The Unified Economic Theory

[Aussie_Lurker]

Actually, Rcoutme, I now think that corruption should be split up into corruption, waste and crime.

Corruption, as you noted, would be crime commited by the upper and middle classes: white-collar crime and dirty deals between industry and politicians.
It mostly causes a loss in consumables and city income-as well as making people unhappy. Corruption levels could be influenced by trade in contraband resources, government/religion types, % influence of private sector, distance from the capital and % of population converted to 'merchants' and/or 'bureaucrats' (bureaucrats/merchants earn you wealth/income in that city but, above a certain threshold, they should perhaps start losing you money and 'consumables'-especially if you have some of the other factors, mentioned above, at play!).

Waste: This is lost shields and income caused simply by inefficiency. This would be based on city size and technology levels. Waste not only causes shields to be lost, but also contributes to pollution. Small cities have 'economies of scale' problems, which can lead to high levels of waste. The bigger the city, the smaller the waste. In addition, when a new production improvement is built, there should be a 'built in' waste factor but, as you get new technologies, you could 'upgrade' your improvements in the same way as you upgraded barracks in Civ2!

Crime: This is working class 'corruption', it causes the loss of shields, consumables AND income. Like corruption, it is based on contraband trade, distance from capital, government type, unemployment levels, welfare spending and % of working class population. In addition to this, unhappiness levels will also have an effect on Crime. Infrastructure development and improving technology will help to reduce the distance effects of crime (basically, the distance effect is sort of your 'wild frontier' factor-like the Wild West!)

Anyway, under this system, different 'corruption reducing buildings' from civ3 might actually effect only 1-2 of the types of 'Corruption' mentioned above. Some might even lower one, whilst lifting the other!

I haven't really had time to think all of this through, but it would be great to hear what you guys think of my ideas.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[GeZe]

Here is a thread I posted some time ago, about corruption:


I just had an idea long ago that corruption should be based on the speed of communication between the main government and the city. Ways to speed up communication would include (sort of in order):
1. harbour
2. road
3. railway
4. highway
5. airport
6. phone
7. internet

This theroy would make countries less corrupt as the technology evolves (as in real life). In ancient times, a country the size of the US would be super corrupt, but now it has little corruption (any corruption that occurs has no realationship with the distance from the capitol)

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

You see, thats exactly what I'm talking about when I refer to infrastructure and technology reducing both crime and waste. Wouldn't help to reduce my definition of 'corruption', though, as big business people and politicians will ALWAYS get what they can, when they can !

Yours,

Aussie_Lurker.

 

[Trade-peror]

Hmm, it appears we are going slightly off topic here, but no matter. I am very much interested in everyone's ideas, so keep posting!

Anyway, I find Aussie_Lurker's model to have a distinct advantage over most other models I have heard thus far, in that resources and production are of major importance. However, I am not entirely sure whether it is such a good idea to simply assume that a city with a lot of iron will soon be full of laborers and a city with a lot of silk will soon be full of aristocrats. My main concern is that a good starting location could allow a player to have many aristocrats very early in the game, in spite of having only a few cities. In other words, this model gives a little too much independence to each city, in my view, and that is not necessarily positive since the specialization of cities, such as into industrial centers or affluent suburbs, is possible only with an overall economy that can support such specialization.

For example, Aussie_Lurker's model could allow a lucky player to start in a region full of furs. As a result, the capital city could have furs in its vicinity immediately upon founding, and therefore immediately take on an aristocratic tinge. Yet how is this logically possible? The silks do not inherently produce wealth, and the city has only a very limited market--itself. Historically, silks have been associated with the wealthy only due to the large market (demand) for silks and the limited sources of them. How, then, is it possible for anyone--let alone the city itself--to rapidly become wealthy in a situation of limited demand and relatively abundant supply, as seems to be the possible case in Aussie_Lurker's model?

Now, that is certainly a problem of theory, but a fairly minor one at that, and I am quite sure it can be remedied without problem. Overall, I still prefer Aussie_Lurker's system to any other economic system I have heard suggested thus far--with the possible exception of my own UET.

 

[Trade-peror]

I think I may be able to find time soon to go through all of these posts and consolidate my Unified Economic Theory concepts into one brief overview post at the beginning of the thread. I may also list some of the alternative suggestions in a separate section. That way, new posters will not have to go through 4(!) pages of lengthy discussions to join the conversation.

