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

[Pythagoras]

Here's an idea - with that autopathing-trade route idea(or any trade route). How bout this to tag onto it, after a while a road begins to appear between the 2 cities, later on in the modern age a railroad. Also perhaps shipping lanes in oceans could be created, where the ships are more safe and have a decreased chance of falling victim to random events.

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

[delcuze2]

I am willing to bet that most of us would agree that the CIV II trade model has GOT TO BE AT A VERY MINIMUM REVAMPED! If we get nothing else to Firaxis of out of this thread, I pray to the gaming gods that this one thing is changed.

IMHO anything would be better than moving individual caravans all the way across a 150 square (huge) map!

[delcuze2]

Has anyone here ever played the board game called Civilization from Avalon Hill?

I personally always enjoyed the personal interaction, dirty dealing, and diplomatic negotiations that went on at the end of every turn to maximize your civilization trade.

It is not readily apparent how such a player interaction system would work in Civ III, but I like the general ideas of

1) Having Trade tied to both diplomacy and economics.

2) Using Trade as a means of regular and meaningful player interaction.



[This message has been edited by delcuze2 (edited May 26, 1999).]

How about a happy medium between civ-like caravans and SMAC-like automatic trade? One aspect of this is covered in my movement proposal (see <A HREF="http://apolyton.net/forums/Forum6/HTML/000520.html">MOVEMENT (1.0)</A> and <A HREF="http://apolyton.net/forums/Forum6/HTML/000434.html">Movement Rules</A>).

Trade contacts are initially established with caravans/freights, but after the first is established have some way of using that route as a "springboard" for trade routes from other cities in your civ and/or to other cities in the other civ.

[Harel]

Let's start by saying that civ II model is totaly un-useful. It might be right along history, but it depressing. Many novice players tend to leave inner-nation trade alltoghter beacause of this.
Here it what i suggest:
A city would have a potenial trade route with every friendly city in the world. The potential level is measure by the current city size, the other city size, distance and affilation. Bigger distances would mean more income, and if the city belongs to another empire, thats another bonus alltoghter.
You build A basical unit, a caravan, merchent, trader, whatever.
You build them it stocks, you don't assign them anywhere. You can't even see them. Think as in moo2 frieghters. They are just numbers. It will then compute the most profitable city, divided by time-to-destination. Future techs would increase those speeds ( once planes are discovered, for example, they would be much faster ). The distance is a straight line ( no path-finding ), even over seas ( using your best sea speed tech ).
For example, a trade between two cities can generated 20 units of goods. Every good is worth 4 gold. ATA is 8 turns. The caravan can carry up to 10 goods, so a full run is worth: 10*4=40, generated every 8 turns to a computed worth of 5.
Big cities can support a trade of several caravans.
This would keep it technologicaly accaurte, and still useful and easy enough to use ( all automatic, just build them ) so trade would be a common thing.

[NotLikeTea]

I've always hated the CivII caravans, and never used them for anything but building wonders.

So, of course, I like the idea of caravanless trade. But since this proposal features invisible caravans, why build them at cities at all?

Why not just allocate global resources at the government screen (under economics, or something) to trade. More resource, more trade, without having to build imaginary concepts in very concrete cities.

[Pythagoras]

I have played "Age of Rennaisance" which is supposed to be a sequel or something . . . It makes me think of monopoly, where the more lands with a certain commodity you control, the more $$ you get as a whole.

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

Ecce Homo posted an idea in the Radical Ideas thread and I thought I'd bring it here for possible discussion: Corporations as Civ Players (controlled by the AI or possibly human players). Personnally, I think the idea sounds interesting.

One problem I do have with the CivII and SMAC economies is that they were seller-driven. One possibility of including buying is by giving certain benefits to the commodities. For examples, Wood could speed up city improvement production, Metals could speed up military unit production, Horses could speed up cavalry production, Spices produce additional luxuries.

[Harel]

Pythagoras, you have to build them in cities could they give the bonus to that city alone! If the city which is traded with wants to earn also, she needs to build caravan also.
I belive that my system is the best, cause you need no unit movement, or pathfinding, both things are resource consuming...
And we need an easy to make, powerful trade, with hundreds of caravan in your empire... can have that with all of them moving and path fiding...

But my post is not about that, it's about BUDGETS.
Why not have a real budget in civ III? For example, let's take hospitel. Each one, takes lets say 2 gold per turn? Why not have an advanced budget section, when you have "Health care". Here you allocate a budget that is shared between ALL hospitels in the empire. The more money is per hospitel, the more useful it will be. The more useful is will be, the happier people will be and will live longer.
Same thing with schools ( "Education" section ), that will decide how much +% to research it gives, army which decided how useful the units will be ( a minus if support per-unit is below standard, a plus if above, etc ).
You can even have the council fight for different increase in sections.
In the realigon section, someone said that the popes ( or other big-shots ) of the religon would be like civ's inside your civ, you will need to debate with them.
Let's show up how terrible are the democartical struggle for budgeting in civ III. Each party would demand something else... This could be fun...

