Hoping for a more organic economy

[apatheist]

I hope that Civ5 has something more natural for the economy. It always annoyed me that you could allocate a citizen to a river-bordering tile and magically get money just like you could farm a grassland tile for food. Commerce is a fundamentally different thing and deserves to be modeled that way

I'd like to see NO commerce until you have Currency and another reachable city to trade with (see below). No money at all until Currency. Instead, you allocate food to supporting specialists. Once you have Currency, you can acquire money, but the only activity that generates money (instead of transferring it) is commerce. You can't just have a citizen sitting there minting coins (don't get me started on inflation in Civ4), but you'll be able to pay a citizen to perform specific activities (depending on civics?).

Similarly, the magic trade routes in Civ4 were annoying. Why just those cities? Why those amounts? I assume they just had some magic, arbitrary formula that they tweaked for gameplay, but it was a potemkin feature; there was nothing behind it.

So what kinds of things would I want? A model for actual commerce in the sense of the exchange of goods and services. Cities at the ends benefit (one gets the good or service [possibly a resource], the other gets money). The amount of trade between two cities is partly dependent on how difficult it is to get from one to the other. Really far? There's no trade. Good roads? Great. Through an enemy's territory? Not so great. Lots of paths? Good. One choke point? Uh oh. An OK path might be one that goes through one coastal city to another. If those cities had harbors, the path would be better (cheaper and faster to transit with more benefits for the owners). Perhaps it's impossible for trade routes to go through territory nobody owns.

Cities along the transit paths accumulate some minor benefits depending on the how good the transit path is and how many. These could even take the form of autonomous (NPC) caravan units. As each one moves through a city (or city's territory?), it sheds some money. Each caravan might be flagged with the nationalities of the sending and receiving civilizations. You could try to plunder them, and annoy both those nationalities. You could even annoy the nation whose territory the caravan was passing through at the time if that nation had trade transit agreements with the others.

A choke point like Panama would accrue substantial benefits to a city placed there, but would diminish the quantity of trade. Thatwould be determined by the player controlling that choke point. You could let trade flow more freely at a lower cost, which might gain you diplomatic favor, or you could cut it off entirely ("closed borders?") as a weapon.

So what goods and services would transit? Well, maybe each citizen in a city has an identity (which could encompass religion, ethnicity, etc., but I digress). They have preferences for goods. They have some money that they spend on them. You as the dictator have needs as well. You want that Iron from Shanghai to be used in Beijing? Well, the act of moving the goods from place to place throws off commerce. Maybe you have to pay, too; I'm not sure how it all fits together really.

Also: no cottages/towns/whatever. Those were ridiculous. Useful game concepts, but still....

Come to think of it, I also don't like hammers being dependent on terrain. Resources come from terrain. Productivity is a function of labor (workers) and capital (improvements). But that's not for this post.

 

[Ahriman]

Sounds far too complex. Civ's economy engine works because its *simple*.

What you want sounds like something from a Paradox game like Victoria, where every territory creates raw materials or manufacturered goods, that are sold on a world market. A fun game, but ridiculously over-complicated.

"Commerce" and "hammers" as an abstraction work fine.

 

[Woodreaux]

No cottages?!?! How am I supposed to squeeze synergies out my civics? And if there are no Cottage Economies, what will the alternative be to the Specialist Economy?

 

[bonafide11]

Gold existed as a valuable commodity to trade long before currency, so you shouldn't need to wait until currency to get commerce.

I would like the economy improved from Civ IV, but I think your suggestions are off base.

 

[Disgustipated]

I understand your concerns about the economy, it would be nice to have a more realistic economic system, but gameplay...

And lets face it, no one really truelly understands the economy imho. Politicians like to think they control the economy, but they don't do squat. The economy is too big for small economic policies to work. The reason why we are still in recession. If politicians could really control the economy, we still wouldn't be in this recession (yes I know gdp is positive, but jobs are still depressed). The economy is larger than the goverment imho. Unless you have some socialist system like in China, controlling the economy isn't easy.

