Economics (enter at own risk)

[Nobody]

I think you're forgetting something about the Civ maps. They are rectangular, so your world would be a cylinder without bottom and top. Maybe even a torus/donout or Möbius strip! If we don't want nuclear power, than we should just say that this is world simply has no uranium.

First question:  Do you broadly agree that an "All-big-gun battleship fleet" is approximate technological standard we're aiming for here?

Yes.

Second question:  Given that a lot of work has been done on rules for N4 - what do you like and see as being potentially transferrable to this concept?  Bear in mind the discussion to date here.

Tricky question. I'm not really happy with how N4 turned out.
I don't like the economic. It feels complicated and restrictive. This is the time of industrial revolution, it should at least allow maximum growth rates in the order of China/Turkey (>10%/a) - of course only set the tax to 0 that is.

The simple harbor system proposed earlier doesn't sound bad.

As the army will hopefully be less important, I can live the N4 army system. Better than the N3 one imho.

We need tech progression! However it should not be seen as a technical, but rather a practical limitation. Knowing you could have build the Dreadnought ten maybe twenty years earlier is useless if no engineer would have be willing to risk his name for building it.
My idea would be a "anything goes" system were developing something unprecedented cost much more. The more countries have a certain tech the cheaper its development gets until its free.

Third question:  What resources should be tracked, if any?  Consider the opposing possibilities that this planet may have oil/coal, or that it may not (resulting in biodiesel or some other substitute).

Tricky as well. If you want to do it right: Iron, Aluminum, Copper, Oil, Coal, Nickel and Chrome. Replacements (wood, plant oil) should be considered. Possibly food/Nitrate (fertilizer). But that's probably too complicated.

My idea would be to differentiate between common, rare and sacred metals. The amount of sacred metals would determine how much "high grade steel"(weapons & armor) you can get out of your common recourses. However each countries rare resources would count as sacred for your trading partner.

Fourth question:  Is there interest in the idea of applying "character points" to each player-state?  There'd be very few - say, racial chauvinism (how easily do you make and keep friends), militarism (how likely are you to fight to the last man), innovation (how likely are you to make tech advances).  I see it as a potential way to limit what we might consider as "mass suicide attacks" and such.

That could be interesting, I've never been good at stuff like this though.

Fifth question:  Timekeeping.  Would turns be three months, six, or twelve?

A year is too long, a half year still long and it feels strange to me. I like quarters, but this might be too much - how about terms (4 months)?
Advantages for short terms include:
- not much to change from previous report
- less important. It doesn't really matter if you forget something. Just remember for the next
- better reactions on each others course of action without changing previous ones

[miketr]

Tricky question. I'm not really happy with how N4 turned out.
I don't like the economic. It feels complicated and restrictive. This is the time of industrial revolution, it should at least allow maximum growth rates in the order of China/Turkey (>10%/a) - of course only set the tax to 0 that is.

Except that this didn't happen.  Having a growth rate of 3% WAS a big deal during the 19th century.  10% growth rates are the result of to be blunt agrarian societies jumping OVER the industrial age into the information age.  This is why you have weird things like peons in India and China hand working fields and factories in cities making microprocessor based computers.  Its like aliens coming down out of the sky and giving people in the west 150 years worth of tech in one shot.

Economic growth rates were typically 1% + plus population growth which was also around 1% or less.

Whats happening in China, etc is they are seeing massive improvements in the productivity of their manpower.  They are also facing inflation problems so their real growth rates aren't as high as those double digit rates.

I can bore you to death with statistics to back this up but this is what happened. 

Let me put it another way, a 10% growth rate means you have a doubling rate of about 7.5 years.  11% is just over 6.5 years.  Do you see any possible problems if one person in the game tries something crazy like doing no construction for say 2 years?  The economic effects would be huge and once it started it would keep feeding on itself.

Look I understand 3 - 4% upper growth rate sound boring but there were reasons that myself and the others settled on the numbers that we did.  I can see fudging the chart, moving the upper rate, allowing Roleplay awards but 10% rates should not be possible.

Michael

[Nobody]

I'll admit that I might not this thought through in game terms, but if you say 10% didn't happen, than you are quite wrong. For the time that interest us we should be looking at an average of 3-5%/a for industrialized countries, not 1-2, and - albeit very short - peaks of 10%+.
And since you were so absolute saying it didn't happen, a single example is enough to prove you wrong:

(picture taken from: http://www.navalism.org/index.php/topic,5625.msg73324.html#msg73324 )

Good night.

[miketr]

I'll admit that I might not this thought through in game terms, but if you say 10% didn't happen, than you are quite wrong. For the time that interest us we should be looking at an average of 3-5%/a for industrialized countries, not 1-2, and - albeit very short - peaks of 10%+.

