A whole new level to the game $: your input

[Captain]

I'm thinking with all this talk of a currency, it's time to resurrect an old idea.

At the time of its inception, it died out because we were a paltry nation and worrying about survival. Now that we're moving on, building up, making ourselves more economically viable, it's time to consider whether we'd like to add another fun role-playing (non-spam) aspect to our game.

Now, before any naysayers try to kill this prematurely, this is proposal allows for strictly OPTIONAL participation. No one is being forced to make money or contribute to our economy, they can take their original sum, stick it in a sock under the bed, and at the game's end, they'll still have it. But those who want to try their hand at making a fortune, can play along.

Note: It has no real effect except hopefully more fun, and allows people to participate whenever they want without commitment besides what they want. You decide whether or not you want to play or not. You can cash out at any time, take a break, and get right back into the game at any time you want. [b]This promotes involvement, and more participation, without obligating anyone to time commitments.

So... all this talk and I haven't even mentioned the plan!

Well, here's a very rough draft of it, and I'd love to get feedback on potential problems, places for improvement, solutions, suggestions, what we'll need, and the lot.


Step 1: The GREAT EQUALIZATION

Sure we haven't discovered communism yet, but we all know what fairness is, right?

Everyone at this time gets 1000 (100?) units of wealth (whatever you want to call it, Apos or bananas, mangos or kiwis). This is "cash", or our common currency. We then proceed to purchase things with this initial startup money, in order to make more wealth - or just to spend it for personal reasons. It's your money.


Step 2: The Brokers

A group of brokers empowered to carry out transactions. People post what they'd like to do with their money in a TRANSACTIONS thread. The brokers take a commission (of their choosing) for their work in tracking all these deals.

Alternatively, people can arrange deal by themselves and then post them publicly in the TRANSACTIONS thread (for the record).

Brokers could also track bets.

Step 3: So what are we investing in?

Well, we could just make up an economy... but since we have a handy Civ 3 game here, it'd work best if we tied it to the current game.

As an aside:
So, what do we invest in real-life anyways? Well, stocks, shares, bonds, GICs, Mutual Funds... are all really the same thing. At any time, if we have money we aren't using, we can "lend" it to someone else and get interest on it (or borrow from one to lend to another). What are they doing with the money? Why using it to make more wealth!
I put "lend" in quotes because you don't have to get it back to increase your wealth. As an "owner" of a share, you have bought ownership of a piece of a "business". If the business does well, you benefit also. Of course, if the business tanks, so does the value of your share in it. You can always "cash" out, but really all that means is trading one form of investment (ownership) for another that is (usually) more stable. (Not always the case, where skyhigh inflations ruins a currencies value it may be wiser to own something tangible, like a farm or armoury since food and weapons always seem to have a value in unstable societies)


In the Civ 3 game, there are no corporations - no companies - no one to lend money to either. There's the wealth of cities though. But how to use that as a basis for shares (especially in a way that is easy to track when the slider bars could go anywhere)?

That's up to you to help me figure out.

My current suggestion is that each city can represent a "company". Investors (you) can purchase shares from the city as long as some are available. Otherwise you'll have to purchase them from other shareholders.

How do we determine how many shares are available?

And how much is each share worth?

Well, that depends on the perceived value of the city. Like in real-life, the value depends on how much people want it. But underlying that, are concrete factors that attract investors. IRL, we have a solid business plan, profit margins, low debt, appreciating assets, skilled and educated employees, market share, etc...

We don't have any of that here. But what we do have are common things in a city that would attract investors. The presence of infrastructure, production, wealth, luxuries, labourers and consumers (population).

We could either assign specific values to buildings and assess city value that way... or use the buildings effects to assess value. Here are a few possibilities (3rd is my favourite):

i) C$ = sum of value of all buildings and other factors

ii) C$= culture per turn + commerce produced per turn + shields produced per turn + current happy/content population - pollution

iii) C$= (culture per turn)*(twice # happy people + # content - # twice # unhappy - 3x # resistors) + commerce produced + shields produced - pollution produced + sum of garrison's D value

Military units present do boost the economy as garrison and base towns IRL can attest, but city shareholders will likely want to produce buildings, not units, because buildings don't go off to war and get killed, they sit there nicely and increase the value of the investment.

