So what makes a good 4x space game economy model? I invite you to read my latest article: "What makes a good 4x space game economy model?" at SpaceSector.com. Let me know your opinion here or in the blog forum as you prefer. Cheers Adam Solo http://www.spacesector.com

The main problem with most economic systems (and not just 4X games either, this includes almost any game that uses some form of money like MMORPGs), even the ones that try to be realistic, is that they makes the same fundamental mistake: They treat money like a commodity.

They treat it like a resource like Coal, Oil, Food, etc. Money is not like this in a real economic system. Unlike these commodities, when you use money (spend it to do something), it does not disappear but instead remains in the economic system. Money is not "used up". This makes it behave differently in an economic system than other types of commodities.

In all 4x games I have played (and I am a 4x fan), when you spend money to complete a project, or buy units, the money spent vanishes from the game. You can get other money back to replace it by taxing (or the same method by a different name) the population.

This is a Sink/Source model of money and forces it to act like other commodities. But, the gameplay and theme is designed that money is not a commodity like the others. This discrepancy is what leads to all sorts of problems (like massive inflation, hoarding, etc).

For example, if you can set it up so that you have more sources than sinks, then you will endlessly increase your wealth. In effect, the player has arranged it so it is like they can print heir own money.

In a competitive game, this makes the game less about Exploring, Expanding, and Exterminating and more about Exploiting - a 1x game if you will.

the solution to this I have seen (and it is not so much a solution as a bad way of patching the hole) is that they place extra and often arbitrary constraints of your behaviours.

The real solution is actually fairly simple (at least conceptually):

- If you take money from one location (eg: taxes, imports), then there will be less money in that location.
- If you place money in a location (eg: spending, exports) then there will be more of it in that location.

- The more money in a location, the less value that location will place on a given amount of money.
- The less money in a given location, the more value that location will place on amount of money.

- Give the player the ability to create an amount of money at will but it goes into the economy, not the player's stores.
- Give the player the ability to remove money form the economy, but it comes from their own stores.

These last ones might seem a bit risky. You have explicitly given a player the ability to "print their own money", but if you look, there is a constraint to it: If the player creates more money, then the value of that money is reduced so that they have not had any net increase in wealth.

The best way to use money in a system is to use it as a "potential" commodity: Having money give the owner the Potential to command access to an amount of commodities of the same value.

The term "Commodities" can also be extended from just goods, but it can also include services (eg: ship maintenance) and even infrastructure (eg: factories, or research facilities).

In this way, if a player "bought" (or built or rented) something, then they would have the ability to give it orders. So for a factory, they might "rent" it for a number of turns (or a period of time) and use it to produce ships. Afterwards, those ships will remain with the player (because the factory was producing them for the player) after the lease on the factory is expired. However, the money spent renting the factory does not diaper from the world, but would instead go to the factory owner who could then build more factories, research better ships or productions methods, or just build other ships for selling to other groups (players, AI or just traders to increase the amount of trade that place can undertake).

It is a type of Macro-Micro management. It allows the player to micromanage by carefully selecting how they spend and get their money, but it only give the player one tool by which they can do this: Money.

There will be a lot more detail going on in the economy (but computers now days are more than capable of the calculations needed - even for a real time game) and you don't need thousands of entities for each planet (maybe around 20 or so).

The other thing this kind of system allows is that the player can invent their own sources and sinks. A player might choose to tax their populations and get their money like that, or they could buy outright infrastructure to produce a commodity that is needed and then sell it for their money (or even hybrid systems where multiple income streams are used).

Also, if the player takes too much money from a location, then the local economy suffers and they will start to get a reduction in how much they can get from it. Over Exploitation can occur.

But this Over Exploitation can actually drive the other "X"s in the 4X game. If a location is being over exploited, then the player can eXplore new areas to eXpand into and exploit, but if the area is already inhabited then they will have to eXterminate the current inhabitants (or try to exploit them in some way - eg: Trade).

