Economy needs fixing

[Torisen]

The most disapointing thing about Colonization for me is the completely static European economy. If I buy enough tools to affect the prices, that's going to cause the price to be elevated for the next 10 years? 50 years? 100 years? 200 years? Really?

There's not even the illusion of a dynamic market in Europe. At the very least, prices should trend back toward the initial settings for any goods where you don't participate in the market.

I'd rather see completely random prices (where the implication is you don't affect the market at all) than ones where prices rise or crash and never recover.


My first take on what should probably be done is to significantly lower the price change thresholds, but have the yieldboughttotal decay rapidly, and have price changes calculated as Dale does after each sale.

Ideally, though, prices for things the colonies produce should rise over time as they're not supplied (and possibly prices for things the colonies consume should fall over time if they're not being purchased).

 

[Montjoie]

Agreed.

The 1994 Col's economy felt more lively than the one of today (and no I'm not the oh-good-ole-times-where-are-you kind of guy).

My two (euro) cents for a revised economic system. What follows is for refined goods (cigars, rhum, etc) the colony sells to europe :
Game start
A - Set basic "european market" (roughly, simulates the motherland population) to 100
B - Set "[good] demand" multiplier ranging from 0,8 to 1,2 (for example)
C- AxB = europe [good] demand = amount of colonial goods europe will try to buy each turn
D- (AxB)/10 = the price
E- Set as a rule that the prices cannot change until a first shipment is delivered to Europe
F- Set to 30% (for example) the cap for a price modification roll

During the game
Let's take cigars. For this game, (B) cigar demand multiplier has been set to 1. The (C) europe cigar demand is therefore 100 per turn. (D) Cigar Price is 10 per unit.
* The player ships 80 cigars, which are 20% under the (C) : a % roll is made. 01 to 20 = (B) rises for + 0,10 ; 21-100 : no change
* The player ships 200 cigars, which are 100% above the (C) : a % roll is made. Following the "F" rule, the roll is capped to 30. Hence, 01 to 30 = (B) decreases for - 0,10 ; 31-100 : no change.

Nota bene : the prices can eventually be modified for more than + or - 0,1 applied to [good] demand multiplier.
For example, in the latter case, 20% to have the price rise :
- Roll result 04. 20 - 4 = 16 rounded up to 20. Add 10 = 30. Divide by 100 => Cigar demand multiplier rises +0,30 (and with a european market of 100, price rise + 3 gold)
- Roll result 12. 20 - 15 = 5 rounded up to 10. Add 10 = 20 => cigar demand multiplier + 0,20, price + 2 gold
- Roll result 18. 20 - 18 = 2 rounded up to, well, 0. Add 10 = 10 => cigar demand multiplier +0,10, price +1 gold

Events
Beside the trade, events could impact the (A) european market or the (B) [good] demand multiplier.

Some examples :
- "His majesty is pleased to inform you that the kingdom enjoys a period of peace and abundant crops" => Population grows, (A) european market rises
- "I have awful news for you, my loyal colonial subjects : a merciless plague has striken the kingdom. Many people have died" => Population decreases, and (A) european market too
- "The King had a bad flu. He has now recovered and keeps on saying that he wouldn't have taken cold with his brand new fur coat on. Everyone in the court wants one : ship more !" => (B) Fur coat demand rises
- "The Royal medical academy has published a notice pretending tobacco is bad for health. Population is worried" => (B) Cigar demand decreases


etc etc ...


Well ... I'm afraid this is long and probably not as clear as I would like it to be (Shakespeare, forgive me). I hope you'll be able to read it, fellows.

 

[kaibayashi]

Double post

 

[kaibayashi]

Nota bene : the prices can eventually be modified for more than + or - 0,1 applied to [good] demand multiplier.
For example, in the latter case, 20% to have the price rise :
- Roll result 04. 20 - 4 = 16 rounded up to 20. Add 10 = 30. Divide by 100 => Cigar demand multiplier rises +0,30 (and with a european market of 100, price rise + 3 gold)
- Roll result 12. 20 - 15 = 5 rounded up to 10. Add 10 = 20 => cigar demand multiplier + 0,20, price + 2 gold
- Roll result 18. 20 - 18 = 2 rounded up to, well, 0. Add 10 = 10 => cigar demand multiplier +0,10, price +1 gold

I'm sorry, but your maths confuses me! Why have you rounded up as you have done? That seems to make no sense to me?