To make sure there is only one city value in a turn, only one official slider position should exist (that determined by the Prez's game). City values are determined either at the START (or END?) of the TURN - not both.

Once the value of the city is determined, the government (who initially owns the public institutions and infrastructure of cities) can issue shares. They set up a certain number of total shares (N), which can never be changed unless they do a SPLIT. They then divide the initial value (C$) of the city by the number of shares (N). That gives us the price of the share (S$ = C$ div N).

To maintain "ownership" of the city, the government must hold on to at least >50% of the shares. If we ever end up having mayors or governors, perhaps they can also decide whether the "city" will sell any more shares - but that might entail giving up too much control.

The government might also consider privatizing to raise funds. Maybe they could sell a bank or marketplace to interested private parties, but I'm not sure how the new owner's would make money off that.


Step 4: The Analysts rate

"Analysts" track the status of all the city "stocks". Their job is to update a thread with all the stocks listed (only when there are changes, so if no turns are played, nothing needs to be posted).

They don't track prices that people are willing to offer, or any transactions, just how much the "real" worth of the stocks are.

Using an excel (or simple database file) they can just input the current city info, and have it automatically calculate the rating, then post it.

These people can be appointed by the MoE (or whoever deals with it ina new reformed COL). They need some kind of incentive to do this as it is hard work. Perhaps they can be on "salary" - government funded.

Or maybe privatized... like brokers. But they should be trustworthy and dependable so we don't get Enron'ed.

[b]Step 5: The only sure thing is death and taxes...[b]

Will the government tax our earnings? If so, they could then afford to pay the ministers, officials, judges, and bureaucrats salaries for all the hard work they do.

Step 6: conflict of interest?

No government officials may engage in transactions that would be considered a conflict of interest. (e.g. SMC cannot bet on success of military ventures, Minister of City Planning cannot invest in a city he is in charge of).

Step 7: Is this too complex?

Well, let's try to keep it as simple as possible, but fair.
If it ever does become too much for you to keep track of, cut down on your involvement or take a break. This is totally optional. Make your fortune at your speed, when you want, but that means being willing to accept missed opportunities.




well... that's it. what do you think? (again, please only constructive criticism - if you don't like the idea at all, you don't have to play - everyone else can help make it fun)

[Epistax]

I like this, sort of like an off track betting game. Maybe put up odds that we will own this french city by this year, etc. It would be pretty fun.


pssst... do officials get paid?

[UnOrthOdOx]

Frankly, you confused the hell out of me somewhere in how we determine how many shares and how much they are worth...

But if we set up the economy, I can REALLY charge for the Gazette, right?

[Apocalypse]

The only real problem with this that I see is that we might not have enough people who want to be brokers or at least have the time.

[Shiber]

Wouldn't it be funny if I set up a business and sold people bananas for the price of two Lytons for one banana?

Seriously now, this could be very fun, but I'm afraid it would affect our decisions in the entire game. E.g. a citizen might vote in favor of a proposal which would increase the value of his shares but would not benefit the game. Do you think there's any way to solve this?

[Captain]

UnOrtho, we just need some formula to determine a City Rating Value (that's the most complex part of this).

Then whoever controls the city (Minister of Cities, Governor, Mayor, ???) decides how many shares they want. Then we divide the City Rating Value by the # of shares, which gives us the individual share price.

Example: Del Monte has a City Rating Value of 450. It is decided there will be 100 shares at the IPO (initial public offering). Therefore, each share sells for $4.5. If they decided there would only be 25 shares, each share would sell for $18.

Next turn, the City builds a library and a new luxury is connected up, the City Rating goes up to 550. In the case of the 100 shares, each share would now be worth $5.5. If I bought those shares, my investment value would go up.


