Economics Modcomp discussion

1.) The Welfare State Tech seems unnecessary. I don't think Welfare States form from a technological advancement, rather they form as a result of politicians increasingly using pork legislation to pass unpopular laws. What do you think?
I agree. I also feel the same way about other supposed "technologies" such as Compulsory Education; it's not exactly something that was invented or discovered, but rather it was legislated...
Fortunately, I think I can do everything you requested. I'm beginning immediately. ;)
I'm lookin' forward to it! :)
 
1.) The Welfare State Tech seems unnecessary. I don't think Welfare States form from a technological advancement, rather they form as a result of politicians increasingly using pork legislation to pass unpopular laws. What do you think?

I agree too, this isn't a technologic advancement, but what I'm trying to do here is about the same situations Nightguard tried to express in the "price of progress" thread... Tried to create new forms of unhappiness on the late game. And show how much we are "spoiled"... :lol:

Really don't know what to say, I leave it in your hands... More forum's opinions on this topic will be appreciated.

2.) I don't see the need to create a speculator specialist, it seems too similar to the existing merchant. Why not just use that instead?
I think the speculator would be a good flavor feature, a candy to AND players, and a registered mark for this modcomp. His relation with merchant would be kind of Spy and Agent, or Rifleman and Infantry. Just progress. Even though speculators and merchants have different "social" functions, they have the same results (wealth generation). The merchant provides goods, the speculator provides liquidity, which allows more active markets.

Fortunately, I think I can do everything you requested. I'm beginning immediately. ;)
Great! You're really a balrog killer! :king:
 
Another thing I was thinking about KonradCabral...

How exactly should I teach the AI to have a coherent inflation strategy? The way most things work for the AI is that they analyze buildings or civics one by one, and each effect it has, like happiness, is given a weight, and the AI builds the buildings that have the highest weight in the general category they are looking at. They categorize buildings by happiness, Unit XP, defense, all the commerce and yield types, health, etc...

So, should I create a new category for Inflation and try to get the AI to focus on it when their inflation situation looks grim? And even more basic, when should the AI think inflation is getting bad? What yearly trends indicate high inflation?

Ideas to think about anyway.
 
Another thing I was thinking about KonradCabral...

How exactly should I teach the AI to have a coherent inflation strategy? The way most things work for the AI is that they analyze buildings or civics one by one, and each effect it has, like happiness, is given a weight, and the AI builds the buildings that have the highest weight in the general category they are looking at. They categorize buildings by happiness, Unit XP, defense, all the commerce and yield types, health, etc...

So, should I create a new category for Inflation and try to get the AI to focus on it when their inflation situation looks grim? And even more basic, when should the AI think inflation is getting bad? What yearly trends indicate high inflation?

Ideas to think about anyway.

I think the key is that the AI should tend to keep stable economy. That means somewhat balanced budget and not shocking the economy by crazy goldrushing. Or at least spread the goldrushes into few more turns so the process is little smoother.

Maybe leaders' personalities could this affect too. I can imagine some leaders being more, some less responsible regarding to inflation.

Let's say every leader gets his inflation target and tries to keep the inflation below it. If he overshoots, then the economy needs to cool down - either by making reserves (surplus budget) or by switching to more conservative monetary civic.

However, and this is important :) if you plan on using the inflation formula I proposed, I strongly suggest further discussion before you start to implement it into your mod. The reason is, that my proposal is just a rought design and I didn't do any calculations at all. I am quite sure it needs balancing hard.

Anyway Aforess, thanks for making this great mod and taking our ideas into account. I am psyched to see every new version of AND.
 
So, should I create a new category for Inflation and try to get the AI to focus on it when their inflation situation looks grim?

Yes, I guess. When the inflation is bringing your empire down, building a Central Bank or adopting better monetary civics should certainly become more attractive to AI.

And even more basic, when should the AI think inflation is getting bad? What yearly trends indicate high inflation?
The AI could have a % range of inflation per gold, as acceptable inflation. This range would be affected by era, techs, wars and traits.

However, and this is important :) if you plan on using the inflation formula I proposed, I strongly suggest further discussion before you start to implement it into your mod. The reason is, that my proposal is just a rought design and I didn't do any calculations at all. I am quite sure it needs balancing hard.

Afforess is giving us two versions of this modcomp, one with the new inflation and extensive testing, and one without it, easier to develop and less dangerous for the game.
 
An inflation target... I like the idea.


Anyway, I'll make the new inflation mechanic optional, as usual. Off by default until it gets tested.
 
Would it be possible to cause deflation?
 
