Economic Model II

[Lord God Jinnai]

The technique of folding intelacing layers of steel and iron is what made them so strong.

The smelting techniques were also supperior as well from what i heard because the iron was poor.

This tending to make the older swords exteemly good when attacking, except if they were hit by another sword head on. The poor iron caused the katana's to become very brittle and they would break easily if blocked with the edge, which is why, when they block they always turn the sword, not simply to keep the blade from dulling faster. On its side, it is quite strong and in some ways more deadly as it could crack a skull with a tap.

However, not all the ore was bad in Japan and as time went on with better knowledge metalurgy the swords did become better, and stronger. By the height of the age of Samurai most westerners think about the blades were wouldn't break so easily mostly because the armor they used often started to use metal as well as leather.

[Max Sinister]

And I recently read in "Guns, Germs and Steel" that African blacksmiths managed to forge steel even centuries before Bessemer furnaces were invented.

[yellowdaddy]

I think that's what Mark meant by

fine details

.

[Mark_Everson]

Originally posted by yellowdaddy in the Social Model v3.0 thread
What about Economic policy of the government beyond Property Rights? Primitive Civs have to have a religious system, and become more advanced as economic considerations predominate.

You can have a range of options: religious collectivism (Communism, Fascism, Islamism...) and planned economies, mixed economies as well as market economies and participatory economies and subsistence economies.

The overall econ approach in ancient times is designed to be somewhere between the two poles of pure market economy and pure traditional economy. Traditional means "I do what my same-sex parent did." For a modern game I might add a third "collectivist" possibility, but it is pretty much already taken care of by private property setting.

Game effects (so far) include:
Market:
o Workers move between sectors of the econ freely, making it more productive
o Technological progress is better (other things being equal)

Traditional:
o More stable politically, since the "everyone has their predetermined place" permeates society

Please respond in the Social thread with further ideas that impact social more than the econ model in general.

[yellowdaddy]

For Ancient Civilised tiles that sounds fine; but it doesn't sound compatible with the idea of "tribal units" - those HGUs (Hunter-Gatherer Units) and SFUs (Subsistence Farmer Units).

I propose that (if you plan to have some kind of economic model for these Tribal Units, that) you insert two lower levels below your basic Ancient Civ level.

[Like an economic tech level league: all civs can rise and fall, and their capacity for storing collective capabilities restricted by their position on it. When a Civ collapses back into a Tribal Unit, it loses amassed tech and economic development: trade routes, markets, currency etc...]

I think the units idea does provide attractive solutions for improving gamespeed by rendering all non-civ occupied tiles as having 0 settled population; and in gameplay by having a category of "semi-unit" that both simulates effectively the behaviour of early and less developed, and/or (semi-)nomadic human populations, and allows you to simulate a range of other small-group human activities: pirates, bandits, gangsters, guerillas.

For post industrial revolution economies hows about this?:
"...The most basic and general economic systems are:

Market economy (the basis for several "right-wing" systems, such as capitalism)
Mixed economy (arguably the "centrist" economic system)
Planned economy (the basis for several "left-wing" systems, such as socialism)
Traditional economy (a generic term for the oldest and traditional economic systems)
Participatory economics (an alternative to capitalism and planned economies) ..."

source

[Mark_Everson]

Private Property -- how to handle

Recapping a email betw me and Laurent:

Laurent:

> I've been trying to implement this:
> -->Private Property - Should have an effect on economic model.(0%)
> Private property means that a part of the infrastructure belongs
> to the ruler. This could be implemented by considering that part
> of the private sector actually belongs to the government, and
> instead of investing it back in the econ, bring it to the treasury.
> There's a variable totalInvestmentTaxIncome in PublicSector which
> is never set that I believe I can use.

> I've changed this method:
> private void consumeAndInvest(Marketplace market){
>
> float valueOfAllCommoditiesLeftExFood;
>
> putAsideFoodForPeople();// for now put aside 98% of food --
> food remains to be eaten by pop model ;-)
>
> valueOfAllCommoditiesLeftExFood =
> market.convertAllCommoditiesLeftToCash();
> valueOfAllCommoditiesPeopleHaveExFood =
> valueOfAllCommoditiesLeftExFood;
>
> float privateProperty =
> economy.getSquare().getGovernment().getGovernmentP rofile().getPriv
> ateProperty();
> float moneySentToGovernment =
> valueOfAllCommoditiesPeopleHaveExFood * (1 - privateProperty);
>
> economy.getPublicSector().addInvestmentTaxes(money SentToGovernment
> ); // Just sets the variable in PublicSector
> valueOfAllCommoditiesPeopleHaveExFood *= privateProperty;
>
> // invest in infra with remaining.
>
>
> peopleInvestInNonKapitalInfrastructure(valueOfAllC ommoditiesLeftEx
> Food*.95f);
> valueOfAllCommoditiesLeftExFood *= 0.05f;
>
> // decisions on capital, say 5% of total available, made by
> considering return on capital in diff industries
>
> peopleInvestInKapital(valueOfAllCommoditiesLeftExF ood);
>
> }

Mark:

What you have done looks good. Of course as I expect you know it has the defect that private property level won't affect the food sector much. Food is the largest sector, so this is not a negligible issue. You could do the same for the food sector, but then there would need to be a way for the govt to transfer food to the people, especially if they are on the verge of starvation. For a first pass I think it's ok to ignore food since the govt must usually redistribute most of the food that it takes in as taxes. One possible kludge is to change putAsideFoodForPeople() so that how much food is put aside depends upon private property in a way that isn't directly proportional. FE at 0% private property you might only give 90% of the food to the people, and at 100% PP return to the 98% value that is the current default. For all but the most primitive economies this should work ok since starvation won't result if you take only 10% of the food. It would also significantly increase govt tax revenues when PP is low.

[Lord God Jinnai]

Well as far as food stores go, having 100% PP might increase the amount of food going back, but it would decrease the amount of food left for emergancy use and could exaserbate a starvation situation whereas lower PP would take more food and on occasion if there was bad harvest cause a famine, but at the same time have food in storage to combat a famine if it occurs and infrastructure/willingness to do so is there.

I do think returning the resources back to the state at lower PP rather than investment is good (unless later we have ongoing stuff the player choses he wants to invest in, then its automacatially deducted). That way it simulates a better way of state being able to control what infrasturcture is built/maintained under 0% PP.

Also though the higher PP is their should be less loss, but also less control as to what is built/maintained, although ongoing governemnt projects could be slightly less loss than non-ongoing ones if we wanted. This would help keep it balanced imo.