ECONOMICS/TRADE (ver1.0): Hosted by Pythagoras

[DanS]

My first post in this thread.

Make Caravans somewhat "invisible" (i.e., you can stack caravans with units from any other civ, even though they be unallied). When a military unit overtakes a caravan, they should have options like (1) confiscate, (2) demand a toll, or (3) let them pass. I hate it when all my micromanagement to get a caravan on the other side of the world ends up clogging the roads of my friends or cooperative competitors.

[Zorloc]

I agree that the comodities could easily get out of hand. I haven't played Colonization, so I am not familiar with that model. But in Imperialism there were 8 or so raw materials (wood, cotton, iron, coal, gold, etc), and then 4 or so level 1 manufactured goods (cloth, lumber, etc) and a few level 2 manufactured goods (furniture, weapons, etc). This didn't get out of control because the goods were shared throughout your nation.

For Civ this could work by having 10 raw materials, and 10 manufactured goods. All of these will be shared between all of your cities. Then to trade, you make an agreement with another Civ (similar to CTP) and a caravan creates a trade route from your closest city to their closest city. Then your caravan (or whatever) will travel this path continuously - and can be prirated.

This system means that all of your trade can be handled from two national screens - one for the production of resources/materials; the other for trade. From the production screen you should also be able to request that cities move to mine/farm or produce a certain item, and the AI should be able to handle redistributing the load without significant direct interferance on the city level.

[Ecce Homo]

If there are multiple commodities, they could still be available by ordering from another city. I believe this function could be automatized.

So, if you want to build a Legion you will be told the price and time. If you haven't got any Iron, your merchants will get it for you from the cheapest source.

[itokugawa]

I think that caravans should be cheaper (i.e. 30 shields) but do not function when you are in war with the owner of the other city. A lasting war can destroy trade routes and new ones should be established.

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[Trachmyr]

Let's not forget that caravans and merchant ships were often owned by private citizen (Privateers!)... it should be possible to hire caravans and/or ships without building them. They would take a share of your profits. You would be required to build certain structures to hire them (i.e., a port for merchant ships), and the number available would depend on city size.

[Ecce Homo]

Trachmyr, talking aabout private ownership...
Some city improvements/civilian units should be privately owned. They could be controlled by a capitalist AI player that tries to make the most profit possible.

Maybe you could even play as a global capitalist?

[Trachmyr]

That's an interesting idea...

"So you SPANISH want a naval base in Seville, We FRENCH will agree for a cost of X gold. Do you accept?"

But I think it can get way out of hand with Global Capatilist... but paying private Contactors to build city improvements is ok, since you would be substituting gold for labor. Then again that's like a RUSH BUY, unless CIV3 incorporates RAW MATERIALS.

[Trachmyr]

That's an interesting idea...

"So you SPANISH want a naval base in Seville, We FRENCH will agree for a cost of X gold. Do you accept?"

But I think it can get way out of hand with Global Capatilist... but paying private Contactors to build city improvements is ok, since you would be substituting gold for labor. Then again that's like a RUSH BUY, unless CIV3 incorporates RAW MATERIALS.

[Fugi the Great]

I think the trading from both SMAC and Imperialism should be used. The basic average everyday items that get traded if you are a friend of another nation should be automatic like in SMAC. Then there are certain commodities like wheat - bread, oil - petroleam, iron ore-steel-guns, uranium - plutonium ... that should be traded on the market like in Imperialism (the important things you need to grow a nation/empire). You could then do what the US does with Russia now with the selling of wheat to them when they have a surplus. Could also get food if there is a major famine in your country. Trading for oil like the world does with OPEC. If you don't have oil, tanks don't move and planes don't fly; so make sure you have enough to get you through a war - don't be stuck like Germany or Japan in WWII. Iron ore/steel production with different nations trying to corner the market or dumping it on other countries to kill their industries (Japan was accused of this). If you don't have steel, then you don't make tanks or factories. If you don't have uranium to make plutonium, then you don't make nukes, try getting it in trade or on the black market. Not every nation on this planet is blessed with an abundance of goods. Countries like Japan have to rely on the exports of other countries to stay alive.

Alot of this could probably be automated with "trade advisors" which could be told what to try getting a surplus of, or to use their judgement as to what they think we need - make sure we have enough food and oil to last us for # months ... Do we trade for the lowest price, trade with our allies only, trade with multiple nations to stay a trading partner and friend even if it costs more, trade with only certain nations to get their economy going, or wait until the price comes down to a certain level, or buy as much as we can to make sure another nation doesn't get it?

