Economic Development Model - Opinions Please?

[John-SJ]

OK, I'm getting into the econ model now, so now the questions begin!

Reading the posts above and the model that Mark presented, I'm having a hard time determining whether population and population growth is part of the econ model or not. So, is population and growth part of the econ model just as labor allocation is?

As I work on this more I'm sure I'll have more questions so I'll be posting them as they come up, I'm sure!

John-SJ

[Mark_Everson]

Hi John:

Manu has population growth in the social model. See that thread for the current take on pop. growth, and to make any suggestions on the method he's using. There will obviously be important inputs to the pop growth model from the economic infrastructure, esp health and sanitation... Some of them are listed there.

On the rest of the model I did some work in the summer I never wrote up. After I finish my brain (salad) surgery on the coding hierarchy I will try to remind myself where I was on it .

[John-SJ]

I'm still going through the Econ model, trying to wrap my mind around the whole thing, which, for me at least, is no small task. So, in order to help me organize what goes on within the econ model, I'm trying to sketch out the basics of an object model as well. That way, I have places to put actions or interactions as I come across them.

So, another question. I understand that a province will have a capital, a city. I am assuming that a city founded in a region sufficiently far from an existing province marks the birth of a new province. OK, but within a province there are map squares, and within the squares, sites. If enough sites are worked then the buildup of population density may lead to the creation of a new city. So, the question is, do sites within a map square have unique geographic locations? Or are there just a number of sites in a square, and when enough are worked a city is formed? Oh, and that reminds me, just how many sites are there in a square anyway? Is this number fixed from square to square? Is it fixed over time?

John-SJ

[Mark_Everson]

John:

Several things are already coded up already for the province stuff. I will send you the code. Don't use it to build anything yet because I am changing things around right now, and things may change in the next several days. But you can look at it for some answers. The old econ model is used, but the province setup will probably still be the same. Except, as I mentioned in the email, econ and prov are tied too closely together in the old model (which is bad OOP). Province is not Part of econ, just heavily related to it. So a prov Should have an econ object of some sort, but the prov is bigger than that in terms of objects...

Province's capital cities can be in name only sometimes. Like when a new area is settled and you need a place to be capital for the prov. So there is no threshold to being a city that is the capital of a prov. The capital is just Designated by player or AI. However if it is in a lousy location, or the province is a dump, it won't grow very big. Some provinces will have 'rural' squares that are bigger than other provs capitals...

Sites within the squares have no locations. They are just a number that can change with technology, and possibly other things. Exact numbers of sites are TBD. Something like 10 farm sites for a decent agricultural square at the beginning of the game. Allowing about 10k people to be self-sufficient there.

[Lord God Jinnai]

There's no real one place to put this since what I'm asking involves several threads...What about pirating?

Pirating was common throughout most of history, though it declined in Europe during the medevil ages and is almost non-existant in modern times, however it has played a major role.

I'm just wondering from several points of view how your going to handle it: Military: often countries with smaller navies would give "Letter of Marques" to pirates in exchange for not attacking them and benifits for attacking their enimes. Economic: Well its pretty obvious what happens when a city's looted by pirates, but also they could reduce the merchants profits and ability to trade with countries (or even be former merchants). Governmental: Is the government against it agrresively or is it a safe haven for pirates in exchange for not looting their cities? Social: obviosuly people don't like the idea of being attacked by pirates, espicially the civilians and merchants and would react on how well your handling the situation. Finnally a plundered city may come under control of the pirates if the city is small enough, defenses weakened enough and pirates strong enough...not to mention that in addition to a lot of people killed, their may be the addition of new race (not culture) added since many pirates often had their way with women when plundering.

[Mark_Everson]

Arrrh Piratin'...

No reason it shouldn't be in there. I like the idea. Just so far we're not even at the state of refinement to really worry about such IMO. There will already be mercenary units, so pirates could just be freelance mercs. Some civs could under the right condition generate a Lot of them, like the Norsemen...

[Krenske]

I believe this is the topic I should be in. The older topic was redirected to here.

