What do you want from an Economic Victory?

[man_in_finance]

I have been thinking about an effective, and interesting, mechanic to enact an Economic Victory. Clearly I'm shooting much higher than an "earn loadza gold" kind of idea. More so, I am trying to integrate real world economics into the rise and fall of currencies, including steering them with policies and having an interesting competitive dynamic. This is very early stages but the general concept is:

1) After the discovery of banking establish a central bank with a currency for your civilization.
2) Execute policies and focus on developing a strong economy and currency (various international factors and bonuses)
3) Win when your currency has been formally or informally adopted as the de facto currency in that civilization (much like the Dollar in parts of Africa and South America) for a certain number of civs.

However the biggest difficulty I see in the victory type is that I think most people are fundamentally bored having to care about any forms of interest rates, debt management, FX rates between currencies, etc...

So the point of this poll is to see what aspects of an Economic Victory people would be happy to entertain / fundamentally bored by / don't understand.

Note there is no way that all of these ideas would be incorporated, I'm certain it would be far too complicated but it is interesting to see the people's preferences....

 

[Infixo]

I saw somewhere (sorry, can’t recall where exactly) a very good post explaining that in Civ there are basically 2 types of victories: domination and escape.
Domination is when you do something to everyone or almost every one: take all capitals, influence all civs culturally, enforce your religion, etc. Escape is when you finish some kind of race as the first: space race, tourists race, grab most land, etc.
When you decide which type is or should be Economic victory, then it will be easier to define criteria and tools to meet them.

 

[SupremacyKing2]

I voted for "debt markets", "companies/corporations" and "tax rates". I think those would be good features to have. Being able to borrow money would be great because there are times when you need money to rush buy stuff. So from a gameplay perspective, it would be cool to be able to borrow gold in an emergency but also have to repay it back with interest. Just like in real life, you would need to determine how much debt you can afford. Corporations were a cool feature in civ4 and they have become super important in today's 21st century. So having them in the game would be great, especially for the late game. Plus, I feel like you could do much more with the concept than what civ4 did. We've seen tax rates kinda in previous games, and it is something I miss. Plus tax rates could influence how happy your people are. I've always liked the idea that you can boost your tax rate to get more gold to maybe boost your science or your military or your production or your culture but increase the rate too much and your people might revolt.

I don't think we want civ to become a macroeconomic simulator. So I am a bit cautious about the other features. I think having different currencies and having to worry about the value of one currency to another, would be too complicated for a civ game. I don't want to have to learn forex trading just to play civ. LOL. One universal "gold" currency keeps things simple. Inflation could be done in a simple way maybe. If you just raise the cost of rush buying stuff based on some clear factors. The game kinda already does this, it just does not call it inflation on the screen. But I would be against making inflation too realistic. Again, I don't think we need civ to be a macroeconomics sim. Although I would be ok with a simple economic model that lowers and increases the amount of gold your tiles/citizens produce based on some clear factors. Perhaps, it could follow the dark/golden ages mechanic in civ6? Certain actions like building economic buildings would earn you points. Reach a certain threshold and you would enter an economic boom (extra gold on all gold producing tiles), Fail to reach the threshold and you would enter an economic recession (lose a little gold on gold producing tiles). The cycle would repeat every 10-20 turns or so. This could represent recessions and economic booms and business cycles in a simple way. I think having periods where you get more gold and periods where you get less, could be interesting. It would certainly add something for the player to pay attention to similar to golden ages.

 

[DanteMartinez]

It would be pretty simple to setup a mechanic to borrow money. Just make it so you can trade a large amount now for a gpt back. Example, you give me 120 gold right now and over the next 30 turns I will pay you 5gpt for a total of 150gpt back.
I think it would be harder to get the AI to understand how to value this and when to use it though.

 

[man_in_finance]

I saw somewhere (sorry, can’t recall where exactly) a very good post explaining that in Civ there are basically 2 types of victories: domination and escape.
Domination is when you do something to everyone or almost every one: take all capitals, influence all civs culturally, enforce your religion, etc. Escape is when you finish some kind of race as the first: space race, tourists race, grab most land, etc.
When you decide which type is or should be Economic victory, then it will be easier to define criteria and tools to meet them.

Just because the pre-existing Victories fit into these categories why constrain the concept so early to have to follow suit? Perhaps a mechanic can be devised that permits both. You can achieve Victory with either an 'escapist' (national growth) route or a 'domination' (international attack) route, and combinations of each can accumulate, or even compound.

Personally, I think economic victory is harder than the others since 'gold' seems to span all aspects as common denominator, but also then lends itself possibly to different kinds of victories at once. Maybe this also makes it more interesting, but who knows!

