Author Topic: Wealth Generation  (Read 13198 times)

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Offline SerBeardian

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Re: Wealth Generation
« Reply #45 on: January 29, 2019, 04:47:57 AM »
I came up with this idea this morning but haven't had a chance to post it here until now.

Basically, the problem that we seem to be having is that ultimately, wealth comes from populations directly, and this is difficult to balance since there's not *really* much there to say whether the population itself is rich or poor or what. So, what if we tie wealth production from populations directly into a system that's already integrated with civilian shipping: trade goods.

This is how I see it:

Each planet has three sectors: Agriculture, Service, and Industry. More sectors are an option, but let's stick with just the three we already have.

As the Supreme Overlord, you draw employees from the pool of Industry, and the rest are employed in civilian workforce. (though you could potentially draw employees from any sector, depending on the building type)

Now, the ratio of Agri/Service/Industry (ASI) for each planet would depend on a few factors such as terrain (more arable farmland = more A), environment (no atmosphere= almost no A), but also on nearby economic factors such as the presence or absence of CMCs, other colony types in system, etc depending on how complex you want to go.

Government buildings could swing people towards ASI based on what they are as well: Lots of mines and factories on the planet? Why not work in the industrial sector for that sweet government paycheck?

Each pop individually would generate almost zero wealth. Tiny, teensy, miniscule wealth. I'm thinking like, 0.1 wealth per million. This represents taxes and income from things like land taxes, property taxes, etc.


Ok, so now we have the people doing things, how do we make money off that?


By having each pop in each sector produce certain trade goods based on that sector, modified by other factors.

Agri sector would produce agricultural trade goods, like food, fibers, lumber, etc.

Service sector would produce lux goods or "services".

Indu sector would produce various minerals and ores and heavy equipment.

Each sector would also CONSUME different amounts of each good per pop:

Agri consumes heavy machinery, as does Industrial, while both consume large amounts of services.


Basically, each sector produces goods that feed the others. And each point of demand fulfilled generates wealth for you to represent the taxes on that transaction. Drawing a huge amount of that population into government jobs of course reduces the output of your industrial sector, while not decreasing their demands (much, certain goods would remain - like food, others should decrease - like heavy industry.)


Steve has mentioned that he wants player choice to matter, which this fulfils since these would be *naturally generated*, versus the "pick 2-3 to make a surplus, deficiency the rest" that VB6 has. The player choices as to what buildings are put on that planet and others nearby, what the terrain is like, what the atmosphere is like, etc. all matter by influencing what goods and how much of each is produced. Even the choice of settling a planet you would otherwise ignore because it has the potential to produce trade goods you might be lacking.


Now, we also want to make civilian shipping important, so this system fits this perfectly.


Since no two planets would produce identical quantities or ratios of goods, there would inherently be deficiencies and surpluses. Civilian shipping would then take these surpluses and deliver them to where they can be consumed to generate more wealth. You don't need to tax the civ ships directly (though, of course, you would :P) because they would inherently generate more wealth for you by filling these demands.

To simulate the technological development of a colony, simply have a modifier tied to the planet and/or empire that modifies the supply/demand of each good on that planet, which would directly impact the wealth potential of the empire/colony without doing anything to the population itself.


This system is also friendly to how wealth would flow between two different empires:
Give each trade good a value. Whenever a Line delivers goods, they are paid from the coffers of the empire that owns the planet (dependent on, but separate from the wealth generated by the fulfillment itself). They then pay a portion of that payment to the empire that they belong to as taxes, and a portion to the empire that owns the colony as tariffs. For example sake, let's say 33% taxes and 33% tariffs. When it's within your own empire, you get 66% of the trade value as wealth as you own both the line and the tariff. If an alien transport delivers goods, you get 33% of the value as tariff, while they get 33% as the taxes. The shipping line gets 33% either way for their own use as revenue.


There is also a lot of potential for much more complex and in-depth systems to be included, or even added on later down the road.

Two additional factors that I call Trade Good Feedback.
The first would be to have the surplus/deficiency of a trade good affect the pressure on ASI ratios eg. too much food pushes people out of farming as opportunities for earnings drop.
The second is to have a deficiency of trade goods affect the productivity of sectors or even your economy eg. lack of food slows/stops/reverses population growth, while increasing the wealth earned from food delivered to that planet; certain goods could also affect morale.
I would not expect either of these, but the option is there and it should not be too much more difficult on top of the base system.

