The Medieval Economy

[Kailric]

Hey guys, I wanted to float a question by you.

Do you think it is possible to increase transport capacity beyond 6 units?

Yeah, I do believe that will work. Never tried it but I don't know of a limit on capacity. Were you talking in general or in M:C?

 

[Lib.Spi't]

Really it was a general question for my World mod concept based off of the MC code.

The Idea being that if say a galleon has a capacity of 6 then a modern day super tanker would need more, same with say a trade caravan and a modern diesel freight train or a Land train Juggernaut.

It was really just an initial wonderance, that would effect future design decisions.

Since 'freight' is a big part of Col, it opens up some really fun unit possibilities for the industrial and modern eras.

 

[Nightinggale]

Do you think it is possible to increase transport capacity beyond 6 units?

From a technical (AI) point of view: sounds easy.
From a graphical point of view: clueless on how to do that.

 

[Lib.Spi't]

Yes I was wondering what the technical hurdles might be with the display part of it, I was also wondering if it would just make the whole thing explode right out the gate

I thought I would ask you guys early, to see if it would perculate in your brains to a solution, as you go about your various moddings!

 

[Kailric]

Someone may have mentioned an idea similar to this but I have been thinking on it lately and it sounds intriguing...

The idea is of a Living Economy, one based on actual supply and demand. Each trade screen would have a limited supply of trade goods it can sell, as well a demand for goods. The demand will lower the more a good is introduced to the market. Each turn a certain amount of these goods are consumed by the trade screen. Prices in a trade screen would thus be determined by actual supply and demand.

In the player settlements we could use the new plotgroups system to determine the Demand of goods, thus all goods would have a certain amount of demand in each plot group. This demand coupled with the available supply will effect prices. All player dealings with the Trade Screens and Local deals will effect the supply and demand as well.

Native villages have a similar system already. They "consume" goods the player sales to them thus, I believe increasing its demand for later.

That's just the basic idea so far...

 

[Lib.Spi't]

Sounds interesting, is this not already partially handled by price drops when a good is sold regularly to a trade screen.

The only problem I can see is how do you link it to the rest of the world, plot groups etc. because those are connected by roads.. and what parts of the world would you connect the Spice and silk screens to? as they are nominally connected to the mysterious orient.

I could see this being interesting in my world mod, as these places are actually places you can visit and set up shop in. Again though, how do you connect them?

In my plans I intend to make 'Continental Tile Sets' so potentially each Continental Tile Set could be a plotgroup for the Continental Trade Centre, thus all villages and towns in those areas contribute to demand.

I think for this to work though 'Non-Playable' Civs need to be better at growing and inceasing their demand, because as it stands at the moment, I don't think Barb Villages would grow large enough to represent the supply and demand of an Empire like China.. So there may have to be some number fudging, just to keep the levels at half decent values.

 

[Kailric]

Sounds interesting, is this not already partially handled by price drops when a good is sold regularly to a trade screen.

The only problem I can see is how do you link it to the rest of the world, plot groups etc. because those are connected by roads.. and what parts of the world would you connect the Spice and silk screens to? as they are nominally connected to the mysterious orient.

I could see this being interesting in my world mod, as these places are actually places you can visit and set up shop in. Again though, how do you connect them?

In my plans I intend to make 'Continental Tile Sets' so potentially each Continental Tile Set could be a plotgroup for the Continental Trade Centre, thus all villages and towns in those areas contribute to demand.

I think for this to work though 'Non-Playable' Civs need to be better at growing and inceasing their demand, because as it stands at the moment, I don't think Barb Villages would grow large enough to represent the supply and demand of an Empire like China.. So there may have to be some number fudging, just to keep the levels at half decent values.

Right, the prices do change based on how much you have sold but they have a magical unlimited supply the player can buy. Having a limited amount could increase the economic viability of the Economy. If a trade screen has none of a certain trade good then its sell price will be high, until it gets over loaded with that good.

Trade Screens will be their own entity, not connected to any plotgroup but will have Demand and Consume variables that are setup in the XML, just like the Natives now.

