Inflation, what do you think of it (read post first please)?

[Roland Johansen]

To form an informed opinion about the concept of inflation in this game, I've added some information about inflation.

Inflation increases the other costs (unit upkeep, civic upkeep, city upkeep) with a certain percentage. These costs are not increased directly. The inflation cost is mentioned independent of the other costs, but its value is a percentage of the other costs. This percentage rises throughout the game with every turn you play. For instance, at epic speed level, it is 0% for the first 160 turns of the game. Afterwards it increased by 1% every 5 turns for the next 500 turns until it reaches 100% at the end of the game (2050AD). So at the end of the game the costs of units, city upkeep and civic upkeep are effectively doubled. If you would play on after 2050AD, it would increase further.

Some further information about the costs that are increased by inflation:

Unit upkeep. You pay 1 gold for every unit above the free unit upkeep and an extra 1/2 gold in supply costs for every unit outside your borders with a free supply upkeep for 4 units. The free unit upkeep is determined by the size of your population (about 1 free unit upkeep for every 4 units of population).

Civic upkeep. The civic upkeep is determined by the types of civics that you're using (no upkeep cost, low upkeep cost, etc.), the size of your population and the number of cities in your empire. A bigger empire costs more.

City upkeep. City upkeep is split in two parts, city distance upkeep and city number upkeep. The city distance upkeep is based on the distance to the capital (or forbidden palace/Versailles) and the size of the city. The city number upkeep is based on the number of cities in your empire. Every city has a higher city number upkeep in a big empire. There's an upper limit per city to the city number upkeep.

All of these costs are modified for difficulty level. This information is from various strategy articles in the strategy articles section of this forum. More details about these costs can be found there.

Personally, I really think that the implementation of the concept of inflation in this game stinks. It means that if I don't change anything to my empire from one turn to the next and then click 'end turn', then my costs will rise. A bad concept in my opinion.

 

[TNTTony]

Yeah it does sound a bit weird. To be honest I've never noticed it except for the increase cost of civic upkeep. However, what may be better is also an increase in your income or economy or "slightly" offset the inflation. Maybe a new tech and/or wonder to further offset the inflation.

My reasoning is because inflation, itself, is a common aspect in today society. Every year prices for services and goods increase. However, at the same time, people get pay rises and in certain job (like mine) the pay gets "indexed".

 

[Roland Johansen]

Yeah it does sound a bit weird. To be honest I've never noticed it except for the increase cost of civic upkeep. However, what may be better is also an increase in your income or economy or "slightly" offset the inflation. Maybe a new tech and/or wonder to further offset the inflation.

My reasoning is because inflation, itself, is a common aspect in today society. Every year prices for services and goods increase. However, at the same time, people get pay rises and in certain job (like mine) the pay gets "indexed".

You seem to think that the inflation cost is a part of the civic costs. That is not true. I've edited the first post to reflect that. If you have ever looked at the costs section of the financial advisor, then you would know that there is a seperate cost named inflation.

Inflation in this game only increases the cost, not the income. If it would increase both with the same percentage, then it would be quite useless as a game concept.

 

[ZouPrime]

Inflation as implemented in Civ4 an arbitrairy concept, but I guess the designer had the put it there for balance purpose. I don't care much, really. It's there, so I just deal with it.

 

[Lorkfudge]

I think government (civics) type should help determine inflation. Maybe after the discovery of the tech "currency" could lead to some change that allows you to see inflation and deal with it. For example, you should have a penalty of increased inflation, but be able to ruch units for free or something.

EDIT
*rush free units or something.

 

[jdog5000]

I personally find it kind of comical that you can experience "inflation" before discovering currency. What exactly is inflating? The number of chickens I need to barter for a cow? I understand it's just in there as a semi arbitrary, balancing effect ... but the name invokes a particular image that doesn't really apply (inflation of 70%, etc).

 

[MrPaladin]

you have to remember... your population is growing... your units are becomming stronger and are technologically better... I can fully understand why they would cost more... I mean look at a modern aircraft carrier, how much per day do you think that thing takes to stay on active duty... from the food for the crews to their wages to maintainance of the ship and planes to the fuels...

to have the costs ingame increase over tiem rather then jump with the tech is approprate...

 

[Thasis]

Inflation can be annoying I guess, but it's slighly realistic so what the hell. It's in the game for a reason I guess.

