Making Trade Essential Part Deux

[GaryGuanine]

Preach on, cyclotron!

Gary

[Youngsun]

cyclotron7

quote: What do labor points do? They determine how fast you can build units.

Yes.

quote: What do "basic" resources do? They determine how fast you build units, too.

If you don't trade, yes. If you trade, no.

quote: A nation with only a limited supply of a common resource will only get so many resources per turn, so this will limit how many units they can build as well.

That's why trade is needed here. Once you buy things that you can not get in time from your land, you can save plenty of time.

quote: What I am saying is that they both accomplish the same thing:

If you let your economy go insular, yes. If not, resources never become time consuming factor but only avaiable labours.

quote: so it is better and less confusing to combine common resources with labor points

I think you understands clearly about this. No one was confused. Is there anybody, who is confused about what resources and labours do? If there is any, I'm willing to explain again.

Resources and labours are there for many other things. one reason is to represent full spectrum of civs like this.

high tech, resource rich, labour rich civ: USA
high tech, resource poor, labour rich civ: Germany and Japan
high tech, resource poor, labour poor civ: Holland and Belgium
low tech, resource rich, labour rich civ: China and Indonesia
low tech, resource poor, labour rich civ: ?
low tech, resource rich, labour poor civ: Burma and Saudi Arabia
low tech, resource poor, labour poor civ: any banana republic or under developed resource poor African countries.

Note: "Labour rich/poor" was decided based on total labour points(quantity) not labour efficiency(quality).

quote: This makes no changes to your strategic resource system.

Thank you for pointing that out.

[Youngsun]

Gary

I said

quote: Pre-modern merchants can be replaced by corporations and the private sector which are the true form of open market for any nation.

"Open market" may not be the best way to describe "merchant trade" but it covers modern period fairly well. It is difficult to find a term to cover every era in satisfactory way. you have better idea on this?


me_irate

quote: I like the labor points idea. Here is how i think they should work. In any given city near the begining of the game half the pop in farming (working grass or plains squares would be plenty for food and growth) maybe 1/4 would be mining for resources and the other 1/4 would be labor. Assuming that it was a size 10 city 3 units would be for labour. The laborer starting out would produce about 10 labor. Thus 3 workers =30 labor a turn. Later in the game you could have better laborers assuming they are suplied with certain commodities as in imperialism. trained workers produce 20 labor but require certain luxuries. But they also cost a good deal more money thus making gold more important. It would be difficult to support a well trained workforce unless you have allot of income. Also later you could build factories and mills like you do farms that would increase labor points. Thus i worker working in a square with a factory would produce 50 labor but nothing else in that square. Also i believe later the gov. should have a greater bearing on support. Instead of just shield like in other games you must pay your soldiors also making gold more important and making trade more important.

That was exactly what I was thinking. I support the idea!

Imran Siddiqui

Thanks for the support. I see there is a trend that people, who have the experience of playing games with good resource system, do support the resource model. Imperialsm was one of the best and showed the potential of resource system though we don't need to have the system in that degree of complexity.

cyclotron7

quote: Throughout human civilization, people have had a choice, in both trading and other matters.

Yes and who were the losers? People who usually don't trade, right? In the game too, you do have a choice. You can let your economy go insular but have to bear the full consequence of economic isolation.
[This message has been edited by Youngsun (edited March 24, 2001).]

[GaryGuanine]

Youngsun,

I don't even know what you're talking about. My argument is not semantic (as yours appears to be); I am concerned with the idea that a large, global open market would not apply to any time before modern ones. Before there is technology to sufficiently reduce transaction costs, you simply can't buy stuff from anywhere in the world, as you would do in a panglobal open marketplace.

And from where does everyone's great lust for "labourers" come from? I realize that this was the topic from another thread, but I think it's such a pointless idea, I have to mention it again. In the current system (yes, the shields system), the "citizens" working the land are not only working the land. It is implied that they are helping out to manufacture things in the city area. If the citizens working the land were only farming and not producing anything, you wouldn't get any shields from that square. If you want this laborer specialist, you would need to either increase the food production of land squares (to support extra specialists), or decrease the food needs of citizens. The end result would be nearly precisely the same as the shields system. This seems to be a terrible case of "six of one, half a dozen of the other." Except the half-dozen you are suggesting is much, much more complicated. (and anachronistic)


I also like, Youngsun, how you produce tons of examples for your labour system from modern day nation-states. If Civ3 were a game of political theory in the Information Age, I would give you a round of applause, but it's not.

