The Unified Economic Theory

[polypheus]

Using this "top-down", "overall realism" approach, this is what I suggest for a baby-UET:

1. Income is generated sort of like Civ 3 but toned down so it that it is insufficient for all spending needs. Road and railroads toned down so is mainly for transport link use not commerce increasing effect.
2. Most income comes from trade/distribution of raw materials and finished goods within nation and between nations so there is some kind of international market.
3. Some combination of raw materials and finished goods are needed to construct/maintain various improvements and/or units.
(Some model of quantifying raw materials and resource may be needed.)
4. The distribution of raw materials and goods increases culture, income and happiness.
5. Distribution occurs along physical trade routes.

For anyone familiar with the game "Railroad Tycoon", this "baby-UET" sort of resembles the system of RRT. Of course it can be simplified and abstracted but you get the idea.

Thus with the kind of "RRT"-like economics, much of the game is devoted to building up, expanding and securing this trade network. Note that with this system, wealth of nation is not necessarily coincident with size of nation. As a small nation, you could still create via infrastructure and trade deals, etc a big trade network and be quite wealthy.

And with finished goods, markets, need for trade for income, culture and happiness, cities and nations are even more interconnected than in Civ3. And economics is not means of building up for war but war is more likely means of expanding economics which is more real model of history anyway.

 

[Trade-peror]

Sorry, everyone...I had originally prepared a rather thorough reply to all issues discussed recently, but a *technical difficulty* erased it all...so pardon my more concise approach and time delay in getting this posted.

@Shyrramar:

Most of the concepts of the Unified Economic Theory are indeed intertwined, and a primary reason is that every concept builds from the basic idea that economic forces drive history. In Civ3, economics is a mean to another end; in reality, everything else is a mean to economic success. The UET is based upon this idea.

Also, I am glad you have noticed that I want the economic models to actually be able to teach something resembling the economics of reality, just as many have gained historical insights and knowledge from Civ3. The UET, which is actually lacking in every economic concept except for the fundamental concept of supply and demand, strives to even begin to address this issue.

In addition, it appears that I must clarify the role of automation in the UET. Contrary to what appears to be MoO3 economics, the AI controls NOTHING except for performing individual and routine trade deals that the player has configured and initiated. This is about the level of automation currently used in Civ3 for resources--the players has the role of connecting cities and resources, but the AI automatically transfers the resource to every connected city. In fact, the idea for the UET stemmed from my attempt to extend the resource system and generalize it in basic economic terms.

I admit that the UET is currently rather complicated, in spite of its limited scope in true economic terms, but I do not think a "baby-UET" will be necessary--if I simply increase the UET's level of abstraction.


@polypheus:

I am glad that you have decided upon a logical approach to analyzing the UET. I, however, unfortunately disagree with some of your suggestions. Please allow me to present a few:

1. "Income is generated sort of like Civ 3" seems to suggest a reversion to the "X generating Y amount of trade per turn" concept. As this means trade will not depend upon production and exchange of that production, I am not in much favor of this idea. Of course, I may be interpreting this in a completely unexpected and incorrect manner, so please correct me if necessary!

2. This appears to advocate the exchange of production, but the simplest way this can be accomplished, I believe, is already part of the UET. Therefore, I do not quite understand this feature.

3. I agree that quantification of resources is necessary. I am not sure whether I have stated the UET's method of addressing this yet.

4. Although I did not originally think of increasing culture through trade, I suppose it is possible. I still see the primary effect of trade to be increasing the economic situation, which may then lead to other sociological effects.

5. The UET provides for this, though (surprisingly) heavily abstracted.

Finally, I reiterate that economics is the driving force of other ventures, not the other way around.

 

[Trade-peror]

I have modified the summary of the UET to version 1.2.

Changes include (but are not limited to, since I may have forgotten some):

1. I have eliminated the sliders as the primary method of players in allocating resources. The interface I suggest will involve less micromanagement, but I do not have time to explain at this moment.
2. The extent of a market is limited only by road connection.
3. Roads will generate trade as trade routes.
4. Upgrading roads increases "accomodating" trade.

I considered simply defining the consumer product requirement to one, but the problem is that it will be difficult in the beginning to satisfy this demand. On the other hand, in the more modern eras, it would be too easy. Therefore, the "supply : population ratio" will be used to determine consumer good requirements.

