Meleager's Economic Model

[Justinian XV]

Your model on economics is very well thought out and was quite a good read !

Anyways, think I can help you with your delima with taxes, demand varables, and specialized spending. You see in the game Sim City 4 a economic model is used called RCI (Resedential, Commersial, Industrial). These 3 sections break down further to cover the entire economic system for a city. (listed below)

Resedential
-Lower Class
-Middle Class
-Upper Class

Commercial
-Low Wealth Commercial Service
-Medium Wealth Commercial Service
-High Wealth Commercial Service
-Medium Wealth Commercial Office
-High Wealth Commercial Office

Industrial
-Agriculture Industry
-Dirty industry
-Manufacturing Industry
-High Tech Industry

Each area has a diffrent tax scale from 0.0 to 20.0 (9.0) is the average or about 45 % of income. By ajusting it up or down you can encourage certain development over others. EX.

Dirty Industry- 14.0 70% of income
High Tech Industry-4.0 20% of income

Results-Varies. There has to be demand in place, and in the case of high tech ind. you have to have high levels of education and a sizable middle-upper class pop. for it to work. Basicly...

High tech= High Education
Dirty Ind.= Low Education
Manufacturing Ind.= Average Education

Its the Same with Commercial, howver High end shops employ Middle class and low class workers, Mid wealth employ mostly mid wealth and low comm. employ mostly low income. It breaks down like...
Managers, office workers executives, CEO, Tech industry, Banking (High)
Sales Staff, clerks, stocking, office workers, Marketing, Construction, manufacturing and high tech (middle)
janator, sales, construction, dirty industry, aguraculture (low).

I hope i havent lost anyone?

There is also a (Mayor Rating) system used to show your preformance and what areas have problems. They are Health, Enviroment, Education, Public Saftey, Land Value, and Traffic. This aids in finding trouble spots, like school overcrowding, hospitals, transportation, and economic strain.

There is also a group of 7 advisors or aids that are incharge of key aspects of the game, and allert you if something is wrong. They are...

City Planner-Urban Planning, city guidence

Financial Advisor-Keeps track of spending v. income and gives sugestions to keep the cities coffers full and balance.

Utilities Advisor-Power, Weter, Sewage Treatment, Garbage disposal.

Public Saftey Advisor-Informs you of crime levels, police coverage, fire protection, and natural disasters.

Health & Education Advisor-Helps you keep up to date info and issues conserning public health and education conserns of citizens.

Transportation Advisor-Keeps you informed on congestion, overcrowding, and mass transit.

Enviroment Advisor-Deals with issues pertaing to the enviroment, pollution, and always wants more green space.

Keep in mind that you have to solve all of the problems they warn you about, they just gather info. There is also a level of corruption. Each advisor has their own agenda, so you may get conflicting advice.

I hope this helps you. The system is to MASSIVE for me to explain so check the game website at www.simcity.com or search google or yahoo? Whatever works. Ill try to add some more and make it easier to understand, but hopefully ive got your attention.

 

[Meleager]

Your model on economics is very well thought out and was quite a good read !

welcome to CFC i am gald you "wasted" (i mean used ) your first post on my thread...

Anyways, think I can help you with your delima with taxes, demand varables, and specialized spending. You see in the game Sim City 4 a economic model is used called RCI (Resedential, Commersial, Industrial). These 3 sections break down further to cover the entire economic system for a city. (listed below)

Resedential
-Lower Class
-Middle Class
-Upper Class

Commercial
-Low Wealth Commercial Service
-Medium Wealth Commercial Service
-High Wealth Commercial Service
-Medium Wealth Commercial Office
-High Wealth Commercial Office

Industrial
-Agriculture Industry
-Dirty industry
-Manufacturing Industry
-High Tech Industry

Each area has a diffrent tax scale from 0.0 to 20.0 (9.0) is the average or about 45 % of income. By ajusting it up or down you can encourage certain development over others. EX.