Lets accept your chart for a moment, I don't especially for our uses, but for the sake of the argument lets go with it.

Please note the clear pattern, boom bust cycle of the US in the 19th century.  High growth followed by steep declines and including periods of negative growth.  No periods of sustained growth rates and nothing like what is going in China / India.

Do you want to deal with the pain of having to deal with inflation, deflation and depressions (negative growth periods)?

And since you were so absolute saying it didn't happen, a single example is enough to prove you wrong:

Cute debating tactic.  What do you expect this to achieve?

<CUT OF GROWTH GRAPH>
Good night.

What is your chart showing?  I am willing to bet that the calculations are being fudged by the effects of increase the real-estate booms and busts and other crazy stuff that happened then.  Big drive ups in values of land holdings, etc create lots of paper wealth but doesn't actual do much of anything in terms of increase of the core economy. (please accept I am hand waving here; this is already too long of a response)  Paper wealth comes and goes; before the FED the USA had a fantastic talent for banking system just imploding about once a decade.

Read The Panic of 1907: Lessons Learned from the Market's Perfect Storm, Robert F. Bruner & Sean D. Carr (My father borrowed my copy so I can't point to some specifics it covers)

Short version is this a sustained 3% growth rate in the 19th century is what the date I have read shows.

My data came from and yes the economic numbers were not typically presented in 1 year groupings.

P. Bairoch, "International Industrialization Levels from 1750 to 1980",
The Journal of European Economic History 1982, n. 2

Lets go back to the base problem.  What does my data show and your data?  It's possible they are both right at the same time.  (There is a reason I try to avoid economic histories as casual reading.  Lots of arcane math is almost always involved and endless tables & charts.  All from people with different axes to grind and methods.)  Its possible that your source, whatever it is, is telling the honest truth.  GDP would jump up as high as 18% in WW2.

Now ask yourself a simple question, how is it that spending up to 50% (different books have higher or lower numbers; of course) of the economy to make things like bombs, send said bombs halfway around the globe and then dump these bombs out of plane created any wealth in the US economy?  Yes people were working and had money but how was it possible?  Short answer is, lots and lots of DEBT.  Not just the federal debt but state and business debt.  The entire expansion was paid for by turning on the printing precess in various ways; its all driven by fiat money supply increase and using this cash to leverage into even more increases.  I could better explain how Germany in WW1 did it than USA of WW2 period but general concept was the same.  All the debt feeds on itself and expands the money supply and so GDP goes up, up as total amount of 'money' in the system increases.

When looking at the core economy the debt cancels out this phantom war growth and normally there should have been a big crash after such a massive expansion like that.  There was a contraction but not as large as there should have been.  What happened is we and the rest of the waring powers spent 1939-45 blowing up most of the planets industrial and economic base.  It took years and years to just repair the damage.  During that time period the USA ran the global economy by default.

Short version is when you remove the paper growth (finance, stock market, real estate, system debt) the economy doesn't grow all that much.  Put another way.  How do you calculate an economy?  What counts and what doesn't count.  Economist all have different methods and they think only their own is right. 

What do we actually care about for economy that is only a metric to allow for the people to build military units to pummel each other?

Michael

[Nobody]

First off, it was ok to split the spealized discussion, but most of my post is out of place now :(

Lets accept your chart for a moment, I don't especially for our uses, but for the sake of the argument lets go with it.

Please note the clear pattern, boom bust cycle of the US in the 19th century.  High growth followed by steep declines and including periods of negative growth.  No periods of sustained growth rates and nothing like what is going in China / India.

Do you want to deal with the pain of having to deal with inflation, deflation and depressions (negative growth periods)?

Not with inflation/deflation, but a global trend superimposed over ones own growth and resulting boost and depressions? - YES please. Some complained that the economic was too predictable, that would be fixed that way.

And since you were so absolute saying it didn't happen, a single example is enough to prove you wrong:

Cute debating tactic.  What do you expect this to achieve?

Sorry, I just couldn't resist this purely mathematical argumentation.

What is your chart showing?  I am willing to bet that the calculations are being fudged by the effects of increase the real-estate booms and busts and other crazy stuff that happened then.  Big drive ups in values of land holdings, etc create lots of paper wealth but doesn't actual do much of anything in terms of increase of the core economy. (please accept I am hand waving here; this is already too long of a response)  Paper wealth comes and goes; before the FED the USA had a fantastic talent for banking system just imploding about once a decade.

Could be, depends on how the US government defines their GDP/GNP.

Short version is this a sustained 3% growth rate in the 19th century is what the date I have read shows.

Now that as base sounds much better the numbers you mentioned before. It is also (if you cut out the wars) close the average from my chart.

- CUT OUT -

Yes wars would have to be removed before calculating a trend.

What do we actually care about for economy that is only a metric to allow for the people to build military units to pummel each other?