Native Civs could have their AI and infrastructure increased so that they do contribute to this system a bit better.

 

[orlanth]

Someone may have mentioned an idea similar to this but I have been thinking on it lately and it sounds intriguing...

The idea is of a Living Economy, one based on actual supply and demand. Each trade screen would have a limited supply of trade goods it can sell, as well a demand for goods. The demand will lower the more a good is introduced to the market. Each turn a certain amount of these goods are consumed by the trade screen. Prices in a trade screen would thus be determined by actual supply and demand.

In the player settlements we could use the new plotgroups system to determine the Demand of goods, thus all goods would have a certain amount of demand in each plot group. This demand coupled with the available supply will effect prices. All player dealings with the Trade Screens and Local deals will effect the supply and demand as well.

Yeah I support the idea that prices gradually adapt to relative demand/supply rather than semi-random jerky global adjustments like in vanilla. I had worked out a possible balanced system for price adjustments in a prior post but can no longer find it lol. Is it feasible for price adjustment to happen at the level of cities or plotgroups? This could also be interesting for non-city tradescreens; but like nightingale said earlier it could be interesting for them to be somewhat different than the more strongly adapting supply/demand of cities/plotgroups. Ie a "safety valve" for somewhere to trade with when your cities arent generating enough demand; while your long-term goal is to gradually build up your domestic economy to the point where it can produce/consume a lot locally & self sufficiently.

In my plans I intend to make 'Continental Tile Sets'

Sounds good, if you like you could adapt platy's mapscript below to enable continental tilesets (would be similar to 2071 Planets mapscript but with "continents" not being round).
http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=369901&d=1392029354
Also feel free to use any of the many terrain tiles in my sig!

as it stands at the moment, I don't think Barb Villages would grow large enough to represent the supply and demand of an Empire like China.. So there may have to be some number fudging, just to keep the levels at half decent values.

I agree and think vanilla's function where civs with <bNative>1 automatically "destroy" certain yields is pretty lame & unrealistic while not enabling genuine demand. Fortunately you could inactivate this and let them generate actual demands pretty easily, using the M:C existing system simply by giving their citizens or buildings the demands you want them to consume. It would be even better to make "barbarian" civs potentially playable, starting behind in technology but with the potential to develop to a more civilized level with time. Virtually all of these civs could certainly become as civilized/developed as the others within the time frame of M:C (Magyars -> Kingdom of Hungary etc), and it's even more the case within the scope of the World History mod.

 

[Lib.Spi't]

Ah I see what you mean.

One thing I would like to add to that concept if you think you can do it is some kind of increase by era.

So that as time goes by the supply and demand increases, representing an increase in population.

This wouldn't be so important for M:C, but for World History, each era would signify a fairly large increase in populations. So it could be a multiply by era value... maybe.

So like first limit is 300, second era 600, 3rd era 900 etc. This would probably be one of the better ways to do it, as then conceivably it could take an unlimited number of eras, perhaps with a global defines option to set the multiplier, and to turn the multiplier on or off for the mod (incase people want static values).

These limits are gonna ruin my trading fun!

 

[Lib.Spi't]

Yeah Orlanth, I was thinking about the possibility of adapting the planets script.

I don't really know how to do map scripting, but I was thinking something like the planets system could work, where five continents are made 1 for each set, with a 9 square trade centre placed randomly on a coastline for each continent.. I have no idea how to do that though, so for now my plan is to just make a 'World Scenario' using the globe map.

Yes I have often looked at your terrains pack, I need to look again to see if there are things that could be used, or which ones could work for what!

At a quick glance I have already seen rise paddies for asia, and maybe the farmie grassland for europe

 

[Nightinggale]

I'm not sure the planet map script is incredible useful for that. However we could add min and max for x,y in XML for terrain and generate a map based on that. Presumably those values should be percentage of map size. I think I can code that if needed. However I don't consider it a high priority task.

 

[orlanth]

with 200 terrains you will have plenty to choose from! The ones in the Fertile and Arctic packs are most Earth-like and alone should give a nice variety.

I think I can code that if needed. However I don't consider it a high priority task.