I also considered making all food and shields generic. While this may seem to help reduce complexity, notice that the current "specialization" of all food and shields simply means assigning them different names. In other words, it is just like there are 8 luxuries, but they ALL function exactly the same in terms of generating happiness. What is the purpose of 8 luxuries? To be able to have different types for trade and increased happiness (since the number of each type makes no difference). My "specialization" of food and shields is the same--all types of food serve as 1 food for survival, and all types of shields contribute 1 shield to the production accumulation box. By giving them different names, however, we allow trade and the concept of supply and demand to manifest itself much more easily. Notice that even this supply and demand concept is watered down--the prices of food and shields are the same for every type of food and shields, with only the concept of "demand capture" to satisfy supply and demand considerations.

Any comments and suggestions are welcome!

 

[rcoutme]

One problem that I see with this model is the assumption that roads are necessary for trade (or viable river/sea routes). From what I understand about early economies, road routes were not 'created by the Government' but rather came about as the route that most merchants happened to take. The later improvement of the roads was more due to the desire to move military units along them than any desire to connect cities for economic purposes. Shouldn't routes be established without roads (albeit at a lesser effect)?

 

[Garbarsardar.jr]

On routes:
I think that a trade route should be considered established under the following conditions:
A. There is a trade-related building in both cities
B. there are no enemy or barb units in one of the possible routes between 2 cities
C. If the route involves jungle or mountain tiles ther must be a road there.
D. There is a river connecting the cities
E.In case of sea routes a harbor/tech that will make the route viable is needed.

I have eliminated the sliders as the primary method of players in allocating resources. The interface I suggest will involve less micromanagement, but I do not have time to explain at this moment.

no pressure but I think we should see a detailed description of the interface at some point...

 

[Shyrramar]

@Shyrramar:

In addition, it appears that I must clarify the role of automation in the UET. Contrary to what appears to be MoO3 economics, the AI controls NOTHING except for performing individual and routine trade deals that the player has configured and initiated. This is about the level of automation currently used in Civ3 for resources--the players has the role of connecting cities and resources, but the AI automatically transfers the resource to every connected city. In fact, the idea for the UET stemmed from my attempt to extend the resource system and generalize it in basic economic terms.

In MoO3 the player CAN control anything, but because of the complexity, rarely anyone does that (too much micromanagement too), but leaves it to the AI - and this of course lessens the control of the player over the happenings in the game. The problem with UET that I see is that you as a player should be able to control every aspect of the trade that goes on and that is potentially tedious and difficult to master. If the player leaves this to AI, then the control is lost. In Civ3 as it is now the player controls everything, but it is not very hard to control it (because the system is so simple). It is perhaps too simple in Civ3, of course. If there are many different goods and the player must choose which cities will trade what with whom, then there is a lot to do for the player. If the situations do not change too often, it might be bearable (to do that about four times a game isn't too much even for over 50 cities, I presume). But the situations would change (new cities would be built, some destroyed, government will change, cities become bigger). And for one, if I have, say, three goods that I can transport outside my city and 49 cities to trade it with, it will be hell of a job to see which would bring me most profit. And as this profit is of course calculatable, the AI could inform me which was the best, right? Why wouldn't I leave it to AI, then? If I leave it to AI, why is the system needed in the first place?

I am sorry, but most parts I seem to be simply too stupid to even understand what it is you are trying to fix here. You can't be arguing for a system that makes to choose all the places where the three goods will be transported to amongst 50 cities. Just imagine the possible combinations there! The only way any mere mortal can handle this is to give some numbers that tell the player what is profitable and what is not. Why would the player then choose one of the less profitable cities? If you are not arguing for this sort of system, what do you argue for actually? You are keeping the conversation in an abstract level so that I have no idea HOW you are going to do this. It is easy to say that the player only chooses the destinations for the goods, but how does the player do this amongst the cities? And if there is the purchasing power and all involved, how can anyone make sense of it all and choose one city amongst the others, IF there is not simply the best alternative but many equally good alternatives? And if there is simply the best alternative, why bother the player with it?

I admit that the UET is currently rather complicated, in spite of its limited scope in true economic terms, but I do not think a "baby-UET" will be necessary--if I simply increase the UET's level of abstraction.

Well, whatever you call it. With baby-UET I mean only a simpler version of UET (as you said earlier that you don't necessary want ALL the ideas to get into the game, but only some - the baby-UET would be those some ideas that you really want to see in the game).

 

[Shyrramar]

I try to keep this next one simple (EDIT: Sorry about the length. It should be banned by some law to make posts as long as these...). Therefore a disclaimer is needed: I do not intend to assert my own opinions with this. This is merely a "second opinion" that tries to defend the Civ-system. These are arguments against the UET in hopes of clarifications and perhaps in hopes to find out what is truly needed and what is not.

