Economy and stability...

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Anyway, I tried a new way to play with the Greeks.

I waited, I waited, I waited... No expansion at all, but Wonders, wonders, wonders... You can't lose your capitol even if you collapse, so...

And suddenly, around 1200 AD (just before the Turks arrives), I built one city close to the Bosphorus.

And then, thanks to my HUGE technological, cultural and economical advance, I slowly tried to conquer the surrounding cities, one by one, every ten or twelve turns.

Around 1750 AD, I had conquered the whole of Europe quite easily, and my stability was very high indeed.

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So yes, I can adapt to what the computer wants, and play according to this. But again this is ABSURD!!! :scan:

Winning this way is completely ahistorical, and I hate it when you have to follow arbitrary rules (or easter eggs) rather than let the simulation/role play leads you...

It looks so artificial. :rolleyes:

And I guess the Idea behind Rhye's wasn't this, but to provide the most historically accurate simulation...
It looks so close to this goal I can't believe you could find such an obvious flaw in its inner mechanics. This economy factor is destroying the whole game, its very flavor, because you only have one way to play or else you will collapse.
 
1) it actually collapsed after his death, for 2 reasons. First, he wasn't a ruler at all (and I don't understand why Firaxis insists with him). Second, he didn't have any successor, a consequence of the fact that he had not thought as a ruler. He was "just" a man on a personal quest... although, one of the biggest quests in human's history.
3) the late Roman empire collapsed for completely different reasons (cities shrinking ?? What cities ?). Romans let what they called "barbarians", which they were still fighting, be a large part of their army. They let them become Generals and since corruption was becoming rampant in Rome (which is the main reason of its fall) they took over the power. And ultimately, yes, it was too big and diverse to be controlled efficiently. Which would suggest that overexpansion should lead to collapse, unlike what is being suggested in the thread, and actually in regular civ overexpansion often leads to stagnation, one of the main points of Civ4 and I think a quite good one. And ultimately I think it's the same for RFC. Let's see, if I start a game as Babylon and never expand beyond Mesopotamia but make it to the 20th century will I prove the expansion theory to be incorrect (with this I mean that expansion would not be a requisite "sine qua non" in order to not collapse) ?
 
If you want to win as the Greeks without being expansive, there's always the UHV. If you want a different victory, you have to be expansive. Territorial, economic - whatever. Nothing absurd about it. Sure, Greece didn't expand historically after the Macedonian period - but Greece also lived under foreign domination for two thousand years after the Macedonian period.
 
IwerZ, I completely agree with you, and I can't understand why the majority on this board don't.

I think 'stability' is a great idea, which is essential for Rhye's game and would be a good addition to the standard civ game, but its implementation here makes no sense.

It's made worse by the fact that unlike every other feature of the game, all the details of its calculation are hidden (supposedly to avoid exploits - presumably there are loads to take advantage of - a sure sign that it's not very well thought through).

This mod appeals so much to me, and I desparately want to play it, but I know that I won't enjoy it because of the arbitrary rules of stability which I'm not even allowed to see.

It's such a shame because the rest of the mod is quite superb.
 
Because great empires like Alexander's Macedonia or late Roman Empire shows us that most powerful countries won't ever collapse!

These empire collapsed because they over-expanded. Completely contraditory to the game. Whereas the isolantionist state of medieval Japan and USA were very stable.
 
Yesterday I played a game with Japan (viceroy) and I didn't have economical problems at all. Connecting all resources, meet your neighbours and be sure you don't lose them, nothing goes wrong. The only thing that was strange that I reached liberalism at 1285 AD (all medieval techs researched) and the modern era at 1760 AD. Everyone wanted a defensive pact so the foreign stability was rather high. If you make them even more happy by giving techs you can ask any city you want in a congress, which added expansion points.

Just keep the other things high and there won't be a problem. The only problem was that the civics were 2 stars.
 
Of course you're going to see your empire collapse if you over-expand. Nobody's denying that. The point is you're also going to do badly if you under-expand. It's not a question of one extreme versus another. If too much territorial expansion hurts your economy, it costs you.