Gary

[Youngsun]

quote: I don't even know what you're talking about. My argument is not semantic (as yours appears to be); I am concerned with the idea that a large, global open market would not apply to any time before modern ones. Before there is technology to sufficiently reduce transaction costs, you simply can't buy stuff from anywhere in the world, as you would do in a panglobal open marketplace.

I don't get it why you think this such a big deal. The actual implmentation and mechanism are more important than a term. I'm not insisting that we must use the term to cover all time periods and that's why I ask you whether you got better idea on this or not. I already menetioned the ancient version of open market is not the true form of open market by saying only the modern one is. But we need some form of trading entities that are not bound by any nations. Disagree?

quote: I realize that this was the topic from another thread,

It's from the original trade thread and the idea was suggested by monolith94.

quote: In the current system (yes, the shields system), the "citizens" working the land are not only working the land. It is implied that they are helping out to manufacture things in the city area.

and you know that was one of the reasons for ICS. Field workers gathering resources and engaing in industry at the same time? come on. In colonisatin, ICS problem didn't exist. Why? The separation of these two worker classes led to the conclusion that developed cities outperform many small sized cities.

quote: If you want this laborer specialist, you would need to either increase the food production of land squares (to support extra specialists), or decrease the food needs of citizens.

Colonisation took the former approach(increased food production)and the system worked well.

quote: The end result would be nearly precisely the same as the shields system.

Why? I don't see any similarity between the two system.

[GaryGuanine]

Youngsun,

You once again baffle me with your reply. I do not care about the word, (semantic: 1. Of or relating to meaning, especially meaning in language.) I care about the actual thing.

quote: But we need some form of trading entities that are not bound by any nations. Disagree?

Of course I disagree, that's what I've been saying. If you want a mandatory resource system, then such a form is required. However, as I've said before, such an open market is incredibly anachronistic for nearly any time period before Wall Street.

quote: Field workers gathering resources and engaing in industry at the same time? come on.

Did I ever claim that Civilization 2 implied that individuals were in different places at the same time? Of course not. Something that I assumed was clear from the beginning is that all those little people in the city view represent more than one person. That labor is implicitly divided by the game already. That being stated explicitly now, I think my previous statement is clear.

quote: Colonisation took the former approach(increased food production)and the system worked well.

I absolutely agree with you there. I love Colonization, and think it is wonderfully designed. Of course it deals with a small sliver of world history, during which the only goal was trade. The raison d'etre of colonies is trade. The game (before the revolutionary war) is basically a trans-Atlantic trade simulation. Civ3 should not be.

quote: Why? I don't see any similarity between the two system.

While I believe that much of a supplementary resource system is already implicitly executed in Civ2, I believe the laborer thing is the most ridiculous "six of one, half a dozen of the other" case. If in the civ2 system you have 4 people "working the fields" and they produce 8 food, 6 shields, and 6 trade, it's no different from 2 "farmer" specialists producing 4 food each, and two "laborer" specialists each producing 3 shields (or your "labor point" equivalent), and your trade coming from wherever you have it coming from. You see, if the numbers produced from your specialist system are different significantly, then it will significantly affect the pace of the game, whether through city growth or unit production. If you then change the "skeleton" of the game to return the pace to how it was before (and by skeleton, I mean the preset growth rates, tech tree, and unit costs), you've made a completely arbitrary change that has no real effect on the game. If you want to change the pace of the game, say that explicitly. Please, please, please don't just write, "No, you're wrong." Show me, clearly, how what I've just written differs from your "laborer" specialist system.

Gary

Ooh, I figured out how to quote!


[This message has been edited by GaryGuanine (edited March 24, 2001).]

