Civ 6 expac or civ 7 real stock market idea

[cknwo]

Once Economics is researched you have the ability to build the stock exchange. At this point you have the ability to invest in a certain country/empire. Here's how this works:

You make money by investing gold in a foreign country that is growing or has potential to grow.

What is growth? It could be measured by available empty tiles surrounding current cities. Also, by available land left in immediate area for additional cities to be settled. Growth would be measured by improving tiles with workers and building districts, buildings, and wonders. We could consider growth for population as well.

Another way of placing value on the stock would be +/- the country's science progress, gold per turn, and culture progress average to the rest of the world. Plus Normal, Golden, Dark and Heroic ages can have a major stock value increase or decrease.

By making the correct investment in the world community you will stand to make boatloads of cash as you sell your shares/investment in a particular empire/country.

But beware! If a certain country would have disasters, war, and bankruptcy this would incur a drop in share price/stock value and even resulting in a crash. Would you panic and sell your shares? Or stick it out and hope the country/empire could recover.

War could be boon or bust. If a empire/country takes over cities or another empire/country entirely then the winner would open up potential for further growth and higher stock price. LIkewise the loser would suffer a major stock crash and the stock price would go to zero if defeated.

How does one's country/empire make money from it's own stock? After you build your stock exchange you have the ability to list your country on the exchange. You simply issue a certain amount of shares at $X price, once other countries/empires/city states buy those shares with gold, that cash goes into your treasury and it's free to use as you please.

Will you put your investor's money to good use? Gamble with a war? Or invest in another country? The choice is yours.

 

[Sostratus]

ou simply issue a certain amount of shares at $X price, once other countries/empires/city states buy those shares with gold, that cash goes into your treasury and it's free to use as you please.

What you are suggesting here is more akin to a "sovereign debt market" or "government bonds." But we can handwave that and say it's really foreign direct investment or what have you.

By making the correct investment in the world community you will stand to make boatloads of cash as you sell your shares/investment in a particular empire/country.

The problem comes when it's time for a buyer to redeem shares - in the real world you need either a willing third party to buy them off you or the originator (in this case, the empire you gave money to) needs to buy them back.
That money needs to come from somewhere. This creates a lot of potential pitfalls.
If the game simply adds to your treasury, like it does when you succeed in various emergencies (R&F/GS,) then you run the risk of creating essentially a positive feedback loop - two nations give each other money, use that to grow, then cash in when the game generates profits from thin air. This is strictly better than those country putting the cash to work internally because they'll get to keep the infrastructure and the game gives them a reward. Rinse repeat ad infinitum.

IRL, investments are ultimately tied to the value of assets somewhere, which in turn have value because they can create wealth. That wealth creation is what's paying for the profits in reality. But it's hard to put that into a game:
Why would country A loan money to country B unless they had some piece of the pie - like part of B's gold income? Similarly, why should B accept money from A if they're on the hook for paying out both the loan and the appreciation in share price? What's the incentive to loan money to someone to get a mere cut of the profits when i could invest that cash into myself and keep all the gains? (If it was equally profitable to invest in yourself vs loan, no one would accept money from anyone because they wouldn't have any upside.)
Why couldn't I just take everyone's money, buy an army, and then take over their empire?

If the shares aren't redeemable and i need to sell them, again - who would buy shares valued at their peak? There's no reason to sell while it's appreciating unless you need the cash now. But if you have cash flow issues, why did you give all your money to some other country?

Now, a lot of this could be hammered out if you changed a lot of how the game works to make financing and budgets (and the act of buying stuff with gold) a way more critical aspect of the game, but some people may not find that fun. The underlying benefit of this is essentially a cash loan from A to B, which can currently be accomplished by trading a lump sum for gpt.
Remember: literally all financial services + products do one of two things: they move money through time, or they move risk from one party to another.

(This isn't intended to be a negative/hate post, I enjoy looking at potential pitfalls of ideas that get posted here)

 

[cknwo]

Thanks for the reply. You're correct in the fact that thus a bond market idea. However I wanted keep the way it plays to be familiar and easy.

I think having the game inherently creating liquid price action would be the way to go. So there's no issue w/ buying/selling. But within reason, the creator of this idea could add code that automatically decrease/increase price movements based in how many shares that have been issued.

I definitely understand the issue within the feedback loop. That would be very game the system. Surely there's a way around this.. every 10 turns an open market share issue screen would pop up similar to the world Congress screen. Here shares are issued and everyone gets the chance at the shares, even the invisible cpu, maybe the city state too. This would ensure no clear majority stake holders. Now the gaurantee of price to always increase would not be. If problems arise the price per share would go down. It's pure speculation, bc what if that empire can't grow? Then the price would move lower. We have to come up with some speculation/risk aspects. I see your point.

I Think overall value in price movement would depend on global averages. So if your ally is capped in growth potential, that may be a mistake to invest in them.That could sour relations. At what point would you stop investment bc it's time to try and win the game.

I think the idea is the gold to be made should be a worthy payout. So it's worth the risk if you've completed your due diligence.

Another idea is to make each strategic resource have it's own commodity market based on supply and demand. Thanks for your response