DESIGN: Money Money Money

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Marijn
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#16 Post by Marijn »

I agree that money should not allow the player to just 'buy' stuff instantly, the 'increase output of planet by spending X credits per turn on it' model is more elegant - less micromanagement and less abuse-sensitive.

Starrh
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#17 Post by Starrh »

I may be wrong but I don't think stockpiling money would be an issue. I think if you have expenses you can use them to balance everything out. You could set up that as you put money into the bank, it would put the money in a bond type system, and only after certain amount of time could the player pull it out. This might be away to avoid any problem with stockpiling if it ever became one.
If it was easy then we all would be doing it!

luckless666
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#18 Post by luckless666 »

I won't deny that it is an useful abstraction; however, what I'd hate to see is abuse of it. It doesn't matter how you call it, but how it behaves. Now if you allow infinite stockpiling of money at no penalty, that means you allow infinite stockpile of anything you can turn money into, be it PP, food or RP. Now if a player somehow accumulates a great stockpile of PP or anything else that he can use instantly, that can be really annoying. Aftrall, we have a fixed time for research just to avoid things like that, don't we?
There is a penalty (or rather a counterbalance) to money and thats expenses (Fleet Upkeep etc.) You can further balance this by not allowing instant buying etc. and only allowing a boost (which increases to a certain extent, reaches its apex, then the more money you pile in, nothing or little happens). This would ensure it would be used fairly.

Inflation\Devaluation is a good idea. Keep this away from the eyes of the player (to avoid micromanagement) and just say that costs increase by 1% every turn (or something) This means costs of the fleet etc., as well as of supporting/boosting production.

Its painfully slow setting up a new colony. Money helps provide a boost that makes the game more playable. Maybe new colonies can cause a draining effect on your treasury, due to expenses (making the colony self sufficient etc.)
Chris Walker
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Underling
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#19 Post by Underling »

han_krum wrote:I won't deny that it is an useful abstraction; however, what I'd hate to see is abuse of it. It doesn't matter how you call it, but how it behaves. Now if you allow infinite stockpiling of money at no penalty, that means you allow infinite stockpile of anything you can turn money into, be it PP, food or RP. Now if a player somehow accumulates a great stockpile of PP or anything else that he can use instantly, that can be really annoying. Aftrall, we have a fixed time for research just to avoid things like that, don't we?
If abuse of money stockpiling is the primary concern most people have, how about using the laws of diminishing returns when speeding production.

In other words if X equals the cost of the project:
X money gets you 100% production speed increase (1/2 the time)
2X money gets you 150% production speed increase
3X money gets you 175% production speed increase
4X money gets you 187% etc....

A player could never out and out buy something instantly. They could spend money to speed up production, but after a point, the more they spend the less effect this would actually have on the purchase. Of course, certain minimum time frames could be hardcoded, and the numbers could be altered, but the concept should address peoples concerns about abuse.


As for translation directly from monet to PP or RP, if that was even possible, apply the same diminishing returns formula so that after a given amount, all addtional money thrown at the problem would have less and less of an effect.

iamrobk
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#20 Post by iamrobk »

Maybe having a ton of money would increase unrest (cause people would be thinking like "gee, they sure don't spend mich on us.....") or maybe just try to balance out the expenses of everything so that you just can't stockpile........... Ever play SimCity 4? Unless your REALLY skilled at that game you can't make a lot of money (or any money at all) for a while.....

Ablaze
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#21 Post by Ablaze »

I have a somewhat different idea for a monetary system. It’s not really a radically new system, but more of a different way of looking at things. I think the classic system is that there are factors which add to your monitory stockpile and factors which take away from it. In most games the stockpile must be kept above a certain level and that's the extent of it.

I was thinking of a system which is more inspired by the research system we are using. It would work something like this: Each or your planets produce an income every turn. Every thing you spend money on (research, grants to planets, bribes to other empires, ect) have an expense every turn. The key is that every expense is looked at as taking away a given amount for a given number of turns. It is, of course, possible to have an event take away a given amount for 1 turn. A stockpile would probably still be needed for when your empire has a net income, but perhaps only something like 80% of your surplus would actually make it to your stockpile. Considering that, the fact that there is no interest, and the fact that any stockpiled money doesn’t actually contribute to your empire until you use it, I think anyone who relied on stockpiling money would lose a distinct edge that could not be made up by suddenly spending the money on instant goodies.

The 20% loss on any surplus would strongly encourage you to keep your balance sheet as close to zero as possible in this system.

I think this scenario exemplifies one of the key benefits of this system: You could set a policy (using a check box and a couple of sliders) that automatically issued an infusion of X credits for Y turns whenever a new colony was created. This is both a simple and powerful macromanaging tool which provides little benefit to the micromanager.
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krum
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#22 Post by krum »

Okay, to sum things up: How would money be generated? The two main possible sources are PP and population. Also, excess food and RP could make it in, depending on what is descided in the Tech Tree I Design thread.

