Can't wait for the expansion pack -- Civ3: Warring Democracies?

[GoldenPanda]

Hi I just stumbled into this place. It's fascinating what you guys are doing here!

My idea for a multiplayer Democracy game uses registered citizens. Each citizen seeks to maximize his own personal score by the end of the game. Scoring is decided by some combination of happiness over time (from living inside a happy city), accumulated wealth (from living in a rich city with lots of trade and from holding political office), and political prestige (from holding office, getting his proposals passed, etc).

A player may migrate to a different city by paying up a portion of his accumulate wealth. He may even migrate to an opposing civilization, depending on the international situation. Part of the cost of migration is built into the game mechanism (depending on distance, road connections, etc), and part is determined by the political process (e.g. an emigration tax).

A democracy may elect to go to war if enough of its citizens believe this can increase their personal score (through greener pastures, more opportunities for political office and accumulating wealth, for example).

What do you guys think? I might even be interested in looking at ways an external program could be written to interface with the Civ 3 save file to manage Democracy games.

[notyoueither]

Curious. With some potential, but very complex.

[Gramphos]

Interestign, but it would meant that the members should compete with each other. It would also require more of Markos.


I think the first way of multiplaying a demogame should be to play against CFC. The biggest difference from now would be the needs of a private forum, and that some double-players had to choose a side.

[Inverse Icarus]

[TROLL]

and CFC would actually have to play the game well, i mean, the AI would give us more trouble

[/TROLL]

[GoldenPanda]

Argggh! Just lost a good sized post because I submitted it without logging in.. Here I go again.

Yes, any design can become unplayably complicated until the right implementation is found. Consider that the Civ 3 design could not be playable as a boardgame, and works only because the right interface and the right abstractions were found in software. That's why at this point I would like to only run by some game concepts and judge the level of interest, without getting into the details of game mechanisms.

My design thinking is that while the current Democracy Game models a communal society run under the democratic process, Warring Democracies models a competitive society with strong cooperative elements. Because individual scores come from the public resource pie, everyone has an interest in the public good. Each player is 1st) a citizen of his city, which contributes most directly to his happiness, wealth, and prestige scores, 2nd) a citizen of his civilization, which provides defense, technology, and a resource pool for development, and 3rd) a citizen of the world, which entails the planet's land resources as well as the general state of human development which ultimate contribute to his score.

The competitive aspect comes from the allocation of the public pie to individuals (the size of the pie is the city's prosperity multiplied by the number of player-citizens, up to an allowable limit determined by city size. thus the incentive isn't to be the ONLY citizen, but to be the most prestigious one.). Each player has an "Established Elite" rating that pertains to the city he lives in, which increases with the length of stay, frequency of voting, and acquired political prestige. His RELATIVE EE rating decides where he stands on the resource allocation bell curve. (Thus encouraging low EE imigration pushes up the standing for native inhabitants, while potentially diluting their political power.) His EE rating is reduced when he moves to another city, and even further to another civilization. When a city is conquered by a rival, the conquering citizens decide how the original inhabitants are treated -- e.g. their starting EE rating, and whether they could even vote. An extremely unhappy inhabitant may overcome any emigratioin barriers by escaping to become a refugee, which requires him to forfeit his accumulated wealth.

Comments are always welcome.

[Spiffor]

GoldenPanda :
Same thing as Gramphos, your idea is very interesting, but seems extremely difficult to implement. Some problem arise, like "who should populate newly founded cities ?"; "How can the number of players match the demographic evolution of the empire ?". I raise these problems not to bury your idea, but because I think you know the answers (I suppose the idea is extremely precise in your head)

About MPing against CFC :
I really want it ! Question is : should we abandon the current DemoGame to compete against CFC ? Should we play two DemoGames simultaneously ?

[Captain]

This is a very similar system, just some more details. It should be fairly simple.

Each citizens starts with 10 "bananas" representing wealth, prestige, and power.

All citizens start in capital as inhabitants.

As new cities are founded, inhabitants can emigrate to new cities or stay in the ones they are in. You are assumed to live in the capital unless you specifically state your emigration.

Citizens gain bonus bananas based on how well their cities and adopted units do.

Here are some options:

If a city has improvements, every citizen of that city gains bananas. This can be a flat 1 banana per improvement, or banana bonus ratings.
(ex. +1 banana per culture point of building, +10 bananas per wonder, so a temple is 2 bananas, a cathedral is 4 bananas, and barracks are 0 bananas)

AND/OR

A city's commerce (beakers and coins) per turn result in bonus bananas. Shields don't count because they're already counted by buildings and unit victories.
(ex. +1 banana per 5 commerce produced per turn rounded down)

AND/OR

Cities can also adopt units they produce. Any victories won by a particular unit result in bonus bananas.
(ex. +1 bananas per victory against inferior opponent, +3 bananas vs. equal opponent (A=D), +5 versus superior opponent)

AND/OR

Happiness of citizens gives bonuses.
(ex. 1 banana per happy citizen, -1 banana per unhappy citizen)

All of these can combine to form a CITY PERFORMANCE RATING.

