Packherd2
Warlord
- Joined
- May 24, 2011
- Messages
- 116
This was a brainstorm I had as I woke up this morning. Anyone is welcome to try to mod this. That is not a skill I have.
Right now energy is just an analog for money. Its value, as in previous Civs, is in its convertibility as an alternative to production and in its necessity as a supply resource. I suggest separating these functions out into "energy" and "credit." This would make for a more interesting economy and one that could become its own strategic element.
"Energy" would be generated by buildings and terrain. Your headquarters might produce a certain amount. However, "energy" would not be generated by population, the way science is. This is key. "Energy" would be required to run buildings, units and improvements and the cost of this maintenance could inflate with time, as it does now. Insufficient energy would result in drags on your economy, like slower growth and weaker units. Ultimately, disbanding unpowerable units and buildings might be an option, though it could also just deactivate them, stranding explorers at sea or turning off your only institute.
The rub, however, is in surplus "energy."
"Energy" not needed for buildings and units would be consumed by the people. The taxes you collect on this consumption generates your first "credits." Rather than use a slider to adjust the tax rate, it would be determined by the population and the health rate larger, more prosperous, more secure societies consume more energy, thus increasing its value. The tax rate would need to taper off sharply, however. At planetfall, for example, with a tiny population and moderate health, your first surplus "energy" might generate +4 "credit," but the second surplus "energy" would earn only +1 "credit," while the third earns only +0.01 "credit." If you want to earn more off your excess energy, you will need to boost your population and/or improve their living conditions.
This would create a rudimentary economy, where excess resources multiply against one another but the wealth created is stored in a separate resource that has only that, wealth storage, as its function. In other words, actual money. (Further income could be generated from interest on "credit," modified by buildings and virtues. This would permit a player to focus on commerce as a source of power, but it should be a feature available from planetfall even the most unsavvy and pragmatic institutions understand the potential of banking, they just might find it morally reprehensible.)
Finally, "energy" would be a tradeable resource. This could be done through diplomacy, perhaps when your colonies' boundaries are adjacent, simulating a grid connection and creating a potential value as well as cost for being near your rivals. It might also be done by trade routes, but I think that with "energy" serving more like a strategic resource, it makes more sense to use trade routes to exchange those other resources, like food and production, which multiply the value of "energy."
If put together well, I could see this becoming an additional strategic option for the game. As a colony focused on "energy" production and the accumulation of "credit," you would become the powerplant and financier to those colonies pursuing extreme scientific research or military conquest. They could conquer your precious geothermal plants, oil fields and xenomass wells for themselves, of course, but they lack the virtues that permitted you to create so much wealth from them. The math would be more complicated than casual players (like myself) would tolerate, but if the effects are shown in tooltips and they happen predictably, they needn't reduce the fun.
Right now energy is just an analog for money. Its value, as in previous Civs, is in its convertibility as an alternative to production and in its necessity as a supply resource. I suggest separating these functions out into "energy" and "credit." This would make for a more interesting economy and one that could become its own strategic element.
"Energy" would be generated by buildings and terrain. Your headquarters might produce a certain amount. However, "energy" would not be generated by population, the way science is. This is key. "Energy" would be required to run buildings, units and improvements and the cost of this maintenance could inflate with time, as it does now. Insufficient energy would result in drags on your economy, like slower growth and weaker units. Ultimately, disbanding unpowerable units and buildings might be an option, though it could also just deactivate them, stranding explorers at sea or turning off your only institute.
The rub, however, is in surplus "energy."
"Energy" not needed for buildings and units would be consumed by the people. The taxes you collect on this consumption generates your first "credits." Rather than use a slider to adjust the tax rate, it would be determined by the population and the health rate larger, more prosperous, more secure societies consume more energy, thus increasing its value. The tax rate would need to taper off sharply, however. At planetfall, for example, with a tiny population and moderate health, your first surplus "energy" might generate +4 "credit," but the second surplus "energy" would earn only +1 "credit," while the third earns only +0.01 "credit." If you want to earn more off your excess energy, you will need to boost your population and/or improve their living conditions.
This would create a rudimentary economy, where excess resources multiply against one another but the wealth created is stored in a separate resource that has only that, wealth storage, as its function. In other words, actual money. (Further income could be generated from interest on "credit," modified by buildings and virtues. This would permit a player to focus on commerce as a source of power, but it should be a feature available from planetfall even the most unsavvy and pragmatic institutions understand the potential of banking, they just might find it morally reprehensible.)
Finally, "energy" would be a tradeable resource. This could be done through diplomacy, perhaps when your colonies' boundaries are adjacent, simulating a grid connection and creating a potential value as well as cost for being near your rivals. It might also be done by trade routes, but I think that with "energy" serving more like a strategic resource, it makes more sense to use trade routes to exchange those other resources, like food and production, which multiply the value of "energy."
If put together well, I could see this becoming an additional strategic option for the game. As a colony focused on "energy" production and the accumulation of "credit," you would become the powerplant and financier to those colonies pursuing extreme scientific research or military conquest. They could conquer your precious geothermal plants, oil fields and xenomass wells for themselves, of course, but they lack the virtues that permitted you to create so much wealth from them. The math would be more complicated than casual players (like myself) would tolerate, but if the effects are shown in tooltips and they happen predictably, they needn't reduce the fun.
