City/Production Paradigm Shift

[Aussie_Lurker]

The difference is that the system I have mentioned is abstract. I mean, imagine that you have mountains, but you DON'T get marble or shale (or hardwood for that matter in forests) This would simply imbalance the game IMHO. Instead, it is ASSUMED that certain tiles have certain materials in them (of course, it might be that marble-not shale-is a luxury, but that stone is assumed in hills and mountains.)

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[sir_schwick]

I own deadlock, in fact. Also, I want to make a clarification. What counts as raw materials and products and whatnot is not relevant to the player in my model. The only two products you care about are how many shields for building units and improvements do you get, and how many trade arrows are generated. Connecting rural areas to cities increases both of these, and obviously some terrain generates more of one or both of the raw materials needed to generate each. No special buildings, no specific resource knowledge needed.

Also, rural areas can develop local improvements, such as limited irrigation. Workers would be required for irrigation to extend beyond the river border tiles or build highways to facilitate massive transport. Squares grow without civilzations in them, so most of the world would be rural until the industrial revolution, except in places where it was too lucrative ot live in cities. These squares even develop their own local improvements, which means they may sell you suppplies. Of course htis means you lose soem trade from a lack fo vertical integra
tion.

 

[Synergy67]

imagine that you have mountains, but you DON'T get marble or shale (or hardwood for that matter in forests) This would simply imbalance the game IMHO. Instead, it is ASSUMED that certain tiles have certain materials in them

Good point, Aussie. What I’ve been tinkering with addresses that conundrum directly.

I'm still thinking that a more realistic model for mining should be implemented which I describe in nauseating detail in the thread I kicked out on a new model for production and food recently. I live near Seattle. We have lots of hills and mountains around here. 100 years ago there was a fair bit of coal, silver, and some other mining here and there in the area. But they weren’t in any significant percentage of the hills and mts. nor was any other kind of industry except timber. Let's face it...most hills and mountains don't really have anything that special to mine, and mines (or even the extraction/production/processing facilities or industries they might represent in Civ) are not that commonplace in most terrain. In the real world, we get some heavy concentrations of many useable resources like metals in a few more limited areas. I like the idea of better representing that in future Civ games.

In the model I imagined, minable resources including various stones and marbles, etc., would be found in maybe one out of 4 or 6 or even one out of 10 hills or mountains, and the sorts of resources that would appear in hills and mountains by name and graphic would be more diverse, mostly just for fun and realism and a bit of variation on the values of shields and commerce they offer, but not to implement a complex trade/demand structure based upon most of them. The key resources like iron, saltpeter, etc. would continue to be special resources needed for the military. Most resources would just be basic, similar kinds of things around the world found and used locally for nearby cities (a means of creating shields and commerce, like the generic mines are for now).

The biggest difference would be that since mines could only be built on much sparser visible resources, mines would become much more rare, but much more individually productive and increasingly so based on city processing improvements, new techs, or just based on city size (each pop in population adds one more shield production to your mine) to some cap level per mine. More population = more citizens to work the mines. I think this would make colonizing cities early on an even more strategic and realistic process. You really have to settle near viable resources to have a city with any real production. Otherwise you’ve really only created a hunting/gathering, farming, or timber harvesting community. Hills and mountains really aren’t mostly very productive in most places...ever.

So, think of how important it becomes to protect those three rare copper mines all in a lovely vein by one highly productive city building a Great Wonder. Without even one of those mines, your production in that city goes way down. More military strategy. Higher peril and risk and investment in things. I’d love it.

 

[sir_schwick]

Actually my model was designed so that metropolises and final product cities woudl not be near mines or mountains. They would be easy to access, including being on the plains end of a river, or on some lakes that connect. There would be some smaller cities that get jobs from the mines, but not the major consumers. They would just produce industrial quality material.

HOwever i do agree with you assessment of mountain and hill resource distribution.

Also, colonies in my model do not have to control the resource they are colonizing. They could just buy the resource from non-civ tiles nearby(not enoyugh your culture) and process them to send back home.

 

[Synergy67]

Schwick, more questions about your model if you don’t mind:

1) What defines the reach of a city (what tiles how far out connected to the city actually are able to contribute to its shields and trade?) It sounds like you meant the “reach” of the roads/how many tiles per turn movement a road affords? 2-3 at first and extending further out as time goes by? Is there any ultimate limit to how far out a city could obtain resources?

2) For troop movement and combat, what are the differences, if any, between local road systems built by local population and worker-built main roads and highways? I like the idea of local road structures vs. highways and railroads which should be used mostly to connect urban and possibly prodution sites to one another for fast trade and troop transport.

