Hello guys, I haven't posted here in a while but I saw some interesting discussions about economics, and factions, and strategy and whatnot and this got me interested in something I posted a long time ago. Does anyone remember those ideas I posted a long time ago about making an economics strategy game? So has anyone taken an interest in my economics game ideas? If you haven't read my old posts, well, I'm not going to go over the old stuff I posted (but you might go to my profile and check the old threads I made from there). But if you haven't read my old stuff you may find something of interest here. I have not worked on it much since, but occassionally I have thought about it out of interest. I just wanted to post some more thinking about I had about it, just for fun, to organize my thoughts, share my ideas, and maybe get some input, interesting ideas from others, or stimulate my own thought. This might actually not even have much to do with game development now that I've gotten to this point. It might be more of an economic simulation made more for my own interest rather than as a game meant to entertain gamers (although it may also make a very fun game). Actually my designs/ideas might not even be meant to make a complete game, but might just be daydreaming. I guess I might be better off making a livejournal or blog or something since I've gotten interested in posted ideas that come ocassionally to me about game design, instead of making a new thread here everytime. So as for the economics game idea - I originally got started on the idea thinking of a WarCraft/Age of Empires time game's economic system when I was thinking about making my own games and at this time I was also interested in economics and stuff. I was originally thinking of how I could simulate different things like the effects of taxation and the effects of a state-run economy (I actually used to post on a politics forum years ago and I was a commie back then.... that's another story though). I was also playing around with an idea for a browser-based galactic-empires strategy game, but when I was designing the structures/buildings that could be built, I stumbled upon a problem as the economic system didn't make sense for me and I was thinking of how to make it more realistic. I had different units in the game that produced different resources. I had the idea of having workers that would produce a 'labour' resource to be used in making buildings, units, and 'powering' all the buildings (e.g., running the mines that produced minerals). The other units included engineers that produced 'engineering' which was needed to build things, and researchers that produced 'research points' or 'technology' needed to research new technology and upgrade units/buildings, and military units. I never finished this game but was just playing around with ideas. Actually, I don't even fully remember the idea. I didn't finalize it and I was thinking of perhaps having the engineers be as the units that produce the research points, and was thinking of having a unit called 'prospectors' that would find other planets to colonize or explore land. And I was thinking about having 'military base' buildings that produced 'military points' which would be the main resource spent on military units, along with minerals, etc. I was thinking on the subject of economics and these ideas just came together. My thinking on economics and game design came together because I was programming for fun in my spare time, working on random projects, and in my imagination what I understood about economics was what was in WarCraft/Age of Empires and in reading random stuff about Keynesian/Laissez Fair/etc. economics on wikipedia, what I was learning at school at the time, and what I was reading and discussing at the politics forum (and with friends). Basically this was my interest at the time. So to make my simulation/game, I was thinking, how would I design some framework to compare capitalism/free-market system with communism/socialism/state-run economic system. Actually this wasn't really a task I set for myself, it was just random thinking on the subject that caused me to arrive at the interesting idea of using an RTS-like economy to test my ideas out of interest. Actually, it's probably nothing special... I don't know much about the field of economics and there's probably projects similar to this, and I would have been interested about this when I was first got interested in this stuff, but I would have probably find them or even understand them. I started with the idea of a game economy like that found in WarCraft and how to make it into a system that could be used to compare commie/capitalist systems, and in general in my thinking about the economics in RTS games I thought about how they aren't totally accurate and are simplifications. And they're not realistic in other things besides economics (for example, what exactly does the player represent in the game, and how does he have omnipotent control of everything). But that's why their games, and that doesn't mean there's anything wrong with them, it's just that I find it fun thinking about details like this and enjoy thinking