The Unified Economic Theory

[Aussie_Lurker]

Hi Rcoutme,

Your idea seems quite sound and, in fact, closely mirrors that used in the 'Call to Power' Series. I do believe, though, that for your system to work well, it would need to be incorporated with a wholly new system for determining population numbers. Which, I confess, I haven't given enough thought to !

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[rcoutme]

As to some of the criticisms (all well taken, truly), you asked me to imagine a city (Hartford, Connecticut, cough, cough) that devoted all of its people to producing wealth (insurance business, predominantly). They would all be dealing with the same commodities (fear) and so would not be able to generate more wealth.

I simply have to disagree. Although the concepts you are applying are true, the game would correct such foibles due to the disadvantages of tweaking in this way. Still, I do realize that the CtP model may have to have a lot more thinking done (i.e. how many people represent what).

BTW, Wall Street and NYC anyone? Yes, I know that NY does have some factories, but the enormous amount of wealth produced by the city has virtually nothing to do with the inherent production of goods in the city. In my model, NYC would predominantly be merchants.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Hi Rcoutme,

Just so you know, I wasn't actually criticising your idea-as I liked the CtP model of specialisation. I especially like it because it would help to fit into my idea of 'demographics'. I do think that the kinds of specialists that you can have should be, in some way, dictated by the number of type of improvements that the city has. For example, if for some reason your city had a lot of production improvements, then it would make sense that the city would be comprised predominantly with labourers-and hence be a 'Working Class' city. Same with Science and Wealth improvements.
I also do agree that the potential for 'merchants/tax collectors' to be able to generate wealth should be in some way tied to the output of the other cities in your trade network. So, if your civ is unproductive in shields/food/beakers, then the ability of your 'wealth generators' should be severely hampered. Which is, I assumeis pretty much what you're getting at, Rcoutme, when you warn against players tweaking things in such a way !

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[rcoutme]

Exactly. In additon, the micromanagement system can be hampered (and thus players essentially forced to allow the governors to do some of the job) by using the turn timer system already in place in the "Simultaneous Moves" system of MP. Early on, you can easily micromanage. Later in the game, if you have a lot of units, then you just do not have enough time to micromanage everything, so you set the governors to something resembling reason and hope for the best.

This also allows for the randomness of people not always doing what you might deem best. Although sort of anti-Civ in concept, it actually does add flavor in reality: If my civ gets to big, handling it can become difficult or even nearly impossible.

Thus, there would need to be more options to direct the AI governors (i.e. those working for the player). This could include town/city/megalopolis controllers (i.e. concentrate of food in towns, production in cities, production and science in meg's). Also, the governors would have to not argue a change, just allow it and only change back or alter after the production or population changed. (If I tell the governor that this citizen is now an entertainer, he doesn't quit, he just deals with it and leaves him there!)

========================================================
Trade_perror: getting back to your system (I'm trying to understand, really I am...) with turn 55 above: why would City C sell its beef at all? If the steaks are more desireable than the wheat from the other cities, then why do the herders from City C sell the food at all? If they have excess food, why sell the good stuff, if all they can buy from Cities A & B is wheat (i.e. generic food)? I am still at a loss as to how the trade is getting created. What goods are Cities A & B producing that City C wants? If A & B are producing these goods, then why isn't wealth created in City A all alone once it has two population points (don't the farmers in city A want whatever goods their own artisans create)?

 

[Trade-peror]

@rcoutme:

I greatly appreciate the fact that you actually consider my criticisms at all! In many cases I have no idea whether my point ever gets across…

Anyway, your Hartford example is quite interesting. Certainly insurance brokers and other “services” businesses do not fit into my production-based model (trading “fear” as a commodity! ). Note, however, that I represent these “accommodating” businesses through the additional trade that active roads generate. Again, I am not reverting to Civ’s style of road = trade, for I allow roads to be lucrative only if they actually serve to facilitate trade (roads in the middle of nowhere remain roads in the middle of nowhere and do nothing else).

