{The List-} Economics/Trade

[Kramsib]

Originally posted by lajzar
I don't like the idea of trading food. The food which actually affects total population tends to be staples, such as grains or potatoes. Certainly, food does get traded long distances, but those tend to be luxury goods in the main.

As far as the game concept is concerned luxury goods are aimed to make people happy, but I don't think that in real life food is a luxury good, in fact, as many cities don't produce food at all they need food supply.

The reason why we want transport food, is to maintain normal levels of population in cities which are located in Tundra or Desert and their production of food is extremely low.

[lajzar]

But cities in tundra and desert have very low populations for a reason - no local food production. The amount of resources needed to maintain a city by importing food is truly staggering. It is quite normal for a city built in the middle of a non-food-producing region to have a very low population.

The best known historical example of transporting bulk foods is West Berlin during the height of the cold war. And that was a very short term endeavour and dangerously expensive.

[Kramsib]

If you play a World Map you would need to transport food to maintain the real population of some cities in Canada

Anyway I am not talking about huge metropolises, but a level 6 or 7 of population.

[lajzar]

Originally posted by Kramsib
If you play a World Map you would need to transport food to maintain the real population of some cities in Canada

In that case, perhaps the terrain model is broken? Of course, given the disparity between the population numbers listed in the game cities and what we have on Earth, I wouldn't read too much into that.

fwiw, in the sixties, food travelled an average of 20 miles before being eaten. These days, the average is about 40 miles. Which is still less than 1 tile on a world giga map.

[MartynC]

Hi
Don't know if mentioned before, but 1 thing i hate in Civ III, C3C etc is that i can destory other Civ's Ship with my pirate ships, but don't get any reward, except maybe one of their ships. I perfer the Colonization way of being able to take their goods. For Example, if I sink a ship carrying a settler or worker etc, why can't i 'force' him to join me?, also, if it comes from a civ with a resource i should be able to to take it, & sell itback prehaps & get Gold for it?

Worth thinking about!

[lajzar]

Well, I can accept you should be able to capture goods. Except that under most civ trade models, goods are abstracted, so there isn't anything to capture.

Capturing units however, seems off. Why would my civ's workers *want* to work for your civ? They aren't just automatons, they are people with a love of their own country. I can accept though that you might be able to make them into slaves if your government is of that persuasion.

[Kramsib]

Originally posted by lajzar

fwiw, in the sixties, food travelled an average of 20 miles before being eaten. These days, the average is about 40 miles. Which is still less than 1 tile on a world giga map.

Mmm, but you are talking about an average value and I am talking about extraordinary cases.

Argentina and Australia are big exporters of meat and I am sure their meat travel more than 40 miles.

Some food transport is difficult because some kind of food deteriorates easily, but when we talk about grain or other long durability products the result is quite different.

In the middle ages, a lot of grain was exported from Crimea all over Europe. The railroad allowed Russians to transport grain all over their territory, and so on, ...

Food trade was important in the past and it is important in present, as industrial cities import food from other places becouse their room is used for industrial purposes.

[MartynC]

Capturing units however, seems off. Why would my civ's workers *want* to work for your civ? They aren't just automatons, they are people with a love of their own country. I can accept though that you might be able to make them into slaves if your government is of that persuasion.

Why not trade them for one of yours, assuning the AI has done it to you, or dispand them in a city of yours & get the shields added to production prehaps?

