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**markusf** · May 29, 2000, 18:57

Perhaps a limited stock market in the game would be nice. For instance 20% of a "company" is publically traded, I can therefor buy a portion of your company. This would reflect foreign ownership in your country. If i own 10% of your civ, you can't declare war on me if your a dem or a rep. Stuff like that.

**amjayee** · May 30, 2000, 10:20

markusf:

I thought of that too. I'm thinking of a way to make that possible. First thing to do is to add a property to the companies: ownership. It would contain the percentages showing what civs own what amount of your enterprises. Governments could own companies (meaning stocks of them), and fund them. In communist governments, I thought of this; companies are not forbidden in them, but completely owned by the government. When switching from communism to other govs, companies would be sold. This might result in high foreign ownership.

Also, if your companies cannot satisfy the needs of your people, foreign companies could enter your markets, bringing their products for your people.

I will trý to create some ideas for a more detailed economy model. It can be automatic, or disabled, if someone doesn't want to deal with that.

**korn469** · May 31, 2000, 08:08

ok my feelings about openciv3 is this, it must have a fairly realistic economic model...to that end it must include the following
[*]capital: in the form of natural resources and infrastructure[*]supply and demand: if supply goes up while demand stays the same then prices goes down, if demand goes up while supply stays the same then prices go up[*]inflation and deflation: if the demand for goods is more than what is being produced then that good will increase in prices...or if the money supply suddenly increases while supply stays the same then inflation will happen...deflation is the opposite of inflation[*]cycles of booms and bust: openciv3 economic engine must be able to produce a cycle of boom times and a cycle of bad times...unlike civ the economy should not always increase[*]markets that react: in the economic engine there should be markets that react to conditions in the game...for example if supply is greater than demand then supply will decrease, or if demand is greater than supply then supply will increase...if one company has a monopoly on oil then the price of oil should increase while if there are many competing companies then the pice of oil should decrease

shields must go! it should be replaced by production of goods=workhours + resources

that's my thoughts which i will expand on later, i must go for now

korn469

**amjayee** · May 31, 2000, 10:35

Korn:

I agree with all things you sent. Also, I think it is entirely possible to create a model with these properties. Of course many things have to be simplified, but still it will be the best in this genre (well, because not many global-scale empire building games have good, if any, economy modelling.)

I will consider your thoughts and make some ideas how the system would work. One is certain: shields will definitely not be used.

One thing that results from this kind of system is, that we have to create large amount of resources and goods. All resources will have a global price, and all goods will have a national price in every civ. Prices depend on supply, demand, and general economic environment in that civ (taxes etc.)

One thing that forces us to simplify the model is, that there will be only one "company" in each civ. This company includes all enterprises operating in that country. Only companies produce goods. They can also produce resources. Companies make profit. Profit is dealt to those who own the companies; each company may be owned by

1. people of the company's home civ
2. government of the home civ
3. people of any other civ
4. government of any other civ

The profit going to a people increase the GNP of that civ. Also that people's government gets its share of it as taxes. The profit going to a government goes to the treasury. Some of the profit goes to the company itself for making future investments, for building factories etc.

The companies can be bought more or less freely, depeding on the economic system used in that civ.

This needs some refinement. I'll try to combine all the ideas into a complete system. Economy is right now low-priority, but I will make it... if someone is eager he can start working on it.

**korn469** · May 31, 2000, 16:53

amjayee

there is one distrubing part of your post that i vehemently disagree with

quote:

One thing that forces us to simplify the model is, that there will be only one "company" in each civ.

if that is the case then we might as well use shields

if there is only one company per civ then no real market conditions can be created...the whole games economic system would be like a simulation of local telephone service throughout much of america, each territory would basically act like a monopoly and would work to prevent other monopolies from tresspassing on it's territory

also if there is only one company then i don't understand how your statement would make any sence

quote:

Profit is dealt to those who own the companies; each company may be owned by

1. people of the company's home civ
2. government of the home civ
3. people of any other civ
4. government of any other civ

if there is only one company then i am assuming that you expect this company to represent the private sector of that civ (i disagree with the private sector being represented by one company though) if this is the private sector and it's owned by a civ's government then it's not much of a private sector...and i don't think that there is a case of a nation's government owning another's nation private sector

businesses should be seperate from the government under a free market system...if it is not then you are living under communism

i think that players should be allowed to regulate monetary policy (interest rates ect.) trade policy (tariffs, excise taxes, embargos, quotas, ect), labor policy (minimu wage, maximum number of hours to work) and much more

i feel that if various companies exist for each product then that could be the way to simulate the economy...maybe each resource node could have Ai and each factory could have Ai that could help to simulate the private sector without adding a huge corporate layer to the game

putting more thought into how OC3 should work i have came up with this

production=natural resources+infrastructure+labor*technology

openciv3 will be great when a country collapses because of high unemployment and high inflation leads the nation into chaos, while another small resource poor country becomes a major world power (aka the Japan problem) because of it's economy

korn469

**amjayee** · June 1, 2000, 15:32

Korn:

Hmm... we seem to disagree here. I defend my one company system; there will even now be very much work for the ai in the game. Adding large amounts of companies would make things even worse - even more so when we know that most companies in our world are small (98% of finnish companies for example). If we make a few large companies, it is not much better and more realistic than with only one, and relieves some pressure from ai.

