Economic Model II

[LDiCesare]

I think I am cross-posting from military thread, but I have done a few things since, so it may differ a little:
This is about the cost of training armies.
How should army training be handled? In particular, what should the training/existing facilities relation be? I think it is a general issue of what do you need in terms of infrastructure to build another kind of infrastructure (here, service).
I model training as solely a services cost for units.
I propose that basic training cost be presented on a civ-level (maybe province) so that the user don't have to micromanage each unit training.

[Mark_Everson]

I'll respond to your partial cross-post with one of my own!

Yes we'll definitely have default training available (as a matter of fact, I know from your email of last night that you've already put it in ). And things like training depending on cost-effectiveness can be easily handled using a return-on-investment parameter just like much of the econ stuff uses. Essentially where training is cheaper per unit (due to training infra) more training will (or at least probably should) be done. The thing that will require a little extra effort is the idea of rotating troops thru the training facilities. But we can sure do something reasonable, if not optimal, on that front too. Perhaps letting there be just one training center per province that automatically supports training there is one way to do it.

Now building the best amount of training facilities will be a tough decision also, but I think we can get a decent solution when we're further along.

[Simon Loverix]

*bump*

It is possible to produce goods (eg cotton) on farming grounds, and there is the possibility of synthetic food as well. How is that handled in the model?

[Mark_Everson]

Produce cotton on ordinary farm sites -- no, not in the model as it exists now. But we might be able to work it so cotton specials sites can be used as farm sites. Personally I don't think this is needed since in most cases the special is much more valuable, but if a lot of players think otherwise it would be possible.

I hadn't thought about synthetic food, which I assume means hydroponics or such things that don't require land in the traditional sense. I suppose the best way for this to be able to work within the model is to be able to 'buy' more sites when the tech level gets high enough. This would be similar to forest clearance in how it works for the player and AI.

[Gary Thomas]

What about wool? This was the main staple product of medieval England, and is the main staple product of at least one modern (sort of) country...

Cheers

[Simon Loverix]

I thought mainly of using ordinary ground for growing cash crops. f.e. Enclosure movement, the early incentive of the IR.

We could define some specials in another way: f.e. 'cotton' special means when you grow cotton on (or on part of) the available sites you get a site bonus.

Synthetic food: margarine, bubble gum, fizzy drinks,.. have a nutrition value so they're more than luxuries; but people who use them have plenty of food normally. But the margarine is an important daily foodstuff (developed last century for the french army, by the way).

[Gary Thomas]

To extend my query about wool, is there provision for pastoral farming generally? It certainly had an enormous impact in ancient and medieval times. In fact, apart from immediate food requirements (and a lot of that came from pastoral farming) a lot of the "cash crops" were actually animal products. The biggest exceptions, I suppose, were wheat in the Roman empire, and timber in many areas.

Cheers

[Mark_Everson]

My notion was to combine herding with farming. So the number of 'farming' sites would also implicitly include grazing land. Also tech level would include herding-type techs in some way. In some more extreme cases there could be a special to cover herding of various sorts explicitly.

For true pastoralist societies, like the Mongols, I'm not sure about the best way to handle it. But I think something fairly reasonable based on extensions of the existing econ model is attainable when we get to that point.

[Gary Thomas]

I read a book on the origin of agriculture (I can't check which one right now - it is 100 miles away) which quite strongly made the point that all pastoral nomad societies were critically dependent on neighbouring agricultural societies, and required trade with them to survive. In effect there is pretty good evidence that agriculture made a pastoral nomad life possible.

We think of the Mongols as pastoral nomads, but in fact the empire that Genghiz Khan assembled included nomads,, farmers, and even a large contingent of forest dwellers who owned no horses.

The nomad/farmer interdependence does present interesting possibilities for the model.

Cheers

[Simon Loverix]

I think 'lifestyle' is a very important choice. While hunter/gatherers never assembled empires, both settled and nomadic societies did so. We could impose the rule that an empire must contain a homogenous, either settled or nomadic population,with trade and alliances still possible.

So the player (or the AI) could choose to stay nomadic until a (or several) big empire emperges nearby and then conquer it (them), like the Khans did. Of course, to rule it they must give up their nomadic status. The advantages of being nomadic would then be: mobility and military power, the disadvantages: limitations in technological development and social organization.

To make this choice available, the starting pop of a civ must be nomadic. Then the player/AI can choose, depending on the terrain etc. to settle or to search for a better spot.

[Gary Thomas]

There is evidently a strong link between economic and social status in this area. I am not sure that it was ever intended that Clash start at a hunter-gatherer level, that is, pre-agriculture and pre-urban development.

Does anybody know if it was ever intended that hunter-gatherer societies be included?

Cheers

[Mark_Everson]

Sorry Guys, I missed this way-back-when...

Simon: Players should IMO have the Option to start as pastoralist. But a player should also be able to start as a civ with farming land and farmers. But I don't think we want to require everyone to start as a nomad. Some will want to start the game as an existing civ around 1000BC or so.

Gary: I'm (I think) with you. I never thought hunter-gatherers would be interesting for the player, so IMO they shouldn't be an option. For one thing, such groups have no centralization to speak of, so I'm not sure what the player would Do .

[Gary Thomas]

There is a very good source book "Limited Wants, Unlimited Means" with in-depth studies of the economics of modern hunter-gatherer societies. As Mark says, there is no centralization. There is also no progress and there are no decisions to make, beyond "shall I get up today?".

Like Mark I cannot see such societies as providing very good game material.

Don't get me wrong - in many ways the societies in question verge on the idyllic. The comment made by someone (I forget who) that life in such a society was "nasty, brutish, and short" is completely wrong. In one account of the Kalahari Bushmen, there is a comment on a workaholic - he spent 30 hours a week in useful endeavour. The average was 16 hours a week. This left plenty of time for the really important things in life - sleeping and boasting.

Not much challenge for a gamer...

Cheers.

[Simon Loverix]

I never intented to make hunter-gatherer available as a player option. But when the computer places a tribe on a really poor spot to start or when their territory becomes unsatisfactory, you should be able to leave for a better place.

A few examples:
The Germanic tribes. Their incentive was overpopulation and the result was the fall of the western Roman empire (instead of the decay).
The Vikings: again, overpopulation. A few centuries later, their descendants owned England, Normandy and half of France.

So 'going nomadic' should always be available as an option. The disadvantages are significant: all remaining infra in your homeland decays very fast, tech progress only in a few areas, tech detoriation in others. Advantages: the full male population becomes available as warrior. I think players should start nomadic or as farmers depending on their homeland, but if they have the good enough technology (transport for nomads, agriculture for farmers) they can always switch. The advantages of settled life are much higher, but in emergencies you can always make a gamble..

The main reason to include hunter-gatherers is that you can generate all tribes/ civs at the start of the game, and once every while one of these hunter-g tribe becomes a civilization, be it nomadic or settled. For example, the Islam or the Mongols.

[Gary Thomas]

But when the computer places a tribe on a really poor spot to start or when their territory becomes unsatisfactory, you should be able to leave for a better place.

That is reasonable. However the examples quoted are not of this kind. Neither the Germanic tribes nor the Vikings left their homelands vacant. What moved was the overflow, and in the case of the Vikings at least, only a minority of the population moved. With a more centralized governmental system, the English did much the same thing a few centuries later. However it wasn't then called "nomadism" but "empire-building".

There is a strong feeling that nomadic pastoralism could only exist on the fringes of more settled civilizations, and was quite dependent on the agrarian and industrial produce of those areas. Salt and metal were two much sought after products, even in Scythian days.

Cheers