This all said, it may be too complicated to both design and present to the player.

Yes, even if doable it will still be confusing and unintuitive as hell to casual players. One currency and valuable one (player needs it) is extremely preferred :)

Random related toughts:

- or maybe do not make the factories pay wages to population and use some other workers redistribution system? (althrough, I kind of find it cute that those virtual peoples earn money)

- or maybe a "produce money" facility (like a gold mine/mint)? They player could build that one if short on cash.

- as a player I start to feel that maybe the automtic wage system is not the best one, I mean, shouldn't I have some button to set these wages manually (low/average/high) per factory/globally? Althrough, I fear useless micromanagement here.. Not sure.

- I like the concept of peoples owning stuff/money. Maybe add separate stockpile of posessed good for each social group (peasants/miners/labourers/clerks) per region? They would buy these and slowly use them up (not all in same turn), so if they player can't deliever (no goods available) they won't immediatelly start rioting but will simply will save their money for later and try to buy these "low on their private stock" things from the player/country next turn?

- I start to feel more and more that there should be some tiny group of "aristocrats" group (they could earn money based on farms efficiency - not paid by the player, the money comes from thin air).

- and similarly, maybe "capitalists" group that don't work either and just provide a lot of income to the player (but they need a certain amount of factories to "survive") or maybe "merchants" group?

Acharis has many similar threads

LOL, indeed.

As for the rest of the post I'm not sure I understood it. Were you refering to riots of the people from the "Dictator - uprising" topic?

Oh, shouldn't tax income for workers, btw.
The player is paying their income anyhow, so it just comes down to paying them less.

(you can tax the money they posses though, it would actually make it worth it having a rich population)

- as a player I start to feel that maybe the automtic wage system is not the best one, I mean, shouldn't I have some button to set these wages manually (low/average/high) per factory/globally? Althrough, I fear useless micromanagement here.. Not sure.

You should have the option to turn a factory off

LOL, indeed.

As for the rest of the post I'm not sure I understood it. Were you refering to riots of the people from the "Dictator - uprising" topic?

Yes I had that topic in mind. People standing around chatting at a cocktail party would represent a micro economy. The waiter's supplying them all with alcohol. If the alcohol runs dry they'd up and leave right away.

That would make the player someone who's schmoozing them for investments and donations. Their money is safer somewhere else, and they have no guarantee you are legitimate.

It sounds easy but if you return to the same party later in the year you'll probably find the guests have a completely new opinion of you. If your investment advice is bad, that is face you'll never get back. If a donation was not covered well by media, or beneficial locally, then someone is unlikely to donate twice. Maybe someone started a rumor about you and you need to spend half the day countering it because every single person has a different version, that's time that new people have to schmooze that you won't have.

Oh, shouldn't tax income for workers, btw.
The player is paying their income anyhow, so it just comes down to paying them less.

Yeah... It's kind of nonsense. I was analysing existing games and you either pay your workers or taxe them. In only one game, Pharaoh, you had both, but the tax there was paid by all population (regardless of income) while wages were paid only to employed; plus the system was totally insane money wise since you taxed them more than you paid in wages

Anyway, I think I could resign from paying workers (I can balance the factories labour distribution a different way), I prefer taxes (would fit the game better). After rethinking it all my priorities are:

- the player builds factories

- the player owns all resources in the country

- the player provides goods to population for free

- the population pays taxes & provide labour force

Generally, the main reason for making this wages system in the first place was this cute "income/wealth of population" map overlay, with these gorgeous coins piling up. It looks really thematic and cool, I want to keep it. But it does not need to be wages of the workers, it could be anything that represents financial wellbeing of the population, anything. Some abstract wealth maybe, I don't know?

I was thinking also about this (a bit artificial system). Tell me what you think.

- the player builds factories, all production belongs to the player

- there is Capitalists class and Labourers class (population groups)

- the labourers work in factories (built by the player) and are paid for it by capitalists (the wages depend on the ratio of capitalists to labourers, the more capitalists the higher wages)

- the capitalists get money based on number of factories * efficiency of factories in a province (this money comes from the void)

- the money earned by capitalists and spend on wages by them does not need to add up (I'm not sure about that one)

- in the end you have wealth of labourers and wealth of capitalists which you can display on the "workers wages/wealth" map overlay

- your taxes are also partially based on the wages of population

A similar system of Aristocrats and Peasants would be used for farms (so in the end you would have 4 groups with separate wealth (capitalists, labourers, aristocrats, peasants)...

Umm, does this mean you need workers for efficiënt factories, efficiënt factories to tax capitalists more, and capitalists to tax wages more ?

Because that could work.

Would need a good explanation/manual for the player though ^_^

Umm, does this mean you need workers for efficiënt factories, efficiënt factories to tax capitalists more, and capitalists to tax wages more ?

Because that could work.

Would need a good explanation/manual for the player though

Well, if it requires an extensive manual then probaly it's not the best idea :)

I will put it a simplier way (the core).

Workers are needed so factories produce goods, workers also eat up goods that the player provides them for free, workers also pay taxes. That's ALL, that's how it really works.

