Economics ver. 1.4, by Harel and Don Don

[The Joker]

I would like a whole new and advanced trading system. I think the major flaw of the concepts posted so far is, that they all revolve around raw materials. But today 75% of all trade is with manufactured goods, not raw materials. This should be included in Civ3.

I think there should be a global trading market, where all items you can trade with are represented. There should be loads of them. Maybe 15 raw materials (6-8 vital ones - oil, coal, iron etc, the rest should be luxury items like cotton and silk which could increase trade and happyness of your people if used in a city), and maybe 50 refined goods (these would consist of labour and for some a certain raw materials - like 1 oil + 1 labour = 1 gasolin, 1 iron + 1 labour = 1 handweapons and 5 labour = 1 computers etc). Some of these goods would be required to build certain units/improvements (like ancient hand weapons for legions and computers for a research facility). This would mean that you would no longer need a certain advance to build a unit/imporvement. You would just need that advance to build the good required to construct it. You could also need a certain improvement in the city in which you are building the good - like a manufacturing plant to build computers. So if you had an advance you could set some of your cities to make these goods and then set them for sale on the global market - you would set the price, so if you had monopoly people would have to pay your price if they wanted the item! The buying countries could need the good badly, and so they were willing to pay for it in stead of making it themselves, they could simply be very wealthy countries or they could be countries without the advance required to make the item (you would have to approve when people wanted to buy stuff from you to keep your enemies from getting certain items. This would of cause have a negative effect on their aditude towards you).

There would be 2 types of trade: one would be to buy a vertain amount of an item to a certain price every turn. It would continue untill canceled by either side (you would want a steady amount of oil every turn for your production, units etc). The other type would be to buy an amount of an item in one turn. The trade would excist only in one point in time (like if you buy 1 computers item for your research lab).

When you traded you would choose what city the trade should be to. If it was oil you would then make internal routes from the city it got to first to your other cities. The price for the delivery would be determined by distance, advances, terrain and roads/railroads. It would take an amount of time for the trade to be established, determined by the same as above. It could take from 20 turns if you trade something across the globe in ancient times to to 1 turn everywhere in the world after the discovery of advanced flight.

This would of cause require a fast and good interface to keep it from becoming annoying micromanagement. There should be a button in the build menu for cities, which would take you directly to the marketplace. Each good/raw material would be listed, a click on one would show you each item of the good being set for sale, who was selling it, how much they wanted for the good and how much you would have to pay (due to shippingcosts). A simple dubbleclick on one would have you buy it and have it delivered to the city you were entering the market from. This shouldn't take more than a few seconds.

This way global economic crisises could emerge realisticly: The biggest oil exporting country in the world was at war, and it's improvements get destroyed, it moves workers from oil pumping to production for units etc, so it stops exporting oil - this would make production of other goods slower, raising the cost of them. Soon there would be a global depression.

I think that items like oil and coal should be vital to your production after industrialization. My concept is, that workers working outside the cities should produce only little labour. They would get food and raw materials. Labour should be made inside the cities, as a sort of specialist citizen. 1000 people (I vote for having people in stead of heads) could maked 10 labour per turn(using the famous X10 system). If you have a factory in the city this could be raised to 20 labour, but that would require 1 coal unit. A manufacturing plant could raise this amount to 30, but this would require 1 oil (maybe you could replace the 1 coal with 1 oil after having contructed the manufacturing plant, portraying that the world is not as dependant of coal today as 100 years ago). This way you become extremely dependant of raw materials in modern times, increasing trade dramatically.

Trade routes should be visible with a certain economic map which could be switched on and off like the map grid. You could make embargoes against your enemies if you have a large fleet (finally an actual reason to have a fleet!!) crumbling them in a matter of turns.

This would also give you reasons to go to war (besides from being pissed on the leader of your neighbor civ) - you REALLY need that coal your smaller neighbor has to get that industrial revolution started, so you can compete with the big guys etc etc.

Some of these goods would propably be ones that you as the government wouldn't need. It would be the people that would buy this, and it wouldn't be in your control. But you could propably make some kind of protectionistic things in your SE settings.


So, what do you think?