A good economic system doesn't have to be too complicated, look at Majesty 2, it's rather simple but it's at the same time rather deep compared to other games. The way money circulates for a bit, you get it from different sources, spend it and your heroes gets it and can buy stuff which in turn gives some of it back to you.

by allowing different agents in the game to accumulate wealth and spend it where they want in different ways and allowing them to earn them in different ways you'd be way on your way to a more lively economic.

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Original post by Edtharan The main problem with most economic systems (and not just 4X games either, this includes almost any game that uses some form of money like MMORPGs), even the ones that try to be realistic, is that they makes the same fundamental mistake: They treat money like a commodity.

I'm really interested in your approach to this but it brings up that old saw about people playing games to escape the complexity of real life. In a 4X I personally don't want to deal with maturation of investment instruments, derivatives and Federal Reserve banking policy. I want a semblance of that stuff (like you, probably more than the average 4X gamer) but ultimately I want a straightforward dynamic that functions in a way I can, within limits, predict and control so that I can get to the meat: Building ships, exploring new worlds, fighting enemies, etc.

Is there a way to abstract this into something like an "Economy" stat, maybe with percentage or portion sliders or maybe even an adjustable pie budget? I wouldn't mind some of the economic options you see in a game like Democracy applied to a 4X. If you could do this, maybe even on a local versus national level, I think some of the trade-offs and choices would be interesting. Economic states that spark war or create peace, damage/marginalize or lift up society and ultimately create different ways to play the game would be very cool. But I think it has be broken down to the level of simple arithmetic: I get X gold a turn, I spend Y, in Z turns I'll be able to afford that Doomstar...

One element that I've never seen depicted well, by the way, would be debt. We speak of passing debt onto future generations, owing debt to foreign powers or having the economy eaten up by interest payments. Maybe a simple Econ pie chart widget could handle this, with a larger and larger slice shrinking future options (until you disrupt the galactic economy by holding a revolution that is)

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Original post by Edtharan The main problem with most economic systems (and not just 4X games either, this includes almost any game that uses some form of money like MMORPGs), even the ones that try to be realistic, is that they makes the same fundamental mistake: They treat money like a commodity.

Some interesting economic stuff regarding the properties of goods/commodities that I hope you might find useful! :)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rivalry_%28economics%29

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Original post by Psilobe A good economic system doesn't have to be too complicated, look at Majesty 2, it's rather simple but it's at the same time rather deep compared to other games. The way money circulates for a bit, you get it from different sources, spend it and your heroes gets it and can buy stuff which in turn gives some of it back to you.

I use the mathematical descriptions of complex systems. In it they separate Complicated systems from Complex systems.

- Complicated systems are systems with many components.

- Complex systems are systems with many interactions between components.

A system can be both complex and complicated.

By allowing money to circulate you increase the interactions that it can make, and increase the complexity of the system. But this does not mean that the player has more things to interact with, which means that the system is not more complicated.

(there is a reason I need to separate them - see at the end of this post)

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Original post by Psilobe by allowing different agents in the game to accumulate wealth and spend it where they want in different ways and allowing them to earn them in different ways you'd be way on your way to a more lively economic.

A Complex economy makes for interesting choices as each time the player makes a decision in it the greater number of interactions that follow on form that decision creates consequences. It is these consequences that give each decision more depth to them and increase the gameplay of the game.

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Original post by Wavinator I'm really interested in your approach to this but it brings up that old saw about people playing games to escape the complexity of real life. In a 4X I personally don't want to deal with maturation of investment instruments, derivatives and Federal Reserve banking policy. I want a semblance of that stuff (like you, probably more than the average 4X gamer) but ultimately I want a straightforward dynamic that functions in a way I can, within limits, predict and control so that I can get to the meat: Building ships, exploring new worlds, fighting enemies, etc.

I agree. You don't need all that stuff from real world economics in the game. But what you do what is to make the decisions the players makes have more impact (consequences) than just the immediate effect (eg: spend 500,000 credits and you get a ship). If that 500,000 credits has further impact in how it effects the region (more ship building facilities get built, more research is done on ships or factories, etc), then this makes for more deeper gameplay.