 

[majk-iii]

It's been put there for balance... no, it's not really realistic the way it's implemented but it's probably the best way to do it since inflation should have a seamless feel to it, unless you do something drasticaly wrong.
That will be felt, ingame, trough other mecanics then inflation so it's cool with me... they've probably tried a few ways to do this, with the conclusion that the current way to go is also the best.

 

[romelus]

it's strange to include inflation without periods of deflation, which also occured many times in history. in fact i'm perplexed by the decision to have something which players don't have control over. if game balance dictated the need for inflation because there's too much money in the end game, then why not just tone down banks, wall street etc., or make modern units cost more in maintenance?

 

[Brighteye]

Why do costs have to rise anyway? An aircraft carrier costs more than a warrior, but a modern economy makes more than 1,000 times more income than a 4,000BC one.
The Civ4 coin/commerce system has to be assumed to be a scaling representation of income anyway, so why bother having an extra scaling factor?

It's like having y=mx+c and then replacing m with kl. It serves no purpose.
If it's for game balance, they could just have increased tech costs.

 

[Roland Johansen]

you have to remember... your population is growing... your units are becomming stronger and are technologically better... I can fully understand why they would cost more... I mean look at a modern aircraft carrier, how much per day do you think that thing takes to stay on active duty... from the food for the crews to their wages to maintainance of the ship and planes to the fuels...

to have the costs ingame increase over tiem rather then jump with the tech is approprate...

The problem is that inflation is not related to the growth of your population, the strength of your units or the level of your technology. It just increases with time. Even if you don't change anything in your empire (your empire is totally stable), then the costs of inflation will rise. If you would play this game long enough, then you wouldn't be able to maintain anything in your empire because of the cost of inflation.

 

[Jarrod32]

Why do costs have to rise anyway? An aircraft carrier costs more than a warrior, but a modern economy makes more than 1,000 times more income than a 4,000BC one.

That's exactly right. The modern economy...with higher populations (and higher commerce) make more money. Commerce increases...so if costs remained stagnant, the increases in commerce as the game goes on would make upkeep costs insignificant if they never increased.

There has to be some structure for increasing the costs as the game goes on to maintain game balance.

 

[Roland Johansen]

That's exactly right. The modern economy...with higher populations (and higher commerce) make more money. Commerce increases...so if costs remained stagnant, the increases in commerce as the game goes on would make upkeep costs insignificant if they never increased.

There has to be some structure for increasing the costs as the game goes on to maintain game balance.

Yes, I agree that such a structure could be ok. But it should not be based on the number of turns that you've played. It could be based on the size of your empire and the number of units that you own.

However, the other costs already increase with population, number of cities and number of units. The inflation is an extra increase on top of that and isn't linked to the size of your population, the number of cities or the number of units. It's based on the number of turns that you've played. Very strange concept in my opinion.

 

[Guerra]

Inflation should be increased while under certain civics, like Mercantilism.

 

[MrCynical]

I think people put far too much weight on it being named "inflation". Its merely a convienient name for something that's necessary to ensure that upkeep is still relevant later in the game. It could equally well be named "random increasing factor" so discussions of how it should be altered to match real life inflation seem rather odd to me.

Matching it to turn number seems a reasonable way of doing it unless you're planning to play way beyond 2050, when it can cause problems. One alternative would be that it could increase each time a tech is discovered, so that it would effectively stop increasing once the tech tree was exhausted, so if you really wanted you could play thousands of turns beyond the end date.

 

[Sullla]

Roland, inflation is not intended to represent anything in the real world. It is a balancing mechanism designed to correct problems that we encountered in testing with the financial system. I know you may find it unrealistic, but if you were to mod inflation out of the game, you would quickly find that the late-game finances would spiral out of control. Honestly, it's just in there for balancing purposes...

 

[Zombie69]

I like the way it was implemented and wouldn't change it to anything else.

 

[GiantRaven]

To me it seems to be a way of making sure that the game will actually end at some point

 

[Gibsie]

Roland, inflation is not intended to represent anything in the real world. It is a balancing mechanism designed to correct problems that we encountered in testing with the financial system. I know you may find it unrealistic, but if you were to mod inflation out of the game, you would quickly find that the late-game finances would spiral out of control. Honestly, it's just in there for balancing purposes...

Could you elaborate on how it spirals out of control? Purely for my own curiosity, mind.