Before that seems just as arbitrary as Civ currently has it, allow me to say that my modification ultimately still connects every aspect of the economy to production, and rightfully so. In your Hartford example, for instance, the fact that there are so many insurance brokers that are getting wealthy without actually producing anything material is definitely true, but note that the possibility of such a situation remains dependent upon the rest of the economy. If there were few production-based firms, and therefore few products, then how many people are going to go buy the insurance for them? If people are just going to trade with their immediate neighbors and no one else, then how many people are going to buy insurance to ensure the shipment of goods? Clearly very few, and Hartford’s situation stems from the demands of the rest of America for insurance. Otherwise, wouldn’t you expect many Hartfords out there? Why would anyone do actual work and produce commodities if “making money” was as easy as selling insurance, which has no material expenses?

In addition, notice that no ancient city was ever in the situation Hartford is in. This is due to the fact that ancient civilizations did not have the scale of production to make insurance a viable business in of itself. Otherwise, there is little reason why Hartfords should not have developed long ago—insurance is abstract and immaterial, so the level of technology has no effect. The fact remains, however, that “Hartfords” are fairly recent phenomena, the specialized pieces of a mature and robust economy, and are conspicuously absent from poorer, developing nations of even the present day.

I do agree, however, that life insurance does not require products, and I concede that a number of other services are certainly not production-based, and instead population-based, but the significance of such sectors is minimal in the complete absence of production. I try to compensate for most such services in my active-road bonuses.

Also, I disagree with the rationalization that the game “would correct such foibles due to the disadvantages of tweaking in this way.” Although any flaws will likely be insignificant in the beginning, the larger scale of the economy later will reveal such shortfalls to be glaring. Maybe this example will make some sense:

A size 3 city with 2 farmers farming squares generating 3 food each (irrigated grasslands) would be able to support 1 merchant. This is reasonable.

A later size 20 city with 10 farmers farming squares generating 4 food each (irrigated grasslands with railroads?) would be able to support 10 merchants. Notice that the percentage of the population as merchants has jumped from 33% to 50%. This detail alone is fine and reasonable, but the fact that wealth is based on merchants means revenue has jumped to 10 times the original while actual production has increased only 5 times. Trade by definition is the trade of goods, and trade produces wealth only through people valuing commodities differently. Therefore, how is it possible for wealth to increase faster than the basis of wealth?

As for Wall Street and New York City, I do admit that my model would likely have trouble portraying such rich-without-production situations, unless a liberal interpretation was used . However, I do not quite agree with your model portraying NYC to be predominantly merchants. Although the wealth-without-production effect would be could be easily portrayed in such a manner, your system allows this to happen independent of other cities. Do you think New York City could exist by itself, independent of the industries of America? I know the answer is obvious—no—but unfortunately it is possible to do that with your model. Furthermore, how does New York City feed itself? It certainly does not grow enough food to support its population. Yet the fact remains that New York City has a population of over 7 million living comfortably, but does not grow enough food to feed itself. The obvious explanation is that the food is imported, that NYC depends upon the rest of the food network of the country to survive. Similarly, it cannot be possible for NYC to be so affluent independent of the rest of the economy of the country, and this fact can be bypassed with your model.

I will in fact even say that NYC does not generate that much wealth; it is merely the location of a concentration of wealth. The city could as well be Chicago, Seattle, Los Angeles, Leipzig, Bogota, Nagasaki, Shenzhen, wherever, for what does the city contribute to the wealth? NYC is not responsible for the wealth; it is those who reside there that do, and they could as well reside anywhere. My model has such people reside where their company operates, and therefore cannot display such concentrations of wealth. How many CEOs live in NYC that actually have NYC as an important contributor to their corporations’ profits?

Finally, I do say that your system, rcoutme, is vastly superior to Civ’s system, and I think it would generally work well in Civ, besides being very easy for players to adjust to, transitioning from Civ economics. However, I do think there are a few flaws in terms of theory that I hope can be fixed in a manner consistent with the rest of the model. Then your system would be the perfect combination of theory and playability, as opposed to my theoretically competent but somewhat complicated economic model. I will continue to try to streamline what I can, and I look forward to hearing what you may come up with next!

 

[Trade-peror]

@rcoutme:

Sorry my turn explanations may not have been entirely clear. Anyway, hopefully this will clear some things up:

City C will decide to sell its beef because it is trying to get the best deal in terms of trade. Considering that City C is smaller than City A and City B, it will emphasize growth more. Therefore, it wants the most food possible. Cows and “food” are the same in terms of the ability to promote growth, but since cows are more valuable, City C can sell a number of cows and use that money to buy MORE food than would be available if the cows were all kept. Thus does City C hasten its growth.

