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**Gordon the Whale** · August 2, 1999, 13:09

Thanks for the summary, Harel.

I'd like to suggest an option between C and D in resource management: Have more than 3 natural resources, but don't worry about manufactured commodities. Natural resources can still be traded, but all the nightmare with manufactured goods, where to manufacture them, how to manufacture them, what to do with them, how to transport them, whether to store them, etc.

The natural resources could still be grouped more or less into 3 categories, but would be further divided.

Fuel: instead of being abstracted to oil/gas/coal, make it oil, gas, and coal. Each requires different techs to become useful, and their use makes different amounts of pollution. Shortly after these become useful in making units, they are also required by cities, with a happiness penalty if not supplied.

Material: Here are Wood, Iron, Stone, Copper/Bronze, Bauxite, Uranium, and maybe one or two others. Wood or stone are required for the expansion of cities, and the metals are used primarily for units. Perhaps even go back further in history than bronze working, and allow units that require stone for production?

Exotic/trade: It's not really exotic if it's growing in your civ, is it? These are numerous, and the particulars are not important. Gold, Silver, Gems, Spices, Salt are the obvious choices. Cash crops, a TI, could make similar goods: Tobacco, Silk, Cotton, Sugar, Indigo. These would all be traded as the trade goods in Civ2 (or, more accurately, CtP? I never played it). Better if the caravan never had to be built, though. Trade through roads, as in the summary. However, don't let routes go for infinite distances. It would be too easy to build a network of roads on a continent (everyone does it anyways) that would be making WAY too much money. Instead, add in a component for diminished returns over distance, but make cities in between add to the maximum distance.

ember and I were discussing how to purchase production in a split-resource system, at the very end of the last thread. I suggested you could buy, as 1 gold per, as many resources or industry as you were already producing. ember suggested that this be a sliding scale, where you gould buy 50% of your produce at 1 per, another 50% at 2 per, another 50% at 3 per (or is this one 4 per?), etc. I think that's a good idea, ember. Still, the actual values need to depend upon SE choices. To repeat my previous example, in a Socialist economy, production is largely controlled by the government; in CIV, socialist countries get a bonus to industry and resources. However, this means that there isn't so much private industry to hire in times of need, so a socialist country would not be able to get as much of a bonus.

There definately needs to be a limit on stored resources. AND a turn-by-turn decay. I don't think you should be able to build up huge reserves, that's not the way it really works. If terrain tiles get depleted (and it would be neat if they did) then resources above your production needs and capacity of storage facilities are considered not even harvested. Each city should be able to store 5 or 10 of each resource per each point of population, which can be increased with the production of a Warehouse facility, which would have increased capacity for all goods, to avoid complexity. (maybe just double the production of the city.)

**Gordon the Whale** · August 2, 1999, 13:16

Sorry, Double post.
<font size=1 face=Arial color=444444>[This message has been edited by Gordon the Whale (edited August 02, 1999).]</font>

**ember** · August 2, 1999, 16:21

If you have a turn-by-turn decay of stockpiled resources and food, a maximum capacity is not as imortant. If the ecay rate is 10% and there is 100 units surplus, the max stockpile is 1000 units, and it will take a long time (never) to reach that amount. In 10 turns you have reached only 2/3 the max.
year 1: lose 0, add 100 = 100
year 2: lose 10, add 100 = 190
year 3: lose 19, add 100 = 271
year 4: lose 27, add 100 = 344
year 5: lose 34, add 100 = 410
year 6: lose 41, add 100 = 469
year 7: lose 47, add 100 = 522
year 8: lose 52, add 100 = 570
year 9: lose 57, add 100 = 613
year 10: lose 61, add 100 = 651
(numbers are rounded off)

Graneries and such could jsut affect the rate of decay, to produce a similair effect to a higher max stock.

The point on costs more to add more resources is for illustration. The 50% blocks would be a different amount for different SE.

On regions. The building in the capital shouldnt affect all cites, with a few exceptions. When you build a temple the AI chosses a location, based on where it would be best suited(you can change it). It builds it in that location, affecting that city. Some improvments are regional in effect, like a stock market, or superhighways. Most woders could be limited to a region to avoid some aspects of ICS.

