An intellectual's review

[Wiglaf]

It's an example to show how a simulation can take input and tell us something useful with it. That is what a basic macroeconomic simulation ought to do, and Civ 4 clearly doesn't even attempt this.

[guermantes]

Originally posted by pikesfan


I suspect you've set the bar way too high for something to be considered a simulation.

Perhaps Wiglaf is working for Bechtel and is trying to push a huge contract into Fireaxis' hands...

[Unimatrix11]

I think the main differency here is still as to what makes a sim. For that i think Kuci gave the most accurate, scientific defintion so far a page or so ago. But still he had to use interpretable words like "suficient accuracy" (or something like that). I think a work-around to this would be to call the thing simply what it was intented to be. And that would clearly be a game. I think it was a delibarate design decision, that the designers were keeping in mind through all the work-stages, that civ was intented to be a game, and an enjoyable 1-to-2-session fast game at that, rather than a simulation (glad Europa Universalis has been brought up as an example, how a game with a different, more "simmy" approach would look and play like).

But again: The statement that was taken offense on, was that civ had elements of a macroeconomic sim. I think we all can agree that it has some sort of macroeconomic model. Now some say it is incorrect, some say it is just very abstracted. The what ought to be done is:

1. To verify the results produced by the model under a set of parameters with reality

2. Translate abstracted terms into less abstract terms. If the world was simpliefied in order to make the model, if things got "broken down", then it should be possible to reverse this with the resulting data of the model, to "fix things up" again. Another appoach would be to rework the breaking down process by assigning every relevancy of real life to something in civ. This would also be a way, to reveal the shortcomings of the model: If things which have a meaningful impact on the econimcs in RL cannot be assigned to anything in Civ, than the model lacks there. Since the whole thing is dynamic, one missing input can produce a whole different outcome. For example, Civ does not know debts of any kind. No credit system. Though that would not be all that hard to model (give/take loans from other civs or your own population with interest rates) - and i cannot think of any game-mechanism that reflects the high scaled modern credit-system in civ. Some might argue that banks and the wall street do that, simply by multiplying the coins, but i doubt that this mechanism corelates with reality (in result) in any sufficient way to make ME call it a sim-like approach... Now that would be a lack of quality - but i assume there to be also lacks of quantity, where a game-mechanism refelcting reality is in place, but it is outbalanced in magnitude from reality as to serve in-GAME-balance. I will not give an example, because depending on interpretation they might be either a countless ammount or none at all, since lacks if quantity are hard to determine for sure - when it comes to translating civ-ammounts to RL-ammounts things get really hard. Like how much food is ONE civ-food in RL (say in calories) ? If it was a sim, i think one should be able to at least give an approximiation (given the game-size and other set parameters). Of course if something lacks in quality, it will also result in lacks of quantity somewhere else. Example: I dont see military units have soldiers in civ - they do not count towards the population. Now one might argue that this lack of quality is made up by re-balancing food production to commerce income (the non-existent soldiers want to be paid still), yet this just introduces a lack of quantity, by distorting the RL-impact these two patameters have on each other in RL, making it harder to attach any real-life numbers on the symbols on screen.

In general i think that i it is save to say, that at least in terms of quantity civ is very distorted when compared to RL absolutely (as opposed to relatively): The curve would be a lot steeper on all the demographics, esp on production, tho the player all move along the same alterated line. This is done to make it a playable game. I think an interesting question for each of us to ask themselves when tackling this thread is, if it is even possible to make a "sim-civ", a GAME covering the topic of civ that is "true" enough to be also called a SIM ? What would such a game look like ?

[Unimatrix11]

Just one more thing, that is quite a dilemma, for game makers with sim-aspirations (or vice versa): Civ cannot be a real simulator, because at least one of the deciding actors (and to some extend even all of them, including the AI) knows what is ahead in the future. He (she) knows, there are, say, 7 other civs out there, knows that Code of Laws will not only require Priesthood (or mathematics), but also be a pre-requisite for further expansion - to put it more extreme: in 4000BC one of the main actors, if not all, knows that one day, there will be a nuclear bomb and of all the techs required to get it.
This makes the whole thing obvious - a civ like game cannot be an accurate simulation (at least not if run twice by the same person, or one looking at the tech tree). As long as we play it, we influence it and by our "foresight" which we incoparate into our strategies, we influence the system, no matter how good or bad the model, to come up with an unreal result. It´s like "watching photons" - the beholder changes the state of the object - rendering any conclusion if the object´s original state impossible.