But, I want to give the player an *illusion* that this is a living word, that those labourers earn money, have some wealth, can be poor or rich, have families to feed. So I though, if we can't/shouldn't make the player pay wages to workers, let invent some imaginary capitalists that would be paying wages to those workers instead! Similarly, even through all the consumer goods are provided for free to the workers let's make an illusion that there are some imaginary capitalists that sell these goods to population. This way this imaginary money flow between capitalists and labourers could be presented to the player enriching the experience.

That's the trick I'm trying to pull of :)

I think I got it... I would precisely track and calculate all money the player touches and approximate the money/wealth of population. Tell me if you see holes here.

There are 3 sources of wages:

- paid by aristocrats (peasants)

- paid by capitalists (miners, labourers)

- paid by the government/player (bureaucrats, teachers)

The player only pays for the government employed population (using a a global budget slider, can't affect separate government buildings in provinces) and has an option to subsidize choosen mines and factories.

The wages depends on (none of these apply to government hired workers):

- number of workers in a factory/production facility (if shortage the wages get raised)

- unemployment rate in the province (high unemployment lowers wages of everyone)

- approximated profitability of a production facility (for example a mine that has low ore deposits will always pay less to miners than another mine that has higher ore concentration and therefore higher efficiency)

- wealth of capitalists/aristocrats (if they reach a "too low wealth" thereshold they will lower all wages)

Subsidizing a factory/mine - when choosen, part of the wages are paid by the player, it instantly increases wages and also increases wealth of capitalists (so if helps the industry from both ends, the only drawback is the expediture of player's money).

Profitability - it approximately measures how much money the factory/farm "earns" per worker and therefore how much the aristocrats/capitalists are willing to alter wages. The criterias are:

- the most important is the fertility of land for farms and ore deposits for a mine, if below 100% profitability reduced (down x1 per missing 20%)

- if there is shortage of the goods the factory produces (some other structures were not fully operational due to shortage a half product last turn) (up x2)

- if there was any shortage of resources the factory uses and the factory was not fully operational because of it (down x4) (no point hiring more workers if the factory has shortage of resources)

- if there is a huge stockpile of produced goods (in the player's warehouse), like 10 turns worth of production of coal would make coal mines less profitable temporarily (down x1)

Effects of aristocrats/capitalists:

- they manage the fields/factories, so if there is not enough capitalists per factory&worker hired the factory gets a penalty to efficiency (this would be the most visible effect of capitalists to the player I suppose).

- they pay nice taxes

How aristocrats & capitalists "breed" - at the beginning you have a lot of aristocrats and no capitalists. Over time some aristocrats might switch to capitalist or a part of middle class (bureaucras and the like) can promote to capitalists. The speed of breeding depends on taxes they pay, profitability of farms/factories in a province, average wages (the less the better). Capitalists are also very mobile, they will always first try to migrate to another province before downgrading to unemployed.

Much simpler would be to just focus the game on industry/production and use a whip to "pay" the labourers.
Trade with other countries can be done by using gold as money.
The player would go after needed/scarce resources instead of one resource to pay for all.

Which of these sytems do you prefer/have in mind:
1) money pays for almost everything, some resources are needed for this or that, but the player only needs to figure out what makes the most money.
2) money is just there to keep the game balanced, it allows the player to have factories(/mines etc.) work at double rate when a certain commodity is scarce, but at a high cost,
the player can only do this for a short while before going bankrupt.
Only if the player manages the entirety of the economy well, he 'll earn some money, this money will have little to no investment potential.

The system you posted doesn't look bad, btw, but i'm just thinking you might be focusing on something you may now want the game to be about too much.

Which of these sytems do you prefer/have in mind:
1) money pays for almost everything, some resources are needed for this or that, but the player only needs to figure out what makes the most money.
2) money is just there to keep the game balanced, it allows the player to have factories(/mines etc.) work at double rate when a certain commodity is scarce, but at a high cost,
the player can only do this for a short while before going bankrupt.
Only if the player manages the entirety of the economy well, he 'll earn some money, this money will have little to no investment potential.

Primarily 2), originally I was even thinking that factories would not require money to build, just resources. BUT if you have a lot of money you can buy resources (althrough that's not cost efficient). Generally, I was thinking of using resources for industry and money for happiness (social reforms, reduction of taxes). And, while not that useful for industry, in the end money would be more important than resources (spirit of mercantilism). Or to put it other way, you would be using industry to generate money, not the other way round (usually). Money would be, sort of, the "final product" of your industry (after producing goods and then exporting them).

BTW, most likely I will retheme the game to a bit of steampunk (the island does not look historical anyway :)). Here is the topic about the name of the game:

http://www.gamedev.net/topic/652604-steampunk-industrial-revolution-looking-for-a-name/

OK, most of my questions have been answered for now. Thanks all.

So, now if you have some general thoughts/tips/ideas/etc, drop them :)

Like for example if the current only 12 provinces seems all right for this type of game. Or what you would want to see in such game, things like that.