Have you seen an old game called "Global Dilemma: Gun or Butter" by Mindscape Inc circa 1990? This game was basically a military/economic game (hence the name) in which you were the leader of a country facing seven other "civs." The territories you controlled produced raw materials (lumber, coal, iron ore, etc --numbering approx 30 different materials) and you would fashion these into war materials or farming equipment.
The game basically worked on the
"economies of scale" principle of economics. The production cycle was rather complex as it introduced many levels of farming tools (farm tools, iron plows, tractors, etc) and military production (swords, muskets, rifles, etc). The more advanced the tool or weapon you attempted to make, the greater variety of raw materials were needed to produce the item. In addition, the wider you would spread your population to mine or manufacter the needed goods. If you only produced a small amount of iron ore, you could only produce farm tools. As you captured territories or made alliances (more on this later...) and your civ obtained more iron ore, maybe you had an "economy of scale" to produce iron plows. A production screen would show you the
"limiting factor" in your production. That "limiting factor" could be any of the raw material inputs or labor.
You had to be careful because if you upwardly adjusted a raw material input, it was taken away from another production. For example, if you only mined 50 units of iron, that's all you had to work with. The trick was balancing your labor force, your raw materials and your finished goods in the right proportions to create the exact mix of military goods and farming goods. Once you set all your productions, you would build the planned farm tools and military weapons. "Farm tools" was the lowest and first thing you would create early in the game. Farm tools required pig iron and lumber which would result in a small multipler on food production whereas iron plows required iron, lumber and a few other items (I can't remember off hand) that would lead to a bigger multipler on food production.
The designer of this game tried to introduce alliances and diplomacy into the game. At the beginning of each turn, each "civ" would have an opportunity to propose an alliance to the other civs against a singled out civ. You could join or refuse. If you joined, you ceded all your production to the leadership of that civ. Or vice versa if you proposed an alliance against a particular civ and someone joined you. That was another way to obtain a larger popoulation base, raw materials base and military power. Very crude AI logic based on a currency called "affinity." Either other civs liked you or not... and as usual when you were ahead,all the other AI civs ganged up on you.
The military power was very abstract and represented by percentages. You would allocate the overall percentage in smaller parts to each of your provinces. You could move these "percentages" against neighboring territories in an attempt to conquer them. It was very crude, especially compared to civ standards.
The reason I mention all of this: This DOS game made in 1990 attempted to reach a laudable goal in gameplay. A strong linking between economics, politics and war. I personally don't feel it was successful as there were many problems with this game and no follow up with sequels, patches, etc.
Conclusion
My hope is that Civ III would incorporate a linking of economics to alliances. Countries that are allied with each other militarily are usually linked to each other economically. Remember how mad President Reagan was at France and Italy when they sold critical pipeline technology to the Soviet Union in the 1980's? The Soviet Union was planning to build a natural gas pipeline to supply energy to Western Europe. Europeans wanted it as it would represent cheaper energy prices. Americans hated the idea because it undermined Europe's alliance with America and created a dependence on the Soviet Union for raw materials. Events such as these can often lead to war. At the very least, this represented a fundamental shift of policy in Europe away from America towards the European Union and embracing the Russians. Perhaps the final chapter of the "Marshall Plan."
If Civ III could take big strides in AI strategy along these lines, I would buy two copies of the game!
I don't mind the war aspect of Civ. In fact, I kinda like it! What I don't like about the Civ II wars, and I have read many postings that would agree with me, the logic of the AI to go to war is not very realistic. The AI gangs up on you when you are ahead. The aggressive leaders of AI civs seem to aways sneak attack or declare war for illogical reasons, even when it's clearly in their best interest to ally with you! There seems to be no detriment to declaring war on your neighbors. I have read some posting which suggest a UN which builds on the "reputation" concept of Civ II to limit the Saddam Hussien's of Civilization and create a "cost" of war. I have also read the posts of building on trade (either with or without caravans) to link your production to what you can extract from the ground or trade from your neighbors. If you can't mine Uranium you can't make a nuke...unless you trade. Essentially the foundations of a trade war... or even a cold war. You could blockade ports in an effort to limit the flow of goods during the cold war...however, if pushed too hard, you could start a real war!!!! The only evidence in Civ II that I can see that represents a cost to you in fighting a war are: a) you could damage your reputation -- no big deal
OR b) if you capture a city you have a trade route with, you get a reduction in trade arrows because city is part of your civ which doesn't get the extra benefit of the "foreign city trading route." That's a little too vague for me. What I want to see is the big gambles based on strategy with big successes or big failures. Think Hitler in WWII. First, he strikes a deal with Soviet Union to split Poland and declare a treaty in 1939. The Soviet Union becomes the biggest trading partner of Germany until 1941 when Hitler takes a gamble and stikes at Russia. Remember, Hitler's strategy, and his final undoing, in Russia was reaching for the oil fields in the Caucasus which led to a whole army group being surrounded and destroyed in Stalingrad. It was economics that laid the foundation for this battle -- the perfect matching of economics and war.
I contend there is no difference between the two concepts of warfare and economics. One invariably leads to the other and back again to the first. Creating a strong link between these two concepts would go a long way to making Civ III a very realistic and enjoyable game.
