DESIGN: Economics Category

Creation, discussion, and balancing of game content such as techs, buildings, ship parts.

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solartrix
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#16 Post by solartrix »

Snack-cakes.....yummmmm..... Here's a tech for ya:

Application: Matter replicating vending machines
Verbage: "Never outta stock! Have anything you want, any flavor you want!"
Effects: +10% planet happiness, +5% planet medical costs, -2% planet production.
Obesity, diabetes, fad diets, afternoon talk shows, you name it, all run amok!

solartrix
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#17 Post by solartrix »

skdiw wrote:Hey Sol, can you post the scope of econ techs like what objects or meter this cat suppose to influence. Where do we post government techs? because it doesn't fit anywhere else.
Not sure what to tell you about Gov techs, but you can post your ideas here for the time being...

As far as the scope goes, here are a few excerpts from "Effects for v0.3" that I think are applicable to econ theories and applications (utilae also posted a partial list of variables on page one):

Modify Planet Max Meter
(Specified Amount, Specified Meter) - Adds or subtracts from a planet's max meters this turn. Does not affect current meter values. Aside: Max meter values are modified primarily by effects that consistently fire every turn, establishing a consistent max meter value

Modify Planet Current Meter
(Specified Amount, Specified Meter) - Adds or subtracts from a planet's current meter values. Does not affect max meter values. Aside: Current meter values are modified rarely compared to max meter values. Current meter modifications are also primarily by one-shot effects, rather than effects that consistently fire every turn, as this would cause the current meter value to grow very much each turn.

Modify Empire Stockpile
(Specified Amount, Specified Resourse) - Adds or subtracts from one of empire's stockpiles.

Set Empire Tech Availability
(Specified Technology, Specified Yes/No) - Sets a tech as available to be researched or not for empire. Implimentation note: the availability should be maintained as a property of the tech or the empire.

Set Empire Building Availability
(Specified Building Class, Specified Buildable / Not Buildable) - Sets a building type as buildable or not for empire. Implimentation note: the availability should be maintained as a property of the building class or the empire.

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Prokonsul Piotrus
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#18 Post by Prokonsul Piotrus »

I will be happy to help you out here. I have some experience in economics (MA).

0. general suggestion: don't u think it would be easier if we moved to Wiki - for example to my pages (http://www.freeorion.org/wiki/index.php ... er:Piotrus) for our project? It would eliminate the need for rereading older forum threads and such (for example, utilae effect lists and general and other suggested categories could always be on top). Not to mention all our proposed tech could be listed in structured in one place (one wiki page) instead of hundreds posts on several forum pages (honestly, do you like going back several pages to see if your tech is similar to sth else or just looking for stuff to reread? I don't)...

1. Political system vs. economic system
We have to keep in mind the differences between them, as it is likely they will be important part of race creation and later game.
Political system
Economic system

I think that gov stuff is more suited to learning, perhaps. Although...toss the coin, I guess, the categories boundary are nowhere defined... :>

2. utilae&solatrix: much tnx for posting the effects list

Unfortunately, I admit I don't understand descriptions for 'Modify Planet Max Meter ' and 'Modify Planet Current Meter' - what are *exactly* the 'planet's meters'? I'd *guess* that for our purposes those should read for example 'modify planet max money meter' and 'modify planet current money meter'?

As far as variables go, they do look promising (i.e. easy to understand). Do meters equal variables?

I think we need first to decide on *exact* meters/variables/stuff we can play with and only then start inventing specific techs.

I am afraid industry/mining/production/stockpile would be mostly limited to construction/production (I haven't read their threads, I'd love to see how are they going to invent a boundary between *those* categories, lol).

Planet/population/enviroment things would go to ecology cat, but as we don't have any it is fair game (although didn't I read somewhere that Aq said to leave terraforming techs for later)?

Of course there is this little thing that advances in economic theories have indirect effects on those things as well (better supply chain distribution / reduced decay of resources - bigger food harvests, bigger population, etc.).

Honestly, out of effects/thingies listed, I see only CurrentTrade and MaxTrade as cleary hours only to play with.

Any other effects/thigies that could be listed for us? Money sth ones, preferably?

3. I see we already hit the line 'what is economics, what is production and what is construction'. I wont repeat my arguments here about what should go where, I am just afraid that we will stiffle creativity by thinking (can it go there or not?) instead of just brainstorming. I say we forget about other categories, do all we think is good in economics, and later we can simply give some of our inventions to other projects.

