[Discussion] The "Too Much Money Problem" (aka "Late Game Boredom")

[VegetableRights]

I really don't think it is the domestic market causing too much wealth.

The domestic market does its job perfectly because it is limited by being demand based. It is the exports due to unrestricted productivity that causes the runaway wealth. It is a fact that you can create a lot of wealth, but you can spend it on military and win the game sooner. It is the purpose of the end game after all.

 

[Mr. ZorG]

especially after the adoption of some FFs into Congress

 

[Bomax]

It is a fact that you can create a lot of wealth, but you can spend it on military and win the game sooner.

Or just invest money to expend our empire and to try to produce every good? Actually, I use most of the money to speed up constructions as the start game in marathon is pretty slow... but I
also occasionally buy some new ship/carriage/units. Despite that, I never was able to produce every good for my colonies.

I would say that adding upkeep cost to unit would not be a problem in end game... but that another story for the early/middle game.

 

[adriankowaty]

In regards to issue of "too much money", some ideas of mine, mostly in form of costs:
- administrative costs: the more cities you have, the more you pay costs to mantain their administration, similarly to city mantainance mechanic from vanilla Civ IV. Basically you need (abstract) officials to ran up daily life of your cities and the more cities you have, the more expensive it becomes.
- land tax: you pay tax to your sovereign from land you own (tiles coloured in your maneer). The greater amount of land, the more cost/tax.
- mantaince of units: each unit you have in profession outside walls of settlement (pioneer, any soldier, ship, colonist, missionary, trader) costs money to mantainance. Since I tend to get a lot of "idle" units in my main port accumulating from growth and migration and since you need military to defend your colony against Natives, other colonies and, ultimately, your own King during War of Independence, this is another source of costs. This can be somewhat balanced with slight (smaller than costs) income per unit employed in production within city walls, representing locally levied taxes paid to you as governor.

 

[Buffalo Solider]

Maintenence of units - I'm fully on. Especially ships, but maybe even all laborers.... Ship crews deserve something better! Right now they're allowed to eat ropes and sailcloth until they hit sea where they can eat whatever they manage to fish

I thought about how whole economy in game is pretty strangely organized... You just tell people what to do, they give you products for free, or money for products they produce, but how do they "earn" money they give you? The core of game is main source of "Too much money". All people in game are just your slaves. They work for only food and accomodation (depending on how you look at things - not even that x_x) and protection

I think village/town markets (at least in current game setup) should give no profits. Operating it should be necessary just for managing happiness. First of all - where people take money from? Second of all - why would they be happy to pay for something they "deserve". It's their goods, that produced those.

 

[Buffalo Solider]

Maybe liberty % = amount of money you pay for labor? ( i'm not so sure it's great idea but I'll put it anyway) at 100% liberty you pay full wages (whatever these are (prob. need to be pretty high) ) but people give you more products. If you care about goods and not about money, then it's good tradeoff. And in early game when you need money and not goods, you are better off making your people loyal subject of king that are just working for food and privlege of living in "coolest colony" of the "coolest king" in the world.

Maybe make it into steps, so it doesn't look ugly like "0.023 gold for 0.00something% liberty in jamestown". Instead it could be 0-20% = none 20-40% = 10 gold per worker per turn, 80-100% = 40 gold/worker/turn..

Basically there need to be other money sink (than imports). Money in games come from sources - labor/treasuries/trade and goes to sinks. This (and orgnial col, too) game lacks sinks.

Equipment for workers (mentioned in other idea) is not money sink. Education is not really sink, too. These 2 are just capital.

 

[adriankowaty]

Equipment for workers (mentioned in other idea) is not money sink. Education is not really sink, too. These 2 are just capital.

I am principally against equipment for on city screen workers because it doesn't solve the "outflow" problem in late game, as that's based on ever expanding exports as Europe, Africa and Port Royal are bottomless source of demand for your production, with only limit being tax rate which basically lowers your income per sale and doesn't really cap (I was having once situation of close to 95% tax rate in Europe) and this source of income only drains when you do revolution (unless you choose monarchy as your model of government or relly on smugglers to ship your goods to Port Royal instead.
It only makes start to early game more demanding for player to secure production chain of supplies as soon or possible or face cost of importing it en masse from Europe.
I am fine with worktools (or what ever they are named) being used by pioneers, or settlers, ie on map units you set up cities or build improvements with, as they are an investment regardless to train domestically (as are soldiers, artillery and ships), however giving them to professions in town only slows early game when player is permamently low on money to set up any industry and ship goods to Europe. My another problem with is tied to logistics but it's not a topic of this discussion.
I can understand paying wages to your on town workers (though balanced with income from domestic demand and culture) on top of map units though.
The idea to scale such mantainance "wages" with rebel strengh makes sense to me too, however it should be an overkill aswell.
In short: I agree that money sinks are needed, but let's a) not do an overkill by causing money sinks much greater than money gain sources, b) don't make already tedious early game even more tedious.

 

[adriankowaty]

Also, not directly related to the problem, but I think you need some sort of budget tab (like in Civ IV BtS for example) for the mantaince costs to work correctly. So you can see (for example):
- predicted income from domestic demand (in all cities counted jointly, rather than separately for each city)
- predicted income from culture/entertainment (see above)
- mantainance costs/wages summed up as predicted cost
- land tax I mentioned above if implemented
- administrative costs if implemented
- trade with Europe/Africa/Port Royal:
a) separately for purchases (including recruitment/purchase ships) done this turn (cost)
b) and separately for sales of goods (income)
- other expenditures and incomes (events, priviliges, anything not related to main sources of income and cost, sumed up without need to split)
- balance summary of all above.
This would allow player to oversee his spending of funds and properly manage his economy so he doesn't end up with bankroupcy. The current model of pop ups via "events" tab is, imho, hard to keep check of things and would not support player in case if the main problem, ie money bonanza, is mitigated by enstablishment of persistent costs/money sinks.