Dirty Industry- 14.0 70% of income
High Tech Industry-4.0 20% of income

Results-Varies. There has to be demand in place, and in the case of high tech ind. you have to have high levels of education and a sizable middle-upper class pop. for it to work. Basicly...

High tech= High Education
Dirty Ind.= Low Education
Manufacturing Ind.= Average Education

Its the Same with Commercial, howver High end shops employ Middle class and low class workers, Mid wealth employ mostly mid wealth and low comm. employ mostly low income. It breaks down like...
Managers, office workers executives, CEO, Tech industry, Banking (High)
Sales Staff, clerks, stocking, office workers, Marketing, Construction, manufacturing and high tech (middle)
janator, sales, construction, dirty industry, aguraculture (low).

I hope i havent lost anyone?

There is also a (Mayor Rating) system used to show your preformance and what areas have problems. They are Health, Enviroment, Education, Public Saftey, Land Value, and Traffic. This aids in finding trouble spots, like school overcrowding, hospitals, transportation, and economic strain.

There is also a group of 7 advisors or aids that are incharge of key aspects of the game, and allert you if something is wrong. They are...

City Planner-Urban Planning, city guidence

Financial Advisor-Keeps track of spending v. income and gives sugestions to keep the cities coffers full and balance.

Utilities Advisor-Power, Weter, Sewage Treatment, Garbage disposal.

Public Saftey Advisor-Informs you of crime levels, police coverage, fire protection, and natural disasters.

Health & Education Advisor-Helps you keep up to date info and issues conserning public health and education conserns of citizens.

Transportation Advisor-Keeps you informed on congestion, overcrowding, and mass transit.

Enviroment Advisor-Deals with issues pertaing to the enviroment, pollution, and always wants more green space.

Keep in mind that you have to solve all of the problems they warn you about, they just gather info. There is also a level of corruption. Each advisor has their own agenda, so you may get conflicting advice.

I hope this helps you. The system is to MASSIVE for me to explain so check the game website at www.simcity.com or search google or yahoo? Whatever works. Ill try to add some more and make it easier to understand, but hopefully ive got your attention.

I have sim city 4, haven't been able to get into it as much as sim city 3 though . Its certianly some food for thought, unfortunately i see 2 problems with implementing sim city ideas:
1. scale -> sim city is focused on the city level (heck almost suburbs in sim city 4) wheras civ is focused on the empire level. In civ such a city based system has the risk of changing the games focus too much
2. micromanagment -> not so much in the area of what you have to do as what you have to keep track of... (i think my system is on the edge of acceptable micromanagement as it is)

However!! If these ideas could be applied accross an empire instead of individual cities it could be a very nice change(i dont know if this is what you meant in the first place). It could replicate things such as the surge of "high tech industry" in Japan.

I can usually tell if an idea wont work straight away (intj personality type apparently) but I like to mull things over for a while when it has the possibility of spuring some new ideas. I'll definately think about this one. If you get any ideas let me know.

 

[Robi D]

Great job meleager
Its a very well thought out model. I especially like the idea of having debt in the game. One thing i would add to it is as debt increases so does unhappiness in the population because of it, that way a player can't endlessly plunge themselfs into debt.
Once again well done.

 

[GeneralZed]

In the Firaxis team there should be a guy who has at least some knowledge of economics, and this place should be taken by you, Meleager.

It's fun and nice to read your idea, but who is the one to bring it into a mod? You should start a crew who starts the modding right after the game is out.

 

[Meleager]

Great job meleager
Its a very well thought out model. I especially like the idea of having debt in the game. One thing i would add to it is as debt increases so does unhappiness in the population because of it, that way a player can't endlessly plunge themselfs into debt.
Once again well done.