about how I might design a more 'realisitc' game. In Age of Empires, the player basically controls everything, has absolute power over the villagers and other units, and has control over the entire economy. Does this make it communist/socialist? That's kind of a silly thing, but this was what I was interested in. Age of Empires actually represents a 'feudalist' type of government, where the King has absolute power over his subjects, who pay tribute to him (e.g., must gather a certain amount of produce for him, or pay a certain tax). At least, I think that's how it is. To make a free market economy based on an Age of Empires/WarCraft economic framework, how would this be done? Capitalism is based on independent corporations/companies/firms competing with each other to make profits. But if the companies are acting independently, where does the player come in? He doesn't get to play. That was one thing I didn't like. But also, there was another issue - how money works. Is it just used up like lumber and gold and other resources when the player spends it on something. For an economic simulation the money would actually have to circulate through the economy. The flow of money would be like this: Under capitalism: Government (the player) | | (subsidies, spending to buy goods or services from corporations) | V Corporations | | (spending to buy goods or services from other corporations, and also to pay workers) | V Workers | | (spending to buy the goods and services they need - food, etc.) | V Corporations And money also flows back into the government from workers and corporations from taxes. I would draw a circular chart with money flowing from corporations to workers to corporations, etc., but I can't do this in text. And under socialism/communism (and this might not be correct, as most of my economics): Government (the player) | | (funding for the firms) | V Firms | | (spending to purchase needed goods/services from other firms and also to pay workers) | V Workers | | (spending to purchase the goods/services needed by them) | V Firms And money flows back into the government from taxes and from the income of the firms. Actually, this might not be correct. I am not sure how a socialist economy with state-run firms works, so I may not even be describing socialism/communism. This may just all be imaginary and have no basis in reality, but it's all just for fun. If anyone understands this subject better than me, feel free to correct me. In a capitalist system, the corporations would be competing with each other to gain the most profits (which means selling the greatest amount of products/service at the highest price, while spending the least on workers and required goods/services). And the workers would also be competing to get good wages with the least work/labour, and to get goods/services at the lowest cost. In a communist/socialist system, the firms wouldn't be competing but would be selling goods/services at prices fixed by the government and would be paying workers an amount set by the government. The workers would however be wanting to get the better wages for the less work and also get goods/services at the lowest cost. Since the government owns all of the firms, it would get money by collecting the incomes of the firms. It would also get taxes from purchases made by workers and firms (?). The workers are in a way like the corporations in the simulation, because they are basically trying to maximize profits while minimizing costs. To support themselves, the workers need fixed amounts of physical goods (e.g., food). If we also use games like SimCity for inspiration, other resources include electricity, water, etc. We might think of the workers as providing a resource called 'labour' or work to firms/corporations. The firms/corporations 'buy' the labour 'resource' from the workers. The workers get money, which they spend on goods/services from other firms/corporations. For the AI of the workers I had the idea of giving them a 'happiness' and 'money' measure. They would get 'happiness' from consuming quantities of the resources they needed (e.g., food, or maybe 'consumer goods' to be more general). But to purchase these resources/goods/services, they would need to spend money. To get more money, they would need to go to work (i.e., go to firms/corporations to 'sell' their 'labour' and in exchange get money). This gave a complete basic framework for the economic system, and I needed to think of what buildings/businesses and resources would be needed to make a complete economic system. Based on a WarCraft type economy, we might have these buildings (showing which resources they consume and produce): Labour (+ Money) -> Farms -> Food (+ Money) Labour (+ Money) -> Lumber Mills -> Lumber (+ Money) Labour (+ Money) -> Houses -> Housing (+ Money) Food + Housing (+ Money) -> Workers -> Labour (+ Money) But that's just a few buildings and it is not a complete system (where there is a complete cycle of resources). The problem though was in connecting the in's and out's of everything and of thinking where the player was involved. But that's it for my ramblings for right now. I might post more about my ideas later.

