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I'm thinking with all this talk of a currency, it's time to resurrect an old idea.
At the time of its inception, it died out because we were a paltry nation and worrying about survival. Now that we're moving on, building up, making ourselves more economically viable, it's time to consider whether we'd like to add another fun role-playing (non-spam) aspect to our game.
Now, before any naysayers try to kill this prematurely, this is proposal allows for strictly OPTIONAL participation. No one is being forced to make money or contribute to our economy, they can take their original sum, stick it in a sock under the bed, and at the game's end, they'll still have it. But those who want to try their hand at making a fortune, can play along.
Note: It has no real effect except hopefully more fun, and allows people to participate whenever they want without commitment besides what they want. You decide whether or not you want to play or not. You can cash out at any time, take a break, and get right back into the game at any time you want. [b]This promotes involvement, and more participation, without obligating anyone to time commitments.
So... all this talk and I haven't even mentioned the plan!
Well, here's a very rough draft of it, and I'd love to get feedback on potential problems, places for improvement, solutions, suggestions, what we'll need, and the lot.
Step 1: The GREAT EQUALIZATION
Sure we haven't discovered communism yet, but we all know what fairness is, right?
Everyone at this time gets 1000 (100?) units of wealth (whatever you want to call it, Apos or bananas, mangos or kiwis). This is "cash", or our common currency. We then proceed to purchase things with this initial startup money, in order to make more wealth - or just to spend it for personal reasons. It's your money.
Step 2: The Brokers
A group of brokers empowered to carry out transactions. People post what they'd like to do with their money in a TRANSACTIONS thread. The brokers take a commission (of their choosing) for their work in tracking all these deals.
Alternatively, people can arrange deal by themselves and then post them publicly in the TRANSACTIONS thread (for the record).
Brokers could also track bets.
Step 3: So what are we investing in?
Well, we could just make up an economy... but since we have a handy Civ 3 game here, it'd work best if we tied it to the current game.
As an aside:
So, what do we invest in real-life anyways? Well, stocks, shares, bonds, GICs, Mutual Funds... are all really the same thing. At any time, if we have money we aren't using, we can "lend" it to someone else and get interest on it (or borrow from one to lend to another). What are they doing with the money? Why using it to make more wealth!
I put "lend" in quotes because you don't have to get it back to increase your wealth. As an "owner" of a share, you have bought ownership of a piece of a "business". If the business does well, you benefit also. Of course, if the business tanks, so does the value of your share in it. You can always "cash" out, but really all that means is trading one form of investment (ownership) for another that is (usually) more stable. (Not always the case, where skyhigh inflations ruins a currencies value it may be wiser to own something tangible, like a farm or armoury since food and weapons always seem to have a value in unstable societies)
In the Civ 3 game, there are no corporations - no companies - no one to lend money to either. There's the wealth of cities though. But how to use that as a basis for shares (especially in a way that is easy to track when the slider bars could go anywhere)?
That's up to you to help me figure out.
My current suggestion is that each city can represent a "company". Investors (you) can purchase shares from the city as long as some are available. Otherwise you'll have to purchase them from other shareholders.
How do we determine how many shares are available?
And how much is each share worth?
Well, that depends on the perceived value of the city. Like in real-life, the value depends on how much people want it. But underlying that, are concrete factors that attract investors. IRL, we have a solid business plan, profit margins, low debt, appreciating assets, skilled and educated employees, market share, etc...
We don't have any of that here. But what we do have are common things in a city that would attract investors. The presence of infrastructure, production, wealth, luxuries, labourers and consumers (population).
We could either assign specific values to buildings and assess city value that way... or use the buildings effects to assess value. Here are a few possibilities (3rd is my favourite):
i) C$ = sum of value of all buildings and other factors
ii) C$= culture per turn + commerce produced per turn + shields produced per turn + current happy/content population - pollution
iii) C$= (culture per turn)*(twice # happy people + # content - # twice # unhappy - 3x # resistors) + commerce produced + shields produced - pollution produced + sum of garrison's D value
Military units present do boost the economy as garrison and base towns IRL can attest, but city shareholders will likely want to produce buildings, not units, because buildings don't go off to war and get killed, they sit there nicely and increase the value of the investment.