Thanks!
As dept increases you have less money to spend on happiness and other departments so your happiness decreases anyway. (note: as dept increases the amount of dept allowed(i.e. credit rating) decreases as well -> inevitably causing a point at which the player is stuffed)

In the Firaxis team there should be a guy who has at least some knowledge of economics, and this place should be taken by you, Meleager.

It's fun and nice to read your idea, but who is the one to bring it into a mod? You should start a crew who starts the modding right after the game is out.

Thanks!
It would be wrong of me not to mention that their is a lot of people with good ecomic ideas on this forum.
As for the mod... i am a decent programer (and learning more and more in uni) but i am not good at the art / interface stuff. I have also never made a mod before. But I would give it a try if anyone was willing to help out. (we could even start before the game comes out)

thanks for the feedback, always nice to hear people who like my ideas

 

[Blazer6]

I like the idea of a blockade by moving a military unit over any part of all roads/other (Rise of the Phoenix) that is connected between cities. If there are no connections between those two trading cities, then trade will be impossible for them.
Ex. If there is one road/other that connects between two empires becomes blocked by a (unfriendly) military unit, all trade between the two becomes impossible.

 

[Meleager]

I like the idea of a blockade by moving a military unit over any part of all roads/other (Rise of the Phoenix) that is connected between cities. If there are no connections between those two trading cities, then trade will be impossible for them.
Ex. If there is one road/other that connects between two empires becomes blocked by a (unfriendly) military unit, all trade between the two becomes impossible.

Isn't this already in civ or am I not completely understanding your idea?

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

You know Meleager-you, me and Robi D ought to get together (metaphorically speaking ) after Civ4's release and try and see if we can nut out an 'Australian Mod'-with all of the ideas that the 3 of us have been bandying about these last few months. What do you reckon?
Oh and, BTW, I really like your economic model, it IS really well thought through !

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[Meleager]

You know Meleager-you, me and Robi D ought to get together (metaphorically speaking ) after Civ4's release and try and see if we can nut out an 'Australian Mod'-with all of the ideas that the 3 of us have been bandying about these last few months. What do you reckon?
Oh and, BTW, I really like your economic model, it IS really well thought through !

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

thank you. I like the idea. Economic model, Civil wars, intellegance and so on all in one...

 

[Blazer6]

I meant that the blockade also takes any goods being traded.

 

[ckuyuk]

Good work Meleager.

I always thought that weakest part of civ3 is the representation of the economy.
Lets hope that your suggestions could be implemented as a mode in civ4.

 

[GeneralZed]

I wonder why Firaxis has never done such a thing yet.

 

[Meleager]

I meant that the blockade also takes any goods being traded.

I can imagine quite a few problems with this (it would corrupt my maths at the very least). Blockading 2 civs has a large effect on the global market anyway (equivelant to a embargo).

Good work Meleager.

I always thought that weakest part of civ3 is the representation of the economy.
Lets hope that your suggestions could be implemented as a mode in civ4.

Thank you. It could probably be made into a mod if it gets enough support and anyone wants to help me out.

I wonder why Firaxis has never done such a thing yet.

I can think of 2 possibilities:
1. They simply aren't creative enough (i doubt this is the case though)
2. They thought that it would diverge to much from civ tradition

Anyhow I am off to add Rodi D's idea of processed rescources

 

[Robi D]

You know Meleager-you, me and Robi D ought to get together (metaphorically speaking ) after Civ4's release and try and see if we can nut out an 'Australian Mod'-with all of the ideas that the 3 of us have been bandying about these last few months. What do you reckon?
Oh and, BTW, I really like your economic model, it IS really well thought through !

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

If it can be done, i will be there! I need to refine the model a bit more first.

 

[Robi D]

I can imagine quite a few problems with this (it would corrupt my maths at the very least). Blockading 2 civs has a large effect on the global market anyway (equivelant to a embargo).

Thank you. It could probably be made into a mod if it gets enough support and anyone wants to help me out.