[Youngsun]

quote: Of course I disagree, that's what I've been saying. If you want a mandatory resource system, then such a form is required. However, as I've said before, such an open market is incredibly anachronistic for nearly any time period before Wall Street.

You say you don't care about the word but the actual implementation. Did I EVER mentioned how the open market should be implemented? No. The only thing I said clearly several times was that "we need a third party that is not bound by any civ such as a merchant". Also I said "the ancient version of open market is not the true form of open market by saying only the modern one is" You can derive my intention from those statements that the actual implementation of "open market" must be different for both ancient and modern era and the implementation should be effected by available technologies.

quote: all those little people in the city view represent more than one person.

Yes, group of people dedicated for a specific task.

quote: That labor is implicitly divided by the game already.

Yes and because of that ICS flourishes. I already menetioned why.

quote: The raison d'etre of colonies is trade. The game (before the revolutionary war) is basically a trans-Atlantic trade simulation. Civ3 should not be.

The ultimate goal of the game is "Colony management and gainning indepence" There are 4 main distinct paths for that goal. Immigration and Industry(English),Integration and cooperation(French) and Military conquest (Spanish) and finally trade(Dutch). Did I say civ should be just a trade game? The resource system will simply give the rightful seat for trade it deserves just to have equal status with others such as military aspect of the game.

quote: working the fields" and they produce 8 food, 6 shields, and 6 trade, it's no different from 2 "farmer specialists producing 4 food each, and two "laborer" specialists each producing 3 shields (or your "labor point" equivalent),

Why use shield? Where are those resources? It's the resources that make "labour points" meaningful. Also, you didn't include "what tile type the field workers are working at".

The Shield system
CityA(with factory)
Grassland: Field worker +4 food
Grassland: Field worker +4 food
Hill(coal): Field worker +8 shileds
Hill: Field worker +4 shileds

Total food: 8
Total shield: 16 modified by factory bonus(50%)

The resource system
CityA(with factory)
Grassland: Field worker +4 food
Grassland: Field worker +4 food
Hill(coal): Field worker +8 coal
Hill: Field worker +4 other metal
City :labour +5 labour
City :labour +5 labour

Total food: 8
Total labour: 15 modified by factory bonus(50%)
Since the resources are managed at national level(pool), it is irrelevant to count total resource for each city.

What if the hill(coal) is just a hill without any special resource bonus?
CityA's total shield will decrease to 12, if the shield system is used but if the resource system is used, the total labour is not effected at all. What does it tell you? A big city without much resource still can be an industrial centre just like the one of those Japanese cities. Under the shield system? Not a chance! Every city's industrial potential is strictly limited by what the city already begin with(city radius) Resources should be shipped over great distance if necessary.

PS. a labour(American: Labor):a person who works(bigger term),either skilled or unskilled
a labourer(American:Laborer): a person who does unskilled manual work.
[This message has been edited by Youngsun (edited March 25, 2001).]

[GaryGuanine]

Youngsun,

I don't care what you want to call it. I don't care if it represents merchants in the past, and a commodities market in modern times. I don't think there should be any feature of the game where you can buy resources from anyone at any time. I don't know if that's what you're talking about, but it seemed like perhaps some other people suggested it. I apologize if I mislead you.

Sorry, I think I misunderstood something you wrote earlier. What does ICS stand for?

I see the difference in your system now. You want to nationalize everything. That is a ridiculously anachronistic idea. It's in the same boat as the "open market" idea (even if it wasn't yours). You have these worldwide systems of resource distribution in ancient times. Don't even get me started on trying to apply the idea of a "nation" to anything before the Enlightenment. You know why big, resource poor cities aren't production juggernauts in civ? Because before 1850 (arbitrary large scale railroad date), there was no way to easily transport thousands of tons of resources from one place to another! People just built the manufacturing centers where the resources were. Oddly enough, this facet of history is accurately reflected in the city radius resource system Civ2 already uses. Again, if you want Civ3 to be a game that simulates industry in a nation-state that is covered in highways and railroads, I say your system is beautiful. But that's not what Civ3 should be.