[yin26]

-=*MOVING THE THREAD UP*=-

[EnochF]

Harel: Cool idea! Definitely post this in the Radical Ideas thread.

I've been thinking about a complete change of strategy in late-game Civ. In higher government forms, the city-by-city approach to empire management is done away with in favor of a new, "national" system of government. Your idea would fit in perfectly! You'd have a national budget which can be siphoned off into the military, education, social programs, health care, scientific research, national projects, wonders, taxes, national "reserve" funds for rushing production or bribing the enemy, government bonds or even invest government funds in the stock market.

Cities would still produce military units, city improvements and wonders as per usual, but instead of receiving a single message for each city telling you what it built (in the late game this could be almost twenty messages in a turn), you'd talk with your government advisors at the end of the turn, and they would tell you (if you want to know) what has been built, how much this will cost, or how much extra income has been generated, etc.

[Flavor Dave]

I see a consensus that we don't like the time it takes for ancient trade. I have two thoughts.

1. A new WOW that would enhance the movement of caravans in some way. There was a great market in Ancient Africa (Timbuktu? Mali?), and you could kill two birds with one stone by adding a non-science, non-happy wonder, and adding a non-white WOW. Either caravans have 10 MPs, or can travel over water without ships, something.

2. Give explorers a new function--create trading post. It would be kind of like a combination of the airbase and a settler becoming a city. The explorer converts into a unit with a1, d3, and the trading post is a fortress. You give it a name. NOTE: you have to build it on plains or grasslands.

Anyway, you can automatically move any caravan to a trading post, as long as it is within X squares (think paradrop). You could set up a couple of them in order to get caravans from your land to China in two-three turns. Also, you can put one other military unit in the trading post. (An offensive unit to ward off sieges).

I like this change b/c it would give you reason to build explorers, is realistic, and enhances strategic options (namely, building military for the purpose of defending trade routes, rather than conquest.)

The trading post becomes obsolete with railroad, or automobile. It simply disappears, and the other military unit is "magically" teleported back home.

I like the idea of giving spies the option of destroying a trade route. Think about a big AI city with all the fixin's, losing a 10 arrow trade route. Multiply that by 1.5 a couple of times. WOW!!

I also like the idea of a relationship between trade and diplomacy. The number of trade arrows with a civ. should affect their attitude toward you, and also how much of a diplomatic penalty you get. Anything that moves us away from military conquest as a key to winning at Civ is cool.

<font size=1 color=444444>[This message has been edited by Flavor Dave (edited June 04, 1999).]</font>

[Flavor Dave]

I was told this idea should go here:

In another place and time, I made the following suggestion--there will be 3 kinds of shields. Fuel, building material, and exotics. Each square is given a value, totaling 3 points. 1-1-1 means an equal portion of each shield is fuel, building materials, and exotics. This would be equal over the whole board, but there would be concentrations in different areas--one area might be heavy in building materials, or weak in fuels.

Anyway, you would have a building advisor, who would keep track of this for your empire as a whole. Let's say your empire produced 100 shields as a whole. As long as each of the 3 elements was at least 25 (1/4), you're OK. But if you are 20-25-55, then you lose the last 20 shields of exotics (to get your lowest to 1/4 the total), and lose them in
each city in proportion to the shields produced (20 of 100 is one of every 5, so every city producing at least 5 loses one, if 10, loses 2, etc., until you've lost 20 shields).

I think this would add an element of strategy to the game, and also enhance the value of explorers. If you find your home are is weak in a certain element, you need to think about tradeoffs--conquer your pesky neighbor, or that other, nice, neighbor, who just happens to be sitting on a bunch fuel.

The random element should be similar to the terrain, where some areas have alot of mountains, but no huge mountain ranges. There shouldn't be large areas that have a huge abundance or lack of one shield type or another. That would make the luck of your starting position too important. OTOH, there should be some concentrated areas of each, for strategy's sake.

It might be simpler to triple everything--cost
in shields, and the yield too.

[croxis]

A few things....
1) Remember, don't make the learning curve too steep.
2) I like BOTH CivII and SMAC's trading systems. Automatic trade (SMAC) can
represent privet trade from privet corporations (This would be non-existent under
communistic government). The caravan system, with the initial cash, trade arrows, from
the CivII system, while adding a few extra shields to city production, will represent
government sanction trade.
3) CivIII should be a game of changing history, not following it.

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"A human imprisons one of us? Intolerable!"
-Ulkesh

[Pythagoras]

Just so you know I wont be here the next few days (be back Sunday), so Yin I guess just let the topic pass the critical mass if it does, when I get back I will summarize, make a new thread.