I can think of 2 possibilities:
1. They simply aren't creative enough (i doubt this is the case though)
2. They thought that it would diverge to much from civ tradition

Anyhow I am off to add Rodi D's idea of processed rescources

I think its probably because they think it might be too hard for a new player to get a grasp of (just a guess)

Anyway i think what they could do it, but just tone down the effects at the lower levels of the game, or what i think would be even better is get rid of the rigid levels all together and have a thing like the new civics, so you can adjust the different aspects of the game, then depending on what you have chosen, give a difficulty percentage.

 

[Blazer6]

I agree with Robi D's idea on refining. There can be buildings that allows for refining materials into more pure/improved ones after certain technologies are invented.
In Deadlock, you are limited with few resources that take awhile to gather and have a high cost to ship. With new technologies, the refinery that cooperates with the drill, can now increase yield with a new, less wasteful extraction process and merge it into a stronger, cheaper (fewer) material.

 

[ckuyuk]

.........anyone wants to help me out.

I don't know much about modding, but I would like to help anyway. Send a message when you start working on it.

Did you played Victoria and/or Trade Empires?

 

[Trade-peror]

WHOA, ckuyuk! You've played Eidos Interactive's Trade Empires before? That makes two of us!

Also, I wish you good luck on this mod. I may wait for it to be completed before I actually buy Civ4!

 

[apatheist]

I apologize for the long and disorganized post, but I don't have the time to make it shorter and clearer.

Meleager, be careful about equating "more to do" with "more strategy."

I like quantitative commodities. I think stockpiling is a good idea in theory, but I cannot think of a way to implement it well. There are too many questions that it's hard to answer well. Where is the stockpile? Putting it in just one place is bad for obvious reasons. Distributing it opens up a can of worms: how is it distributed? is it automatic? what if a city has some stockpile and gets cut off? I don't know how to answer those; I don't think there's a good solution.

I don't like the world market idea as you describe it. You can't have a true market without many, many buyers and sellers. 7 civs in a single game are insufficient. I see no advantage in a national debt abstraction compared to Civ3 status quo where you directly borrow money from another nation. There are no private investors to buy that debt, so again it's the absence of a market. You can't force a market into the game if the game isn't suited for it. I certainly support an interface where it's easier to put a deal on the table for whoever's willing to take your price, but I wouldn't call it a market nor would I make it so automatic; it would be entirely a UI-based improvement. If you want to have a more market-based model, I think you need to push it down to the city and/or citizen level.

I see no advantage in a variable infrastructure budget that adjusts effectiveness of improvements. It adds complexity without adding fun, and so caters to the spreadsheet "player."

The problem with processed/manufactured goods is that there are so many to choose from; it's hard to choose which to include. I don't think it works for at all for strategic resources for multiple reasons. I think you can achieve whatever effects you want in the game through a combination of the existing resource trading system and the renting/selling of military units. Manufactured goods only seem useful as luxuries, like porcelain, linen, jewelry, televisions, etc.

I don't like classes of citizens because it sounds elitist, but I think you can achieve something broadly similar with education levels. I don't believe consumption of luxuries should have such drastic differences between different levels. Nor do I think it should be fixed (see below).

I also suggest posting future versions in new threads. Editing a post a month later when people have responded to the earlier version makes it confusing to figure out what people are talking about.

I'm also a little unclear on what you are specifically trying to achieve with this model. I know you want to improve the Civ3 model, but improve means many things to many people.

I think the overall model is more complicated than would be optimal. It left the "fun" factor far behind. I haven't devised a mechanism yet, but I believe the essential properties of an ideal (for Civ game purposes) resource/trade model are listed below. Note that I don't provide any formulas; I believe that is premature and should be left open to tinkering, so I resort to fuzzy language like "relates to" or "is proportional to," etc.

1) All commodities are finite and quantified (food, strategic resources, and luxuries).

2) Citizens can be educated. More educated citizens are more productive but less obedient.

3) Trade of food and luxuries is automatic, even between nations.

