I've been looking at a new campaign with a multi-race Earth start. As with many Earth start games I run into the issue that wealth is based on population and for some real nations that doesn't match their industrial potential so they end up with huge wealth reserves. In the past I have tried to solve that by having lower starting wealth per capita but that penalises the race throughout the whole game. I have also recently added a wealth reserve limit, although I am not completely happy with that either. Therefore I have been considering other options for wealth generation.
Currently, I am wondering whether to link wealth to actual workers. In effect, that means if someone is employed in a shipyard or factory or mine, etc., they generate taxes. If there are no installations in which to work, they don't generate taxes or they generate a small amount (maybe 10% normal). Agricultural and Services would not generate taxes.
The standard wealth per million workers would be much higher than the current wealth per million population (maybe 100 instead of 20). Within that overall concept, certain types of worker might generate more or less than the standard. Conventional factories perhaps generate 50% normal while financial centres generate 200% of normal (or maybe 33% and 300%). New colonies would still have an advantage as they have higher manufacturing centres. In fact, if inactive manufacturing sector workers still generate a small amount on the assumption they are working in a non-visible industry, then moving population to a new colony with a larger manufacturing will generate additional tax as well as additional growth.
This concept has a few advantages over the current method:
1) High population, low industry nations are now easy to handle as most of the population would generate nothing or minimal wealth, so there is no need to penalise wealth generation
2) As a nation industrialises, its wealth generation capability grows, which reflects historical trends.
3) The wealth reserve cap could be removed.
4) Financial centres become much more useful as they are relative to a much smaller base and would become an important element in terms of managing the economy.
5) Different industries have different tax vs build ratios. For example, factories are base 10 BP (10 wealth cost) per year while their workers only generate 5 tax. Mines and refineries also generate 5 tax but don't cost anything to run. Ground Force Construction Centres generate 200 BP but only 25 tax, so they are expensive to run.
6) As more factories, shipyards, scientists, refinery workers, etc, means more base money, wealth generation tech becomes more of a direct balance to production tech. For example, If you build a research facility and there are available workers, you gain 100 (exact number TBD) wealth points. The research facility generates 200 RP per year, which is 200 wealth cost, so you need to find the extra 100 wealth somewhere else. This could be mines/refineries, financial centres, civilian trade/mining, wealth technology. If you increase research tech without increasing wealth tech, you start to widen the gap. In fact, I would probably increase wealth generation from civs to make it more important to protect them from commerce raiding. BTW in C# Aurora, I haven't added the Subsidise option for civilians and I will probably leave it that way.
On the other hand, am I making wealth generation too easy? Effectively, building industry also builds a portion of wealth, even if that industry isn't actively being used.
Anyway - thinking out loud so comments welcome.