[The_Aussie_Lurker]

OK, this idea ties in, somewhat, with my ideas for societal influence and civ 'factions' (i.e. labourers, farmers, wealthy elite, military etc)
First off, I want to be able to REALLY set tax rates! i.e., there should be a taxation screen, where you can raise or lower the tax paid by your entire civilization-anywhere from 0-100%! Then, you should have a seperate slider for 'luxury tax', which generates revenues according to how many luxuries you have locally or through trade (raises revenue, but reduces luxury effectiveness, and increases the unhappiness of the wealthy factions of your civ). Company tax (with 'Corporation'), which raises revenue according to the number of financial improvements you have. GST (VAT) (With Industrialisation)-based on amount of production shields you have in your civ-downside is that it adds extra turns to your production queues, and increases general unhappiness. Resource Tax (with industrialisation), generates revenue based on the number of non-luxury resources you have, but increases their 'disappearance rate'. Pollution tax (with 'Ecology') generates revenue according to how much pollution you generate, but increases maintainance costs on all production improvements. Also, once you've set your 'BROAD' tax rates, you can then go into your 'faction' screen, and raise/lower the tax rates of each faction above or below the mean. This might generate more revenue, but could start to make that faction unhappy! Last of all, there would be a tax slider in each city screen, which would allow to boost/lower the tax paid by that city-again, though, you might cause a MAJOR upset amongst the people of that city/cities!
Obviously, though, your total tax rates determine how much money you recieve, and you then allocate that money through your budget.
Basically, your budget might be broken down into areas like: Science/Education, Health, Infrastructure, Defence, Industry, Environment, Welfare, Civil Service, Foreign Affairs and the like. The more you allocate to a certain area, the better that area performs for you. For instance, if you allocate a large % of your budget into defence, then several things will occur.
1) Militaristic improvements are built quicker.
2) You might get a bonus to hp, attack or defense to your units.
3) Your chance of generating an MGL is improved.
4) You increase happiness/influence of your military faction.

If you put the bulk of your budget into health, though, you might get
1) Reduced chance of plague (and spread of plague).
2) Quicker building of aqueducts, retreatment plants and hospitals.
3) Your units heal faster in cities.
4) General happiness is boosted.
Essentially, each area of your budget will, if you assign above a certain proportion to it, generate a number of positive benefits in certain areas-it's up to the player to decide which areas they want to prioritise at any one time.
Anyway, just a few thoughts.

Yours,
The_Aussie_Lurker.

[lajzar]

Have you considered that the maintenance cost of aqueducts, hospitals, etc, *is* your health budget? Similarly, your maintenance cost for each of teh other city improvements is actually your budget expenditure in each of those other social areas you mention.

Of course, you should have the option of paying more than the base maintenance to increase their effectiveness. That could make things more interesting (but hell for the ai to deal with I expect).

I'd refrain from anything that boosts the potential of your armies. If anything, the costs of existing armies should be increased by far. Modern armies are way to cheap to maintain in the late game.

[The_Aussie_Lurker]

OK, I confess that my ideas regarding the budgetary side of the coin is a little less well developed!
I guess the best way to see the budget is as a replacement to 'maintainance costs'.
Essentially, what is now maintainance would, in this system, be the minimum gpt you need to maintain these improvements at normal level. Obviously the more of a certain type of improvement you have, the more gpt it will cost to maintain them all and, therefore, the greater % of your total budget you will need to assign just to keep them 'up to strength'. If you go below this level, then 'BAD THINGS' can, and will, happen-like general or factional unhappiness, degraded improvement/unit performance, slower build times or even improvement loss! Of course, if you assign a greater % of your budget than is dictated by 'maintainance costs', then many of the positive benefits I mentioned above would accrue! Of course, this means that you would have to be quite astute in deciding where to spend your money but, to reduce micromanagement, you could have a governer function which could take this out of your hands, if you so wished!

Yours,
The_Aussie_Lurker.

[Fosse]

I started another thread about commerce. I didn't want to highjack this thread with a system idea that needs lots of bugs worked out, but I am linking because it's relevenat.

The gist:

Tiles never generate commerce, with or without roads.

All cities trade all the time, commerce rates are increased by distance and decreased by movement points. So building roads to connect distant cities generates more commerce, for example.

I think this simulates the demand for distant goods from foriegn markets, and the increase in commercial activity when trade routes are not too difficult to travel.