 

[Refar]

I think a strong correlation between european markets (right now there is none) + prices returning back to "normal" over time might be enought already. It's not really elaborate, but it would give the 'illusion' that there are other players in the market.

Two colonies are at war bying muskets - prices go up. A third party could concider making some profit out of it
After a while the demand ends - prices return back to normal after a few turns.

Would also encourage building up a versatile economy - trading different goods, to let the prices recover from time to time.
And would also encourage removing (or blockading) other colonies trade - less concurence.

 

[angry_rebel]

I think silver needs fixing. For some reason, it seems to devalue the quickest. After a few loads to Europe, they start paying me about 6 coins for it. On marathon mode, it isn't uncommon for me to see it drop twice after selling one load of 300 silver. On the other hand, I've sold loads of 300 cigars or 300 coats, and the price for those items actually went up. (???)

I think silver should hold its value more than other goods. Otherwise, I'm wasting my time setting up a colony next to a mountain range and building mines on every mountain square nearby. I can make more money in the long term selling other items than a supposedly "precious" metal.

 

[Refar]

How fast the price of Silver (and other stuff) drops is in the XML (and hence very easy to adjust) - Terrain\Civ4YieldInfos.xml - push <iPriceChangeThreshold> higher (compare to other ressources to get an idea). Is not really about economy tho - just a "cheat" to fix the price.

 

[Montjoie]

I'm sorry, but your maths confuses me! Why have you rounded up as you have done? That seems to make no sense to me?

Gold is the only currency ingame, hence no "silvers" or "coppers", hence the need to go for integer numbers. The "round up" I used is from 5 to 9.
I guess I probably used the "round up" term the bad way. As my sig states it I'm not very fluent in english, my apologies

Anyway, the figures I used are just for example. They can be tweaked as needed to reach balance.

Hope I made it clearer, kaibayashi

 

[Torisen]

If there's a balance issue - and I noticed that the rate of goods devaluation goes up as difficulty goes up - then the obvious solution is to boost the rate of tax increases.

Currently, the Dutch bonus is also tied into altering the rate of goods devaluation, but restoring correlation with other european markets and the Dutch immunity to that (as the game says the functionality should be) would be one possible solution.

Or give the Dutch a premium for warehouse sales - either let them avoid taxes that way or let them sell at only 25% off.

 

[angry_rebel]

How fast the price of Silver (and other stuff) drops is in the XML (and hence very easy to adjust) - Terrain\Civ4YieldInfos.xml - push <iPriceChangeThreshold> higher (compare to other ressources to get an idea). Is not really about economy tho - just a "cheat" to fix the price.

Ah, Okay, thanks. I reset it to about 3000 so it will hold its value much better on marathon length games (mostly all I play). I also changed the sell price difference (I think that was what it was called) to about 5, so it will discourage me from using the 'buy back' exploit if silver does drop too quickly (I know there has to be some effect due to supply and demand to be realistic, I'm not looking for give-aways). Silver now starts out will a sell value of 19 and a buy value of 24, and I also changed the price correction to about 1%. I'm going to try it out for a while and see how that works.

Can I ask which entry effects how quickly prices bounce back up? (Cigars seem to be least affected in the long-term, their prices usually start going back up before my ships have even returned from selling a load in Europe)

 

[Refar]

There is no entry making the prices bounce back up, because they -unfortunately- don't There is some limited amount of randomnes to it, that might cause prices to move up again sometimes, but i.g. once down they will never recover.

There is a thread somewhere detailing the price mechanics in more detail, but in short it works like this: There is a "Value" for each good. This is set at the beggining of the game (The base price in the same Yield XML) and only can go down (when you reach the iPriceChangeThreshold). For the actuall price that "value" is modified by a small random variance.