As mentioned/implied above, City A and City B produce “food” that City C demands. As for City A begin alone, City A DOES create more wealth—just not in the form of money. Note that the purpose of money is only to make trade easier—if City A has no one to trade with anyway, then why bother?

Still, I think those are good questions, and hopefully I have answered them…if not, then please post more!

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

You see, thats what I was getting at when I was saying that how much wealth your merchants and financial improvements make-for a given city-should depend on the strength of your OVERALL economy (not the city's, but the entire Civ)-whether that economy by commodity or luxury based, or both!
I also think that a road should grant a ONE-TIME-ONLY wealth bonus when it connects a city to the trade network!
I really do agree with Rcoutme's specialisation idea, though. I think that it could work better in the abstract, though! i.e. that 'head' in your city screen obviously isn't one person-it represents 1000's of people. By making that head a merchant, or a scientist, it doesn't mean that you've created 10,000 scientists/merchants-for example-it just means that you've made a slight majority of that number into scientists. As a better example, lets say that 1 pop head=10,000 people. If you change nothing, then the relative real numbers of people in this group might be 5000 labourers, 3000 farmers, 1000 scientists and 1000 merchants. By changing the pop-head to a merchant, then the ratios are more like 3000 merchants, 1000 scientists, 2000 farmers and 4000 labourers. At least, thats how I see it! The number of pop-heads you can specialise in this way should be limited, though, by the number of appropriate improvements in your city! You can go above that limit-but it will give you no benefit AND will only contribute to your city's unemployment and crime!
'Birth of the Federation' had a good system, where you built x number of production improvements, x number of food-generating improvements and so on. You then 'assigned' your population to these improvements-with each 1 million people being able to man 1 improvement. If you had too many improvements for the population, then you were just paying maintainance for no gain.
Personally, I think the best thing would be to have a % slider-both at city and national level-where you can adjust the % of your population that will be labourers, merchants, farmers scientists and the like-as it would work irrespective of what kind of measure you had for population. The same potential problems would exist, though, as what I mentioned above!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[rcoutme]

Ok, here goes again. The problem that I still have in understanding this model is this. If City C already has as much food as it needs, then why would it sell better food for lesser food?

For example: In a wonderful series known as The Belgariad, Silk is buying turnips to sell at a port city (he doesn't need the money, but is using the turnip trade as a reason to be on the road). He explains the transaction to Garion (a 15 yr old boy) as such IIRC: I pay the farmer 3 silver pieces per cartload. When we reach the city, I will find someone with a warehouse and he will pay me about 7 sp per cartload. He will find a ship captain and sell for 10 sp per cartload and the shipcaptain will transport the turnips to another city and sell them for 20 sp per cartload. Garion comments that the values seem horribly unfair to the farmer and Silk replies that that's just the way things are.

Now, the farmer in this example will never, ever, under any circumstances buy turnips this year as he already has all the turnips he could possibly want. The farmer wants to buy tools, animals, etc. to run his farm and also clothing etc. to make his life more enjoyable. All of the clothiers, toolmakers, etc. are not represented in games such as Civilization because that would be both way too tedious and probably far too complex for even the DoD computers to run.

Still, a single city could perform the first 3 transactions (getting to the warehouse) and then the guy with the warehouse could sell the turnips in open market in the same city to which Silk had brought them. If I understand the system that you proposed (i.e. UET) then this would have the effect of producing only warehouses of food that must be sold to another city. The problem I have is this: why would another city buy my food if they already produce as much as they need?

I suppose that one could assume that the particular types of food produced in each city are different (corn in one city, turnips in another, etc) but this hardly seems like a means of generating a flourishing trade network. If I am a farmer, getting garden veggies may be nice, but I would prefer boots and maybe a horse to pull a plow which I also need to buy. These goods would be produced in any ancient city, independent of whether or not they knew of another large ancient city (the horse might not be available, but then I want to hire some landless peasants and make them pull the plow! )

Why would a city not produce monetary commerce until after it had established trade with another city. This is the part that really confuses me? Additionally, selling food to a city that produces a lot of food seems to violate the principle of Demand that I remember from my Macroeconomics class 20 years ago.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