To make sure there is only one city value in a turn, only one official slider position should exist (that determined by the Prez's game). City values are determined either at the START (or END?) of the TURN - not both.
Once the value of the city is determined, the government (who initially owns the public institutions and infrastructure of cities) can issue shares. They set up a certain number of total shares (N), which can never be changed unless they do a SPLIT. They then divide the initial value (C$) of the city by the number of shares (N). That gives us the price of the share (S$ = C$ div N).
To maintain "ownership" of the city, the government must hold on to at least >50% of the shares. If we ever end up having mayors or governors, perhaps they can also decide whether the "city" will sell any more shares - but that might entail giving up too much control.
The government might also consider privatizing to raise funds. Maybe they could sell a bank or marketplace to interested private parties, but I'm not sure how the new owner's would make money off that.
Step 4: The Analysts rate
"Analysts" track the status of all the city "stocks". Their job is to update a thread with all the stocks listed (only when there are changes, so if no turns are played, nothing needs to be posted).
They don't track prices that people are willing to offer, or any transactions, just how much the "real" worth of the stocks are.
Using an excel (or simple database file) they can just input the current city info, and have it automatically calculate the rating, then post it.
These people can be appointed by the MoE (or whoever deals with it ina new reformed COL). They need some kind of incentive to do this as it is hard work. Perhaps they can be on "salary" - government funded.
Or maybe privatized... like brokers. But they should be trustworthy and dependable so we don't get Enron'ed.
[b]Step 5: The only sure thing is death and taxes...[b]
Will the government tax our earnings? If so, they could then afford to pay the ministers, officials, judges, and bureaucrats salaries for all the hard work they do.
Step 6: conflict of interest?
No government officials may engage in transactions that would be considered a conflict of interest. (e.g. SMC cannot bet on success of military ventures, Minister of City Planning cannot invest in a city he is in charge of).
Step 7: Is this too complex?
Well, let's try to keep it as simple as possible, but fair.
If it ever does become too much for you to keep track of, cut down on your involvement or take a break. This is totally optional. Make your fortune at your speed, when you want, but that means being willing to accept missed opportunities.
well... that's it. what do you think? (again, please only constructive criticism - if you don't like the idea at all, you don't have to play - everyone else can help make it fun)
At the time of its inception, it died out because we were a paltry nation and worrying about survival. Now that we're moving on, building up, making ourselves more economically viable, it's time to consider whether we'd like to add another fun role-playing (non-spam) aspect to our game.
Now, before any naysayers try to kill this prematurely, this is proposal allows for strictly OPTIONAL participation. No one is being forced to make money or contribute to our economy, they can take their original sum, stick it in a sock under the bed, and at the game's end, they'll still have it. But those who want to try their hand at making a fortune, can play along.
Note: It has no real effect except hopefully more fun, and allows people to participate whenever they want without commitment besides what they want. You decide whether or not you want to play or not. You can cash out at any time, take a break, and get right back into the game at any time you want. [b]This promotes involvement, and more participation, without obligating anyone to time commitments.
So... all this talk and I haven't even mentioned the plan!
Well, here's a very rough draft of it, and I'd love to get feedback on potential problems, places for improvement, solutions, suggestions, what we'll need, and the lot.
Step 1: The GREAT EQUALIZATION
Sure we haven't discovered communism yet, but we all know what fairness is, right?
Everyone at this time gets 1000 (100?) units of wealth (whatever you want to call it, Apos or bananas, mangos or kiwis). This is "cash", or our common currency. We then proceed to purchase things with this initial startup money, in order to make more wealth - or just to spend it for personal reasons. It's your money.
Step 2: The Brokers
A group of brokers empowered to carry out transactions. People post what they'd like to do with their money in a TRANSACTIONS thread. The brokers take a commission (of their choosing) for their work in tracking all these deals.
Alternatively, people can arrange deal by themselves and then post them publicly in the TRANSACTIONS thread (for the record).
Brokers could also track bets.
Step 3: So what are we investing in?
Well, we could just make up an economy... but since we have a handy Civ 3 game here, it'd work best if we tied it to the current game.
As an aside:
So, what do we invest in real-life anyways? Well, stocks, shares, bonds, GICs, Mutual Funds... are all really the same thing. At any time, if we have money we aren't using, we can "lend" it to someone else and get interest on it (or borrow from one to lend to another). What are they doing with the money? Why using it to make more wealth!
