Economic Development Model - Opinions Please?

[roquijad]

LGJ: Probably that case you name is correct for a modern LH having (I guess) radio communications that enable you to identify the coming boat and know if it has already paid. For past time (most of history) it is incorrect.

Anyway, I agree we shouldn't stop at every single thing trying to introduce everything into the model. I also know trade offs are present and, more important, the econ model MUST be simple. Some questions I made in my last post were only to better understand things and what's in your mind, mark, and not necessarily critics to the model (like when asking about the % of production used to determine how many specials are being processed). So, following your suggestion about concentrating in those things that REALLY bother me, let me just mention them by now. I'll get to a proposal for how to treat'em in a later time (later post):

1. The "public goods issue" could be solved as you stated it when considering "people" as people+local_govt. However, if you have a civ with a very centralized govt (not to confuse with centr. economy), all public spending comes from the central govt and roads and other public goods can only be built in a province if this central govt wants to. The people at the province may still invest in housing and non public goods, but not in public goods. For an uncentralized govt. public goods can be built by the central or local govt, which is the case in current econ model. So, the model now is able to simulate uncentralized govts only. To state it in other words, it's important to distinguish the level of centralism of an administration (LCA) and the lvl of centralism of economy (LCE). The later takes us into the discussion about how to model a centrally planned economy, but the former takes us into a discussion about how useful is to consider people at provinces as people+localgovts. If one considers LCA to be an important factor, the people+localgovt interpretation must be changed in order to make the model able to simulate centrally controled public funds. So, is it important? I think the LCA is very important and have had a major role in history ("typical" monarchy vs feudal govts, FE. Notice in both systems people invest in non public goods, like housing, but in the feudal system public goods are produced by the local govt at the province and they are produced by the king (player) in monarchy). This may be a discussion thread for its own and I'd like to see your opinions on it.

2. IMHO centrally planned economies should be treated differently to what you're thinking. However, the system I'm now considering may have just the same consequences as those instruments you plan to use, so we'll have to see...

3. I see the problem with the market size and its possible implications for specials trade. Give me some time to think it.

4. About cities-province interactions, this is something I really find interesting and I'm glad I have some space to develop an idea about it. If there's an old thread on the subject or some previous proposals for it, let me now.


Rodrigo

[Mark_Everson]

Rodrigo:

My apologies that this is taken so long. I will try to address each of the concerns in the post above if I can. Let me know what still bothers you after I'm done. At some point I'll try to back track and give you a few-sentence description on the other points that bugged you later ;-)

I think we have the public versus private goods issue well in hand. That's not to say that the modeling of it so far is perfect, so I'll tell you what we've got and see what you think. Specifically I'm talking about governmental centralization of economic resources, as opposed to a centrally-planned economy. I don't know if you recall from my model for the government that I wrote up way back when, but there was an explicit number for how much power each of the central, provincial, and square-level governments have. Essentially, taxes levied are distributed to the levels of government depending on their power. It's that simple! I'll give a couple of examples. Suppose we have a highly centralized government with the political power divided something like 80:10:10 in the same order as above. So then 10% of the taxes would go to the square-level government. Between the cultural effects, and who has the power in the government, there will be a formula for how this 10% is invested, or even squandered. I have a few very simple starts at this in Excel spreadsheet if you'd like me to send them to you. So in our example above, the player will get 80% of the nominal tax revenues to play with on behalf of the central government. Let suppose the situation were reversed. If we were in, for instance, a very weak feudal monarchy the geographic power might be distributed 10:30: 60. In this case 60% of the taxes would go to the local governments, since they can't rely on the central government to protect them, they probably would invest a lot in building local fortifications, such as castles. Those inclined in the mercantile direction might sink more of this money into marketplaces and such. As you can see, and the de-centralized government, the player gets very little money to play with. But this is as it should be. Anyway, I think you get the idea. Let me know what you think of it.

As to how to handle a centrally planned economy, I like to hear what you have to say about it. I'm certainly not completely happy with the way I'm doing it now, but I think it's basically serviceable.

As to the interactions between a city and the surrounding province there hasn't been much discussion of late. The nearest thing to this topic that I can put my finger on, is on the old bulletin board. The relevant thread is http://www.sitepowerup.com/mb/view.a...103694&Reply=5. I hope that's of some help to you. If not, please just post a brief summary of your ideas on the topic, and potential ways we might go, and we can take it from there.

This thread also has a lot on city/province interactions interspersed here and there...

[This message has been edited by Mark_Everson (edited December 22, 1999).]

[axi]

What I would never would like to see in the final Clash game is the kind of prejudice against certain social and economical systems that civ2 and ctp are guilty of.

