Economic Simulation

apoger · #1 October 29th, 2003, 03:09 PM

>And a thought struck me. Illwinter set out to design a military and magical simulation not an economic one

All military games are about economy.

MStavros · #2 October 29th, 2003, 05:00 PM

Oh god... Dominions 3?

Perhaps you should try out Dominions 2. first.

[ October 29, 2003, 15:01: Message edited by: MStavros ]

Yojinbo · #3 October 29th, 2003, 07:08 PM

>All military games are about economy.

I agree, "Guns & Butter" doctrine establishes this. That's why I find it odd to have such a rich magical and combat simulation with such a stark economic model.

In some of the Koei games one could "camp" in a few home provinces and build up the economy to compete with a marauding horde of enemies. In Dom multi, if you don't have 10 provinces by turn 15 you are in trouble - this forces expansion. What about a choice to invest gold in 2 or 3 provinces building the economy instead of building huge offensive armies? Is this a good idea or will it take Dominions into the realm of CIV games?

Yo

Saber Cherry · #4 October 29th, 2003, 07:42 PM

I just hate seeing all those resources go to waste, just cause I'm not building an army. Those laazy peasants should be improving their irrigation, or building massive slums, or something!

Shogun had too much, I think, but I did like the way you could progress through various agricultural improvements to the "Legendary Farmland"

Heartless dictators are always known for big, stupid, wasteful crash-building projects. Why can't we do that? If I get a longbow province with only 20 people and 1 resource, I want to blow money on it profligately until it has the population and resources to be useful. And maybe there are only 20 people, but I still wanna make them my slaves and do inefficient forced labor (building tenements) rather than goofing around, just because I'm not conscripting them.

A "Provincial Orders" menu would be nice for this=) Things like "Develop mines", "Plant forests", "Build housing", "Cultivate fields"... all of which basically consume all the resources and half of the gold of a province, but make it better over time (proportionately to the provincial gold and resource output).

-Cherry

Calanor · #5 October 30th, 2003, 02:19 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Saber Cherry:
[snip]
A "Provincial Orders" menu would be nice for this=) Things like "Develop mines", "Plant forests", "Build housing", "Cultivate fields"... all of which basically consume all the resources and half of the gold of a province, but make it better over time (proportionately to the provincial gold and resource output).

I agree to some extent, but there obviously should exist a maximum potential for a province. There's little use mining for iron in a province that simply does not hold any iron ore...

Saber Cherry · #6 October 30th, 2003, 02:27 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Calanor:
I agree to some extent, but there obviously should exist a maximum potential for a province. There's little use mining for iron in a province that simply does not hold any iron ore...

Oh, of course, I agree - I don't want to be able to make every province into a powerhouse. I just like to imagine lazy peasants being whipped to do my bidding. Really, it could decrease productivity, as long as someone's being punished - that's the important part!

As for your other claim... ya know... if you dig deep enough, you'll ALWAYS hit iron. Liquid iron, in fact

OK, enough silliness. Yeah, I assume any value gains would have a hard limit, and the value's magnitude (while being improved) would look like the graph of (1-(1/X)), starting at some random percentage of the maximum. For reference, you may want to graph that function on a calculator, or on Windows's Power Tools scientific calculator.

By "value", I mean resources, population, supply, and per-capita gold output, all of which would ideally start at a random percent of their provincial maximum, and asymptotically approach their max through development. Except population, which should have no hard max.

-Cherry

[ October 30, 2003, 00:33: Message edited by: Saber Cherry ]

Yojinbo · #7 October 30th, 2003, 02:38 AM

I was reading the bless/pretender design thread and I noted all the comments about how in MP people are making weak pretender and "investing" in the compound interest of growth scales instead. (I do this too)

And a thought struck me. Illwinter set out to design a military and magical simulation not an economic one, yet we have managed to it into one.

Maybe in Dom3 (Assumption, I know) we could go all out and have province investing like Nobanaga's Ambition?

Yo