Despite massive New Deal programs by FDR, the great depressions still never ended. Not until the war. Some argue that the massive goverment spending of the war ended it, but I have my doubts. I don't think it really ended until consumer spending after the war. People had all this pent up demand for new products. Consumer spending drives the economy (in capitalist systems at least) not the goverment.

But those are just my uninformed opinions, I'm not economist. . In gameplay terms, it's more fun to have the goverment contol every aspect of a civilization, even though we know civilizations rise and fall independent of what goverment leaders want.

 

[Thormodr]

Sounds far too complex. Civ's economy engine works because its *simple*.

What you want sounds like something from a Paradox game like Victoria, where every territory creates raw materials or manufacturered goods, that are sold on a world market. A fun game, but ridiculously over-complicated.

"Commerce" and "hammers" as an abstraction work fine.

Victoria is an excellent game. Victoria 2 which is due out around June will tide me over until ciV comes out. I would argue that it has a steeper learning curve than most games but it certainly isn't over complicated.

 

[Seven05]

I'd like to see NO commerce until you have Currency and another reachable city to trade with (see below).

Unfortunately, commerce is not limited to currency, this would be like saying there is no religion until Christianity is founded.

You can't just have a citizen sitting there minting coins (don't get me started on inflation in Civ4), but you'll be able to pay a citizen to perform specific activities (depending on civics?).

The behavior you're complaining about actually isn't a problem with commerce (a type of yield) but with gold (a type of commerce). Even then however, Civ used 'gold' to represent wealth which it not always the same thing as currency. Do you remember how in the base Civ4 game you can't 'build' wealth until you have currency? It's simply an abstraction of what you're asking for without creating a micromanaging nightmare in the process.

Similarly, the magic trade routes in Civ4 were annoying. Why just those cities? Why those amounts? I assume they just had some magic, arbitrary formula that they tweaked for gameplay, but it was a potemkin feature; there was nothing behind it.

The value of a trade route is based on distance and the population of the source and target city and if it is on a different continent. The 'magic arbitrary formula' that determines which cities is that it simply picks the best routes with the highest return using their formula (distance, population, etc).

Come to think of it, I also don't like hammers being dependent on terrain. Resources come from terrain. Productivity is a function of labor (workers) and capital (improvements). But that's not for this post.

So you're looking for more of a simulation and less of a game? That's cool, but that isn't what any of the Civ games have ever been and I'd be suprised if that general design philosophy changed. It would be easier if Civ didn't try provide a game that could span from the dawn of civilization (long before currency, railroads, labor laws and panama canals) into the modern age, but it does so you're going to have to accept generalizations that work well enough for all time periods since the alternative is to have what would almost amount to a different set of rules that would go into effect with each new technology you discovered.

Perhaps Civ is over simplified, but it's still a fun game where you can play though 6000 years in a few hours. Adding complexity for the sake of 'realism' in any game at the cost of playability is rarely a good choice.

 

[timike]

oil needs a much more important role in c5

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

I'll be happy if having multiple versions of the same resource carry benefits to your domestic economy (like bonuses to culture, science, production & food). Corporations in Civ4 came close to achieving this, but I felt it didn't go nearly far enough! Similarly, I'd like to see some conflict between assigning resources for military production & the use of the same resources for the domestic economy-for example, if you have only 1 iron resource, & choose to build 4 swordsman units, then it should impact on the production levels of your entire empire).

Aussie.

 

[Ahriman]

oil needs a much more important role in c5

It will, if the rumors about finite resource supply are true. 1 oil won't be enough for all your oil-driven needs, you'll need multiple oil resources if you want to build a big army of tanks.

(And similarly, multiple horse resources to field a large cavalry army.)

 

[apatheist]

Unfortunately, commerce is not limited to currency, this would be like saying there is no religion until Christianity is founded.

Sure. It's a simplification. Maybe it's the wrong one.

The behavior you're complaining about actually isn't a problem with commerce (a type of yield) but with gold (a type of commerce). Even then however, Civ used 'gold' to represent wealth which it not always the same thing as currency. Do you remember how in the base Civ4 game you can't 'build' wealth until you have currency? It's simply an abstraction of what you're asking for without creating a micromanaging nightmare in the process.