There is also an opportunity to have the oversupply/undersupply also affect the value of that trade good when delivered to that planet by increasing payment for goods in high demand.

Having the ability to manually set your races taxes and tariffs would open the potential to speed/slow Line growth, as well as to attract/repel external shipping, giving the opportunity for a trade war with your opponents or forging friendships through trade alliances with your allies. It would also give more impact on racial traits like xenophobia to have these affect the tariff rate.


I know it'd be a lot of work for Steve to do something like this system, but this has everything everyone seems to be asking for: it more closely resembles a real economy, it naturally generates wealth depending on the size and development of the colony, it has variations of colonies semi-independent of player action (influenced by, but not entirely controlled by), it involves civ shipping intimately, and it requires long-term and short-term choices from the players without requiring insane levels of micro (while also allowing as much micro as you want through installation balance). It also has options to expand upon the base system in interesting and complex ways (freaking TRADE WARS!).

I don't expect such a system, and obviously it would need to be fleshed out a lot more, and I know it could cause even more delays if Steve has to rebuild the entire economic system to implement this... but it would be so freaking sweet to have.
 

Offline Steve Walmsley (OP)

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Re: Wealth Generation
« Reply #46 on: January 29, 2019, 06:02:38 AM »
Just to re-iterate, the goal is not to create a realistic economy model. It is to create a situation where a nation with a high population but comparatively small industrial base does not quickly accumulate massive wealth, or (even with a cap) simply generate so much wealth compared to industry that wealth is irrelevant to decision-making. In other words, for a multi-race Earth start, the United States and India should both be faced with decisions regarding wealth, even when the US has greater industry and India has much greater population. If the wealth-generation method doesn't meet that goal, then I won't be able to use it.

Under the model I suggested (with tweaking after test), this should be the case. The industrial workers provide a source of income through tax and it is assumed that service and agricultural effectively pay for themselves (greater service sector means greater welfare, health, education, etc.). Conventional factory workers would produce less wealth, probably 1/3rd normal, while financial centre workers would generate 3x normal to represent the government investment in wealth generation.

There would need to be balance between those industries who are moderate net wealth consumers (construction, research), those which are heavy net wealth consumers (shipbuilding, ground construction, maintenance), those which are moderate net wealth providers (mines, refineries) and those which are heavy net wealth providers (financial centres). Manufacturing efficiency would apply to income (so building more industry than workers doesn't help). Civilian mining and shipping would also be wealth providers and I would increase the amount of wealth generated by the latter source to add benefit to new colonies (more and larger colonies means greater trading opportunities). I could also look at having planets of certain types provide particularly valuable rare (new) trade goods that would boost wealth.

Finally, there is no industry shutdown option (so far) in C# Aurora and I am inclined to leave it that way, so making good use of available workers will be important.
 

Offline Graham

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Re: Wealth Generation
« Reply #47 on: January 29, 2019, 07:17:56 AM »
I think it might be worth examining what you want wealth as a mechanic to achieve in terms of game play.

As you have said, it's current function is to limit the amount of activity a nation can do, forcing them to choose between prioritising different areas of their nation, and requiring investment to increase this capacity.

The problem I see is that there is already another mechanic in game that has almost the exact same purpose and effect, minerals. As such if you want these two mechanics to operate in parallel it's important to ensure that they are generated from significantly different sources, so as not to feel superfluous. In the proposed system however, the primary wealth generation mechanism is mines and Financial centres. Mines are the exact same production building as for minerals, and financial centres have very little mechanical game play behind them. As such wealth may end up feeling like it has no real purpose.

Obviously as trade good movements begin to make up a larger portion of income this problem will be negated to some degree but I think it's still worth considering.

I am not trying to be overly negative or patronising, so sorry if my post comes off that way. I just thought it might be useful to have an outside opinion on things. At the end of the day i will be happy with whatever we are given when C# is released, so thank you again for your work.
 