Some of the trade lines could be disrupted by the presence of military units in certain squares (gunboats just outside of enemy ports, infantry units on border crossings) like Imperialism, maybe being able to disrupt trade in the adjacent squares as well, but would not hinder trade if at peace. This way you could enforce trade sanctions of a certain nation, and even protect trade with your friends. Black market trade of items near borders with unfriendly nations, how much depends on your government and presence of military / police units in area (bribes?).

Maybe make this a checkable option in the beginning of the game for those that don't want to micro-manage trade of commodities, just use the trade from SMAC.

You could also have arms dealings with other nations to either buy what they have (maybe cheaper than making it) or selling what you have and hope you don't have it turned against you someday. Licensing the technology to build a unit in your country that you don't have the tech for yet or too expensive or long to build protypes for (Harrier jumpjets, Tornado fighter-bombers).

[Pythagoras]

How about instead of trade routes set up by caravans, if there is a city in your explored area that has some commodity that a city of yours demand, and vice versa TRADE IS AUTOMATICALLY SET UP. This way you would have little say in trade. Stuff like Pirating would be hard to figure out though, but then after the trade is set up between the two, it will wain and increase based on the relations between the two cities. This is sorta a hybrid of SMAC's idea w/ commodities.

[Ecce Homo]

Good idea, Pythagoras. Such trade routes could need merchants. If there are merchants in a city which buys a commodity, these merchants will have something to do for living, and you can earn some tax money.

[Pythagoras]

Maybe the caravans should just automatically appear and start going back and forth automatically, no construction needed, no management. Just like I suggested above, but actually show a unit going back and forth to trade. Then they can be pirated, tolled. And carvans would get better as time progressed.

IE DanS's suggestion: menu pops up-
1 - let them move on, not detrimental (maybe benificiary) to relations.
2 - Toll them, somewhat detrimental to relations.
3 - Pirate them - attack and pillage!! Act of war. Special units should be available so that a civ can use "Priva

What would be really cool, is that every time your caravan goes to their city, then you slowly see their map, more cities are seen, more trade routes are set up, and on and on . . I have this bad feeling the map would get cluttered with merchant traffic, much like the world is now though . .

Also, what would be even cooler is if say city X supplied 1 gold,(1 gold in radii). And city Y, and Z both got gold from there, that gold whos influx is 1, but outflux is 2 is labeled as rare, and its price doubles.

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"I think you're all f*cked in the head!"
Chevy Chase-Nat'l Lampoon's Vacation.

[Pythagoras]

Update from before
Main concepts in bold

The main ideas expoused so far have involved rehauling the caravan system, and the increasing interdependance of cities in the modern age.

dont expect other updates to be this long!!
Let me know if I forgot something!
Pythagoras(me) began suggesting auto caravaning, sorta like trains in RR Tycoon that would ferry goods back and forth, instead of caravans merely establishing trade routes. 'Caravans' would change with time and technology, increasing movement, and moveability into air and sea as tech advances were available. I also was interested in having trade being an intergral part of diplomacy More trade = better coorporation.

Isle chimed in with "The number of squares a cities uses should be equal to the city size not size + 1. This will not stop ICS as expansion always is the way to go, but it will stop it from being ridiculous.

Jeje2 liked my idea, suggesting that trade routes with alliance partners should yield bonuses, war should cancel trade between two civs

bab5tm liked my idea also, suggesting something similar to C:CTP's system, and allowing military protection for caravans through arming them.

EnochF then suggested we should have the ability to Airlift supplies/trade to besieged cities, and that affecting a Civs attitude towards you

Kerris suggested using the Public Works System ala C:CTP,

Pythagoras - I chimed back in suggesting my autocaravaning way could be flawed cause B.R. mentioned somewhere that a perfect pathfinding algorithm is mathematically impossible and I was grumpy that Not many talked about trade's relationship w/ diplomacy

Druid stated that we needed to recognize the interdependance of cities for resources in the modern world in creating trade schemes.

Prefect then made a pretty long, but good argument on why we should use MOOII type trading system, getting trade+science treaties, no caravans

Trachmyr liked the autocravan idea, but allow the creation of way points ala SMAC

don Don then suggested using commoditties, and needing certain ommodities to build certain improvements, he suggested to decrease micromanaging using 'contracts' allocating x amount of different resources be transferred between city Y and Z.