[Xorbon]

Regarding Strategic Resources:

In Civ3, if a civilization has access to a single strategic resource, then that civ has access to that resource as if it was infinite. These resources should have finite values attached to them in Civ4. Each source on the map would produce a certain number of 'units' of the appropriate resource per turn. For instance, there could be 3 sizes of iron deposits which produce either 20, 30, or 50 units of iron per turn (the numbers are just examples). As the game progresses (tech-wise), certain resources could become more abundant. For example, iron sources could produce more once engineering is discovered.

Any collected resources could be traded to other civs, used for upkeep of units/improvements, or in the building of new units/improvements.

1/ Trade with other civs would involve the trading of a specific number of units/turn of a particular resource (eg. trade could involve 10 units of oil per turn). If a civ is unable to provide the agreed upon amount of a resource, that civ must provide compensation to the other civ, or the deal is cancelled and the one who broke the deal suffers a reputation hit.

2/ Upkeep: some improvements and units would have upkeep that uses a certain number of units of one or more resources each turn. For example, a coal plant could use one unit of coal per turn, and a battleship could use two units of oil per turn. If resource upkeep can't be paid for an improvement, that improvement has its effects reduced or it stops functioning altogether. If a unit doesn't have its resource upkeep paid, one or more of its stats would be reduced (i.e. attack str, defense str, moves, etc.) depending on what resource it is lacking (eg. lacking iron/saltpeter could mean reduced att/def; lacking oil/coal/uranium could mean reduced movement, etc.). If a unit goes for several turns without having its resource upkeep paid, it would lose an experience level ( to a minimum of conscript level).

3/ Building certain units or improvements could require access to a strategic resource. As a simple way of doing this, as long as a player has a surplus of a resource (after factoring in trade to other civs and upkeep), then that player may use that resource to create the appropriate units or improvements. Units and improvements that require access to a resource to build wouldn't necessarily require that same resource for upkeep (and vice versa).

4/ Leftovers: There are a few options as to what the game could do with any surplus units of a resource: the player could be allowed to stockpile surplus resources; any surplus could be converted into gold and/or shields; or the surplus could simply be lost to waste. Or there could be some combination of the above. If the player is allowed to stockpile, there should be limits to how big the stockpile is allowed to get.

[The_Aussie_Lurker]

Hi Xorbon,

You make some good points, and they have been discussed at some length elsewhere! My idea for limited resources goes into strategic, luxury AND bonus resources. Basically, I like the general idea of Civ3's resource appeance/disappearance ratios, but I think they should apply to ALL resource types AND be based on a more accurate resource-use model-as follows:

1/ When a unit appears, it will have a 'size'-say from 1-10, larger sized resources appear less often, but have less chance of disappearing, and vice versa.

2/ Having access to more than one source of a given resource obviously reduces the chance of disappearance.

3/ Trading works much the way you described it, Xorbon, with you setting the 'size' of the trade you want to give (with larger trades being worth more) The more of a resource you trade, though, the greater the chance of disappearance.

4/ In my opinion, there is always some general use of resources in normal, day to day life, which could still risk straining resource access! This is reflected by the fact that, the more cities (or population) you have, the greater the chance a resource has of disappearing.

5/ The more units and improvements that you build with a given resource, per turn, the greater the chance of disappearance.

6/ Last, but not least, as Xorbon has suggested, it should be noted which resources a unit/improvement requires on an ongoing basis (like uranium for nuclear reactors and nuclear subs, or oil for Gas Plants and tanks). The more units you have in the field (either literally 'IN THE FIELD' OR just the total number of units you possess), then the greater chance, per turn, of that resource drying up.
In addition, luxury resources of any given size should only be able to increase the happiness of a certain amount of population-not the whole Civ. Such additions, I believe, would drive expanding empires to pursue new sources of a given resource, more agressively, in order to prevent it drying up! It might also be another way of reducing RR sprawl! After all, the more track you lay, the more chance you have of losing your coal and iron !