Gary

P.S. Thanks for the postscript. I must admit, though, that I did know the definition of "labor" already. My disagreement with your ideas is not based on my minunderstanding of the English language, it's based on my belief that your ideas are very, very wrong.

[Cyclotron]

Gary, I am very impressed and glad someone could watch my back while I was sea kayaking this weekend.

ICS means "infinite city strategy" where you build as many cities as possible instead of improving large cities.

Youngsun, you are unfortunately wrong about civ's division of labor being the cause of ICS abuse. The reason ICS works in Civ2 is because cities start out with one more worker than population, so it is more efficient to have two cities with one population than one with 2 population. Civ2's division of labor has absolutely nothing to do with the extra worker. Gary is right that each worker does not stand for a unit of populaiton working that area, but rather it indicates that this area is currently being utilized by your citizens. This means that not only are people farming a grassland w/ shield and a road, but merchants are traveling down the road selling their wares to peasants and potters are digging up moist dirt to dry and make clay pots out of. If you want to get rid of ICS, get rid of the extra worker problem. Getting rid of Civ2's resource system won't help one bit.

------------------
Any shred of compassion left in me was snuffed out forever when they cast me into the flames...
[This message has been edited by cyclotron7 (edited March 25, 2001).]

[Youngsun]

Gary

quote: I don't think there should be any feature of the game where you can buy resources from anyone at any time.

Please, explain why.

quote: there was no way to easily transport thousands of tons of resources from one place to another!

There were many ways and "how easy it is" is not important because of the fact that it gets easier whenever a superior technology comes out.



When the network of road and sea lane represent your civ's veins, T.capacity(transportation capacity) becomes actual blood of your civ. Historically, vessels were superior means of transportation over their land counterparts and that's why there were so many sea faring empires compared to that rised from land. You will be tempted to have lines of cities located along with coast line due to easier transportation thus ensuring speedy growth. By introducing the concept, resource rich cities will be good/suitable sites for industrial centres while resource poor cities still have chances to become the ones if your civ has got mighty transportation capability. Just think about how many resource carrying cargo ships Japan has right now.


cyclotron7

quote: The reason ICS works in Civ2 is because cities start out with one more worker than population, so it is more efficient to have two cities with one population than one with 2 population.

You know what cyclotron7? I've been into many of ICS related discussions and the reason you stated above is the primary resason, right BUT we can not cut the feature out because if we do, cities don't grow at all at satisfactory rate. Actually there is nothing wrong with ICS but it's the fact that people neglect to improve their infra-structures to build more cities because that rewards them more. So we need to give more bonus to network of highly developed cities over small size cities with no infra. Big cities hold city specialists better. why? because the accumulated food give enough space to make the city grows while having large number of specialists still.
[This message has been edited by Youngsun (edited March 25, 2001).]

[GaryGuanine]

cyclotron,

No problem, man. There must be something in the water in California, the two of us clearly have the most insight into how Civ3 should be.

Youngsun,

quote: Please, explain why.

Because there is no infrastructure in place. In terms of world history (in other words, Civ3), we would have to be talking about thousands of tons of product to move. There was simply no way that the Chinese, over in East Asia could sell tons and tons of, say, iron to the Zulus in Southern Africa. It just couldn't happen. Like I said before, I would have no beef with a feature like this once there were railroads everywhere. Of course, if railroads work like they do in Civ2, once railroads were everywhere, you could just use caravans to travel everywhere instantaneously. Therefore invalidating the need for a market system. That's why.

quote: There were many ways and "how easy it is" is not important because of the fact that it gets easier whenever a superior technology comes out.

Of course I realize that it gets easier as more advanced technologies come out, that's what my entire argument is based on. It's not even feasible to think of a world economy until you can get whatever you want from one place to another quickly. Your discussion about sea based transportation is very true, as is your statement, "resource poor cities still have chances to become the ones if your civ has got mighty transportation capability." My argument is based on the idea that "mighty transportation capability" does not exist until modern times.

quote: Just think about how many resource carrying cargo ships Japan has right now.

Exactly. "Right now". Right now is not 100 years ago, much less 2000. The idea does not apply in all time periods, only very modern ones.

quote: So we need to give more bonus to network of highly developed cities over small size cities with no infra.