4. I think it would be safe to concentrate on 'economic theories' and try to avoid thinking of any technical improvements, which are likely to fall into production and construction categories.
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utilae
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#19 Post by utilae »

Prokonsul Piotrus wrote: Unfortunately, I admit I don't understand descriptions for 'Modify Planet Max Meter ' and 'Modify Planet Current Meter' - what are *exactly* the 'planet's meters'? I'd *guess* that for our purposes those should read for example 'modify planet max money meter' and 'modify planet current money meter'?
The meter in terms of trade affects how much money the planet earns (or whatever). The higher the better.
Prokonsul Piotrus wrote: As far as variables go, they do look promising (i.e. easy to understand). Do meters equal variables?
The variables are to give you an idea of what effects you can do with meters. CurrentTrade and MaxTrade both are to do with the trade meter. Increasing CurrentTrade is increasing the trade meter, ie allowing you to earn more money. Increasing MaxTrade is not actually increasing the trade meter, but the trade cap on the trade meter. So you could increase CurrentTrade all you want, but if you don't increase MaxTrade then most of that extra money you could be earning is being capped.
Prokonsul Piotrus wrote: I am afraid industry/mining/production/stockpile would be mostly limited to construction/production (I haven't read their threads, I'd love to see how are they going to invent a boundary between *those* categories, lol).
I am not sure whether these could be used. MoneyProduction and MoneyStockpile seem very usable. CurrentIndustry and MaxIndustry for example could be usable (cross category techs?), although we would have to see.

solartrix
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#20 Post by solartrix »

OK folks, I think I need to lay down a rule for the forum to help move us along toward our goal. So here it is, rule #1 of the econ tech forum (drum roll please).

Rule #1: Every post must include at least one econ tech idea.

Please feel free to keep asking questions, posting answers, debating what is and what is not economics. That's all good stuff, but we also need to get the job done. So, from here out, get creative. If you don't have a clear understanding of effects or variables, that's fine, we can get your ideas into the right language later, just give us a name of a theory or application and how it should affect the gameplay.

So, all that said, guess I'll have to add one to this post....

Sentient viral marketing algorithms (application)
+5% to all planetary income
Modify Planet Max Meter (all empire planets, cash income, *1.05)
"A marketing manager's dream come true!"

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utilae
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#21 Post by utilae »

Taxes For A Good Cause (Application)
+5% Planetary Money Generated per 5% of tax rate
+10% Planetary Morale
"People are more willing to pay more tax, when they know that part of it is going to a good cause."

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skdiw
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#22 Post by skdiw »

Doh! forgot to Login again ><.

Before I forget, I got another end game tech

Refinement: Economical Nirvana
Description: Your species have surpassed the necessity of all resources!
Effect: All your resource stockpile is infinite!! Allows construction of "United Merging Co." galactic wonder: each turn, you may select any planet and "purchase" or claim it as your own.
:mrgreen:

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utilae
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#23 Post by utilae »

Advanced Currency Tagging (Application)
+5% extra money generated (money recovered from pirates)
+10% money security
-5% crime
"As money becomes more and more difficult to track (electronic, etc), crime is able to grow. Advanced Money Tagging allows money to be traced to the farthest corners of the galaxy."
Last edited by utilae on Sun Dec 12, 2004 8:37 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Prokonsul Piotrus
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#24 Post by Prokonsul Piotrus »

Individual Taxation Control
-20% corruption/inefficency
+20% happiness/morale
+20% local/planet meters
-10% system/empire meters

"Let each person decide how much taxes and for what he wishes to pay. The invisible hand works well for goods production and distribution, why not try it with the taxation as well? - Go Xiun, Nobel Prize Winner in Economy, Earth, Sol, 2023
Assuming people have to pay some taxes but have total control over the cash flow, corruption will fall and efficiency of local projects will drastically rise. On the other hand, the flow of money to more abstract and far away projects may diminish.
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Geoff the Medio
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#25 Post by Geoff the Medio »

Something I'd like in the future, but which isn't feasible now, would be to have some SMAC-like Social Engineering (SE) choices relevant to Economics.

Thus, we'd have techs (mostly applications) for all the various economic systems, such as socialism, communism, gift ecomony, planned economy, corporate colonialism, fuedalism, mixed-economics, green economics, communial cooperation, unorganized economy, or morally-constrained economics.

These techs would individually have bonuses and penalties from being researched, and would also unlock SE economic systems that can be applied (some exclusive with others) to empires, giving more dramatic effects. We don't yet have enough interesting (any) social meters to discuss these results in immediately useful ways... but most of the tech suggestions so far have been giving bonuses to values that don't exist yet anyway, so I guess that's not a problem for this thread.