[Wiglaf]

This is done to make it a playable game. I think an interesting question for each of us to ask themselves when tackling this thread is, if it is even possible to make a "sim-civ", a GAME covering the topic of civ that is "true" enough to be also called a SIM ?

Sure, it'd take an awful lot of work and probably wouldn't be any fun, though.

[Saygame]

For Wiglaf:
Just give Demonweed your credit card, let him microeconomically stimulate it while you race to the phone to cancel it , lie about what happened to the insurance company and law enforcement and become personally enlightened now having the experience to differentiate microeconomics from macroeconomics.

For Kuci:
Is there anything you are not a negatory crititonic expert at?

For Demonweed:
Absolutely superlative review. For me you've captured the essence of the game and why it feels right. I've read and forwarded it to several people including one interested in exploring Civ 4 for the first. It has fascinated them as well as myself. And thanks for ducking the shots here from a few younger contrarians who seem afflicted with the "having to be right to be noticed" disease.

[Wiglaf]

Ming, when will you start banning people like this guy who insist on insulting the posters here?

For the record, I pwnt a scam artist old hag who wanted to scam me by staging a car accident.

[Adam Weishaupt]

Er, why do you call him an intellectual? Seems like an idiot. When he called Civ a macroeconomic simulator I did get a chuckle, though.

Wiglaf joins the thread with those very words, then it's all my fault that the tone of this thread is not defined by cupcakes and hugs? Perhaps the place would be better off if troublemakers in this thread were toasted. Yet honesty demands recognizing that plural. Still, it is not my place to proscribe action. After all, when is the last time moderators of any forum anywhere appreciated getting marching orders from a rank and file member?

My conceding error and offering apology for it only gets interpreted as some sort of moral victory based on the belief that others truly have a deficiency of character in that area. There are so many cliches about arguing on the Internet. As the some people in our midst already understand, it doesn't have to be pointless. This forum, like many others, contains real exchanges of ideas that benefit participants. Arguing online is only absurdly futile to the degree that it involves people who find sticking to their opinions, however ill-informed and unsubstantiated, more important than engaging in an earnest exchange of ideas.

It is not that I believe I am "better" than some participants here. Rather it is that I believe the purpose of the place is inconsistent with a style of participation displayed by members who have been party too (or even stirred up) many other clashes without ever once acknowledging any imperfections in their own words. The bar of basic human decency is not hard to transcend. I believe it is less an an insult and more a good service to suggest rising to it even when sheltered by distance and a pseudonym.

In other words, I'm saying I believe Kuciwalker and Wiglaf do have the potential to be constructive here, and I'd like to see it happen. How could we hope to go forward with any matter of substance otherwise? To be perfectly clear, my aim was never to belittle them for lack of flexibility, but to encourage them to explore this useful avenue of human interaction.

Regards,
Adam Weishaupt

[Kuciwalker]

I've been quite constructive here - I've restated my argument numerous times, even constructed it semi-formally, and your entire response has consisted of "you can't look at things literally" despite the fact that I'm not. And on the reverse side, I don't think I've seen even one argument (except from superficial similarity) from you how Civ actually satisfies the requirements to be "the best parts of a macroeconomic simulator". As Bhruic put it:

Originally posted by Bhruic
No, but so far after 6 pages you have yet to describe what exact elements of a macroeconomic simulator the game has. Or why they'd actually qualify as macroeconomic.

Exactly.

The constant, dripping, unjustified pretension in your writing also doesn't help.

edit: and a final note, the sum of my "troublemaking" wrt you was "It's funny because it's absurd." Good lord, how troublesome, I called your argument absurd, whatever shall we do? It's not like I followed up with a concrete argument for that position... oh wait. I'm only a "troublemaker" if all people who disagree with you are.

[Adam Weishaupt]

If you actually believe both of those claims (that I've never offered substance in support of my views and that you've never been more troublesome than to call those views absurd) then you've been reviewing a different thread than exists here. It is hard to imagine anyone else being fooled by that misrepresentation of what has taken place so far.

The closest thing to earnest clash where there hasn't already been a solid response from me probably was that complaint that city growth ought to be a function of commerce rather than agriculture. If one takes the very literal view that a Civ city is an actual metropolitan center and not also the surrounding region, there is a case to be made for that. People do go where the work is, and commercial activity is a portion of that. On the other hand, if one interprets cities as abstractions for the development of a region, the view changes.