The terrain no longer produces "trade." Instead, wealth will be generated through the exchange of various commodities.

The trade produced by the terrain is trade within the tile, between the people working on that tile. Some gather food, some mine and some create goods. The exchange of these goods is measured by "commerce", of which the government can collect taxes to receive money. If the government does not collect it all in taxes, it can make the people happier (by allowing them money to spend) or can put it into development. So the produced wealth is a simple simulation of this exchange of various commodies and taxation.

Food requirements will be constant, but consumer good demands can vary. Every point of population will consume 1 food per turn for survival, but the demand for consumer goods depends upon a global average ratio of supply to population. Failure to satisfy the demand for consumer goods will lead to citizen unhappiness. On the other hand, a supply of surplus consumer goods will generate happiness.

If the supply/demand changes all the time, must the player redirect the goods every turn? Or every other turn? For all the five goods within a city and between all the 50 cities? And each trade will affect the overall supply/demand? I gigantic task, if anything is.

The sale of products generates revenue for the city that sold the products. This will be the basis of the trade and wealth a city generates.

A city's revenue will determine its purchasing power. Purchasing power is a measure of the monetary wealth available to a city; this monetary wealth determines how much the city can purchase from the market.

How will the system start its engine? If I have two cities in the beginning, where do I get the purchasing power that allows the trade to commence? If there is no trade, there is no sale of products and therefore no revenue - and no purchasing power. Am I missing something here? If the city itself does not produce wealth (as you argued some time ago quite fervently, of which I vehemently disagreed with ) how is the wealth produced in the first place?

Markets are limited by transportation. The extent of a particular market is limited to the cities that are connected to it by road, railroad, sea, or air.

Yes, this is simulated by Civ as it is. Nothing to comment here.

Roads that allow cities to initiate trade will generate trade. Any road that allows a trade to occur is a trade route. Every trade route will generate trade along its length, simulating travel and shipping industries, and multiple trade routes can use the same path. This will allow that path to accumulate in amount of trade generated.

So is this the answer to my earlier inquiries? That roads generate the wealth in the beginning? Like in Civ3 now, but only between cities (and yes, I disagree with this. It is simply absurd that roads withing settlements within a city-radius do not create wealth, but between different city-radii it does?)

Upgrading transportation will increase the amount of "trade-route trade" generated. Therefore, railroads (and possibly highways?) will increase the level of trade generating by "trade-accomodating" industries.

This is a good idea. This might even be independent of the UET, by the way. Roads between two cities increase the commerce produced by the cities by a certain percent, railroads increase this and so on. This would keep this idea without mixing it with anything else from the UET. This percentual increase in produced commerce would simulate this increase in trade you are talking about here without actually forcing the player to oversee this trade himself.

The central government can subsidize or divert production to certain projects. In nonrepresentative forms of government, the central government may assist a city in a project by diverting shields from the local market supply to the city. In representative forms of government, the central government may offer monetary subsidies to a city to boost the city's purchasing power and therefore allow it to purchase more shields from the market to speed the project.

The purchasing of units in Civ3 simulates this well enough. As I argued before, there is no real difference between giving 10 gold to the construction of an unit per turn and so lowering the construction time from 10 turns to five and paying the whole 50 gold in one turn when the unit has been in building process for five turns. The latter is only a bit simpler. The former a bit more realistic. But the effect is the same, so I would go with the latter (existing) system, even though it is a juicy thought what you have presented here (that also is included in MoO3, by the way).

Local and provincial governments require maintenance. Not only will this serve to check the expansion of empires, these costs will model the effect of government employment on the economy. Notice, however, that these funds from the central government go into paying for local government workers that contribute to the city's economy. Therefore, these administrative costs actually increase the city's income and boost the economy!

If this is supposed to check the expansion of empires, what's the point of it actually increasing income? What I mean is that if you get some and lose some, why not simulate this by the mere sum of them? If you lose two but gain one gold, why not simulate this by simply making the player lose the one gold? As far as I can see, this is because of the difference between city's economy and government's economy, right? Perhaps a more detailed explanation would be in order?

City improvement maintenance increases city income. Again, these maintenance funds from the central government end up paying local workers that contribute to the city's economy. Abundant government activity therefore boosts local economies (at a monetary cost to the central government).

Same as above. By the way, if central government's economy is dependent on the cities' economy, what's the ratio here? Wouldn't the boost in local economies boost the central government also? And if so, will the boost be greater than the money spent on the local economy by the central government? It cannot, I presume, because then it would be just great to maintain more buildings! If it is not greater, why do we need the local economy's boost anyway? If the maintenance is two gold, it boosts the economy by one gold, why not make the maintenance one gold and therefore effectively (once again) simulate this whole system without bothering the player with the details?