For v0.3, the only "economy" meter is the trade meter... so pretty much every tech would just add bonuses to that. So, for v0.3, I suggest the following techs, all of which can give +1 to trade, for lack of any other practically implementable and appropriate effects in mosts cases, at this time... (to be replaced or ammended when appropriate effects are available):

(1) Planned Economics (T)
(2) Interstellar Socialism (A) (requires 1)
(3) Market Economics (T)
(4) Interstellar Capitalism (A) (requires 3)
(5) Mixed Economics (T) (requires 1, 3)
(6) Corporate Feudalism (A) (requires 4)
(7) Morally-Constrained Economics (T) (requires 1)
(8) Green Economics (T) (requires 7)
(9) Planetary Protectionism (A) (requires 5)
(10) Galactic Free Trade (A) (requires 4)
(11) Planetary Colonialism (A) (requires 9)
(12) Galactic Banking (T) (requires 5)
(13) Interstellar Supply Management (A) (requires 8, 10)
(14) Hyperexpansive Economics (T) (requires 13)
(15) Offensive Economics (A) (requires 12, 9)
(16) Hyperadaptive Economics (T) (requires 8, 14)
(17) Galactic Economic Hegemony (A) (requires 15, 16)

Edit: Visualized:
Image
(Not that there's anything special about the layout...)

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utilae
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#26 Post by utilae »

Trans-Dimensional Cargo Transport (Application)
+10 Max Trade Meter
Prerequisites: Trans-Dimensional Theory, Trans-Dimensional Storage
"Storing cargo in trans dimensional pockets avoids the storage limitations of physical space, and greatly increases the amount of cargo that can be delivered while also reducing the number of trips required."

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Geoff the Medio
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#27 Post by Geoff the Medio »

Ok, in order to make up an Economics category Theories tree trunk, similar to what's being worked on in Learning, I've made up an initial list of potential theories for consideration...

:arrow: Market Economics (capitalism, deregulation, Darwinian economics)
:arrow: Planned Economics (resource allocation, controlling own economy)
:arrow: Externality Integration (dealing with religious, moral, ecological concerns)
:arrow: Econometric Spectroscopy (analysis of cycles of different duration)
:arrow: Galactic Monetary Policy (banking, currency exchange)
:arrow: Economic Fluidity (intra-empire movement of work, goods, production)
:arrow: Planetary Colonialism (extraction of resources from afar for use at home)
:arrow: Environmental Adaption (best use of different planet environments, space)
:arrow: Economic Prescience (predict economic trends exactly, perhaps by psionics?)
:arrow: Interstellar Trade (space-trade guilds, rare resource extraction & trade)
:arrow: Economic Hegemony (offensive, defensive, controlling other economies)
:arrow: Stablized Hypergrowth (new paradigms for limitless growth through stars)

These will need to be linked together to form a tree... but before doing that, it'd be good to flush out any major omissions or dumbnesses. The number of trunk theories is also debatable. Bastian-Bux in Learning was concerned that there were only 16 in that category... but if we have 16 in each of 8 categories, that's 128 theories, before considering applications and refinements... so maybe even 12 is already too much?

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Prokonsul Piotrus
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#28 Post by Prokonsul Piotrus »

Nice ideas Geoff, but some of them seem parerell instead of vertical to me (ie. as alternative choices, but not any advancement). For example, why planned is more advanced then market? I'd put Interstellar Trade and Galactic Monetary Policy in the begining and divide the rest into several pararell alternative ways of development.
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Geoff the Medio
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#29 Post by Geoff the Medio »

Prokonsul Piotrus wrote:why planned is more advanced then market?
It's not... I was thinking of planned and market as tier 1 techs.
I'd put Interstellar Trade and Galactic Monetary Policy in the begining
I was thinking these would be at least tier 2 or tier 3... My plan was to have the 1st tier techs be more focused on development of the economies of single planets, have 2nd tier be interplanetary empire economics and internal trade, and have 3rd, 4th and above tiers be galactic interempire trade, monetary policy and powerful ways to bring down or control other empires economies / defend your own economy, promoting and controlling limitless growth in a whole galaxy, etc. So Interstellar Trade and Galactic Monetary Policy would be tier 2 or 3 probably. Planned / Market economics are things that can be developed and applied to a single planet, so I'd put them at the start.

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Geoff the Medio
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#30 Post by Geoff the Medio »

Here's the first draft Economics theory tree trunk.
Image
Somewhat fewer techs than the other categories so far, but I'm not sure what else to add. I suppose all categories don't need to be equal in size anyway... And these are just the theories anyway... Economics might have more applications to compensate.

Edit: due to Economic Fluidity (EF) requiring Interstellar Co-Production, which itself requires Interstellar Trade (IT), EF directly requiring IT is redundant.

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