Your two models look to be the same only with the names "firm" and "corporation" interchanged and with fixed prices under the socialist model.

What exactly are you aiming for? Can you put it into one or two sentences?

If you're interested in understanding how modern economies came to be and want to go deeper than what wikipedia offers, check out The Great Transformation.

I will talk about one factor of the economic system: Taxation.

In the Medieval Era, it is common that there is a proportional [fixed] tax of 40% globally [in many nations] through that entire Era. In the modern times, there is a progressive taxation--tax percentage increases as value increases (usually apply to income tax)--and regressive taxation--tax percentage decreases as value increase.

Therefore, if you want an economic model, you will definitely look into this taxation. The mechanics of taxation itself is very diverse that a complex game cannot implement all factors of it. You have income tax, property tax, sales tax, poll tax, etc.

With a progressive tax up to 400,000 following by regressive tax is not a fair income tax policy [US income tax policy], but even so, the upperclass still gets more than their fair share, and some of them complain that their employees are paying a higher tax percentage then them.

To create your system, you have to ensure that tax is fair. Well afterall, it is the player who control this tax, so the degree that the player can control this tax is the most important aspect of income for the player making the "player's control of tax" more than half of the player's decision.

Of course, as pointed out, even though government are called capitalistic or socialistic, they all function with the same basic fundamentals because as humans, we have the fear of change, and therefore we seek what is common and consistant. The only difference is that the lower class are more obedient to the upper class in a socialistic government than a capitalistic government even with a larger economic gap between the rich and poor.

What would warcraft be like if it emulated a capitalist economy? You couldn't produce workers. Workers would automatically produce themselves at a rate inversely proportional to the average wealth per worker. Only half of the lumber and gold they collect would go into coffers that you control. And if you try to raise this amount, the workers vote you out and an AI player takes over. You can't draft units (if you try, you're voted out), you can only set the wage that you're willing to pay and wait for workers to enlist and train. You can't build buildings, you can only commission them, set a price, and wait for educated workers to accept your bid. Bid and Wage prices would be inversely proportional to the amount of unoccupied (unemployed) workers. If you try to attack your enemies, your workers vote you out and replace you with an AI player.

Platinum_Dragon, does that obedience have to do with the economic arrangement or with the degree of authoritarianism of the state? In those terms, is it socialism that makes the lower classes obedient or it is the threat of the secret police breaking down their doors in the middle of the night to haul them off to some dungeon never to be seen again? Looking at present day nations, the people in France, with it's greater welfare socialism, seem far more willing to revolt than the people in the United States, with it's neo-liberalism.

@kru, nice observations!

Wagelimits: What is the ability of the player to set minimum and maximum wages.
TaxRates: It it fixed, progressive, regressive. How is tax changable?
Rivals: What can you do to your rivals in a civilized way?
CityPlans: Which types of buildings can you develop in your city, and in which order? Do the order and organization of buildings in your city affect your economy? Is your game at City Size or Nation Size?
Do you have trade rights with other groups that exist wheather it is other players (if it is a multiplayer game) and/or AI factions?
Which types of resources do you want to track, and how many? Wood, Gold, Silver, Wool, Lumber, Iron, Copper, Aluminum, Oil, Water, etc.
What are happiness/recreation buildings that you may include? Bars, Teahouse, shrine, temple, church, pagoda, etc.

@LessBread: People will never comply to be lower than another. It is the level of tolerance is quite high that society is still stable. Without a hierarchy, then society will not exist. Our definitions come from discriminations of things; everything we do is limited by group thinking. Everyone wants total rights, but they do not care that some rights conflict with other people's rights. Every government can be generalize to be the same but they are not the same. Generalization and specifics are totally different things, but you can say that a Government is essentially a group of elite people that have more rights than others. Even with direct democracy (republic) will there be a person with more rights than another because there are some people who can convince other people better and therefore they have more rights as more people believe in them. Group think traps people's mindsets.

Edit: The reason behind the taxation as an important element of the game comes from "What do we use to measure a players success?" And it seems to me that the way we measure success is by the average rate of money a player can make. The player with a higher average rate will be the one whom perform better.

LessBread, thanks for the link. That is a big read, but good food for thought.

[edit]

As for a simple answer for what I'm trying to accomplish.... basically, a realistic, elegant, dynamic economic model that can be expanded by adding more resources/buildings/units and economic elements.




And the differences in the model mentioned between capitalism and communism/socialism make all the difference (or are supposed to). The differences as mentioned were that a communist/socialist system would have the government pool the incomes of all the firms (actually I am not sure how it would work in a real communist/socialist system, but this is how I would implement it in my model/simulation), allocate their funding (subsidies?), and set their prices and worker wages, and control their transactions (the socialist/communist government would be responsible for yearly plans of the firm, setting the output quotas and the required inputs).

Since the firms under communism/socialism aren't setting their own prices and aren't competing for profits, they are supposed to be subject to stagnation and inefficiency. And this was the 'magic' and 'mystery' in the model/simulation when I was thinking about it, as I wanted to see how this would turn out in a game or simulation.