Well, all we care is the tax base.

Anyway why I was going into this was that ship grew to an astonishing size over the time period we are interested in, while the number of ships being build remained fairly constant. If we want to recreate something like this then our economies would have to grow in a similar way.
Also if tech level and production rise significantly over time, than older ships become less valuable. The player can use them more freely with less fear of a massive lost.

[Carthaginian]

Anyway why I was going into this was that ship grew to an astonishing size over the time period we are interested in, while the number of ships being build remained fairly constant. If we want to recreate something like this then our economies would have to grow in a similar way.

The biggest problem is (cues drum roll)....
ECONOMIES DID NOT GROW PROPORTIONATELY TO SHIP SIZE OR COST!

The reason that virtually all major world powers racked up a massive debt related to the first half of the 20th Century is the fact that their economies did not grow fast enough to keep up with war expenses- the United States exacerbated this problem by basically financing the post-war world, and Great Britain suffered more than most because they were essentially financing the war alone for about a year.

The wars cannot be just thrown out, as they are part and parcel of the economic process. Nations build economies based on their wars, and they also cause the collapse of most major economies. Great Britain would still control 50% of the world's land area had they not financed two global wars; the United States would not have become a power had those wars not taken place. Without wars, the world's economic picture could not alter itself so greatly in such a short time; virtually all major (Eurasian) empires were formed and collapsed as a result of war.


I don't think that a majorly complex system is good- it places unnecessary strain on the players AND what you are suggesting ignores this vital truth: EMPIRES ARE MADE AND BROKEN BY THE WARS THEY FIGHT AND THE DEBTS THEY ACCUMULATE.

[Nobody]

That might be. - So do you vote for borrowing rules?

Anyway, I'm just saying that 1 or 2% isn't enough. 3% with the possibilty of more for short periods sound much better. Now that that is settled, can we move to something else?

I haven't proposed anything complicated yet. I too think it shouldn't be too difficult to handle. However, there's the thing: it should also be "interesting" and offer a variety of possibilities.

[miketr]

Here is a quick chart with a higher growth rate.  Please note the effect in terms of doubling times.

As to debt I am not in favor of it, instead I suggest that there are war time only taxation levels.

Tax rates
0 - 5%: peace time
5.01% - 10%: emergency / mod OK required
10.01% - 20%: war time / mod OK required

Tax rates above 6% don't have growth rates positive or negative.  Tax rates are subject to a doubling limitation.  With max increase in tax rates subject to doubling of current tax rate.  So it would take time to shove your war budget through the roof.

Michael

Tax Rate	Growth Rate	Doubling Time
0.0%	6.0%	12
0.5%	5.5%	13.09
1.0%	5.0%	14.4
1.5%	4.5%	16
2.0%	4.0%	18
2.5%	3.5%	20.57
3.0%	3.0%	24
3.5%	2.5%	28.8
4.0%	2.0%	36
4.5%	1.5%	48
5.0%	1.0%	72
5.5%	0.5%	144
6.0%	0.0%

[Carthaginian]

That might be. - So do you vote for borrowing rules?

Anyway, I'm just saying that 1 or 2% isn't enough. 3% with the possibilty of more for short periods sound much better. Now that that is settled, can we move to something else?

No, I do not vote for borrowing rules.
That is precisely the point- no borrowing, no debt, no complex taxation scales or crazy percentages... just bare-bones economic rules that let us build some ships. Nothing less, but certainly nothing more. Take the PhD work somewhere that it can get credit hours. I also doubt very much that anything regarding economics is 'settled' at all at this particular point in time.

I vote for rules adapted for greater simplicity or totally new rules that are designed for simplicity.

[snip]

I vote for rules adapted for greater simplicity or totally new rules that are designed for simplicity.

Seconded by a Math guy

[ctwaterman]

*Yawn*....

Ok.... Im not going to argue mathmatics or Economics... after all if you set down 4 Economists in the same room and ask them how the economy is doing you will get 4 differenct opinions.... its a very soft SCIENCE ::)

Now I dont know how we could make the current economic system any easier and still keep some structure to the system.   No Economy is going to simply Grow at some huge rate under the current system nor is any economy going to contract and shrink under that system.   It is intentional no boom no bust.... :-X

The Moderator Team had to make some choices and their was simply no way that everybody or even most everybody was going to agree with all the choices that had to be made.

Honestly if My choice had been followed we would still be playing N3  :o  I know it was broken but I could live with the problem as long as we could contain peoples desires for Huge Land wars or wars of national extinction.  And yes I know I launched a large Invasion but it was effectively on a small NPR which without PC help was doomed to defeat as long as I took my lumps on the ground.  It should have been a short war... :'(

So having been out voted on keeping the game alive the moderator team set out to make sure their would never be another Chinese Civil War or Invasion of New Switzerland again.  No huge wars that would tie up the moderators in month long conflicts.   The scale or warfare had to be scaled back to keep the game running otherwise we would end up right where we were before with players disapearing for months on end.