 

[Sostratus]

However the biggest difficulty I see in the victory type is that I think most people are fundamentally bored having to care about any forms of interest rates, debt management, FX rates between currencies, etc...

Well, as much as I might enjoy some covered interest arbitrage...
I guess I would be curious to know:
What mechanics exist where having different currencies would be impactful? For example, players trade in gold right now. You can't really do things like use gold as foreign investment capital. In the same way, the concept of central banking as a way to achieve full employment - how does that translate here? We cannot currently budget/deploy gold like that (there's no business cycle: yields are yields.) From a game standpoint, its probably easier to have gold be gold and utilize trade routes, luxury and bonus resources potentially working in corporations, etc, as the economic side of things. Not being critical, I think you have some idea I just haven't read your expression of yet.

I think game mechanically players would be inclined to compete in aspects of their economies, like the Titles in empire of the smoky skies:

Spoiler :

• Defender of Progress - Have the most of the latest Landships and Airships
• Grand Philanthropist - Have the most World and National Wonders
• Captain of Industry - Have the highest city Production
• Lord of Refinement - Have the most Social Policies
• Master of Wealth - Have the highest Gross Gold Income

Obviously adapting that list a little. Worlds fairs. That sort of thing- rather than pure gold alone.

 

[killmeplease]

It would be nice to see it in some game (are there?) but civ in current state is too abstract to introduce such subtle concepts. It's like supply lines for chess

 

[awesome]

Probably something to do with trade routes

 

[man_in_finance]

Well, as much as I might enjoy some covered interest arbitrage...
I guess I would be curious to know:
What mechanics exist where having different currencies would be impactful? For example, players trade in gold right now. You can't really do things like use gold as foreign investment capital. In the same way, the concept of central banking as a way to achieve full employment - how does that translate here? We cannot currently budget/deploy gold like that (there's no business cycle: yields are yields.) From a game standpoint, its probably easier to have gold be gold and utilize trade routes, luxury and bonus resources potentially working in corporations, etc, as the economic side of things. Not being critical, I think you have some idea I just haven't read your expression of yet.

Here is a notion..
At a fundamental level in the current game each civilization generates gold and that gold is used to purchase new items; identical prices for all civilizations.
But, if each civ had an independent currency this would open up the possibility for prices to vary between currencies, and for each civ to compete to influence each other's prices...

Suppose your civilization had a strong currency relative to a weaker foreign civ's. You might then be able to purchase items/buildings cheaper through import (i.e. importing from the foreign civ's weaker currency). But, this action has consequences. a) It would weaken your currency a little and make the foreign civ's a bit stronger (this is reflection of real world demand/supply dynamics), and b) it would make the prices of the foreign civ increase (this is a reflection of real world imported inflation).

The strength of currencies (increase per turn) could be impacted by such things as production levels, and/or certain buildings, enhanced by policies such as "low financial regulation", and impacted by trade routes.

If a currency became too weak, i.e by underperforming per turn for too long, then it would inevitably collapse (its imported inflation, as various players took advantage of it, would make gold purchases too high domestically - i.e. real world Venezuela). This forces the civ to adopt another currency, removing the penalties imposed by its own currency but offering advantages to the civ who controls that adopted currency, and potentially offering them a type of Victory, like allowing your civ to be converted a particular Religion.

 

[HorseshoeHermit]

Some ideas:

I don't believe every victory should be equally likely nor equally easy. I've been called insane for wanting this.

I also think that there is room to make different victories owe more to a specialized skill on the part of the player rather than a set of choices along a mundane progress track. I mean, that if an economic victory involves factors that are boring to some, or a head spin to most, then that is fine; perhaps it could be the case that a player has to himself be good with the economic system to win that victory. Then you will have a player go for economic victory and others will have to watch out, because that guy is a money monster , and that's exciting.

Domination somewhat involves tactical excellence, although having a carpet or a death robot to your opponent's bandit militia can be decisive as well it should be. But other races are about filling the progress meters and the steps in that direction are all clearly labelled. It could be deeper. Do you see what I'm saying?

 

[man_in_finance]

Some ideas:
Domination somewhat involves tactical excellence, although having a carpet or a death robot to your opponent's bandit militia can be decisive as well it should be. But other races are about filling the progress meters and the steps in that direction are all clearly labelled. It could be deeper. Do you see what I'm saying?

I do see what you are saying and I like that kind of original thinking. I also really like the game and find the victories interesting but each one seems to be "its own path" - there is not an enormous amount of overlap, except for the potential problem that if you are a powerhouse at one (e.g. science) then you are probably a powerhouse in the others (or could easily be). Whereas an economy is integral to a civ it might also have scope to influence different types of victory.