Elaborate more on roads/highways/railroads and how they affect unit movement? To me, a good model design will discourage the need to highway or railroad anything much more than between cities and to key strategic locations or along borders to fortresses and international highway routes for trade and military campaigns. Local area roads would look tiny and underlie the tile graphics rather than appear as a big mess of crisscrossed thick brown lines like in Civ III. One motivation to road (and especially railroad) everything up in Civ is so your military units can run anywhere in your CIv in the least amount of time to counter threats. How can this be remedied without having to build them all over?

3) What do you think about doing away with workers entirely as a unit (like you already have done for tiles where the local population build local roads, etc.) Could building highways and railroads and any large-scale improvements not handled by local tile population come from your national treasury and be assumed to be handled by local city populations without actual worker units to perform the task? The real cost would be gold from your treasury to fund national works, and it takes X many turns for a piece of road or highway to show up workably on the map, similarly to how Call to Power handled terrain improvements.

Micromanaging hordes of workers as physical units seems like one of those game model concepts in Civ that maybe could be done away with entirely and not really be missed. I enjoy building, roading, and improving terrain. It’s a lot of micromanaging moving armies of workers around to build them and also the idea of them running all over your empire with no home base ever seems odd. What do you think?

 

[sir_schwick]

Before I answer your questions, I found a really good quote in another thread which should explain what I mean by cities and urban centers here.

I like the idea! Very good to have more specialists .. indeed, if you think about it, most towns now are full of specialists not people 'working' the land ... that's the whole point of having cities!!

1) That is pretty close to what I mean. Actual numbers and eventually limits would all require extensive model testing and play testing. However two to three tiles(longer with rivers and harbours) would be an ancient era ideal.

2) Local roads are built by the locals to facilitate easier local trade. They would reduce the MP cost per tile to one. Flat terrain would not get any faster, but mountains and hills would now be the same MP cost as flat terrain. They also allow the tile to trade with adjacen titles with local roads and use major roads/rails on adjacent/same tile.

Highways and faster roads, along with rails, increase the speed troops move over it. These require major effort(a lot more than now). Also, another way to discourage sprawl would be an upkeep for major roads and especially rail. Now there would be veins of roads, since local roads only have to be adjacent. If you felt like you needed a border road, you have to continually pay for it. Another issue that should be examined, posssibly in a paralell thread.

3) I used to think that unless this whole system is adopted. Workers would allow work in squares whose actions you could not dictate(most will not mind you building major roads). It also adds to the idea that major crossroads were a concentrated effort. This is another piece that could use more examination.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Essentially this makes Squares the Economic unit, and just mandates that they differentiate somewhat.

I'd do it this way
Each square can produce only two or three products
For each product, there is a productivity per popunit working that product, and a max pop units..max pop=0 would mean unlimited

So Forest might be (assuming 2 food per popunit is the cost)
Food: 3/popunit, max popunits=2
Timber: 2/popunit, max popunits=5

so an unconnected forest square would have 3 popunits: two Farmers (hunters actually) and one Woodcutter

Once a Square Had too many people to work the square, the new population unit would become a migrant, migrants would either
1. Move into nearby Empty squares
or
2. Found a city

Now a Square that had the 'City' Terrain improvement would have the multiple possible 'Jobs' added to it most with no limit on the total number (things like taxmen, researchers, entertainers ie Trade things)

Roads would allow things produced to move from one square to another..possibly with a capacity limit

At a 'City' square one of the possible 'Jobs' could be laborer which makes 'Work' which you combine with raw materials to make things.

If there was a City square in range*, all excess goods (ie minus the food required) from a non-city Square would be automatically sent there

There, the player could click on it to see/change what it was building


*In range means that it is
1. in a certain minimum range determined by transport improvements
2. A city of the same Civ as the square
3. the closest city among those of the same Civ as determined by travel time


This way you could have a world that was Covered with population (or would eventually become so) especially if each square's population would lost its allegiance without the support of a connected city... those barbarians... are the descendants of your people.

Note: this would obviously mean that population numbers would be a lot higher, probably in the 100s for a industrial era city
however various techs wouldn't only improve productivity in squares, they might also cut the max population for a resource (tractors for example might double the food production, but cut the max food pop in 1/2.. so net production doesn't change much but now there are hordes of people arriving in your cities)

Actually, this could mean that the difference between Tile Improvements and City Improvements (buildings) could be eliminated... perhaps if each popunit automatically produced some 'Work' that would allow them to produce improvements in their tile.. Then a Road, Irrigation, or Fortress would be the same as a Factory, Barracks, or Bank. (just the last 3 could only be in a City)

 

[sir_schwick]

While I am not completely on board with your ideas, some of your statements sum up what I mean very well. Sorry to bastardize your statements.

