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yet another part of my fantasy civ4:
In current cviv games, your empire is a collection of cities (very true until civ3, which cut back on the city-state feel), and you population is limited to cities and city radiuses. Population grows within each city: one city may bloom and become huge, another sink and tsagnate, and that is generally dictated by the local food supply. You could transfer people but only by sending units, and if a city's local radius can not feed them they will die. While this system is understandable, it has little bearing on reality. The contrustion system of civ is as limited. Units are built only within a signle city (this used to be somewhat false with wonders, since you could ship in resources with caravans, though not anymore), and what mattered was the shiled production of the local tiles. a City of 12 people in grasslands, would nevr build as fast as a city of 5 people with 4 mined iron tiles. This is absurd. Resources are key to building, but the most important part is labor.
In my fantasy system, all these things are addressed. The significant change is that people are free from cities. As I noted in the diplomats city thread, cities would be a form of tile imporvement. Certainly the many bonuses they give by their creation and maintance makes the key, but your people are still free to expand well outside of cities. Population is free from just a few administrative and commercial centers.
So, how does this work?
You would begin a game with a certain amount of PP (population points), which are regularly handled in intervals of 10. Your first decision is to assign them tasks. Now, the game begins with the advent of agriculture, notr urban centers (around 10,000 bc), so making cities is not the firt task. Now, as I said, you have to assign your PP tasks. So, what tasks do they have? Task are broken in two, service and labor (to give them temporary names). Labor consist of resource gathering and construction. Service consists of taks beyond that. At the start you have only labor taks, either farming, fishing, herding, mining or gathering wood. Multiple task can be done on a single tile, or you can spread them out over several. Now, at the start, it is unlikely you would be able to make any use of resources you mined or cut down, so your first task is to gether food in some way or another.
At this point it is important to go over how population grows. Population grows independently of the food supply: ie, it is run by algortihs based upon natural population growth, with variables in it to account for disease, accidents, and migration (yes, migration). Since population grows independently of food supply, surpluses are still vital, since famine is not desireable (in this system it has negative economic and political consequences).
After a certain point, you have enough people making a surplus of food to feed extra PP's, which can now be used to move beyond this point. Now you can put PP's to mine and lumberjack, and other PP's to build with it. How fast seomthing is built is based on how many people you have working on it, as long as the resources can keep up (like in Colonization). After a building is finished, then PP's can be assinged to work in it, if it is such a type of building. Some edifices, like fortifications, warehouses, housing and so forth need no workers. But temples, administrative buildings, markets, and workshops do.
It should be clear now that those working in temples, palaces, markets and so forth enter the service portion of the jobs. (now, labor in this sense is not the common sense use of it, for example, people in factories are service, becuase they are not gathering rsources or building).
Now, this system sounds much like Colonization up to now, if only a bit tweaked. But the differences are coming up.
The amount of PP's engaged in each service job ha political consequences. If much of your income is derived form markets and other commencial enterprises then commercial interest are strong. If there are a lot of priest, ecclisiastical interest are strong. Lots of palaces, the bureaucrats run things. Lots of factories? Wrkers movement, and so forth. Thus, how you employ your people now has consequences oer how you can safely employ them tommorrow. perhaps you have a short term strategy that calls for a lot of one type of profession at some point: you can do it, but beware of the fact that it will be difficult to switch gears: systems are self-perpetuating, and revolutionary change is diffcult and slow (something we saw in EU).
So, lets break down the jobs and resources they give us, plus thier effects on society and research:
1. farmers: gather grain. Obviously they feed the population. Farmers are a bit conservative, so having a primarilly agrarian population slows down reserach. This will be true for most of your civs history, as bonuses to speed up grain porduction, and allow on PP to do the job of 100 originally come late.
2. Herders: herd animals. They are used for food, and also are more commerically viable than grain. Herders are even more conservative than farmers, so a herding community is even slower in research. Herding bonuses are rare.
3. Fishermen: fish. They obviously feed the pop, and fish, like animals are more commercially viable. Fshermen slow down most research, with the exception of naval technology. An area of fishermen will know its ways of the sea.
4. Miners: miners gather a whole set of resources:
Precious metals, commercially crucial till late in the game.
Coal, Copper ore (general name for pre-iron ores), Iron ore, stone, Aluminum ore (general name for metals beyond iron), uranium (rare). "Chemicals" ( a whole range of chemicals from the ground crucial to industry.
Miners are not a factor for research.
5. Lumerjacks: Lumber inititally. Later on, you can harvest rubber from forests. Like miners, they are anon-issue for research.
6. drillers: Oil, gas. No effects on anything else.