Deflation has very different effects on economic activity, it isn't the opposite of the inflation ones. Sincerely, I can't think how to simulate them on Civ.
 
Deflation has very different effects on economic activity, it isn't the opposite of the inflation ones. Sincerely, I can't think how to simulate them on Civ.
perhaps uninflation would be a better term? something to reduce inflation
 
You are misunderstanding the two concepts: briefly explaining, inflation is the rise, big or small, of prices. Deflation is the lowering, big or small, of them. At first sight, we may think that they are just opposite things, but they don't have opposite effects. Both are bad. The good thing is stability of prices. In Civ we can simulate the bad effects of inflation as a gold cost. In the case of deflation I can't see how to do it. What we are trying to do here is improving this simulation. I already proposed possibilities to decrease (or increase) inflation effects. ;)
 
Actually, if you watch the proposed inflation formulla carefully, you can see that there is a way to cause disinflaion, resp. temporary deflation - by making huge budget surplus.

In real world, deflation would cause drop of the consumption and investment, because people keep postponing purchases, expecting lower prices in future. Inflation causes the opposite - people purchase like crazy, abandoning savings. Neither of these is good.
However, in this game mechanism, there is no such a direct effect on economy. For player, the only cost of inflation is the inflation itself (decline of money value). Perhaps we should add some more effects to simulate not only the long-term effect of inflation, but also the direct fallout.

Honestly, I am still unsure that the proposed formula is good enough to simulate the inflation close to reality. Hence I really encourage you guys to come with improving ideas, that could make it work better.


EDIT:
As i read what I wrote, it may seem that i infirm what conradcabral posted about inflation/deflation. This wasn't my intention. He said it absolutely right, the final effects of inflation/deflation aren't really opposite. I only illustrated changes of spending/savings ratio, which is crucial, but not the only one effect.
 
Honestly, I am still unsure that the proposed formula is good enough to simulate the inflation close to reality. Hence I really encourage you guys to come with improving ideas, that could make it work better.

I think it's good, but obviously it will need testing and tuning.

Don't you have any more ideas on techs or buildings and wonders?
 
I think it's good, but obviously it will need testing and tuning.

Don't you have any more ideas on techs or buildings and wonders?

Nothing specific right now, I think you did some really good job here. If I get some ideas, I'll let you know.
 
One of the things I wanted to change while I was overhauling the economy for this mod, was the inability to have negative gold reserves. Real nations can and are heavily in debt, and this should be allowed in Civilization as well.

However, I'm not sure how to create a system that will allow debt, but discourage its abuse. (E.g Wartime debts are acceptable, peacetime or long term debt is not).
 
One of the things I wanted to change while I was overhauling the economy for this mod, was the inability to have negative gold reserves. Real nations can and are heavily in debt, and this should be allowed in Civilization as well.

However, I'm not sure how to create a system that will allow debt, but discourage its abuse. (E.g Wartime debts are acceptable, peacetime or long term debt is not).

I have no idea how to implement negative gold reserves in Civ. Because when a country is in debt, a counterpart should necessarily exist. In real world, this counterpart can be a variety of things, like the private sector buying bonds, can be other country, and even ultranational entities like IMF. How to simulate this variety? Of course,the country can issue money at the cost of inflation. All cases, it costs an interest, so negative debt should snowball. But, the interest rate is also a variable, it represents the opportunity cost of not employing the money you're lending in other projects, and the disponibility to do it. I fear opening a can of worms here, mainly with the AI. Maybe just allow negative reserves with Usury or Banking, and create a snowball mechanism, with inflation effects too, could be a first step. Also, I fear to transform Civ in a game that requires economic knowledges to be played, and this wouldn't be good at all.

On a side note: there's no problem with long-term debt. As long as you can make profits bigger than the interest you're paying, there's no reason to not continue to borrow money. The problem is: profits are inversely proportional (in %) to the project's size, and interest tends to be crescent if you over-borrow money. It's a case for an optimization, hire an economist and he'll do it for you! :lol:
 
I have no idea how to implement negative gold reserves in Civ. Because when a country is in debt, a counterpart should necessarily exist. In real world, this counterpart can be a variety of things, like the private sector buying bonds, can be other country, and even ultranational entities like IMF. How to simulate this variety? Of course,the country can issue money at the cost of inflation. All cases, it costs an interest, so negative debt should snowball. But, the interest rate is also a variable, it represents the opportunity cost of not employing the money you're lending in other projects, and the disponibility to do it. I fear opening a can of worms here, mainly with the AI. Maybe just allow negative reserves with Usury or Banking, and create a snowball mechanism, with inflation effects too, could be a first step. Also, I fear to transform Civ in a game that requires economic knowledges to be played, and this wouldn't be good at all.