Roads would allow things produced to move from one square to another..possibly with a capacity limit

Exactly, now means of transporation are just that, means. They only offer benefits if they increase access to something.

If there was a City square in range*, all excess goods (ie minus the food required) from a non-city Square would be automatically sent there

A better way of saying that would be that squares sell their processed goods to other squares. If the square is part of your civ, you get the trade arrows, if not, then you just got the goods to be used by you.

This way you could have a world that was Covered with population (or would eventually become so) especially if each square's population would lost its allegiance without the support of a connected city... those barbarians... are the descendants of your people.

I prefer a 'non-urban' = 1 person and anything else is urban approach. However the concept that most of the world is populated by somebody after the first couple thousand years is important. Now you could not expand with abandon without angering some upstart barbarians. Also, when jobs exploded because of various technological revolutions, that is when huge poop surges would occur.

Actually, this could mean that the difference between Tile Improvements and City Improvements (buildings) could be eliminated... perhaps if each popunit automatically produced some 'Work' that would allow them to produce improvements in their tile.. Then a Road, Irrigation, or Fortress would be the same as a Factory, Barracks, or Bank. (just the last 3 could only be in a City)

This is also a central idea, that squares can produce local improvements. However I personally would like to see major improvements require worker teams, representing the effort needed.


Really the understand this concept, read from the beginning up at the first post.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

The reason I favor multiple people per square is so that a square can 'shift production' so a Forest could change from a self supporting community of Hunter-Gatherers to a logging community that imports food (assuming it got connected to a food source)

The reason I wouldn't just have movement of goods produce Trade (although that is what Trade is) what Trade Arrows are in the game:.. Research and Entertainment are something produced by people not doing anything else (I might eliminate Money from that list, perhaps Taxmen/Money Might be limited in the manner your model describes, but Research and Luxuries should still be the province of specialists)

As for workers as a Unit..I'm not sure I like that model in general (I think I favor the 'Public Works' Spending to represent Outside investment...sort of 'Rush Building' in a square instead of a city...not that it would make it next turn but might be required for a project or speed it along)

 

[sir_schwick]

Our disagreement is what and how population are effecting tiles on the board. I apply myself to the model that every citizen past the first on the tile is an 'urban specialist' which might specialize further. Also, you have a good point about what Trade is, but that concept is also modified. Trade from non-city squares would go into an overall trade pot that is distributed nationwide, the same way that it is done on a per city basis. Of course integers would have to be dropped for the nitty gritty, and each square would do its own corruption calcs(all automated).

Your idea actually sounds more native to Civ overall, so has a greater chance of being in Civ 5(lets not delude ourself). I personally do not like the mutliple persons per tile shift, but that is nothing to do with its merits.

On Workers:

I would be willing to keep workers because the number of tasks they do under this model is much much lower. Basically they would build 'major highways', 'interstate's, 'railroads', 'major fortresses'. Anything that requires more than local effort or has more than local interests. Even non-major civ associated tiles will irrigate if possible and build local roads or mines. However they are not going to the expense of building a highway. Also, almost all interactions between pieces on a Civ board are tangible, so units are consistent. Mostly I just do not have a good feel for PW overall, never played with a game that uses an analogous system.

 

[mhIdA]

Sir Schwick:
A urbanization process is wellcoming. and could you explain better the concept of trade arrows.
Squares with to many people to work square, then some people become a migrant or unemploy (late era)?



I would like a no based tiled system to food/shields/commerce and if you we don't need build improvements, wonders or units so better.