Offline sloanjh

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Re: Wealth Generation
« Reply #48 on: January 29, 2019, 07:32:55 AM »
Finally, there is no industry shutdown option (so far) in C# Aurora and I am inclined to leave it that way, so making good use of available workers will be important.

I'm a little confused by this: what can I do as a player besides building financial centers (or mines, with less effect) if I'm running a deficit?  If I can't stop production of e.g. research, how do I implement my choice to focus on e.g. construction in such a situation? 

John
 

Offline Steve Walmsley (OP)

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Re: Wealth Generation
« Reply #49 on: January 29, 2019, 07:35:58 AM »
Finally, there is no industry shutdown option (so far) in C# Aurora and I am inclined to leave it that way, so making good use of available workers will be important.

I'm a little confused by this: what can I do as a player besides building financial centers (or mines, with less effect) if I'm running a deficit?  If I can't stop production of e.g. research, how do I implement my choice to focus on e.g. construction in such a situation? 

John

You can stop research projects to save money. You can't shutdown research labs so they no longer need workers.
 

Offline Steve Walmsley (OP)

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Re: Wealth Generation
« Reply #50 on: January 29, 2019, 07:36:31 AM »
I think it might be worth examining what you want wealth as a mechanic to achieve in terms of game play.

As you have said, it's current function is to limit the amount of activity a nation can do, forcing them to choose between prioritising different areas of their nation, and requiring investment to increase this capacity.

The problem I see is that there is already another mechanic in game that has almost the exact same purpose and effect, minerals. As such if you want these two mechanics to operate in parallel it's important to ensure that they are generated from significantly different sources, so as not to feel superfluous. In the proposed system however, the primary wealth generation mechanism is mines and Financial centres. Mines are the exact same production building as for minerals, and financial centres have very little mechanical game play behind them. As such wealth may end up feeling like it has no real purpose.

Obviously as trade good movements begin to make up a larger portion of income this problem will be negated to some degree but I think it's still worth considering.

I am not trying to be overly negative or patronising, so sorry if my post comes off that way. I just thought it might be useful to have an outside opinion on things. At the end of the day i will be happy with whatever we are given when C# is released, so thank you again for your work.

The difference is that mine workers produce a fixed amount of wealth while mines themselves provides very different amounts of minerals depending on the situation. Two nations with the same number of mines and the same wealth situation would be in very different positions in terms of mineral supplies.

Also, you will very likely need financial centres or trade (or some very good governors). The taxes from 'normal' workers will not be enough for normal production.
 

Offline Bughunter

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Re: Wealth Generation
« Reply #51 on: January 29, 2019, 07:47:09 AM »
Finally, there is no industry shutdown option (so far) in C# Aurora and I am inclined to leave it that way, so making good use of available workers will be important.

Could lead to people "shutting down" factories by dumping them on the moon for a while until needed again.
 

Offline Steve Walmsley (OP)

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Re: Wealth Generation
« Reply #52 on: January 29, 2019, 08:01:32 AM »
Finally, there is no industry shutdown option (so far) in C# Aurora and I am inclined to leave it that way, so making good use of available workers will be important.

Could lead to people "shutting down" factories by dumping them on the moon for a while until needed again.

It could do, although players can do that in VB6 too. Dumping is far less convenient and it would tie up freight capacity to do it. Players could also temporarily remove the factories in SM mode as well.

In Aurora it is easy to get around the 'spirit' of the rules when desired. It is up to individual players if they want to go down that route.
 

Offline Iceranger

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Re: Wealth Generation
« Reply #53 on: January 29, 2019, 10:34:19 AM »
It looks to me that the new wealth model looks more like power than economy, depending on how much 'wealth' we can get from taxes on civs, which is largely out of player's control.

Based on current numbers:
Financial centers: power generator, generates 3x power per million workers
Refineries, mines: small power generator, generates 0.5x power per million workers

Factories, labs: small power consumers, consumes 0.5x power per million workers
Military stuff: large power consumers, consumes (7/8)x (?) power per million workers

To balance your book (without considering civ income, assuming the same worker requirement as in VB6):
1 financial center can support 6 factories, 1 mine can support 1 factories
(10/3) financial centers are needed to support 1 lab
about 26 financial centers are needed to support one 18kt military shipyard (based on the new shipyard worker model)

We may as well rename wealth to power, and then we can have more ways of generating it, rather than only have the choice of building financial centers or cancelling industry jobs.
 

