International economy models

[Miznia]

I wonder if this is an interesting topic...?

I'm trying to come up with an entertaining, low-micromanagement implementation of international trade that would involve a lot of dealings with other players.

Although I like the detail in Imperialism and Colonization, I worry that the player has to spend too much time developing ones own economy, which doesn't involve dealing with other players.

I thought of a system where you could get an "economic victory" by in a sense "purchasing" enemy cities and taking some of their production, but this seems a bit messy to me, and just another form of conquest, not even all that different from a military one.

Then I hopped onto the EU1/2 site to read about them, games I've never played, and I got some good ideas. It seems that in EU, some cities are "centers of trade" or some such, and players can place merchants there to gain some income from them. (I assume you also gain income by just owning the city.) There is a limit to how many merchants can operate, though, and your ability to compete with other merchants is based on some kind of "Trade" tech level.

This is ingenious, isn't it? Very very simple, and I think it would create diplomatic options: "Open your markets to our merchants," "Give us exclusive access to your markets"... Perhaps Communist nations could not place merchants in Democratic (or Free Market) cities, creating an incentive for them to not be friends. There would be economic complications to going to war, and blockading ports could annoy more folks than just the owner.

The only bad aspect I can see is that it might be too much of an abstraction, if one wanted more detail as far as what is traded, etc.

Any thoughts? Plans for other systems? If I could come up with something as slick as that for religion, I would certainly want to put it in.

Miznia

[Dale]

I actually like CTP2's implementation with corporate branches. Mayb e something along those lines. If you've never played it, the corporate branch "steals" commerce from the host city of the corp branch. So effectively, you could take over a nations commerce by flooding them with corp branchs. You could get rid of a corp branch by sueing/injunction them with a lawyer.

[Caesar2760]

While you are somewhat correct in your assertions about EU, there is an important difference. EU is based on territories, which, on a civ scale, are rather small. Each territory produces a certain product. All of the products of a certain area (or many different areas if we are talking about distant colonies) make their way to the center of trade, and there the various merchants compete for part of the value of all the products. Yes, you do get some money for owning each of the territories, and there is a certain flat rate for each merchant if you own the center of trade. Also, new COTs open up occasionally, mostly in the colonies but sometimes in other areas. Yes, it is somewhat simple, and it has some flaws, but it can be effective. The important difference between this scheme and that of CTP is that, instead of taking income away from the owner, as a corporate branch does, both countries benefit. I don't know if a EU-like system would work in a civ game, since more than likely the entire area containing a COT would be under a single city, but feel free to try.

[Mark_Everson]

The Clash of Civs economy has much of what you're talking about already in the design. Squares can produce 'special' goods of potentially high economic value if they can get to a market. Merchants automatically look for the deals that will make them the most money given tax and legal structure. That means the player can tax internal and, external trade separately, or even tax or subsidize trade of particular goods. Transport infrastructure automatically affects how well the merchants can do thier jobs. Because of this deep structure all the diplomatic options that Miznia talked about in his original post will be available, and have reasonable effects.

Merchants are partly coded. You'll be able to see them in action a bit in Demo 5.1 in maybe a week or two. If you are interested, most of this has been discussed in some detail in our forums, and there is a bit in the way of specs on the web page under Merchant Agents and also Economy. Let me know what you think!

[Miznia]

Thank you for the responses!

Dale : the corporate branch "steals" commerce from the host city of the corp branch. So effectively, you could take over a nations commerce by flooding them with corp branchs.

Kind of like "buying" cities. I'm concerned that it would be kind of tedious to do this, similar to flooding a civ with caravans or diplomats.

Caesar : EU is based on territories, which, on a civ scale, are rather small.

Hmm. Yeah, how many Civ cities should be trade centers, that is a question. I can imagine at most a few centers per country would be manageable.

Can you tell me: In EU, does every country have at least one center of trade? I assume not; does that mean that a center-less country can't keep its products?

And also: How does a player "get" merchants to place? Are they built/purchased, or do you kind of "warrant" them by being a certain size, etc?


And Mark, I'll give that information a look!

[Caesar2760]

No, not all countries have COTs. Even some big countries do not. England, for example, does not have one at game start, though a London COT is one of the few that eventually appears in Europe (before then the COT for England and the Low Countries is in Flanders). Well, the products are more a simulation than anything else; that is, you can still produce military units without products that should be connected. And merchants are purchased, not produced or just given. Trade in EU is all about income, and not particular products per se, the products are essentially indicators of worth. For example, those territories that produce furs are generally not contributing much to their respective COT's, but those territories that produce spices, tobacco, or other items in high demand 1492-1792 can contribute much.

[Caesar2760]

Forgot to add something important. I would suggest that up to 5 cities or 10 colonies (if colonies will be considered different than cities in the game you are creating; and this trade system is ideal for a system like that) be allowed within a COT. While on a small/ regular real world map, this could have much larger than realistic Trade Zones, it would still represent smaller areas of the world and their trade within and between them.