The reason for this poll and discussion was because I personally find the variety of views interesting and helps broaden the concept and focus on the most loved ideas, probably!

 

[Lord Lakely]

Strategic Monopolies. You have a monopoly on 80% of all tradeable resources (by either controlling them directly, having vassals that control them or by obtaining them via trade deals)

 

[Sostratus]

I don't believe every victory should be equally likely nor equally easy. I've been called insane for wanting this.

I really like how the victories now have different difficulties to achieve. Yes, high level play means war or science, because we have optimized for it, but I like the idea that some victories have low barrier to entry and others high.

(i.e. importing from the foreign civ's

If they ever added an expansion or did a civ7 where they could somehow tie the concept of imports/exports into domestic economies -instead of it being limited to moving spices and diamonds around- I think that would be neato and give a reason to invest in (food/production/gold) instead of science/culture. Of course, I fear full interest rate mechanics are something that only ever be in a paradox interactive game instead of a firaxis one - its just a lot to introduce to players and have them manage. They'd probably say "why can't we just have gold as money again." (I think going from commerce to gold in civ4->civ5 was a good move for the civ series)

 

[killmeplease]

I think at first they should make production more detailed (production of what?) and then it will be possible to simulate supply and demand, trade and money.

 

[HorseshoeHermit]

Tax rates I have my own bias against. I just don't see Civ as being a game where you're literally the emperor. You're the channeled will of the people, the common thread of welfare and empire throughout thousands of governments. But I can admit this may be a fringe attitude that won't guide future installments.

I voted for "debt markets", "companies/corporations" and "tax rates". I think those would be good features to have. Being able to borrow money would be great because there are times when you need money to rush buy stuff. So from a gameplay perspective, it would be cool to be able to borrow gold in an emergency but also have to repay it back with interest. Just like in real life, you would need to determine how much debt you can afford. Corporations were a cool feature in civ4 and they have become super important in today's 21st century. So having them in the game would be great, especially for the late game. Plus, I feel like you could do much more with the concept than what civ4 did. We've seen tax rates kinda in previous games, and it is something I miss. Plus tax rates could influence how happy your people are. I've always liked the idea that you can boost your tax rate to get more gold to maybe boost your science or your military or your production or your culture but increase the rate too much and your people might revolt.

I voted Inflation, but I want to put my ear to the floor on that. As @Sostratus asks, any mechanic has to pay its complexity down first with interacting in some meaningful way with something else. An inflation/boom/bust cycle, just to put in a boom bust cycle, is unarguably just a decoration for its own sake and I would dismiss it out of hand. We can abstract over such things. However, I am intrigued by what simulation of inflation can do to add depth-realism to the value of money in its par usage for the game, vis-a-vis rushbuying. Should everything have a fixed price? When and why should it change? And will such actions influence other civs?

Such mechanics ought to be extensively tested and we don't want to run into a problem which I can term the Realist Sandpit.
The Realist sandpit is what happens to a strategy game where the complexity of mechanics has bred only a high barrier to entry and still begets only one formula for success. Variance in play is dropped to zilch, success depends on executing the right tricks to slip through all the interrelated equations to the end goal. Part of a strategy game (or Fighter game) is about this discovery, but it's also about outplaying the opponent, and there's a way that players are creating the meta as they square off time and again. This can happen because of a fundamentally balanced game.

It's tough. It's not trivial. But what I meant earlier, is that I think that as much as I want to push toward realism to invent deeper systems, I think this is countered by distilling and abstracting to simpler equations, and simpler nominal impacts on the game. The point, to me, is to put another kind of decisionmaking into the player's hands, never NEVER to give something a 'more realist' decal. This is a game of decisionmaking to out-decide your rivals, that's strategy.

So I mean, I voted for currencies, and that implies a foreign exchange, and that begets debt markets. And corporations are like candy to civfanatics. Everything else is, hey, convince me you need this mechanic to play the economics game. I'm listening.

I don't think we want civ to become a macroeconomic simulator. So I am a bit cautious about the other features. I think having different currencies and having to worry about the value of one currency to another, would be too complicated for a civ game. I don't want to have to learn forex trading just to play civ. LOL. One universal "gold" currency keeps things simple. Inflation could be done in a simple way maybe. If you just raise the cost of rush buying stuff based on some clear factors. The game kinda already does this, it just does not call it inflation on the screen. But I would be against making inflation too realistic.