I agnowledge of course that it is extremely hard to be fair towards systems that we are not familiar with and that we always tend to make arbitrary generalisations and classifications, according to our own historical and political conscience. By saying that the Japanese are by nature militaristic, or that the English are experts in naval techs, or that communist spies are more experienced, or that free market economies are less corrupt than planned ones, we only reflect the way things were in a specific time and place, or we THINK they were, or we WISH they were.

Mark Everson's economic model reflects just that, since it is specifically tailored to represent the inner workings of a decentralised free market economy, like that of the USA. It is a very good model indeed, but when it is called to simulate the function of any centralised or planned economy, there comes the need to take arbitrary decisions, such as the "80% payback of socialistic redistribution of wealth" or the "citizens+local govt infrastructure enterpreneurship" or the "totalitarian corruption penalty". But how the hell are we going to call this game CLASH of Civilisations, when all players will be compelled by necessity to shape their societies in the same manner, resulting in the clashing civs to have only superficial differences?

What we need is a model where diversity will not be penalised, where history is free to pick her way through altenative realities, where many widely differentiated sociioeconomic systems will be equally stable and will have an equal chance of success.

------------------
"In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act."
George Orwell

[roquijad]

I think what Axi is saying is extremely important, not only for the econ model, but for the Clash project. It's certainly very hard trying to see history objectively and avoid our own views of what's best and what's not.
I believe we must be very careful constructing models that can actually simulate world history but also give it some "space" for other outcomes to be possible. I see the econ, social and govt models realy sensitive to this type of problems and avoiding US-like nations the only type of civs that can actually do better should be a must.

Rodrigo

[Mark_Everson]

Hi axi: (and Rodrigo too)

Thanks for wading through at least a chunk of the model. Of course, many of the details are still up for debate, and were chosen sort of arbitrarily. However, the particular items that you chose to criticize are I think things that Enforce game balance, rather than tilt it. Here's my reasoning.

Suppose there is no penalty for being a totalitarian ruler as opposed to a democratic one. The government model puts all kinds of constraints on the activities of a democratic ruler. There are very few constraints on the actions of a totalitarian ruler. If there were no penalty for being a totalitarian ruler and then All Players Would Be Driven to Be Totalitarian. Why on Earth would I accept all those restraints if there is nothing to gain? Also, it may be brainwashing from my upbringing, but I do believe that humans whose powers are not limited almost inevitably become corrupted by the experience. Although democratic systems do experience significant amounts of corruption, I don't feel these come anywhere near what one experiences in a totalitarian system. So I think the corruption affect that you cite is both a valid game balance mechanism, and in some way reflects reality.

The same is true for the 80% penalty for benefits returned to the people by the government. A market economy also severely constrains the player in the ways that they can guide the economy. In a command economy many of these restrictions are no longer present. For if not for a penalty on benefits returned to the people by the government, or some other compensating factor, all players would want to have command economies also. The penalty attempts to compensate for that. I admit it may be too large, it also may be too small. We will have to wait for playtesting.

At least from your comments, it seems to me that you want me to lift all these restrictions. At least as the model is now, I think that will ultimately drive all players to wish to be totalitarian rulers of command economies. I don't know what your political philosophy says, but I think the track record over the last century is that countries run on such principles do fairly poorly.

However, I'm always open to suggestions. If you'd like to make an alternative proposal for how the model can be tweaked to better represent nonmarket or totalitarian systems, go ahead and propose a modified system.

[Lord God Jinnai]

Well mark as far as corruption goes its basically dependant upon the type of person/people that rule. There were monarchs who weren't corrupt and did much better than other types of government. The main example I can think of is Agustus Ceasar who did much more for the populace in general than the republic had in several generations because they were more corrupt.

Also the opposite is quite true that republics can be very corrupt. The US gov is UMO corrupt, although not everyone in it is, just in general. Mainly this is by legal means of intrest groups. I mean you look how much most of the politicans hate to institute any reforms that should tell you that.

Now as far as which one is more corrupt...really neither one is. A republic is simply made up of more people so since they haveto agree on things to pass laws it could appear that they aren't quite as corrupt. Of course since a monarchy is ruled by one person the evidence of corruption is usually more evident.

[roquijad]

I think what Axi was saying in its very core (and the thing I support from his post) is that we have to avoid simplistic mechanisms to make "communism bad and democracy good" or that sort of thing. It means we have to find what variables should exist within models that make certain types of govt or economies worse or better rather than giving a pre-set bonus for a type of economy/govt. A simple example: Mexico has a democracy but it has an important level of corruption, at least much more than western european contries or US/Canadian democracies. So, it's not "democracy" what makes a govt. more or less corrupt as in civ2, but something else. What makes a civ more corrupt? That's the type of thing we should be focusing in that particular example. As for communism, in history we've seen only despotic communism govts, but this wasn't Marx's first idea. One can imagine that it'd be possible to have a "democratic communism" and it'd be nice Clash models could be able to simulate that.
So, I don't want to take a position now about "the 80% penalty" rule or any current detail, but to encourage you all to find the very reasons that make a govt form or economic system better or worse. Including those reasons through adecuate variables in models will make Clash behave more true-to-life and then make it more interesting.