Hans2 suggested allowing the creation of groupings of cities, that all drew from the same resource zone, ie the support radii of all cities. With efficiency of transport determined w/ techs.

Hans2 the in another post stated he did not like caravans. up to a certain tech/year caravans should be used. Afterwards trade is done through diplomacy screen.

Utrecht suggested that once a trade route is established, parts of the partner's map is slowly revealed, as is some basic info on the civ, due to merchant's ability to get around/get maps.

Bulrathi stated that he also wanted a commodity system with the inclusion of a labor force which decreased when you went to war, and was dependant on population.

Pythagoras came back into the conversation. [b]Cities should get a financial bonus/tax for transferring basic resources. There should be an advance to increase the carrying capacity of intercity resource transports. I also suggested that the max number of trade routes should not be limited to three, but based on population. Also there was the idea that trade should not even be set up by the player, instead the AI - coorporations/merchants should.

delcuze then suggested limiting the amount of buildings a city could build, through limiting it to city tiles.

Diodorus Sicilus had a lot of good input including-
1 - did not like any attempted trade models. 2 - He liked the merchant exploration idea above
3 - He suggested using waypoints to set up trade routes. For instance in hostory there were the many routes to get to the orient.
4 - Then he commented on trade goods saying trade should be based on commodities and that commoditties are depleted through time. Also this should be refined for the modern age, become less commodity based.
5-On City Radii he liked them for early years, but wished intercity transport of resources was better as tech improved.

Zorloc agreed with Diodorus, stating also that large, modern metroplis do not provide their own food, but are solely based around trade. He preffered the Imperialism system.

EnochF wanted a complex trade system, agreeing with Diodorus, and he also suggested manufactured resources, based on commodities and improvenments needed.[b]

mindlace suggested if a route moved through another nation they should get a cut. He liked caravans in the ancient times, but a more abstract model later on.

Pythagoras I basicly said this commodity stuff sounded too complicated. And sounded like Colinization.

Trachmyr said he liked Colinization, and said commodities should be put into catagories.

Lancer asked why the King had to worrty about establishing Trade routes, saying his underlings should take care of it. He also suggested assigning military units to protect trade routes.

THE END!!

[This message has been edited by Pythagoras (edited May 19, 1999).]

[This message has been edited by Pythagoras (edited May 19, 1999).]

[Zorloc]

To Lancer,

Once place where the ruler is responsible for setting up trade routes - Planned economies. With this economic model it is the leaders that do the planning and coordination.

[Mark_Everson]

*My first post on this thread*

Please, Please, Please no comodities as in Colonization. This system is ok with a very few "centers", but putting a system with detailed commodities in a many-centers (cities here) game like civ produces mind-numbing amounts of micromanagement. I intentionally would stop expanding in Colonization (even though I would have liked to strategically) because the micromanagement burden became rapidly intolerable after about 10 cities.

Only with Very good economic AI would this be a workable concept.

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Mark Everson
Project lead for The Clash of Civilizations
(That means I do the things nobody else wants to do )
This Radically different civ game needs your suggestions and/or criticism of our design.
Check our our Forum right here at Apolyton...

[Fugi the Great]

Pythagoras, nice idea, it basically does everything I'd want, but how big of a computer are we assuming this is going to run on? What speed of processor and memory needed? With all those extra units running around, won't that suck up alot of processor time and memory? I'm NOT saying my idea would use less of either, it may even use more.

Excuse me if I jumped to conclusions on this issue. It's just that when you mentioned more units moving automatically, I conjured up pictures of the really slow unit movements of CTP and even the slow High-Res 3D units of SMAC (which I set up for Lo-Res to keep me from getting bored). Since I only have a P200 with 64 megs at present, the very length of time it takes for a unit to move is fairly long (read that CTP is still slow on a PII450). Now multiply this by 25, 50, or 100 and this program is suddenly not really usable on my machine, and may need a high end machine to enjoy it. The cost of this $49.95 program is now $2400.00, just a bit high at present. Yes I will be upgrading soon, when I don't know exactly when since I need a few other expensive gadgets first. My idea may not waste as much time showing units running around, but you won't see what's really happening either, or even know what if any effect your military is doing to trade like you would with your idea. Both ideas are still going to be memory hungry though, but number crunching it what the computer does the best and fastest, especially if the human doesn't have to see the results updated on the screen all the time. Besides, memory is fairly cheap.

my 2 cents worth

[This message has been edited by Fugi the Great (edited May 20, 1999).]