I put "lend" in quotes because you don't have to get it back to increase your wealth. As an "owner" of a share, you have bought ownership of a piece of a "business". If the business does well, you benefit also. Of course, if the business tanks, so does the value of your share in it. You can always "cash" out, but really all that means is trading one form of investment (ownership) for another that is (usually) more stable. (Not always the case, where skyhigh inflations ruins a currencies value it may be wiser to own something tangible, like a farm or armoury since food and weapons always seem to have a value in unstable societies)
In the Civ 3 game, there are no corporations - no companies - no one to lend money to either. There's the wealth of cities though. But how to use that as a basis for shares (especially in a way that is easy to track when the slider bars could go anywhere)?
That's up to you to help me figure out.
My current suggestion is that each city can represent a "company". Investors (you) can purchase shares from the city as long as some are available. Otherwise you'll have to purchase them from other shareholders.
How do we determine how many shares are available?
And how much is each share worth?
Well, that depends on the perceived value of the city. Like in real-life, the value depends on how much people want it. But underlying that, are concrete factors that attract investors. IRL, we have a solid business plan, profit margins, low debt, appreciating assets, skilled and educated employees, market share, etc...
We don't have any of that here. But what we do have are common things in a city that would attract investors. The presence of infrastructure, production, wealth, luxuries, labourers and consumers (population).
We could either assign specific values to buildings and assess city value that way... or use the buildings effects to assess value. Here are a few possibilities (3rd is my favourite):
i) C$ = sum of value of all buildings and other factors
ii) C$= culture per turn + commerce produced per turn + shields produced per turn + current happy/content population - pollution
iii) C$= (culture per turn)*(twice # happy people + # content - # twice # unhappy - 3x # resistors) + commerce produced + shields produced - pollution produced + sum of garrison's D value
Military units present do boost the economy as garrison and base towns IRL can attest, but city shareholders will likely want to produce buildings, not units, because buildings don't go off to war and get killed, they sit there nicely and increase the value of the investment.
To make sure there is only one city value in a turn, only one official slider position should exist (that determined by the Prez's game). City values are determined either at the START (or END?) of the TURN - not both.
Once the value of the city is determined, the government (who initially owns the public institutions and infrastructure of cities) can issue shares. They set up a certain number of total shares (N), which can never be changed unless they do a SPLIT. They then divide the initial value (C$) of the city by the number of shares (N). That gives us the price of the share (S$ = C$ div N).
To maintain "ownership" of the city, the government must hold on to at least >50% of the shares. If we ever end up having mayors or governors, perhaps they can also decide whether the "city" will sell any more shares - but that might entail giving up too much control.
The government might also consider privatizing to raise funds. Maybe they could sell a bank or marketplace to interested private parties, but I'm not sure how the new owner's would make money off that.
Step 4: The Analysts rate
"Analysts" track the status of all the city "stocks". Their job is to update a thread with all the stocks listed (only when there are changes, so if no turns are played, nothing needs to be posted).
They don't track prices that people are willing to offer, or any transactions, just how much the "real" worth of the stocks are.
Using an excel (or simple database file) they can just input the current city info, and have it automatically calculate the rating, then post it.
These people can be appointed by the MoE (or whoever deals with it ina new reformed COL). They need some kind of incentive to do this as it is hard work. Perhaps they can be on "salary" - government funded.
Or maybe privatized... like brokers. But they should be trustworthy and dependable so we don't get Enron'ed.
[b]Step 5: The only sure thing is death and taxes...[b]
Will the government tax our earnings? If so, they could then afford to pay the ministers, officials, judges, and bureaucrats salaries for all the hard work they do.
Step 6: conflict of interest?
No government officials may engage in transactions that would be considered a conflict of interest. (e.g. SMC cannot bet on success of military ventures, Minister of City Planning cannot invest in a city he is in charge of).
Step 7: Is this too complex?
Well, let's try to keep it as simple as possible, but fair.
If it ever does become too much for you to keep track of, cut down on your involvement or take a break. This is totally optional. Make your fortune at your speed, when you want, but that means being willing to accept missed opportunities.
well... that's it. what do you think? (again, please only constructive criticism - if you don't like the idea at all, you don't have to play - everyone else can help make it fun)
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