Economic Development
Proposed Economic System for The Clash Of Civilizations
A somewhat detailed sketch
Overview
A Few More Specifics
How much is produced?
Provinces and the
Provincial Economy
Special Commodities
Development
Infrastructure
Interface
Miscellaneous (Migration, Fishermen,
Economics of Military Reserves, Terrain, Merchants, Specials Specifics)
Conclusion
The economic progress of civilizations is a critical aspect in Clash. It is perhaps the most important factor in the modern era. The most important things I'm trying to implement in Clash are:
Reduce Micro-Management by the Player - Allow the player to handle the economy in the game with as few actions as possible. Implementing an economic strategy should Never require the player's attention at the level of a single map square. Most Civilization-type games also require too much attention at the city or provincial level. This typically involves the player commissioning the construction of a variety of "buildings" that affect the economy in various ways. Clash won't have explicit buildings, except in the graphics. Infrastructure for the economy will be handled in a continuous fashion in a way that is relatively hands-off for the player. Various levels of micro-management of the economy should be Available to the player If He or She Desires Them.
Get the correct flavor of growth rate and innovation effects of economies operating under the influences of Market, Traditional, and Command forces (either Government Command like communist/totalitarian, or regulation)
Have a distinction between public and private sector; the government can influence private sector economic behavior but does not control it (having the public sector control itself will also reduce micro-management)
Use relatively realistic consumption patterns and growth rates for ancient and modern economies
Simulate the effects of rare or important goods and products - e.g. that of coal in the industrial revolution (special goods give the player new possibilities for cooperation and competition with other civs: enabling important trade pacts, struggles for trade dominance, and embargos in Clash)
Capture the importance of trade in stimulating economic growth. Clash will use quasi-market treatment of pricing. This supports relatively realistic functioning of merchant activities. Merchants will be agents that "make a living" buying commodities where they are priced cheaply and selling them or they are worth more. Merchants will be intelligent agents, and not under player control. Players can influence merchant activity thru taxation of trade.
The infrastructure system in Clash will be one of the most important ways that the player can guide their civilization. It will allow the player to emphasize, above other priorities, religion, education, or a number of other things. I think all this can be handled on a civilization-wide basis, avoiding the need, as in civ2, of every city/province explicitly having its own library, marketplace, temple, etc. The Player will, if desired, also be able to "drill down" and fine-tune infrastructure on a per-province basis.
Contributors: Mark Everson, Hrafnkell Oskarsson, Dominique, Glak, Xiane, Druid2
Before getting into the detailed treatment some particulars about the simple economic model used in the game need to be covered.
1) Four sectors of the economy are handled explicitly in Clash:
· Food (primarily agriculture, but also includes herding and
fishing)
· Resources (natural materials that are production inputs)
· Production (finished goods created from input Resources)
· Service Sector (Service Sector covers usual services and transportation)
· Special (Specials are scarce "strategic" resources that are
found locally, or specialty finished goods that can best be produced where
the primary resources are, like wine)
2) Production capacity in a sector takes place on "sites", with a limited number of potential sites per map square. (A map square is about 3500 square miles) For example the Food sector requires "sites" of arable land to build capacity. Food, Resource, and Special sites are limited. Production and service sector sites are unlimited. A change in technology can change the number of sites. Both the public and private sectors can make investments in the productive capacity of a map square. This building of additional capacity is limited by both the number of sites and technologies currently available. Implementation of investments in production capacity do not require the player's intervention on a square-by-square basis or even a provincial basis.
3) The main economic action takes place in provinces, which consist of groups of map squares. A capital (usually city) square is the economic and administrative center of the province. All the production that takes place in the province is pooled in the provincial capital to simplify the economic system in the game. The size of a province is somewhat fluid, and depends on the technology level, and the distance of squares from the capital. The capital in a province is where military units are recruited, prices for goods are determined, and merchant transactions take place.
4) I am assuming for the moment that productive capacities (and
so real per-capita income, PCI) change by about a factor of 50 throughout
the game. PCI starts out at 5 units (using $100 per unit gives a
$500 modern equivalent) which is basically subsistence. The progress
throughout history breaks down so that the levels of real per-capita income
associated with different historical time periods in the developed world
(of the time) are about:
PCI (5 = Subsistence) | Civlization Type |
5+ | Early Civilizations |
6 - 10 | Roman Empire and contemporaneous Oriental Civilizations... |
6-8 | Feudal Europe (probably more like 10 for contemp. Islamic, Chinese) |
10 - 20 | Pre-modern, e.g. Europe, 1600-1800?, China 1500-1750?... |
~75 | Leading-edge countries around 1900 |
~250 | Current for "developed" countries |
Giving a rough PCI of $25,000 for developed countries now.
Over the last 200+ years, there has been crudely a doubling in PCI every 50 years or so in leading-edge economies.
The people's relative desires for food, produced goods, and services will be governed by a simple utility function. For low levels of PCI the people want mainly food for subsistence. As PCI grows they will demand more goods (production) and some services. As PCI levels approach modern values services will out-strip production as the most-desired sector. The people per se have no demand for resources, but they are needed to produce the goods that they do want.