[CapTVK]

I've just read through some of the suggestions for a new trading system and I already see a major flaw coming up: new micromanagement. Don't get me wrong some suggestions are good but the standard trade system in civ2 isn't so bad when it comes to micromanagement: "you sent a caravan to a city and that's it, no micromanagement whatsoever!'

Before we start replacing the old trade system maybe we should look at revamping the civ2 trade system first. Several months ago in the "suggestion for civ3 forum" I made a suggestions for an improved civ2 trade system.

My idea is keeping the caravans and trade routes but instead of just generating trade arrows these trade routes also generate shields. The number of shields supplied is affected by demand,commodities,city improvements and technology advances.

Example 1 'technology'&'city improvements' : mining coal/oil is only relatively unimportant until industralization arrives. A factory in a city with a coal resource square could receive a 10/15% production bonus.

Example 2 'commodities': A city which has no coal squares could set up a trade route with a city that has those squares, so it would receive the same bonus. We should keep in mind that cities only have 3 trade routes so that would prevent one city from setting up supply routes to all the other continents.

Example 3 'trading' : Because cities only support 3 trade routes we should have the ability to break them. My suggestion would be improving the trading screen with a map showing the routes. Once a route is broken you'll have to sent a new caravan.

Example 4 'a new role for spies': disrupting trade routes would be an excellent role for spies. A spy would have to move to a city and select 'disrupt trade route' instead of the all powerfull 'plant nuke' or 'bribe city'. The route would be out of commission for a number of turns and the city would lose the shield bonus from the trade route for those turns.

This way we keep micromanagement to a minimum and the programmers don't have to worry about an extensive trading system...

That's all for now...

[Stefu]

OK, here's my view.

The terrain system should be same as in SMAC, with one difference: warmth. Warmth doesn't affect to anything vital, but with nutrients, rockiness and altitude it decides what kind of good is the square good for producting. These goods are mostly different kinds of vegetables, livestock and minerals. For instance, you need to have warm territory to grow bananas.

Also, there are different kinds of food. Most simplistic model would include wheat, meat and fish. The thing is that citizens reproduce better if you feed them different kinds of food. These foods could be traded from one city to another to achieve the best diet for everyone. If you produce spices or fruits those help as well.

Maybe you also could get more production by combining different kinds of minerals and metals, or maybe you need them for different tasks. Granite for buildings, iron for units, gold for minting and so on.

Third category is goods or produced vegetations/minerals. These add to happiness, of course. You need to have processing plants/factories to make goods.

This would allow trade where you actually need those goods. In Civ, you didn't get anything but trade bonus for trading, for instance, coal from one city to another. Well, no you would.

[mindlace]

MERCANTILE EMPIRES/ LATER TRADE:
(and the Interaction between Diplomacy
and Trade)

First, I really like the 'automated caravans' idea of Pythagoras. 2 comments: cities that are contiguous (connected by land) and of the same civ would not have caravans. Only if they're across water or another civ would there be caravans.

MERCANTILE EMPIRES:
During this period in history, the Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch, and English were most _definitely_ involved at a government/king level with trade. I'm learning a lot about this since I'm in Portugal.
There was a royal monopoly on trade, in fact, though they subcontracted

Anyway, I think that the 'mercantile' unit should be used to set up trade relations. The mercantile unit is treated a lot like a spy, including expulsion (for those that want to stay isolationist) except that it travels over land and sea (hopefully changing icon.) (credit to whoever mentioned that before me).

This way you can also deny trade to other Civs by 'expelling' their traders from near a Civ you want to have monopoly with.

LATER TRADE:
Once a trade route is established, the diplomatic system and the automatic system takes over. The automatic system, with moving caravans/ city-city links is as Pythagoras describes.

The diplomatic aspect (as mentioned in the Diplomacy thread) does 2 important things:
1. determines what portion of trade goes directly to the government coffers (protectionism) and what goes to improving the economy (free trade)
2. allows the players (through Embargo) to suspend trade relationships established.

However, once a trade relationship is established, it _never_ needs to be re-established.

Trade routes, as P. says, can be messed with.

