economic growth

[The diplomat]

I came up with a concept for civ3 called ECONOMIC GROWTH. It would represent how well your economy in each city is doing. The number of factors used to compute economic growth could be as many or as few as possible depending on whether you wanted a complex or simple economic model.
One advantage of this concept is that it summarizes all the different aspects of an economy into one number. Instead of giving the player a dozen different statistics which would be very confusing, the player would just get the economic growth for each city as a percentage number (ie 3%, 4% , -2% etc) it would be very intuitive: the higher the number the better your economy is doing, a negative number of course would mean that your economy is doing very badly. So, it would be easy for the player to interpret.

ECONOMIC GROWTH would have two main affects on gameplay:
1) affects tax revenue.
supposing a constant tax rate, your tax revenue your increase every turn by the percentage of economic growth. Naturally, a positive number means that your tax revenue would increase, a negative number means it would decrease.
2) city growth.
each city would grow at the rate of economic growth. In concrete terms, it means that a city would automatically build city improvements in the different areas (agriculture, industry, etc) at the same time at the rate of economic growth. I want to make it clear that city growth means multiple city improvements would be built simultaneously at the rate of economic growth. Furthermore, this model implies that a city would build more than one of each city improvements. Large cities would have several banks, several market places, etc. Specifically, say a temple requires 500 points to be constructed. The game would add points at the rate of economic growth. When it reached 500, a new temple would be complete. In the case of negative economic growth, the temple starts at 500 and loses points by the rate of economic growth. When it reaches 0 points, the temple would be disbanded. Again, naturally, a positive economic growth would mean that new improvements would be built, a negative number would mean that improvements would eventually disband.

Don't worry, the player would still control the city. There would still be a build queue to build city improvements. it's just that city growth would be in addition to it. In other words, cities would grow by a build queue AND economic growth. I think this would really help micromanagement as well as povide a sort of economic model for civ3. For example, a negative number would represent a recession.
Tax rate for each city would be one of the factors that would influence ECONOMIC GROWTH.
The lower the tax rate, the higher the economic growth would be. This would allow a new strategy: if you had a city you just built that was still samll and struggling, you could set the tax rate to just that one city to 0% and watch it grow faster and catch up with your already devellopped cities.

Please ask me any questions if there is something that you don't understand, that you feel I did not explain properly. And, tell me if you like the concept. I feel it would implement a nice economic model and would alleviate micromanagement.


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[tniem]

Good point. Only thing that I would change would be that if your economy is increasing at 5+ which according to you would seem to be the highest, then it will take many turns to build the temple. Other than that it is a good idea.

[The diplomat]

Thanks for the feedback. You have a valid point. I was thinking about it too as I was typing.
You could tweek the equation that determines how economic growth determines construction time. You could multiply the economic growth rate by 5 or something when calculating contruction time. Or you could reduce the required construction points for all the city improvements so that they would have a decent construction time. Figure how many turns you think it should take to build a certain improvement with a given economic growth and calculate how many construction points it should have. I think this solution would be better than multyplying the econ growth rate. I think it would be better to just assign construction points to every city impovement so that they would be built in a reasonable amount of time when they are built by city growth. After all an excellent econ growth rate for example 9% should build a temple quickly.

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No permanent enemies, no permanent friends.

[Youngsun]

quote: you could set the tax rate to just that one city to 0% and watch it grow faster and catch up with your already devellopped cities.

I like this particular idea. Has anyone suggested this before? if not I give you full credit for this Diplomat Great job!

Also you could spend some money on a city to boost that particular city's economic growth rather than passively siting behind with not collecting tax from it(sorta subsidy I reckon->tax exemption+cash injection)

[This message has been edited by Youngsun (edited May 25, 2000).]

[Par4]

This idea owns but how would it work in country that doesn't let people own free industry so no capital gains tax and the country owns and starts and regulates the industry and improvements, unless in Civ3 we assume the local government automatically expands the improvements to the new regions of the city. This works perfectly for free market though. Another note the lower taxes promote growth thing is in SC3k where a lot of my inspiration comes from, great game love it.

P.S. were there schools in Civ2 I can't remember I don't think so but I'm too lazy to track down the cd and reinstall it.

Edit: Ok I get it now, the city automatically expands to meet the peoples/industries needs but will this cost extra money, ie 1 library 1 coin, city expands it to 20 libraries 20 coins or would it be 20 libraries 1 coin.
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[This message has been edited by Par4 (edited May 25, 2000).]

[tniem]

Im pretty sure that there were no schools. There are libraries, universities, and then a wonder but no schools.

[The diplomat]

bumping for the "important city concepts" thread.

[Stuff2]

quote: Originally posted by The diplomat on 05-25-2000 11:17 AM Don't worry, the player would still control the city. There would still be a build queue to build city improvements. it's just that city growth would be in addition to it. In other words, cities would grow by a build queue AND economic growth. I think this would really help micromanagement as well as povide a sort of economic model for civ3. For example, a negative number would represent a recession.

I think it should be like this.
First of all, when building something you grab resources (shields) from the stockpile and then you hire workers (the bigger cities the more workers available). Multiple building is always available if you have enough workers, money and shields. There are three categories that have the power of building things, depending on governement form etc these will have some limitations.
There is you, the player - you can build anything anywhere you want.
Your governors, if they have the money.
And the people itself (if they have the money for it and live in a fairly free society). The thing is just this, whoever pays for the improvement will be the owner of it. This means that if the poeple has built temple you can't sell it until u have confiscated it, and that will really piss them off.