Those 12-20 Civ cities would then each represent hundreds of municipalities, some qualifying as cities in real world terms. An enormous amount of job-seeking would take place within a region rather than between regions. After all, if a new mine opens, career miners are much more likely to reside nearby than set themselves up for several days or hours of commuting. It is a concession to playability that Civ does not require micromanagement of thousands of individual communities. Yet simply making a concession to ease of use is not at all the same thing as having a poor model. No academic economist is going to personally micromanage thousands of simulated communities either. So then the real question is whether or not the interactions that are available play into a useful model. I've given plenty of specifics, contrary to Bhruic's assertion. It goes well beyond this, but doubters can refer to posts #86 and #160 for starters.

As long as another prospective area of meaningful discussion is out there, I'll address the food issue as well. It is true that some freight traveled from Egypt to Rome. Yet, historically it is extremely rare that any urban center became such a magnet for food imports. For that matter, even at its peak population Rome was fed much more by the Italian countryside than by the farmers of distant provinces or trading partners. Civ's food supply model holds through most of its span if we look at what was generally the case in history rather than focusing on an exceptional circumstances. By the time economic development brought imported food into the diets of non-elites in typical communities, Grocers and Supermarkets become available. Of course it could be more precise and detailed, but does that justify regarding the existing content as meaningless?

In the end we could go round and round forever about these sorts of things, but none of this addresses the core of it all. A couple of people had the visceral reaction "it's a game, and thus it's crazy to suggest it has stodgy economics in it," then expressed such a view publicly, expecting no resistance. Based on a couple of recent experiences with them, I had the gut reaction, "SEALs turned back the Persian gunboat horde and in that other game they helped me get a beachhead against the Mongols, so it's crazy to suggest that they don't kick ass." Even though I'm not really persuaded by arguments about the SEALs being useless, I have conceded that I don't fight a lot of modern wars in Civ. Even if we took the time to brush aside all the distortions emergent from debates about unique units and frame the thing in context of actually deploying SEALs, it could turn out that my positive experiences with them were flukes. Simply put, I'm not an expert on modern warfare in this game, so I yield that ground.

I could be mistaken, but the sense I get of Kuciwalker and Wiglaf have reviewed economics texts for just about as many hours of their lives as I've spent playing through modern wars in Civ IV. Perhaps I formed a negative impression of them based on initial hostility coupled with unflattering comments from others. However, subsequent conduct did nothing but reinforce that negative impression. Economics is not something too complex to be integrated into a game, even one much simpler than any incarnation of Civ. Heck, Age of Empires contains elements of a macroeconomic simulator -- but I would indeed be absurd if I tossed a "best" in there. Its abstractions are virtually meaningless, and the parallels with real economic activity seem to be chiefly window dressing. By contrast, Civ manages to offer up an array of choices that would be staggering if it were not also intuitive.

This intuitive nature does not result from a reality in which every Civ player was born with Sid Meier's personal sensibilities. It comes from the fact that the game's condensations and approximations tend to be meaningful much more than they tend to be absurd. Scarcity, opportunity cost, international trade, infrastructure development, urban planning, and much more are all illustrated to some degree in the game. Whether or not someone disagrees with a particular aspect of implementation, or dozens of them, does not destroy the value of seeing these things alongside what Civ does with civics and technologies and wargaming. Even if dozens of huge flaws are part of the system, that doesn't change the value it offers in illustrating those concepts.

Take the agriculture/commerce/industry triad for a moment. The concept of scarcity is illustrated by the fact that young cities cannot work every available tile at once. Opportunity cost is evident in that any population point assigned to a tile is a population point that cannot simultaneously be assigned to another tile or some specialist duty. The basis of productivity could be athletics/poetry/engineering or even rocks/papers/scissors and the lesson would still be there for people who can get past their hangups and consider what it means to be faced with an uneven menu of finite choices in the context of pursuing productivity goals. Likewise, it doesn't matter if trade networks are defined by roads and seaports or space lanes and stargates -- the conceptual role of a trade network can be understood independently of what, if any, historical realities it may or may not conform to. If any of these last couple of paragraphs make sense to people on the other side of the debate here, then hopefully we can still advance this discussion.

Regards,
Adam Weishaupt

[Unimatrix11]

Originally posted by Wiglaf


Sure, it'd take an awful lot of work and probably wouldn't be any fun, though.