Every citizen of a city gets the bonus based on their current city's rating but that is only "liquid" when they cash out.

Kind of like betting on sports teams or investing in stocks - except you can only invest in 1 city at any time.

Note: Everytime you leave a city and move elsewhere, you cash out, pay a small "banana" fee. You must join another city which will cost you bananas based on it's current city rating. This is like investing and capital gains taxes plus moving costs.

You can also get a banana salary as a minister or public servant (the Historian and reporters). Say 1 banana per turn?

Whaddaya think?


We can appoint a minister, or ministers, or accountants, to keep track of this unless Golden Panda (or Gramphos?) can write up a program?

[GoldenPanda]

Spiffor -- great questions. While there are certainly advantages to Captain's simpler design, I will answer your questions using my original philosophy.

My design goal is to encourage a pattern of player settlement that roughly reflects Civ 3 population points, while leaving the actual migration decision to each individual player. This is achieved through the concepts of Optimum Economic Inhabitancy and Migration Control.

The OEI for each city is the target number of players a city should carry, given by :
total_number_of_players*city_pop_points/world_pop_points

Beyond the OEI number, each additional inhabitant brings a diminishing contribution to the public pie. For example, a city with an OEI of 3 and a base productivity of 10 produces 10 units if there's one inhabitant, 20 if there are two, 30 for three, but perhaps only 35 for four, 37 for five. With output distributed among all players (each according to EE standing), overcrowding a city can bring reduced income to its original inhabitants.

Which leads to the concept of Migration Control. Each turn, a city announces the number of emigration and immigration slots available. These slots are sold to the highest bidders (through a multiple item Dutch auction). This auction income is distributed to the city's inhabitants, excluding the bidders. When a new city is settled, the Minister of Imperial Expansion decides the number of slots, with the proceeds going to the Imperial Treasury (which can be used to pay salary and to give other personal rewards for imperial service). When a city gains its first inhabitants, Migration Control is mostly handed over to its political process, while the Imperial Minister may reserve the right to force open a number of slots over time.

It should be more complex to explain how all this works than it is to actually play it out. The great advantage of a democracy game is that work is distributed among the players. For instance, Migration Control can be a complex decision that needs to take into account geography, economic climate, neighbor policies, etc. But each city has its own army of administrators, such that no single person needs to feel overwhelmed.

If it turns out to be interesting to model, another possibility could be corruption. Every government office has a budget and can do with it like money anywhere. An immigration office might give secret (or not so secret) auction kickbacks to target individuals for migration. A minister might use funds that were earmarked to subsize colonists to pay his own salary, etc. Then we could have a comptrollers office to supervise all this, and so on.

The point is, an economic model exists parallel to the one in the game; it gets its production from the in-game economy. Scoring, however, is ultimately done inside the parallel model.

[GoldenPanda]

Captain -- your Bananas economy is quite Civilizationesque and will surely play well with many fans. My main question though, is how do we keep a game from degenerating to everybody-bets-on-the-best-city?

My design is of course extremely complicated to implement, as has been pointed out. It isn't anything we would see anytime soon. At this point I'm just throwing the idea out there to see if it's fun to talk about.

[Captain]

Originally posted by GoldenPanda
Captain -- your Bananas economy is quite Civilizationesque and will surely play well with many fans. My main question though, is how do we keep a game from degenerating to everybody-bets-on-the-best-city?

Good point. I thought the moving fee or banana tax would keep emigration to a reasonable level (and thus making it easier to track) but I forgot about the tendency to shift to the best city instead of advocating improving your own.

Here's a few solutions off the top of my head:

- Since it costs banana fees/taxes (paid to treasury) to switch cities, people will generally only switch when worthwhile.
- Generally you will only be able to switch to cities with lower CITY RATINGS
- "Profit" is made based on the rate of improvement and so encourages entrepreneurialism, players are encouraged to invest in cities they see potential growth in, not just absolute rating. S they will invest in poor cities with potential, and lobby to build them up, rather than invest in already rich cities with little improvement possible.