Apoc, yeah, that's true.

but do we have ANYONE out there who knows how to program a simple betting/investing program?

it would have a simple menu structure like so (similar to ebay):

1) Login

2) What do you want to do?
a) Buy shares
b) Sell shares
c) Cancel a bid/sale (I don't know if we should allow this)

If (a) then display {available shares: share name, current value, # avail, your current bid}
Please select one to buy: (share name)
How many shares? (#)
Maximum bid for it?: ($$)
Confirm purchase? (y/n/cancel)
-> Your bid has been placed, transaction will be automatically completed if your bid is highest and you meet the reserve price (automatically seeks lowest reserve price if multiple sellers, and like EBay, automatically bids up in increments)

If (b) then display {your holdings: share name, current value, # owned, reserve price}
Please select one to sell: (share name)
How many to sell? (#)
Please enter a reserve price: (minimum value you'll sell for)
Please enter deadline: (days:hrs)
Confirm sale? (y/n/cancel)

->your share has been listed for sale, transaction automatically completed at deadline if the reserve price has been met

Run a few error-checking routines to make sure the person has sufficient funds to make their purchases and other glitches.

To review your holdings, just choose "sell" to view holdings, and then cancel instead of selling anything.

It needs just a few databases and a few simple routines.

All we'd need is someone who knows how to program and how to host it on some server... (hint hint).


Or... we could have brokers run this instead, possibly using Apoly Chat.

[Captain]

Originally posted by Shiber
Wouldn't it be funny if I set up a business and sold people bananas for the price of two Lytons for one banana?

Seriously now, this could be very fun, but I'm afraid it would affect our decisions in the entire game. E.g. a citizen might vote in favor of a proposal which would increase the value of his shares but would not benefit the game. Do you think there's any way to solve this?

yep! you mean the citizen puts his own welfare ahead of the welfare of the country? then it'll be just like real-life! (how many of you voluntarily pay more tax than you have to?)

I don't see that as a problem though, just more fun. People have to decide if they want to be patriots - or businessmen - or both. think about Party politics, at first many people thought it would ruin the game because people would vote along party lines instead of for the best person for the job, but that didn't happen. most people voted according to what was best, not just parties. So it might add more roleplaying fun, but not really compromise our game. Besides, if the city formulas are good, then if our civ does well, we do well. We have the same larger interest.

btw, it's good for DIA and UFC and Indeps - fun for everyone! DIA's get more supporters for their builder plans (investment), and UFC get more support for their wars (wagers and bets)!

[Spiffor]

Mmmmh, I thought an economic game in the C3DG would have been about buying and purchasing products rather than shares (esp. since our economy is so primitive, we just bought currency).

I'm very uncomfortable with the idea of privatizing : this completely optional sidegame would have impact on the real thing if we do this. That would give extra power to those who are involved in economics (but not involved in politics). Pretty realistic would you say, but hey, we're here to create an Utopia, aren't we ?

Overall, I think this sidegame should have no impact at all on the actual game. And when you by a share, you buy a share of power. I'm sure the top investor of city #14 will hate it, not having power to decide what to do in his city. So, I don't think the "share" system is viable with an "optional" focus.

But the idea of getting involved to get richer is very interesting. I personally think we could get richer by selling products rather than acquiring shares. For example, Skywalker sells several types of bananas for a long time now, and GenghisFarb sells weapons. Unortho could charge for the Jungle Gazette.
People can get interested in these products, and pay in hard Lytons to acquire them. To make the thing more real, sellers would send something to their customers (such as a Word version of the gazette, a picture of banana, whatever). We can even imagine people selling services : lawyers perhaps ? Corrupting our officials (nah, t will never happen )?

For this system to be viable, we need to give an income to Apolytonians. This could be a daily income, whose amount is calculated from our GNP (sorry, I'm too tired to figure out an equation).

If this system is viable, we could have people very involved in getting more lytons, who will invent all kind of things, sell all kind of things, and make this forum a pretty lively marketplace. We'd also have customers, some regular (and they'll have to make more money than the standard income), some casual.

To keep track of everyone's fortune, we should have a registry of people interested in the economy game, and someone among them would be elected to keep track. Of course, all fortunes are public at all times, to avoid the "track-keeper" to unhonestly enrich himself.
Those who didn't enroll in the economy game don't have an Apo. They'll get their starting money as soon as they enlist.

What do you think ?