I think the best way to solve this discussion is to simply leave commodities, in civ4, as purely abstract-as they have been in civs 1 to 3! Basically food is food and shields are shields. Within a nation, the value of commodity trading should be based simply on distance and relative wealth factors. That is to say, a poor city will pay less for commodities than a wealthy city but, by the same token, they will get less for commodities they sell. If, however, the city is FAR from the capital-then the value placed on their commodities will be greatly increased. The flip side is that they have to PAY more for any commodities they recieve. Think of it this way, pineapples and silks were incredibly valueable to the Europeans-not because they were inherently valuable, neccessarily, but because they came from distant lands and were somehow.....EXOTIC ! Same with tea!
The only exception I would make to this level of abstraction is in relation to Trade-Peror's idea for turning some shields into 'Consumer Goods'. In trade terms, these shields would have a slightly greater value than 'mere production shields'.
Anyway, thats just how I see it!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[Trade-peror]

@rcoutme:
Sorry, it is late for me now and I will have to be brief, so please ask me to clarify later!

City C does have the food it needs--in the form of cows. Let us say 5 cows, for example. If these 5 cows are sold, however, City C may earn enough money to buy 7 food. Since 1 cow has the effect of 1 food for growth purposes, this transaction will boost City C's growth rate since it will now have 7 food, rather than 5 (in the form of cows).

As for your example, sorry I do not have time right now to be specific, but I will address the main issue. WHAT determines the amount of silver each party is willing to pay? In the end, does the city as a whole still have the same amount of money? Also, a city would NOT buy food from another city if the first city produced enough (i.e. the same amount or more) food. Notice that it is rare to have every city produce exactly the same amount of food, for population growth will usually throw any such equilibrium out of kilter.

As for selling various products, consider that it is the "general population" that makes the purchases, not necessarily only farmers.

By the way, it DOES violate the laws of demand for a city to sell food to a city that is producing a lot of food--but if the types of food are different, then we are talking about different commodities, and such a demand should make sense.

Again, sorry for such brief answers...I must go to sleep now...but I would be glad to clarify if you would like me to do so later.

 

[rcoutme]

I think I am starting to understand. Basically, you are saying that the stuff gets bought by other cities because it can. Thus, cities are assumed to be making stuff that other cities want. Until another city wants it, it is only potential wealth. Once another city wants it, it is traded and can become "actualized" wealth. Is this what you mean?

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

OK, my $0.02c worth. I'd be glad to hear what you think Trade-Peror and Rcoutme !

1) Keep Shields and Food fairly abstract: For instance, food and shields can be used for either for their current function (production and growth), or they can be converted to 'consumables'. 'Consumables' have greater monetary value to the city, and increase happiness, but lose their original function. So, as Trade Peror mentioned originally, shields can be assigned to consumer goods-and away from basic production. Same could be done for food (imagine fast food joints and a la carte restaurants!) The amount of food and shields which could be converted, in this way, would depend on your technology and government type! Lastly, shields are worth more than food, and consumables (whether food or shields) are worth more again.

2) Allow the internal and external trade of shields and food (commodities). Food and Shields (whether Standard or Consumables) should be able to be allocated to a central 'pool' in the capital (abstract, I know, but would work for gameplay purposes). The city that assigns food and shields, in this way, recieves payment for them based on the city's distance from the capital. Materials from this pool can either be allocated to other cities in your trade network (which costs that city money), or can be traded to other civs. The trade value of shields and food is based on distance between capitals, and the tech/wealth disparity between the civs.

3) City Wealth: At its most basic, the Wealth of a city would be based on its population*average 'Earning Power' (EP)-with EP being dependant on the predominant social status of the city's inhabitants. This might mean that an industrial city would, on average, be poorer than a city that was a Financial Centre or Cultural Mecca. Happiness and Culture levels would influence wealth, as would tech level and government/religion type. Commercial civs would, on average, be wealthier than non-commercial civs, and agricultural civs would, on average, be slightly poorer! Overpopulation, pollution, crime and unhappiness would all have negative effect on a city's wealth!

4) Wealth vs. Income: A city's wealth represents its base, per-turn income. This income is boosted by the presence of commercial buildings and any trade networks that pass through the city. It is reduced by the amount of crime that exists in the city. Other additions to this base income are dependant on the number and type of resources in the city's radius, and the number of shields and food the city has (based on the 'formula' mentioned above). The amount of income recieved from shields and food is based on the city's wealth, as well. It also determines how much the city has to pay to 'import' commodities and consumables from the national 'surplus'. The city also recieves income from 'private sector activity'. Again the value of this, to the city, is dependant on the city's wealth-as well as the amount of 'private sector influence' you allow in your nation.