Anyway I wish to make a point regarding the provincial sizing model in the Eco Dev Web page. Can I suggest that provinces be sized by the maximum movement technology for roads and rivers. I suggest this because rail and shipping are industrial size concerns and do not principally concern the populous as a whole especially in its view of itself. By the time these great improvers of movement appear the provincial boundaries will be roughly set in the minds of national administrators and in the minds of the population as a whole.

The average transportation net of the province can from then add a production benefit. So initially there would be an impetous to allow the provinces to grow to their "best" size for individual travel. Once this point is reached the provinces really finish growing.

Possibly the intorduction of some socio political idea or tech will allow for regionalisation. Which would allow 5-8 provinces to join into super provinces. For example the British Isles would actually be 5-6 provinces until the introduction of regionalisation. At which point it becomes a single administrative region due to improvements in Rail, Sea and communication technologies.

In most Civ maps the british isles is truely to small to support more than 1 or 2 cities. Possibly a better example is the many states of eastern europe or Germany. Each of the individual princedoms etc would count as a province until regionalisation when the Rumanian provinces join to be Rumania etc. Germany ends up with 3 regions with 20 odd original provinces.

This combines the best of the provincial system with the ability to further decrease micromanagement at about the stage of the game at the point where it is becoming the game killer. These Regions could support multiple unit construction queues to make up for the loss of provincial construction queues.

Just my thoughts on provinces (The idea of which I like a lot.)

Paul Krenske.

[Mark_Everson]

Paul:

Yeah, the regions idea is feasible. My first response was "why do we need them when we can make big provinces?" but I now think that's wrong. The main reason is that provinces aren't solely economic actors. The culture model will use them as well as the government one. So I guess yor solution is reasonable, and I'd be inclined to try it as our first string choice.

On your other point... there Will be something about a prov's market Size anyway that will integrate information about bulk goods transport...

[Lord God Jinnai]

I went through to check and see if anyone posted something in either econimic thread, but haven't seen what i want to ask.

I know u have resources and special items that merchants trade between countries, but I'm also wondering what about really high level countries trading with low level ones? FE: Someone who just discovered gunpowder will have no use for a computer and may think its "magic" Image going back to the middle ages with a gun and telling people how to operate it. They'd think u were a wizard.

What happens then if u have a supertechno country who has all these neat cool gadgets that no one wants cuz they can't use them?

Also i was thinking about the pirating again. Although some pirates are former merchants (or currently still merchants also) many are usually lower class or former soldiers who weren't cut out for army (or navy). But I'm saying this also that if we can produce merchants (ai and player) then the player should also be able to create pirates (privateers) or hire them (Letter of Marque" This is a great way to weaken enemy's without ness causing a war. Also plundered cities if the situation is right could be taken over by pirates and they could give it to their liege country (if any) or start a new one themselves (norsemen in nothern scotland did this) or just plunder it.

On another note what happens if ur capital is destroyed? can u have more than 1 at a time (like persian empire and South Africa?

Finnaly how are we determing international waters from claimed waters (for tarriffs and other fees)?

[Paul Crocker]

LGJ: I wouldn't think that having a superior technology base should preclude you from trading with a more primitive civ. For example, one of the best trade items that European-American explorers brought to the rain forests of the Amazon and Borneo proved to be western clothing (FE T-Shirts!). Also, do you remember the huge demand for American blue jeans in the Soviet Union? A super-techno country WILL make lots of stuff that's worthless to a primitive civ, but at the same time, they are more than capable of building more primitive goods. To use your example, I could simply provide that primitive civ with highly refined black powder for their muskets - then they wouldn't have to use the crud that they just discovered.

[Mark_Everson]

LGJ:

On much higher tech: What Paul Said ;-)
They may freak at the first meeting, but less technologically advanced cultures figure out pretty quickly what they can use from those higher on the tech ladder IMO.

Pirates: I'm all for 'em

Capital Destroyed: Not as big as the Silly effects in Civ IMO. After Napoleon burned Moscow the Russians seemed to function reasonably well... If the people are already about to throw in the towel, losing a capital might have a decisive morale effect. Once we refine what the capital actually Does, we can handle what having a secondary one does.