I'm initating a new topic thread at the forum to help people discuss those "real reasons" that make govt/econ systems better or worse. Hopefuly that dicussion will help each model developer.

Rodrigo

[Mark_Everson]

Hi Rodrigo:

Actually I put my case poorly. It is not that government forms in the model now have inherent levels of corruption. They have, depending on power distribution, inherent rates of Change of corruption. The more totalitarian a regieme, the faster the corruption increases, up to some level.

Revolutions can possibly in some TBD way change the actual corruption level also.

Your thread is a good idea. I'm going to hang back and see what people say, since my views have already gotten an airing.

[Henrique Duarte]

Hi there
my first visit to this forum :-)

I haven´t seen anyone discussing the animal breeding, usbandry (I really don´t know how to write this in english) paper in civs.
Know this might be a bit foolish at first, but the thing is domestication is a fundamental part of civilization advance, right along agriculture.
One of the biggest issues is availability of domesticable animals in your continental (or island) mass. This is big both economically and military.

you can think off the appearence of horses in America, kangaroos in Australia
Cortez in MesoAmerica etc, etc, etc

By the way...it would be a neat feature to add to the diplomatic/spy/raiding actions - getting domestication knowledge along with the animals...or just the animals.

In a absurd situation you can allow for domestication of more exotic animals. Just leave the possibility open for strong research on the domestication rynos (imagine that ryno legion charging down the valley :-)

[Mark_Everson]

Henrique:

It's called husbandry in English, so you got Really close...

I didn't state it explicitly, but what I call agriculture is basically agriculture plus use of domesticated animals. The domestication effects should be there in the tech model, and also worked into the "agriculture" food system in the economic model. I doubt we will get down to the level of availability of domesticatable animals. I realize it's important, but it's a level of detail I really don't want to get down to. Also, the cultures that start without them are basically Screwed since they are about the only labor saving technology available before machines come along.

[Lord God Jinnai]

In the tech model, domestication and agriculture (also fishing) are seperate. However, there aren't specific plants/animals for either. Doing so would be extremely difficult and although I would perfer that FE some places naturally start out without horses or other animals and have differnt foods and such, i realize that it would be a nightmare trying to code in that, then the migrations, the adaptablities of each animal in each ecosystem and how removing one or adding other will change such.

[LOGO]

Mark:

Inflation
I don't think I'm very satified with your use of inflation in your model (forgive me I haven't read the entire thing yet) all you seem to say is how much the per capita income increases. Well are you talking about inflation or an increase in the middle class? Inflation is somewhat complicated so I don't know if we should have it in the model, yet it IS one of the most important parts of our present day economy, besides it's not that hard to set interest rates. Though if you were going to use it I'd think you'd want a charactor as a Alan Greenspan for your country. Anyway if your going to talk about the increase in per capita income you should talk about it without inflation, it's alot less confusing that way.

By the way, I like your province idea, I think you should totally through out the city system, the only time you'd have a city is when the population is high in that place, a capital would atomaticaly become a city, all the cities would rely on only it's own square for food at first then after a few tech increases they could have support from other surplus squares, then everywhere in the province and someday everywhere in the nation, and if you pass free trade everywhere in the world (super over simplified on the the free trade thing odviosly) I've long hated the city system in Civ. II as incredibly unrealistic to any time.

By the way you did a great job on the economy, I like that it's more complex yet more self sufficiant, also I think most of a player's head aches should come from the enomy (just like now) although some the stuff in there could be tweaked a little

[Mark_Everson]

Logo:

Actually there is no inflation in the model so far. I think it's just too much of a detail. All the changes in PCI with time that I described are due to real income growth.

[Lord God Jinnai]

If u wanted to use inflation u'd have to realize that up until WWII prices usually went up and down in cyclical patterns. This was because money was based on the "Gold Standard." It wasn't until countries started to back up there money with less and less gold that inlfation was a problem. Here's why:

on the gold standard your moeny in banks and such could be traded in for that amount of gold. When countries started deregulating that and printing more money that was backed up in gold things began to go up in price. I'm not defending the gold standard but in an economy based on that system inflation is never long term.

[Lord God Jinnai]

But if u looked at the patterns they were cyclical. There would be a time when prices rose a lot and then dropped. This is why nothing was done right away in 1929 and why we had a great depression because most economists thought is was just another low spot, although lower than usual.