Special resources, up to a point, have a higher value than normal resources
as production inputs. The value of Special resources and the amount
that can be used (if any) depends upon the technology being used in production.
Each milieu has several different sorts of Special associated with it.
Some specials, like gold, silver, and gemstones produce output directly
in units of currency.
How much is produced? - with a focus on individual map squares
Although the province is the most important economic unit in Clash,
a lot happens in individual map squares, which I will focus on first.
A map square in Clash is pretty large, about 60 miles (100 kilometers)
on a side. So even at relatively primitive levels of technology it
can support a population of order tens of thousands of people. In
order to simplify the game graphically we'll treat 1,000 people as the
base unit of population and call it a "head". Each map square is
endowed with a number of sites that economic activity can take place on.
For instance, farming takes place on food sites. For now Clash imposes
a limit of one head per site. So if there are 10 farm sites available
on a square the maximum number of heads that can be farming is 10 also.
As mentioned above, sites come in three types, food (F), production
(P), and special (Sp). Food, production and special commodity sites are
generally limited. There is no limit on the number of normal services
sites in a square. At the beginning of the game, a square that has good
farmland, a relatively small abundance of resources for production, and
no special commodities that can be produced might have sites like 8F, 2R,
0Sp. This means there is enough arable land for 8,000 people to farm, enough
natural resources to keep 2,000 people busy, no special commodities available
to produce, and (as always) an unlimited number of production and services
sites. The reason for the unlimited number of production sites is
that, with some historical exceptions, production can take place anywhere
that has the necessary infrastructure. The origin of the unlimited
number of services sites is that these occupations (doctors, housekeepers,
clerical workers, etc.) don't require inputs of land or natural resources
in the same way that farmers do.
At the subsistence level each head on a site produces five units
of output. One head on a farm site will produce five units of food.
The main reason I picked five as the base level of production is that if
you multiply it by $100 (or 100 Euros or 10,000 yen) can get a feeling
for the per capita income of your people in modern currency. Production
sites produce a net of five units since they take in 5 units of resources
and make 10 units of finished goods from the input.
As new technologies or techniques become available, either the
people or the government can invest in improving the productivity of each
site. For instance if farmland is irrigable an investment can be
made to irrigate it, improving its productivity to 6, or even higher depending
upon the climate. With all the technology and investment the modern
economy has its disposal, a single developed farm site might be able to
yield 500 units (Don't quote me on the exact number, but this is the right
order of magnitude).
To illustrate how things work let's look at the square mentioned
above that has 8 farm sites, and 2 resource sites. At subsistence
level each head requires 4 units of food. So if all 8 farm sites
are worked, the maximum population sustainable is 10 (8 sites x 5 per site
/ 4 per head). The peoples' relative needs and wants in terms of
food, production, and services is described by a utility function.
Let's not go into that here; suffice it to say that what the people might
want beyond the subsistence amount of food might be 1/2 unit of production,
and 1/2 unit of services each. The production might be used to create
housing among other things, and the services might be those of village
elders, priests, etc. At this point the population is self sustaining
since there is enough food for 10 heads, and there are 8 farmers, 1 on
resources / production (technically there would be 1/2 head each on resources
and production), and 1 on services.
Now let's suppose that an irrigation technique is discovered
that allows the productivity of this square's farmland to be increased
to 6 per site after the appropriate investments are made. If the
people and/or the government decides to make these investments the 8 farm
sites could yield 48 (8 sites x 6 per site) units of food. This means
it would be possible to support 12 heads on the land at subsistence amounts
of food. So one solution might be to keep food at subsistence, and
increase workers on resources, production and services. Alternatively,
the peoples' utility function might indicate that they would rather have
somewhat more than 4 units of food per head and less production and services
and try to maintain an equilibrium population of 11 heads. (The alternative
with more food per head would also give a healthier population due to better
nutrition.) The choice between the two alternatives is fairly complicated,
but it will not be the player's decision. The outcome will depend
on the desires of the people. The player can influence this decision
through, for instance, tax policy. I will discuss taxes later in
the context of the provincial economy.
Improvements in the productive capacity of sites will be done
on a square-by-square basis. The reason I want to keep track of production
capacity, for instance, on a square-by-square basis is for military purposes.
The presence of enemy troops on a province's soil gives them a way to hurt
the province's economy through extensive pillaging of developed sites.
This will also be the case for things like roads and fortifications.
All other kinds of physical and institutional infrastructure will be handled
at the provincial level or higher. Physical infrastructure consists
of things like healthcare infrastructure (including aqueducts and sewer
systems...), transportation infrastructure, housing, and defense/military
infrastructure. Institutional infrastructure covers educational and
religious institutions, as well as banking systems etc.
Provinces and the Provincial Economy
Provinces in Clash will consist of a group of map squares and
one or more cities. One aim I have for Clash is to limit the number
of sub-divisions of the civilization that the players must deal with.
The goal is to have the player deal with 10 or less economic sub-divisions
(although whether we can meet this goal remains to be seen). Additionally,
the interface should allow one to change the characteristics of a number
of sub-divisions at once, even when the player is in micro-management mode.
