New Civic Category: Monetary

[Big Heb]

Monetary policy is the one thing I have not seen represented very well in both Vanilla and Rise of Mankind. To code a whole monetary system in the game would be near impossible, so a new civic category would work just as well. For those who don't know, monetary policy is the government's role in controlling the money supply. If you decide to implement a new Monetary civic category, I believe these should be the 7 civic choices. I am not sure if you can alter the inflation component of the game, as I have no programming knowledge, but if you can this could prove to be a great addition to the mod.

Name: Trade
Requirements: None
Upkeep: No Upkeep
Effects: No inflation, no deficit spending (cannot have sliders high enough to deduct money from treasury)
Description: Trade represents a nation's lack of a currency and their use of the barter system. Since there is no money supply, there can not be any inflation of the money supply. But since there is no currency, there can be no taxation to pay off deficit spending. Since you cannot have a treasury in debt in the game, it is represented by deducting from your treasury.

Name: Metal Currency
Requirements: Currency
Upkeep: Medium Upkeep
Effects: +10% commerce per city, -1 happiness per city per -30 wealth of deficit spending.
Description: Metal Currency represents a nation's use of metal coins as a means of exchange. These coins were mainly gold, silver, and bronze, and were minted by the government to limit inflation and counterfeiting. But the government had no economic knowledge to use inflation to pay off the national debt, so taxation is the method used to pay off deficit spending, decreasing happiness. Since the government itself has to buy and mint themselves the coins of several metals, the upkeep costs are moderately high.

Name: Gold Standard
Requirements: Currency, Paper, connection to Gold resource.
Upkeep: Medium Upkeep
Effects: No inflation, +10% commerce per city, -1 happiness per city per -30 wealth of deficit spending.
Description: The gold standard represents a nation's currency based solely on gold. It can either be represented by the exchange of gold bullion or paper notes backed by government-owned gold reserves. Since gold is such a rare metal, inflation is practically nonexistent, again meaning that taxation is the only method used to pay off deficit spending.

Name: Silver Standard
Requirements: Currency, Paper, connection to Silver resource
Upkeep: Medium Upkeep
Effects: +10% commerce per city.
Description: The silver standard represents a nation's currency based solely on silver. Unlike gold, silver is more common and can be mined in higher amounts, so inflation is existent. The unhappiness created by higher taxation is negated by happiness from the inflation lowering people's debts.

Name: Flat Currency
Requirements: Printing Press
Upkeep: Low Upkeep
Effects: +15% commerce per city, +20% inflation under deficit spending
Description: Flat currency, or otherwise known as a paper currency, represents a nation's currency based solely on paper notes without anything to back up their value, with a central bank usually being the one issuing the notes. This means that notes can be printed at any rate, which speeds up inflation. Governments often use inflation to pay off their debts, and this is represented in the game by an increase in inflation whenever you are spending too much on research, culture or espionage and deduct money from your treasury.

Name: Central Planning
Requirements: Communism
Upkeep: High Upkeep
Effects: No foreign trade routes, +15% research per city, +15% production per city, can only be used in combination with State Property
Description: Central planning represents a nation with no private banks but one central bank that monitors and controls the financial transactions of all industry in the nation. A historical example is the Soviet Union's Gosbank. It can only be used with State Property for historical reasons and to prevent unfair combination with Mercantilism.

Name: Fractional Reserve Banking
Requirements: Economics
Upkeep: High Upkeep
Effects: +25% commerce per city with Bank, +10% inflation
Description: Fractional reserve banking is a monetary system where banks are allowed to keep only part of the money the receive as a reserve and can loan out the rest. The loaned money greatly increases commerce, but the creation of new money from credit increases inflation even when the government is not deficit spending.

 

[alireza1354]

Nice idea! We need economics to focus on this part of the mod

 

[Civ Fuehrer]

i believe this is what RoM is missing, i always felt like there was something big missing, and i think this is it.

 

[Big Heb]

Thanks for the input. Now who is up to the challenge of coding this into a mod? I am not sure if it will be possible to increase or stop inflation in the game, which appears to be constant as is. And are there any balance issues?

 

[MrWhereItsAt]

Name: Trade
Requirements: None
Upkeep: No Upkeep
Effects: No inflation, no deficit spending (cannot have sliders high enough to deduct money from treasury)
Description: Trade represents a nation's lack of a currency and their use of the barter system. Since there is no money supply, there can not be any inflation of the money supply. But since there is no currency, there can be no taxation to pay off deficit spending. Since you cannot have a treasury in debt in the game, it is represented by deducting from your treasury.

Neat idea, but I have a question about this. It's very typical to have some gold from early exploration, and be deficit spending for quite some time to keep science going until there is some more options with trade from maturer cottages and resources allowing you to build Bazaars or Jewelleries. If we are going to prevent deficit spending all the way until Currency, then this is going to severely slow early-game research, which is not something to do without testing.

 

[Big Heb]

Neat idea, but I have a question about this. It's very typical to have some gold from early exploration, and be deficit spending for quite some time to keep science going until there is some more options with trade from maturer cottages and resources allowing you to build Bazaars or Jewelleries. If we are going to prevent deficit spending all the way until Currency, then this is going to severely slow early-game research, which is not something to do without testing.

Exactly. And this will equally affect every civilization until the discovery of Currency. This makes it more historically accurate, as science and technology progressed very slowly until more complex economies formed.

 

[Civ Fuehrer]

Exactly. And this will equally affect every civilization until the discovery of Currency. This makes it more historically accurate, as science and technology progressed very slowly until more complex economies formed.

Unfortunately, this is already simulated in the game by the early game year intervals how it goes from 6000, 5700, 5500, etc. and the research speeds up in late game since the years go by twos or singles.

 

[Big Heb]

Unfortunately, this is already simulated in the game by the early game year intervals how it goes from 6000, 5700, 5500, etc. and the research speeds up in late game since the years go by twos or singles.

I have noticed in my games that I am always ~200 years further ahead in technology than historically accurate, so this could help balance that. Or Metal Currency could be made available earlier (Metal Casting?).

 

[MrWhereItsAt]

I have noticed in my games that I am always ~200 years further ahead in technology than historically accurate, so this could help balance that. Or Metal Currency could be made available earlier (Metal Casting?).

I'm glad you were considering this when you devised this idea, however are you really 200+ years ahead throughout the entire game, or just Medieval onwards (that's where I get ahead)? Early on I tend to be far, far behind history, and in the game there is the consideration that you need to get certain key techs just to avoid being crushed by metal-tipped barbarian swords.

Don't get me wrong, perhaps this will work wonderfully, but I just instantly see this as a potentially drastic change to make in the early game, where drastic changes ripple out through history and have alarming effects for a full-length game. Especially because you have to survive the early game even to see those later effects.

 

[LtChambers]

I don't think you need to get rid of deficit spending. The economy sliders are already gross oversimplifications at any era. It is enough for me to interpret the pre-currency deficits as the government sanctioning rational thinking and creativity for smart people - at the expense of the rest of the population.

That said, I don't think this civic category is a bad idea, but it has too much overlap with the existing economy civic. Perhaps they should just go in as technologies?

 

[alireza1354]

Exactly. And this will equally affect every civilization until the discovery of Currency. This makes it more historically accurate, as science and technology progressed very slowly until more complex economies formed.

I totally agree on this one P

Thats precisely whats needed. Wow. Where do u minds come from

 

[Big Heb]

bump

How likely would this idea be to be included in the game, or as a mod?