4) Nations can affect trade between their cities through use of trade agreements. No trade agreement means that trade doesn't cross between them. Free trade means trade between my city and your city works exactly as though both cities were in the same nation. There can also be agreements per type of food or luxury.

5) Strategic resources are strategic and remain controlled through diplomacy. That is because food and luxuries are consumed by citizens, while strategic resources are "consumed" by the player (or AI) in a more directed fashion. Also, they're more strategic in their importance, so I want to keep a tighter control over them.

6) Trade routes should be able pass through friendly nations. They should be able to demand something from me to allow my trade to pass through. Both nations need to have an agreement with the one in between for trade to pass through.

7) Some kinds of food can travel only to cities within 1 turn, while other kinds can travel any distance. After refrigeration (or comparable technology), all food types can travel any distance

8) I should be able to learn how to plant another food type if my climate supports it. As a corollary, some types of food only grow in some climates: rice in tropical areas, wheat in temperate areas, etc. Similarly, I should be able to breed horses (or elephants or camels) without needing the horse resource on a tile.

9) Need to add Oxen and/or Donkeys as a resource for use in assisting labor... somehow. Has similar breeding characteristics to above.

10) (the big one)
Cities produce food and luxuries. The quantity of production is based on the number of citizens, their education, city improvements, and tile improvements. These food and luxury items can be sold to other cities, which brings in income. In addition, cultural buildings at the city attract tourists from other cities. The city also gets money from trade routes passing through its radius. This combined income from those items gets taxed by the government (YOU). The money left over gets used to buy things from other cities and to pay for your citizens to visit those other cities (you have to imagine it, of course).

A city's trade must be balanced, so a city cannot buy 100 gold worth of silks if it is only getting 5 gold for furs (no point in making it more complicated). Money comes in through selling things the city produces and from tourists, while money goes out by purchasing things from other cities and by the city's citizens going to other cities on pilgrimage/tour/whatever.

Trade routes are automatic based on who is willing to buy or sell which items at what prices. The supply is the quantity of the resource produced per turn controlled by the source city. Demand for luxuries is a function of happiness, while demand for food is a function of health and population. There is an overhead cost based on the distance between the two parties. Every city radius through which the route passes demands some amount of overhead. If Shanghai trades silks to Beijing next door, there is no overhead: Beijing pays 6 gold, Shanghai gets 6 gold. However, if Moscow trades furs to Madrid, there is overhead from passing through Warsaw, Berlin, and Lyon, so Madrid pays 10 gold and Moscow only gets 3, with Warsaw getting 2, Berlin 3, and Lyon 2 (numbers arbitrarily assigned). I don't know what determines this overhead cost, only that it goes down with increased technology and infrastructure quality (and perhaps social engineering choices?). This is independent of agreements between nations to allow trade routes to pass through, to allow the sale of certain commodities, etc.

TBD: Maybe trade routes cannot pass through unowned territory? Or there is some special cost for this due to needing protection?

Tourism/pilgrimages/etc is based on the city's culture, the number of citizens in reachable cities, and the distance betwen them. Higher culture means more tourism. More citizens in reach means more tourism. Greater distance from other cities means less tourism. Greater ethnic animosity leads to less tourism (I am China and you are Rome. Japan is at war with Greece, so Chinese and Roman citizens don't get along as well).

 

[Meleager]

I think i need some ...

I apologize for the long and disorganized post, but I don't have the time to make it shorter and clearer.

Meleager, be careful about equating "more to do" with "more strategy."

I like quantitative commodities. I think stockpiling is a good idea in theory, but I cannot think of a way to implement it well. There are too many questions that it's hard to answer well. Where is the stockpile? Putting it in just one place is bad for obvious reasons. Distributing it opens up a can of worms: how is it distributed? is it automatic? what if a city has some stockpile and gets cut off? I don't know how to answer those; I don't think there's a good solution.

