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Posted by: Jorgen_CAB
« on: February 02, 2019, 10:02:16 AM »

To be honest I don't see the reason why population itself should generate wealth at all.

A lot of government income (real world) comes from the taxes paid by the population. When wages rise, do does tax income. Tech industries tend to pay more so countries with a lot of industry tend to have more income than countries with mainly agricultural economies. In any event, the new rules are not intended to reflect reality, but are intended to simulate that more industrialised economies tend to have more wealth (to avoid the India problem and the conventional start problem). I'll see how the rules function during play test and then adjust if required.

I agree with that but I don't really view wealth as money as it is an abstraction of common resources and distribution of them.

Population really don't produce those resources as much as they consume them in general. Industry provide them and people consume them.

What I mean is that if people would disregard their personal consumption of resources and give them to the state the state would get more resources, taxes do represent that in a way. But from a game perspective the population are more a drain on the resources and demand their fair share of the wealth.

What I tried to explain is that you have a certain wealth "income" and part of it needs to be distributed to the population other need to be distributed to the industry to keep it going along with the TN materials.

In this context financial centers are more common resource (both practical and theoretical resources) and logistical functions that make sure these resources exist for society to function properly thus producing the base at which Wealth and prosperity can exist in the first place.

So in a nutshell the Financial centers are the Software Companies, Mining consortiums, Factories, Movie Makers etc.. everything that actually produce Wealth. You then need to make sure your Worker population get their fair share of the Wealth and then funnel some of the resources such as providing Architects, Engineers, Common materiel resources, Tools & Machinery etc that the state need to support their endeavors.

The Wealth the people consume are the things we all consume every day, from food to electronics, entertainment etc...

This is my take on how I view Wealth actually working in the game as an abstraction. To me it has nothing to do with money... money is only a facilitator of economy and has no worth in and of itself while Wealth does.
Posted by: Steve Walmsley
« on: February 02, 2019, 09:19:31 AM »

To be honest I don't see the reason why population itself should generate wealth at all.

A lot of government income (real world) comes from the taxes paid by the population. When wages rise, do does tax income. Tech industries tend to pay more so countries with a lot of industry tend to have more income than countries with mainly agricultural economies. In any event, the new rules are not intended to reflect reality, but are intended to simulate that more industrialised economies tend to have more wealth (to avoid the India problem and the conventional start problem). I'll see how the rules function during play test and then adjust if required.
Posted by: Jorgen_CAB
« on: February 01, 2019, 09:22:22 PM »

To be honest I don't see the reason why population itself should generate wealth at all, I would let certain production types generate a modest amount of wealth such as factories could generate some wealth as well as production. But most facilities should basically be net loss.

Wealth should then come from Financial Centers, Civilian trade and Civilian mining complexes and fuel harvesters.

This would make it more clear...

So you have to use wealth to keep most of the facilities going while Factories don't cost Wealth but give you a small amount and some production... all other facilities cost wealth to operate based on what they produce.

Workers should then cost Wealth not giving wealth, wealth is something population consume not produce, at least that is the way I see it. You can easily disreard the civilian sector and just assume that is a zero sum games, but the working portion of the economy should cost wealth whether they are employed or not. Tha would give you an incentive to make sure as many in your population work instead of being unemployed.

Just some example

Financial Center = Base wealth of 50 times tech level
Factories = 5 wealth per production point (also make conventional factories generate very little wealth)
Everything else cost wealth based on production (can vary depending on a what it is)
Each 10000 worker population (not civilian pop) cost 1 Wealth times the same tech level that Financial centers are modified with (people will tend to need more wealth as technology rises)

I would also add in a small Wealth cost for operating Commercial ships based on some formula on their production cost. Something you pay like you pay everything else. Nothing should ever be completely free. This is basically the salaries for the crew and maintenance the ships need over time.

This was just an example... I did not really look at the numbers in the current game or anything or if these are workable at all.

This would in my opinion be a more simple system that also make lots of sense.
Posted by: Steve Walmsley
« on: January 31, 2019, 06:02:15 PM »

Ah, the Octopus Empire's fabled Ring system, with its five asteroid belts and many billions of population.  What a great tragedy it was to cephalo-kind that dark day when the enemies came. . .

Remember the Ring!

LOL that is a LONG time ago :)
Posted by: Father Tim
« on: January 31, 2019, 04:20:24 PM »

Ah, the Octopus Empire's fabled Ring system, with its five asteroid belts and many billions of population.  What a great tragedy it was to cephalo-kind that dark day when the enemies came. . .

Remember the Ring!
Posted by: Steve Walmsley
« on: January 31, 2019, 03:22:13 PM »

Yes, Steve invested a lot of work to make small body's easier to colonize - even Comets are now habitable ... if it does not make any kind of sense to colonize this body's it was just time and work wasted...

it is not that I WANT to colonize every dustball but now that Steve has make it easier and more likely it would be a shame if it would never be used at all...

if small colonies (50.000 pop max on a comet) are still worthwhile it is ok...

My intention was to provide more options rather than to encourage a lot of minor colonies. If a system has an asteroid belt in the habitable zone, you could end up with a couple of hundred colony cost 2.00 LG bodies.
Posted by: King-Salomon
« on: January 31, 2019, 03:11:16 PM »

Is there a particular reason why you think that tiny colonies with no industrial or mining potential should be built? I mean if you want a RP reason then we could probably come up with some for you (religious zealots would be the obvious one).

But I'm not sure why the game should reward adding purposeless colonies to every moon in Sol. Even on earth colonies have been resource sinks as often as they have been beneficial.