Provinces group a large number of squares, usually 20 or more, into a single
economic unit. Production from all the squares in a province is pooled,
and the economic development of the province is handled in a uniform fashion.
Note that to be historically accurate, the size of economic units in the
game should be of order one or a few squares for times prior to the modern
era. My view is that this piece of historical accuracy carries too
large a price in terms of the playability, so I'm inclined to try the size
above and see how it works.
Cities are the administrative and trade centers of provinces.
Because of these important functions, the population density in cities
will tend to be much larger than that in the surrounding countryside.
Cities present both opportunities and problems of their own, due primarily
to their increased population density. Squares designated by the
player (or the people themselves, TBD) as cities grow faster (~50%) in
population and development than the countryside, and the administrative
center of the province (capital) grows 2x as fast. This factor represents
some migration within the province. However city growth will slow,
or even stop when the city/urban squares have insufficient water
/ health infrastructure to support their population. For now, I will
focus on how of the province as a whole functions, omitting those features
which are specific to cities. Also, the handle city is used loosely
here. It means a place that is an administrative center, or has significantly
larger population density than average, or a key trading location.
In the modern era there will really be cities all over the place, but only
those that are especially large will be treated as cities for game purposes.
One element I want to add at the square level that relates to
cities, is a bonus for the amount of production that takes place in a square.
In the transition during and after the industrial revolution, when supply
chains in production became possible, concentrating production into a small
area like a city could provide big benefits. This type of effect
was generally only very small before the industrial revolution. To
capture the importance of cities as production centers during this period,
concentrations of productive capacity will get a bonus. For a really
big city around 1900 my guess is the production bonus should be of order
25%. Anyone with a better guess is encouraged to state it ;-).
I don't have the details yet, but this effect will push city growth in
the way that happened in the real world. As the economy beomes even
more developed, the bonus will gradually shift to being derived from the
production in the whole province. Suggestions are welcome as to how
to fit cities into the rest of the world model structure in Clash in this
or other ways.
Provinces are the primary economic unit in Clash. The main criterion
for whether a square can be part of province or not, is the ease of transportation
from that square to the central city of the province. Right now I'm
working with the notion that any square that is less than one movement
point from the capital city (or could be with road construction) qualifies
for membership in the province. Using a flat-terrain movement rate with
roads of approximately 1/4 movement point, a province could be as many
as 40+ squares once the appropriate roads have been put in. If the
provincial capital were on a navigable river, or sea, this number could
be even larger. In addition, a limited number of " inconvenient"
squares can be added to province, just to make the game play smoother.
By inconvenient squares, I mean ones that are just outside the provincial
boundaries and don't fit naturally into another province either.
As technology progresses opportunities will exist for making provinces
larger than at the start of the game. In contemporary times I think
a province could be very large. For instance the entire continental
United States might be spanned by as few as six provinces. The player
will be the judge of whether he or she wants to increase the province size
as the game progresses. Squares with better transportation connections
(roads, canals, etc) to the administrative city of the province will get
small bonuses to their economic productivity in all the sectors.
The quality of roads affects the bonus. The center gets the bonus
for the type of roads it has. The bonuses I have in mind is to average
the road quality to the adminstrative city using the following values (
track, +1%; dirt road, +3%; paved road, +5%; modern highway or RR, +10%).
[Note that it would be better to use the effective movement rate between
a square and the admin. center to figure the bonus. This would give
larger bonuses to closer-in, which is realistic. However since we
do not want to encourage players to have large numbers of small provinces
I don't want to use the more realistic method.]
One important goal of the province system I've sketched out above
is to support a pricing mechanism for goods and services. The people,
the government, and merchants will form a simple market in each province.
Running a model market in each province has some serious computational
overhead associated with it, but it also has some advantages. A market
with reasonable pricing provides "free" AI with respect to the people's
economic desires. When there is a choice of which sites to upgrade,
or where to put a new head to work, a correct market price gives the model
economy all the information needed to make the right decision for the people.
Correct pricing also tells the government the cheapest place to make, for
example, weapons or munitions. The market also allows for including
in Clash important, and fun to play, historical occurrences such as economic
competition between states in the area of strategic goods and embargoes.
For most purposes, provinces function as a kind of "super" map
square with a huge number of economic sites. The squares in the province
will make food, resources, production, services, and specials independently,
but all the produced quantities will be pooled together to become the provincial
output. Any specials that can be used locally have their effects
on the economy immediately (see below). Any surplus specials are
available for trading. Once this gross production takes place taxes are
levied by the government. The government takes a percentage, the
tax rate, of the generated food, resources, production, and services.
Any surplus of each of these commodities that the government does not spend
locally can be converted into money for the treasury. If the government
does use the commodities locally, they can be given directly back to the
people (but perhaps redistributed, as in a socialist system), or used by
the government to develop sites or build infrastructure. Specials are taxed
later, using a different system.
After taxes are collected the people know what they have left,
and what they would prefer to have, from the utility function. At
this point merchants and government agents propose trades to the people.
Production sites also bid for resources at this stage. For instance,
if the province produces extra tin (an important input to an ancient economy,
since it is needed to make bronze) merchants serving areas without the
important metal will try to obtain it here where it's available, and bring
it to where it is in demand. Most often the merchant would offer
some other special, for example wine, in trade. With good transportation,
trade in bulk commodities like resources, food and goods also is feasible.