[UnOrthOdOx]

Captain, youre right, it is not that confusing, I just saw:

iii) C$= (culture per turn)*(twice # happy people + # content - # twice # unhappy - 3x # resistors) + commerce produced + shields produced - pollution produced + sum of garrison's D value

And had flashbacks of Calculus.

I could see where this would lead to some people making decisions based on this side game as well. I think we would need to leave it totally out of in-game. Base it on contributions or something. Like get some cash for making an ammendment, assisting a judge/minister/historian, SUBMITTING AN ARTICLE ALREADY to the paper, stuff like that.

[disorganizer]

or for holding an office, being a major, having any work done in the game ... ;-)

[Shiber]

Yeah, and we should also fine people for *****ing in turnchats and bumping useless threads.

[Shiber]

Money is the root of all evil. It will corrupt us and it will corrupt the game.
If we find a way to separate the economic game from the Civ3 game then I say go for it. Otherwise, I'm against it. The economic game is going to be a hell of a lot of fun but the Civ3 game is more important to me and I'd like to see us play it the best way we can.

[Sheik]

THIS IS A GREAT IDEA!

I would love to participate. We just have to seperate this from game decisions that way the game will not be corrupted as Shiber said.

[Epistax]

It's not the root of ALL evil, just most of it. Ambition is an evil that is often not associated with money, but power. Anyone who wants power, by personality, doesn't deserve it.

[GodKing]

Sounds rather complex.....

Might be fun however.

[civman2000]

I think it should be more laissez faire. You can make investments in something on whatever terms you and the "owner" (city planner, or whatever) agree on.

I'd like to be a broker. I can't lose money , though my value could decrease due to inflation.

WE just also be able to gamble on what will happen in the game. ALso, we could invest in a military unit. If it dies all is lost, but when it gets promoted to value increases.

[Shiber]

Here's a wager for you: I bet you 5 Lytons that there are no barbarian encampments in Uber Isle.
The bet will be decided either once we make contact with barbarians in Uber Isle or once we have a complete map of the Island and find to barbarians.
Anyone wanna place a bet?

[jdd2007]

how about small salaries for government officials and pensions for former ministers?

[GePap]

How will we judge overall money supply? right now, as the currency thread goes, I think a consensus on 1g= 1 Lyton, with Apos, (our cents) being a more convinient measure of everyday wealth (just as a full dinner used to cost 5 cents, not $20).

If we go ahead with this, would we not need a sort of banking and accounting system- to insure against fraud and so forth. I am not opposed to a fun, side game, but I agree with Spiffor that it should not have undue ifleunce in the overall game- certainly not in Central policies, perhaps a little in local policies if we implement governors (everyone likes bribes).

Also, we need to keep oit simple and strightforward- an undully complex side game might be difficult.

[Kramerman]

I like the idea. I like what others have said too Lets do it

[GhengisFarb™]

I like Spiffor's suggestion of working out a system of goods and services to be provided and paid for. I also think it would be cool if we could come up with a way for people to invest in a settler that goes off to form a colony.

If we built a harbor the government could put that harbor up for an IPO, half the money goes to the government, and the other half becomes the capital of the harbor company. Then say the harbor built a ship other citizens could buy shares in the ship, this time the government gets 25%, the harbor gets 25%(for building it) and the ship owners keep 50% for their working capital.

Or something along those lines, we might need to do some planning but I'm sure we could work someway to make an effective under economy for Apolytonia.

If we needed someone to maintain a thread with posts, and shareholders I would be willing to that for a VERY small fee. I'd simply have a post in the thread for each enterprise with the lastest listing of the shareprice, and a list of the shareholders and their shares:

GAIA DYE GUILD(or Ubergorsk Iron Mines)

Current Interest Value 4 smd (small metal disks)
Total Interests - 100

Interest Holding Parties
UberKrux - 6
Spiffor - 5
GhengisFarb - 5
....yada yada yada

I don't think this should affect any of the stats in the game, we would simply keep the Roleplay money as a separate economy. Creative members could find ways to earn money for other services too.

NOTE: We can't call them shares or shareholders as we haven' t discovered that yet, but even in ancient times people would put their resources together for ventures.