The model doesn't have stockpiling. Unused rescources are wasted at the end of the turn.

I don't like the world market idea as you describe it. You can't have a true market without many, many buyers and sellers. 7 civs in a single game are insufficient.

3 civs is enough to have a lot of movement in the supply and demand. More civs may provide more stability - but also in some cases more "jumpiness". All you really need for a growing economy is for supply to be less then demand.

I see no advantage in a national debt abstraction compared to Civ3 status quo where you directly borrow money from another nation. There are no private investors to buy that debt, so again it's the absence of a market. You can't force a market into the game if the game isn't suited for it. I certainly support an interface where it's easier to put a deal on the table for whoever's willing to take your price, but I wouldn't call it a market nor would I make it so automatic; it would be entirely a UI-based improvement. If you want to have a more market-based model, I think you need to push it down to the city and/or citizen level.

I'm not quite sure what you are trying to say here? The debt system does have some advantages over the civ3 model...
1. It takes away the work of going into diplomacy
2. It makes going into dept easier

I think a city based model is far to complex. Though I am sure trade preror would disagree.

I see no advantage in a variable infrastructure budget that adjusts effectiveness of improvements. It adds complexity without adding fun, and so caters to the spreadsheet "player."

The spreadsheet "player" would exist no matter what you do. The easiest way to take it out is to increase the amount of data the player is given but tuck it away somewhere. A budjet forces the player to do more higher-level stratagy. It can also equate to evolutive traits. Scince it is at the national level it is more macro-management rather then micro-management.

The problem with processed/manufactured goods is that there are so many to choose from; it's hard to choose which to include. I don't think it works for at all for strategic resources for multiple reasons. I think you can achieve whatever effects you want in the game through a combination of the existing resource trading system and the renting/selling of military units. Manufactured goods only seem useful as luxuries, like porcelain, linen, jewelry, televisions, etc.

Its currently in only as a possible addition. But you are right - if included it would have to be kept to a minimum.

I don't like classes of citizens because it sounds elitist, but I think you can achieve something broadly similar with education levels. I don't believe consumption of luxuries should have such drastic differences between different levels. Nor do I think it should be fixed (see below).

Clases of citizens sound elitist!? I didn't expect it to be controvesial, it is just exists to represent changes in citizen wealth. The rescources are to increase the work (challenge) that has to be done to get the rewards (more money). I shall wait till I get to your section below though to see if you have a better idea.

I also suggest posting future versions in new threads. Editing a post a month later when people have responded to the earlier version makes it confusing to figure out what people are talking about.

Posting in new threads would be more confusing...
1. I only changed the trade in this recent change and putting that in a new thread and linking back would be confusing...
2. Coping over all the info would be duplication of information
3. It would be difficult for people to keep track of it
4. You could end up with several versions alive at the same time
5. It almost equates to spamming

I'm also a little unclear on what you are specifically trying to achieve with this model. I know you want to improve the Civ3 model, but improve means many things to many people.

I tried to state it at the top. It is a section which needs re-writing though. Ofcourse you are right improve does mean many things to many people.

I think the overall model is more complicated than would be optimal. It left the "fun" factor far behind. I haven't devised a mechanism yet, but I believe the essential properties of an ideal (for Civ game purposes) resource/trade model are listed below. Note that I don't provide any formulas; I believe that is premature and should be left open to tinkering, so I resort to fuzzy language like "relates to" or "is proportional to," etc.

If i have learn anything on this forum it is that different people think different things are "fun".

1) All commodities are finite and quantified (food, strategic resources, and luxuries).

Sounds familiar...

2) Citizens can be educated. More educated citizens are more productive but less obedient.

Very close to my model. Better "educated" (in my model "looked after") citizens produce more gold rather then production and require more luxuries (less obedient).

3) Trade of food and luxuries is automatic, even between nations.