This is becoming more of a politics discussion. Mmm, I think this discussion will have more to do with economics than game design. But, like I was arguing when I first got interested in this stuff, even though the communist/socialist system isn't competitive, it might offer a benefit (and again I just read economics for fun and can't say I understand what I'm talking about), for example, certain firms running at a loss (negative profit) might offer cheap goods or services for the benefit of the economy or people. For example, if you have a mixed economy and you have a state-run mining company that sells minerals extra cheap to your corporations, your corporations get an advantage and can develop faster and build more buildings/units, giving your country an advantage. Of course that's in game terms, and I should make the distinction between the game simulation/model and how it might be in a real economy.

But examples given to support a real life mixed economy are state-run health-care or education that give goods or services for the benefit of the economy or people. But of course there's the argument that these state-run firms will be less competitive because there is no incentive to save money or be efficient.

Another example I was thinking of when I was interested in this was state-run farming. And I believe government already does with, with the setting of prices at which different produce can be sold to ensure that farmers are able to sell at a price high enough to make ends meet (?). I had heard or read something about this when I became interested in this, and last year when I took Economics 101 we had also covered this, but I don't recall everything.

The other thing that interested me was inflation and I from what I naively understood about economics I believed a socialist government would be better to stable prices and such... as the government sets prices. If the government (capitalist or communist/socialist) is in debt, it can print more money, and this would create more money for the government to be able to spend and stabilize, but this would also create inflation and economic instability (like happened in Germany after World War I or in Russia after the collapse of the USSR, I think), but in a communist/socialist system the government sets the prices... but still, the government is putting more money into the economy, which ends up in the hands of consumers and firms which have more purchasing power and are able to purchase more goods/serivces, which might not be available (goods shortage). But this is just my theorizing and I don't claim to have a good understanding of economics and these are just some things I was interested in.

I think I may be opening a can of worms with this, but it is very interesting. All these things that I considered made me interested in making this economic game/model/simulation to see what would happen.


Platinum_Dragon, thanks for your info.

I do not know much about taxation.

And it would be a boring simulation if the biggest part of the players decision about the economy was the tax percentage. I can't comment more in detail on your comments about taxation as I don't understand it very well.

And I am not sure how I would simulate obedience for the different systems of government.



I'd like to mention something else about the design that I liked as a programmer and being able to play around with my creation. I liked how I could add more and more to this model/simulation by simply adding more 'chains' to the economic model (e.g., adding more buildings and units and adding more economics 'elements'), which allowed me to add content and give more strategy to the game without giving much thought to having to balance it out or think it out (but that might not be so good at first, but I could have adjusted it later). Basically, I could just add new buildings, setting the resources require for construction, and the inputs and outputs (consumption and production) of resources. This would give all sorts of unexpected strategy and gameplay that the player would be left to figure out for himself self and be able to take advantage of as he gained knowledge and understood the system better. Or at least that's how I imagined it. Of course this can be done with any RTS or TBS strategy game I guess, adding more buildings and units without balancing them. So what's the difference with my design? Not sure... realistic economics with circulation of resources and money, supply and demand, inflation, state-run firms, freely acting profit-maximizing workers and corporations? I think that would make a difference... so much to consider. I don't know of any RTS or TBS game (except the Settlers series) that has economics like this, with multi-tiered resources (e.g., crude oil -> petroleum, or iron ore -> pig iron -> steel, etc.)


[edit]

kru, lol @ your caricature of capitalism in WarCraft, but it's probably true.

Didn't the game "Majesty" have a system like this though?

And if you get rid of things like allowing the workers to vote to replace you with an AI, and if all the players follow the same rules, maybe you can have a playable game yet.


Platinum_Dragon, I am not sure about those things you mentioned. This game is trying to be both macro- and micro- economic. I was thinking of having the worker units represent a 'strata' where each unit represents a certain 'group' of people (which may or may not have certain similar socio-economic factors, but that is more complicated). And instead of having specific buildings like 'pub', the basic design I had at one point involved these buildings and resources:


Labour + Electricity -> Factory -> Production Capacity

Labour + Electricity + Production Capacity -> Shopping Mall -> Consumer Goods

Electricity -> Apartments -> Housing

Consumer goods and housing are what workers buy and get 'happiness' from (they need some of each).