5) Outlays: So, where does the city's money go? First of all, a % of it goes automatically into the national coffers. The amount is dependant on the era and government type, but can also be manually adjusted-up or down. After the national treasury takes its cut, the remainder is used top pay maintainance for all city improvements. Some of it can also be allocated for the city's Public Works budget, which is used to build and maintain terrain improvements within the city radius. Anything left over stays in the city's treasury, and can be used to rush improvements, wonders and units (if the government type allows it!) If the city is conquered by an enemy, then the money in the treasury represents the MAXIMUM amount the enemy can 'plunder' from the city's coffers!
Anyway, those are my thoughts. Like to hear people opinions on them !

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[Trade-peror]

@rcoutme:

Excellent! That sounds quite accurate...cities will try to get the most out of what wealth they have--"stuff gets bought by other cities because it can." A natural result is that cities are producing what other cities want. Once another city wants whatever some other city is producing, trade occurs and potential wealth is indeed "actualized"--and ready to be used to buy more things!

That is a great way of putting it, rcoutme . I have been trying for quite a while to express this basic premise of my system! Any other thoughts or questions are absolutely welcome!

 

[Trade-peror]

@Aussie_Lurker:

Wow, that is quite an interesting system. However, please allow me to express a few comments and pose a few questions:

1) It seems to me that "consumables" function just like luxuries (please correct me if I am wrong). It would indeed be interesting to be able to turn food and shields into "luxuries" with this system.

2) This seems to call for a "national reserve" of food and shields based in the capital. That is quite reasonable, and actaully the UET automatically allows this if all cities are connected.

3) What determines the social status of a city's inhabitants?

4) "A city's wealth represents its base, per-turn income." Does this mean city wealth and income are the same (again, please correct me if necessary! )? Is the boost offered by commercial buildings a simple set bonus amount, or is the boost dependent upon other factors? Do any resources in the city radius automatically generate income for the city, whether or not they are being "used"?

5) It seems as if cities have an independent treasury from the national treasury. Could I assume that it is still possible to rush production using funds from the naitonal treasury, as opposed to just the city treasury of the city with the rush project?

Overall, this system sounds quite workable, although I am still not sure whether it can stand theoretical extremes, but addressing the issues above should remedy such problems. Good job!

Anyway, I would appreciate any further explanations on the matter!

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Awww, don't tell me you don't have anything nice to say about MY model, Trade-Porer !
I was actually thinking of using an example to explain my idea-considering that all numbers used are all arbitrary!
Consider a size 16 city, with an average earning power of 3-meaning it consists mostly of lawyers, government workers and white collar workers. The city is in a democracy, and produces 12 shields and 20 food-of which it has converted half to 'consumables'.
So, the base wealth of this city is 48, multiplied by 3 for a democracy makes 145. In addition, any culture and/or happiness will add on to this wealth. So, say the city has 250 wealth. This means that it earns an income of 250gp per turn. In addition, the 6 industry shields will produce +30gpt, and the 10 food will produce +25gpt. The consumables will produce +60gpt and +50gpt, respectively! This gives the city an income of 415gpt. In the modern age, around 290gpt will go into the national treasury, with the rest being used to pay maintainance for buildings and for the PW budget!
Anyway, this is a HIGHLY simplistic example, but I hope this helps in understanding my model!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

OK, here we go:

1) The consumables are an adjunct to the standard luxury system. It is based on what you said in your original post, where shields could be adjusted, using a slider bar, between raw industry and 'consumer goods'! It basically represents the processing of shields into materials that can be used by the general population-toys, cars clothing and the like. I just felt the same principle could be applied to food. The down side is that you have less shields and food for city growth and construction of improvements/units.

2) You're right, any city on the trade network can send shields/food to the capital, and recieve from this same pool! 'Exporters' recieve money for their shields/food, and 'importers' pay money for their food/shields-based on their wealth and their distance from the capital!