Yet by no means am I setting done everything in stone! Please continue to post any new ideas you have, and I will try to update the overview post as frequently as possible.

 

[rcoutme]

Don't worry, Trade_perror, we will!!

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

OK, Trade-Peror, you are correct to suggest that my model needs work. As I said originally, it is still VERY rough. Let me put this to you, though. Yes a city surrounded by furs will be very 'wealthy', but fairly unproductive. It will need to purchase both its raw and manufactued food and shields from somewhere else in order to survive-whether that be from an industrial city or from 'overseas'. Of course, if ALL of your cities had luxury resources only, then it would find itself dependant on other nations for everything BUT luxuries-a very dangerous position to be in! Also without labourers and scientists, all military and technological production will slow to a crawl. Also, under my system, too many luxuries lead to an increase in crime and corruption. Last of all, without workers, the terrain improvements needed to maximise the effectiveness of resources would not be available! So as you can see, the system I'm proposing would have many checks and balances in it to prevent a player from overspecialising as a means of maximising wealth! Also, remember that 'wealth' is just one part of the income equation. Production of shields, food and even 'science' would also factor into the equation, and a city or nation forced to import all of these things would find itself almost broke in very short order!
All the same, though, constructive criticism is of great help-as it allows me to refine my original model!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[Trade-peror]

Sorry, I have not had very much time lately, so the summary may not be up for a while, but while I was considering my economic system as a whole again, I decided that my notion of "specialized resources" (such as Cattle, which is specialized Food) unnecessarily complicated the demand curve calculations.

Should I simply eliminate specialized resources (and have the economy based primarily on simple food and shield trade) or should I make every square produce a specific resource rather than generic "food" and "shields"?

If I eliminate specialized resources, then demand curves become very straightforward. Fulfilling food demand involves increasing the supply of food. Fulfilling shield demand involves increasing the supply of shields. Each of the strategic resources, already "specialized" since neither can replace another, already all have separate demand curves. The same could apply for luxuries, except that each luxury has the same happiness effect.

If I eliminate generic food and shields, then the economy could become quite diverse and specialized, which is a little more complicated, but gives smaller civs greater opportunities to compete with larger civs. Even though all types of food still give one food each and share the same food demand curve quantitatively, rare products still have an advantage. The basic principle is that foods in lesser availability will "capture" the demand of foods in greater availability (rare products are more valuable). In addition, cities are less likely to buy products it produces itself.

For example, City A buys 5 wheat per turn from the market to supplement the 8 wheat per turn it already produces. If a foreign or remote city later reaches the market and puts 2 fish up for sale, then City A will buy the 2 fish and fulfill the rest of the demand with 3 wheat. The fish, being in lesser availability, "captured" the demand of 2 of the more available wheat. If there is later a flood of fish and 10 fish are up for sale, compared to 5 wheat, the wheat is suddenly "more rare" than the fish; City A, however, produces wheat itself, so it will continue to buy fish.

If City A switched to producing 8 fish , however, then the 5 wheat would definitely capture the demand of the 5 fish originally to be purchased, for the supply (availability) of wheat is now lower than that of the fish.

The advantage of such a system is that smaller civs can greatly influence larger civs by selling it exotic products that displace the demand for the larger civ's own products. Thus can a smaller civ actually exploit a larger civ, by stealing its markets (larger populations) and capturing the demand originally for the larger civ's commodities! This means that large civs are actually quite vulnerable, and sudden "reversals" that bring about the fall of large civs and stimulate greater competition are easier--merely finding a new source of a resource or obtaining a crucial technology that introduces a new commodity could be enough!

Of course, I could continue explaining for quite a while, but I would like to hear some other opinions on this matter. Here is the basic question: Should I eliminate specialized resources or generic resources? Any comments are welcome!

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

OK, though I'm still championing the 'abstract' food and shield market approach, I can see how a compromise position can be reached!
OK, first for food. You have three ways you can approach this-either the food produced by a city depends on the MAJORITY of tiles being worked OR, all food is generic UNLESS you're working-or a combination of the two.

