Idea: Create new off-map Civ called The Global Market

[Xaviarlol]

So the concept is that you and all other major civs can now perform diplomatic actions with this new off-map civ that represents the world market. Why? To enable a bunch of cool new features, including borrowing money and lending money (with interest!) and trading resources (especially strategic resources) with a market that is priced based off supply and demand.

How it works:
- You open the diplomacy dialogue and interract with the Global Market (starting X era), just like you would any other civ.
- The Global Market starts with 0 gold and unlimited gold per turn, but does not accumulate gold from GPT automatically.
- If you want to lend gold to the global market, you propose a flat amount of gold on your side (just like you would to a normal civ), and this represents a deal value that is determined by the Global Market Civ based on how much gold it already has. Because the Global Market civ starts at 0 gold, you will get the maximum level of interest in repayments of GPT. Eg. On a 50 turn game speed deal, if you lend 1000 gold, you will get 20 GPT + max interest rate of 20% = 24 GPT for your 1000 gold.
- If you want to borrow gold, you ask for flat gold on the global market civ side, and the GPT price (aka deal value) will be determined by the same example above. So if after the above example happens, the Global Market now has 1000 gold available to borrow. Say you borrow the entire 1000 gold (which will result in the using up all the global markets available gold), you will pay the maximum interest rate, for a total of 24 GPT per tern for 50 turns (20 GPT + 5 GPT interest)
- As explained above, the interest rates charged are fully based on the amount of gold lended and borrowed from the Global Market.

How it determines interest rate:
- If there are too many lenders (ie the global market has too much gold available to lend), the interest rate goes lower (minimum 1%)
- If there are too many borrowers (ie the global market has low amounts of gold available to lend), the interest rate goes higher (maximum 20%)
- The interest rate amounts are based on a simple linear sliding scale. The interest rate will max out when you approach 0 gold in the global market. Each Era and game speed will determine the minimum interest rate (ie highest gold value the World Market needs to have). Eg. In renaissance on standard speed, it might be 100k gold = minimum interest rate. So if there is 50k gold in the Global Market, interest rate = 10%.

A few rules:
- Currently, there is no loan default mechanic, you will simply go in to negative gold if you run out of gold and still are paying GPT to the world market. You cannot break deals with the world market, or go to war with them. In a future version of this idea, credit ratings may be implemented, where you can actually choose to default on a loan, but the whole world (particularly civs who are big lenders to the world market) will have negative relations modifiers against you, depending on the size of the default.
- As with normal diplo rules, you can only borrow how ever much your current GPT allows (ie you cant go negative GPT and try to borrow)
- Sanctioned civs get cut off the global market (all existing loans will be voided, which means the embargoed civ no longer has to pay it back)
- All loan and borrow deals last for the current default deal length (based on game speed), just like normal diplo mechanics, you cannot terminate deals early

Future features
- World congress actions. A) “Subsidize”: The target country gets 66% discount on interest rate for borrowing and lending B) “Isolate”: The target country pays 3x interest rates for borrowing and earns 66% less on lending. C) “Commission World Bank”: The Global Market receives 100,000 gold per Era, which lowers the interest rate D) “Equality”: The poorest 50% of civs pay half the interest rate for borrows and receive half interest rate for lends, the richest 50% pay double interest for borrows.
- New policies, wonders, buildings, and religious beliefs can modify the interest rates earned or payed
- You can trade luxuries and strategic resources in to the market, however this is less valuable then trading directly with friendly countries
- Some ideologies majorly change the way you can interact with the global market, eg Autocracy is not allowed to use it at all.
- Diplomatic Relations with the global market implemented, giving you favorable interest rates and deals depending on your actions
- Implement default mechanic
- Implement “Invest” mechanic, in which you can gift gold to the global market in exchange for a percentage of interest levied on borrows and lends as commission. 10,000 gold gains you 1% of all interest payments levied and paid.

 

[Voremonger]

I don't find the idea of this system very compelling to be honest. I think there is also a fundamental problem with how a global lending market would interact with investing into buildings, which I would argue is currently the biggest gold sink. On the current version it is already possible to end up with too few buildings relative to production/gold in the late game. That would be the situation in which you'd want to lend out your gold since you have nothing to spend it on. But if you then get your gold back with interest you'll have even more of a gold surplus with too few good ways to spend it. While this may be okay in terms of trying to win the game I don't think this is good in terms of gameplay.