Now 2 food give eat to 1 citizen. But the first citizen represents a population of 10000 the second citizen represents 20000, and so on. This is something tied to productivity but related to city size not tech advance like potery, iron works, domestication, chemistry (pesticides), genetics and refected on some improvements.
So some suggestions how food, shields and commerce could work:
- Every tile have an ecossystem limit, wich mean the total of food that a tile could allow, given technology. Tech advances and improvements increase the ecossystem limit.
- The worker unit should be replace by speciaists (peasents, servants, farmers). The # of specialists or popunits if I understand your idea is adjust in a slider as merchants, artesans, etc in early game. So primary, second and terciary sector are adjust in a slider . Each sector also have a slider with # of specialists or popunits to reflect the evolution and complexity of economy, later. To limit the complexity of model we have at least half a dozen to ten sectors and subsectors:
1 - On primary sector we have forestal exploitation, mineral exploitation, agriculture (farms, plantations).
2 - On secondary or industrial sector we have energy, heavy industry (siderurgy, petrochemistry), automobile industry, aviation industry, military industry, light industry (woods, clothes and shoes, electronics, agro-foods industry).
3 - Terciary or services sectors or services sector could be financial (banks), commercial aviation, commercial (super or hipermarkets, malls), entertainment (TV, music, movies, videogames), educational, tourism (hotels, restaurants, travel agencies), liberal professions (lawers, accounters, freelancers).
- All this sectors and subsectors don't mean that we must an huge # numbers of improvements or new improvements to build. That is an automatic process refect in # of specialists or popunits slider related to each sector or subsector. So if I want a tourist or an heavy industrysubsectors, I make choose that option in economic adviser or in a pop up and AI automatically start adjust the slider and build the improvements or wonders to my civ and economy have that subsectors.
- Another thing is a population spread model who give automatically settlers or migrants when the ecossystem limit of tile is achieved or sum of tiles ecossystem limits are achieved.
- The amount of food taken from a tile is given by the agriculture ratio start at 0.8 and this ratio decrease with tech advance referd below. So the # of peasents/servants/farmers multiplicate by1.25 gives the amount of food production, the surplus food. Since in ancients times the agriculture allow food surplus.
- The natural disasters or human activities exhausted soil, deflorestation who at same conditions gives a dry soil, volcanos, hurricanes, tsunamis, waterfulls, etc.
- Luxuries also has a ecossystem limit, if tied to agriculture, cattle or hunting.
- The resources are quantify and have a limit. Techonology increase this limit, but don't eliminate it. If a new tech is not avaialable to increase the resource limit we have an economic break.
- The amount of shields, given by forest and resources also tied to # of miners work on that, but unlike agriculture 100 miners give 100 shields, but tech advance and improvements (mines) change this ratio. So a mine is not necessary to exploit a resource, only increase the productivity.
- Food, shields and gold are permutable and their value is equivalent: 1 food <=> 1 shield <=> 1 gold.
- Until currency we could have a no monetary economy, direct change, even gold is available by gold resource. Roads, RR, harbours increase trade
- The amount of food, shields and gold gives wealth of a civ.
This model could be more complex, but something that improve yhe economic aspects in game is good.

 

[sir_schwick]

For any newcomers to the thread:

Raw Materials->Production Center->Products and Trade

That is the cycle that drives this process. If you need full descriptions, read the beginning of this thread. Two important things to note, the number of variables in any of these items is extremely flexible, but the number of ways a player can affect them should be limited to one or two. Also, products from one cycle can become raw materials in another cycle. This means you can have raw materials earning trade at multiple locations and in multiple forms from a single origin square. Since the origin of raw material(whether it be stage 0 or a product of another process) does not matter once trade is calculated, you do not have to own the raw materials(useful for colonialisim or mercantilism).

My thoughts on Growth:

Here should be the formula that determines growth:

Births - Deaths = Growth

Number of deaths are high at the beginning of the game. Eventually technology, especially in the industrial and modern era, will lower this considerably.

Births are determined by many things, some tech improving it. Food only acts as a limiter to growth, but does not increase it. The total food avaliable to a square is divided by that square/cities population. This ratio is divided by 2 and that number is what you multiply by the base birth rate. So a tile with 1 food per citizen with only have 1/2 the births of a tile that has 2 food per citizen.

Migration:

Only the first citizen in a square can work the land. The rest try to do urban functions and form or join a city where they are. But a pop unit will first try to find a tile that is habitable that is unoccupied, or will go to the best looking habitated tile, usually a city with jobs avaliable(lots of factors determine that).


On Output Improvement:

Food that is shipped to another tile is already the product of the cycle that turned whatever raw material food was in the tile into Food. Technology would improve the efficiency of production centers so more or better product came out.


On Economic Sliders:

Do not like the manual division of labor idea at all. This system was designed to be as autonomous as possible with players deciding where to place major roads. That economic system you describe is a good description of what is occuring within the engine, but not the driver's wheel.


On Trade Arrows:

Currently a city might generate 10 trade. If you taxes are 30%, 30%, 40%, then you generate 3 gold, 3 flasks, and 4 happy faces. I call those trade units(the 10) trade arrows becasue that is what they are in Civ 2. It might be commerce now, I am not sure.

