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
) 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.