The Unified Economic Theory, 2nd Edition

[Meleager]

I might be able to help out, TP. I can't imagine the final one being anywhere near as complex as UET 2 though.

I finally get civ 4 today or tommorow.

@ Aussie - I will have to chack that out, I have seen wuite a few good mods around here.

 

[lumpthing]

Seems I came to this thread rather late...

I haven't read through the thread in detail, but I've read enough of the key posts to be very enthusiastic about the main ideas: a Civilization which is much more closely aligned to how the real world works, while still emphasising gameplay and fun.

As a civ addict since civ1 I consider Civilization to be the best game ever, but ultimately its economic model doesn't have a whole lot to do with reality and I do consider that to be a significant drawback, since I think games like Colonization and Settlers show that a more realistic economic system (in that they are based on distributing and processing resurces, rather then generating abstract 'trade' and immobile 'food'/'shield' points) can actually be fun and satisfying. I've long had many ideas myself for improving civ's fundamental econmics and was searching the forums to see if anyone else had the same vision of a civ based game with more realism and then I found this fantastic thread with an idea that is much more detailed and coherent than anything I have concocted.

So what's the current status of the Unified Economic Theory?

To be honest I think the only chance for actually implementing it is to create an entirely new game from scratch. That's actually not as blue skies as it sounds: I have a friend who almost finished programming an entirely new Caesar style city building game from scratch while I did the artwork. It fizzled out because I was never particularly enthusiastic about the game since I was never a huge fan of Caesar anyway. He'd certainly be interested in programming a new civ style game along the lines talked about in this thread, because I've talked to him about my own, similiar, ideas before and he was very enhusiastic. The only reason I never took him up on the offer was because I hadn't done enough research to formulate a clear design plan and I wasn't willing to sacrifice the time. But if other people were involved (especially people who already have a very clear design plan like tradeperor) it would be much more doable and I would be more willing to sacrifice the time.

Anybody else interested?

 

[Trade-peror]

Welcome lumpthing! This thread is indeed a bit old and has been inactive for more than a year, but I am no less interested in developing these ideas further (and perhaps getting them implemented someday). I have somewhat started formulating a third version of the UET, but it is still in a very early stage and I have become very busy since.

I do agree that creating the game from scratch may be the only way to implement the UET2. And I am quite impressed that your friend was able to program a Caesar-type game from scratch. If he were willing to give the UET2 a try, that would be amazing.

If you want to try something with the UET2, definitely count me in!

 

[lumpthing]

Great to hear you and your UET are still around.

I just talked to Sam, the afore-mentioned programming friend, and he was interested in what he heard about the UET said he would take a look at this thread. He has a demanding job and says he would only be able to devote 10-15 hours per week to the project if it happened but that still sounds like a lot to me!

If you have a look at my website (see my signature) and take a look at the "CityLife" section, that's the game we were working on a couple of years back.

Like I said I haven't properly looked at the details of all your ideas yet but from what I've seen it would be great if you wanted to lead the way on the game design.

 

[Trade-peror]

He has a demanding job and says he would only be able to devote 10-15 hours per week to the project if it happened but that still sounds like a lot to me!

Yes, that really is a lot of time! I don't know that I would be able to devote that much time...until end of May or beginning of June. So please take your time, and as always, I am open to suggestions on improving and clarifying the UET!

Also, I like the style of your CityLife artwork.

 

[lumpthing]

Um, sorry, I should have posted this a long time ago, but better late than never...

Anyway as I expect you realized the game idea fell through because programmer-man decided he didn't want to do programming in his spare time now he has a full-time job as a programmer. Sorry to get so excited about it only to leave you in the dark for a half a year and then say this :/

Anyway, before it all fell through, I did manage to read through the entirety of this thread. As before I'm very impressed with how thorough your theory is, if only civ4 had taken a bit from your theory. Much as I love civ the whole idea of those trade arrows which are just magically generate from the land is completely silly.

I particularly love your ideas for science. In civ, the economy is essentially just a means of funding scientific progress. In UET, scientific progress works much more closely to how it does in real life and makes the economy an end in itself.

One thing I'm confused about is how money to buy resources is generated. From what I understand, surplus resources are sold to another city, generating income. So presumably a city that buys another city's surplus resources loses money. i.e. City's gain what another city loses. So where does money come from in the first place? It seems like a closed system where money is shifted about but not generated.

 

[Trade-peror]

No problem - it would take a heck of a lot of time to program something like the UET.

Thanks for the input - getting through the entire thread is no small feat either!

Now for money generation:
The short answer is that money comes from production. UET uses a more flexible concept of money as not just gold, but anything of value. Since terrain tiles produce new yields every turn, they can also be regarded as the ultimate source of money.

 

[lumpthing]

ah okay I like the sound of that, but then how do entities within the game trade with each other? Do they just barter with whatever goods they have available?

 

[Trade-peror]

Cities, depending on their transportation connections, will have access to other cities as potential markets or suppliers. At the beginning, cities will indeed be mainly bartering with whatever goods they have. But because food has only a limited shelf life, and wood/stone require too much storage accommodation, at some point wealth will be more conveniently accumulated in the form of valuable objects that can serve as money (e.g. conch shells or gold coins). Example of the transition:

City A, which is running out of storage space/capacity for its wealth, may request that City B exchange gold for wheat, rather than wood for wheat. Or it may be marble for wheat, just whatever can serve as a convenient store of value. Then eventually City A may just ask for a piece of paper that says "City B will redeem this paper for X amount." For convenience, a bank or the government may rather issue pieces of paper "Anyone can redeem this paper for X amount." And the final stage is the government issuing pieces of paper "This paper is worth X amount, because Government Y says so."

Perhaps that's more than answering the question, but I like the UET to be generally applicable to all periods of history.

 

[lumpthing]

that's a wonderful way of teaching people how currency came about, although I wonder whether it would over-complicate the game mechanics. I find it difficult to imagine how the cities in the primitive bartering stage would always work out how valuable various goods are relative to each other and what it should ask for. For example, a fishing city might have a huge excess of fish, but be in demand of many goods, while a neighbouring inland city might have need of a few fish and be have an over-supply of many other goods. Would the inland city really want to store huge sums of fish in exchange for the fishing city meeting all its demands?

 

[Trade-peror]

Would the inland city really want to store huge sums of fish in exchange for the fishing city meeting all its demands?

Why, absolutely not! And that is why currency makes trade more convenient, and will almost necessarily evolve fairly early in the game.

It sounds complicated when I explain the transition, but that is only because I have described the mechanics of how it will be implemented in the game. As far as concepts go, that bartering evolved into currency as economies developed is likely intuitive to most. I feel if the concept is not complicated, it will not over-complicate the game.

 

[Ahovking]

that give me an idea

 

[Silurian]

and the idea is?

 

[CHEESE!]

Drumroll!