Thats along my lines of thinking. Imagine a Ãœber-Europa Universalis spanning 6 millenia. It would take a year to finish one game. And to make it accurate, the underlying model had to be dynamic not only in its internal behaviour (status) but also in its structure. As time progresses old elements would gradually fall out of the model, new ones would be introduced... The model would evolve during and according to the progressing game. I dont say its impossible, but if such an attempt for "sim-civ" was made, it would probably be "sim-civ XVII" before it would accomplish both in a satisfactory way on its ambitious scale: Fun and realism. But as i mentioned before: The later is always limited when simulating an histrorical situation with a (somewhat educated) player involved.

Again EU serves as a good example: When you start the standard campaign, everything is historical and real. Every little state is exactly where its supposed to be. But right from the start fun and realism start their struggle against each other: Fun is to accomplish what hasnt been accomplished in history. Now if you do that - and succeed - you might well argue the game isnt realistic. And even without your interference the dynamic model produces a history which can be quite far from history. It is individual taste almost where you draw the line: If Poland takes over all of Germany by 1700 and the polish kings became emporors of the HRE, is that so unrealistic an outcome as to render the whole model nonsense ? On the other hand: If history always played out the same, because the model was perfectly realistic, wouldnt that be boring ? I guess a game has a certain "viable" spectrum of realism, depending on its topic: While a game of, say, hunting, can be 100% realistic and still (or thus ?) be fun, a game that "simulates" complex situations over time certainly has its "sweet spot" below 100% realism. A game should not even aim at that (unfortunately - i truely wish this wasnt true). And that is what differs it from a simulation (again: definition by intention).

So, now, after having posted 3 general posts here, is someone ready to discuss the economic model of civ, now, instead of bashing each other/justifying themselves for doing it ? How about a critic giving an example to what he thinks is not modeled in civ, saying why it would be essential for an economic sim. Then maybe the other side saying in which abstraction of civ it is contained. I have a feeling that the differencies here are in fact not all that great - they just got out of control, because people (and i dont care who started it - we are not 8 years old after all !) started to call each other names.... Obviously people have different ideas of what a sim is - so instead of saying "thats not a sim !!!" (mind the "!!!") maybe just say: "i wouldnt call that a sim (because...)" ?

[Unimatrix11]

I just thought of another way to look at it:

In a simulation, you normally set the starting amounts of the parameters (vocab again - the "boxes" in "powersim" - you know the "counters" - not the rates) and then let the thing run and check the graphs and numbers afterwards. You normally dont interfere while the simulation is running. So you play no active part in a sim.

A game basically consists out of playing interaction with the model - otherwise it would simply not be a game. Which role the player takes is a matter of total freedom of the designer. So far that it can be underterminable what role the player actually plays (like in civ).

In a sim-game, the player still interacts with the model (otherwise: no game), and it has to be somewhat realistic (otherwise: no sim). Conclusion: In a sim-game, the player needs to take some realistic role. A position that equals something in RL. A king maybe. A king can do certain things, others he cant. In a sim-game the player takes the role of a RL decision maker, "simulating" his/her decisions, based on the power and information that person has in RL... Obviously civ would fall short of this definition (not only by violating the info-part by pre-owned knowledge of the player as described above).

[Unimatrix11]

And one more:

Adam, i must say, i like your last post. Almost no insults and good points there. I find myself in the funny position that i can agree with both sides of the argument. Civ IV certainly has a macroeconomic model which holds value. On the other hand, for reasons a mentioned above, i still wouldnt call it a sim. But i have to remind myself: Neither did You. I can also agree with the "doubters", in that i would not overestimante that value of civ´s model. It lacks a lot which results in "funny" results (for example: it´s virtually impossible to ruin your civ economically except by over-expansion - trade is always good, the evolving cultural dependencies are not sufficiently reflected and so on...). So in summary it is, i think, not so much your point, Adam, that causes the wild reactions on behalf of some, but rather your style of writing (and i dont say that to insult you, just to maybe hint you to a more successful way of spreading your ideas) - it is indeed very wordy and can at times "sound" very condescending. In fact it is a provocation to many (tho few would admit it) if somebody calls himself an interlectual, because it implies "i read more than you, thus i am smarter". Be it intented or not, i think thats the conception of your readers. And that is why the argument turned to become personal very quickly - some people wanted to "proove" they are at least as smart as you seemed to consider yourself.