------------------
"Any technology, sufficiently advanced,
is indistinguishable from magic"
-Arthur C. Clark

**Maniac** · August 3, 1999, 13:12

Just want to say cathedrals took indeed centuries to build.
BTW, doesn't your post belong in City Improvements?

**Gordon the Whale** · August 3, 1999, 14:08

Gregurabi- Check out my post in radical ideas, fairly near the end as of now, I think, about how to look at who it is that you are being in Civilization. It makes the current system make much more sense.

I'm not sure I like the idea of sharing city improvements within a region. (this must belong in city improvements, too... everything overlaps) Resources amd military support, I can handle, but I don't know about ALL city improvements... Maybe some (cathedral) could be shared, whereas others (granary) would have to be built individually.

**Zorloc** · August 3, 1999, 15:32

I like Gordon's idea of an point in between C and D on resources.

My original idea is to have resource/commodity catagories, differentiated by tech level (or age). Thus one resource would be fuel, with a progression of:
firewood
animal oils
coal
petrolium
uranium
geothermal

Additionally certain techs will be able to provide power (shields?) without using resources:
Water/windmill
windfarm
Dam
Solar plant
etc...

jbw

**ember** · August 3, 1999, 17:40

A new method for populaation growth.

The population of cities are recorded as x.xxx. This allows fractional population points. The fraction has no gameplay effect until it reaches the next number. It allows groth rates to be experesed as an increase per turn. Attacks that hit population centers can now do fractional pop. points of damage. maybe 0.1 or 0.05 per hit.

The purpose of this proposal is to seperate growth from straight food production.
Growth rates can be expressed as a percentage per turn, (eg 2.5%) to give a familiar sort of look. What this means for gameplay terms is that 0.025 pop points are added every year. This gives a groth of 40 turns.

Pop is recorded as fractional points, but it is easy to convert that to a real pop number.
The formula:
Actual pop = 5000 x (pop points + 0.5)^2 - 1250
Follows the civx model exactly for whole numbers, and can give good values for fractional numbers.

Effects on population growth. All numbers are arbitray and should vary depending on SE choices and tech. This system is desigend to be compatable with the idea of villages.

I have made use of a 'happyness rating', which is (#happy - #unhappy) / # total. This gives 0 for all content, 100 for all happy, and -100 for all unhappy. This can be applied to a city, a region, a civ or the entire world.

Base growth: 10%
Happyness : + city happyness / N. N depends on SE.
villages : + 0.2% per village
medicine : + 2%
etc.

Immigration. To take into account people moving around in your civ and between civs.
The advantages of including this is that large unhappy cites will tend to slow down growth or shrink, while your smaller cities will pick up the extra people.

In civ immigration = (city happyness - civ happyness) / Y. Y depends on SE and the overall level of transportation availabble. In cty immigation tends to have larger volume than between civs.

between civs migration = (city happyness - world happyness) / Z. Z depends on SE and transport of all players. For this calcualtion government types can influence the happyness used. democracy might add 10 points, while communism subtarcts 10 points, to reflect that democracies never have had problems with too many people trying to flee from them.

Wonder: Iron curtain. Prevents all between civ emmigration. (for gameplay all cities count as average happyness level)

------------------
"Any technology, sufficiently advanced,
is indistinguishable from magic"
-Arthur C. Clark

**don Don** · August 3, 1999, 17:49

Timber
Stone
Silver
Iron
Coal
Oil

I don't see why it should be any more complicated than that. Bauxite, for example, becomes a substitute for iron in the post-industrial economy. Copper is initially a "substitute" for iron, which isn't discovered until later. Just treat both as minor sources of the generalized "iron."

It may be hard to reduce it from these categories. In general, one can't be substituted for any of the others. The difference between coal and oil is worth starting wars over (Japan in WW2).

**Maniac** · August 3, 1999, 17:59

ember, I'm glad you worked out a immigration model, but couldn't you insert my SE Culture factor in it, please?

**Gregurabi** · August 4, 1999, 00:19

I'm copying this, which I posted recently in the CTP suggestions forum.

During a war, the state may claim a higher percentage of the production output of the private factories. Thus, while the factories aren't really producing any more than they were during peace time, they're now producing more tanks and fewer tractors.