Once all the trades are proposed by all the merchants and agents present,
the people consummate whichever deals they like, starting with the best
first. Trades that happen are taxed by the government. There
can be different tax rates for internal vs. external trade, etc.
The government can also, if it has sufficient power, declare various commodities
to be state monopolies. At the end of this activity the people and
government build whatever infrastructure etc. they would like, the people
consume the remainder, and the economic happiness for the people is determined.
The economic happiness is essentially the ratio of what they were left
with to the value of what they originally produced modified for merchant
transactions and government givebacks. When the government gives
back to the people, they only count the contribution at 80% of its face
value, because what the government gives them is usually not exactly what
they want. This connection will help to reproduce the slower growth
rates in socialist economies.
To simplify the economic system I propose that the price of services
should always be set at 1 currency unit. (contest: who can think of a good
name for the currency unit in Clash?) For now I will simply refer to the
currency unit as the CC for Clash Cash or simply C to save typing.
Among the three sectors in Clash's simple economy, services are the one
that is least tied to the land. Also, some services, like artworks
are much easier to transport per unit value than goods in the other sectors.
I could raise several other arguments, but I would rather hear what people
have to say about this. If I don't use services as the unit of exchange,
I'm not sure how to set the unit of exchange for a simple model economy
like exists in Clash. Opinions and suggestions welcome.
The equivalence between services and money allows the government
to take its taxes out of the province in units of currency. All that
it needs to do is to trade the food and production part of its take for
services. This trading will have consequences in terms of structure
of the economy. If "cash taxation" goes on for a while, eventually
the people will make more services than they themselves would want in order
to have enough excess to pass onto the government.
Before moving onto the provincial economy, I need to mention how
special commodities work. Specials are scarce "strategic" resources
that are found locally (tin, iron, coal), or specialty finished goods that
can best be produced where the primary resources are (ceramics, wine, cloth).
I think that the way I've come up with for handling specials will introduce
important real-world effects of "strategic" resources into Clash, without
the awesome amounts of micro-management needed to achieve these effects
in games like Colonization. Adding a special commodity to an economy
that is without it will make it significantly more productive. This
productivity increase applies until a point of diminishing returns is reached.
The point of diminishing returns usually depends on the size of the provincial
economy. The fact that specials will usually be produced in amounts
that are much greater than the local economy can use provides a stimulus
for merchant activity. When it is worth their while, merchants will
deliver specials to places were they are desired. I'll discuss this
further in the section on province economy.
A square that has a special commodity associated with it will
have a number of sites for it. If the local economy can use the special
workers will generally go to work the special site before going to others
because of the value of its products. If an excess of the special
is produced, it gets recycled back into the fundamental commodity type
it represents. So for instance if excess wine were produced, it would
just count as services (= entertainment), since this is the production
type wine turns into. ( This game mechanism will cover the real-world
case that the people would only produce as much of the special as they
could either use themselves, or sell to others. The technology level for
the special's extraction depends on the particular special.
As mentioned above, special commodities are things that are important
economic inputs. Without these the economy will perform under its
potential, and grow slowly. With a good supply of the critical strategic
commodities of a given technological level, the provincial economy will
perform significantly better than expected for that age. All specials
increase the production of one sector of the economy. For instance,
iron and coal enhance the production sector when the technology to use
them properly is available. Other examples include the spice or salt
specials, which augment the food portion of the economy, and wine that
enhances the service sector. The number of units of a special that can
be used in a province's economy is 5% of that sector's production. (This
number will probably vary by special, this is just for purposes of example)
So if the production sector output for a province is 100, up to five units
of the special iron could be used. Each special has a multiplier
associated with it to convert it into output units. For instance,
iron might have a multiplier of 4. If our province with production
output of 100 can get its hands on 5 units of iron, the production output
bonus would be 20 (5 units x 4 per unit). So the final production
output with the iron would be 120 units. The final thing that specifies
a special is how hard it is to transport. The merchants trying to
make money by delivering specials will know this number, the player won't
be directly involved. The function of specials in Clash will require
some fine-tuning, but I think the mechanism I've outlined here will introduce
some fun game-play in terms of trade between civs that requires little
effort to manage on the player's part.
Specials Table
(picture a table here ;)
Development takes place in one of two ways. Either the people
do it, or the government does. If either party wants to invest in a particular
sector, for instance food, they can do so provided that at least some sites
are not "maxed-out" with respect to the current technology. If improvement
is allowed, whoever wants to do it must pay an upgrade price to improve
the site. For instance, consider a food site that is producing at
the subsistence level of 5. Suppose the land in that square is in
principle irrigable to a food production level of 7. The cost to
irrigate one site one step might be 4P/16S meaning that 4 points of production
(tools) and 16 points of services (labor) are needed for the job.
Once the resources are committed the upgrade, in this case to 6 food, happens.
For this particular site the upgrading process could be done again to get
up to a production level of 7. During the industrial revolution some
advances might allow the productivity of production sites to go from 20
up to 40. The improvements would be done in steps similar to the
irrigation example above. So going from productivity 20 to 21 might
require 10P/10S, as would all subsequent upgrades until getting to 40.