Yours,
The_Aussie_Lurker.

[The_Aussie_Lurker]

Oh, speaking of RR's and RR sprawl, I definitely think they need a new way of generating bonus commerce, food and production from RR's and roads.
Rather than the current system of each new RR square, in your radius, generating the bonus, the bonus should be a ONE-OFF which you gain from connecting the city to your trade network. The way I see it is, when you connect a city by road, to that network, then your city could gain a bonus of +5% of the total production/food and commerce that exists within the trade network.

For instance, lets say that all of the cities in your trade network have a total production output of 40 shields, 30 food and 20 commerce. When you connect your city, for the first time, to this network, they gain +2 shields, +1 food and +1 commerce. This reflects the movement of commodities throughout your empire, and is a possible, micromanagement-free alternative to the food/shield trade which has been floated elsewhere (and which, I might add, I prefer ) If you upgrade the city's connection to a Railroad, then the bonus becomes +10% (in the above example, this would be +4 shields, +3 food and +2 commerce) It doesn't matter how the rest of the trade network is hooked up, what matters, for that city, is what connects IT to that network! The main benefit of this proposal is that you get the bonus whether you have a single connection or SIX (or even more!) If you also add a maintainance cost for Road and Rail, then this will discourage players and the AI from building masses of 'superfluous' rail/road! i.e. NO MORE SPRAWL!
Although I would prefer commodity trade (i.e. trade in food/shields and commerce) to occur through the normal trade screen, this system could be used for some type of resource trade with other nations-working on much the same formula (i.e., both sides could get bonus food/shield and commerce based on the +5% and +10% idea above)! In addition, international trade could produce gold per turn, for both sides, based on the how much commodity they are trading, and with a 'distance multiplier', as suggested by Fosse, where longer distance trades might produce extra gold! Of course, this system could operate side-by-side with the normal ,negotiated, trade in commodities-which has been proposed elsewhere.

Yours,
The_Aussie_Lurker.

[The_Aussie_Lurker]

OK, I've been thinking that the model I've proposed above could also benefit from Improvements and Wonders which either increase the size of the commodity bonus which a city, or nation, can recieve via the trade network (like free trade zone small wonders) or the gpt that a nation recieves from overseas commodity trades (like tarriffs, for instance)!

Yours,
The_Aussie_Lurker.

[wrylachlan]

My $0.02:

If I'm gonna buy something from overseas, it has to be cheaper than what I can build at home. In order for it to be cheaper, it has to cost enough less than a domestic product so that after the shipping cost its still less.

As the price of shipping goes down, the less of a competitive advantage you need in order to make it economically viable to sell foreign goods.

So that means two things play into the total amount of trade:

Competitive Advantage
Shipping Costs

If I'm China, the most efficient producer of DVD players in the world, it doesn't matter how little the shipping costs are, I'm never going to buy DVD players made in Greece because Greece has no Competitive Advantage in producing them.

Similarly, If by some freak of nature all ocean liners and planes were destroyed, and the only way to transport goods was sail boats, it wouldn't matter how cheaply China can produce DVD players. The US would never buy them because the shipping costs are too high.
------------------------------------------------------------------
Building a shipping infrastructure should cost money for the initial build-out, and money to keep it up. This includes roads, RR, air, ocean, whatever.

But if the connected cities aren't good at making stuff, no goods will flow along that that shipping infrastructure, and the maintainance cost will just be a drag on your economy.
------------------------------------------------------------------
Basic proposal:

Every city has a "Trade Potential" based on its population, tech levels, and certain city improvements. "Trade Potential" is represented as empty silouettes of coins. Your basic TP is the number of citizens you have. Techs will progressively increase the TP. Things like Marketplaces, Banks, Stock Exchange, Factories, Tourist Attractions, etc. increase the TP.