[S. Kroeze]

Basically I'm really enthusiastic about this idea. Fifty different items might be overdoing things. I'm also a zealous advocate of counting people, not heads.
Colonial powers would have urgent reasons to invade other countries just to protect their home industry.
Neither should the importance of the import of grain, timber and metals in the ancient days be underestimated. Advanced societies, like the Dutch in the seventeenth century, normally imported much of their food from neighbouring countries; the Romans shipped tons of corn (taxes in kind) to their capital out of Egypt, Northern Africa and Sicily, just to prevent food riots, which could topple the most benign emperor. Timber was essential for metal working and the building of a fleet. The Dutch and British constantly watched policies in the Baltic, as the Venetians watched the Black Sea. Syria, a country rich in metal was primarily conquered by the Assyrians because of its wealth of metals.

I'm much attached to the ancient caravan icon. In the beginning of history ,when trade routes weren't yet established and maps unreliable, the first traders literally fought their way to their trading source, not to bring something but to search for certain trade goods. (actually CivII reverses reality) If you spend part of your economy on luxuries the money would be invested in similar goods. We shouldn't underestimate the dangers of brigandage and piracy. So I would urge to keep it as a way of establishing trade relations. Only if it has safely returned home a trade route should be considered established.

One last short remark: the power of a government to proclaim a trade embargo shouldn't be exaggerated, certainly not before the nineteenth century: interlopers will always avoid control as is proven by the lost fight of all governments against drugs. Profits are to high!
But a large fleet like the British would substantially help.

[The Joker]

Maybe 50 goods are a bit too much, but there should be many in order to have a working global economy.

But i STRONGLY oppose to the idea of having the civ2 type caravan return. It may be realistic, but it makes trade so dull and annoying micromanagement that it would totally ruin the balance of the game. If Civ3 are to have such huge amount of trade is I (and you, it seems) want it would end in ridiculus micromanagement (can you imagine moving 50 caravans around the globe?). The caravans were also the main reason that people never traded in Civ2.

Trade Embargoes should be hard before industrial times, but today there is absolutely no question of the effect. Look at Cuba, which is among the poorest countries in the world due to the US's embargo.

[SWPIGWANG]

I think there should be two kinds of good, lux goods(used by the population to increase happyness and someother things(like computers increase scinece)) and production goods (used to make units and buildings)

By the way a GOOD interface is a must if the goods and labour system is going to work

great work guys

[The Joker]

I think there should be not only a distinction between labour and goods (the latter being both raw materials and manufactured goods), but when building military units also between hiring the people and making the weapons. The first of these would take a very short amount of time (maybe 1 or 2 turns in all cities) especcially before industrialization. The downside would be that a military unit would take people from the city in which it was built. Making the weapons wouldn't take very long either. This way it wouldn't be very expensive to build a large army, but more expensive to have it (units should require raw materials, labour, food and money to have - the amount should be set individually for each unit). Having a large army could this way really hurt production and trade, making the cost of war more realistic.

[Orz]

Simplicity is crucial!

RESOURCES:
I'd like Colonization system but I must admit to myself that its too big a micromanagement for a game like Civ. Reducing number of tiles and city radius help.
An SIMPLIER IDEA for resources is WORKER SPECIALISTS + SUBSTANCE AVAILABILITY.
The workforce would have quantitative output, like shields.
If there is a iron mine near city then the iron would be available and tradeable to other cities. 1 caravan per resource so max 2 cities would benefit from 1 resource.
Example: Armor would need a 80 shields and must be built in a city with Iron in it and must be upkeeped a city with Oil (Gas) resource in it. Simple.

CARAVANS:
As forementioned - people did not trade because of micromanagement. That's true. Caravans should stay. Freights not.

With Caravan system it would let's say 5 turns to build and 5 turns transport a Freight on a medium map. It's 10 years. So for example on computer business: Freights from US come with 286-s to EU wich is a very good machine here then and vice versa: americans will hear for example Prodigy, Oasis, Spice Girls, etc. stuff after many years, in 2005 perhaps! Ridiculous! It should be a part of diplomacy since Advanced Flight or Telephone advance! There are even practically no pirates, business is fast. Why units?

[The Joker]

Personally I think that caravans should be thrown away too. Trade should take some time in ancient times, but having to move units around is mere stupidity. It should be done with a simply push of a button. So in ancient times you would get the message that it would take perhabs 5 turns for the iron to move from that to that city. And I don't think that simplicity is best in Civ games. I think if Firaxis includes automatic trade and smaller civs (see the SE Models v. 3.0 at the bottom for more details on this) you could use more time on cool things like civil wars and enhanced trade. This would in my eyes rise the quality of the game remarkably. I think a unit/improvement/wonder/national project should require a certain amount of labour and certain raw materials and/or goods. This way trade would be more likely, great new war strategies like cutting off your enemies supply of oil could be included. This would mean that it would no longer neccesarily be the strongest, but the smartest that would win a war.