Some technologies also allow for an increase in number of sites
in a square. One example of this is the technology of drainage, which
allows re-claiming of swamp land. In such a case there is a cost
to bring a site online if it is one of the new ones available with that
technology. Once the new site is activated in that particular square
it behaves just like any other. Improvements paid for by the people
will be distributed, prorated by population, among the squares in a province.
I don't know exactly how to handle this yet, but don't think the distribution
of improvements among the map squares of a province is much of a problem.
The cultural profile of the people includes how investment-oriented
they are. Among their desires is that to invest to improve their,
and their children's lives. The people will invest in a variety of
things, enhancing sites as above, some infrastructure like housing and
roads, and at higher levels of PCI things like education and health-care.
Depending on the cultural profile a certain portion of their consumption
is reserved for these investments. Let's take as an example the square
being irrigated in the example above. Suppose that the people in
the province would most like to increase the food supply, and that the
square in question is the only one that is irrigable. At this near-subsistence
level the people's capacity to invest might be 1% of their net income.
Further, let's assume their net income's value is 400C. This amount
of net income might come from 100 heads. So the people might save
4C per turn to purchase the improvement. Once they have saved the
upgrade price of 4P (Say 4C, although it might be different) + 16S (16C)
= 20C they will have bought the improvement.
Another aspect of development is where to put new heads.
As the population grows new people will sensibly elect to go into a line
of work that makes them the most money! The profession (sector) making
the most money is usually the one with output having the highest price.
If all those sites are taken, the new head can either settle for second
best, or try to migrate to someplace they think is better. Sometimes
the local economy is so screwed up that even the best choice is lousy.
This will drive emigration if the people know about someplace better.
A corollary to this is that a ruler should not jack up the tax rate too
high, or people will spontaneously try to "run for the hills".
If the people are not moving fast enough in terms of development
as far as the government is concerned, the government can expend resources
to accelerate things. I think it will be common in the game to subsidize,
to some extent, the people's improvement of sites. For instance a
20% subsidy on irrigation would cause the people (or local authorities)
to irrigate more and faster than they otherwise would. The government
can also directly build site improvements itself by paying for the whole
thing. This is the way Clash handles things like five-year plans
in planned economies. My impression at the moment is that this is
a very expensive way to do things, and it will be a lot of fun to see how
it works out in the game. About the only case where I can see government
purchases of production capacity paying off is where the government has
declared a monopoly on a special good. Government monopoly of things
like iron and salt production were common in China at least throughout
the first millennium, if I'm remembering correctly. One thing to
keep in mind, is that if the government helps the people to build more
production capacity than they want, the people will Never build any production
capacity of their own. Only if the government can effectively use
the surplus production will be economy be "balanced".
Finally, I'm sure the military types are asking "But how do I
build an armored division?" Well, I think an armored division, as
well as many other goodies, will simply have a cost in terms of the three
sector outputs, just like irrigating a farm site did. For all the
hardware in a modern armored division you'd probably need something like
2 million production points. I don't know off-hand what the hardware
requirements for a Roman Legion are, but they might be something like 50P
and 10S. I Really don't want to get into a production system where you
need x units of iron and y units of leather to "build" a legion.
My experience with systems of that type is that they become an "accounting
game" fairly quickly. We'll probably have some spirited discussions
on this topic ;-)
Infrastructure in the Clash Economic System
The infrastructure system in Clash will be one of the most important ways that the player can guide their civilization. It will allow the player to emphasize, above other priorities, religion, education, or a number of other things. I think all this can be handled generally on a civilization-wide basis, avoiding the need, as in civ2, of every city/province explicitly having its own library, marketplace, temple, etc. The Player will, if desired, also be able to "drill down" and fine-tune infrastructure on a per-province basis. Making changes in the infrastructure priorities of the civilization should in fact be so easy that our main problem may be keeping the player actively engaged in this aspect of the game. This will probably require some sort of feedback to the player about how their particular infrastructure strategy is playing out fairly often.
Depending upon their culture, the people in the civ will desire a variety of goods and services. Among them are housing, entertainment, healthcare, religious institutions, education, and other things. So it will be possible to have a culture that invests more in education that usual, at the expense of, for instance, buying consumer goods. The player can also influence the people's desires through either subsidizing or taxing some of the people's spending on infrastructure. In addition, the government, if it has enough power, can simply mandate the amount of spending in a given area. The people will then receive the government-mandated level of services regardless of what their desire for them is. However, if done in more than a few selected areas, this is generally a lousy way to run an economy IMO.
In the same way that the people or the government can invest in production capacity for the various economic sectors (food, resources, produced goods, and services), they can also invest in infrastructure of different types. The investments can be either in physical infrastructure, or institutional infrastructure. Physical infrastructure consists of things like transportation infrastructure, housing, healthcare facilities, and defense/military infrastructure. Institutional infrastructure covers educational and religious institutions, as well as banking systems etc. A list of the infrastructure categories that I've got so far are in the table below.