Also, having things that other civs don't increases TP. So while having a marketplace might give you an increase of 5 TP, being the only civ to have marketplaces gives you a 10 TP increase. (Obviously the numbers are totally fudged to make a point...) If you have Wine and no-one else does, you get extra TP.

How much of your TP you actually realize in Gold has to do with how connected your trade system is. If you have no connection at all, you get a very low percentage of your total TP as gold. If you have a full shipping infrastructure with RR, Airports, Harbors, etc. you will get your full Trade Potential in coins.

The way it would be represented on screen is that the top bar which currently shows the total coins, would now show TP (coin sillouettes). Below that on the left would be gray coins representing how much of your potential coins you lost from an inadequate shipping infrastructure. Below that is the red coins representing the number of coins you lost to corruption. To the right, as always is the luxury/Science/Tax.

This would make it easy to see what you need to do. When the gray coins get above the maintainance cost of a road, you build a road, etc. etc.

[Xorbon]

Aussie Lurker:
Interesting variation on the 'limited resources' idea. What thread(s) are you referring to?

Originally posted by The_Aussie_Lurker
4/ In my opinion, there is always some general use of resources in normal, day to day life, which could still risk straining resource access!

This could be adapted to my idea. Certain resources (like iron or oil) would be used by the population, while others (such as saltpeter or uranium) would not. The amount of a resource a civilization would use could depend on the total number of population points and/or cities in the civ. For example, a civ could use 1 unit of iron for each pop point, and 2 additional iron units for each city. (The extra 2 units/city could be a way to discourage ICS.) So, in this example, a size 3 city would use 5 iron, and a size 10 city would use 12 iron. The exact numbers could vary from resource to resource. The demand by a civ would vary with tech level.

There should be a penalty for not having access to a resource. (Or having access could provide a bonus. Then, lacking a resource would simply mean no bonus.)

This idea could also work for luxuries (with the bonus being extra happiness).

[The_Aussie_Lurker]

Just had some other issues I wanted to discuss in relation to the trade model I've proposed above!

1) Firstly, Harbours and commercial docks would have basically the same effect on commodity trades, overseas, as roads and rail have overland: i.e. harbours grant +5%, and commercial docks provide +10%.

2) Trade routes for both commodities and standard trade will follow the straighest, shortest and most LEGAL route (according to normal 'pathfinding' techniques'). An option should be allowed in the game where you can ask to see ALL active trading routes for your goods.

3) Any cities which lie on the path of an active trade route will gain bonus revenue and happiness in that city. The 'influence' of the mercantile class within these cities will also be improved!

4) Certain units (ground, air and naval) will have the ability to 'see' a trade route when they are within a certain number of hexes of its path. The computer will inform you, via a pop-up, if you have detected another civs trade route.

5) In order to pirate/block a trade route, you just need to set a unit to one of these two missions. Then, if said unit is able to sit on another civs trade route, until the end of the latters turn, then you have a % chance of either breaking the route, or recieving gold from it, based on the strength of the unit performing the mission.

6) Certain units will, for the purposes of piracy and embargoes, be able to exert a 'ZofC', which allows said unit to pirate/break an active trade route from 1-2 hexes away. This will be available as a unit 'flag'.

7) In diplomacy screen, a civ can declare an embargo against another civ. This would not only sever any existing luxury, bonus or strategic resource trades-but would also sever any underlying commodities trade. Any trade which normally passes through this civs territory would also be blocked (forcing a renegotiation of said trade with the third Civ).

8) The only way to get around an embargo is by building a Small Wonder called 'Black Market', which I have described previously in relation to Banned Resources. To reiterate, Black markets increase corruption and happiness in your empire, whilst reducing war weariness and culture in your empire. The biggest bonus, though, is that allow you to trade goods (both resources and commodities) to civs who have blocked your normal trade or with whom you are even at WAR!! Not only do you get much more gold from such smuggling operations, but you also increase the corruption levels of the civ you're 'trading' with! To be fair, though, they also gain the benefits of these trades (as do you!)