It is true that having government own companies makes it less "private". But, it is possible for government to own all companies, or parts of them. It depends on economic system. Also if government owns some stocks from some companies, it doesn't make that country communistic. I don't know what's the situation in the US, but in most European countries government can own stocks of companies like private people. And also we live in free market system. I'm amazed if your government has never acted in the same way. Also notice that government can own only a part of the "company" in the game. Neither one of the listed possible owners would own all of it, in most cases.

I'm not sure about government owning stocks of foreign companies, but why couldn't that be possible? I think at least Norwegian government has invested the money they have got from their oil somehow, also to foreign companies. Doesn't free market mean anyone can buy those stocks? Of course not all of them, but some.

But I'm sure global economy can be modeled quite realistically with only one company per nation. Little imagination has to be used, though, but it would be much easier than if we would have thousands (or even hundreds) of companies, each with its own ai. And I think if we want a realistic company model, there has to be thousands of companies. That's not possible.

So, since we have to reduce the number, we can as well have only one per civ. But don't be too disappointed - remember, that one company doesn't need to work as one of the companies in our world.

Same thing as with population; large group of individuals with individual properties acts as one large population with average of the properties of all its members. I think statistical maths is the way to go here. Also each "company" could have similar kind of system as "professions" in population. There could be chemical industry, telecommunications etc. and each one fo those could act differently...

With certain economic settings and environment in your civ, you can expect your markets to work in certain way. The unexpected nature of our world's economy can be modeled by adding many factors affecting trends, demands, seasonal changes etc... There's always some expectable and unexpectable in economics.

One reason for having one company per civ is, that each civ has its own economic environment. Thus, every company has to follow same rules. So, instead of having a bunch of independent companies each operationg under the same rules (and thus very much in a similar way) we would have like a "stack" of companies in one package (like with stacked units). This allows as much realism as possible with minimal pressure on the ai.

All things you have asked for could be modeled even with this system, I think.

I can't explain these things very well, since I know so little english, and I'm no expert in economics. But from the practical point of view, I think we should use only one company, and think how we could best model economics with that.

Of course if someone comes up with a better idea... but it's hard to model economics even with very many companies. Please explain how you (not only Korn, anyone else, too) think the company model should work.

**markusf** · June 1, 2000, 21:28

i aggree. This isn't a stock market simulation, one company per civ is enough.

**Guildmaster** · June 10, 2000, 02:31

You're going to love this!

I think there should be an infinite possibility of minor companies, and I don't think they should have any real intelligence. Maybe a select few, maybe two or three companies per civ I think is appropriate, if any. It would pose a very interesting game if two rival companies in the same civ ended up compromising national security. I don't know exactly. But I do think we need to have countless minor companies, each based in a city in your civ, each contributing to the economic growth of that city. If construction company in Houston turns out to be a superior construction company, they may be contracted out by any leader in any civ to do construction there as well as in your own civ. That would seriously bolster Houston's economy. This company doesn't have to have any intelligent thought at all, but just appear when you dig up a list of available construction firms, they would already have a price and a quality rating. Those two could easily be factors of education, experience, materials used, technology available, and perhaps just a plain price vs. quality index base that would be randomly determined.
Now let's assume that all trade items will be in demand. I think that's a fair assumption, and based on the nature of the trade item and the wealth of the demanding nation, the level of demand is determined.
You then take the location and ammount of the supply and compare it to the location of the demand. Give that information to a shipping company (another non-intelligent company) and presto! A trade route is created, jobs are created, people are happy that a demand is supplied.
This kind of company doesn't have to be anything more than a mathematical function, and yet it can enrich the gaming experience to no end. You can form these companies by subsidizing them, providing special money for entrepeneurs and based on the available education and suddenly, the computer just generates a function based on a few set ratios. Assign it to a city and there you have a new company.
Use this model to handle construction, utilities, shipping, banking, and a host of other menial tasks. There would be three different companies for each trade good, these can be repeated of course, one is a supplier, a shipper and of course a distributor. Companies like this also run things like the Monorail company is in charge of owning, operating and maintaining that monorail. Located in the same city the Monorail is, that city gets +1 jobs from the monorail. The presence of a company in a city means +1 jobs for that city. A city with ten such companies will have +10 jobs. As you can imagine, any city with +10 jobs would grow rapidly over others that didn't!Each time a company is contracted, the city that company has it's corporate office gets an additional +1 jobs as long as the task is still being performed. Other countries can use these same companies as well, giving you the +1 jobs for that city and the +1 experience for that company that go with hiring one of them. This is provided there aren't any embargoes or tariffs and stuff. The fun part of this model is that no AI is needed.
Remember that each map square has population statistics... this should include the employment rate which contributes to revenue, wealth, and happiness.