Military units consume 1 shield, 1 food, and 1 gold each in maintenance. Although seemingly excessive, these costs go back into the economy. The shields and food will be purchased by the central government from available markets with federal funds (at market prices), which will boost the purchasing power of all cities involved. The 1 gold maintenance per unit will also go back to the home cities of the units, to further boost purchasing power of those cities. (In addition, building military units actually uses up 1 population point each, so recruitment will decrease city populations while disbanding will increase them.) Military expenditures (the "defense budget") will clearly have major effects upon the economy.

The idea about military units consuming food is fine, but in practice I do not know. I find it quite hard to accept that a military group is really one population worth of warriors. The shields will be taken from the city's production, right? That would be like Civ2, right? Perhaps there is a good reason that it isn't in Civ3 anymore?

There will be no more generic food or shields. All food and shields will be specified--ocean squares might produce 2 fish, grasslands could produce 2 wheat, "wheat resource" squares could produce 4 wheat, and so forth.

This all goes back to the points made earlier about the player controlling this all and if not, then AI and so on...

All types of food and all types of shields have the same non-economic effects. Whether it is game or wheat or cattle, it will count as 1 food as far as population survival and growth are concerned. A unit of iron or stone or aluminum would all contribute one unit to the accumulation of production.

Types of food and shields that are in lesser supply in a market will capture the demand of more common types of food and shields. Therefore, although a unit of fish and a unit of wheat will both add one unit to the granary, a city producing fish would prefer to purchase wheat.

So I would be forced to all the time change what people are doing? They should be transferred from harvesting wheat to fishing whales because the demands and supplies change? I always thought that the special resources (such as whales and gold) were there to simulate this. More gold or more production from the special resources that are rare. This of course presupposes that the "standard" resources are available. Yes, I guess it could be made so that if I had alot of gold in my nation, the surplus given by additional goldmines would be lesser. Unless you explain better how in practice this whole system is run by the player, I can do nothing but presume this or that, so I guess I'll wait until that.

Hopefully these points have given you some thoughts. I would be glad to hear the responses to these arguments (some of them are quite artificial, but they are intended to start conversation).

 

[Ultraworld]

re-trade: http://www2.vhl.tudelft.nl/~emile/civilization/trade_idea.html

The trade produced by the terrain is trade within the tile, between the people working on that tile. Some gather food, some mine and some create goods. The exchange of these goods is measured by "commerce", of which the government can collect taxes to receive money. If the government does not collect it all in taxes, it can make the people happier (by allowing them money to spend) or can put it into development. So the produced wealth is a simple simulation of this exchange of various commodies and taxation.

Best thing of course is if they would make it editable

 

[polypheus]

In reading Ultraworld's idea, it makes me even more feel that trade routes is vital to modelling economics. It doesn't have to be "Colonization" or "Rail Road Tycoon" style detail but perhaps at least trade routes showing the raw materials and finished goods being exchanged along that path.

Modify of course for the time period and level of technology, the trade "efficiency" will depend on the details of the difficulty/distance of the route and also if the route needs to go through middle-men who will take a cut. But even if there is no middle-men, there is necessarily "losses" due to distance.

Remember that one of the driving forces of history is nations trying to setup and build new more profitable trade routes to bypass middlemen. But at the same time small nations acting as traders/middlemen also profitted greatly.

There trade routes could also be disrupted and attacked but the implementation of this would need to be done so that it is not an "easy" thing to do. For example, if I have trade route between "Spain" and "New World", and "England" try to disrupt the shipping, it is same as "England" went and attacked one of my ships and is an act of war.

 

[polypheus]

I think that before moving on, we need to start from "first principles" concering UET (and any other grand scheme). Of course, I don't expect everyone to agree with these principles but here is what I think IMHO:

1. To the extent possible and with enjoyment/playability in mind, we should implement the features that "increase the overall historic realism" of the game. If it does not do this, then it is probably not a key feature/concept to focus on. One of the things Trade-peror has said is that in real history, economics is primary driver and so I agree that the economic model should lead to that in Civ 4 as well.

2. I believe that we should also implement the features using "Occam's Razor" philosophy. That is we should not put in details that unnecessarily complicate things without really accomplishing anything in terms of "increasing overall historic realism".

Thus, for example, Ultraworld's idea of trade paths and middle-men concepts, IMHO, readily satisfy these principles because if these concepts are implemented, I believe it really will substantially change the game to make it more "overall realistic" and add a needed element that currently is not remotely modelled in Civ 3.