How the game model for infrastructure works
Each infrastructure class is handled at the provincial level for bookkeeping purposes. However, typically the player will only have to deal with infrastructure on a civ-wide level. Each infrastructure class is modeled crudely like a storage container. A resource is put into the container, and the benefits therein can be drawn upon either immediately or at a later date. The amount of resource in the container also suffers shrinkage for a variety of reasons. In other words, some amount of constant investment is needed to keep the infrastructure at the same level. For instance, using education as an example, services (of teachers, and time spent by students) are invested to give an education level. This education level will provide a variety of economic and other benefits to the civ. However, without future investment this education level will slowly shrink as those educated previously grow older and die, or as what they've learned becomes outdated. So, in the ancient world where average life expectancy might be 40 years, giving a useful life of education investment of about 30 years, the shrinkage rate for education would be about 3%. I call education a persistent investment, because the use of its benefits to society does not reduce the education level. The only way the education level is reduced is by shrinkage.
Not all infrastructure classes are persistent. The opposite type I call consumed. An example of a consumed type is the "social safety net" class. This represents charity, like food for the hungry, services for the destitute, etc. The food aspects would be similar to the function of a granary. When the stored food is used, that much of the level is used up. These social safety net functions can be fulfilled by the people themselves, governments, or religious institutions, or some mixture of these.
So, to sum up, each infrastructure class has an input, a shrinkage rate, and an output that is either persistent or consumed. Changes in technology can have effects on this system into different ways. Better technology can leverage the value of the input, or change the shrinkage rate. So, for instance, if a civ discovers the alphabet, the services put into the education area would get a bonus, perhaps a 50% bonus. The "social safety net" shrinkage rate might change due to the discovery of canning, which would make stored food much less susceptible to spoilage. As healthcare improves, and expected life span rises, the decay rate for education would also, as a consequence, fall.
If we assume that the government isn't intervening in the investment decisions of the people for now, how do the people know what kind of infrastructure they should buy to make them happiest? The table below summarizes the information I've given so far for the infrastructure classes that I have at the moment (suggestions welcome). Things aren't completely worked out here, but at least this can serve as a basis for discussion. The second column shows roughly on average how the people spend money not allocated for food. So, other things being equal, they would spend 10% of the non-food amount on durable goods. I've adapted these figures from the research paper, "Fundamental Similarities in Consumer Behavior" by K. Clements and D. Chen, Applied Economics 28(6) 1996 p747. The figures here are obviously somewhat skewed toward representing modern economies. If we go with this basic system we will also need to figure out the numbers that might apply for an ancient or medieval economy. Again, the "average non-food % used is Only an average over all cultures and all times. For a given civ these values will be modified by the technological regieme and also by the culture. The input column shows how much of which of the basic commodities is necessary to purchase a single unit of the infrastructure class. So, for durable goods, each unit costs one production point. For religious infrastructure the unit cost is two-thirds services and one-third production point. When you purchase a unit of the infrastructure class its level would increase by one. When the prices in the province are known you can figure a purchase price for each of the infrastructure types. The column that says "example price" uses one illustrative example from a province that has low availability of finished goods. The remainder of the columns just summarizes information about typical shrinkage rates etc. as discussed above. Don't worry, the player will never have to deal directly with these numbers.
People's Investment Profile Table
Infrastructure class | average | non-food | Example | Shrinkage | Persistant/ | Game |
% used | Input | Price * | (decay) % | Consumed | Effects | |
social safety net (charity) | 5 | (f+p+s)/3 | 1.33 | 5 | c | RU |
education | 5 | s | 1 | 5 | p | IP, AG, +… |
religion | 5 | (2s+p)/3 | 1.33 | 2 | p | RU |
clothing & miscellaneous | 20 | (2p+s)/3 | 1.66 | 0 | c | RU |
housing | 15 | (p+s)/2 | 1.5 | 3 | p | RU, IP |
durable goods | 10 | p | 2 | 10 | p | RU, IP |
health care / water infra. | 5 | s | 1 | 15 | p | IL, RD, Lg. C |
transportation | 15 | (2p+s)/3 | 1.66 | 5 | p | IP |
recreation | 10 | s | 1 | 50 | p | RU |
economic infrastructure | 0 | s | 1 | 7 | p | IP |
military infrastructure | 0 | (p+s)/2 | 1.5 | 7 | p | |
investment | 10 | Varies | Varies | N/A | N/A |
RU - reduces unhappiness___IP - increases productivity___AG - Makes
adv. govts poss.
IL - increase lifespan_______RD - reduces disease_______Lg. C - necc.
for large cities
We need Communications, Ports, Air infrastructure, and a modern Research infrastructure class too... Please point out any other big areas I've missed.
To figure out what infrastructure people buy, the model starts with
their after-tax income. If you don't care about the mathematical
details just skim this part. Suppose the people in this province have after-tax
amounts of food = 100, produced goods = 20, and services = 60. This kind
of availability of the commodities might result in the prices used in the
example. After they've eaten the food, the people have produced goods
= 20, and services = 60 to spend on the things they want. Note that because
we're handling the desires of all the people together this could simulate
either a barter economy or a market economy. At the prices given in the
example of s=1C and p=2C the total value after-food is 100C (=20x2C +60x1C)
If the government doesn't intervene in the pricing, the people will simply
pay the percentage of that 100C left that's shown in the second column
for each type. For instance they would spend 15% x 100C = 15C
on housing. At the price of 1.5 per unit this would buy 10 units
of housing. This extremely simple simulated economy takes into account
the fact that the people will change the number of units they want of each
type depending upon its price. In this area where housing is expensive
to produce, the people will spend more for instance on entertainment (recreation)
and less on housing than they might someplace else.
