An intellectual's review

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Ming
Ok guys... so far, you have all been pretty good at attacking the arguments/POV's and not the posters.

But not this line...

Remember, discuss the topic, argue the points, but do not attack the posters or make personal insults.

TONE IT DOWN FOLKS!

Actually, you may not have noticed it because Adam's writing is so bad, but he's been making the majority of the snide, insulting remarks here.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Adam Weishaupt
It is nice to see someone trying to learn logic. Yet, like listening to someone trying to learn the trumpet, the experience is not always pleasant in the way that a seasoned performer's efforts will tend to be pleasing.

I know, your posts are a pain in the ass to read. You violate almost every rule of good argumentative writing I've seen, apart from being actually incoherent.

The weak link here is this "I can point out a flaw. Therefore the whole thing is unrealistic and meaningless." There are other names for this mental malfunction, but for now we can leave it at "one bad apple spoils the barrel" thinking. In fact, the game could even have many departures from reality (as it does) and yet be meaningful as a macroeconomic simulator.

Straw-man! Straw-man! Straw-man!

You really get off on arguing against imaginary opponents, don't you?

I never claimed that becuase one part is bad, so iss the whole thing. I claimed that because the foundation is bad, so is the whole thing.

Earlier Kuciwalker suggested he has taken no such position, so perhaps the problem is that he takes precisely that position without recognizing that he has taken it.

Or maybe the problem is that you just really, really wish I had taken that position because you can actually argue against it.

However, I can also address the grain/hammers/coins thing while I'm here. The first step, and I know this can be hard for some people, but I really urge all to take it with me, is to stop focusing on the symbols as if they should be interpreted without any sense of the abstract.

Who are you talking to here? Certainly not me...

Agriculture, industry, and commerce are the three pillars on which any independent national economy must stand. It may be possible to run a society without producing any food, but at that point you have an economy that can only exist as part of a dependent state importing sustenance for its population. That Civilization chooses those three elements as the foundation of its economic model hardly shows that it "actively contradicts" reality. As it happens, in reality those three elements are the foundations of comparable macroeconomic scenarios.

Its not the choice, duh. It's how they are implemented. Regarding food: Civ treats population growth as Malthusian based on the food supply. This is wrong. Moreover, the largest cities are the ones with the most food sources nearby, whereas in reality the largest cities are the ones with the most trade or jobs.

(Aside: It would actually make more sense to have cities grow based on commerce... actually that's not a bad idea...)

Re: production, you're left with the fact that Civ has production come solely from natural resources, multiplied by production facilities e.g. factories. Production comes from labor. In fact, this was probably even more true in ancient times than today. Building the pyramids required stone, yes, but more importantly it required a huge population of slaves (or paid workers, as recent archeological discoveries seem to indicate). Civ turns this on its head - the small city on a few hills will be far more productive than the huge city built only on flood plains, even though the flood plains city should be far more productive. And no, this isn't taking anything too literally, unless you want to claim that hammers don't actually represent some abstract sense of production, which is absurd.

In most instances, the relationship between these inputs and land utilization is sensible. Hill country is not ideal for farming, but it will tend to yield more mineral wealth

Not really unless there's a resource there, but even so, mineral wealth is a tiny part of production, as I've just established.

offer up more of the wind and water features that powered much of medieval industry, and thus establish a foundation for a subsequent emphasis on heavy industry.

Windmills were 99% agricultural until the Industrial Revolution. As established above, "nearby hills" did not create high-production cities. Large populations did. Labor did.

Areas near a river or coastline have access to a more efficient alternative to overland shipping. This encourages more buying and selling, a.k.a. commerce.

I'll get to commerce in a bit.

The resources of forests are not mineral in nature, but they are also useful for industrial applications like raising structures or fueling furnaces.

Forests, like hills, don't increase production. Cities built near forest for the purpose of cutting down said forest tended not to do much but make wood and ship it somewhere else. They didn't usually build much stuff themselves. And there's no reason too - material resources are too easy to transport, compared to the labor cost of actually putting them together into something useful like a ship.

The biggest stretch in all this is the plains/grassland distinction. Yet even that may reflect a designers' intent that grasslands are more consistently arable while plains represent drier, windier, and more uneven terrain than grasslands.

Which obviously means it's more productive, just with less food?