OTHO, Sharraymar's critique also show that some of the other ideas of UET really if you examine the "core" or "substance" of some of the idea, shows that some of them are creating unnecessary detail and complication and does not really contribute to making the "overall" Civ economic model more "overall realistic" not that they aren't good ideas. And in fact some of them are already modelled in Civ 3 to a good extent (as Sharraymar points out).

So with these "principles" in mind, we should work to focus on the "core", "revolutionary" concepts of UET and go from there. Once the core concepts are found then discussing details may be appropriate.

 

[Trade-peror]

WOW! Shyrramar, your analysis of my UET summary was concise (relatively ) but thorough, and exposes the pieces that I have forgotten to mention. If only you could edit all of my works...

Anyway, I do hope you will allow me to address these issues. Here goes:

Actually, before I start, I should mention this (which should also be placed in the summary for clarification): all cities will consume what they need for survival on a particular turn, and all surplus food/shields/whatever will be placed on the market that the city is part of. In effect, with a city by itself, it will place its surplus goods on market, see that it is the only participant in the market, and purchase all of its own goods again. The net effect of this self-exchange is none, in terms of trade. With 50 cities, all of the surplus goods of the 50 cities will be placed on the market (not unlike a giant auction) and then each city, with what purchasing power it has, will buy as many goods as possible from this market for storage or use on building a unit or structure. Therefore, the player will not even be able to direct which cities trade with which, or which products go where, on an individual city-to-city basis. Hopefully this makes the rest of the UET somewhat more understandable.

Next, I note that the varying consumer product demand seems immensely complicating. That is not true, since the only change is that the number of consumer products a citizen demands per turn changes, which has little effect upon the marketplace other than perhaps slightly raised prices or a shortage or two. I already mentioned that the player cannot ironhandedly redirect the supplies of consumer products everywhere, as that is not how the market works (for the sake of simplicity ) In fact, the only reason I even put in this rule is to allow earlier civs to get away with providing few consumer products at all, but force more modern civs to address its voracious, materialistic citizens .

The way the economy of the civ "starts its engine" is through government employment--namely, local government maintenance and funding city improvements. This boost provides the purchasing power for the first few purchases that will stimulate trade in other cities.

Roads do not generate trade simply by connecting cities--they only generate trade if a transaction has had to use that road to occur. Therefore, a road that connects two cities that never trade with each other will not generate any trade along its length. On the other hand, the more transactions that use a particular road, the more valuable that road becomes.

Again, I argue that my subsidization is different from Civ's "hurry production" because every shield can be traced back to the city where it was produced. With hurry production, the shields are purchased from nowhere. The effect of the UET subsidization is that a civ that has little or no production in any of its cities cannot subsidize to much effect, in spite of massive available wealth, because the civ is trying to purchase shields that do not exist. In Civ, such a civ would probably be able to hurry as many improvements as it could afford, with no regard to the actual production capacity of the civ.

As for the central government boost to local economies, I already mentioned the most important function of this as boosting purchasing power for the city that receives the funding. If the city purchases products with it, then the money flows to the seller, which could also be of the same civ. In this case, the money stays in the civ, and the central government's outlays would equal its income (there is no ratio that causes a loss in converting between local and central government funds). This is not entirely redundant because the central government income will then be used to fund science, the military, and so forth. However, if the trades occur with foreign civs, then money can be lost (or gained) between civs, and this is the basis of trade balances. Therefore, it is not always a good idea to trade with other civs, if the trade balance will be heavily against you (as is a consideration in reality)!

Concerning military unit maintenance, note that all of these materials are purchased from the market--therefore, the shields are indeed from the cities, but which city is not known and not relevant. The involved cities put surplus production up for sale, and it makes no difference to those cities whether the surpluses are purchased by other cities, or the central government to maintain the military. As for the use of one population point for building military units, the current scale of population makes this seem quite excessive, but I am planning to redefine one population unit as 1,000 people for the UET. This makes the population costs reasonable, and will make the scale of city populations, in terms of population points, much larger.

As I had explained in my previous post, the different types of food and shields is just a matter of assigning different names, just as the luxuries in Civ3 have 8 different names but all function identically. The different naming allows for better demand and supply considerations. For example, a civ could "compete" with another civ by supplying a rarer type of shield and perhaps drive the other civ out of a particular market for shields. The buyers could care less (for the sake of simplicity), as all types of shields cost the same and function identically. As for the "standard resource," I had considered using the generic food and shields. I decided, however, to instead have local "standard" resources, in the form of the resource most abundant in the particular market. So the "standard" food for a coastal civ is fish, while the "standard" food for an inland civ is wheat. Trade between the two civs could allow fish to be sold inland and wheat to be sold by the coast, and each would be considered "exotic" by the market in which it is sold.

