A matter of Economics

[dexters]

Firaxis appear to place a good deal of importance on Economics as it was one of the headings to appear at the very front of the manual with regards to the may ways one can play Civ 3.

However, I noted that the Economic system in Civ 3 is rather primitive, and is not really that useful of a tool for a player. It also tends to lends itself to AI cheating, and does not reflect accurately an output based model.

To simplify the issue, let me give you brief breakdown of economic activity for a Civ.

money inputs comes from:
1. income from cities & taxmen DOMESTIC OUTPUT
2. Trade and transfer payments from another Civ to your Civ International Payments
= Total Income


money outputs:
1. Upkeep of improvements & Military* DOMESTIC OUTPUT
2. Trade and transfer payments from your Civ to another Civ International Payments
add:
3. Cost of Rushing Units & Improvements
= Total Expenditures

* note that military upkeep applies only under certain government types or if you have exceeded allowable supported units cap

The balance (Total Income - Total Expenditure) is kept in the treasury. And if you run a deficit, improvements are sold to cover the difference (correct me if im wrong)

You can see here that money in Civ 3 is not recyled, and instead it travels through a linear line. Think of it like your digestive system. Food goes in, feces comes out. Where the food comes from we don't really know. it can be legitimate (ie: city income) or it can be the AI simply making money out of thin air to cover its debts. As for output (feces) we're not quite sure. If we give money to a Rival Civ, do they spend it? or does it just disappear?

This implies the AI could infact cheat by monetizing their debt "printing money". They could simply pay gold out of thin air if their treasury is at 0. We will never know if they actually sell their improvements to cover costs like human players do or if they get this bonus.

It would be interesting to make a few minor changes and create something called TOTAL WEALTH. Think of it as a big Pizza, each Civ have a slice of the pie. This will be the amount of gold all Civs have, and this amount cannot be tampered with. The only way to increase total wealth is by earning income (output) from the cities. Wealth does not go away. When you build a unit, that unit has a wealth value, when you build an improvement that imporvement has an improvement value. The only way to destroy wealth is to destroy that unit / improvement.

So yes, this implies counting shield production as a form of income, as it should be.
This also implies that in a world that is at peace, wealth will continually increase as old wealth is stockpiled in the treasury, improvements and units and new wealth keeps coming in.

The idea of Total Wealth should allow gamers to really manage their economies differently. Because as a player, you're always vying for a bigger peice of that big wealth pie. And you can wage economic war on your opponents by cutting off their trade, reducing their share of the pie and in turn their wealth. If they can't pay to cover all their costs, they are in a disadvantage. And the same goes to the human player. So in essence, there is a global economic system that keeps tabs on each Civ, where each gold earned is accounted for. That 1 gold can be in your bank, a unit, or an improvement. When you disband a unit or sell an improvement, you get part of that wealth back, the rest are written-off as amortization (devaluation) from use.

Upkeep paid to improvements / units increase their wealth value, because it is understood as earned income from them. If you're in the military, the government pays you, so the amount you earn doesn't disappear like the current system, but it adds to your wealth. but when you sell or disband units or sell them, you only recover a fraction of the unit's original value. ie: if you have a worker worth 20 gold for 100 turn , paying 1 gold for upkeep each turn, the wealth value of that worker by the end of the 100th turn is 120 gold, but when you disband, you only earn a fraction of the 20 gold original value, say 15 gold. The rest of the gold 105, is destroyed. But it could be kept in a separate account as some form of non current wealth.

Most of you will realize its not really a radical change from the current system we have. Because its not. But the Total Wealth Model is also radically different in that whereas the current system is linear where you earn, spend and forget, the new system is a cycle, and each dollar earned or spent will be accounted for somewhere in that cycle either as cold hard cash or as part of an improvement or unit. If you pay 5 gold to a Rival Civ, that is 5 gold you will have lost forever. if you pay tribue for 20 turns, that's 100 gold in wealth you're giving to a Rival Civ. and that will add to their total wealth value when they spend it on improvements and units.

Any thoughts?

[smellymummy]

it's a good idea, but perhaps that's how it's implemented already?

just because we can't keep track of all the gold, does not mean that the AI is "printing bills"... Firaxis confirmed on what the AI can do to cheat, and that is a production bonus.

Does this apply to wealth, perhaps, and it does very much corelate with shields, however it's not like this bonus is injected at the AI's whim, it is present from turn 1 and beyond.

[GePap]

Dexters:
I agree with you that the economic model of Civ is very weak, even when compared to SMAC.
As for your total wealth idea and counting shields a wealth: I think that this still does not distinguish between different types of economic output, which by itself should be divided into 2 types: consumer goods and heavy industry. Tanks and such are the creation of accumulated wealth, but they do not improve the financial stability of a nation. Just look at the Soviet Union. They had vast amounts of heavy industry, far more than say Japan, and certainly had huge stocks of weapons and equipment (units) but they were still poorer than Japan and thier economy in terrible shape.
I think its about time that civ decoupled governments from economics (which is what it does. 'Communism' in this game is both single party politics and centralized economy. But you can have one without the other.). Some economic models are best for a quick growth in industry (and shield output) while others are better at wealth 'gold' creation. Now, the specifics of this notion i do not yet know....

[Dis]

while I love that idea for the modern game. It just doesn't seem to belong in the ancient or midieval ages. But it does seem to make more sense.

[dexters]

Ok, I was doing a search on my old threads and found this. I think my thoughts still apply.

But perhaps someone with a more intimate knowledge of how the AI works can fill me in on how the AI makes money.