(ex. I live in Rome, but we've built all the improvements we want for now and don't need any more for a while. I cash out 90 bananas worth, pay a 10 banana tax, and stick the 80 in my wallet. I move to Farpoint, a newly founded city with a zero city rating so it's free to move in. A temple is rush built, but since it is so far, corruption and waste make sure nothing else will be built in at least 30 turns. I can't wait, so I cash out. 20 bananas. Pay the 10 banana tax. I have now 80+10=90 in my wallet. I join Antium with a rating of 45, so it costs me 45 bananas. I now have 45 "in the bank" and 45 in Antium. Antium goes through a boom and my stake there is worth 75 bananas now. My net worth is 120 bananas. Meanwhile, my buddy who stayed in Rome has seen only mild progress and is at 96 bananas. I'm beating him by 24 bananas. My other friend who cashed out Rome with me, invested in the boom town Londonium so his net worth is 160 bananas. Unfortunately, English raiders capture the city and he loses his 120 banana stake there. He still has the 40 bananas "in the bank" he didn't spend to invest in Londonium.)


But, since the capital usually gets all the improvements before outlier cities, most people will stay in the capital and avoid banana fees. And how do we solve overcrowding?


A solution might be calculating the city's population compared to total country population and calling that the optimal size ratio. If more citizens are in that city than optimum, CITY RATING drops due to overcrowding.

ex. There are 25 citizens in the empire. 5 live in zimbabwe. Zimbabwe's optimal size ratio is 5/25 or 1/5. That's 20%. If we have 147 citizens, the optimal pop is 20% x 147 citizens = 30 citizens (rounded up) so no one ever gets left out.

The penalty for overcrowding is based on %overcrowding up to a certain limit. If there are 40 investors in Zimbabwe, that's 10 over. 10 out of 30 is 33%. The penalty is a 33% deduction in City Rating. If there are 50 investors, that's 20 over. 20/30 is 67%. City Rating takes a 67% subtraction. The absolute limit is a 67% penalty. So once 50 investors arrive, more can come without further penalty.


If that's not enough incentive to get people out of the capital, then maybe a Palace "tax" is required. All citizens living in cities with Palaces or Forbidden cities cannot accumulate wealth for the duration of their stay (any profit you would have made is paid to the treasury). So you can live there, but you'll never make a profit. Citizens venturing out, making a fortune, and moving back, can keep their existing wealth, but not make any more.

---
Also, I found a second problem with my system. You can't track military units well. If I have two infantry in Memphis and move them into Thebes where there are already four other infantry, and we defeat 2 attacking cavalry, who gets the unit victory bonus? If they have different hp, we can track it, but if they're all the same, then what?
---


So simplifying our system even further, here is a new system:



CITY RATING = (cpt x content faces + cpt x happy faces x 2 + 10 x wonders) x overcrowding penalty


where cpt refers to culture per turn (not total culture, although that is also easy to track)

ex. Antium has a temple, barracks, library, JS Bach and 6 citizens (1 happy, 5 content), no overcrowding.

cpt = 2+0+3+6 = 11 (shown on culture advisor screen)
CITY RATING = 11x5 +11x1x2 + 10x1 = 87 bananas

ex. if Antium is the same but so many people come that we're 25% overcrowded... then CITY RATING = 87 x (0.75) = 65.
---

Ministers still get paid a banana salary - and the public can vote to give them performance bonuses (out of the treasury) if they do well.

[Captain]

Golden Panda, I think the idea is really good, we just have to work out the details (including how to interface this with apolyton forums and the save game?).

I don't know much about that sort of thing, but there are many here who do that might be able to help.

otherwise, I'm with you all the way for thinking up ideas.

We could more people alongside if we had a demo interface.
---
Problems and solutions:

***
Simplest:
A spreadsheet file (like excel) in a thread that gives City Ratings, accumulated bananas of each citizen (in the bank and invested in a city), and which city the citizen currently resides in.

People post their requests for emigration which will be carried out next time the file is updated (once per turn).

It's the citizens responsibility to post their request in time. Advance posts are not acceptable - that's too much work for the updater to do.

The updater just has to keep track of
1) which city the citizen is in (easy)
2) city ratings (easy, just check cp rating in culture advisor and # happy/content faces plus any wonders)
3) overcrowding penalties (if necessary)
4a) citizen requests for transfers to another city
4b) cash banked whenever a citizen switches cities

***
Complex to create but easier to maintain and more flexible:

Computer program that tracks:
1) city ratings -> inputted by reporters, easy or auto
2) citizen locations -> auto
3) overcrowding penalties -> auto
4) automatic transfers inputted directly by citizens -> auto
5) cash status of each citizen -> auto

auto will make it easy for us to track and no need for us to act as brokers. the computer will do that automatically. but making the program is not easy. it shouldn't be too hard either.

[GoldenPanda]

Captain -- I like your "let make this simple and get it out the door by next week" approach. I have a lot of questions before I could become convinced your idea will work, though. So let's do this one at a time.

I'm not sure if I understand your whole concept of "investment" in the game. It's not like people bringing in Bananas will speed up development. It seems to me immigration brings no benefit to the original inhabitants of your cities, so the incentive will be to keep others out to maximize your own political power. The only mitigating factor to everybody-to-the-best-city is what I called the Optimal Economic Inhabitancy number. But then, once everyone has identified the best city for the moment, how do we decide who gets to go?