Hopefully most points have been addressed. If not, then please offer more questions and suggestions!

 

[GeZe]

maybe there could be trade between cities and rural areas (see my sig) this would solve the problem of no trade when you have 1 city.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Huh? You call that CONCISE???
I'm afraid that I haven't looked properly at all of the posts since Friday, but the one thing that DID stand out was the bagging of the CtP trade route system! Now, don't get me wrong, it did in some ways annoy me but, at the same time, I felt that it did offer a good starting point for a decent 'trade routes' system.
In my model, you start with the basic trade premise of CtP, but add the following improvements:

1) The only people who can normally see a trade route are the people between whom the trade deal exists. This will prevent players (or the AI) from simply beelining towards an enemies trade route. A vessel which passes within, say, two hexes of an active trade route will be able to see it.

2) Not ALL vessels will be able to break/pirate a trade route, and some vessels will be better at it than others. Basically, in my model, trade routes will have an inherent 'strength' which reflects the difficulty a vessel will have breaking or pirating it! In addition, like the 'bombardment strength' and 'R of F' stat for bombardment in Civ3, certain vessels will have a 'strength' rating for determining their chances of breaking of pirating a trade route-along with the number of times, per turn, that they can attempt it!

3) Number 2 is an abstraction to represent an 'escort' for trade vessels. Of course a player or AI could send out extra escorts, in the form of actual naval vessels, by giving them 'sentry duty'.

By implementing these ideas, it removes all of the most annoying elements of the CtP trade system, whilst at the same time giving your navy a job worth doing!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Tell me something, though, guys. Do we AT LEAST agree that some sort of proper commodity/finished goods trade needs to implemented-in parallel to the existing one with luxury/strategic resources?
If we can agree on that point, at least, then I would be happy to make a start on an 'Initial Ideas' document for rcoutme's 'civ4 consolidation thread'!
So what do we say, can we start putting down what parts of the economy model we can definitely ALL agree on (or, at least, get a majority for), so that I can make a start tonight?

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[Trade-peror]

@rcoutme:

Actually, I originally had a clause in the UET summary stating that the distance traveled between two cities also limits the possibility of a trade occurring. The original intention was to increase the incentive for upgrading transportation, which would ease this limit. In addition, the lack of transportation would mean very limited (but not impossible) trade. With this system, a trade between two cities would occur if the movement distance between two cities was less than the limiting number. Without roads, this number would be at face value; with roads, this value would in effect be tripled, and the same would apply to more advanced forms of transportation (no mode of transportation should be instantaneous, however). Perhaps I should add this feature back into the summary?


@polypheus:

I respect your logical approach to analyzing the UET, such as by starting with core concepts and then working down, but I would like for you to perhaps specify what portions of the UET you think do not contribute to enhancing Civ's overall historical realism. I personally do not see any portion of the UET to be unnecessary detail, so perhaps I have not sufficiently described a feature or its implications, and I would be much obliged if I have a chance to clarify.


@Aussie_Lurker:

Of course, I meant Shyrramar was relatively concise, for all the material he was covering.

As for whether everyone agrees on trade of production, I would say it appears that most do want commodity trade (not necessarily the way I have proposed), although I cannot speak for everyone. By the way, I am also in the Economic "committee" of the Consolidation Project, so I should perhaps get started as well...after most of these issues have been cleared.

 

[Trade-peror]

I have updated the UET summary to version 1.3, adding a market mechanics clarification or two, the representation of one population point, and several Urban Sprawl ideas primarily from my old Integrated Interface thread (link in signature).

 

[rcoutme]

@Trade-peror I just want to clarify this, a very wealthy nation that has very little production (almost an oxy-moron in your system, btw) would still be able to buy lots of shields if he went to the international market, yes? In addition, I would suggest that creation of a mercantile fleet be a useful addition to your proposal. Thus, having harbors would assist trade some, having a viable mercantile fleet would assist it in a much bigger way.

Just because you have the facilities to receive ships does not mean that all those ships are in existence. The people who actually ship the goods tend to get lots of the cash generated in the transactions. Liberia has loads of 'Flagged' ships, probably due to a low tax rate, few regulations, etc. However, early on in history (probably up until about 1950) nations were doing their damndest to make sure that they had a fleet that was carrying goods, and also, btw, making sure that they protected that fleet from pirates!