Whenever a product arrives at its destination(sometimes the same square) a certain amount of 'trade' is generated, usually a small fraction, .01 to .1 for local, etc. All the trade from non-city squares you own is added together and the tax rate applied. Imagine 60 squares you own outside cities(no city radius because workers live in city, do not work land, import food) generated 50 trade arrows. Now you would get 15 gold, 15 flasks, and 30 happy faces from the countryside along with the 3, 3, 4 you had from the city. Sometimes that trade is from selling products to cities or tiles that are not yours. Colonies could get products from tiles that were not their own and send them back to your mainland.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

- Every tile have an ecossystem limit, wich mean the total of food that a tile could allow, given technology. Tech advances and improvements increase the ecossystem limit.

we pretty much all agree on that and that is basically in all Civs (although in most of them the tile is either 0 or at the limit, when fully developed)

- The worker unit should be replace by speciaists (peasents, servants, farmers). The # of specialists or popunits if I understand your idea is adjust in a slider as merchants, artesans, etc in early game.

The workwer unit in sir schwicks idea wouldn't be replaced..in mine it would but not by population units, but by just spending

So primary, second and terciary sector are adjust in a slider . Each sector also have a slider with # of specialists or popunits to reflect the evolution and complexity of economy, later. To limit the complexity of model we have at least half a dozen to ten sectors and subsectors:

actually that seems like it would work...My idea would probably need sliders, or something like the Civ 3 governors because of the large number of popunits, and the need to switch them in individual tiles Sir Schwicks might not

1 - On primary sector we have forestal exploitation, mineral exploitation, agriculture (farms, plantations)/
2 - On secondary or industrial sector we have energy, heavy industry (siderurgy, petrochemistry), automobile industry, aviation industry, military industry, light industry (woods, clothes and shoes, electronics, agro-foods industry).
3 - Terciary or services sectors or services sector could be financial (banks), commercial aviation, commercial (super or hipermarkets, malls), entertainment (TV, music, movies, videogames), educational, tourism (hotels, restaurants, travel agencies), liberal professions (lawers, accounters, freelancers).

I don't think it would need to be subdivided that much
I'd say
1-Tile workers Food/Resource X/Resource Y...only a few 'Nonspecial' resources
2-City Workers
Industry..makes Things (buildings/Units) out of Resources
Administration/Merchants..Makes/Collects $ from trade, Makes efficiency
Research..Makes Research (Culture?)
Entertainment..Makes Happy faces, Content faces, (Culture?)

- Food, shields and gold are permutable and their value is equivalent: 1 food <=> 1 shield <=> 1 gold.

I definitely disagree with that. They should be tradable, but not at fixed value. (you can't live off of money...or wood... and a battleship made of grain would be pretty lousy)

 

[rhialto]

@Aussie Lurker
Your model seems to take the focus away from the city as the production centre and on to the tile as the focus. I recently came across http://www.zompist.com/jacobs.html , which suggests that civ has teh focus on cities as descrete production units exactly right.

 

[sir_schwick]

@rhialto

I read the synopsis of Jacobian economics, and something about it does not sound true in my economic ear. The true origins of the city-centric paradigms of Civilization trace back to when Sid was looking at the Civlization board game by Avalon Hill. Even so, she was comparing cities vs. nations in terms of economic units. The only importance to cities was innovation, not trade or transfer of resources and products.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

The main advatange to a City, and indeed what Makes it a city, is the concentration both of people and economic capital that is economically well located (as far as can be determined from that article

The idea here is for the Resource (supply) production to take place where it is supposed to (in tiles) and then for things like Research, Goods, and Capital production to take place where it is supposed to (Cities) which get that way because they have excess labor so they can do something.

The real Turning point for cities came when Capital started making a significant difference in production..until then is was just the government/religiou/trade center. Once Capital goods became a significant part of the cost of something, then it made sense to start locating the source of the Capital goods near the user of the Capital goods (import replacement...either move to a city or found a new one, whichever is easier)

This works very well with this economic model, Multiplicative Improvements to a tile, such as Factories, Banks, etc., only make sense when they have a large amount of resources concentrating in that tile.. making Cities something that occur once every X tiles for optimum efficiency.


Part of the changes that need to be put into the Industrial era for full recognition of cities is the increased decoupling of a city's wealth from the resources immediately around it due to improved transportation.

 

[sir_schwick]

This works very well with this economic model, Multiplicative Improvements to a tile, such as Factories, Banks, etc., only make sense when they have a large amount of resources concentrating in that tile.. making Cities something that occur once every X tiles for optimum efficiency.


Part of the changes that need to be put into the Industrial era for full recognition of cities is the increased decoupling of a city's wealth from the resources immediately around it due to improved transportation.

Exactly, if you use a system where all parts are in their appropriate place, then it simulates this economic reality. Consider also that many products will become raw materials in an additional iteration of the cycle, technology allowing that to happen. Each iteration of the cycle has greater trade return.