Follow this:
The square with the coal resource or the adjacent square gets +1 jobs for the mining company. That same square gets +1 jobs for the shipping company. The destination square gets +1 jobs for the refining company. Then it gets another +1 jobs for another shipping, this to the power plant. Then the power plant gets +1 jobs for that square because of the workers at the power plant. Now say the mining company and the refining company are owned by the same corporation way over in Orlando. Orlando then gets it's own +1 jobs just for having the corporate HQ there even though this whole exchange took place in Virginia.

That brings me to corporations. You CAN subsidize the formation of these small companies that are nothing more than mathematical functions, but with the existence of corporations you don't have to. Corporations automatically seek out demand and attempt to supply it by creating companies (functions) to handle the job. These are not going to be the cheapest, nor will they be the best. The quality/price index is a much smaller range for corporate owned companies.

Now about communism? Socialism?
Um...
Maybe we could have a capitalist/communist index from 1 to 10 with extremes on each end. This would determine what kinds of things would be state owned and operated and to what degree. With 1 capitalism even schools, hospitals, and public transit would all be run by these companies, and very little taxes would be collected. With 10 communism, everything is state owned and operated just like civ2 and 100% taxes are collected just like civ2 and CTP and wages are paid from federal reserves. Yes, I'm saying civ2 and CTP are both communist systems. Just look at it for a second. Communism isn't a form of government, it's a way of economy. I guess the communism/capitalism index is really a gauge to decide how much like other civ games you want it to be like.

**amjayee** · June 11, 2000, 16:30

Guildmaster:

Your ideas seem very interesting. Though, I disagree with you saying this system will not require any AI. You speak about mathematical functions - that's what AI is. To allow the small companies to work in any way excepth just being a name in a list, it will need ai.

But, it could be possible to have an unlimited number of companies, and all companies controlled by one AI. The company manager would then go through all the companies, making the adjustments to their stats according to the properties they have. It would be possible to make the companies compete, and to create a complete, automatic, and living economic "life" in the game, with hundreds or thousands of companies.

But: and this is a big but: this system will require much computer resources. All ai stuff, even simple, will require quite much processor time. I don't say we will not make a system proposed by Guildmaster. I just say, that if we make it, it will slow down the game considerably. How much, we will see when we test the system.

I really like the system, and I would play a game that has this kind of economic system. But we have to remember there are many other things happening in the game, too. I think we will go for the system proposed by Guildmaster. It will be great. You can start working on this system, but be prepared for longer turns. Of course players could disable this feature, if they like.

**Guildmaster** · June 11, 2000, 22:06

I don't agree that it would take an AI to operate small businesses. This is why:

There are two types of baby companies, active and inactive. Both are minor and both are simple. Both provide little more than a few numbers bonuses for x or y. The only difference is that active companies are those that can be contracted by the player.

First let's take a look at inactive companies. City improvements need to be run. Libraries need librarians, monorails need conductors, factories need factory workers, etc. To represent this a blank template for a company is created. There are no stats, no intelligence. This serves a variety of purposes, a) one company = +1 jobs for that city. Therefore a company is needed to represent the employment requirements. Now you could just say that the monorail provides +1 jobs or the library provided +1 jobs, but that would be more complex to program every single improvement that way, and it would also be less versatile. b) in order for a building to be maintained, someone has to maintain it. It can easily be assumed that an inactive company automatically pays for the upkeep of the building it owns. This, I find is the simplest way to do that. c) In order for big companies and corporations to exist, small compaines have to exist so that the big ones can be relatively big. This may seem like a redundant point, but I will get to that in a second.

So inactive companies do nothing but add a marker to things. This marker says that the location gets +1 jobs, the maintenance and operating cost are paid, and the need or demand is met. No intelligence here. Basically this is just a nametag that conveniently provides great depth in a game.

Now actice companies are basically the same thing except that they can be accessed by the player. Under normal circumstances, they are inactive in that they are nothing more than nametags that provide +1 jobs, pay operating costs and meet a demand or need. Now when a player wants to do something they become active (sorta, but not really). The player digs up information on the company for use and puts it away, then it becomes inactive again. A good example is a construction company.