Getting back to Aussie's ideas. I had suggested (in another thread) that a new unit (Sea Transport or some such) should be added. This would be necessary (you could actually make it 'Trade Route' thus requiring it on land as well) in order to trade goods (i.e. resources) between nations.

The basic ideas are as follows:

The Trade Route unit would have a fixed movement base. The unit could be accompanied by troops and/or naval units. For a standard map (of Civ3) the movement would likely be about 10. Any unit accompanying the Trade Route would, in effect, be taken out of play until it returned to its place of origen.

The Trade Route would be limited in that it would have to pay all terrain costs. To simulate the ease of travel over water, the unit might get a 1/5 movement point cost for water squares. The TR unit would be allowed to use existing roads and/or rail movement to speed up its trip.

An unguarded TR unit could be attacked by pirates, bandits, combat naval vessels, and military units. Doing so would be an act of war (except in the case of hidden nationality).

When a trade between two civs was set up, the agreement would have to specify who will carry the goods back and forth. Note that because of the nature of trade, the trade route would carry the goods each turn. Thus this would be a highly specialized system where, in effect, there would simply be a line showing where the trade route travels. Any units being used to guard the route would be assumed to be out on the route and would have an 'intercept' capability to protect against pirates and such. If there were enough units to protect the entire route, the interception would be automatic.

So, how would this look? Well, there would be a line connecting the two cities producing the trade route. The route would be mapped out by the owning player. The computer would suggest the shortest route, however the player could alter it based on his decision to want to avoid barbarians, enemies, etc.

Suppose we had two civs whose cities were 15 squares apart (how the cities that are trading the goods is irrelevant at the moment, someone else can figure that out--however, I suspect that defining it as the cites producing the resources or the capital for money would make the most sense). If only one TR unit was assigned to the route (more than one can be assigned, and this might be very useful as will become evident) then it would take two turns before the TR arrived from the owning civ (assuming that there was not any terrain that cost more than one mp). It would only take one turn to return to the city of origen since it would still have 5 mp left after dropping off the goods.

Now, on turn 1 (for kicks and grins let's suppose it is silk for gpt) the silks are not at the receiving capital. Neither side has those silks (i.e. those silks do not cause happiness on the first turn). On turn 2, the receiving civ has silks (and his people are happy) however, the money for the silks has not arrived yet at the selling civ's city. Thus, that money is 'on route'. Also on turn 2, the next cargo of silks heads out (it will arrive on turn 3). Since the route is only 15 squares long, there are only ever going to be two caravans moving along the route. If two army units are assigned to protect the route, then protection will be automatic (if bandits attacked, interception would occur). In this case, the selling civ must wait until turn 3 before he starts to see any money from his sale. The buying civ waits until turn 2 before he sees any happiness.

Here's where the fun begins. The silks, the money paid, or both can be pirated/pillaged. The pillager would have to figure out where the route was and take a chance on actually intercepting the route (it would not be automatic). Not only would an attempt to interdict the route not be automatic, but the pillager would not even know if he were actually on a route, or what it was carrying!

Since the fastest route would be the one chosen by the computer, a savvy guess might be that the best way to pillage a route would be to try it on that idea. This is why the owner of the route might very well decide to take a longer path than is actually necessary.

To be continued.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

I'm actually thinking that the CtP method for trade was the best-a model similar to what rcoutme is suggesting.
I'm not bothered, though, by trade being 'instantaneous', given how long a turn actually IS! I just feel that some, albiet abstract method, should exist for determining if a trade route can be pirated or in any other way interfered with!!
I personally feel that, as time progresses and you obtain new and relative techs, then the 'relative value' of a new trade route will increase (to reflect increased speed and volume of trade) and the 'strength' of any new trade routes will also increase! Everything else, IMHO, can be left abstract, without harming the game overmuch!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[rcoutme]

When the goods don't show up in one or the other of the cities, (assuming a successful pillage) a message would arrive instead saying (for example), "Sire, news has come from the silk merchants that their caravan was attacked and destroyed by bandits (this would mean land--sea would be pirates), it is believed that the bandits were [insert nationality]." If the bandits were barbarians (i.e. not a player civ) then there would be little that could be done other than going out and looking for the nasty, little boogers! If there was a player civ involved but that civ had not been contacted yet by the civ owning the caravan route, then no DoW occurs. If there was a player civ involved and it did know the owning player, then this interdiction would be an act of war. In the case of hidden nationality units, the rumors would say that the attackers were of unknown origen.