Offline Sleepymoon

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Re: Wealth Generation
« Reply #54 on: January 29, 2019, 03:28:45 PM »
I'd like to submit an idea; not all conventional industry is created equally.
If we take US industry as a baseline and compare it to a country like China which has about 5 times the industrial manpower but only produces 50% more than the US. (These aren't exact numbers.)
In this case, each Chinese CI only produces 30% of what each US CI produces so the Chinese would have a racial modifier of .3 applied to CI.
In addition, it may take more effort to convert inefficient Chinese industry to TN industry.
I think this would go a long way to resolving early game imbalances between highly developed nations with low population and less developed nations with high population.

Another idea is to add a wealth multiplier based on the average productivity of their industrial base.
It would go something like; (the number of CI*3*racial modifier + the number of TN industry*10)/(the number of CI + TN industry).
TN industry would be Construction Factories, Fighter Factories, Fuel Refineries, Mines, Ordinance Factories, and possibly Automated Mines. Other TN facilities may also count but I'm not sure how many Construction factories a shipyard should be worth.
This can be abstracted to non-government industry so that colonies can produce wealth without government intervention (insert rant about socialism.)
 

Offline alex_brunius

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Re: Wealth Generation
« Reply #55 on: January 29, 2019, 06:31:31 PM »
Could lead to people "shutting down" factories by dumping them on the moon for a while until needed again.

If not using labs for research means they don't consume wealth wouldn't leaving factories unused also not consume wealth? In that case you can just shut down as many as you want by not giving them construction projects, and the same with shipyards.
 

Offline MarcAFK

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Re: Wealth Generation
« Reply #56 on: January 29, 2019, 11:43:35 PM »
I should hope so. Thats how I deal with mineral shortages so I suppose it should help for wealth.
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Offline Whitecold

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Re: Wealth Generation
« Reply #57 on: January 30, 2019, 12:23:27 AM »
Honestly the new proposal doesn't feel very neat. There seems to be too much overlap with mines already producing minerals, and it is not clear to me what wealth should represent.
Why do financial centers help with ship construction or research anyway?

A radical suggestion would be to make wealth not storable at all, but instead working as a cap on all activities of an empire, representing the amount of resources that can be diverted.
 

Offline chrislocke2000

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Re: Wealth Generation
« Reply #58 on: January 30, 2019, 02:30:27 AM »
I think the proposed changes look pretty good although will need some decent play testing through different phases of the game.

Re mines, I think in the majority of my games I end up with nearly all of my mines converted to automated facilities in time due to my consistent bad luck in finding habitable planets with decent minerals so in this case I'm assuming you end up with no wealth contribution from the automated mines given the lack of people there.

Having more levers to improve wealth like a research tree on the output of financial centres would be good.

I'd like to understand how war reparations are going to work in the context of a wealth cap, at the moment I see getting the cash from another empire once you have grabbed their home world as being a very valid and clear driver to invade as a opposed to nuking them. That's going to be less interesting if I'm sat near the wealth cap and can expect most of the extra funds to just disappear.
 

Offline Steve Walmsley (OP)

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Re: Wealth Generation
« Reply #59 on: January 30, 2019, 04:39:10 AM »
I think the proposed changes look pretty good although will need some decent play testing through different phases of the game.

Re mines, I think in the majority of my games I end up with nearly all of my mines converted to automated facilities in time due to my consistent bad luck in finding habitable planets with decent minerals so in this case I'm assuming you end up with no wealth contribution from the automated mines given the lack of people there.

Having more levers to improve wealth like a research tree on the output of financial centres would be good.

I'd like to understand how war reparations are going to work in the context of a wealth cap, at the moment I see getting the cash from another empire once you have grabbed their home world as being a very valid and clear driver to invade as a opposed to nuking them. That's going to be less interesting if I'm sat near the wealth cap and can expect most of the extra funds to just disappear.

If I made these changes, I would remove the wealth cap. The wealth cap was a band-aid on the excess wealth problem whereas this proposal is intended to fix the root cause.