On a side note: there's no problem with long-term debt. As long as you can make profits bigger than the interest you're paying, there's no reason to not continue to borrow money. The problem is: profits are inversely proportional (in %) to the project's size, and interest tends to be crescent if you over-borrow money. It's a case for an optimization, hire an economist and he'll do it for you! :lol:

Hmm, I just had an idea. What about a 4th slider, representing your country printing money, or removing money from circulation. You could manage inflation with it. Want deflation? Start eating up money. Need quick cash, at the cost of future inflation, start the printing presses! :p
 
Hmm, I just had an idea. What about a 4th slider, representing your country printing money, or removing money from circulation. You could manage inflation with it. Want deflation? Start eating up money. Need quick cash, at the cost of future inflation, start the printing presses! :p
EU3 has this. It has different research sliders and a Treasury slider. It does just what you said.
 
One of the things I wanted to change while I was overhauling the economy for this mod, was the inability to have negative gold reserves. Real nations can and are heavily in debt, and this should be allowed in Civilization as well.

However, I'm not sure how to create a system that will allow debt, but discourage its abuse. (E.g Wartime debts are acceptable, peacetime or long term debt is not).

Maybe allow loan system in diplomacy, which would look like following - borrowing certain sum for certain amount of turns (5, 10 - ?) with interest in % agreed upon both sides, and penalty % per turn when debt can't be paid in time (optionally). Maybe make it so that loan amount (total loan from multiple sources) cannot be higher than amount GNP x2-3-4?

When agreement is made, there will be agreed period during which loan taker should accumulate money, after which money/science slider moves to gold and gold automatically substracts to creditor (this can be done for few turns till payment and % are fully paid out). Also % per turn in case of delaying debt should be added too. Declaring war upon creditor should not effect loan.

Also, as an option, units and cities (we can trade them now anyway) could be made as objects of safety deposits for loan (as alternative to % penalties if not paid in time), so creditor can hold them to himself if loan isnt paid in time.

p.s. Btw, why AI never trades their own cities tho sometimes they are red in menu and sometimes white, and neither it gives anything for player cities? not even a 10 gold. While they often request them as tribute.

[edit] So for example, i decide to borrow 1000 gold from Gilgamesh, default time is 10 turns, with 10% interest per turn from base amount. Near gold slider i will have string (1100 debt to gilgamesh, 100 per turn, 9 turns remaining). At any turn after that i can contact him and (if i have money) payout debt and %s (counted for turns passed). After 10 turns pass, there will be 5 turns frame during which %s increase to 15%, and if i don't pay by that time, all sliders go to gold, % move to 20, and it starts automatically paying gold to him until everything is paid (btw this can have severe effect on monarchy where you get :mad: per 15% tax). % can be fixed amount or vary depending how much gold OTHER players have available (just like with resources relative trading value) and depending on civ attitude toward you.

Also it should give minor diplomacy bonuses or penalties ("You loaned us money" +, "You paid your debt in time" +, "You refused to loan us money" -, "You are an untrustworthy person who doesn't pay his debts"-).

Also i think if you declare war on person you gave loan to debt should be cancelled, however if i loan money from someone then declare war on him, debt stays and works as usual.

And finally! Capitulation works now so you only can demand actual money (or money per turn) defeated civ has, with this mechanism it would become possible to request contribution (with low %'s) which would be paid in nearby time. Also, units like money and cities should be terms of capitulation (currently they aren't).
 
Hmm, I just had an idea. What about a 4th slider, representing your country printing money, or removing money from circulation. You could manage inflation with it. Want deflation? Start eating up money. Need quick cash, at the cost of future inflation, start the printing presses! :p

Countries don't really do this anymore. They do print paper money, but only a tiny fraction of the money supply is paper (and they borrow the money they're printing before they actually print it, rather than just issuing it out of the blue).

There was only really a very short period of time (between the gold standard and Bretton Woods - from 1931 - or 1933 in the US case - to 1946) when countries were just printing money backed by nothing. Under the gold standard they could technically print as much money as they liked, but this didn't actually increase the total value of their specie; they basically had to have more gold to do it safely.

The money supply now is not actually controlled by the governments at all. This is how money creation works today:

http://books.google.com/books?id=oR...e&q=money creation fractional reserve&f=false

Governments can influence money creation by raising or lowering the central bank's prime interest rate, but they don't directly create any money at all. They do print bills by borrowing it from the banks, printing it, and then paying off the loan, but that's not the same thing as simply increasing the money supply by printing a bill, because there is no money creation involved (other than what accrues from borrowing).
 
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