Anyway my Rant is over back to arguing Apples and Oranges....

I still need to see a sustained 10% economic growth over a period of say 10+ years :)

[Carthaginian]

I really don't care about tracking economic growth beyond how it affects shipbuilding.

N3 was good enough- spend X amount for Y amount of build tonnage available.
During war, your entire amount of 'ready money' was available to spend on military; during peacetime, you only got half of that 'ready money' to spend on military. It wasn't accurate, but it was GOOD ENOUGH.
Now, good enough usually is, whereas perfection is always a pain in the ass and generally not worth the added effort. Too many people here want a 'perfect' economic system in their view, and that is what's killing the sim, over and over again. It has to model this irrelevant item, or it has to reflect this unrelated trend. Too much time is being spent on making it 'reflect reality' in an area where reality has less to do with the information out there than opinion and political maneuvering (yes, as in "my facts and figures show my system is best, so adopt my ideas as your policy" is politics).

No one is going to come up with an economic system that will please more than one of the people arguing about it... but someone could come up with an economic system that would let us play the game and design some damn ships.

So- will SOMEONE please just do that?
Design a 'good enough' system that doesn't require a graphing calculator to map trends?
Then we could start fighting over nonexistent places on a fictional map (which is fun), rather than fighting over what abstract numbers are or are not the correct way to map out how imaginary money will move (which is not fun).

[The Rock Doctor]

I'm thinking this:

-We'll adopt a simplified version of this chart:

Tax Rate                    GDP Growth
----------                  ------------
0%                          4.5%
0.5%                        4.25%
1%                          4%
1.5%                        3.75%
2%                          3.5%
2.5%                        3.25%
3%                          3%
3.5%                        2.5%
4%                          2%
4.5%                        1.5%
5%                          1%
5.5%                        0.5%
6%                          0%

...with the understanding that it's not really complex; players only have to pick one number, after all.

-I'll agree that population growth of 1% is good; in the confined environment of this world, I expect some degree of population control to be the norm.

-On that basis, taxation that stunts growth would require either Mod approval or, if we implement the cultural character thing, a roll against the appropriate cultural attribute ("determination", or whatever).

[miketr]

Two differences between the two charts, one is upper end and the other is the progression.

One tops out at 6% and the other 4.5% growth.  Both are at 3% in the middle and then hit 0% growth at 6% tax rate.

Now the real difference is that one is a linear progression.  For every point of tax you decrease your income by a matching amount.  Its stupid easy to figure.  Say you have an economy of $10,000 (its JUST a number, not a budget suggestion just a number).  You put a 3% tax rate and that gets you

10,000 * 0.03 = $300 to pay for upkeep, buy ships, whatever.

Your growth rate is 6% (base rate) - 3% (tax rate) = 3% (effective growth rate)

Next turns economy is then 10,000 * 1.03 = $10,300

Simple, done.

Michael

[The Rock Doctor]

Now, here's my thinking on the grand economic thing.

1.  Regardless of whether we split up the year into one, two, three, or four play turns, the beginning of the year will have a brief Economic Phase. that has an in-game duration of zero days.

2.  At that time, your economy will grow by a rate determined by your tax level in the previous year, but:

3.  The Mod will apply a global modifier based on the overall state of the world economy.  So your actual growth may actually be higher (or lower) than your taxation alone would have determined.  Negative growth will be possible.

4.  You'll set your taxation rate for the coming year.  You will not be able to change it mid-course.

5.  You'll make a check to see if you have access to the following commodities:  Iron, Nitrates, Oil.  In peacetime, "Access" is pretty straightforward - you have it unless all owners of all sources are actively refusing to trade with you (say, an embargo).  In wartime, "Access" is more difficult.  You must control a deposit, or have a trade agreement with somebody who does, and you've got to control the sealanes between the deposit and its destinations (precise mechanism for determining that is to be resolved...). 

If you don't have access to a commodity, the Mod will tell you how long, in turns, your existing stockpiles will last.  Running out of iron means you can't build/repair/refit ships.  Running out of nitrates means you can't make ammunition.  Running out of oil means loss of fuel.

6.  Not sure if we'll have special industrial sites like foundaries, steelworks, and such.  I like the idea, but it may add too much detail.

7.  You can carry over income between turns in the same year.  You will be able to carry over some income across years, although if you do so and still have high taxes, you might have Mod-inflicted social issues arising.

8.  You will not be allowed to borrow money from elsewhere in your government, or from NPC entities.  This is not "realistic", but it reduces bookkeeping for the Moderator.  You will be allowed to borrow money from other players, at whatever terms are agreed upon.