9) The only way to break 'smuggling' trade routes is by direct intervention, either via war or interdiction (see (5) and (6) above!)

Anyway, hope you like my suggestions, and I look forward to any thoughts people might have on them!

Yours,
The_Aussie_Lurker.

[Dr Strangelove]

I too prefer CTP style trade. I'd like to add that trade should become possible as soon as you discover a country. Trade should not have to wait until there has been an exchange in ambassadors or for the partner nation to build a port or road. Perhaps the exchange of ambassadors and the erection of connecting roads and ports should increase the value of trade, because these events represent a potential increase in capacity.

[ThePlagueRat]

Ok, some polys like unit trading, and I admit to be one of them!
I just think it should be implemented differently in the future.


Tradable resources and products:
First resources must be quantified, they should not use the silly and unrealistic Civ3 principle. Then it would be no point in buying Civ4, would it? With a better resource based system, product 'modules' could be traded instead of whole units. The reciever would have to use his own manpower though. One module of 100 bronze-arms, and one of 100 bronze-armour, could be required to build a basic spearman unit in a resource based system. To get a better spearman you should have iron working and iron resources. It would give you the ability to upgrades the same unit type, just like in the C3C: RoR-scenario with Legion type I, II, III, IV.


Product trading, and helping allies:
Also you'll have to take out let's say 100 manpower from the cities, and use the gathered resources like iron or bronze-ore for the production in the city which will become a module. You can then use it for the unit, or the module can be traded with other players! This way you can send over tanks to help a coutry that has little manpower, but good cash. Would be suitable since tanks should have low manpower use. Would be more realistic and more fun than the old style unit trading... and here you can trade specific quantas of resources as well, of course for a cheaper price than products.

[edit]
I do not favor manpower trading, as that would complicate things and could make MP-games too unbalanced.
These are your loyal subjects, and nobody else's!
If you want to help a poor ally, you may of course send your own army under your own control. So it's not a problem.

[DarkCloud]

I think this belongs here: http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...hreadid=114702 rush building: a magic world? ... grap1705

[DarkCloud]

also of note:

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...hreadid=114718

[Skanky Burns]

*Bump*

[Master Zen]

Please include the ability to put military units in the bargaining table, that would be soooooooooooooooo cool

(Civ2 had it but the AI was clueless on how to use it, you could frequently offer carriers to the AI and they're refuse it out of pride )

[Drachasor]

http://www.leopold.iastate.edu/pubs/...s_traveled.pdf

While it is true perhaps that in many places food doesn't travel far, it will travel *VERY* far to get to a trade center (2000+ for vegatables to get to Chicago, for example, and other things traveled more)

In a more planned economy or with proper tax incentives, it could travel far to get to other places.

Frankly, places with a ton of trade potential should be getting influxes of food from farming regions. Those regions shouldn't need much population either. It is silly to think you need a population of 100k+ to farm a region with modern tech. As you advice population should move to trade centers while you maintain the same food output.

Perhaps all of this can't be implemented, but the basic idea that food automatically travels to trade centers should be in the game (naturally it travels more as the game progresses and as you build roads/rail).

-Drachasor

[Lawrence of Arabia]

roads and rail must cost upkeep.
there must be a wonder which halves upkeep. (very expensive of course to build)
roads and rails no longer give +1commerce to all squares.
railroad station (must have rail connection to capital) gives +1 commerce in all squares

[piratebrun]

I really did like the Colonization resource model. This might get too complex for a game with as many eras and resources as civ though. I do like the idea of getting specific resources from the land/resource deposits, and finished goods too for trade. Also horses should be able to be "found" as resources then moved into the city so they can be "grown" (using food) once acquired, then traded with civs who have no access to these.