Under normal conditions, Bob's Construction sits in Atlanta. Atlanta has +1 jobs, and doesn't need a construction company. No intelligence here. Now emperor Commidus wants to build a colossus. He digs up a list of available contractors. Bob's Construction firm is one of those. The list then says:
1)Bob's construction provides workmanship of 98% quality, will build colossus in 12 years and will cost ¥14,550.
2)Jims Colossi provides worksmanship of 65% quality, will built colossus in 6 years and will cost £4,000.95.
And so on and so forth giving a complete listing of firms capable of building a colossus. It generates this list based on set variables...
When a construction company is founded, it is assigned some numbers.
A 1-10 number from a price/quality index. A low number indicates the company will cut corners to keep price down while a high number will spare no expense to have state of the art product. This is assigned randomly but can be influenced by culture. This number affects both construction time and price and quality of a finished product.
Education level will determine the level of training the company's founder recieved and greatly affects product quality and partially affects time. This is solely a factor of education level in the company's home city.
It is assumed that if the materials are not available to the construction firm, they will not appear on that list. However, if superior materials are available, the company will recieve an additional quality bonus or price difference or combination of the two randomly determined.

There you have it, very simple and no intelligence involved. The company once contracted would provide an additional +1 jobs for its home city.

But what about corporations? A corporation is a company that meets demands for multiple cities or squares. They can also span across civ borders. No intelligence here either. The only difference here is that any specific variables in a company in one city is copied to have the same variables in all cities, and also the city where the home office is located gets an additional +1 jobs. Now there may be a small need for some small AI here, only a minor one that decides when and how to buy out other companies, and keeps track of how much money a corporation has. Nothing more here.

------------------
Goober

**amjayee** · June 14, 2000, 09:51

There are problems in the system you propose:

1. The naming of the companies - who could come up with a large amount of names for companies in zillion different industries, for dozens of civilizations?

2. Is it really so important to be able to order a mono-rail from a company, that doesn't do anything else except sit idly so you could make an order? Having a large amount of small companies, that don't actively take part to the economy of your country, do not add very much to the gameplay - considering the amount of work that would be needed to lay on them.

3. The scope of the game is so large, that it doesn't make sense to order every small project from a small standalone company.

I think the same effect could be got with the one company per civ system. It represents the whole array of companies in that particular civ. You could tell your advisors, what kind of contract you want, and then the best offers would be presented to you - without the names of the companies, and they could also be from different countries. Do the leaders really care what is the name of the company? They consider only a) the home country of the company, in some cases b) the cost c)efficiency d)quality. The leaders don't find out about those things themselves, they have advisors for that - and I think in most cases the leaders don't even bother to choose the company with that the contracts are made. Only in the most important projects, they might say their word. In other cases, the advisors and governors would deal with those things.

So, you only say what you want - or your governors say - and the advisors find the best offers, that are listed according to the home country of the company, and what the costs etc. are.

Your ideas are not bad, just considering the scope of the game it might go to too much detail. Also, even if the small companies do not need ai, they take very much extra memory. I think we should use the one company system, and perhaps later add more depth to it. But now, I think it is too complicated and detailed, and demands a lot of work to be reasonable - if the company names are made badly, the whole system would feel bad after a few games. And anyways, after a couple of games, the players would want to use the advisors to choose the companies. We shouldn't use too much effort to model things, that are tedious, and the players will give anyway to the ai.

Just my opinions - but well reasoned, I think. We should remain cool, and not rush to add too much minor features, that add very little to the gameplay. Any second opinions from the others?

PS. I had a word with the other programmers. They insisted me to calm down a little the enthusiasm to add very much features. We should keep the "package" very compact. We will add many more things - the ability to order projects from the companies will be one of those - but we shouldn't add too much detail, since the scope is so large, as already said many times.
[This message has been edited by amjayee (edited June 14, 2000).]

**heardie** · November 4, 2000, 02:45

^Bump^

**Leland** · December 31, 2000, 15:41

What's with the bumps?

amjayee:

With only one company per civ, to call it a company is a bit misleading. It's just an abstraction of private sector or the economy, so why not call it that? From an implementation point of view I agree that you should at first only have a simplified statistical model of the economy, and design the whole thing so that you can later add complexity in form of companies.

When (and I mean when, not if; there is a demand for a better economical model and statistical abstraction just won't do it) companies are included, you could start with having just one company per a resource/product/service/whatever (I have glanced over the drafts of the economical model, but only very briefly) so that you'd have a total of less than ten companies per civ. Then the player could give special status for certain companies, for instance give tax reliefs to heavy industry when he wants to modernize the country, or to take government monopoly over international trade. These are the kinds of things that will bloat the statistical model if one is used; whereas the abstraction of companies makes the simulation much more modular and intuitive to the player.

Just my opinions; I'm not en expert in economy either.

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