I don't want to add substantial new user actions. I just want to change how the actions affect the game, and how much visibility the player has into the effects.

The value of a trade route is based on distance and the population of the source and target city and if it is on a different continent. The 'magic arbitrary formula' that determines which cities is that it simply picks the best routes with the highest return using their formula (distance, population, etc).

But it's a formula. There's no actual commerce happening. It's an excessively simplified model. Suppose combat was a strict comparison of strengths, and the one with the higher strength always won. That's neither fun nor realistic. I don't see anything fun about these arbitrary formulas. I don't see anything fun about cottage spam.

So you're looking for more of a simulation and less of a game?

Can't it be both?

Er, actually, I don't want a simulation. I want the game to have a richer, more natural commerce system. I want that to make the game more fun. I want the game to give you things to do that are fun and intuitive.

For example, if you build a road between two cities, the trade between them increases, and by a relatively predictable amount. That informs whether you build that road or do something else.

If you're a land-locked country, capturing that one city by the sea to give you unencumbered access would be a boon to your economy.

Build a fort in the middle of a desert to provide a safe route for commerce to the other side.

Give pirates and privateers a tangible target to attack. And when these caravans get taken, let the citizens get angry because they've lost their money or their precious silks.

Let Victoria threaten war unless you open Hong Kong as a free trade city.

etc.

Perhaps Civ is over simplified, but it's still a fun game where you can play though 6000 years in a few hours. Adding complexity for the sake of 'realism' in any game at the cost of playability is rarely a good choice.

It's not for the sake of realism. Well, it sort of is, but not at the expense of game play. Trade is the lifeblood of civilizations. A more holistic trade model makes your civilization more than just a collection of cities. Your actions over here have ripple effects over there. You're sculpting a interrelated, dynamic system with a life of its own.

Sounds far too complex. Civ's economy engine works because its *simple*.

There are lots of things that have complex internals but simple surfaces. Take combat. The formulas are not as simple as in times past, but I assume you handle it fine. I'm not actually sure what part of what I described was that complicated. Maybe I expressed it poorly. The gist is simple. Commerce is when money goes one way and goods go the other way, driven by citizens who perform labor and have material needs and desires. It's an emergent system that you can harness and manipulate for your benefit and to harm others. Commerce flows via the path of least resistance, with secondary benefits to everyone along the way. The specifics are less important; that's the higher goal.

What you want sounds like something from a Paradox game like Victoria, where every territory creates raw materials or manufacturered goods, that are sold on a world market.

Based on the synopsis in Wikipedia, I'd say I want something that's similar in nature but not nearly as elaborate. I'm intrigued by the description, so thanks for the tip.

"Commerce" and "hammers" as an abstraction work fine.

Lots of things work but are unsatisfying. This is one of them. Realism is fundamentally important. How satisfying would it be to watch a spy thriller, then have one of the spies whip out a wand and cast a spell?

 

[MethanalCHO]

My comments are in bold.

I hope that Civ5 has something more natural for the economy. It always annoyed me that you could allocate a citizen to a river-bordering tile and magically get money just like you could farm a grassland tile for food. Commerce is a fundamentally different thing and deserves to be modeled that way. Rivers provide a commerce bonus because, well, rivers played an important part in several trade routes, so it makes sense to give a commerce bonus for a river.

I'd like to see NO commerce until you have Currency and another reachable city to trade with (see below). No money at all until Currency. The wealth in the Civilization is titled "gold", which was a valuable commodity in barter before any standard currency was introduced. Instead, you allocate food to supporting specialists. Specialists, like laborers, consume two food per turn. So I don't understand the purpose of that change Once you have Currency, you can acquire money, but the only activity that generates money (instead of transferring it) is commerce. You can't just have a citizen sitting there minting coins (don't get me started on inflation in Civ4 (Personally, I never noticed CIV's inflation)), but you'll be able to pay a citizen to perform specific activities (depending on civics?). Citizens are already "paid" with two food per turn. I do believe you may have a point that they should automatically consume 1 gold per turn as payment, but I'm still not sure.
Similarly, the magic trade routes in Civ4 were annoying. Why just those cities? Why those amounts? I assume they just had some magic, arbitrary formula that they tweaked for gameplay, but it was a potemkin feature; there was nothing behind it.

