IMHO Economics does not necessarily refer to "factories, workers and production" nor is it "stocks, bonds, exchange rates and derivatives".

Economics is used also in analysis of Crime, War, Religion, Irrational Behavior, Dating etc. (ref : Steve Levitt's "Freakonomics", http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_imperialism_(economics))



IMHO a game about Economics does not mean it has to be about managing a large amount of production decisions. I feel that games involving seemingly "economic" activities always end up not requiring any economic decision making at all. For example, space trading games are much more about "buy-low-sell-high, rinse and repeat to general infinite wealth" than economic decisions.

Any attempts to simulate an economy through games will almost always end up as a superficial grinding exercise due to the lack of understanding of economics.



One direct reason why throwing together factories and production in a game will not result in a realistic economic system is that these are not the cause of the real world's economic system. Economics, at its heart, is about human behavior and human behavior is the root cause of factories and production. In an online game, for example, people need not have the incentive to gain wealth or care for their well being. They could just restart their accounts or just quit the game. (e.g. in real life, if you are very poor, you will be driven to work for money. in a virtual world, if you start out very poor, you can always quit and play something more fun)

But the player isn't the one doing all the buying, that's what the workers do. The workers have certain intrinsic needs and thus need to purchase to satisfy them and thus keep the economy running. The player is a participant in the economic web, trying to get the most profits and most powerful empire.

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Original post by polyfrag But the player isn't the one doing all the buying, that's what the workers do. The workers have certain intrinsic needs and thus need to purchase to satisfy them and thus keep the economy running. The player is a participant in the economic web, trying to get the most profits and most powerful empire.

"Economic activity" in games often end up requiring no economic decision making and is purely an exercise in "finding out what makes a profit (or the most profit) and repeating that activity over and over again".

It is easy to write about vague ideas about how to implement an economy but I have yet to read about or see an activity in game that requires economic decision making.

The problem with trying to mimic real life economies in game is that there is no easy model of the real world economy for game programmers to use.

I just gave an economic model to use. It is basically an RTS with a few modifications.

And the economics is basically just to make the RTS more strategic. It is supposed to be complex so that you can have complex strategy.

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Original post by polyfrag I just gave an economic model to use. It is basically an RTS with a few modifications.

Your economic model do not model real life economies well at all.

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Original post by polyfrag And the economics is basically just to make the RTS more strategic. It is supposed to be complex so that you can have complex strategy.

"More complex" does not equal "more complex strategies". For example, Chess and Go are not complex but have complex strategies.

I think my economic model is a basis for a simulation that can be expanded.

And my model has features that are supposed to create complex strategy (e.g., supply and demand, changing prices, worker AI's, physical handling and transportation of resources).