Idea for implementing economic cycles

[SupremacyKing2]

I posted a bit of this idea in the economic victory thread but I thought it deserves its own thread since it's not an economic victory.

So my idea is to implement economic cycles (recessions and booms) in the game. It would work similar to dark and golden ages in Rise & Fall. Basically, player's actions could either give positive or negative economic points (like era points). If you fail to meet a threshold, you would enter an economic recession for X turns. If you meet the threshold, your economy would be stable (no change) and if you exceed the second threshold, you would enter an economic boom for X turns. An economic recession would cause you to lose a little gold on each gold producing tile (maybe -1 gold on each tile already producing gold). A stable economy would be neutral (no change) and a booming economy would add gold on each gold producing tile (maybe +2 gold per tile already producing gold).

Things that would give positive economic points:
- building wonders and certain districts or buildings.
- improving a tile with a strategic or luxury resource.
- Creating a trade route.

Things that would give negative economic points:
- City unrest.
- Losing population in a city.
- Losing a trade route.

What this idea would do is create a mechanic by which gold yields would modulate up and down during a game. I think that would make things much more interesting. Players would need to pay attention to their economic score to avoid getting into a recession that could cause them to go into a gold deficit. Conversely, players who hit an economic boom would be rewarded with more gold. So for example, maybe you are planning to go to war but you hit an economic recession and can't afford to maintain a large military. Or you hit an economic boom and use the extra gold to rush buy a military or some buildings you needed. I feel like it would tie in to the rest of the game nicely and make things less monotonous.

 

[killmeplease]

I fear it will be otherwise, it can narrow the gameplay and make players stick to particular behavior. Building useless wonders to get economic points doesn't sound very exciting..

Maybe it should depend on the dynamics of gold per turn, e.g you get much gold from a peace deal and this creates an economic boom. But then the inflow of money stops - recession..
You can start government spending to prevent recession, but this may require borrowing..

 

[awesome]

I think pillaging should have an effect on this, too, and not just standard gold per turn. I don't know if pillaging affects warmonger penalties at all, but it would be a good way to discourage pillaging at least a little bit. Maybe make it something like g+(p/50)=e where g=gold per turn, p=gold from pillaging, and e=economic score. Certain wonders have an effect, like obviously some will give gold per turn, one might change the actual threshold, etc.
You would obviously depend on other civilizations for this, since international trade is (and should be) more lucrative, but that's realistic.

 

[man_in_finance]

My objection to this is not toward its objective - I very much like the idea of having a more dynamical system attached to one's economy.

But the problem I think you have is that it is very much an isolated concept. From what I observe,

• its only a national thing - other civs can't impact your econ-points,
• once an econ-point is earned - that's it checkbox ticked,
• and the impact seems only to impact either the current gold balance directly or the gold generation per turn.

There doesn't seem to be a need for consideration of strategy other than accumulating points.

On a risk-reward basis from the perspective of people who crave a more interesting economy this might not give them the depth and for people who are not really bothered this mechanic may simply be a nuisance they would prefer to be without.

However, I do think some of these ideas can be incorporated into a wider economic overhaul, especially in regard to making trade routes more influential.

 

[SupremacyKing2]

Thanks for the replies. Let me think about it some more.