 

[Xaviarlol]

I take your point, but there are other reasons why you may want to loan gold vs spend it on buildings, such as the fact that the money is returned to you in case you need it in the future. I think it would be nice to have an alternative to just buying buildings with excess gold.

The idea is that the interest rate incentive if no one is lending (ie market has 0 gold on it) would be greater than the estimated return of investing in a building. So perhaps max interest needs to be >20% interest, its just a matter of balance. So in your example if there isn’t enough buildings to invest in and everyone is rich, then the interest rate gets super low, hence the system kind of self-regulates the problem you described.

As a borrower, there are a host of reasons why you would want to borrow. Perhaps someone declared war on you and you need unit fast. Or perhaps you want to beef up your deterrence by buying a bunch of jets. Or perhaps you just want to reinvest in buildings by using debt.

 

[Recursive]

This does sound potentially interesting. What a shame that I don't have the time to code something like this right now.

The idea of the Global Market just inherently existing bothers me, though - someone has to be running it. City-States, perhaps?

 

[CppMaster]

It could be done just as a regular trade deal with other civs. Like you borrow 100 gold from them and repay them with 5 gold per turn for 25 turns, so 125 gold in total. Just like in Civ6. Interest rate could depend on relation with the civ. No need for additional entity just for that and it'd be more natural to me than artificial global bank.

 

[Rekk]

It could be done just as a regular trade deal with other civs. Like you borrow 100 gold from them and repay them with 5 gold per turn for 25 turns, so 125 gold in total. Just like in Civ6. Interest rate could depend on relation with the civ. No need for additional entity just for that and it'd be more natural to me than artificial global bank.

The main issue with allowing players to trade instant gold now for gold per turn is that the deal just ends when war is declared.

 

[CppMaster]

Yeah, it's risky. It might be better to do this with friends that you trust.

A safeguard for that could be that you're forced to return part of borrowed gold. So if you break the deal after half the time, you need to return half the borrower money. 50 gold in the example above. This would prevent exploits.

 

[Voremonger]

The idea of the Global Market just inherently existing bothers me, though - someone has to be running it. City-States, perhaps?

I would generally prefer trading with specific game entities rather than some anonymous global market since the former connects trade with the diplomatic layer of the game. So in terms of trading with city states I would prefer a system where you would e.g. buy yields + influence for some amount of gold (all per turn) or sell surplus luxuries for some amount of influence and gold per turn.

Edit: when it comes to loans in particular you could add the option to ask City States for loans (with the amount and/or interest depending on influence) or a city state quest where the city state is asking for a loan.

 

[Anarcomu]

Would it be possible to choose to break deals or not when war is declared ? Like you might be at war, but you keep your words and still repay loan (or other deals). Choosing to break deal would incur a diplomatic penalty unless both civ agree to. OFC this looks like a nightmare to code.

 

[Xaviarlol]

This does sound potentially interesting. What a shame that I don't have the time to code something like this right now.

The idea of the Global Market just inherently existing bothers me, though - someone has to be running it. City-States, perhaps?

I considered this initially, but thought the coding requirements would be too much of a deviation from current mechanics. Doing this under a diplo deal architecture already has the repayment mechanic and initial deal itself already coded in. But you’d know much more about what is best! Perhaps it can be a physical one-city Civ in the middle of the map or something that cannot declare war or build units or something?

If coding was free, the ideal system would be that all city states collectively own the World Market, so if you are at peace with all 20 city states in a game, (Mercantile city states would contribute double the gold) then you would have access to 20/20 of the gold pool to lend/borrow). Would give a further incentive to maintain good relations with city states. Would also allow city states to take a portion of the total borrows/lend value as fees, which can make them get rich and develop the city state faster. Would also love to tie the trade route system and corporations to this also.

It could enable play styles for Freedom ideology that focuses on world trade, protecting city states and value world stability in general to keep the markets functional (especially if you use the World Market for strategic resources).

 

[Vhozite]

The main issue with allowing players to trade instant gold now for gold per turn is that the deal just ends when war is declared.

That sounds like something that could be handled by opinion modifiers. If you use war to break a loan payment fine, but don’t expect to get any loans in the future. It could incur the same back stabber malus that you already get when you lie about your troop movements

 

[Anarcomu]

I'd add that it should be a global diplo malus toward future loans, if it is possible to code.