Is the possibility of stockpiling huge amounts of money, combined with instant buying of buildings and ships a problem for most people? If yes, do we:

Reduce the money stockpile each turn if it has more than X times his PP output per turn? Maybe that triggers some "hyperinflation" event? And Ablase proposed that there be a significant penalty for money you don't spend the same turn.

Have buying not as in MoO2, as in an instant conversion money->PP, but like in MoO, amount of money determines a multiplier to the PP? But then why wouldn't you spend all your money on your developed planets if the amount of AU that doubles the PP is the same for all planets? Base the AU it takes to double PP output on the population of the planet is a possibility. That way it would be very cheap for new colonies.

Daveybaby
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#23 Post by Daveybaby »

han_krum wrote:But then why wouldn't you spend all your money on your developed planets if the amount of AU that doubles the PP is the same for all planets?
No, if your planet has the factory capability to produce 10 PP/turn then giving it a grant of 100 money will let it produce 20PP for 10 turns. If you gave the same grant to a planet producing 50PP/turn it would then produce 100PP for 2 turns.

Heres an interesting thought: if inflation is modelled, then you could keep track of individual monetary values for each empire, allowing you to model exchange rates between different empire's currencies.

So if the klackons inflation rate is 10% and the psilons rate is 'only' 5% then after 5 turns:

Klackons currency is worth about 59% of its original value.
Psilons currency is worth about 77% of its original value.
Thus 1 KMU (klackon monetary unit) = 0.59 / 0.77 = 0.76 PMU (psilon monetary unit)
So if the klackons offered to buy food from the psilons at 3KMU per tonne, the psilons would see the offer as 2.3 PMU per tonne.

So having a high inflation rate not only decreases the value of your reserve over time, it also affects your buying power with other empires.

Which all sounds kind of boring and pointless, until you start to consider the possibilities of economic warfare - espionage operations to destabilise economies etc. You could seriously damage an opponents empire without firing a single shot. :P

Any economists out there who would like to give us some sensible causes and effects of inflation?
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krum
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#24 Post by krum »

Wow, just look at where we got... I dunno about exchange rates and stuff like that... it could be distracting. But I'm not saying I'm against it. I just wanted to say I thought about Ablaze's idea about the penalty for not using money right away and it seems elegant, and also this way the possible converting food-RP-PP doesn't seem that bad. So I support it. Also, thanks for the extra explaining the MoO system, it sounds great.

krum
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#25 Post by krum »

Okay, here's what:

Every population point generates 1 AU.
Mining, Food and RP don't generate money normally, unless we descide somehting different later.
The player sets a tax percentage for their empire, choosing from a few discrete values ranging from zero to fifty percent. That percentage of the PP (production points) generated on each planet are converted to AU at a 1:1 ratio.
Money from tributes, trade.

The AU generated per turn are spent on:
Paying for upkeep of the fleet, later maybe buildings, spies, leaders.
Hurrying production. This is done a la MoO -- you can only add PP equal to the PP the planet is generating per turn. The AU to PP ratio here, 2:1, two AU for one PP?
Money for tributes.

The reamaining AU is added to the money generated in the next turn; if the AU remaining from the previous turn is more than the "new" AU, the remainder is multiplied by 0.5 and put into the stockpile. Money is deduced from the stokpile when needed at no penalty.
The one turn delay is there to avoid the huge amount of microing that would follow if it was directly "half-wasted".

What do you guys think? Or some inflation system is better? I don;t think I can make one that's simple enough.

noelte
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#26 Post by noelte »

han_krum wrote:the remainder is multiplied by 0.5
Why do we need such a huge inflation rate. I don't find this appropriate.


I find Daveybaby's post really interesting. Having such a model might add a new degree into fo. I also would like having a opportunity of giving money to another empire in exchange of a some interest rate. (Civ-like)

Ronald.

krum
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#27 Post by krum »

noelte wrote: Why do we need such a huge inflation rate. I don't find this appropriate.
Well, of course it could be 0,75 too, whichever works better.

Underling
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#28 Post by Underling »

han_krum wrote:Okay, here's what:

Every population point generates 1 AU.
Mining, Food and RP don't generate money normally, unless we descide somehting different later.
The player sets a tax percentage for their empire, choosing from a few discrete values ranging from zero to fifty percent. That percentage of the PP (production points) generated on each planet are converted to AU at a 1:1 ratio.
Money from tributes, trade.
Agreed. This seems a very practical approach
han_krum wrote: The AU generated per turn are spent on:
Paying for upkeep of the fleet, later maybe buildings, spies, leaders.
Hurrying production. This is done a la MoO -- you can only add PP equal to the PP the planet is generating per turn. The AU to PP ratio here, 2:1, two AU for one PP?
Money for tributes.
Also very good. The 2:1 ratio already limits possible abuse. If you add an absolute limit of at most halving production time, abuse is impossible.
I would like to say that someone who uses this system with these constraints to their advantage is not abusing the game. They're handling their economy in an intelligent way.
The reamaining AU is added to the money generated in the next turn; if the AU remaining from the previous turn is more than the "new" AU, the remainder is multiplied by 0.5 and put into the stockpile. Money is deduced from the stokpile when needed at no penalty.
The one turn delay is there to avoid the huge amount of microing that would follow if it was directly "half-wasted".