Labour -> Nuclear Power Plant -> Electricity

Labour + Electricity -> Mine -> Minerals

And the minerals and production capacity are used to produce more units and buildings.

Production Capacity -> Military Base -> Military Capacity

Maybe the allocation of the use of 'production capacity' also offers a choice between focusing the players resources on the developing the commerce or the military of their country? But perhaps not, I think maybe this current model is too simplistic. But perhaps if things are added to it, it might give interesting choices like this.

And the 'military capacity' resource is basically used to 'recruit' workers for military units (e.g., 1 worker + 2 military capacity = 1 soldier, or 3 workers + 10 military capacity = 1 tank).

Workers + Military Capacity + Minerals -> Military Units

The workers are the only units that would be independent and might not belong to any one player (thus creating competition perhaps, if one player pays more for workers running nuclear power plants, or sells housing cheaper?) The worker population would grow according to how they are able to get the resources they need. For example, if the 'happiness' measure of a worker unit is maxed out almost all of the time (which means that unit is getting plenty of 'housing' and 'consumer goods' and is able to find employment to get the money needed to buy those), then the worker unit might multiply. Otherwise, if the 'happiness' measure of a worker unit is always almost totally out, the worker unit might simply dissappear (out of 'starvation' perhaps? but that is a too-literalistic interpretation, since the worker unit is supposed to be simply a macro-economic representative of a group... but I might not sure what other explanations there are for the dissappearance.... lol... this is so very deep...)

And the government (player) who owns these buildings pays the money for them so that they can hire the labour (workers), and the player's only source of income are the shopping mall and apartments, which workers buy 'consumer goods' and 'housing' from. But since all of the money circulates and all of the workers must buy their goods and housing from the 'shopping malls' and 'apartments' to raise their 'happiness', the player's budgets should balance out. Or at least some players budgets will balance out, and others might find it more difficult, and I thought this might be what some of the gameplay/challenge/fun might be in the game, as different players compete with each other to raise profits and bankrupt others.

The resources would be supplied and produced by the buildings in different quantities. If 1/10th of the buildings are nuclear power plants, and each building consumes about 1 unit of electricity, each nuclear power plant would have to produce about 9 electricity to balance out. That's just something to keep in mind... isn't this game design a headache? :)

The buildings and resources were either generic or abstract (e.g., consumer goods, production capacity), representing an entire group, or were a subset of a group (e.g., factory, nuclear power plant) that represented that group.

The factory basically represents the entire industry and the nuclear power plant represents all of the utilities industry.

I should also mentioned that I have the old Altima strategy guide for SimCity 3000 which I played a long time ago and in the manual it mentions how the economic simulation works, for example how property value and travel of the sims in between the different zones is simulated/model, and this also inspired me somewhat in my interest and thought about my economic model/simulation.

And the player would be able to set whatever wages he wanted for his businesses/buildings, that would be part of the gameplay. If the player set wages too high, he might be spending more money than he has to. The amount of return he gets from the labour, when we factor in the player's entire economy, might be less than if he set wages less. And I am not sure, but maybe the player would face marginal utility from increased wages? Maybe as a result of inter-player or inter-building competition for the employment of workers? So doubling the wages does not necessarily mean doubling the labour one gets?

Those are some of the things that made me very interested in this and some of the things that make this design non-straightforward. These are the things that created the 'magic' or 'mystery' or 'wonder' in the idea, as I wondered how these things would turn out if I actually made this model/simulation. And as you can see, it is not very clear in my head how this is all supposed to work and fit together. I just have a lot of 'interesting' ideas to consider, which is probably not a good thing for a game design.

As for what you can do with your rivals, apart from the economic competition, you can battle like you can in any other RTS or TBS game. You can attack the players buildings and units, except the workers. The workers don't belong to any one player but are only 'employed' at any given time by one. But alternatively, maybe if the players control countries, the workers might have citizenship and may emigrate and eventually get different citizenship? But that more ideas...