In general, I think people are putting too much emphasis on stability. I've played the mod since Warlords with all sorts of civs, and I've lost a total of two cities in that time due to instability - and that includes the ridiculously large Arabian empire demanded by their UHV. If you learn how to expand right, it shouldn't be a problem. It's a matter of judgement in finding an optimum, not following a rule about one extreme or other, which might be problematic for some.
 
The mod is based on history. If you try to emulate history you will be rewarded for it and will likely have a strong stability rating.
 
Edit: Whoops, quoted the wrong post. Oh well, whatever.

Actually, Rome collapsed because it *stopped* expanding. It just took a few hundred years. The reason is that Rome's economy was a looting economy. Money from conquests poured in, which allowed a lot of excesses at home. And when the conquests stop, the excesses didn't. This is a problem.

However, the proximal reasons for its collapse (like the collapse of all empires) are political, not economic.

In fact, there's good reason to suppose that economic stagnation/inflation/deflation alone do not cause countries to collapse. Especially after Nationalism. Ie, the Great Depression saw no civil wars result. Instead, it led directly to WW2 when a particular German leader rallied the people behind a militaristic government with an Imperial agenda.

Similarly, the hyper-inflation of the 70s saw no major powers collapsing. Countries with well-developed economies can weather bouts of poor economic performance. The only countries who collapse because of economic reasons are countries with poorly structured economies (ie, see Rome). So a lot of third world government collapse can be explained economically, but governments just don't collapse in modern economically sound countries - and arguably shouldn't in ancient countries with sound economies. At the very least the development of Banking should substantially alter the way negative economic factors effect stability. (The game's calculation of GNP is also really weird, since modern economies generate a lot more wealth from banking/stock markets/etc... than civ lets you generate with buildings).

(Note, the historical Rome would be, in Civ terms, a country running a deficit that they're covering through gold earned by conquering cities. Ie, --15-30 per turn, but getting 100-200 gold per city. You can keep a civ afloat in the normal game this way, but its a really crappy economy, and even in Rhyes its possible - you're basically forced to play this way as the Mongols, but you better hope you get a historical victory or you're toast).

This is my long-winded way of saying that yes, the economic stability measures are pretty crazy, and at the very least should become less harsh with the development of banking (or at the latest economics).

(Also, colonialism was the result of a struggle for *resources*, not a GNP increase. This is already well represented in the normal game by strategic and luxury resources - you either trade for them or conquer them if you don't have them, which can lead to colonialism or imperialism).
 
In fact, there's good reason to suppose that economic stagnation/inflation/deflation alone do not cause countries to collapse. Especially after Nationalism. Ie, the Great Depression saw no civil wars result. Instead, it led directly to WW2 when a particular German leader rallied the people behind a militaristic government with an Imperial agenda.

Similarly, the hyper-inflation of the 70s saw no major powers collapsing. Countries with well-developed economies can weather bouts of poor economic performance. The only countries who collapse because of economic reasons are countries with poorly structured economies (ie, see Rome). So a lot of third world government collapse can be explained economically, but governments just don't collapse in modern economically sound countries - and arguably shouldn't in ancient countries with sound economies.

The Soviet Union collapsed because of economic trouble.
 
In history there are numerous examples of countries that collapsed because they stopped expanding.

The Ottoman empire. An empire built on continous expansion. As soon as the Europeans found a way to stop them, they began an interminable decline.

The Roman empire. The Roman decline began during the Pax Romana, when there were no more civilizations that could be effectively conquered.

There are others. (You might include Britain, depending on how you want to read the second half of the 19th century). It's not what happens to everyone, but it does happen a lot. Perhaps an overnight collapse isn't the best way to do it, but that's really more of a detail.

Economics is even more stark. If you watch any business/economic new show, growth of under say, 2% per annum is considered cause for concern. They're still growing, but growth is slow. And that goes for America, still the world's biggest and richest as well as say, Haiti.

So what's the problem?
 
The Soviet Union collapsed because of economic trouble.

What about "sound economic structure" wasn't clear? And it wasn't just economic reasons - the Soviet Union was deliberately bankrupted by the US during the cold war by arms escalation. The US built more weapons solely to get the USSR to build more weapons - because the US could afford it and ultimately, the USSR could not.