7. Priests. Work in temples, cathedrals: increase morale, political unity. Slow down inovation, except in administrative techs. Effects on politics very strong.
8. Merchants: markets, ports: make trade possible, increase economic output and migration. Increase societal innovation, lower political unity. Increase reserach in economic techs.
9. Adminstrators: work in palaces, offices, governemnt buildings. Increase political unity, allow for greater effiicnecy of tax revenue. Allow for later game techs tied to goevrnment programs. Slow down tech advancement, minus adminstrative techs.
10. Artisans: work in blacksmiths, potters, armsmakers, shipyards: increase economic output, allow for the utilization of various resources, make various military units possible. Increase resaerch in given field (like metalurgy, naval tech, so forth) but slow it down elsewhere. Maintain political stability.
11. Construction workers: build buildings. have no effects otherwise. Can be sped up by increase pay or by harsh treatment. The latter kills them at an increased rate.
12. Workers: labor in fatories and industrial era workshops. MOdern equivalents of artisans. Unlike them, they are politically active and can undermine political unity.
13. Finaciers: work in banks, stock xchnages: modern verions of merchants. Aact similarly, but with more power.
15. scholars: work in libraries, universities: increase tech research overall. Politically active (can either undermine or strenghten order), increase moral.
16. researchers: work in labs, other late era scientific building. Increase reseach significantly. No moral or political effects.
17. Entertainers: work in colloseum;s, theaters, so forth. Increase moral, can lower of increase political stability.
18. service workers: staff offices, shops: increase economic output, further economic research, and adminstrative. Increase moral,politically stablelizing force.
19. technicians: work in power plants and other specialist buildings. Increase research in given field. No other effects.
20. Warriors; they make up, or staff, the military units you make. They are very politically conservative. They maintain social stability. They increase tech research in war technology.
Besides the resources mentioned, there are a few more. There are special luxury ietsm that can be either mined or farmed. These items increase moral and trade.
then there are manmade items, like trade goods, weapons, iron, bronze, steel, gasoline, Power (steam or elctric), manufactured goods, luxury goods, consumer goods that are eihte rused directly to trade, or to equip military units, or used as part of the chain to make somehting else; example
iron ore-> blacksmith-> iron->armsmaker->weapons->miltary unit
iron ->foundry + power -> steel->factory + power->consumer good (or military units)
In current cviv games, your empire is a collection of cities (very true until civ3, which cut back on the city-state feel), and you population is limited to cities and city radiuses. Population grows within each city: one city may bloom and become huge, another sink and tsagnate, and that is generally dictated by the local food supply. You could transfer people but only by sending units, and if a city's local radius can not feed them they will die. While this system is understandable, it has little bearing on reality. The contrustion system of civ is as limited. Units are built only within a signle city (this used to be somewhat false with wonders, since you could ship in resources with caravans, though not anymore), and what mattered was the shiled production of the local tiles. a City of 12 people in grasslands, would nevr build as fast as a city of 5 people with 4 mined iron tiles. This is absurd. Resources are key to building, but the most important part is labor.
In my fantasy system, all these things are addressed. The significant change is that people are free from cities. As I noted in the diplomats city thread, cities would be a form of tile imporvement. Certainly the many bonuses they give by their creation and maintance makes the key, but your people are still free to expand well outside of cities. Population is free from just a few administrative and commercial centers.
So, how does this work?
You would begin a game with a certain amount of PP (population points), which are regularly handled in intervals of 10. Your first decision is to assign them tasks. Now, the game begins with the advent of agriculture, notr urban centers (around 10,000 bc), so making cities is not the firt task. Now, as I said, you have to assign your PP tasks. So, what tasks do they have? Task are broken in two, service and labor (to give them temporary names). Labor consist of resource gathering and construction. Service consists of taks beyond that. At the start you have only labor taks, either farming, fishing, herding, mining or gathering wood. Multiple task can be done on a single tile, or you can spread them out over several. Now, at the start, it is unlikely you would be able to make any use of resources you mined or cut down, so your first task is to gether food in some way or another.
At this point it is important to go over how population grows. Population grows independently of the food supply: ie, it is run by algortihs based upon natural population growth, with variables in it to account for disease, accidents, and migration (yes, migration). Since population grows independently of food supply, surpluses are still vital, since famine is not desireable (in this system it has negative economic and political consequences).
After a certain point, you have enough people making a surplus of food to feed extra PP's, which can now be used to move beyond this point. Now you can put PP's to mine and lumberjack, and other PP's to build with it. How fast seomthing is built is based on how many people you have working on it, as long as the resources can keep up (like in Colonization). After a building is finished, then PP's can be assinged to work in it, if it is such a type of building. Some edifices, like fortifications, warehouses, housing and so forth need no workers. But temples, administrative buildings, markets, and workshops do.