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Original post by Wavinator Is there a way to abstract this into something like an "Economy" stat, maybe with percentage or portion sliders or maybe even an adjustable pie budget? I wouldn't mind some of the economic options you see in a game like Democracy applied to a 4X. If you could do this, maybe even on a local versus national level, I think some of the trade-offs and choices would be interesting. Economic states that spark war or create peace, damage/marginalize or lift up society and ultimately create different ways to play the game would be very cool. But I think it has be broken down to the level of simple arithmetic: I get X gold a turn, I spend Y, in Z turns I'll be able to afford that Doomstar...

By abstracting too far, you eliminate the depth that complex (not complicated) systems offer. When you abstract it, you reduce the number of interactions that can occur and so eliminate the complexity.

If you then want to add in effects that would normally be cause by this complexity, you have to add in more components and this makes it more complicated. The idea is to reduce how complicated the system is by increasing the number of interactions that can occur (complexity) in a way to keep the functions that you desire.

One of the biggest problems of complicated systems is that they are well... complicated. This means that it is difficult for even the designers to understand them and how each piece effects the others. In complex systems, the design of the system is actually quite streamlined (but not simple) and this helps designers (and players) to understand what is going on better.

On the up side for Complicated systems, they interactions are trivial so predicting what the outcome will be for a given interaction is usually straight forward. But for complex systems, because of the amount of interactions that can occur, it becomes harder to predict the consequences of a specific interaction (but often that is one of the aims of implementing a complex system in the first place).

In the system I proposed the player only needed to spend their money on what they wanted and they would know how much money they would get from their holdings (but there would be some variation), so they could work out that in Z turns they will be able to afford that Doomstar for Y gold and just pay for it.

But, what my system does is say: "What happens to that money that was spent?". In a real economy, the money that was spent on that Doomstar goes to the factories that produced it, then to the workers that work there, then these workers spend their money to buy their own goods and services, then the providers of these good and services pay their employees, and so on...

Of course you don't need to go into the details of each individual worker, but you would have an internal entity (with maybe a way for the player to query or change how they spend their money) that redistributes their money to other entities (including the player). They need a bit of smarts and make some decision (and this is where the player should be allowed to influence their spending), but it can be a "pie chart", or what have you, that the player adjusts, or they could be smart enough to make their own decisions (or even have the player able to adjust some of the money spending, and the entities make some of their own decisions in a hybrid system).

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Original post by Wavinator One element that I've never seen depicted well, by the way, would be debt. We speak of passing debt onto future generations, owing debt to foreign powers or having the economy eaten up by interest payments. Maybe a simple Econ pie chart widget could handle this, with a larger and larger slice shrinking future options (until you disrupt the galactic economy by holding a revolution that is)

Debt is an interesting idea. I have seen it done (but not done well) in games. Basically in these the player could borrow money and then they had to pay it back within a certain time and with interest (Sim City IIRC).

The reason this was not a good implementation is that it created a superficial effect of going into debt, and this is because the money didn't circulate.

In my system, Debt (and lending) is actually an implementation of the last two rules. In my system the player (and this can be changed to another entity) is able to great money at will, but then this goes to another entity in the economy (or to the player if it is the player borrowing the money).

What occurs is that because of this influx of money, the value of all other money in the system goes down. But if this extra money is then used to do something that will later increase the value of the economy, then this turns it into an investment (what they call leverage in economics).

When the entity (or player) who borrowed that money pays it back, then the one who created it can then destroy it and the value of the money returns to normal. The interest that is paid on the loan is to allow the investor to make money off the situation.

The problems that can occur with this is that the money spent by the borrower goes into the economy as a whole and the lender does not necessarily have access to the money to destroy it. While the money is out in the economy it has reduced the value of the money and so things cost more. This is called inflation.

The other way of handling debt is allowing an investor to give another entity (the debtor) some of the money they have stored. The debtor then has to repay the money they borrowed and the interest paid to the investor so they can have more money to lend out in future.

When money is stored (eg: saved in a back account, stuck under a mattress, etc), it means that there is less of it circulating in the economy and this causes an effect as if the money was destroyed.

IF you give this some thought, you can actually see why in most MMOs they end up having massive inflation or deflation. When monsters drop loot, this is like an entity creating money (as in the first type of debt), but, as the player does not have to pay back the money from this, the money stays in the system and the value of the money drops which leads to inflation.