A warehouse building (ala Colon) could be built in cities to make storage space (no warehouse, 100 of each max, warehouse1, +100, warehouse2 +200, etc...) Supply would be per city, perhaps you could click on the city, get a popup menu, click "send goods" then click the good, how much, and to what city (be getting tgt cursor and clickon city), and it will be dispatched automatically (via auto-caravans or built&stocked caravans). Once cities are linked via RR's then strategic resources will be in a "regional pool" of RR connected cities. Perhaps food could be shared reginally via RR's too. Harbors/airports... they would fit in as well somehow. Perhaps commercial docks would allow oversea areas to be linked to the same "region".

Also resources would have to spawn more, but perhaps each deposit only give +1 resource (goes to closest warehouse) but you can link up (smoething like) 15-20 irons then get that amount in your warehouse each turn (then you can shuttle around via caravans/RR's) then each "finished" good would take one of each required resource. perhaps maintenance for buildings (factories need 1 iron each turn, if no iron, no bonus from that building that turn)

Could be:
RAW RESOURCES:
Horses (for mounted units)
Iron (for many things)
Coal (for RR's & PP's)
KNO3 (Saltpeter) I prefer Sulfur instead (same use though)
Rubber (many uses) - replaced later with component Synthetic Rubber
Oil - replaced MUCH later with Synthetic Fuels
Uranium - replaced MUCH later with a product of Fusion Power (MAYBE)
Aluminum
Timber (for building WOODEN larger ships) - available in any forest - if timber is added, then timber/stone would be needed for many buildings?
Stone (for building structures) - available from any mountain/hill

FINISHED GOODS:
Spears (no resource) - spearmen
Pikes (Iron) - pikemen
Muskets (Iron+KNO3) - musketmen
Rifles (Iron+KNO3 or none) - riflemen
Light Machine Guns(no resouce) -guerilla
Machine Guns (Iron+rubber) - infantry
Mech Inf (Rubber+Iron+Oil) -mech inf unit
Swords (Iron) - swordsmen + med inf
(sidenote: horsemen would be horse+spear, knights would be swords+horses, cavalry muskets/rifles+horses...)
Tanks (Iron+Rubber+Oil)
Fighter (Oil+Iron/Aluminum?)
Galley (none)
Frigate (Timber+Iron+KNO3)
etc...

To actually MAKE a unit, a population unit would be dragged and dropped on the "city units area" (again ala Colon) then a list of what units were available via the existing finished goods would be given.

obsolete finished goods could be sold to lesser equipped civs for whatever the lesser civ will offer in trade, or "recycled" for their base components at a rate of something like 1/2 - eg 50 muskets could be scrapped for 25 iron/25 KNO3.

for finished goods, to make/equip a pop unit with them would not only require the resource, but the tech perhaps? or at least a tech to "understand" guns well enough to use them? or mebbe not, indigenous peoples have had no problems soon adapting to modern warfare technology if they have access to it.

just some thoughts, i have more ideas to flesh out on this as well

Just played some colonization again to help me refresh my ideas too

[piratebrun]

Oh yeah and the "synthetics" - oil & rubber, could be made once the req. technology is available, then be made with 1 food= 1 synth unit, then they would merely stockpile the rubber and oil slots, and be traded as other resources. perhaps a certain improvement would be needed to manage this conversion, there needs to be some mechanism for conversion though.

also food output would need to be increased across all ages for the extra pop units required to man your army, and especially in the later ages as you would need food to make synths as well.

also (again ala Colon) military units could be "demobilized" and the pop unit could be added back to the city (losing any veteran status) and then the hardware (sword, tank, plane, etc) would go into the warehouse/reserves.

[123man]

Definately should be ability to store resources, where a tile generates a certain amount of a resource per turn and it can be stored, used for units, used for refining (ala Colonization) or traded. Need to had different types of factories for refining different resources and producing different manufactured goods. Aslo should be able to combine resources for making goods.
rubber, aluminium, etc for cars
metal and oil (plastics) for TVs

wood, stone and building materials should also be resources.