Example:
Colonies now could just buy 0 level products(raw materials put into export from tile form) and ship them to appropriate industrial centers in the home country. Some trade is generated by that, but then the industrial centers produce one to many products from that and combinations of other products(all under the surface, automatic). These new, refined products, would generate a lot more trade than before and might even be sold back to the colony where they are sold to the locals from which the raw materials came. This was known as mercantlisim.

Also, cities in Japan might have been natural production centers for steel, which was made from Refined Iron and Coke, which were both from earlier processes that began in raw materials. This steel is then imported by other nations cities, or even refineries making, High Grade Steel.

The idea here is for the Resource (supply) production to take place where it is supposed to (in tiles) and then for things like Research, Goods, and Capital production to take place where it is supposed to (Cities) which get that way because they have excess labor so they can do something.

While I did not agree with the article, an extrapolation of the 'innovation requires cities' bit might be interesting. For this you could set seperate tax rates for 'Cities' and 'Countryside'.

Each has Taxes, Science, and Happiness.

Science for cities would continue as it has been. It goes towards new fields, units, etc.

Science in the countryside would be how quickly what was learned in the cities transfers to the countryside. Obviously the applications that technology has for urban centers would be different in effect than rural application. Both would be listed in the tech screen. The science flasks going towards the countryside would determine how quickly those techs transferred to outside the cities.

Happiness in the cities is the same as it currently is.

Happiness in the countryside would be a bit more abstract, since your entire countryside cannot quit working. Instead allowing unhappiness to accumulate will lead to revolts, which are groups of units that try to take over cities and loot them(imagine barbarians, but about your current tech level). You'll see an indicator showing how many turns to next revolution, the turn change number, with the current happiness setting for the countryside.


This gives you a few ideas for strategies involving the countryside. Since there is a large volume of trade that occurs selling raw materials, there is a lot of gold to be made. You might sacrifice technological developement in rural areas to reap the gold that is there. Nations that rely mostly on imports to fuel industry might ignore rural developement entirely. The malicious ruler might even allow revolts if they are confident in their military.

 

[mhIdA]

Sir Schwick:
Thanks. And I do agree with your cycle of Raw materials => Production Center => Products and Trade and with several iteractions on production, but my model below have your cycle implicit.
You're wright about model by sectors I describe, but the main change is not on that but the driver's will as you said. If you read carefully, what I mean is if I have a city on an island with beaches or in the snow mountain, all I must do is decide or not want a tourist sector in that city, the improvements and adjustments are made by engine.
The subsectors I describe could seems too many, but their refected the complexity of economy in our days, and could improve the economy on game. And also this complexity increase more since industrial era.

krikkitone
In ancient times people live without money, then some products act as money: salt cattle.and that don't exclude my sugestion on permute 1 by 1. What I mean is 1 shield is valued by 1 gold so could be traded at that value, and 1 food is valued by 1 gold so could be traded at that value.This is a monetary economy or some
kind if could is not in coins. Therefore 1 shield value as some 1 food if aren't money (gold) yet. This allow direct change.

Premisses of a production (food and shields) and prices model are:
- 1 food <=> 1 shield <=> 1 gold
- Productivity = # shields/food produced by specialists/popunits and increase with tech advance and/or improvements
- Economy is at full capacity
- 1 popunit consumme 1 food
- The income of a civ is based on food and shields (Gold mining is included) that a popunit produce
- Gold is a measure unity of income
- Exports generate aditional golds in shields (gold reserves)

If by turn an artesan produce 2 shield in tools and a farmer produce 2 food then in gold the total income are 4 gold. The productivity is equal to both.
If they trade 1 shield by 1 food, by my premisse generated commerce is 1 gold, but income remains equal, since commerce only change the owners of food and shields, don't generate aditional income. This commerce is local trade.
Now if by turn an artesan produce 4 shield in tools and a farmer produce 2 food then in gold the income are 6 gold. The farmer is now less produtive than artesan.
If they trade 1 shield by 1 food, by my premisse generated commerce is 1 gold, so nothing new.
If average costs = price, then to artesan produce 1 shield of tools needs 0.25 of a turn and to farmer produce 1 food needs 0.5 of a turn, so the average costs or price of shields is 0.25 gold and average costs or price of food is 0.5 gold. Then the price of 2 shields = 1 food, relative price are changed and therefore income are 4 gold, less than 6 gold I said above, but that contradict premisses. And if there are a penalty due higher productivity since we are less income an artesain don't gain an extra revenue that is a non incentive to technology advance or to artesan work less so economy are at non full capacity. Calculate prices to reflect trade between sectors now are more complex to calculate. So we can go on other direction.
Productivity of artesans is 4 and productivity of farmers is 2, so:
If average costs * productivity = price, then, we have to artesan a price = 4*0.25 = 1 and to farmer a price = 2*0.5 = 1. So 1 shield of tools = 1 food, and, mesured on gold, 1 gold.
But the calculation of price could be avoid with premisse of 1 food <=> 1 shield <=> 1 gold, and therefore price is 1 food <=> 1 shield <=> 1 gold and income is # shields + # food produced by turn. And productivity is implict by increase of shields/food by popunit.
I hope this clarify you about my point of view.