The infrastructure needs of the people don't have
to be just proportional to the number of people. For instance in
the health care / water infrastructure case, the cost should go as the
population density. So a city with 100k people will require
a much larger amount of infrastructure than the same number of people spread
out among 20 squares. There will have to be some non-linearity in
some of the infra classes, such that higher population densities require
much more of the given item. It may also be that some kinds of infrastructure
should be much cheaper as the population density increases, thought I don't
have any good examples yet. Suggestions?
Because the people alter their buying habits depending on the price
of an item, there is an easy way for the government to influence the balance
between say, education and recreation spending. If the government
wants to put more of an emphasis on education, it can subsidize the peoples'
purchases of education. This of course will cost the government money,
so it's not a "no-brainer". One thing the government could do is
to subsidize education while taxing (making more expensive) recreational
spending by the people. The tax revenues from recreation could then be
used to help pay for the subsidy on education. If the central authority
of the government is high enough, and the people are sufficiently happy
to be able to take the happiness penalty of reduced recreational availability
without serious social problems, this might be a good move. This
can all be handled by the player with the few keystrokes. Compare
this to what you have to do in Civ to emphasize education (tech).
There you would have to change the plans in every single city to build
a library there for instance.
Population growth clearly should depend on an overall health level.
The overall health level would be derived from:
1) Food Level - Food consumption per capita (effect would increase
rapidly for initial amounts beyond subsistence, and then get into a diminishing
returns regieme).
2) Health/Water Infra Level - Effective Health/Water infra. I
say effective because for a more densely populated area you'd need more
H/W infra to reach the same health level.
3) Contraception and other forms of birth control when the people want
them (probably determined by culture, education level, and per-capita income)
These factors won't be just added together, we'll have to come up with
some simple function to do it, since great healthcare does little good
if the people are starving.
I haven't discussed roads at all so far. Some of the transportation infrastructure money would be used to build things like roads, bridges, canals, and railroad track. Things like roads and railways will probably be mostly built by the people themselves. For instance the people will generally build roads if they will pay for themselves in less than, say, 10 turns. If they are not doing it quickly enough the government could probably either subsidize these activities to some extent, or pay for them directly itself. I think with the AI in Clash that is dedicated to understanding geography, "the people" can do a reasonable job on road and rail networks. For areas outside the provinces proper, engineers of some type will be available to construct roads that the player has drawn in and assigned a priority to. The people will also build some fortification-type items (City walls / forts / castles) themselves if the central authority is weak and they feel they need them.
Fine-tuning different provinces' infrastructure
For those who are more micro-management inclined infrastructure can
be varied on the by-province level also. For example, what
happens if you deliberately concentrate education in your capital, for
example, and virtually ignore the outlying areas? Education
concentrated in the capital for example, would allow a civ to research
more advanced techs, perhaps, but at a lower rate. More advanced
techs because you're spending all your education levels in the capital,
and would get much higher. The lower rate would be because only one part
of the empire is pulling in that direction. A powerful ruler might
also forbid a certain province from building an aqueduct due to its strategic
vulnerability... Some of the infrastructure costs could vary with
the geography also. Healthcare / water infrastructure might be more
expensive for provinces in predominately jungle areas for example.
We will clearly need at least three levels of interface.
A) The high-level one should provide the player with
a snapshot of what's going on in the economy, and how it compares to that
of the main rivals (selected by player). This interface should have
an iconic presentation of:
B) Civ-wide detailed econ interface
Here you can pick civ-wide levels of taxation, taxes for merchants
broken down by incomming, outgoing and domestic trade, values of trade
with different civs, and what the commodities are, and the top-three to-do
picks of your advisor. Also in here should be a map of the civ showing
the different provinces if the player wants to go down to the provincial
level. There will also be icons leading to micro-management screens
for ordering builds, subsidization and/or taxation of:
C) Provincial detailed interface
Would show most of the stuff in B, at the provincial level. It
would also have a province map showing locations of specials roads, garrisoned
armies, reserves, etc. It would also have an order builds etc. similar
to the B1-B5 screens.
Well, that's my wish-list on the interfaces. I'm sure some sensible
people will scream at the amount of work involved, but there are (only!)
4 main types of interface here...
Migration and settlement
For Migration and settlement, the game mechanisms should be relatively simple.
1) The ruler/government can order (or prohibit) people (or merchants,
etc) to go to x place (of course place x
must be known first, or at least rumored of...). Said x
place can be a friendly city or region, territory inhabited sparsely by
someone else, territory densely inhabited by someone (in which case they
may be slaughtered or turned back unless a previous deal has been made).
The government can also order people just to Go Away, with or without the
confiscation of their wealth. All these actions require a check against
the government's effective power to execute the order, which may or may
not be obeyed.