I think the Civ games do a damned poor job of modeling the interactions between public and private sectors. Why is the government building a church in every city? And why does the construction of this church take centuries and prevent the simultaneous construction of military weaponry and the training of soldiers? Buildings like temples, banks, etc. should simply appear when market forces bring about conditions in which they are needed/useful. They should be supported entirely by the private sector -- no drain on the state treasury. In fact, the state should BENEFIT from them through taxation. By changing the tax rates you levy against the private sector, you can encourage growth and investment (lower taxes) or siphon money into public projects (higher taxes, giving you (the state) the capital necessary for police/military, civil engineering like public roads, etc.).

Even SimCity has a better model than Civ1/Civ2/CTP. (Note: I haven't played SMAC.)

So... depending on your military readiness setting (or other factors, whatever works), you might be able to usurp a certain amount of production capacity from private industries. Modifying existing factories to produce military hardware should require some time, but once all of the adjustments are in place, weapons can be mass-produced much more quickly. Of course, this leaves fewer consumer goods, so that would have to be modeled -- unhappiness is one way, but there should be greater long-term ramifications on the economy. At a minimum, industrial efficiency should drop -- a lot of those consumer goods that aren't being produced any more would have gone back into the industrial infrastructure and fuel the economy. With their quantities reduced, industrial output should slow down -- just a bit at first, but it should accelerate as the war continues.

(If I remember correctly, the USSR had this problem -- after a while, they were spending something outrageous on their military -- over 50% of their GNP, wasn't it? But they got diminishing returns over time, and the economy collapsed.)

**Gordon the Whale** · August 4, 1999, 11:47

M@ni@c, why not add it in yourself? It's not like ember owns the idea... If he(she?) wanted to keep it exactly how he thought of it, he wouldn't have posted it in a forum. For those of us who don't want to leave this thread, explain the SE Culture choice.

I think it's a good idea, ember, especially as far as fractional population growth. The only thing that worries me about the i/emmigration factor is processor time. There are lots of nice effects that could be made by summin gup all sorts of things at the end of each turn, but a lot of them can end up really CPU heavy. This one only requires: determine the happiness of each city, take average by civs, take world average, compare averages, add/take away citizens. If I'm correct, you don't need to keep track of where a citizen from city a goes... There ends up being the right number anyways. However, if ethnicity/religion is implemented, which you didn't suggest but I, tentatively, am, in relation to this immigration/emmigration scheme, you end up with a lot of stuff to keep track of.

On resources: Splitting into

lumber
stone
iron
silver
coal
oil

Does represent all the necessary components. Indeed, it looks like you are dividing into:

Temporary building material/primative fuel
Permanent building material
Practical Metal
Trade goods
mid-grade fuel
high-grade fuel

Which is an excellent way to divide if this were a game about a single city, or in a single time period, etc. And it would work, and better than the "shield" system. But I like the idea of a city that's vital in the bronze age becoming backwater in the iron age, because those copper mines are now almost useless. Definately, no civilization will be using bronze AND iron extensively at the same time, but if both exist, and the discovery of iron working prompts a switch, that is, to me, a worthwhile part of gameplay. For silver/other trade goods, I think it's even more important to have lots of variety. These should be where those trade routes come from. They aren't exactly "resources," because you con't use them to build things, but as new deposits are discovered and trends come and go, their worth on the world market waxes and wanes. Someone who's played it, was this the system used in CtP, and did it seem to work?

**Maniac** · August 4, 1999, 16:29

The following is a post I made a while back in the SE thread.

6) Culture

Some threads ago, I said culture would determine population happiness. I've made that a separate SE factor.

1)Culture determines how much it costs for you to bribe a unit or a city.

2)If a neighbour civ has a lower culture rate, his cities become slowly and automatically converted to your culture. Cities converted to your culture get your city stile. If two civs already have the same city stile, I don't know yet what should represent the conversion. If the capital is converted you get a higher Diplomacy rate. If that civ attacks you, the citizens of the converted city become unhappier = lower happiness rate.