However, if you introduce a way for money to be destroyed, often called a sink (vendors and such), then you can potentially balance the books. But this itself has problems.

The big problem is that the amount of money that the sinks destroy is not tied to the amount of money that is dropped. The player is not paying back a debt (which is what the loot dropped by the monsters actually is). IF the sinks are too high, the amount of money in the world plummets and the value of it rises and this leads to deflation, if the sinks are too low then the amount of money in the world rises and you get inflation.

This is why you have to have the entities that create the money able to make the decision to destroy money they have.

4X games are an economic type game, so you need to have a working economic system in it (it doesn't need to be very complicated or too complex - it just needs to function properly). This means that you need to allow the money to circulate through it and implement the 6 rules I stated in my previous post (and location can be as detailed as regions on planets, the planets themselves, a player faction and all the way up to a single entity of the game universe).

You don't need to create: "maturation of investment instruments, derivatives and Federal Reserve banking policy", these emerge out of the interactions. These are not explicit, but are actually a way of describing certain patterns of interactions within the systems and behaviours of the system.

Remember, all of this that I am talking about emerges from just those 6 rules (and allowing the money to circulate). It is not a complicated system, but it is a complex system because the amount of interactions that can occur from these rules is quite large (this is what I was talking about with the complicated/complex issue - see it did have a point :D ).

@Edtharan

Could you please elaborate on how you see your proposed system working in a broader sense? How do you think a game using your system would start off? And how do you think it would progress?

A problem with treating money as if it were an original and valuable resource in it's own right is that it produces confusion. From there is born the idiom of a centralized banking system, just for convenience.

If there were resources in-game that could be mined and transported, their location becomes less important. And what is a star map, if not specifically as set of locations? There's no need for long-haul freighter/cargo runs (and their fighter escourts), because their jobs have been simulated away. Pirate raids on convoys leave the realm of playable interceptions, and the risk of transport losses is trivialized.

If a planet excels at producing exportable wheat, it's just converted directly into Imperial Credits and spent three sectors away creating Plutonium warheads. Money becomes a doppleganger, substituting it's own existance for all resources, and killing off any reason for those other resources to exist.

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Could you please elaborate on how you see your proposed system working in a broader sense?

In a broader sense, the system creates a self balancing system. It prevents a positive feedback loop from occuring.

In 4X games that haven't dealt with this positive feedback loop where the players can use resources to produce more resources then what occurs is the first player to get a small advantage in this area of the game and use it to get ever more accelerating income and dominate the game. Essentially if you get a small advantage at the start, it becomes increasingly harder for others to win which makes the rest of the game frustrating for those who didn't get that advantage.

You can tell if a game is like this because players will try to get every advantage at the start they can (Civilisation is know for this). If you need to play a game for 3 hours to complete it, but the game is won or lost within the first 10 minutes, this is very poor game design.

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How do you think a game using your system would start off?

The way a game using this system could start off is with the player in charge of a single colony or outpost. They might also start off as a trading fleet and trade their way up to owning a colony (and from there conquering colonies).

By having a more robust economic system in place (rather than the Sink/Source system) there is much more flexibility in the specific role a player takes in that system (whether it is a trader fleet, colony governor, pirate, mercenary, etc) This way a player can play the same game and start very differently (or end up very different) from other playings of the same game.

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And how do you think it would progress?

The game would progress much the same as with other 4x type games, but with the added advantage that a good economic system it offers more strategies that the player can pursue and that these strategies have complex consequences (where as current 4x ones are pretty simple, like if I buy X ships then my military power goes up Y amount and my bank account goes down Z amount - in mine the same thing occurs, but then you also get the effect that the economy gets Z amount of extra cash injected into it and this will have follow on effects).

@Edtharan

It seems to me that you're talking about a fundamentally different type of (4X) game than what's out there already. In every 4X game that I know of, the player basically acts as the entire species/civilization. What you're talking about, on the other hand, is the player being just one actor in a larger system. There's nothing wrong with that conceptually, but I'm not sure how well it goes in with the traditional 4X-game concept.