And as for trade with other players, you can trade whatever resources you want. You can consider the buildings/resources I mentioned earlier in this post. You wouldn't however trade with a player who was at war with you. Trading may give you an advantage if you are able to find goods at cheaper prices, but might also hinder your economy since your economy's money is going to some other player's economy. Whenever the buildings in a players economy exchange resources (for example, the 'shopping malls' purchase 'production capacity' from 'factories'), there is no gain or loss of money since both buildings belong to the same player. This is why I said the player only gains money from 'apartments' and 'shopping malls' in his own economy (and must spend money on the other buildings). But in exchanges between players, for example when another player's 'shopping malls' purchase 'production capacity' from your 'factories', you gain money and that player spends.

The buildings/resources mentioned earlier in this post probably give the most basic, complete set of buildings/resources for my economic model. You might expand the proposed model by adding a 'tier' for resources to be processed (for example, mines might produce mineral ore, which has to be smelted to produce iron). You might also expand the proposed model by adding new 'connections' (for example, the nuclear power plant might require small quantities of uranium, which might be produced in small quantities by some mines). You might break up resources into their constituent groups (for example, you might break down 'consumer goods' into some smaller general groups, along with the buildings associated).

Quote:

Edit: The reason behind the taxation as an important element of the game comes from "What do we use to measure a players success?" And it seems to me that the way we measure success is by the average rate of money a player can make. The player with a higher average rate will be the one whom perform better.

Player trade (which could be automated, for example, making a 'deal'/'contract' to purchase a certain resource from a certain place in exchange for a certain price for the duration of a certain time period, and thus should happen on a continuous basis) and income from workers purchasing consumer goods and housing also add to player income, and the money spent on wages and purchase of resources detract from player income, so taxation isn't the only determinant of player profit.

This gives me another idea... the player 'deals' or 'contracts' might also have 'stipulations' or rules... for example, the contract would of course be void if the players went to war. But perhaps the players could set price ranges for the purchase of the resources. For example, a contract or deal between players might be like this:

Player A will supply Player B with X amount of resource Z every T seconds in exchange for between N to S money for the duration of the next M minutes.
This contract/deal is void if the players declare war or if either player fails to deliver the required amount of resource in time.
This contract/deal expires in M minutes.

[Edited by - polyfrag on March 31, 2009 12:42:56 AM]

Quote:

Original post by Platinum_Dragon @LessBread: People will never comply to be lower than another. It is the level of tolerance is quite high that society is still stable. Without a hierarchy, then society will not exist. Our definitions come from discriminations of things; everything we do is limited by group thinking. Everyone wants total rights, but they do not care that some rights conflict with other people's rights. Every government can be generalize to be the same but they are not the same. Generalization and specifics are totally different things, but you can say that a Government is essentially a group of elite people that have more rights than others. Even with direct democracy (republic) will there be a person with more rights than another because there are some people who can convince other people better and therefore they have more rights as more people believe in them. Group think traps people's mindsets.

That's not much of an answer to my question. You contrasted two different ways of organizing an economy with the assertion that more obedience would be found in one than the other but without connecting that assertion to either arrangement directly. Hierarchy might play a part in that, but you've not demonstrated how one way of organizing an economy involves more hierarchy than the other. Bold font does not make an argument any more or less cogent or a statement any more or less true. Group think infects capitalist societies as much as any other.

Quote:

Original post by polyfrag LessBread, thanks for the link. That is a big read, but good food for thought. [edit] As for a simple answer for what I'm trying to accomplish.... basically, a realistic, elegant, dynamic economic model that can be expanded by adding more resources/buildings/units and economic elements.

It might be a big read, and it's not a perfect book, but I think it likely to set you on the path to improving your thinking about these ideas. I think you could find the seeds of a "realistic dynamic economic model" in it - you'll have to ferret out the elegance for yourself.

Thanks LessBread.

By the way, here is how far I got working on this idea (I haven't worked on it in a long time):



I've been told my artwork is not the best. :)

And it is not in a playable state, and the text at the top doesn't necessarily reflect the complete set of resources or how it would/should be displayed.

But just for fun you can see.

[edit] I think I may post some diagrams to make this more interesting. I think that stuff is too much reading.

[Edited by - polyfrag on March 31, 2009 2:07:41 PM]