[Captain]

Interesting ideas all... I wanted our economy to be tied to the ingame economy, at least in SOME fashion - so that there is some kind of basis for it (instead of arbitrary). Maybe, just as a bare minimum, our currency value could be based on our nation's performance? (i.e. how do we determine how much money is in the system? because that will affect the value of the currency. just like in real-life , if you just print more money without a basis for doing so, they just devalue it - no real wealth is created in such a fashion.)


I was just checking out Civfanatics game (lured in by the tale of civil war) and noticed an RPG discussion thread that has some ideas about creating a market/economic system as a parallel game. I hope to get even more ideas after reading it all, but it's very long ...

[Captain]

hmmm.... what about starting with a simple economy and letting it evolve as our tech evolves?

right now, we've just got currency and we're agri-based. more businesses can come into development once we have more infrastructure.

using the RPG idea, we can have people select "imaginary" occupations (businesses) they want. People who do real jobs that affect the C3DG game in a tangible way (like the Gazette, the ministers, etc...) will also be rewarded in the economic system.

say, everyone who wants to play has to declare a place where they live. their available occupation depends on where they live (within city tile limits). you can be whatever you want, but it should be limited/regulated so that it's fair. you can't just suddenly declare yourself a multi-millionaire, you have to work for it within the system.

at present we can only have these:

1. farmer (reqs avail tiles)
2. miner (reqs avail tiles)
3. rancher (reqs avail cattle/horse tile)
4. forester-lumberjack (reqs avail forest/jungle)
5. ?waterman (reqs fresh water access, river, lake)
6. foreman (reqs avail worker)
7. merchant (reqs marketplace)
8. artisan (reqs city with any culture per turn)
9. priest (reqs temple)
10. scholar (reqs library)
11. entertainer (reqs entertainer)
12. jack of all trades (no reqs, no specialty, but what do they do??)

official roles
13. minister/official (reqs palace or ??)
14. judge (reqs courthouse or palace)
15. Newspaper owners (reqs culture)

It should be pretty obvious what each occupation does and we can determine supply from occupation, but how to determine demand (and therefore base income)?

Reflecting survival needs (air, water, food, shelter) how about this as a basic requirement:

Each participant requires 1 food per day (or chosen unit of time). You can get this 1 food automatically from your own farm, or purchase from a farmer/rancher. Prices depend on supply and demand. In the beginning, most people will have to be farmers. This would also accurately reflect our primarily agri-based economy and as we improve in game (say, move to monarchy, irrigate more, etc...), it would allows us to improve our parallel game.

Assume you get air free. Prior to the modern era, clean potable water was a concern, but for simplicity, say you can collect enough water from rainfall so this need not be part of the economy.

The last need is shelter, but it is not a consumable. Assume you live in a shack. The basic improvements will require lumber or stone (depending on your choice) plus labour units (LU). Assume each person has a base labour output of 1 unit. As your skills and tech improve, this can be upped (how?). You can pay for products and labour with money you earned doing other stuff, but the supply must exist. (i.e. even with money, you can't just buy a house if it doesn't exist, and you can't build it without actual supplies and labour). If it is lacking, hopefully entrepreneurial spirit will create some supply.

Assume, to start:
Mud Shack (no cost)
Shack (5 wood, 5 LU)
Cabin (10 wood, 10 LU)
Cottage (15 wood, 15 LU)
Loghouse (20 wood, 20 LU)
House (20 wood, 5 stone, 30 LU)
Manor (30 wood, 15 stone, 60 LU)
Mansion (50 wood, 25 stone, 200 LU)
Grand Mansion (80 wood, 50 stone, 400 LU)
Palace (200 wood, 100 stone, 1200 LU)

[edit] other buildings, like shops, mills, industries, could have costs too. example: to store food, you need a granary (10 wood, 10 LU). Or to store other goods, you need a warehouse (20 wood, 15 LU). [/edit]

This however, seems more complex than the original idea. Please keep up the discussion, I am sure we can streamline this so it is easy to understand, easy to track, and more fun.

Note: This would only minorly affect the actual game, as the "demands" to improve certain tiles (for personal gains) are not significant enough to actually damage our nation as a whole.