I'll would like see workers be replaced by a specialists system. Irrigation and miners are mainly private activity, so instead of we must build workers and send it to irrigate or mine, a slider with the # of miners or farmers is given by an automatic matter, reflected in a slider of labor force. The graphical aspects showed the farmers or miners worked on tiles where the # of 'units' is a ratio of the specialist 1/1000, 1/10000. To build roads, RR or fortress, we could have PW another kind of labor force specialists.So we see real people and not units anymore.Tiles also have a minimum of survival.
The economic system give by slider is not mainly manually adjust (MM), allthough player could adjust if want, but an automatic process, some kind of governor (AI) adjusts, when I make my choices. And slider is a graphical way to see the state of economy and their evolution, mostly interface.
I agree that food act as a limit to growth, the only way food is increased is by assign more farmers to irrigation or work land, or when ecossystem is achieved by technology.

Here a model with 2 examples, wich I belief isn't in cIV, but is quite simple and easy to implement. Later game it's complexity increase to reflect complexity of economy and society:

Premisses:
- Resources are quantify.
- We have real people (popunits) divided in specialists, not units: Local/Non-locals Miners = 20, Farmers = 240, Artesans = 20, Rulers/Troops = 20, Merchants = 10.
- The # of specialists give the # of shields. The # of food has a ratio of 0.8, wich 80 farmers produce 100 of food. This # is increased by tech, so productivity.
- The consumption of food of 1 specialist or popunit is 1 food.
- Agriculture gives surplus (first example)
- Agriculture and artesans gives surplus (second example)
- The taxation is on surplus.
- People could live in non-city tiles.
- Local trade is made on 1 tile. Connected tiles by roads in 2 adjacent tiles allow local trade in that tiles and acts like local market.
- Roads, RR, highways increase speed of trade not trade itself.

At bolt generated trade
1 - Surplus is achieved by farmers. No melting iron
Miners
Raw Material (20 shields of iron) => Trade with artesans (+20 gold, -20 shields) => Trade with farmers (+20 food, -20 gold)
New trade generated = 40. Gold needs = 20.
Artesans
Products (20 shields of weapens) => Trade with rulers/troops (+20 gold, -20 shields) => Trade with farmers (+20 food, -20 gold)
New trade generated = 40. Gold needs = 20.
Artesans are former farmers. Initial gold is achieved by food saled.
Farmers
Food (300 food) => Trade with miners (+20 gold,-20 food) and Trade with artesans (+20 gold,-20 food) and Trade with rulers/troops (+20 gold, -20 food) and Auto Consumption (-240 food) => Surplus (+60)
New trade generated = 20. Gold needs = 20.
Rulers/Troops
Taxes (40 gold by taxation at least) => Trade with farmers (+20 food, -20 gold) and Trade with artesans (+20 shields, -20 gold)
Rulers/Troops are no produtive people. Gold is achieved by taxation on farmers, the only one with surplus (food in this case) and in this example the minimun needs is 40 gold at maximum of 60, in a monetarized economy. If economy is not monetarized the taxation is on fod
New trade generated = 0. Gold needs = 0.
Society: Trade generated = 100. Gold needs = 60.
The entire society income is 340 and surplus is 20 gold. Their redistribution could have many forms.
This give the first example of policy choices. More or less taxation over farmers gives the to happiness.

