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ShunterAlhena

Join Date 02/2006

Economy: "Why?"

The rationale behind the current economical system (aka: wtf??)

Hi all,

Before writing anything: I like the game in it's present form. Granted, I do have a few gripes, but no software is ever perfect. This is just a post out of curiosity.

What is the reason for the present economical model (apart from the reason that it's been this way since 1994... then why was it invented this way back then)?
Just imagine a parallel: Allied troops are marching south from Normandy, Russians are advancing west, and half the workers in a German Panzer factory are idling, because Hitler has set research production to 50%; therefore, military production cannot be higher than 50%. Even though there is more than enough labor force and the government could fund the construction, the dictator has NO WAY to get the completely idle factories to work BECAUSE two hundred kilometers away a bunch of scientists are fiddling away on the atomic bomb. However, if he said that those 100 researchers can go and join the other 100 researchers doing nothing (research is set to 0% from 50%), everywhere around Berlin ten thousand workers suddenly feel that the psychological barrier preventing them from entering the factory gates has suddenly vanished.
...see the "tiny" quirk in the logic behind the story?

Anybody care to explain?

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**sigh**

Just "read the f'in manual". Aight, so I'm hiring workers. It still seems odd that my 18 billion+ planets cannot fully man five factories AND three research centers simultaenously, but let's just imagine that we need highly trained manpower that takes YEARS to educate and the game is set during a period of weeks. Whatever.

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It's even simpler than reading the manual. The OP is mixing up labor force with raw materials. In almost all fields, salary is a very small slice of the total costs.

For example, I do scientific research for a living. It's funded by a mixture of government and private grants. Although my salary is a constant drain, it's a rather small percentage of the total costs. If the project is poorly funded, then the scope of the research is limited. If the project is well funded then new equipment, new software, new grad students, expendable (and often expensive) supplies, etc. all become easily obtainable.

Although the industrial model is abstracted heavily, it's still not much different. A skilled laborer could be building lawn mowers or he could be building fighter jets. Fund the factory well enough and it's making fighter jets instead of lawn mowers. Take away their funding and they're building lawn mowers again.

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kryo

Join Date 05/2003

+458

The basic idea behind the mechanic is the belief that players should have to choose between improving their planets, building a military, and researching new techs, rather than being able to do all three at total efficiency at once.

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My biggest quirk with the game logic is that production isn’t tied to population. But it is more important that the system works and is transparent and easy to use.

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Mystikmind

Join Date 06/2004

+20

Labour is not an issue in Galciv. Which makes sense because only primitive societies rely heavily on labour. Today's modern society relies less on labour than ever before due to automation. So in a space age society, labour would be even less essential.

In the OP's example of Hitler's germany... in reality, allied military strategists were thankful hitler was using missiles against England.

The cost benefit for military effectiveness of missiles compared to building more tanks or planes was very beneficial to the allies.

Even if hitler had managed to develop the atom bomb, still he could just as easily have delivered it with a bomber than a missile, so even then, missiles were still a big mistake.

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Anybody care to explain?

Sure, its a game, not Germany WWII. Simple huh?

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Mystikmind

Join Date 06/2004

+20

Sure, its a game, not Germany WWII. Simple huh?

what's your point? packman or stack challenge are both games too, and both have nothing to do with WWII germany.

Thankfully galciv is a little more sofisticated than just being a 'game'.

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I posted once and it got lost somewhere; sorry if it doubles when I try reposting...

The production amounts you're manipulating are only government industries. When you drop your spending in research, those scientists you lost don't just stop. Since you're spending's dropped, your wages are dropping, and those scientists just decide they can do better in the private sector. They're still working, just not for you.

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Sure, its a game, not Germany WWII. Simple huh?

what's your point? packman or stack challenge are both games too, and both have nothing to do with WWII germany.

Thankfully galciv is a little more sofisticated than just being a 'game'.

Since the OP used WWII as a basis to compare real life to a video game, which GCII is, if you like it or not. I simply answered his simple question of why.

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Mystikmind

Join Date 06/2004

+20

Since the OP used WWII as a basis to compare real life to a video game, which GCII is, if you like it or not. I simply answered his simple question of why.

Fair enough, I see your point hase some logic, but still don't agree.

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Mumblefratz

Join Date 07/2006

+139

I think Kryo's point was the most germane to the conversation. There's a management trade off between the various types of production. This is apparently a developer desired trade off that's been in the game since day one.

Malkuth reinforced this by making the point that since it's a game it doesn't necessarily require a rational explanation as to why game mechanics work the way they do.

One way to deal with is to do what a number of people do which is to only build industry or research but not both. You then go through modes where you use focus to get production out of research buildings or vice versa to get production out of research buildings. I've know folks that swear by this method.

I usually use a slight adaptation of this method. Since manufacturing buildings don't get any bonus for research bonus tiles, the only research buildings I ever build are on research bonus tiles. Otherwise I only build factories. I then focus planets on production if they're producing a ship or building a social project otherwise I set the planets focus to research. I think this works the best.

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Balancing costs and available tiles and tech levels and other factors would also create a trade-off system, one that could be be perceived as more realistic and simple. A resource-based system would be the most realistic (and the introduction of asteroids seems to point that way), especially in a setting where money has been practically a non-issue since the invention of fusion power.

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Thanks for the pretty high number of posts!

If you look carefully, you'll see that the OP and the first poster was both myself, and "read the f'in manual" was actually a note to self to what I should've done in the first place.

As for the abstracted industrial system, I value immersion above everything else when gaming, so I wanted to understand what I'm doing to the Empire when I'm setting those sliders. The answer "it's a game mechanic to enforce prioritization" is not a very immersive thought, now is it?

Anyway, the concept of routing highly trained manpower does make sense.
One can compare this to Risk and Chess: (generalizing VERY heavily) both feature a battlefield, both are very entertaining games, but while Risk's rules can be explained (you have to leave troops behind to quell resistance, quasi-realistic territories, etc), Chess' rules are totally abstract (what on Earth makes bishops move only diagonally?)...
It's only that I prefer the first variant for my precious "immersion" and I sought a semi-realistic explanation.

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Maybe so but look at it this way. If I am a dictator in charge of a country/planet, whatever, and my goal is total domination then wouldn't my improvements/military/and new techs all go hand in hand? You know, research for weapons/defenses goes towards building the planetary infrastructure (past the factories and stock exchanges of course) and the military. In my opinion these would all correlate at one point or another... especially in a game where the end goal is almost always a military conquest.

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