I think you probably wouldn't need to consume scarce coding time in creating new XML variables for most mapscript stuff. Since it's just python that contains editable variables, it doesn't need to be compiled like DLL (i.e. it will be about as easy to open the python in a text editor and search for variables you want to change, as it would be to open xml and do the same.) One thing that would be nice to add is linking variables in the mapscript to the options the player chooses on map generation (ie have this affect variables for number/size of planets/continents, and abundance of various terrain types.) I'm not sure how to do this yet but think it's likely possible without DLL editing.

In most cases I like the normal system of trading directly with settlements, better than adding a separate land trade screen that's not associated with any city or its population. This way you actually interact with the civ that owns the cities, and the trade has diplomatic consequences with who you trade with, and is based on the local resources produced/demanded. The DoANE city barter interface is even nicer but unfortunately its code is a trade secret lol.

 

[Nightinggale]

The DoANE city barter interface is even nicer but unfortunately its code is a trade secret lol.

Revealing possession of such treasures could be a grave mistake. There are plenty of people around who want to get hold of it. For all we know DoANE could be raided at any moment.

I was thinking of coding something like adding 4 ints to XML, then add access to those in the python interface. We are talking about a really quick coding job here.

Each terrain then has a weight factor. Deciding on terrain for a plot would then be:
loop all terrain and make a list of all terrain available on the plot in question. This list also contain the weight factors.

Add up all weight factors for available terrain.

Get a random number between 0 and the combined weight. We call this number A.

Loop through the list. Whenever it passes a terrain, the weight is subtracted from A. Once A goes negative we have the terrain to fill in.

If we should make it really advanced, the weight scales down as it goes towards the limits for the terrain meaning the terrain gets gradually less and less until it disappears completely.

Maybe a weight bonus for being next to terrain of similar type.

Something like this shouldn't be too difficult to code. I don't think it would be too time consuming either.

 

[Lib.Spi't]

Hey guys, can you get multiple yields from a single building. For Example, cattle going into a butcher would give food and hides, or would there need to be two buildings, or seprate choices in the same building to make food or hides?

 

[Nightinggale]

Hey guys, can you get multiple yields from a single building. For Example, cattle going into a butcher would give food and hides, or would there need to be two buildings, or seprate choices in the same building to make food or hides?

The yields are not actually written into the buildings. They are written in professions. It has a list of yields produced and consumed. Buildings then have iProfessionOutput to tell how many.

If you are asking if it is possible to produce 4 food and 2 hide, then I can't answer, but I do know that hunters in RaR produce X fur + X/2 food. If we need something like that in M:C, then we know where to look

 

[Lib.Spi't]

Yes I just discovered this looking again at the profession file, I only looked as far as the military before. I see that (and remember) shephards produce sheep and wool from tiles.. I think this has answered my thinking for the time being.. my next thought I tink will be about boosting productions through techs, but I think as far as I understand it, a tech would unlock a building upgrade and the building would unlock a production boost, being able to affect production rates for each yield on one tile or building might be a nice option to have.. I am not yet that far along in my planning though.

I think I may have to change one plan though... originally for the stone age I had planned to have one building 'campfire' where you could choose between yields of science, culture, hammers, food, but it looks like the way I would need to do it is have a seperate 'fire' for each yield type that you then move between depending on the job, then obsolete each of them individually in the classic era.... I think.. ugh so many differnt concepts to wrap my head around from col.

 

[Nightinggale]

Moved from DLL thread as it is an economy question

I was wondering, does Col have the ability to have unit maintenance costs per turn like Civ4?

With things like the tax income and sales per turn system, this might be a good thing to bring back for adv. units like knights? I know it would be good for World History.

Currently all units are free. The question is how should it work?

One big issue with this is that say we have an expert knight costing money. We assign it to farming due to lack of a better unit and then we forget about it. Eventually we remember that we have a knight working in a city, but now the question if which one and doing what?

We need to get a much better overview of units or the game will drown in micro management.

Also what should the price be for not being able to pay? Unit dies?

 

[Lib.Spi't]

Technically my question was about code. 'Does the code exist for unit maintenance like in Civ.'