4) Nations can affect trade between their cities through use of trade agreements. No trade agreement means that trade doesn't cross between them. Free trade means trade between my city and your city works exactly as though both cities were in the same nation. There can also be agreements per type of food or luxury.

5) Strategic resources are strategic and remain controlled through diplomacy. That is because food and luxuries are consumed by citizens, while strategic resources are "consumed" by the player (or AI) in a more directed fashion. Also, they're more strategic in their importance, so I want to keep a tighter control over them.[/QUOTE]

Obviously we have different definitions of the word "automatic". My model already does what you are trying to achieve...

Trade is "semi-automatic", your trade advisor can calculate the cheapest luxury combination and buy strategic rescourses as you need them. Nations can make special trade agreements through the use of futures. Dont want to sell iorn -> just tell your advisor not to (stop all supply).

6) Trade routes should be able pass through friendly nations. They should be able to demand something from me to allow my trade to pass through. Both nations need to have an agreement with the one in between for trade to pass through.

7) Some kinds of food can travel only to cities within 1 turn, while other kinds can travel any distance. After refrigeration (or comparable technology), all food types can travel any distance

8) I should be able to learn how to plant another food type if my climate supports it. As a corollary, some types of food only grow in some climates: rice in tropical areas, wheat in temperate areas, etc. Similarly, I should be able to breed horses (or elephants or camels) without needing the horse resource on a tile.

9) Need to add Oxen and/or Donkeys as a resource for use in assisting labor... somehow. Has similar breeding characteristics to above.[/QUOTE]
Sounds like "more to do".

10) (the big one)
Cities produce food and luxuries. The quantity of production is based on the number of citizens, their education, city improvements, and tile improvements. These food and luxury items can be sold to other cities, which brings in income. In addition, cultural buildings at the city attract tourists from other cities. The city also gets money from trade routes passing through its radius. This combined income from those items gets taxed by the government (YOU). The money left over gets used to buy things from other cities and to pay for your citizens to visit those other cities (you have to imagine it, of course).

A city's trade must be balanced, so a city cannot buy 100 gold worth of silks if it is only getting 5 gold for furs (no point in making it more complicated). Money comes in through selling things the city produces and from tourists, while money goes out by purchasing things from other cities and by the city's citizens going to other cities on pilgrimage/tour/whatever.

Trade routes are automatic based on who is willing to buy or sell which items at what prices. The supply is the quantity of the resource produced per turn controlled by the source city. Demand for luxuries is a function of happiness, while demand for food is a function of health and population. There is an overhead cost based on the distance between the two parties. Every city radius through which the route passes demands some amount of overhead. If Shanghai trades silks to Beijing next door, there is no overhead: Beijing pays 6 gold, Shanghai gets 6 gold. However, if Moscow trades furs to Madrid, there is overhead from passing through Warsaw, Berlin, and Lyon, so Madrid pays 10 gold and Moscow only gets 3, with Warsaw getting 2, Berlin 3, and Lyon 2 (numbers arbitrarily assigned). I don't know what determines this overhead cost, only that it goes down with increased technology and infrastructure quality (and perhaps social engineering choices?). This is independent of agreements between nations to allow trade routes to pass through, to allow the sale of certain commodities, etc.

TBD: Maybe trade routes cannot pass through unowned territory? Or there is some special cost for this due to needing protection?

Tourism/pilgrimages/etc is based on the city's culture, the number of citizens in reachable cities, and the distance betwen them. Higher culture means more tourism. More citizens in reach means more tourism. Greater distance from other cities means less tourism. Greater ethnic animosity leads to less tourism (I am China and you are Rome. Japan is at war with Greece, so Chinese and Roman citizens don't get along as well).

Sounds like UE2 (linky on trade preror's sig not far above).

I dont expect everyone to like the model ofcourse. People have different tastes. What I dont get is how you can say...

Meleager, be careful about equating "more to do" with "more strategy."

And then procede to suggest a model with far more to do than my own.