It should be clear now that those working in temples, palaces, markets and so forth enter the service portion of the jobs. (now, labor in this sense is not the common sense use of it, for example, people in factories are service, becuase they are not gathering rsources or building).
Now, this system sounds much like Colonization up to now, if only a bit tweaked. But the differences are coming up.
The amount of PP's engaged in each service job ha political consequences. If much of your income is derived form markets and other commencial enterprises then commercial interest are strong. If there are a lot of priest, ecclisiastical interest are strong. Lots of palaces, the bureaucrats run things. Lots of factories? Wrkers movement, and so forth. Thus, how you employ your people now has consequences oer how you can safely employ them tommorrow. perhaps you have a short term strategy that calls for a lot of one type of profession at some point: you can do it, but beware of the fact that it will be difficult to switch gears: systems are self-perpetuating, and revolutionary change is diffcult and slow (something we saw in EU).
So, lets break down the jobs and resources they give us, plus thier effects on society and research:
1. farmers: gather grain. Obviously they feed the population. Farmers are a bit conservative, so having a primarilly agrarian population slows down reserach. This will be true for most of your civs history, as bonuses to speed up grain porduction, and allow on PP to do the job of 100 originally come late.
2. Herders: herd animals. They are used for food, and also are more commerically viable than grain. Herders are even more conservative than farmers, so a herding community is even slower in research. Herding bonuses are rare.
3. Fishermen: fish. They obviously feed the pop, and fish, like animals are more commercially viable. Fshermen slow down most research, with the exception of naval technology. An area of fishermen will know its ways of the sea.
4. Miners: miners gather a whole set of resources:
Precious metals, commercially crucial till late in the game.
Coal, Copper ore (general name for pre-iron ores), Iron ore, stone, Aluminum ore (general name for metals beyond iron), uranium (rare). "Chemicals" ( a whole range of chemicals from the ground crucial to industry.
Miners are not a factor for research.
5. Lumerjacks: Lumber inititally. Later on, you can harvest rubber from forests. Like miners, they are anon-issue for research.
6. drillers: Oil, gas. No effects on anything else.
7. Priests. Work in temples, cathedrals: increase morale, political unity. Slow down inovation, except in administrative techs. Effects on politics very strong.
8. Merchants: markets, ports: make trade possible, increase economic output and migration. Increase societal innovation, lower political unity. Increase reserach in economic techs.
9. Adminstrators: work in palaces, offices, governemnt buildings. Increase political unity, allow for greater effiicnecy of tax revenue. Allow for later game techs tied to goevrnment programs. Slow down tech advancement, minus adminstrative techs.
10. Artisans: work in blacksmiths, potters, armsmakers, shipyards: increase economic output, allow for the utilization of various resources, make various military units possible. Increase resaerch in given field (like metalurgy, naval tech, so forth) but slow it down elsewhere. Maintain political stability.
11. Construction workers: build buildings. have no effects otherwise. Can be sped up by increase pay or by harsh treatment. The latter kills them at an increased rate.
12. Workers: labor in fatories and industrial era workshops. MOdern equivalents of artisans. Unlike them, they are politically active and can undermine political unity.
13. Finaciers: work in banks, stock xchnages: modern verions of merchants. Aact similarly, but with more power.
15. scholars: work in libraries, universities: increase tech research overall. Politically active (can either undermine or strenghten order), increase moral.
16. researchers: work in labs, other late era scientific building. Increase reseach significantly. No moral or political effects.
17. Entertainers: work in colloseum;s, theaters, so forth. Increase moral, can lower of increase political stability.
18. service workers: staff offices, shops: increase economic output, further economic research, and adminstrative. Increase moral,politically stablelizing force.
19. technicians: work in power plants and other specialist buildings. Increase research in given field. No other effects.
20. Warriors; they make up, or staff, the military units you make. They are very politically conservative. They maintain social stability. They increase tech research in war technology.
Besides the resources mentioned, there are a few more. There are special luxury ietsm that can be either mined or farmed. These items increase moral and trade.
then there are manmade items, like trade goods, weapons, iron, bronze, steel, gasoline, Power (steam or elctric), manufactured goods, luxury goods, consumer goods that are eihte rused directly to trade, or to equip military units, or used as part of the chain to make somehting else; example
iron ore-> blacksmith-> iron->armsmaker->weapons->miltary unit
iron ->foundry + power -> steel->factory + power->consumer good (or military units)