However, to see how it is meaningful, it is important to stop thinking of "hammers" as sticks of wood with heavy bludgeons on the business end and start thinking of them as symbols that represent industrial capacity.

You are the only person doing this.

Likewise, "food" is not an actual bundle of grain but a representation a measure of agricultural productivity

You are the only person doing this.

and "coins" are not actual tokens but representations of the potential for commerce.

You are the only person doing this.

Whether it seems like a huge leap or it is recognized for the baby step it actually is, that degree of progress into abstraction should unlock a whole new perspective on the meaningfulness of the economic model that rests on those forms of productivity.

I agree. Once you catch up to the rest of us understanding that, you'll see how absurd the foundations of Civ's economy are.

As to the notion that Civilization's population model is Malthusian, well, I suppose it is if a player is such a lazy slug as to let cities grow to the point of starvation and then be constrained by default. On the other hand, if someone actually pays attention to the details of an ongoing game (i.e. recognizes that economic stewardship of a thriving Civ involves a lot more than moving a couple of sliders around) then it becomes something much different.

No, it doesn't. The changing amount of food available doesn't eliminate the Malthusian-ness (Malthusianity?) of the system. Very simply, population grows logistically towards a maximum, determined by the food supply. That's obviously false just from looking at modern population growth rates - they actually have little to do with food supply (except that right now, they're negatively correlated) and have everything to do with prosperity.

[Kuciwalker]

On commerce:

This is the weirdest of the three resources. Civ is a bit schizophrenic about it, actually. On one hand, commerce seems to abstractly represent the amount of merchant trade occuring in the city - note that you get more commerce from sea and river tiles, and from valuable trade goods (and from trade routes!). On the other hand, it seems to represent the local highly-educated workforce - the scientists and priests and artists and engineers. I actually don't have as much of a problem with this resource, because it produces vaguely realist results - increases in either of those should benefit tax revenues, scientific advancement and culture. On the other hand, the brokenness of the food mechanic means that high-commerce cities are still tied to a local food supply, which is obviously wrong.

[snoopy369]

Actually Civ very well models the malthusian/nonmalthusian food cycle ...

Malthus is right that if (# people) > (amount of food), then people die. He's wrong in most other things of course, but this element is true.

Two things get around the simpler malthusian arguments. First off, technological improvements to farming/etc., which is modeled in Civ by irrigation being progressively easier, then the Biology boost, and the various health gains (granary, aquaduct, etc.)

Secondly is the ability to trade food; a country can trade things for food in order to survive beyond its local growing ability. Civ does not fully model this, but does model a part of this, by trading for health resources (which directly correlate to food in any location with a shortage of health, which will be most locations close to their food limit).

Regardless, the point is that it doesn't matter if civ models this or anything else realistically. I don't think anything in civ is or should be particularly realistic.

What is interesting in civ is the ways the player makes decisions based on economic choices. Not that those choices are realistic; but that they are economic choices the same as, say, a player in WoW chooses to buy a particular item (or manage his money, etc.). Understanding the ways people make choices gives you insight into how other choices are made, and into how real economic policy should be shaped.

I suppose my usage of the word 'macroeconomic' is probably causing some of the problem here; I studied under Robert Lucas (among others), who won his in-memory-of-Alfred-Nobel prize ( ) largely based on his studies of macro from a micro point of view (and this is how the U of C in general teaches macro and micro - essentially as one subject). I see both micro and macro elements in this, so I call it freely one or the other; but a more traditional economist would probably focus on the micro in this (the individual choices rather than the group dynamic). I find the (MP, primarily) group dynamic just as interesting if not more interesting; so I see it as a macro simulation/model.

[Kuciwalker]

Secondly is the ability to trade food; a country can trade things for food in order to survive beyond its local growing ability. Civ does not fully model this, but does model a part of this, by trading for health resources (which directly correlate to food in any location with a shortage of health, which will be most locations close to their food limit).

This is a dramatic improvement in Civ 4, but still far, far short of reality. Especially since food resources affect your entire empire simultaneously.

Regardless, the point is that it doesn't matter if civ models this or anything else realistically. I don't think anything in civ is or should be particularly realistic.

Of course it shouldn't be, it's a game. But that means it's not a macroeconomic simulator.