I think option three works the best. For instance Imagine city A has half of its tiles as coastal, and the other half as land based then, when it moves food to the 'central pool', it will split evenly between 'marine produce', 'livestock' and 'cereals'. If one of these squares had a bonus 'cattle resource', then the split of traded produce would shift towards 'livestock'-maybe a 50% livestock, and 25%/25% 'marine'/'cereal' split. So, if you had 25 food in that city, and you moved 15 food to the central pool, then it would split into 7 livestock, 4 marine and 4 cereal.
The central pool would look much like the luxury screen looks in civ3. ie, there would be an icon that best represents that resource (cattle for livestock, fowl or deer for game, fish for marine produce etc). Next to this icon, there would be the number of food, that fits into that category, that is currently available in the central pool! In the city screen, however, no differentiation would be made regarding WHAT type of food it is-it only counts when trading the food to other cities and/or to other nations. The value of food resources, of this sort, would depend on how much of that resource is currently available. For instance, an island nation would probably have a lot of marine produce, so a nation trying to trade marine produce to this nation would not recieve much money for it! Livestock or Game might fetch a better price, however! The same goes for trading items WITHIN your society. So, an inland city might place a greater premium on marine produce than another coastal or riverside city might!
Anyway, what do you think of that guys?

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[GeZe]

Oh, another Idea that I had that might develop you theroy. PS: After you iron out all the detials, you should post the theroy and sticky it.


The Idea:
Cities that are more then one tile large.

Detials:
Up to the indusrial ages, cities would be restricted to being one tile. But after you could make your workers build industrial or residential around your city. you would go into the city screen and add them to the city. The city centre would be the commercial centre. Resedential blocks would add to the population cap and Industrial blocks would increase sheilds.

The Idea:
Rural areas outside of cities would still be workable.

Details:
They would add to the provence that it is located in 'pool' of resorces that could then be allocated to cities. For instance, you have a city that doesn't produce much food but has a large population, the provence would then allocate any food produced in the rural areas to that city. Also, any shields produced would be put into the into the provencial project. (note: these transactions would increase commerence) also, every 4 tiles of rural area can be made into one population point (for drafting etc.)

In the middle ages and before, most of the land area would be rural.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

So, to summarise my ideas:

1) Over time cities should be allowed to Specialise, according to what they are 'best at'.

2) This specialisation would require the ability to build multiple copies of improvements-with the 'law of diminishing returns' applying to multiple improvements.

3) The manner in which a city specialises, along with the number and type of specialists that city has, along with the city's size, will determine the city's 'Wealth'.

4) A city's per-turn income is based on its wealth, multiplied by a factor determined by the # of commercial buildings it possesses, as well as the number of trade routes it sits on.

5) A city also recieves income from raw and processed 'shields' and 'food'. The amount the city recieves per shield/food is based on the city's wealth.

6) A city also can earn income from vectoring raw and processed shields/food to the central 'trading pool'. How much the city earns from this depends on the city's wealth, the type and scarcity of the commodity (fish vs cereals vs livestock etc.), and its distance from the capital. Processed commodities earn a set amount based on city wealth and distance from capital.

7) For internal and external trade of commodities, a wastage factor will exist. This wastage factor represents how many hexes you need to trade over before you start losing food/shields. Wastage factor would be represented as 1 food/shield per X hexes.

8) A % of each city's income will go into the national treasury, whilst some will go into maintainance of improvements/wonders and the local Public Works budget. Whatever is left goes into the city's treasury.

9) If a city gets conquered, then the amount in the treasury determines the maximum amount of money that the conquerer can obtain.

10) Commodity trade between civs depends on the type and relative scarcity of the commodity being traded, as well as the relative wealth of the two civs. This helps represents the supply-demand system. So, a nation rich in fish might earn a lot of money trading to a land-locked nation, but not to an island nation!

11) A city's basic Crime and Corruption levels are based on Government type, amount of luxuries, amount of unhappiness, trading in contraband, overpopulation, wealth, demographic factors, distance from capital (inversely proportional for corruption ), OCN, tech level and infrastructure. Waste levels are determined by city size and tech level. Some factors described above would have strong inter-relationships!

12) Crime, Corruption and Waste eat into a city's income, food, shields and processed goods, as well as causing unhappiness in the case of crime and corruption, and pollution in the case of waste!

Anyway, that pretty much sums up all of my ideas for economic modelling in civ. Looking back over it, it adds a great deal of extra 'realism' without bogging down the game-at least IMHO. Better still, a lot of it would occur pretty automatically, allowing players to retain their Civ3 strategies without any great loss of effectiveness. Again, thats IMHO!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[Trade-peror]

@GeZe:

Excellent! I see you are leaning toward a modifying the population representation system. Well, I have long been advocating such change, and have posted rather extensively (in this old thread ). I have not yet had time to explain here how I would integrate the two models, but possibly that could become clear as you read that thread and keep the UET in mind while doing so.