[SWPIGWANG]

caravans is okey for ancient times...as long as its(or can be) automated(A messager should take a long time to reach a caravan years in to the jounry.....why should the play control the unit it it takes a messager more then one turn to get there)

besides caravan micromange is fine if you have a small number(early game=ancient times)

[Utrecht]

Here is an idea for section 14 city Management.

One of the things about the civ series is that after a certain point in the game it becomes a chore to actually found new cities.

My proposal would be to give tha ability to found "complete" cities. These cities would have most of the basics. For example in the Renisanse, they would have temple, market etc.

When the transition to modern occurs, they would have bank, university, etc.

Obviosly the costs to create new cities would increase dramatically, but it would lower the amount of micromanagement involved in the creation of new cities.

Another possability would be the idea of a gateway technology that enables these enhanced cities.

[don Don]

Don't forget that these city improvements aren't token structures. A market isn't just a plaza where farmers can set up shop; a temple isn't just a little shrine by the side of the plaza; a library isn't the local philosopher's basement where a few hundred scrolls are kept. Each is a significant investment of valuable resources.

For the more modern improvements a university isn't the community college or even the branch campus of State U; bank isn't the local savings and loan, etc. These cities are really the capitals a large provinces, so the bank is more like a reserve bank system and the university is a school of the highest caliber. These are expensive enough that the player has to think, "Is it worth investing in this improvement in this city?"

[Utrecht]

Your right in that they ar significant investments are correct. But, what the thought of "complete" cities is trying to minimize is the micromanagement during the late game.

Because honestly, I build all of the standard improvements whenever I found a city.

[Pythagoras]

With the coorporation idea, I think there should be downsides to this - Giving control of your "farms" or "trade routes" to a coorporation could be dangerous, especially if the company is of a hostile nation. They could then choose to hold back food and halt trade whereby you would have to use your military to go in and reestablish your domain over your resources/trade. Doing this would require you to get rid of the coorporate farms, and reinstate the older system which would cause you to have less production for about 10 turns.

[don Don]

Utrecht,
That might make sense if pop growth depends on economy/happiness, so that a baby city could benefit from Tmpl/Lib/Mkt. Together they only cost 3 maint. But U/Bank together cost 6 maint, neither is worthwhile until the city is 8± with decent trade.

Still, what you want can easily be accomplished through queues.

[Stefu]

I had this little idea yesterday - it's about budgets. I saw one budget version in List 2 - it could be expanded. The idea in List 2 assumed all gold was spent on budgets. However, all money is not taxed out of populace, so you should be able to decide a tax rate. Lower tax rates would make population happier, but also in Capitalistic Soc.Eng setting and in all like that, it would also have slight positive intact on economy - likewise, all above, say, 25% could have negative impact on economy. However, lower tax rate also means less money to spend on infrastructure and like, so it could be fatal to your state.

Therefore, there would be option to PRIVATIZE some of these options - basically everything were there is profit to be gained could be privatized (I have no idea how you can gain profit from welfare, so that couldn't be. Maybe company that hires unemployed to sweatshops). Effect of privatization is that the function privatized no longer has to be paid money - it's all taken care by companies. If private companies model is included, there instantly pop 2-3 companies that compete against each other.

This means that you no longer decide how well is your education, companies do, and if they do ad, then your education is going to shambles. Also, as this means that another previously non-profit organization is ran with profit in mind and that means straight over the poor people, HAPPINESS rating of Social Engineering is decreased by one.

Of course, there is also NATIONALIZATION of previously privatized company - this means that status quo returns. However, this cannot be used to "save" some area that has been ruined by companies - it'll return to normal in time, but only in time. This process can be sped up by spending money. Changing to Communist model instantly nationalizes all privatized sectors - this could invoke some penalties, as properties are forcibly seized.

[Utrecht]

don Don,

True, queues can accomplish them, but they still involve micromanagement in setting them up. Granted not as much as before and the results are not instantaneous.

Even with queues, I would not build cities in the late game becuase by the time they are able to contribute in any significant fashion, I have either won the game (or am in the mop up process) or I have dumped so much into buying the improvements that a return is nearly impossible.

With the "complete" city concept, a city is able to contribute to the greater whole much quicker.

Additionally, a city that is significant enough to appear on the civ map is already significant to have temples, libraries etc. once the timeline has suffeciently advanced.