[Epistax]

If you want to do this well, you should into PHP/mySQL scripting to get a realtime economy


You also noted that judges would be with the palace (or courthouse). *moves out of tassagrad*

[Captain]

on the other hand...

Personally, I can't see the fun in turning this game into something that I would have to buy food and pay mortgage every turn. I would choose not to participate in such a system, as I have quite enough of those expenses in real life.
My big question as I began to think this concept up was: Why would anyone (unless they have never had to work) want to model that side of our existence? Also, as I pointed out in my previous post, I think that our members should be considered the shakers and movers of the world we play in rather than the burger-flippers. As such basic food, clothing and shelter expenses would not be something that these people would be concerned about. Do you really think that a state governor spends a lot of time worried about these issues?

I saw this as Civfantics thread and I thought maybe this was a good point. who wants to micromanage one person's living expenses? we want to be movers and shakers!

But the proposal is still good. Just imagine that instead of you needing 1 food and building 1 mansion, harvesting 1 wood or labouring 1 unit... it represents your business (probably family owned at this time) expenses, revenues, and assets/equity.


(edit: say if you don't have an occupation, you're a banana harvester by default! you can harvest 100 bananas a day, plus meeting your own food needs. You can sell these 100 surplus bananas on the market, if there are any buyers of course!)

(edit2: if the city you live in doesn't have a granary and you're not a farmer with a silo, you can't stockpile food)

[jdd2007]

this is all very interesting. a few notes:
-pres and vice should be given free shelter (like the white house) as well as Phoenatican Diplomats (we would partially fund the embassy) but ministers should buy their own pala... err, huts... with their salaries.
-i dont think the system should be tied to the game too much, but it should definitely have parallels
-there should be small pensions
-at first there should be taxes on just bussiness transactions and the like, but only later should we have income taxes. we shouldnt tax incomes until Apolytonia is more wealthy.
-a few people need to monitor currency, bussiness and money. they wouldnt have official duties ingame (and therefore wouldnt be ministers)
-as for a stock market, that would be a lot of work.
-this will be awesome

[Kramerman]

the one problem that can cme out of tieing the economic system into the game is the fear of bribing and 'favors' such as campaign contributions and such. I dont think we should have any problems of corruption in a game, but it is possible. I guess an upside to this is that it would give our court more to do and the odds of getting to impeach someone would increase significantly .

Kman

[GhengisFarb™]

Originally posted by jdd2007
this is all very interesting.....

READ ORIGINAL POST FOR MORE INFO

.....is will be awesome

How about we give each citizen a "salary" of x smd(small metal disks) and then take a small amount back as taxes. I can't really say I'm for the idea of housing, food consumption, and such as that's far too much roleplaying for me.

[GePap]

I have to say that we should not start with everyone having equal amounts of money. This would distirbute wealth to people who may not want to participate- thus making it sit there. I propose a non-equitabe beginning (reality) to be modelled around our current level of socioeconomics. Over time, as we dsicover and expand, new opportunities would rise to create new types of wealth. This might introduce ointo our little game the ageold struggle between those that control the old economy and those that want a new one. I say we divide our people into three groups:

Government folk: Sort of late Roman Empire beurocrats- get salaries from the government (how this is figured out I don't know)
Wealthy landowners- woul own peasants (pop. points) and benefit from their production, mainly the food and shields produced
Townspeople- craftmen and traders, benefit from the wealth and uxuries that flow into the town.

At this point in our history, farmers (peasants) have 0 capitol, so why would anyone want to play a peasant, and why would a peasant get anything other than a beating, or not a beating?

Obviously, with so little infrastructure, landowners would be the wealthiests, and their interests would be best served not by cultural growth (helps the towfolk) but territorial and population expansion. Townsfolk would have a clear incentive to push for culture growth, while the government folk would be in the middle. With new tech over time, how each group makes money, and possible new groups like industrialists and so forth, could come in.

[Kramerman]

how would we decide who is what class? I dont know to many people who will jump at the chance of being a worthless peasant. Perhaps we should randomly decide, have a minister take out the list of those who said they would want to particpate, and a bag of dice, and roll to see who is what class. Those who did not want to participate would then just automatially become peasants in the eyes of those who are playing.