What do you guys think? Or some inflation system is better? I don;t think I can make one that's simple enough.
I still don't see the need for such a draconian penalty for banking your money for future use. As long as you can't autobuy, but can only rush production there is a built in block to abuse. I forsee balancing issues arrising during testing if we do something like this.

For example, You need to field a very large fleet to fend off your foes, so you are using your savings to offset your maintenance costs during the war. WHAM! you lose one of your big economic worlds and your income plummets. Either you have to engage in deficit spending (which I don't believe is possible), liquidate your fleet (which is tantamount to losing), or sell buildings/ beg for cash, cheat, etc....

To recap: a 2:1 AU to PP ratio and a 2x production speed cap should prevent any significant abuse of a money system. I don't see the need of any additional system (regardless of how elegantly designed or planned)

the 'Ling

luckless666
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#29 Post by luckless666 »

Underling wrote:If abuse of money stockpiling is the primary concern most people have, how about using the laws of diminishing returns when speeding production.

In other words if X equals the cost of the project:
X money gets you 100% production speed increase (1/2 the time)
2X money gets you 150% production speed increase
3X money gets you 175% production speed increase
4X money gets you 187% etc....
I like this idea, though the talk about a MoO type system also sounds good.
iamrobk wrote:or maybe just try to balance out the expenses of everything so that you just can't stockpile........... Ever play SimCity 4? Unless your REALLY skilled at that game you can't make a lot of money (or any money at all) for a while.....
The SimCity series is notorious for the difficulty of budgeting, and may be a little complicated and to much hard work (read micromanagement) to get it to work in this sort of enviroment. Saying that, though, good idea.
Ablaze wrote:The 20% loss on any surplus would strongly encourage you to keep your balance sheet as close to zero as possible in this system.

I think this scenario exemplifies one of the key benefits of this system: You could set a policy (using a check box and a couple of sliders) that automatically issued an infusion of X credits for Y turns whenever a new colony was created. This is both a simple and powerful macromanaging tool which provides little benefit to the micromanager.
I like this idea too. simple and effective and limits abuse.
Daveybaby wrote:Heres an interesting thought: if inflation is modelled, then you could keep track of individual monetary values for each empire, allowing you to model exchange rates between different empire's currencies.

So if the klackons inflation rate is 10% and the psilons rate is 'only' 5% then after 5 turns:

Klackons currency is worth about 59% of its original value.
Psilons currency is worth about 77% of its original value.
Thus 1 KMU (klackon monetary unit) = 0.59 / 0.77 = 0.76 PMU (psilon monetary unit)
So if the klackons offered to buy food from the psilons at 3KMU per tonne, the psilons would see the offer as 2.3 PMU per tonne.

So having a high inflation rate not only decreases the value of your reserve over time, it also affects your buying power with other empires.
This, IMHO, is the best idea so far, maybe used in conjunction with a MoO type system, provided it can be simple enough for Joe Public to understand and accept.
han_krum wrote:...the remainder is multiplied by 0.5 and put into the stockpile...
That is very harsh. Perhaps there should be a 20% charge for every increase in the turn, and 5% 'inflation' on anything in the treasury (in relation to prices)
Underling wrote:To recap: a 2:1 AU to PP ratio and a 2x production speed cap should prevent any significant abuse of a money system. I don't see the need of any additional system (regardless of how elegantly designed or planned)
Simple enough, though an inflation system would add a different angle to the game (and set it apart from its peers)
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utilae
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#30 Post by utilae »

Sounds good. I like the idea of upsetting an enemies economy.

I think if we could hide all of the inflation and other complex stuff from the player, it would be cool. I don't want to deal with inflation or even want to know what it does (as a player). Maybe knowing that your actions will result in the enemies economy rating decreasing, that will be enough. Of course we could still have things like income and expenses visible to the player...

As for that idea of saving penalties. I don't like it, saving should be aloud. Just don't alllow instant buying and don't allow increased production as a result of money invested, to be too great. So if you put all of your money into building a super capital ship, then diminishing returns will not be enough. There should also be a minimum number of turns that a ship will be built in. So if you have the money, you can't just invest it all and make a doomstar in 1 turn, maybe 10 turns.

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