[Captain]

Originally posted by GoldenPanda
Captain -- I like your "let make this simple and get it out the door by next week" approach. I have a lot of questions before I could become convinced your idea will work, though. So let's do this one at a time.

I'm not sure if I understand your whole concept of "investment" in the game. It's not like people bringing in Bananas will speed up development. It seems to me immigration brings no benefit to the original inhabitants of your cities, so the incentive will be to keep others out to maximize your own political power. The only mitigating factor to everybody-to-the-best-city is what I called the Optimal Economic Inhabitancy number. But then, once everyone has identified the best city for the moment, how do we decide who gets to go?

No, directly bringing in bananas won't speed anything. It will just mean that those who bought into the city will try to lobby for improvements because improvements made during their stay in the city will boost their "profit". Or they will lobby for a higher population or higher luxury rate (because happy faces boost city ratings).

This will tend to make people lobby to improve underdeveloped cities once the developed ones run out of things to build.

Often, a size 6 city doesn't need a cathedral, but the investors of that city will want one anyways, and make their demands known to the ministers. Just like real life, politicians have to try to please the people even when it means not being as efficient as they would like.

Who gets to go? Well, why not first come first serve? The real life stockmarkets don't wait, it's the vigilant to get first dibs.

Otherwise, maybe you could pay a premium to go first. Highest bidder gets first dibs. Next highest bidder and so on. City ratings will only be the official tax-assessed value. Market value will depend on us. *this may not be necessary - see example.

The other neat thing is that if you want to move, but no one else does, chances are you'll overcrowd a city. If too many overcrowd, the overcrowding penalty will make sure some people decide to cash out and leave. But the first to leave will lose the most, because as soon as he/she leaves, the crowding penalty will lessen.

Example:
Toronto's optimum is 15. We have 20 in there. 5 out of 15 is 33% overcrowded. I decide to leave (cash out my 300 bananas) but I need somewhere to go. Winnipeg's optimum is 5 but only 3 people are there so the cost to go there is the city rating, 100 bananas.

Alternatively, I could go to Vancouver (10, 9) leaving 1 space before crowding. We expect Vancouver to build a cathedral soon so many investors may come. I wonder if I will get the spot before someone else. If I go first, I pay the city rating of 200 bananas. The next person to move there would also pay 200 bananas since the city is (10,10 ->optimum). But now the city is (10, 11). 1 over, so penalty of 10%. The city rating drops to 180 bananas. A temporary loss for both of us. Next person in is a risk taker. Pays 180 bananas, and the rating drops to 160 bananas. Loses 20 bananas it seems. But no, because before the rating drops further, a guy who bought in at 100 decides to cash out. Takes his 160 bananas, and gets out. The city rating now rises to 180. Another guy cashes out at 180, and the rating rises to 200 since we're now optimal again. The risk taker now cashes out to take his 200 bananas, a 20 banana profit. But if no one cashed out, then we'd all be at a loss due to overcrowding, and we would lobby our politicians/ministers very hard to boost the happy population or build culture in the city so we can recover our losses.

But that might be too complex and only possible with an automated system.

This is simpler, but maybe less fun.
Everyone who wants to move to Vancouver posts before the next turn. City rating this turn is 200. The BOOKIE checks the posts, makes changes. They cash out the current value, and buy into current Vancouver value. Each pays 200 bananas.

Tomorrow (or next turn), the BOOKIE posts new results. We find we've now overcrowded the city and the city rating is down to 140 bananas.
We can stay and wait for the rating to rise again, or some people might cut their losses and move out, hoping to make a quick profit elsewhere.


Should City ratings and stats be based on the START of the turn savegame or the END?

[Kuciwalker]

I don't know much about programming (limited to some VERY basic batch apps in C++), but wouldn't it be possible to create a sort of online system like Microsoft Gaming Zone or something that is independant of Apolyton and hooks up through Civ3 multiplayer (which would come from PtW), where the President and the Ministers only would have the ability (or maybe just the President) to adjust things, and everyone else would be opening it in a sort of read-only mode? Firaxis could actually design this and sell it as part of PtW.

[GoldenPanda]

skywalker -- what you describe is absolutely possible for anyone that has access to the inner workings of the game.

Captain -- I'm still not sure if I understand your whole investment analogy. Are you saying players receive Bananas WHILE improvements are being built, or AFTER? If you're saying AFTER, then calling it "investment" is quite confusing. I see it simply as choosing the most prosperous city to live in, which is just what was described in my design. It would be good if you could take some of my design concepts as a starting point, and talk about what changes/additions you think could benefit the game.