[Adam Weishaupt]

For what it's worth, it was Locutus who called me an intellectual. I'm not responsible for hanging the label on myself. In all candor though, when I described getting mentioned here to a friend, I said that I had been called "an intellectual" and "pretentious" and noted that I could not completely deny either accusation.

Regards,
Adam Weishaupt

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Adam Weishaupt
If you actually believe both of those claims (that I've never offered substance in support of my views and that you've never been more troublesome than to call those views absurd) then you've been reviewing a different thread than exists here. It is hard to imagine anyone else being fooled by that misrepresentation of what has taken place so far.

I just deleted a rather large, thorough response to this because 1) I'm not really interested in this part of the debate and 2) Ming will probably ban me if I don't.

The closest thing to earnest clash where there hasn't already been a solid response from me probably was that complaint that city growth ought to be a function of commerce rather than agriculture.

You haven't addressed the point at all that production shouldn't be tied to "being near hills". Actually, you did address it, but I debunked your response. You still need to save that point.

If one takes the very literal view that a Civ city is an actual metropolitan center and not also the surrounding region, there is a case to be made for that. People do go where the work is, and commercial activity is a portion of that. On the other hand, if one interprets cities as abstractions for the development of a region, the view changes.

Actually it doesn't. You don't get regions of high population density without metropolitan centers, period. Unless you're going to argue that high pop cities don't represent high population density regions (which would be very silly), you're stuck with my argument.

Those 12-20 Civ cities would then each represent hundreds of municipalities, some qualifying as cities in real world terms. An enormous amount of job-seeking would take place within a region rather than between regions. After all, if a new mine opens, career miners are much more likely to reside nearby than set themselves up for several days or hours of commuting.

As noted above, you don't have a high-pop [civ]city without a region of high population density, and in the real world you don't have a region of high population density absent a metropolitan center. Therefore, a high-pop [civ]city must correspond with a metropolitan center [and the surrounding suburbs and such]. Metropolitan centers don't correlate all that well with extremely fertile farmland - they correlate much, much better with trade.

It is a concession to playability that Civ does not require micromanagement of thousands of individual communities. Yet simply making a concession to ease of use is not at all the same thing as having a poor model.

Each concession makes the model poorer, otherwise it wouldn't be a concession. Enough concessions... and you're no longer a simulation.

No academic economist is going to personally micromanage thousands of simulated communities either.

No academic economist would ever consider using Civ as a macroeconomic simulator in the first place (excluding the Snoopy definition, which I still think is a very silly one). Economists using games tend to look at ones like Eve (especially) and WoW, which are many-agent systems and therefore have a strong claim to producing meaningful, interesting results.

So then the real question is whether or not the interactions that are available play into a useful model.

I've given plenty of specifics, contrary to Bhruic's assertion. It goes well beyond this, but doubters can refer to posts #86 and #160 for starters.

As long as another prospective area of meaningful discussion is out there, I'll address the food issue as well. It is true that some freight traveled from Egypt to Rome.

Not just "some freight". According to a wiki article based on the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica:

"The megalopolis of ancient Rome could never be fed entirely from its own surrounding countryside, especially as this region was increasingly used to produce fruit, vegetables and other perishable goods, and also taken up with the villas and parks of the aristocracy. The city therefore became increasingly reliant on grain supplies from other parts of Italy (notably Campania) and from elsewhere in the empire (particularly the provinces of Sicily, North Africa and Egypt). These regions were capable of shipping adequate amounts of grain for the population of the capital (according to some sources, 60 million modii). They - and the shipping lanes that connected them with Ostia and other important ports - gained great strategic and thus military importance.

Whoever controlled the grain supply had a stranglehold on the city of Rome - Gaius Marius and Augustus realized this early when Rome was still a Republic. Vespasian, for example, realised this in the year of the four emperors (69), held Egypt and so became emperor."

Yet, historically it is extremely rare that any urban center became such a magnet for food imports.

Oh? When do you think the latest was that New York City was fed mostly by local agriculture?

For that matter, even at its peak population Rome was fed much more by the Italian countryside than by the farmers of distant provinces or trading partners.

See above cite; this is incorrect.

Civ's food supply model holds through most of its span if we look at what was generally the case in history rather than focusing on an exceptional circumstances.

I suspect that most of the largest cities in history have depended on grain imports. Certainly Civ is horribly wrong for the past 150 years or so.

By the time economic development brought imported food into the diets of non-elites in typical communities, Grocers and Supermarkets become available.

Grocers and Supermarkets don't counter the direct correlation between the amount of food in the fat cross and city size.