So what kinds of things would I want? A model for actual commerce in the sense of the exchange of goods and services. Cities at the ends benefit (one gets the good or service [possibly a resource], the other gets money). The amount of trade between two cities is partly dependent on how difficult it is to get from one to the other. Really far? There's no trade. Good roads? Great. Through an enemy's territory? Not so great. Lots of paths? Good. One choke point? Uh oh. An OK path might be one that goes through one coastal city to another. If those cities had harbors, the path would be better (cheaper and faster to transit with more benefits for the owners). Perhaps it's impossible for trade routes to go through territory nobody owns.

Cities along the transit paths accumulate some minor benefits depending on the how good the transit path is and how many. These could even take the form of autonomous (NPC) caravan units. I do believe the Caravan unit should be returned to Civilization (and it may be in CiV, for CIV: Colonization had a Caravan-like Wagon Train. I personally don't feel they should be autonomous, but I do believe you can set them to set permanent trade routes of particular products between two cities. Although I never played Civ2, it seems interesting. As each one moves through a city (or city's territory?), it sheds some money. Each caravan might be flagged with the nationalities of the sending and receiving civilizations. You could try to plunder them, and annoy both those nationalities. You could even annoy the nation whose territory the caravan was passing through at the time if that nation had trade transit agreements with the others.

A choke point like Panama would accrue substantial benefits to a city placed there, but would diminish the quantity of trade. That would be determined by the player controlling that choke point. You could let trade flow more freely at a lower cost, which might gain you diplomatic favor, or you could cut it off entirely ("closed borders?") as a weapon. Technically, all civs start out with Closed Borders until a Permanent Alliance or Open Borders is signed.

So what goods and services would transit? Well, maybe each citizen in a city has an identity (which could encompass religion, ethnicity, etc., but I digress). They have preferences for goods. They have some money that they spend on them. You as the dictator have needs as well. You want that Iron from Shanghai to be used in Beijing? Well, the act of moving the goods from place to place throws off commerce. Maybe you have to pay, too; I'm not sure how it all fits together really. Seems a little complex, but some fairly deep thought can understand it. Seems a fair idea, at least.

Also: no cottages/towns/whatever. Those were ridiculous. Useful game concepts, but still.... I do believe the cottage-to-town transition is a little exaggerated, but keeping the cottage itself should be kept, renamed as the Town, for the CIV town would be replaced. There are no cottages, hamlets, or villages, and the Town provides +1 Commerce.

Come to think of it, I also don't like hammers being dependent on terrain. Resources come from terrain. Productivity is a function of labor (workers) and capital (improvements). But that's not for this post. Maybe, in CiV, the symbol for terrain production would be rocks (resources). But still, that's mainly aesthetic.

Some parts I agree to, other parts not so. The later parts I believed in more, with a few modifications.

Also, one more idea I read somewhere (credit to who came up with it): An advanced system of resource exhaustion. Let's say that a civilization has the Oil resource. The resource itself has a specific amount of "resources" in it. Each turn, its nearest city takes up a small amount of its resources and puts it in its "warehouse" (from Colonization). A unit requires a specific amount of resources of each resource to be built, which is automatically consumed in the beginning/end of production. Caravans transporting goods over trade routes take from the city's warehouse, too, to deposit in other ones. Eventually, the original resource has all of its resources removed from it, put into warehouses. Then the resource is exhausted, and a new source appears somewhere else in the world.

But overall, I liked some of it. Could use a little work, but with a few improvements, it's (fairly) fine.

 

[economiser]

They certainly could make the economy more interesting and fun, but I think the risks are more towards excess complexity.

I think the choices at the city level were intuitive and made basic sense, but the relationship between cities (and across civs) could be improved. Aussie Lurker's point about resources seems spot on to me.