2 - Non-locals Miners (2 tiles not connected), Artesans melting iron and Merchants
Artesans productivity increase and therefore produce surplus.
Non-local Miners
Raw Material (20 shields of iron) => Trade with artesans (+20 gold, -20 shields) => Trade with farmers (+20 food, -20 gold)
New trade generated = 40. Gold needs = 20. The less gold on economy due iron is compensate by more gold on economy due food.
Artesans
Products (30 shields of weapens) => Trade with rulers/troops (+20 gold, -20 shields) => Trade with farmers (+20 food, -20 gold) and Trade with merchants (-10 shields, +10 gold) => Surplus (+10)
Artesans are former farmers. Initial gold is achieved by sale food .
New trade generated = 50. Gold needs = 20. The aditional of 10 gold is non-local trade. Act's like exports.
Farmers
Food (300 food) => Trade with rulers/troops (+20 gold, -20 food) and Trade with artesans (+20 gold,-20 food) and Trade with miners (+20 gold,-20 food) and Auto Consumption (-240 food) => Surplus (+60)
New trade generated = 20. Gold needs = 20.
Merchants
Bonus (10 gold by bonus at least) => Trade with artesans (+10 shields, -10 gold)
Merchants are nomads. Gold is achieved by bonus resources on non sedentary tiles.
New trade generated = 0. Gold needs = 0.
Rulers/Troops
Taxes (40 gold by taxation at least) => Trade with farmers (+20 food, -20 gold) and Trade with artesans (+20 shields, -20 gold)
Rulers/Troops are no produtive people. Gold is achieved by taxation on farmers, the only one with surplus (food in this case) and in this example the minimun needs is 40 gold at maximum of 70, in a monetarized economy. If economy is not monetarized the taxation is on food or weapens.
Society: Trade generated = 110. Gold needs = 60.
The entire society income is 330 and surplus is 40 gold. Their redistribution could have many forms.
This gives another example of policy choices. A unique tax rate over all specialists or a diferentiation tax rate gives the way how government treat the factions of a civ. More or less taxation over farmers or artesans gives the happiness. Taxation on non-local trade ('export' or 'import') also is available.

Merchants aren't old caravan or trucks, even they act like that. With caravan and trucks we only have trade when they arrive destination here the merchants/nomads travel from place to place and increase trade between cities, even undirectly in early game.

 

[mhIdA]

sir schwick
This are some thoughts that occurs me reading your ideas. Your model seems focus on 3 main issues:
- Population spread model and an urbanization process - The populated countryside as you suggested don't mean replace mines and roads/RR every where, as we have now by villages, and the mainly urbanization process only occus with industrialization. Your example of New York sounds to me like a conurbation, with multi tiles cities if I understand clearly, wich could be cool . But put this 2 aspects together I think lately we could have a overurbanized world.

- Production cycle - I support this, but implicitlly. The economic activity of popunits assure this process. And as I understand only cities sized more than 1 to you become specialized, wich mean to me that no trade occurs within a rural tile as I see it. But how you think that shields of raw materials will be transposed in shields of products, this means to produce a certain # of products we need a certain # of raw material and 1 or more # of tools to produce them?

- Definition of a market - Only with specialized work trade occurs, and to that happen the suppliers must have what demanders looking for. So, popunits and sectors associated to them must have a branch of needs pre-defined or modeled. Another thing is demanders constraint given by their income wich as I see it is dependent of their productivity. This needs could change or increase as productivity increase. Roads/RR, highways and harbours automaticlly not generate trades, only allow it.

 

[sir_schwick]

- Population spread model and an urbanization process - The populated countryside as you suggested don't mean replace mines and roads/RR every where, as we have now by villages, and the mainly urbanization process only occus with industrialization. Your example of New York sounds to me like a conurbation, with multi tiles cities if I understand clearly, wich could be cool . But put this 2 aspects together I think lately we could have a overurbanized world.

We do have an over-urbanized developed world in the 3rd millenia.

- Production cycle - I support this, but implicitlly. The economic activity of popunits assure this process. And as I understand only cities sized more than 1 to you become specialized, wich mean to me that no trade occurs within a rural tile as I see it. But how you think that shields of raw materials will be transposed in shields of products, this means to produce a certain # of products we need a certain # of raw material and 1 or more # of tools to produce them?

Trade occurs within rural tiles when they sell the products of the land to places that process those products. Now the popunits located on that Corn sell whatever food products(quantity=3) to where they generate the most trade for that tile. All tiles generate 'commerce arrows'. The shields(quantity=1) on a plains is turned into some product and sold somewhere. Everything but the most basic products usually require an urban setting to be produced.

- Definition of a market - Only with specialized work trade occurs, and to that happen the suppliers must have what demanders looking for. So, popunits and sectors associated to them must have a branch of needs pre-defined or modeled. Another thing is demanders constraint given by their income wich as I see it is dependent of their productivity. This needs could change or increase as productivity increase. Roads/RR, highways and harbours automaticlly not generate trades, only allow it.

I am going to take the current Civ approach and assume that if a product exists, a market that can absorb all produced products exists for it. We could explore fluctuating demand and consumer buying power, but I have a feeling that would add many layers to the system. Also, that last point has been the purpose of my entire system: transportation infrastructure merely allows trade, does not create it.