Your follow up question of 'How should unit maintenance work' was an economy one.

Right now I am still working out how classifications and such work, between units, professions and whatever else...

I would make it something like, a 'unit' such as an infantry man (which is a profession right?) is equipped and active as a soldier (fortified or wandering about) he costs X gold as defined by an xml tag.

If you cannot pay wages, then units convert to unequipped 'colonists' or whatever their basic unequipped state is. So the cost is the loss of their equipment, as you or they cannot afford to maintain it, or simply throw down their arms and walk off in protest for not receiving a wage.

So only active 'fighting' professions would cost money. (or rather would need the option to cost money as you could still have free units like armed peasants or whatever)

So an expert Knight (promotions?) working as a farmer will not cost any money.

Don't knights show up as nobles? I can't remember how the 'knighting' system works exactly.

 

[Nightinggale]

Technically my question was about code. 'Does the code exist for unit maintenance like in Civ.'

No. Short and simple answer

If we make soldier professions cost money, then what will prevent players from putting a whole lot of weapons in the cities and then only actually make the military units when needed? The upkeep works in civ because you can't make 40 new units during a turn (not even from turn to turn, but during a turn). You can do that in colo, which is why the idea isn't just a copy paste from civ.

 

[Kailric]

I think I may have to change one plan though... originally for the stone age I had planned to have one building 'campfire' where you could choose between yields of science, culture, hammers, food, but it looks like the way I would need to do it is have a seperate 'fire' for each yield type that you then move between depending on the job, then obsolete each of them individually in the classic era.... I think.. ugh so many differnt concepts to wrap my head around from col.

Actually, In M:C there is at least one building you can change what is produced. When you have discovered new armor types you can click the Armorsmith building and change what type of armor you want to produce. This is at the moment hardcoded to just the Armory, but we could make this XML friendly if there is a need, or maybe there is a better way to even do this?

One big issue with this is that say we have an expert knight costing money. We assign it to farming due to lack of a better unit and then we forget about it. Eventually we remember that we have a knight working in a city, but now the question if which one and doing what?
We need to get a much better overview of units or the game will drown in micro management.
Also what should the price be for not being able to pay? Unit dies?

Don't knights show up as nobles? I can't remember how the 'knighting' system works exactly.

Yeah, all nobles are basically Knights. The Military Advisor gives an overview of all units. We can add "Sort out Knights" to the drop down list and have it list firsts all Possible Knights.

If we make soldier professions cost money, then what will prevent players from putting a whole lot of weapons in the cities and then only actually make the military units when needed? The upkeep works in civ because you can't make 40 new units during a turn (not even from turn to turn, but during a turn). You can do that in colo, which is why the idea isn't just a copy paste from civ.

Exactly, during Medieval times most Kings didn't have a "Standing Army", soldiers worked their land and were only paid while at war. According to History, the first Standing Army in Western Medieval Europe was produced by Charles VII in 1445. Rome had standing armies in their time. I've wanted to add the options for a Standing Army, however. So, lets ponder on ideas on how this could work.

Also, another point in the matter there would need to be a benefit to having a Standing Army, with paid wages, as there is no benefit to doing this. The player gains more benefit in putting his units to work in his cities.

Just thinking on it now... What were the real life benefits in having a Standing Army? More trained, more Experienced Soldiers, better equipped, more prepared, to name the most obvious. In the current M:C if you let your untrained units stand fortified in your Garrison for 10 turns they actually gain one level. This was my attempt to create some kind of benefit to training units, or having them stand guard. The AI does this all the time. Even none Native AI's will have units standing guard almost always.

We can widen the gap between Trained and Untrained units greatly, where untrained Units suffer grave penalties. Or, we could have Promotions that only take affect for Paid or Standing Army soldiers. This would represent being more prepared and trained in order to preform Combat Maneuvers as a Unit.

We could say it takes 1 or more turns to actually equip a Military Unit. If you need an Arms-men fast all you are allowed to do that turn is Armed Peasants,with Knights being armed with Swords instead of pitch forks Hmmm... continues to ponder...