Yes, Steve invested a lot of work to make small body's easier to colonize - even Comets are now habitable ... if it does not make any kind of sense to colonize this body's it was just time and work wasted...

it is not that I WANT to colonize every dustball but now that Steve has make it easier and more likely it would be a shame if it would never be used at all...

if small colonies (50.000 pop max on a comet) are still worthwhile it is ok...
Posted by: TCD
« on: January 31, 2019, 01:48:54 PM »

I am trying to find a reason now to create colonies at system body's that will never be industrialised as the population there has now zero impact...

especially if the population will forever be too small to generate trade goods..

so the colony would only "use up" space in the menues without benefit...

somebody an idea that I might be missing?  ???
Is there a particular reason why you think that tiny colonies with no industrial or mining potential should be built? I mean if you want a RP reason then we could probably come up with some for you (religious zealots would be the obvious one).

But I'm not sure why the game should reward adding purposeless colonies to every moon in Sol. Even on earth colonies have been resource sinks as often as they have been beneficial.
Posted by: alex_brunius
« on: January 31, 2019, 05:14:40 AM »

Since financial centers are effectively just giving work to civilians at this point, can they be called 'civilian industry' or something instead?

I don't think putting "Industry" in the name would be a good thing since it would be quite confusing seeing how many other types of industry Aurora 4X already has.

One potential thing that could be done is to call it "Financial and Trade Center" instead, and have them also boost / linked to trade goods production, while trade goods demand can be controlled by Population. That way a Financial Center also generates more trade opportunities.
Posted by: Steve Walmsley
« on: January 31, 2019, 04:21:55 AM »

I am trying to find a reason now to create colonies at system body's that will never be industrialised as the population there has now zero impact...

especially if the population will forever be too small to generate trade goods..

so the colony would only "use up" space in the menues without benefit...

somebody an idea that I might be missing?  ???

Quite small populations generate trade and wealth through colonization, which is important with the increase in trade tax income. Also, because you can't shutdown sectors of industry, you need to maximize pop growth and the size of the manufacturing sector or you will not be able to expand industry. This is even more important now the worker requirements for shipyards and GFCC are significantly higher. Both of these are boosted by multiple small populations, as small pops grow faster and have larger (in percentage terms) manufacturing sectors.

For example, if Mars had no minerals, it would still be a long-term benefit to colonise Mars rather than leave the population on Earth.
Posted by: King-Salomon
« on: January 31, 2019, 03:52:39 AM »

I am trying to find a reason now to create colonies at system body's that will never be industrialised as the population there has now zero impact...

especially if the population will forever be too small to generate trade goods..

so the colony would only "use up" space in the menues without benefit...

somebody an idea that I might be missing?  ???
Posted by: QuakeIV
« on: January 30, 2019, 10:11:56 PM »

Since financial centers are effectively just giving work to civilians at this point, can they be called 'civilian industry' or something instead?

Also, relating to the power generation, that could lead to something really cool: Your civilization needing sorium continuously or some other such material  to generate power and keep the industry running.  Sure you could use solar power, but that couldn't even begin to hold a candle to the power of TN nuclear or fusion reactors.  Minding, solar is just a kindof cruddy way to harness the power of a giant fusion reaction.

e: You wouldn't necessarily need civilizations to be total gas guzzlers, but some significant consumption of fuel could be a fun mechanic and a strong reason to compete for big resource deposits.  You can potentially ignore a lack of mineral income for a long time, not so if a mineral is literally neccessary to continue existing.
Posted by: Conscript Gary
« on: January 30, 2019, 06:06:07 PM »

The fact that unused-but-still-employed workers still generate wealth makes the changes work, I think.
Now factories and the other similar installations operate the same way civilian mining complexes do:
Either you leave them idle, and their output is abstracted away into the civilian economy while you get wealth from it,
Or you make direct use of their output, paying for it in the process.
Thinking of it in those terms helps it make a bit more sense, I think.
Posted by: Scandinavian
« on: January 30, 2019, 02:13:59 PM »

I would suggest (in addition to the changes being contemplated here to solve the "India problem") imposing a negative interest on Wealth balances (both positive and negative, but more negative on positive balances).

An economy can only reasonably "save up" so much productive capacity before it begins going to waste - people do not keep building inventory that is not consumed; eventually they curtail production. And not-producing today does not increase your factory's ability to produce tomorrow; that potential production is simply lost. While it is possible to accumulate reserves of real capital, this too has its limits: Skills that go unused decay, capital stock becomes obsolete, and the institutions needed to run complex industrial supply chains dissolve if they are not occasionally exercised.

Similarly, on the other end, if you overclock your economy for long enough, it becomes the new normal. Workers write off the vacation they have accrued from working overtime, preventative maintenance backlogs on capital equipment is erased when the equipment breaks and is replaced, on-the-job training replaces formal education, etc.

This also imposes a soft wealth cap: If positive balances attrition at ten per cent per year, then an economy that "saves up" a quarter of its "income" would converge on a reserve that would allow it to double its production for three years without incurring any penalties (all else being equal). Which seems reasonable.
Posted by: Steve Walmsley
« on: January 30, 2019, 01:19:31 PM »

I really like the idea of including electrical power as something the player has to consider, for a couple of reasons.  First, it provides an excuse to build big things in deep space; think Dyson Spheres and power beaming stations.

Second, you could include waste heat as a worry as well; electricity use on an transnewtonian industrial scale will heat the planet up.  This is true even excluding fossil fuel use.  Run too much industry and you cook your planet.

Yes, I also like the idea of power generation being a consideration. It's something I have considered a few times in the past but never actually got around to it. I don't think it replaces wealth for the reasons mentioned earlier in the thread, but I do think it would be an interesting addition to the game (alongside wealth).