What is interesting in civ is the ways the player makes decisions based on economic choices. Not that those choices are realistic; but that they are economic choices the same as, say, a player in WoW chooses to buy a particular item (or manage his money, etc.). Understanding the ways people make choices gives you insight into how other choices are made, and into how real economic policy should be shaped.

Just because it has an economy doesn't mean that it's a macroeconomic simulator, because that implies some relation to the real economy.

I suppose my usage of the word 'macroeconomic' is probably causing some of the problem here; I studied under Robert Lucas

"Studied under" as in "attended a lecture by" or "had as my thesis advisor"?

[snoopy369]

Studied under as in took microeconomics from in a discussion class (~25 students), and studied in the department that was fundamentally organized around his teaching

You're fundamentally misunderstanding simulator, as I keep saying. You don't need to simulate everything, or even much, to simulate economic interactions. Call it "model" if it makes you feel better; it still is very interesting to an economist.

[Kuciwalker]

I'm not trying to say it should simulate everything. I'm pointing out that the stuff that it does try to simulate is wrong.

[Jaybe]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker


I'm not trying to say it should simulate everything. I'm pointing out that the stuff that it does try to simulate is wrong.

How SHOULD it be simulated then?
Please keep within gaming boundaries. While I enjoy civ, I still regret the "traditions" of some of civ's basic design parameters.

[Kuciwalker]

How SHOULD it be simulated then?
Please keep within gaming boundaries.

It shouldn't, because Civ is a game. I'm glad it's not a macroeconomic simulator, that probably wouldn't be as fun.

[Jaybe]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
It shouldn't, because Civ is a game. I'm glad it's not a macroeconomic simulator, that probably wouldn't be as fun.

I have played many simulations that were enjoyable. It just takes a little more elegance in design to incorporate both.*

For one thing, the non-trading of food in civ games from food-rich to food-poor cities can be seen as a violation of economies once transportation & food preservation (whether it be in food forms or refrigeration) are available. However, it may be a comes-out-in-the-wash situation when viewed from the whole civ/country.

*Redmond Simonsen & James Dunnigan were great at that back in the 1970s.

[Kuciwalker]

For one thing, the non-trading of food in civ games from food-rich to food-poor cities can be seen as a violation of economies once transportation & food preservation (whether it be in food forms or refrigeration) are available. However, it may be a comes-out-in-the-wash situation when viewed from the whole civ/country.

It's nonsense from long before that point. Rome imported grain all the way from Egypt. And it really doesn't come out in the wash, if you actually pay attention to the way your empire develops - or just read some of Blake's strategies and put two and two together.

[snoopy369]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker


I'm not trying to say it should simulate everything. I'm pointing out that the stuff that it does try to simulate is wrong.

You're still not understanding what i'm saying, though.

The economic interactions don't have to relate directly to real world interactions. At all. You can draw economic conclusions from the way a person, or a group of people, make choices any time they are given choices, and then relate those back to the real world in entirely different situations.

You're saying it should try to simulate some real world things. I'm saying it does not, and should not, simulate any real world anything, except the choices people make when confronted with limited resources. Economics is, fundamentally, the study of choice; anything else is applied economics.

[Kuciwalker]

You're saying it should try to simulate some real world things. I'm saying it does not, and should not, simulate any real world anything, except the choices people make when confronted with limited resources. Economics is, fundamentally, the study of choice; anything else is applied economics.

If you are studying just what choices the human makes when presented with this problem, you're studying micro, not macro. This Adam kid is talking about simulations in the same sense I am, i.e. the actual behavior of the civ given the human input is related to how a real civ would behave.

[snoopy369]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker

You're saying it should try to simulate some real world things. I'm saying it does not, and should not, simulate any real world anything, except the choices people make when confronted with limited resources. Economics is, fundamentally, the study of choice; anything else is applied economics.

If you are studying just what choices the human makes when presented with this problem, you're studying micro, not macro. This Adam kid is talking about simulations in the same sense I am, i.e. the actual behavior of the civ given the human input is related to how a real civ would behave.

As I said above, I see micro and macro together. One person's choice as opposed to how a group of people's choices interact are not that different; and both are interesting in civ (though more so in MP for the latter). It's still choice, fundamentally.

[Kuciwalker]

You're weird. I think your point of view is so odd (and so far removed from the OP) that I'm not going to try to argue it further. Maybe it's valid, maybe not... meh.

I mean, by your reasoning Zelda is also a macroeconomic simulator.