Regardless, one wouldn't say it "collapsed because of the economic troubles" the way RFC uses "collapsed". It had an internal change of government, and allowed conquered "cities" (regions/countries) to leave the conglomeration. No civil war resulted, and unsurprisingly, the economy is still bad. Last I checked, Russia is still a country though.

This of course speaks to another odd choice in RFC. Despite Free Market not being the clear best economic choice in the normal game (I've used all of them at one time or another), Rhye felt the need to penalize it with a chance of great depression, but not penalize any other economic choice. Which is weird given how much better free markets have fared than other economic choices in reality. (Of course, an accurate free market civic should dominate all the other ones - that's just not good for the game. But neither is making it clearly worse than all the other ones. So either Free Market should receive an additional bonus - probably +100% trade route revenue or +X% cash in all cities - or other economic choices should receive penalties of some sort).
 
^^ Well, state property has go a bit of a penalty. When you change civics out of state property you risk a post-communist economic collapse. And environmentilism has with the +25% corporation maintenance.
 
^^ Well, state property has go a bit of a penalty. When you change civics out of state property you risk a post-communist economic collapse. And environmentilism has with the +25% corporation maintenance.

By the time State Property becomes an option, you should be switching into it to stay in it. Especially since in RFC there's no "spiritual" trait (there being no traits), and therefore everyone but india has to deal with anarchy when switching (or have a golden age handy), so rampant switching isn't a good idea anyway.

Regardless, running Free Market for any length of time you'll almost certainly have a Great Depression. Not that I know what the probability of a Great Depression is, but the few times i've played a civ that goes late enough to have the option of free market, i've stayed out because I don't want to risk it. (And have delayed economics to get the +1 trade route from castles longer because i'm unwilling to use Free Market). Even a small probability is almost a guarantee if you stay with it long enough, and if it can happen multiple times... *shudder*. It just seems really punitive for wanting to use Free Market.
 
If you want to use coprporations then you really have to go into Free Market.

Never gotten to the Corporation tech (close though), much less to building one. I've mostly been playing earlier starts. I've only had the option of free market a couple of times (most notably with the Mayans and Romans, as I had the option early enough relative to the UHV to be relevant).

I did notice that the mod makes corporations mostly useless however. Not sure why.
 
Actually, Rome collapsed because it *stopped* expanding. It just took a few hundred years. The reason is that Rome's economy was a looting economy. Money from conquests poured in, which allowed a lot of excesses at home. And when the conquests stop, the excesses didn't. This is a problem.

It may be A problem but not THE problem. Or are you saying that there is some historian out there that seriously claims that the Roman Empire fell due to a stagnation in expansion ? If so can you name them and link something ?

However, the proximal reasons for its collapse (like the collapse of all empires) are political, not economic.

exactly.

The only countries who collapse because of economic reasons are countries with poorly structured economies (ie, see Rome).

I'm confused, are you saying that Rome collapsed due to bad economy or not ??

So a lot of third world government collapse can be explained economically

If you consider the rise of a Dictator that steals all money and rampant corruption an economic problem then yes. The real problem is the total poverty and ignorance of the common people though. Btw you passed from Country collapse to Government collapse. There's a huge difference there. In RFC it's the country that collapses, not the government. IE there was a country named XYZ here, and after the collapse there is no more. The only modern example that comes to my mind is the USSR, and from my understanding it was indeed an economic/stability collapse.
 
In history there are numerous examples of countries that collapsed because they stopped expanding.

The Ottoman empire. An empire built on continous expansion. As soon as the Europeans found a way to stop them, they began an interminable decline.

The Roman empire. The Roman decline began during the Pax Romana, when there were no more civilizations that could be effectively conquered.

[...]

So what's the problem?

The problem are a lot of lies and twisted reality. Has anyone considered that the aforementioned empires stopped expanding BECAUSE they were collapsing and not the other way around ??? Or that it's just a coincidence or a side effect, etc , but not at all the main cause ?

Also I would like to inform you that the period of Pax Romana has been the best period for the Roman Empire, namely the Pax Romana started with Augustus and ended with Marcus Aurelius and the term Pax (peace) was referring to the Empire, so inside its borders (ie no civil wars, rebellions and uprisings), rather than outside its borders.
 
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