Possible problems: Aren't you going to have a tremendous number of trade vessels in the modern/postmodern era? Won't it clutter the screen quite a bit? Should there be a certain point where trade vehicles go away, or should individual trade vehicles just increase in value over time (to avoid the above problem)

[mindlace]

TOO MANY TRADE UNITS SOLUTION:
If reigons are implemented, after a Civ has reigons (see OTHER) trade routes only go from reigon to reigon. If you make caravans/trade units increase in value over time instead of increasing in frequency, these two things could solve the "thousands of trade units" problem.

INCREASING NAVY VALUE:
This whole thing would drastically increase the value of a strong navy, in a historically acurate manner, which is also something I like.

NEW AUTOMATED BEHAVIOR:
to continue to intermingle threads, you could have standing orders/AI hooks for naval/land units:
Escort trade convoy.
This way, the automated trade units would be automatically covered by a military force.

[Pythagoras]

Here's a good way my model would represent history. Western trading empire A conquers all the cities that have the commodity - spice. Now automatically caravans start arriving from other western trading empires that demand spice. Like I suggested before, some cities would be taking in 1 spice from their radii, and have 2 spice routes, so the $$ gotten would be doubled for the producing civ.

Maybe we could introduce the concept of monopoly, where if you control a vast majority of a commodity, you get twice its value in trade.

Also on the tons of 3d units thing, I think caravans should be either small, 2d sprites, or not have caravans, but instead the trade route is shown as a straight line showing the fastest way to get between the cities, like CTP I've heard. Once you block the line, you pirate, toll, whatever you want to. The line should be non intrusive into the terrain.

Also, I dont know if I mentioned this, different governments could have different levels of control over there trade-

Despotism/Communism - complete control, fewest $$, more $$ for commies.
Monarchy -some control, average $$
Repub - little control, above average $$
Democ - No control (free market), tons of $$

complete control, cancel any route, anywhere, anytime.
some control -cancel 1 route a turn
little control - like cancel route every 5 turns.
no control - none whatsoever.

Also, maybe we could include the black market. Black lines represent trade with people you are at war with, or trade routes that were supposed to be cancelled, for goods in demand by your citizens . . . No $$ is gained, and only military blockage can slowly decrease the amount. Another idea - likelihood of using black market - proportional to number of discontent citizens in city of demand. Maybe the civ sending black market stuff would get TONS of mula, at the risk of detrimental relations. Or maybe we could also have illegal commodities, but thats sounding too complicated. . . any feedback?

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"I think you're all f*cked in the head!"
Chevy Chase-Nat'l Lampoon's Vacation.

[Lancer]

My post regarding market forces creating a caravan and presenting the king with the need to protect it might not be practicable.People like to manage these things and the worst Civ player could set up a better route than the AI.
It seems to me that trade carrying ships should be much harder to find on oceans thousands of mile across a hunting ship that can only see to the horizon would have a tough time finding it.It took many years for the English navy of the Napoleonic era to sweep the ocean clean of foriegn transports.Ships used for this purpose were the frigates of Civ 2.The Ship of the line of CTP were the great battleships of the day that decided the fate of nations.Frigates were also the eyes of the fleet.Why each game only has 1 of these units has me wondering if I shouldn't send a few history books to a few game companies.One bit of info they tend to overlook is that most ships of the age were not sunk.Most were captured.Of these many were taken into the service of the capturer.
It seems that much needs to be done to the trade system to make this era come to life.I would suggest curtailing the sighting area to the square the ship is on and the borders of adjacent squares which would show if those squares are land or water.If your ship attempts to move onto a square containing an enemy ship you would only then see it.If this were done there would have to be added a patrol mode to Civ 3 ala Empire Deluxe so that player could set the ship to searching back and forth and not have to do it manually.
Also transports could be set to pick up and drop off goods,hopefully raw materials included.Convoys could be assigned warships in the same manner.
Whatever is done it should be a tad less obvious than chasing an elephant across the ocean as in CTP.Also the blue line that stretches across the world would scare the living hell out of any sane merchant captain with ships of prey after him.Yo guys at CTP....HELLOOOOO,anybody home?
Lancer

[JamesJKirk]

I think that the choice to have a command economy, a free-market economy, or something in between is a great idea, but when set on total free-market, the nation's economy should waver from being really strong, to really, really bad. While the command economy would not fluctuate so much, but still only be a little under moderate growth, but it still could drop, I guess the safe road would be a mixed economy,but that wouldn't offer as much growth or happiness as the two extremes. The whole thing could be set up with a slide bar. And depending on how much control of the economy is given to the government, you can control some aspects of it.