Int'l waters: Hadn't thought about that one. They'd be established by treaty I'd imagine. Anyone can Claim Anything, its enforcing the claim against the rest of the world that's the tough part

[roquijad]

Mark:
I've read you econ model in more detail and I've some particular comments. As I told you before, the general idea seems alright to me and this is just fine-tunning:

1) quote from the model: The number of units of a special that can be used in a province's economy is 5% of that sector's production.
why? why a % of current production? what are you trying to model with that?

2) Your model is essentialy a free-market econ. How are you planning to adjust it to reflect socialist/communist economies?

3) Developing a site (irrigation, FE) should be cost increasing, that is, to go from production 5 to 6 should be cheaper than going from 6 to 7.... don't you think?

4) Are you still looking for a way to introduce cities into the province scheme as you mention in the model text? You probably remeber a couple of emails I sent you regarding formation of cities and if it's still undefined I'd like to give it a thought.

5) quote from the model: Things like roads and railways will probably be mostly built by the people themselves.
Another quote in the same line: The people will also build some fortification-type items (City walls / forts / castles) themselves if the central authority is weak and they feel they need them.
I must disagree. You should remember (since you look like a guy who knows economics) that certain things are called public/common goods (I'm not aware of the correct translation from spanish) since they have some properties of their own not shared with a normal good. The fundamental difference between a normal good and a public one is "nobody is willing to produce it by its own, but if it's produced, a benefit is achieved". So this is a type of good that is convenient to produce, but nobody wants to do it. Why? Because another important property of it is that it's difficult for the owner to avoid others to benefit from it (he can't charge them for use) and his only use doesn't pay the cost of production. This may sound very tricky, but public goods are much more common that one may think. An example: a lighthouse. If you have a boat you may need a lighthouse, but it's too expensive to build for your use only. The rest boat owners also need it, and you may think of building it and then charging'em for use, but the problem is u can't force them to pay once the lighthouse is built and they'll get the benefit of it anyway, which led economists to name it the "free-rider problem". Since the LH is really needed, the best way to solve the problem is gathering the boat owners together and coordinating them in order to build the LH then becaming a property of society (the boat society in this case) (so "public" good). You can find a lot of public goods in real world: roads, parks, on-street artworks, citywalls and even the nation's army. It's true that in modern times (late 20th century) some ways of dealing with the public good dilemma were invented (particularly in road construction, where access to highways are more controllable), but in most of our history this was not present.
We also have to recognize that for some historians and sociologists, the process of forming a nation (a civ) had to do exactly with this issue. The principle behind it is that families alone could'nt accomplish things that are only attainable through organization (thus the formation of a govt). All "great projects" in history, from simple roads in real ancient times to the apollo program in 20th century and including military safety come from the govt and not from the people's direct investment.
So, in Clash, I think you should identify public goods such as roads and citywalls and avoid people investing in them. Not only because it's more realistic, but because we have in the same game the precise agent who has to deal with this... the ruler (player)!! Anyway, this conclusion goes in the same way as one of Diodorus Sicilus critics about how much people spend in infrastructure (June 30 post), but he took it as a problem of poverty (a peasant couldn't spend money on roads).

Rodrigo
PS: A long post again... sorry

[roquijad]

One other thing:
Regarding trade, as I said to Shimmin, it's important not to limit trade to commodities surplus, since trade can be seeked only for purposes of variety. If you've apples (but you don't have a surplus of it) and I have oranges (no surplus either) we can find such a trade that benefits both because we can get more variety in our goods (that increases our wellbeing) and differences on tastes also count.
Other very good example is current undeveloped southeast asian economies. Probably the PC you're using now was made there, but they didn't export it to you because they had a surplus of it. In fact, probably most of the population don't have a PC there. They made this product mainly to export it. This happens because once trade is possible, the actual price for the good is determined by all possible buyers (beyond your nation) and since americans/europeans can afford PCs, it makes it possible for one poor country to produce something they'll never consume. In game terms this means that trade of specials shouldn't be determined by local surplus or demmand, but in a global fashion.