 

[apatheist]

My comments are in bold.

FYI, that makes it really tedious to quote-reply to you.

Rivers provide a commerce bonus because, well, rivers played an important part in several trade routes, so it makes sense to give a commerce bonus for a river.

Yes yes, I know why it is that way. I just don't think it makes sense. Let's suppose there's only one city in the whole world. It's along a river. Exactly what trade route is causing the commerce? Take another example. You have 2 cities along a river. Part of the river between them is controlled by a hostile nation. There can be no trade route between them, so it doesn't make sense for the river to "generate" commerce.

Specialists, like laborers, consume two food per turn. So I don't understand the purpose of that change

The change is that specialists are the only way of producing non-food non-resource commodities. Citizens that work the land are either farmers or resource gatherers (I'm not sure how this latter part should work yet). Other citizens in effect work a city improvement rather than a tile. For example, a priest works a temple, or an engineer works a forge. Perhaps instead of Currency, it should be a civic unlocked by Currency. Maybe your initial economic civic is some kind of barter system or slavery. You pay your citizens in food only. A later civic allows you to pay them in money, and they in turn become more productive (because they're happier? because they can use the money to buy luxuries?). A Forge wouldn't be a multiplier on base hammers because there are zero base hammers. Since a city has 2 free food, a 1-pop city could devote its sole citizen to being a laborer, who would produce say 3 hammers. Adding a forge would allow that citizen to produce, say, 6 hammers.

I do believe the Caravan unit should be returned to Civilization (and it may be in CiV, for CIV: Colonization had a Caravan-like Wagon Train. I personally don't feel they should be autonomous, but I do believe you can set them to set permanent trade routes of particular products between two cities. Although I never played Civ2, it seems interesting.

Making them units like that would increase micromanagement. It's also kind of the opposite of what I'm hoping to see. Trade is compose of lots and lots of small incremental transactions, not one big caravan going from point A to point B once every couple of turns. It has to be autonomous both for player sanity and to fulfill the goal.

Maybe, in CiV, the symbol for terrain production would be rocks (resources). But still, that's mainly aesthetic.

Resources and labor are different things. Maybe that's a point I should have made better. A mine produces metals or gold, but it doesn't turn those resources into swords or plowshares. You have a couple of simple formulas:

Laborers = the number of happy or content citizens that are not farming or harvesting resources (see below)
Laborers * Improvements = Labor
Labor * Time = hammers.

To keep resources simple, let's say that we keep what Civ4 did: resources are effectively infinite, and just need to be turned on for units and improvements that require them. I'd modify that to say they need to be worked, not just hooked up, which means you have to have them in the fat cross (or whatever it becomes with hexes) of a reachable city. But once that's done, they enable all the units and improvements just like in Civ4.

They certainly could make the economy more interesting and fun, but I think the risks are more towards excess complexity.

I don't see risk by itself as a reason to avoid it. My feeling is that Firaxis has demonstrated they're quite good at having complex mechanisms that are nonetheless intuitive and fun. I think they could do a good job with something like this as well. What's the point of producing a new game if it doesn't do something risky and different?

 

[Ahriman]

I just don't think it makes sense. Let's suppose there's only one city in the whole world. It's along a river. Exactly what trade route is causing the commerce?

?
The river still reduces trade costs.

Imaging a world like a keyboard number grid, 3 rows 7,8,9; 4,5,6; 1,2,3.
Suppose there is a city at 7 and a city at 3, and suppose there is a river running down between the first column and the second. So 7 is on the river, but 3 is not.
Trade goods from 7 to 3 would likely follow the river south from 7 downwards by river, and then go east on land over tile 2. River transport is much cheaper than overland transport, so the presence of the river reduces overall transport costs.

So the entire trade route doesn't need to be on the river for it to be valuable in reducing trade time.

And besides, the commerce bonus isn't just for inter-city trade, its also for all the trade by the people living on the river. If you live on tile 5 (adjacent to the river) then its much easier/cheaper for you to get your goods to market than it is if you live on tile 9 (not adjacent to river). Hence, commerce bonus for river tiles.