By the way, stickying my summarizing post would be quite convenient for all, but how is that accomplished? I do not see any stickying option...if anyone else does, then please tell me!

@Aussie_Lurker:

Sorry, it is quite late for me right now, so I cannot say much about your post right now, but it overall seems a vast improvement over Civ economics.

 

[rcoutme]

There seems to me to be one possible vacuum in your summary Aussie. How civs will determine trade of the basic goods with each other. If I am smart, I will forbid my people from trading to a small island nation because they will lose more than they get.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Nope, I've already accounted for that, Rcoutme. Basically, relative wealth and technology levels effect the value of traded goods in my system. So a large nation on the mainland is, on average, going to be more wealthy and technologically advanced than its island trading neighbour. This means that the amount of money earned per UNIT of shields and food will be greater for the former than for the latter!
Even if we don't take this into consideration, there is something else to consider: The island nation might, by reason of its terrain and climate, possess resources and/or commodities that the larger, land-locked nation would lack-therefore encouraging you to do business!
Of course, you could still choose to withold trade, but this would be of no benefit to you!
I admit, though, that my system is not perfect, but I see it as a good place to start IMHO!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[GeZe]

I do not see any stickying option...if anyone else does, then please tell me!

opps, I think you might have to ask the moderaters to sticky it for you.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Hi Guys,

I think I've mentioned this elsewhere (can't be stuffed going back to look, I'm afraid) but do you like the idea of including the Private Sector in Civ4? If so, how would you like it to be done? I see your private sector being much like a 'shadow civ', whose wealth and influence depend on the setting you give for 'Private Sector Influence' in your Domestic Advisor Screen.
You can trade units, improvements, resources and techs with them-much like you can with a civ. You can also give them money, or ask for money from them. They can use improvements to generate shields, 'beakers', food and income, and they can use 'beakers' to discover techs, and use shields to build units and/or improvements. Your private sector can, with sufficient influence, even seek trade deals with the governments or private sectors of foreign civs! I think this element would add something very special to the game, as it would be an element over which you would have precious little control-as the control would be in the hands of the AI. You could reduce PSI to 0%, of course, but that would stagnate the economy by reducing your wealth and creating corruption (just look at the Soviet Union!)
Anyway, what do you reckon?

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[GeZe]

Some ideas on privete industry.
In the beggining, all industries would be public, but then you could privitze them after discovering a certian tech. You could control industries by setting interest rates, setting taxs and so on.

 

[Jaca]

What a vast amount of work in this thread. Interesting. One minor point I would like to add. I've posted it elsewhere, and GeZe had the same idea a few posts earlier n this thread. Speed of communication as GeZe called it, or connectivity as I called it, should play the role, instead of distance to capital, no?

What I mean: for each city i you calculate the speed with which you can reach the other cities j in your empire by determining the reciproke of the movement points (MPij, not integer and terrain counts!) you need to go there via the least time consuming path, either by land, by sea (if harbors present) or by air (if airports present). The total sum is the connectivity of that city Cri with the rest of the empire: Cri = SUMj(1/MPij). The connection with the capital is taken into account again Cci = 1/MPic. Total connection Ci is a weighted sum of both and weight coefficients depend strongly on government (and possibly on discovering some techs): Ci = a*Cri + b*Cci (e.g. a big and b small for Democracy). Any model of economy (waste, corruption, productivity...) and possibly also spread of desease and science (but that's another issue) could account for this. And as GeZe points out: harbors, roads, airports (so Aussie's "infrastruture") can improve connectivity and thus economy.

Jaca

 

[rcoutme]

Yes, Jaca. I agree with you and have suggested something similar in other threads. The speed with which to can get to cities should affect corruption, etc. However, this should have the slight enhancement that airports and railroads do not give instant access for these purposes.

The idea would be, how long would it take troops to get to a city which might rebel. Since the airport would be unavailable, it would not count. I believe that railroads should also be limited ( give a fixed movement or actually build trains and have them move units). This would make it much more interesting and dynamic. A city halfway around the world might not rebel because troops could get there (from the capital) very fast, yet one on a remote (but closer) island might feel that they have a stronger position since the troops would have to be embarked on transports.

The same idea could be used for corruption.

 

[Jaca]

rcoutme, sorry for not having given you the credit as well. I must have overlooked that post. Anyhow, we're on the same page. Hope this makes it into CIV4.