Do we, though? Why? Lots of successful civilizations didn't have networks of highly developed cities. With their aggressive colonization, the Greeks played ICS. Their primary cities weren't that big, after all. We tend to think of civilizations without strongly developed urban life as "backward", because those ideas apply to the times in which we live. The Dutch Republic was a leader in Early Modern Europe, and they had no really big cities. They were just a collection of "towns". ICS should be just as valid a strategy as any other; no more, no less.

Gary

[Youngsun]

Gary

quote: we would have to be talking about thousands of tons of product to move

There you go! why does it have to be thousands of tons of product? As merchants of old days did, small amount will do the job. It's the accessibility that matters not the amount.

quote: that "mighty transportation capability" does not exist until modern times.

There you go again! The "mighty transportation capability" was there all the time. Athenian,Egyptian and Roman merchant fleets are the ones. Don't even tell me another "thousands of tons" thing here too. Everything is relative and at the Ancient Greeks' point of view, their fleets were capable of carrying what they want carry and that's important.

quote: Lots of successful civilizations didn't have networks of highly developed cities. With their aggressive colonization, the Greeks played ICS. Their primary cities weren't that big, after all. We tend to think of civilizations without strongly developed urban life as "backward", because those ideas apply to the times in which we live. The Dutch Republic was a leader in Early Modern Europe, and they had no really big cities. They were just a collection of "towns". ICS should be just as valid a strategy as any other; no more, no less.

You have a very dangerous idea, Gary. Civilisation rise with cities not with mere towns and that's the rule to be true civilisation. The Greeks did ICS but their cities were developed and sophiscated ones. AS long as you develop your cities enough ICS doesn't casue any problem. However, the people who do ICS in civII don't develop their town as the Greeks or Dutch did. No aqueduct,library and granary they build but only cities and that's the problem!

[GaryGuanine]

Youngsun,

I don't think a small amount will do the job. When you're talking about building "legion" military units, that's a great deal of iron.

quote: There you go again! The "mighty transportation capability" was there all the time. Athenian,Egyptian and Roman merchant fleets are the ones. Don't even tell me another "thousands of tons" thing here too. Everything is relative and at the Ancient Greeks' point of view, their fleets were capable of carrying what they want carry and that's important.

I know it's relative. There were great trading fleets in the past. My concern is, and always has been, that a "world market" system where you can just buy stuff from anybody is unrealistic. The Athenians, Egyptians and Romans did have merchant fleets, but they had to build them. They had to invest considerable amounts of resources in creating and maintaining them. It's just like having to build lots of ships, and making lots of caravan units, not just buying your resources from some screen, a third party open market.

Gary

[Youngsun]

quote: I don't think a small amount will do the job. When you're talking about building "legion" military units, that's a great deal of iron.

Merchant trade gives some breathing spaces for a civ which is either politically or geographically isolated but it's not designed to fully satisfy any civ's need which has to be satisfied through nation to nation trade.

quote: that a "world market" system where you can just buy stuff from anybody is unrealistic.

Hmm?! Why include "the market" idea here while we're talking about transportation?

quote: The Athenians, Egyptians and Romans did have merchant fleets, but they had to build them. They had to invest considerable amounts of resources in creating and maintaining them.

What makes ships of those days? wood. Is it hard to get wood? no.

quote: It's just like having to build lots of ships, and making lots of caravan units, not just buying your resources from some screen, a third party open market.

Aha! now, I know why you are so opposed to merchant trade idea. I'm not thinking something like a screen for an open market. Merchants should move around the world and when they come to your border you can trade with them for what they have for the moment. Sometimes they may not have things you really want so trade doesn't happen all the time. Have you played Gengiskhan series(KOEI) before? if you have, you know what I mean.
[This message has been edited by Youngsun (edited March 26, 2001).]

[Lancer]

Well, there have been over 200 posts to this thread series and a spinoff thread too boot with another 50. That's 250 posts in a forum that's seen busier times. To me this speaks directly to the importance of the subject, and I'm very heartened that it's gotten this level of attention and debate.

Keep up the good work!