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

[Diodorus Sicilus]

What we need is to avoid the utterly abstracted system of SMAC, and avoid micromanagement of every camel in the caravan at the other extreme. At the same time, I'd like Trade to be much more important for bringing wealth into the civilization, because right now it is impossible in any of the games to reproduce the kind of SSSS heavy mercantile empire that Portugal, Holland, or Britain had at various points in history.
Suggestion: instead of building caravans, build the infrastructure to support them in the city that wants to trade. In other words, you either have or need a resource (type would change depending on your Technology Level - no petroleum required in Ancient times, Tin for Bronze-Working less important to Modern) or you have one to trade. You build a Caravanserai (ancient) or Warehouse(Medieval) or Depot (Modern) For your Trade Routes. The number of routes handled by each such Improvement should be fixed, possibly at the current 3 - 4 in CivII/CtP for the entire city. A big trading city would have multiple Depots/Warehouses.
When a Trade Route is proposed/established, the length depends on the Tech Level. To extend the length, it can be traced when it is set up through Way Points. Way Points are intermediate Caravanserai, Warehouses, etc. In other words, cities with Warehouses along the route will also get a % income from the Trade. If the Route goes from land to sea or vice versa, a Way Point is Required: Trading seaports should make out like bandits.
Some cities could make the big bucks without originating any trade themselves: historically, places like Constantinople, Nurnberg, Amsterdam, and London made as much or more from goods passing through as they did from their own manufactures, because they were at places where stuff had to be transfered from land/river to sea or river to river (Nurnberg).
This system would allow much more income to be generated from Trade throughout your civ from a single route, which comes closer to recreating the historical impact of Trade. It would also provide for more realistic Trade Routes, since the required positioning of Way Points could be defined pretty tightly in historical terms. It also requires virtually no management once the route is set up, until Technological Advances allow you to 'tweak' the Way Points: modern sea Transport, for instance, might make any intermediate seaports unnecessary for sea trade, and airports would allow direct trade in non-bulk goods from city to city. Railroads, on the other hand, would allow Bulk Goods to be traded over land routes for the first time for virtually any distance that the railroad runs.
You could also be allowed to change the trade destination. For instance, if one of the Way Points turned out to be a better trading partner (more lucrative market) than the original destination, you could simply cut off the rest of the route.
Trace the route on the map with a much less obstrusive line than the CtP Big Blue Road: maybe a faint blue/gray line for sea/land with a ship or camel/wagon icon moving along it. There could even be a little Bill of Lading under the icon giving the cargo: much better than having a crab sailing from city to city!
I, for one, would really like to have a strategically-placed seaport with a dozen routes converging on it filled with ships and wagons bringing trade goodies to the Depots!

[Flavor Dave]

Diodorus--I think you're onto something, a new city improvement that enhances trade routes.

Are you saying that these structures automatically set up the trade? If so, as far as I can tell, the only difference from the present system is that you'll never lose a caravan along the way, and the caravan will "instantly" arrive. I don't like that idea. Caravans should have to travel, esp. in ancient times.

How about this--have this structure be like a barracks for the caravan. Gives them greater MPs, or greater income, or allows 6 rather than 3 routes. Something.

This would tie in for my idea for a new WOW. The WOW could count as a warehouse in every city.

[Flavor Dave]

Diodorus--I think you're onto something, a new city improvement that enhances trade routes.

Are you saying that these structures automatically set up the trade? If so, as far as I can tell, the only difference from the present system is that you'll never lose a caravan along the way, and the caravan will "instantly" arrive. I don't like that idea. Caravans should have to travel, esp. in ancient times.

How about this--have this structure be like a barracks for the caravan. Gives them greater MPs, or greater income, or allows 6 rather than 3 routes. Something.

This would tie in for my idea for a new WOW. The WOW could count as a warehouse in every city.

[Diodorus Sicilus]