2) Ruler/govt. can also subsidize or penalize natural migration of people
to x place (and all the other stuff above). This means, in game mechanics,
the ruler puts a hunk of money on x and says each person that goes
there gets y part of it. The y part could be used to buy goods to start
the colony...
3) People do their own thing in absence of 1-2. They will emigrate if allowed to, and if things are sufficiently bad at home for either economic, social, or other reasons.
Generally an order is much more expensive, but quicker than, subsidizing movement of people.
Fishermen
I skipped fishermen in the original writeup because the best way I've
figured to work them is a little kludgy yet. Here's what I've got
so far. For river squares fishermen would behave just like farmers.
For ocean, and huge lake, fishing is a bit different. A fish resource
square would be arbitrarily connected to a nearby land square. The
fishermen would live in the land square but do their production and economic
development activities on the sea square. In terms of graphics we
would probably show a trail of tiny boats going from the land square to
the sea square in question. Economic development of the sea square
would be limited by sailing technologies as opposed to the ones farmers
use on land. The people would decide between fishing and farming
depending on whichever is most cost-effective. If they are equally
effective in producing food and then the people would do both.
Economic Function of Military Reserves
Suppose you just designated a unit as on reserve status (probably would
do by fraction of army rather than by individual unit). The game
engine would keep track of the fact that there is a unit there. (weapons
stockpiled etc.) The population in the unit would just become part of the
economy, treated just as newly "born" population or immigrants. If
you want to keep the reserves in training part-time you would have to pay
a fraction, like 1/5 of their active duty salary. When you call up
the reserves those people would leave the economy, either temporarily or
permanently depending on the type of mobilization.
Terrain
Terrain will affect the number of food and production sites.
The number of sites on a given piece of terrain will also change with technology,
and things like drainage of swamps. There is also of possibility
to handle depletion of natural resources. It would be easy to include
later, so I am inclined to leave it out for the first real version. The
climate will affect the food Output per site. Again, probably will
leave this detail out at first.
Merchants
The game will start with a few merchants, but the general way you generate
merchants is for either the people or government to "build" them. Merchants
here represent both the capital, and the society's desire to promote trade.
How many merchants the people build will depend on the culture and net
wealth of the society. The people will generally build a merchant
when the province reaches a certain size depending on the culture.
If at least one merchant already exists in the province, then they'll build
another if the worst merchant they currently have is increasing the common
good by enough to pay for itself in 10 turns. When a province
builds a merchant it starts with that as its home province. However,
if high levels of taxation or other abuse makes the merchant feel unwelcome,
it can switch home provinces (even to a different civ) by paying a penalty.
Purchase of merchants by the people will be suppressed for a certain number
of turns after a merchant has fled the province.
Nobody controls the merchants, they are in business for themselves.
(They will have their own independent AI.) In addition to trading
specials, merchants can also trade the bulk quantities of food and production.
Wealthy merchants will be able to provide loans to the civs. Merchant
trading of specials etc. constitute the trade routes in Clash. The
exact routes taken by the merchants will be kept track of, and the trade
is subject to piracy, taxation, and government prohibition. If a
merchant is very successful it can build its own ancillary merchant.
Any other suggestions for merchant capabilities are of course welcome.
Specials Specifics
I don't have a list of specials yet. The need of a special is
determined by the production level of the type it turns into, either food,
production, or services. The amount it can use is some percentage
(2%-15% or so) of the gross production. So, if your modern economy
produces 100,000 production points you could use up to 5,000 units of oil
if the number is 5%. A provincial economy in classical antiquity
might produce 200 points of production, and so would be able to use 10
points of tin. I'm not sure yet if one should use base production
(before any specials) for figuring the gross production, or simply use
that from the last turn. Each method has its own advantages.
I am pretty pleased with this model. Of course the final proof will only come when people are actually playing the system in Clash.
This is as far as I've gotten in laying out the new economic system for Clash. I think it gives you a lot of gameplay advantages, while adding a little bit more realism to the usual civ-type game economy. I think that this system, where the people "speak for themselves", is vastly better both in terms of playability, and in modeling the world than the genre-usual type. Remember that one bonus of this system is that the player who isn't all that interested in the economy will not do too badly if it is just left on its own with an occasional change of direction. At least they will do ok if that player can refrain from seriously over-taxing the people. For those of us who are more inclined toward tweaking the economy and infrastructure types within it, this system provides a very simple way to achieve that. I would like to acknowledge here the friendly criticisms that Torsten Eymann made of the previous version. They were the major catalyst in kicking me in what I think is the right direction on the economic front. Let me know what you think, good or bad. Thanks,
Overview
A Few More Specifics
How much is produced?
Provinces and the
Provincial Economy
Special Commodities
Development
Infrastructure
Interface
Miscellaneous (Migration, Fishermen,
Economics of Military Reserves, Terrain, Merchants, Specials Specifics)
Conclusion
Home Civilization
Advances Chart (133K) Map AI Screen
Shot
Economy Screen Economic
Development Gaming/AI
Links
Coming soon... Clash's RealPolitik AI (calculated using Genetic Algorithms
in a background thread)