republic were much superior to communism/feudalism/fashism (I don't really remember the names), but did not allow one to start wars.
Essentially I like the idea of the player giving up control in exchange for a more efficient government.


Here is my feedback on your ideas:
Military, Scientific and Religious facilities should be government controlled and government built, as should major infrastructure projects (roads, railroads, ports, airports) - basically as they are now.

Gold/production/food farming should be controlled by the 'people'. One thing I thought of would be a version of this:

Any commerce leftover from taxes becomes capital - to be invested by the 'people' aka auto-invested by the AI... Or whatever city produces capital = citizen queu hammers...

Once a relevant technology becomes available (Banking for example), the people will start 'producing' a certain amount of Banking capital - which would be equivalent to the creation of small Banks in the city. These Banks would make commerce more efficient thus raising the overall commerce in the city.

The 'AI' will allocate 'capital' between new farms, new marketplaces, new banks, new workshops etc... based on some supply and demand model fed into it, as well as available technology. However the player can subsidize the creation of say banking capital using the gold in the treasury, or tax production capital, if hammers aren't needed in the city.

Thus player would influence the construction of economy enhancing buildings indirectly under a more efficient republic/democracy, and would directly control it under a less efficient communism/monarchy/feudalism (As somebody born in the USSR, 20% penalty for Communists is quite generous imo. But this can be play tested).

So for example: if you want a production city you heavily subsidize the construction of granaries/farms (for food) and workshops/factories/windmills for production. Alternatively large productive cities could import their food from domestic, or foreign sources, but this might be too complicated to implement.

Heavy production city will be able to build troops and scientific facilities faster, but will be a gold sink.

Alternatively, you subsidize marketplaces/banks in your commerce cities. IMO stock exchanges should exist in a few large commerce cities, and financial services should be traded.... but perhaps again too complicated.


As far as the gameplay goes, this would play into your idea as follows: If you are the first civilization to discover banking, your cities become relatively more efficient at creating commerce, so you gain exponentially larger benefits from trade along the model you described (but your trading partners gain benefits too). Thus you will be encouraged to engage in diplomacy and establish trade with everyone. Perhaps you would even try to isolate/bombard into oblivion any other civilization with banking (the British Empire way).

As most civilizations discover the technology, your monopoly would become progressively weaker, as they build up the banking capital.
Same can be true for any groundbreaking technologies (agriculture, mining, currency, civil service, fertilizer, economics - lol, printing press, steam power etcetera) so that you are always looking for the next thing to give you a trading edge.

Alternatively you could trade with nobody as you run them down with Companion Cavalry

How do I see gameplay developing:

For Chieftain/Warlord/Prince players running your empire with an iron fist will be a viable alternative, as penalties for such behavior would be smaller.

Higher difficulties would rely less on giving the AI insane power ups, and more on making your empire harder to manage: Communism/Monarchy will be quite inefficient commerce/hammers wise,...
On the other hand your democratic citizens would go on strike/get pissed off anytime you raze a city, declare war, etc... unless you ran absolute control civics and quel rebellion with an iron fist... Sure you would get frustrated - citizens in a democracy don't always do as they are told, but think of the headache Obama had with Obama care, or Bush had with Iraq, next time you queu up a hospital or a tank

Letting free market reign would work ok, but if you want to ramp up your production, so that you can equip your army, you better engage in some trade-wars to ensure you are the one trading with City States, and they close their markets to your Siamese arch-nemesis.

Economy wise (the most efficient allocation of capital by the AI), we will progress from 90% food (Ancient era) - subsistence agriculture, to 50% food, 30% gold, 20% commerce (Renaissance), to a hammer based economy in the industrial era, to once again a commerce based economy in the modern era.
Thus there will be some flair to different eras that is badly missing from my current build Colosseum, then library then settler empires. You will want to advance along the tech tree to gain a commercial and not just a military edge over your competitors.

Will this get done? Probably not...
But is this a good idea? Hm... what do you think?

 

[CGG1066]

Thanks for the kind feedback, Varvar! Your comments are pretty good - so I'll only expand on a few of the many issues you brought up - and not necessarily in order.

Essentially I like the idea of the player giving up control in exchange for a more efficient government.

Yes, this is the key trade-off as far as civics go, but it's something we have to be very careful with; players play civ because they want to participate, and not watch. I think it's important to stress - to those skeptics reading this - that the mechanic outlined herein is very predictable in that it builds the building that creates the highest additional yield in + + . To that end, you can think of it as simply automating what you would like to do anyway.

Gold/production/food farming should be controlled by the 'people'. One thing I thought of would be a version of this:

Any commerce leftover from taxes becomes capital - to be invested by the 'people' aka auto-invested by the AI... Or whatever city produces capital = citizen queu hammers...

Once a relevant technology becomes available (Banking for example), the people will start 'producing' a certain amount of Banking capital - which would be equivalent to the creation of small Banks in the city. These Banks would make commerce more efficient thus raising the overall commerce in the city.

The 'AI' will allocate 'capital' between new farms, new marketplaces, new banks, new workshops etc... based on some supply and demand model fed into it, as well as available technology. However the player can subsidize the creation of say banking capital using the gold in the treasury, or tax production capital, if hammers aren't needed in the city.

Humm . . . I'm not quite sure where left over would come from, as it's an input to civil buildings (and I'm all for science/production overflow because it creates bazaar micro incentives near when the current tech/building/unit is finished).

As for the AI allocating them based on supply and demand - I'm a bit confused. It's not all that obvious where these functions would come from that would still be intuitive/not arbitrary for the player.