What I'm proposing is to change the emphasis from micromanaging caravans to managing the infrastructure that supports Trade. The Warehouse/Depot would be required to start a Trade Route. What kind of route and with whom would be a Diplomatic Option, as follows:
You contact another Civ (or possibly, a 'friendly' Barbarian). He agrees to talk. Your unit -of any kind- can propose stuff you've got to Trade (based on the Terrain and Terrain Icons you're exploiting, Tech Level, Advances, etc) and he gives you a list of their Trade items. You spot a match (obviously, looking for one where the excess money involved comes to you rather than him). Best of all (for you) would be something you have that he needs Very Badly: Tin to make Bronze was a very early example: you could charge pretty much whatever you wanted to for the stuff if the other guy had no other source.
Having found a potential Trade, you have to build a Caravanserai/Warehouse in the city from which the trade will originate, AND in each Way Point to the destination: you have to establish the infrastructure for the Trade, rather than simply perambulate a camel over the map.
The Way Point requirements would also vary with Tech level and Improvements: Railroads between the two ends of the Trade Route allow a Direct Trade between them, as do modern seaports and container ships: you can ship directly all around the world. Earlier, there would be limits on how far you can haul goods before it's no longer profitable: you might get enough for the tin to haul it clear across Europe (and they did) while your wine, no mater how good, can't make a profit over more than half the distance.
In general, Trade Routes over water or down rivers could be traced much farther between Way Points: that's historical. Over land bulk goods simply can't be shipped: Timber, Food (basic grains or cereals), Unprocessed Ores simply weren't international trade goods unless you could ship them by Bulk Carier: a boat. Railroad changes that, and Good Roads would extend distances between Way Points on land - Roman cities traded long distances within the Empire.
Caravans/Trade would still be lost, but it would be when the Trade Route was interrupted or the Way Point destroyed: pesky barbarian invasions, pirates, etc. One other Diplomatic Option this would add to the game is the Trade Protection Treaty: in exchange for a percentage of the Trade Profit, the barbarian chief/other Civ along the route agrees to not only not raid the Trade, but protect it against other raiders - another historical occurance along the Central Asia (China silk) routes.

[Daniel Bistman]

I absolutely agree with Diodorus Silicus.
A bigger infraestructure in your city permits more units to trade.
I dont agree with Flavor Dave: the caravans that moves add a LOT of micromanagement, why? because you not just need to "send them", also you have to see the needs of every city, when you have a hundred cities, you see the needs of one city and you "don't remember" if a caravan is incoming. Also, what's the difference between a caravan with ten units of food that arrives in ten turn, and an unit of food automaticly coming every turn?
PILLAGE: I think that pillage can be done if one enemy unit places in the "line" of trade, that blocks supplies. In case of sea "lines of trade", a fleet in the zone cause a percentage of sucess every turn (depends).

I think that trade lines must be possible with NAVIGATION/TRADE, but the improvements must have a low capacity, with INDUSTRIALIZATION/RAILROAD there's a boom on transports.

[Daniel Bistman]

Production:
I think production must be resumed on FOOD and RAW MATERIALS (instead of shield)

Also, production should not come from shields but from the workforce.
Also, population should not grow with "food deposits full" but with birth.
In this way, and with a good fluid commerce between cities, we can have bigger cities with more production (as in reality)

What do you think?

[Daniel Bistman]

NO! raw materials should not be divided on different types, if will include a lot of senseless complexity.
If raw materials are divided in types (petrol, wood, steel, iron, textiles) we will spend the most of our time trying to optimize production. The guys ho played Imperialism understand that, in Imperialism is fabulous, but you cannot manage a hundred cities in that way.

[Eggman]

Daniel, a way to get around that is to have a certain number of "key" materials that your civ needs on an empire level. The materials would be stuff like copper, iron, uranium, oil, rubber, etc. and what you need and how much of it can vary depending on the timeframe. Your entire empire would need X units of each material a turn. If your empire can't produce the materials on its own, it needs to trade for them or, worse case, perhaps buy them at outrageous prices from the "black market". If the civ cannot get the minimum supply it needs, it takes penalties civilization wide (production and military comes to mind) and/or cannot build certain units and structures. Of course, if you have a surplus, the materials are worth big money to trade.

With just two or three materials per era, this could do a good job of simulating the need for vital materials. If you can't get them (see Japan after the US cut off its oil supply in WWII) you are going to fall behind which forces war. It also allows a civ to capture and/or cut off key materials and devastate a civ economically. Run out of oil - production drops by 50% - OUCH! Stockpiling in case of war is a good idea too. Plus, the demand for those key materials would grow as the civilization gets bigger (more cities) so you would need to make sure that you can secure those resources to expand (death to ICS!).

In addition, you keep the standard group of trade goods which are used solely for money. Stuff like wine, gems, silk, etc. would just be traded (like normal) for cash money. Preferrably in a more automated way (like CTP).

Of course, key to all this is that the key materials don't show up on the map until they are demanded. Hence, no cities setup next to uranium deposits in the Bronze Age thinking several thousand years ahead...

On a somewhat unrelated topic, I think that those material squares should come in "normal" and "rich" (and maybe "very rich") varieties. Yeah, that hill might have grapes (wine) but it also might be the best grapes in whole darn world (lots of wine). You may have gold or the mother load of gold in that mountain. This allows for more trade without cluttering the whole map with special squares (like Imperialism).

[Pythagoras]

NO MORE POSTS!! CLOSE THREAD PLEASE!
I will have a summary thread up shortly, and am proceding to create a v1.1 thread (its'about time!)

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