Rodrigo

[Mark_Everson]

Hi Rodrigo:

Most of the stuff you're talking about was in a previous model, then I yanked it out because it was getting too complicated. I'm just concerned about the trade-offs between relatively simple models that are easily understood by the player, and much more complex ones that become more like a black box as we add more things to them. I'm not certain that any of your suggestions Won't be in the final model, but I think we need to get further along in terms of actually having a model up in the game before we will know. The question is how many people are turned off by not being able to understand the small-scale functioning of the economy with relatively little effort. I Think there won't maybe many people who are worried about this stuff in the actual game since there will be so many other fun things to do. But we'll just have to see.

I can defend the individual positions on any of the things you didn't like in detail, but I suspect we would just get into a long rambling discussion about each. If, after you read my response, there is anything that Really bothers you, let me know what it is. I'll try to respond in detail on that issue. On to the things I really do want to hear your opinions on...

The way I envisioned centrally planned and socialist economies working in the game is pretty simple at this point. There are two big principles involved.

1.when the government takes stuff away as taxes and then returns it to the people, the people only credit the amount returned at 80% or so of its face value from a consumer happiness perspective. The basic idea is that what the government wants them to have is not always exactly what They want to have. However, if the government distributes the benefits so as to reduce inequality or things like that there will clearly be a possibility of overall social benefits. The details of such a model could involve a lot of work, and I'd like to hear your thoughts on this sort of thing.

2. When the economy is centrally planned, or is capitalistic, but being ruled by a dictator, increasing inefficiencies, due to corruption and shortsightedness inevitably creep into the economy. These are present in Any system in Clash, but are much worse in the above circumstances. I don't know exactly how we are going to model this, but the corruption and inefficiencies will take their toll on each step of economic activity. So, when taxes come in to the government, less money will be generated for amount of taxed income in a corrupt system. Also, when the government gives back to the people, another portion is lost to corruption. As a totalitarian system persists, the corruption and other penalties will just get worse and worse, eventually leveling out in a regime with much lower growth than would be present in a mixed system.


You also raised a criticism of the current model, about the "people" generally not building roads and bridges and other public goods. I agree completely, but what I obviously didn't state clearly enough is that the "people" also include local and regional governments. So the assumption is that the national government is the only thing that the player has more-or-less direct control of in the best of circumstances. So, in an extremely centralized state, the "people" will basically do nothing because all the resources are funnelled up to the top to be disbursed at the whim of the ruler/player. However, there can actually be progress in things like a feudal system. Because the player does not have much in the way of central control, the regional and local authorities have much more leeway to perform investments of their own like building castles, local roadways, etc. I hope after my explaining this critical fact that the system now makes a bit more sense to you. What specifically the people themselves, and also the local governments, invest in is determined partly by the orientation of the culture and other factors.

I am indeed very interested in hearing your thoughts on how cities might work in the Clash provincial system. There are to big issues that I would Really like the hear your thoughts about. The first is the interaction between the city and the province itself. This will be important for the local economy, intra-province migration, another factors. But remember, the IMO the provinces must be large or we will have a management nightmare. So I think agent and MIDI will economies will need to be "faked" within the system. Because, realistically, unless a mapsquare is on a coast, or navigable river, it would probably be largely economically independent for much of the game time span in reality.

The second thing I've been thinking about recently, is how to measure the market size of a province. This is critical, as I'm sure you know, because all the shiny factories in the world won't do you much good without markets that are sufficiently large to absorb the mass-produced goods. In short, what I was thinking about was using transportation costs and tariff barriers, among other things, to get a crude measure of the market size that any particular province has available to it. This would include both the market with in the province, for times when transportation isn't so good, and increasingly more the market beyond the province. The market size would then have an effect upon the production efficiency in the province. Please let me know what you think of this general idea, and if you have any specific suggestions.

[Lord God Jinnai]

As far as lighthouses go they aren't ness public comodities because Denmark (or another country around there) won't shine their lights on ships that don't pay. Don't ask me how they do this i just saw it in my economics book when i took economics.