In the end we could go round and round forever about these sorts of things, but none of this addresses the core of it all.

Oh really? You mean population dynamics aren't part of the core of a millenia-long macroeconomic simulator? It's okay if they're completely broken, the simulator is still fine?

A couple of people had the visceral reaction "it's a game, and thus it's crazy to suggest it has stodgy economics in it," then expressed such a view publicly, expecting no resistance.

Oh? Who? I certainly didn't. I think this is another one of your strawmen. I think I know which post your misrepresenting, though

I could be mistaken, but the sense I get of Kuciwalker and Wiglaf have reviewed economics texts for just about as many hours of their lives as I've spent playing through modern wars in Civ IV.

Ha. Probably fewer: economics is easy, and you don't have to have read a bunch of "great authors" to put together a cogent argument. If economics were more difficult I'd be studying it, not computational finance... (and math and compsci and a couple others).

Moreover, you conceded the SEAL debate because you couldn't come up with a convincing argument for your position. I have no such deficit wrt the rest of the debate. You're not going to dismiss me on the grounds of e.g. "You haven't read Keynes."

Economics is not something too complex to be integrated into a game, even one much simpler than any incarnation of Civ.

I don't think anyone's argued the contrary.

Heck, Age of Empires contains elements of a macroeconomic simulator -- but I would indeed be absurd if I tossed a "best" in there. Its abstractions are virtually meaningless, and the parallels with real economic activity seem to be chiefly window dressing.

Not that far removed from Civ, really.

By contrast, Civ manages to offer up an array of choices that would be staggering if it were not also intuitive.

Those choices still don't correlate with the real world.

This intuitive nature does not result from a reality in which every Civ player was born with Sid Meier's personal sensibilities. It comes from the fact that the game's condensations and approximations tend to be meaningful much more than they tend to be absurd.

Intuitive != meaningful or real. Malthusianism is intuitive but wrong. The driving physics in Mario Kart are intuitive but wrong. (I can come up with examples all day if you want.)

Scarcity

There's actually very little of this in civ (mostly strategic resources), unless you run an optimization algorithm a la the simplex algorithm (which always makes something look scarce, relative to other resources).

opportunity cost

Every game includes opportunity cost. Every single one.

international trade

Civ's international trade model is kind of backwards, actually. Higher population makes more valuable trade routes, rather than more valuable trade routes attracting higher populations.

infrastructure development

Civ's infrastructure development doesn't really make sense from a macroeconomic perspective.

urban planning

Civ's urban planning bears no resemblence to urban planning in the real world, even when you abstract out the local geography (where buildings are actually placed.

and much more are all illustrated to some degree in the game. Whether or not someone disagrees with a particular aspect of implementation, or dozens of them, does not destroy the value of seeing these things alongside what Civ does with civics and technologies and wargaming.

But if most or all of them are done wrong, then that does destroy their value to a macroeconomic simulator.

Even if dozens of huge flaws are part of the system, that doesn't change the value it offers in illustrating those concepts.

If I draw you a map of the United States, but almost every part of it is incorrect, that does change the value of the whole in illustrating the geography of the US. My point is analogous.

Take the agriculture/commerce/industry triad for a moment. The concepts of scarcity is illustrated by the fact that young cities cannot work every available tile at once.

What?

Opportunity cost is evident in that any population point assigned to a tile is a population point that cannot simultaneously be assigned to another tile or some specialist duty.

I've addressed opportunity cost already.

The basis of productivity could be athletics/poetry/engineering or even rocks/papers/scissors and the lesson would still be there for people who can get past their hangups and consider what it means to be faced with an uneven menu of finite choices in the context of pursuing productivity goals.

If you are studying the response of the human to certain optimization problems, it is a microeconomic simulation of a very different character than the macroeconomic simulation we've been discussing.

Likewise, it doesn't matter if trade networks are defined by roads and seaports or space lanes and stargates -- the conceptual role of a trade network can be understood independently of what, if any, historical realities it may or may not conform to.

It does matter if they behave like trade networks in reality, though. If they behave contrary to real trade networks, they're not helpful to a simulation.

If any of these last couple of paragraphs make sense to people on the other side of the debate here, then hopefully we can still advance this discussion.

They make perfect sense. They're just bad arguments.

Regards,
Adam Weishaupt

By the way, your name is already at the left side of the post. You don't need to put it at the bottom, too.

Regards,
Kuciwalker