3) The social status depends on the number of type of improvements built in the city AND the type of resources in the city radius. This system does rely on an ability for cities, later in the game, to specialise-by building multiple copies of improvements. So, a city with LOTS of commercial buildings would probably have a greater middle class-with an Earning Power of about 3! A city with lots of production improvements will have a strong working class population, with an earning power of about 1!.

4) The wealth of a city determines its BASE income, not its total. Base income is multiplied by commercial buildings in the same way as they are in Civ3 (eg *25%). Resources have an effect only if they are in use. Crime, unhappiness, pollution and overpopulation will all have subtractive effects on per turn income!

5) As I see it, the way to allocate funds to the city, is by going into the screen and adjusting its contribution to the national treasury DOWNARDS-this means that it will have more money in its own treasury, which it can use for rushing-if the government type allows it! By the same token, you can raise a city's contribution to the national treasury-but this will make the population unhappy.

On a seperate note, if a city does not have sufficient finances to pay the maintainance on its improvements, then you must select which improvements you wish to 'defund' or even dismantle! It will ask you to choose how many you wish to defund/dismantle. As an option, you can sell some, or all, of the improvements to the private sector. This gives you fast cash, but you lose control of the improvements. Another way to avoid defunding/dismantling is to either reduce the amount of money the city contributes to the national treasury, as stated above, or by increasing the amount of the national budget which applies to that improvement type. eg if you are called upon to defund your science improvements, then you could go into your national budget screen, and increase the national funding to science-which will help to pick up the slack!
Anyway, hope this helps.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[Trade-peror]

@Aussie_Lurker:

Oh, I am terribly sorry if I gave the impression that I had nothing positive to say abut your model! In fact, I think it would work well in a Civ situation, certainly MUCH more effective than current Civ economics.

I do note that you have provided an example, which does help to clarify some issues, but I still have a question about the social composition of the cities in your model. What determines whether the city will be full of laborers or full of CEOs?

Also, I think it interesting how everything can be converted and considered in terms of the wealth it generates per turn. That bears intriguing similarity to a central tenet of my Unified Economic Theory, that everything can be considered in the universal medium of wealth (potential or monetary).

Indeed, your system will likely be easy to comprehend, but not simple to the point of gross overgeneralization. That is a good compromise point!

Please continue to expand on any ideas discussed in this thread!

 

[Trade-peror]

@Aussie_Lurker:

Oops, please ignore the question in my previous post. I did not even realize that you had answered it already, in another post!

Relating to your answer, however, I have several questions. Is the social composition of a city based predominantly on the number of particular types of improvements it has? I am not sure you elaborated on how exactly resources will help to determine social composition also. Perhaps certain resources promote certain social levels? I do wonder, however, which resources can promote which classes. Would silk promote "merchants" while iron promotes "laborers"?

On the matter of selling improvements, I do not see a clear disadvantage to selling improvements to the private sector. The improvements continue to benefit the city in the same manner, right?

The issues mentioned above are relatively minor, however, and your system still seems quite sound. Please continue to expand on any ideas!

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

OK, very quickly. Cities which lie at the heart of major trade routes, or those with a lot of resources (of any sort) will be much better off specialising as 'Mercantile/Financial' or 'Government' centres. Cities with a lot of Strategic Resources in their radius, or ones whose radii favour shields will probably become 'Industrial' centres. Cities which have a lot of luxuries in their radii will tend to become the purview of the very wealthy and elite. Of course, the improvements you build, and the kinds of specialists you have, will also have an effect. So a city with lots of happiness and Cultural improvements and/or lots of entertainers will probably become much like Vienna or Los Angelas. A city with lots of factories, mfg plants and/or labourers will, again, become industrial centres.
All of these factors will determine what, if any, specialising path your city will go down and, by the same token, its overall Earning Power and Wealth!
Anyway, hope this clears up the last little issues.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[rcoutme]

I am not pretending to fully understand your system, Aussie, but a suggestion never-the-less: The amount of crime should be related to the number of unhappy faces in the city. One of the interesting parts of your system (i.e. separating crime and corruption) is that you could easily suggest that corruption would occur with lots of x-types (be it government workers, big business, etc) and crime would occur due to lots of unhappy folks (basically representing the lower class--even though many people in the lower class are actually quite happy, the generalization would probably fit). Those outside of the lower class usually are less likely to commit the "crime" type offenses and more likely to commit the "corruption" type offenses.