[EnochF]

Pythagoras: great! That way, in a democracy or republic, trade routes can automatically appear between you and another civilization, usually for the maximum profit.

Now, during wartime, there would be nothing to stop businessman in your country from trading with the enemy. If they are trading with the enemy, then there will be an increase in war discontent! So, your suggestions would actually encourage democracies to remain peaceful! (And it would also discourage democracies from going to war with each other...)

[yin26]

-=*BUMP*=-

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CIV3 DEVELOPMENT LIST COORDINATOR

**(un)Officially Making Lists for Firaxis Since SMAC Enhancement 3!**

[Eggman]

Regions? Commodities and Finished Goods? Naval Blockades? Wheat, Meat and Fish? Wow, there are a lot of Imperialism fans here! Though I think Imperialism is a great game myself, remember this is supposed to be Civilization 3, not Imperialism 3.

But I guess I should throw in my two cents since the Civ2 economic model needs a major overhaul:
1) Caravans in Civ2 were the worst part of the game IMHO. This whole system needs to be a whole lot more automated than moving camels around. The less I need to fool around with it, the better. CTP's system is a step in the right direction.
2) Resist the temptation to have the trade routes appear graphically on the main screen, especially if you want all those commodities available. No matter what it will be a mess. At best, you can hope for a separate "trade map".
3) A good way to simulate the desperate need for some resources is to require the civilization to have a minimum number of key resources each turn to function at top efficiency. If they don't get what they need, they suffer some sort of penalty in an appropriate area. (Example, run short of oil in the modern age and the military weakens and if you don't have enough other energy, your production drops. If they run short of uranium, they can't build nukes or nuclear power plants). What exactly they need changes with the times. Of course, some commodities just produce cash/trade arrows (spices, jade, etc.). Using this construct, to have shortages in key resources will doom a civilization in the long run, requiring war (which makes sense since most wars are about economics).
4) Trade should be nearly fully automated. Trade, even in command economies, tends to flow in an obvious direction - from those that have more than they need to those that need it the most and can pay for it. Have the computer decide who is most profitable to trade with and do it automatically. Otherwise, you will have turns go 20 minutes by 500BC just fooling around with trade.
5) However, if you want to go with this automated system, you should be able to give it some guidelines. You should be able to tell your trade advisor to not trade a commodity under any circumstances (holding back uranium would have obvious advantages in the modern world) or to hold back some of the surplus to stockpile (in case of shortages later). You should also be able to give buy commands like "get all that you can" or "get the minimum". Embargoes and Most Favored Trading Nations should also be options. Perhaps spending limits as well.
6) If you want finished goods, let them be converted AUTOMATICALLY from raw materials and immediately sold for a profit. Make the labor force be solely a function of your population and productive capacity. No micomanaging. (True, this is cool in Imp, but in Imp economics is your main focus - not so in Civ).
7) Replace the caravan concept with the trade capacity concept. The more capacity you have the more you can trade. You can make this on a city or national basis (national is easier). (OK, this IS from Imp but it is a good idea).

Hope this helps.

[Bulrathi]

Materials should be limited to critical minerals and fossil fuels, such as Iron, Bauxite (Aluminum), Coal, Oil, Lumber. Also Uranium and some future minerals.
These can be sold directly (for less money), or turned into consumer goods (for higher value, using Energy + Factory+Labor=Goods). Also military hardware should require access to Oil, (Steel ???) etc..

[Pythagoras]

I suggest the commoditties stay the same as in Civ II, just implement them differently.

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"I think you're all f*cked in the head!"
Chevy Chase-Nat'l Lampoon's Vacation.

[NotLikeTea]

I heard something interesting on the radio today.

Of the top 100 economies in the world today, 49 of them are countries, and 51 of them are corporations. Walmart has a larger economy that Holland. Mitsubishi is the 21st largest economy in the world (1-20 are countries). Ford is bigger than Saudi Arabia.

How could this ever be modelled? Similarly, what about the increasing globalization of economies, with the decreasing powers of nations? It's a major factor in history today, but very hard for a game...

[Pythagoras]

Here's a good discussion question - in relation to past trade/economic schemes which of the following (or make your own hybrid) is best? What could/should(not) we take from each to improve Civ's trade/economic model?
-SMAC
-CTP
-MOO II
-RR Tycoon II
-Colonization
-Civ II
-Imperialism
plus any other Civ-type games you can think of.

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"I think you're all f*cked in the head!"
Chevy Chase-Nat'l Lampoon's Vacation.