The role of commerce does open up possibilities for banks and/or stock markets. Perhaps a bank could operate as a pre-CivV granary with a return (10%ish) of the amount in reserve? There's lots of possibilities here, and I don't think we need to complicate the picture too much with supply/demand functions and "capital" to really get something that works.

Thus player would influence the construction of economy enhancing buildings indirectly under a more efficient republic/democracy, and would directly control it under a less efficient communism/monarchy/feudalism (As somebody born in the USSR, 20% penalty for Communists is quite generous imo. But this can be play tested).

See post 22 (above) for my idea on how to implement subsidization to nudge production. I actually think it would be a fairly simple way to go about it, though I think play testing a mod would determine whether or not this is even needed. (I'm guessing there is no way to mod this until the source-code is released. Really - I'd rather somebody from Fraxis pick up on this thread and build it into an expansion or the next iteration of the game. -sigh- I wish I had time/knowledge to mod).

However - in the mechanic i discuss, subsidization is more inefficient in terms that (lets assume that 1 = 1 or 1 , which I think is how it would be) (a) the gold price to reduce the price to make the building a higher priority would be after-tax money and (b) by definition, you are prioritizing a lower yielding building that you otherwise would have, so you're giving up a future production stream or another good.

As for the 20% penalty, the key part here is balance. If one were obviously superior, everybody would use it. The number can be adjusted for game-play reasons - maybe indeed it should be more. But I don't want to try and recreate history at the expense of game-play.

Alternatively, you subsidize marketplaces/banks in your commerce cities. IMO stock exchanges should exist in a few large commerce cities, and financial services should be traded.... but perhaps again too complicated.

Actually - "financial services" ARE traded under the trade mechanic already discussed! Assuming that banks/marketplaces produce more (and whatever their function ends up being - the certainly should) - that means larger trade bonuses under the math I outlined in the trade section!

(Please, somebody correct me if I'm wrong - I realize there are a lot of simplifications in that calculation, and I hope I didn't make it so that an increase of or could decrease the bonus. Specifically, if a civilization is focused on increases it's , I can see how this effect occurs, though I don't think it should. In the event it does, however, the mechanic needs to change - I don't have time to do the math behind it now, but I really should check on this; for game-play reasons - more of one good should ALWAYS help with trade.)

How do I see gameplay developing:

For Chieftain/Warlord/Prince players running your empire with an iron fist will be a viable alternative, as penalties for such behavior would be smaller.

. . .​

Yes! I think the economic area under this model allows ample room to adjust difficulty levels in ways that aren't available right now. Once again - this is an area which has lots of possibilities that probably are best done through testing.

 

[jabbawackybacky]

Your idea is far too complicated to work with current civ V mechanics, however it seems interesting in theory. But I dont know if i like how "leftwing" (state-controlled) and "conservative" (market controlled) is balanced... modern Russia shows that privatization hardly made it a lot more efficient, while modern China's state-owned firms are some of the most successful in the modern global economy. I'm not saying any Leninist economy should be as "efficient" as a market one, but I'd like to think that I can institute policies as a player that would mitigate the shortcoming, IE if you have a university in your city, your bureaucrats are better trained, thus reducing the minus from inefficiency. All due respect to Varvar, we play civ in part to build an empire more efficient than the ones which collapsed in history, regardless of their economic system, be they the Soviets or the British Empire or the Romans.

Another distinction between socialism (all kinds) and the market (all kinds) would be in what creates happiness: Socialism and the social control of the economic means of production would alleviate some of the social ills in an economy dominated by the markets, and therefore could reduce the unhappiness created by # of people per city. Market control increases either happiness or profit from luxuries (?) thanks to superior marketing.

It also fits with history. Whereas the US relies on cheap consumer goods and large amounts of cheap land to maintain stability and economic prosperity, the Chinese government invests billions every year building homes and infrastructure to try to keep prices low enough for the "proles" to afford. And it would lead to play styles relative to that; socialism could have bigger cities focused on industry, whereas the private nations will have smaller populations and a greater focus on luxury commodities. Think also of even the big, inefficient USSR ... on some level it relied on the free distribution of basic necessities like electricity, public transit, pension payments or water for free to keep its government in power and the citizens content.

 

[CGG1066]

Your idea is far too complicated to work with current civ V mechanics, however it seems interesting in theory.

I can take that to mean either (a) the process of modding it in would be too complicated or (b) the concept itself is too complicated for a civ game. If you mean (a) - I'll just defer to you. CivIV had taxes and commerce etc. - but CivV really doesn't give you much to work with - and I don't know if you can put them back in. If you mean (b), well - I guess I disagree. The problem with CivV is that there just aren't any economic mechanics - so I don't really see the conflict.

But I dont know if i like how "leftwing" (state-controlled) and "conservative" (market controlled) is balanced... modern Russia shows that privatization hardly made it a lot more efficient, while modern China's state-owned firms are some of the most successful in the modern global economy.

I'm going to stop right here and say I want to take ideology/politics out of it. Game-play trumps a political statement. I'm more free-market oriented, but this is a game, each system should have it's strengths and weaknesses.

I think if you look back and look at the post where I laid out the mechanic, you'll see that I contemplated all the possibilities (a) a communist state which runs itself into the ground (b) a socialist utopia, and (c) a state that uses socialism to catch-up, but opens up as it closes the gap.

 

[killmeplease]

modern Russia shows that privatization hardly made it a lot more efficient, while modern China's state-owned firms are some of the most successful in the modern global economy.

todays Russian economy is very far from free market.