Next part of this: Traversing someone else's territory. I would propose that Right of Passage be severely changed. Allowing military units RoP should be considered an Act of Belligerence against any nation that the signers happen to be at war with. Thus, if you allow military units from Civ B to go through your territory (with a RoP agreement) and Civ B is at war with Civ C, then Civ C can declare war on you with no reputation hit. (This was the reason that Belgium was attacked by Germany in WWI, because Belgium refused RoP. The French had warned Belgium that allowing the RoP would be considered belligerence against it, so the Belgians were in a "Damned if you do, Damned if you don't" situation. Incidentally, the British did not declare war on Germany until it violated Belgian neutrality.)

Now, for the trade part. Allowing trade routes through your sovereign territory would not be an act of belligerence, even if the routes were protected by military units. A nation would be permitted to negotiate the passage of routes through its territory and would be permitted to block them as well. If a nation chose to disallow trade RoP through its territory, then any trade route that passed through would not be allowed to keep its military escort. Only during a time of war, would a trade route be blocked altogether. The reason is: merchants find a way! Thus, if an obnoxious civ disallowed trade through its borders (or you chose to not negotiate the trade route through) then the TR unit would gain no benefit for roads/railways through that territory. In addition, if such a route had not been negotiated, then the civ whose land was being violate (sort of ) wou be allowed to try to make free pillaging attempts. These attempts would have to occur within its own borders (in effect, they are confiscating goods from smugglers).

Each combat unit would have a special order called "Pillage Trade Route". The unit would have to spend its entire turn trying to do this (i.e. it would not be allowed to move and then pillage or pillage and then move). If more than one trade route was going through the square that the unit was pillaging, only one route would be able to be pillaged by that unit (maybe allow blitz units as many as they get attacks).

Note that trade routes could go through foreign cities, foreign harbors, any route that the owning player specified. Additionally, a trade route would not be destroyed just because it had been pillaged (as they stupidly did in CTP), only the goods being carried that turn by that portion of the route would be lost. Trade would go on (unless the owning player was unwilling to continue) for as long as the trade agreement was kept. Trade caravans could only be destroyed by deliberately attempting to destroy them. This would be a different order and each route piece would need to be hunted down. Thus, if a route was the 15 squares above, then there would be 3 pieces. If only one piece was destroyed, then the other pieces would know the route and be part of the 'company'. The unit would take, perhaps, one hp of damage.

Although I have not really finished all the workup on this, my intial thoughts are that TR units would be built with a certain number of hp specified by the creator. When the unit fell below its needed hp to complete the route, then the route would be carried out inefficiently (or not at all).

In this system, when a trade agreement was broken due to a trade route being broken, the owning player of the route would be the one who received the reputation hit.

The TR unit would be able to be used as an integral part of the entire economic system, or it could be used as only a system between two or more different civs. A civ could 'lease' its TR units to carry trade for other civs. TR units would retain their nationality, but that does not mean that their own civ must be part of the trade agreement route.

Note that anyone that was part of an agreement with a TR unit would automatically know its route. Thus, let's assume that Civ A is sending silks to Civ B for saltpeter, and then sending that saltpeter to Civ C for gpt. During its voyage from A to B, the route goes through D. From B to C it travels through E. Civ A would know the entire route (since it is trading both goods). Civ B would know the route from Civ A to the border with E (since it would know of any trade in its own borders if the same TR unit was being used). Civ C would know the route from B to C. Civ D would only know the route through its own territory. Civ E would only know the route through its own territory. (To prevent a loophole, the routes would end in the center of the tile for which a non-owning civ would see the route. They would have to guess which way the route went after leaving their borders).

No civ that is part of a route would be allowed to prevent the route from going through any part of its contiguous borders (i.e. if England of the real world were shipping stuff to the US and then going on to Mexico, the US player would not be allowed to pillage stuff just because the route did not go directly back to England. However, if the English player sent the route through Alaska and did not have a TR RoP, any units in Alaska could sieze the contraband goods--although that would probably really, really piss off the English player!).

 

[rcoutme]

One final note on this idea (note to moderators, I am not attempting to spam, I just happened to have a long, long message and did not want to exceed the limit for size of a thread): When a pillaging attempt is successful, the pillager would have the option of not destroying any part of the TR unit (i.e not inflicting any damage). This might be desireable to a player because he may be pillaging a route and want the route to continue so that he could continue to pillage it! The owning player would not necessarily know where the pillaging unit is! On any given turn a route could be changed (for travel plans, not destination, of course), however, where the pillaging units are would only be known if the owning player had successfully intercepted the pillager and his combat units were destroyed. Thus, pillagers and traders would be able to play a rather fun 'cat and mouse' game if they so chose.