Besides, the vast majority of cities historically have been built on rivers. Why? Because they need a water supply, and because of the transport advantage. How many old major cities can you think of that weren't on rivers? (Or on the coast).

The change is that specialists are the only way of producing non-food non-resource commodities.

This sounds horrible. So, terrain and resources are completely irrelevant except for food yields? Gone are any strategic implications of production vs commerce vs food? Or any improvements except those that increase food production?
Ugh.

You pay your citizens in food only. A later civic allows you to pay them in money, and they in turn become more productive (because they're happier? because they can use the money to buy luxuries?).

Why do you seem to think that no wealth existed, and no trade occurred, before currency?

Remember that until very modern times the value of currency was because of the value of the metal/commodity content of the coins. Money was just a way of having standardized weights of gold or silver. Fiat currency is a very modern invention.

I don't really understand the design goal you're trying to accomplish here. It all sounds like a lot of complexity (placing an extra step in between tile working and city output) for no extra player fun.

 

[GoSkins]

Some of the ideas are good. I'm not sure how they would be implemented though.

I like the idea of opening or closing your economy and that influencing other Civs. The English in China example given earlier is a good representation. Important geographic locations such as panama and suez have added significance. Close off the canal to a rival and their trade routes become less.

 

[Ahriman]

I like the idea of opening or closing your economy and that influencing other Civs.

Well yeah, but... we already have that. Open borders; you can only get trade routes with a foreign civ if you have open borders.

 

[Thormodr]

I'll be happy if having multiple versions of the same resource carry benefits to your domestic economy (like bonuses to culture, science, production & food). Corporations in Civ4 came close to achieving this, but I felt it didn't go nearly far enough! Similarly, I'd like to see some conflict between assigning resources for military production & the use of the same resources for the domestic economy-for example, if you have only 1 iron resource, & choose to build 4 swordsman units, then it should impact on the production levels of your entire empire).

Aussie.

Good point. A little "guns or butter" could spice things up.

 

[GoSkins]

Well yeah, but... we already have that. Open borders; you can only get trade routes with a foreign civ if you have open borders.

Open/Closed borders are not the same as open/closed economy. If you dont have open borders with a rival civ then they would have to go around instead of using the Suez Canal for example. Annoying, but not much of a economic hardship. Forcing trade routes to be longer (therefore less profitable) can impact an economy. Like when Nassar nationalized the Suez. Or the opium wars as a context for opening up the isolated Chinese economy to the English.

 

[Robo-Star]

I hope that Civ5 has something more natural for the economy. It always annoyed me that you could allocate a citizen to a river-bordering tile and magically get money just like you could farm a grassland tile for food. Commerce is a fundamentally different thing and deserves to be modeled that way

I agree that literally harvesting commerce from terrain is nonsensical - rather, it should be generated based on population size and trade-links.

I'd like to see NO commerce until you have Currency and another reachable city to trade with (see below).

Why? Considering trading occurred the development of currency, and within settlements...

Similarly, the magic trade routes in Civ4 were annoying. Why just those cities? Why those amounts? I assume they just had some magic, arbitrary formula that they tweaked for gameplay, but it was a potemkin feature; there was nothing behind it.

Agreed.

So what kinds of things would I want?

Wimsey's economic model

Also: no cottages/towns/whatever. Those were ridiculous. Useful game concepts, but still....

Cities are centers of administration/government, but then surrounding tiles are where the majority of the population (eventually) live/work (or shop, at least). Building a cottage on a tile is would allow assigning one population point to it, and generating one commerce (commerce being the generation of social capital). Upgrading it to a hamlet allows two population points, and two commerce, and so on. Said tiles provide progressively less food/hammers, until its a residential/commercial zone. There would also be health effects - having a lot of population on one tile would be less healthy than having many districts with less people.

So basically, scrape cottages growing without hammers/assigning population.

Come to think of it, I also don't like hammers being dependent on terrain. Resources come from terrain. Productivity is a function of labor (workers) and capital (improvements). But that's not for this post.

That's why forges/factories increase hammers - they represent more capital (means of production).