[Dienstag]

To the best of my knowledge (and I wouldn't call it 'intimate'), the AI makes money the same way the human player does: taxes from city trade, and diplomatic agreements, (plus Wall Street, if applicable). I haven't seen any evidence of AI monetary foul play. What I'd like to know is what they _do_ with their money. They rarely seem to have much, at least until near the end. I think this is primarily because of spending as much as possible on science. I haven't taken the trouble to try to figure out if the AI is in the habit of rush-buying. Espionage would cost them dear as well, but I haven't seen them do that, either. Otherwise, they would have to lose money to me or the barbarians, which would either mean some really nasty barbarians or I'm doing better than I thought. So, basically, that's my understanding (or lack thereof)

As far as your Total Wealth goes, wouldn't it be fair to say the value of the upkeep on your worker endures in the form of the roads and mines the worker created? I don't see why there should be _money_ involved in disbanding a worker (beyond the obvious end to the upkeep payments)

But the Total Wealth Model is also radically different in that whereas the current system is linear where you earn, spend and forget, the new system is a cycle, and each dollar earned or spent will be accounted for somewhere in that cycle either as cold hard cash or as part of an improvement or unit.

I agree that the current system is linear. Basically, you take the incoming flow of money and choose how much to divert to each of the "monetary Black Holes." But, I also think that (at least, abstractly) your money _can_ be accounted for in the current system. I suspect that every unit, tech, and improvement could be assigned a fixed value that you could list amoung your assets.

If you really want to keep track of all the wealth in the world, and what form it's in, then I'm sure some problems will arise. Say, for example, that a terrain improvement is considered worth whatever the upkeep for the worker(s) was. (as a side note, this would mean that any turn the worker does nothing is an absolute loss of wealth) So a road is what, 6 gold? (not sure...I should know this!) Ok, but what if it's an industrious Civ? Then, it's either worth half as much, or we must consider the trait "industrious" as a fundamental source of wealth. Probably the latter, becuase if this road is captured by a non-industrious civ, then either its wealth value would have to change, or it would be considered different from all the other roads of that civ, both ideas that I find unacceptable. Lastly, what about improvements that slaves build? (Does any of this make sense?)

If you pay 5 gold to a Rival Civ, that is 5 gold you will have lost forever. if you pay tribue for 20 turns, that's 100 gold in wealth you're giving to a Rival Civ. and that will add to their total wealth value when they spend it on improvements and units.

This I totally agree with. It seems pretty obvious, and sounds to me like how the game works now.

Please elaborate on your thoughts; this is interesting.

[dexters]

Originally posted by Dienstag
To the best of my knowledge (and I wouldn't call it 'intimate'), the AI makes money the same way the human player does: taxes from city trade, and diplomatic agreements, (plus Wall Street, if applicable). I haven't seen any evidence of AI monetary foul play. What I'd like to know is what they _do_ with their money. They rarely seem to have much, at least until near the end. I think this is primarily because of spending as much as possible on science. I haven't taken the trouble to try to figure out if the AI is in the habit of rush-buying. Espionage would cost them dear as well, but I haven't seen them do that, either. Otherwise, they would have to lose money to me or the barbarians, which would either mean some really nasty barbarians or I'm doing better than I thought. So, basically, that's my understanding (or lack thereof)[/b]

In Negotiations, we are allowed to see what appears to be the AI's treasury. Also, I don't think we will know about successful spy missions as the point on spying is not being detected. So the potential is there for an AI playing fair (as far as money is concerened) to spend a lot of it. But I'm still not sure what happens if AI has 0 in the bank and is running a deficit. Will the computer selling improvements? or will the AI make money from the think air? who knows. These are AI details I wish they would publish

[b]
As far as your Total Wealth goes, wouldn't it be fair to say the value of the upkeep on your worker endures in the form of the roads and mines the worker created? I don't see why there should be _money_ involved in disbanding a worker (beyond the obvious end to the upkeep payments)

If you really want to keep track of all the wealth in the world, and what form it's in, then I'm sure some problems will arise. Say, for example, that a terrain improvement is considered worth whatever the upkeep for the worker(s) was. (as a side note, this would mean that any turn the worker does nothing is an absolute loss of wealth) So a road is what, 6 gold? (not sure...I should know this!) Ok, but what if it's an industrious Civ? Then, it's either worth half as much, or we must consider the trait "industrious" as a fundamental source of wealth. Probably the latter, becuase if this road is captured by a non-industrious civ, then either its wealth value would have to change, or it would be considered different from all the other roads of that civ, both ideas that I find unacceptable. Lastly, what about improvements that slaves build? (Does any of this make sense?)

When I made the post initially, I was really coming from the idea of introducing a new economic dimension. Assigning values to "capital assets" like roads wasn't a major concern for me, even though it is obvious that in real life, that would be worth something.

What I was trying to point out is the need for wealth created to be kept accounted for, and not have black holes. A system where wealth can be moved around (like water in a tilting tank) would make for an interesting gameplay element, as it allows players to pursue the path of dominating the wealth pie, by cutting off sources of income to rivals. I concede that this is sort of done already. If you take cities from the AI, presumably, you weaken its ability to produce units, and wealth. And I've seen no evidence to suggest this is not the case. But still, the system is too lax.

A system that keeps track of total wealth also makes for the possibility of economic systems not inherently tied to political ones. Players can then match a government, say communism with economic systems like capitalism. And see what happens.

[lockstep]

Originally posted by Dienstag
I haven't taken the trouble to try to figure out if the AI is in the habit of rush-buying. Espionage would cost them dear as well, but I haven't seen them do that, either.

The AI's seem to try to plant spies rather often, and I've also seen an AI civ sabotating the production of one of my border cities.