I think we agree there's a sense of minutiae that we don't want Civ to be. But maybe I do want Civ to include a macroeconomics simulator. To me, international relations in my empire managers, are really lacking. And I think there's nothing to find to put into that place, except to add the concerns of real economics. Real economics are the pressures in international relations - that and war and intrigues. It's time for Civ7 to up its game.

 

[man_in_finance]

@HorseshoeHermit I really liked that post and it gave me ideas. The complexity-gameplay trade off is much like Bias-Variance in mathematical models. So lets distill and abstract some of the concepts circulating:

Currencies and FX - At a high level these can offer different purchasing power depending upon strength of currency, but strength can also be simulated by having "more gold per turn", or a weak currency having "less gold per turn". So perhaps they are not needed if the complexity they introduce is greater than the strategic options they offer to players. Inflation of prices can also be abstracted away by penalising weaker civs economies to generate even less gold per turn.

Trade Routes - Since these are already in-game, these could easily be enhanced. At the moment trade routes are either domestic, or dual-international - they only impact two civs at once. And the bonuses are fairly simple, static and often very one sided. Consider the idea of cliques in graph theory:

• If you build a trade route to another civilization you get some bonuses and the other civ gets some bonuses but to lesser extent.
• If he builds a trade route to you then you establish a bi-directional 2-clique, and those trade route bonuses are enhanced for both civs.
• If you then both build trade routes to a third civ and he establishes routes with both of you then you have a bi-directional 3-clique and bonuses are enhanced again.

In the image civs [1,2,3] have a 3-clique, civs [3,4] have a 2-clique and [4,5,6,7,8] form a 5-clique. Who receives the most bonuses? Civ 4.

Providing rules around trade routes such as no routes at war, or allowing passive-aggression by prohibiting routes through your land (Open-Trade-Borders) or establishing pseudo-borders by troops presence in international lands or international waters could significantly impact these developments. For example if Civ 3 sought to punish civ 7 by removing his trading ability in the 5-clique he would suffer greatly by becoming isolated, and also the 5-clique would fall to a 4-clique reducing bonuses for all the other civs, so this would even be passively-aggressive towards those other civs.

Strategically civs [1,2,3] might consider civ 4 potential convert and then passively target civs 5,6,7,8 routes with 4, forcing 4 to form the 4-clique [1,2,3,4].

In terms of complexity-strategy tradeoff this doesn't require additional mechanisms, I consider it just an enhancement of the value of routes to an economy but also as a diplomatic consideration and a war consideration. You might even be able to trade for embargoes o have them established in world forum.

 

[Lazy sweeper]

I think at first they should make production more detailed (production of what?) and then it will be possible to simulate supply and demand, trade and money.

Good point.

Personally I voted other, that goes along trade units themselves, poste in Economic victory type thread. I see corporations somehow dispersive (as they were implemented back in civ IV),
but the only point to which I'd have casted a vote otherwise, it needs a total breakdown of elements to express the idea in better terms to understand.

 

[SupremacyKing2]

I think at first they should make production more detailed (production of what?) and then it will be possible to simulate supply and demand, trade and money.

I would break up the current "production" in civ6 into "labor" and "resources". Labor would be the amount of work-hours that the building/wonder/unit requires to be completed. Labor would be based mostly on your population. More population would mean the city produces more labor/turn. Resources would be the amount of a resource that the building/wonder/unit requires. The way it would work is that labor would determine how long it takes to build after you've met the resources requirement. Resources could be stockpiled in cities.

Example

Great Pyramids
Labor: 1000
Resources: 100 stone

Case 1: City has 110 stone stockpiled in city and is producing 200 labor/turn. So the city would produce the Great Pyramids in 1000/200 = 5 turns. 100 stone would be consumed so the city would be left with 10 when Great Pyramids are completed.

Case 2: City only has 20 stone and is collecting 10 stone/turn and is producing 100 labor per turn. Since the city is lacking 80 stone, the project would wait 8 turns (8 times the 10 to get the 80 stone you still need to get to 100). Then it would take an additional 10 turns (1000/100 labor) to finish. So the city would take 8 + 10 = 18 turns to build the Great Pyramids.

So you could start building stuff before you have all the resources but it would add some production time.

 

[Lazy sweeper]

I would break up the current "production" in civ6 into "labor" and "resources". Labor would be the amount of work-hours that the building/wonder/unit requires to be completed. Labor would be based mostly on your population. More population would mean the city produces more labor/turn. Resources would be the amount of a resource that the building/wonder/unit requires. The way it would work is that labor would determine how long it takes to build after you've met the resources requirement. Resources could be stockpiled in cities.

Example....
.

Awesome!

 

[HorseshoeHermit]

This system was used in Pandora: First Contact. It didn't really add anything.