3)A civ with a high culture rate has more population immigration from other countries.
Immigration : citizens from other civs migrating to your civ. Immigration/emigration has been suggested in the 'City Growth' thread in Civ3-General/suggestions.
Im- and emigration should depend on your culture rate and the happiness of the concerning city.

4) A high Nationalism(=Probe) rate lowers emigration. This is to simulate the Iron Curtain( or whatever it's called in English).

5) Your culture rate determines how long it takes for conquered cities to assimilate to your culture and cause less happiness.
In SMAC it was 50 turns. For every +Culture you have more than the city of the previous owner, the city needs 10 less turns to assimilate.
If you have a lower Culture rate, the city doesn't adapt. Means more unhappiness and increases the likelyness of revolting and forming a new civ.

6) Can't say numbers. Testplaying needed.

maximum+6
+? : less money needed for bribing; immigrating people from lower cultures; conversion if higher culture; fast assimilation

-? : possible emigration and conversion if lower culture; no assimilation if lower culture
minimum-5
[This message has been edited by M@ni@c (edited August 02, 1999).]

I hope you have some use out of it.

**ember** · August 4, 1999, 19:47

M@ani@c:
Sounds like your culture factor is basically anouther way of determining civ happyness for immigration purposes.
It looks interesting, but I'm not terribly concerend about ethnicity and such, I actually feel that it would be an complexity that would not help gameplay.
If you want to figure out how to calculate the various immigration percentages, feel free, but I don't really have a feel for it, so I can't.

Resources:
Building materials. Only really need one here. If you really want at modren ceramics and composits.
Trade goods should not be resources in the building units sense. Don't need to get 3 silver from that hill...
Iron/bronze
Advanced alloys (upgarde from Iron)
Ancient fuels, up to coal
Modern fuels, oil and uranium.
6 catergories, of which only 3 are used at a time.
Can even call them the same things throughout, but change the production value of each square with certain techs:

Building materials
Metals
Fuels

only 3 needed. To me that is the most that is managable.

------------------
"Any technology, sufficiently advanced,
is indistinguishable from magic"
-Arthur C. Clark

**don Don** · August 7, 1999, 00:30

I am not afraid of complication, especially when it can improve play. Somewhere in the strategies forum a civer mentioned a scenario-like rules.txt change for MP:

Make oil (or some other special terrain resource) worth some huge amount of shields and trade (10 each).
Watch the wars fought over them!

Making certain resources worth extracting for trade, and some few worth fighting over, can improve play. You might make stone and brick the most generic resource (like "shields"), available as needed with sufficient labor to extract it, but it must be modeled. Timber should be separate from stone as a resource.

You can't build ships, seige engines, or wagons (necessary for large scale military units) out of stone or brick!
There are large areas of the world without useable timber.
There are areas of the world without quarry stone.
There are some areas without either; brick is all they've got.
Timber can be traded economically at any tech level.
Timber can be can be used for fuel and, with moderate tech, naval stores and other derivatives.

Coal must be separate from oil as a resource.

Coal (or lignite, or even poorer substitute peat) can be extracted and utilized in its raw form at any tech level.
The usefulness of crude oil and amount extractable is proportional to some function of tech level.
Oil also requires investment in facilities to use and to process for use, chiefly wrt/internal combustion engines.
There are large areas without coal, or oil, or both; trade ensues.
Oil is so necessary to the late industrial era that wars are fought over it.

Precious stones, metals, etc. should be resources in their own right.

They (and goods made from them) are the only trade materials that have intrinsic value out of proportion to usefulness.
They inspire trade or war far more than common resources or goods made from common resources (except oil).

Trace metals, including uranium, could be handled as generic resources. You would never really need more than one "shield" (or whatever)/turn of each type for an entire civ. If your civ has a major source you can use more than one unit, but it doesn't get you anything special. The Soviet Union had abundant titanium and they could build entire submarine hulls. It gave the Alpha class a depth advantage, but that's it.

Note to users and staff: UBB numbered list function isn't working correctly.
<font size=1 face=Arial color=444444>[This message has been edited by don Don (edited August 07, 1999).]</font>

Announcement

ECONOMICS/TRADE ( vers 1.3 ) HOSTED BY: HAREL

ECONOMICS/TRADE ( vers 1.3 ) HOSTED BY: HAREL

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