Turning Excess Capital into Social Maintenance & Improvement
Posted: Fri Oct 07, 2011 8:41 am
This follows up on the the Capital/Culture thread an is an elaboration of ideas I've already mentioned for consideration.
There are balance and game design problems with turning money directly into prestige, but it is also unrealistic. The Pharaohs may have concentrated all resources they could spare on grand monuments, but in our period only a portion of the wealth of even the most successful tycoons would be turned to that purpose, and much of the prestige impact would be incidental to other benefits sought by those with wealth to commit. Therefore, I think the effect would be diluted across a variety of areas – with very little prestige impact.
Costs of Civilization: Societal Maintenance
Maintenance in the game takes a “Fortune 500 Corporation” view of the top level of the economy – major structures and their production. However the population has property, lives, and production and consumption of goods and services going on that the game wisely does not attempt to model in any detail. In some tribal societies, the infrastructure is simple and real and personal property is minimal. In the most economically advanced states, the entire physical and social infrastructure is large and complex, requiring a lot of maintenance. This means economic, education, civic, residential, agricultural, transport and any other tangible or intangible elements of the civilization not reflected in the top level.
The portion of resources of all kinds provided to the top level as private capital to be used as working capital and for capital investment is provided in the expectation of returns - profits will yield dividends or capital gains and at least a portion will be reclaimed for the maintenance and betterment of the owners living in the underlying level of the society. (It might be reclaimed due to loss of confidence when in economic trouble, or when there is excess private capital without profitable uses in the top level.)
Economic growth is highly dependent on both the creation of wealth and the percentage of that new wealth that is saved after investment in the maintenance of the benefits of civilization, whether termed “consumption” or investment. Economies growing 5% per year are doing well. A 7.2% growth rate would be excellent. This is really good, but translates to roughly 0.3% economic growth per turn. The PON economies tend to grow much more quickly – because societal maintenance is not really covered.
Including societal maintenance would represent this fact. The important thing about this is that it need not be a fixed amount per turn. It can often be deferred for a while – as many countries often do – but at a cost if neglected for too long. Rail and River pools would become impaired, development might decline, etc., until the maintenance is paid or the decline in some item becomes permanent rather than temporary.
Unlike structure maintenance, which is fixed and taken off the top, societal maintenance would be PC drawn from PC surpluses when they become sufficiently large. So the player could aggressively use PC for a while, leaving little left over each turn. This usage level would raise the threshold up to which PC could be accumulated without any reduction effect, allowing saving it up for big expenses. Cutting back on PC expenditure rates would lower the moving average-based threshold and above that threshold PC would start to flow to the underlying economy to meet societal maintenance requirements. To be clear, the threshold is high enough to accommodate the recent rate of trade, production and capital investment plus a cushion, and I suggest no absolute cap – in theory, PC can accumulate indefinitely, but at the high end of the range and up 90% of each turn’s increase will be taken away as part of this social dividend to pay maintenance or if paid address the following item.
My second concept is societal improvement: once societal maintenance requirements are met, a possibly reduced percentage of the portion of PC that would otherwise go to societal maintenance could go to societal improvements. This serves the game function of trimming excess capital and curbing growth rates to more realistic levels and reflects the dividends of economic success to the country at large.
The current “Business Emergence” reduction doesn’t seem to provide any benefit – what I’m proposing does provide a benefit, but one that is scattered and diluted enough to be a poor substitute for regional decisions and construction directed by the player to specific regions, so great powers won't try to abuse it. It’s what the people want, not what the player wants (gala balls, ice sculptures, beautiful gardens, opera houses, local libraries, etc. serving the goals of members of the public, but useless “consumption” from the player perspective). Small positive effects on stats in various regions, however, will provide some benefit that will be cumulative over time. The more advanced and complex the society, and the more populous and developed the region, the more PC it will take to shift whatever stat it is by 1 or inspire the people of a region to create a road upgrade etc. – these will be pleasant surprises for the player, compared with getting nothing.
It can also provide a smidgen of prestige from zero to maybe a point or two, depending on the nature of the use to which the game allocates the PC. Shipbuilding is always going to be a much better deal for prestige, for example, and telecom for development, but, hey, something is better than nothing.
In the majority of countries that have limited options for improving themselves, and nothing to invest their PC in, this may be the only way to generate some development. Even in China (which I have played for a while) that’s not going to unbalance the game.
The alternative, of course, is just to deduct the PC and provide no positive side effects - assume it all goes to “consumption” with no contentment or militancy impact. Less fun for the player, but by making the deduction dynamic based on player behavior it avoids stepping on the player’s toes.
There are balance and game design problems with turning money directly into prestige, but it is also unrealistic. The Pharaohs may have concentrated all resources they could spare on grand monuments, but in our period only a portion of the wealth of even the most successful tycoons would be turned to that purpose, and much of the prestige impact would be incidental to other benefits sought by those with wealth to commit. Therefore, I think the effect would be diluted across a variety of areas – with very little prestige impact.
Costs of Civilization: Societal Maintenance
Maintenance in the game takes a “Fortune 500 Corporation” view of the top level of the economy – major structures and their production. However the population has property, lives, and production and consumption of goods and services going on that the game wisely does not attempt to model in any detail. In some tribal societies, the infrastructure is simple and real and personal property is minimal. In the most economically advanced states, the entire physical and social infrastructure is large and complex, requiring a lot of maintenance. This means economic, education, civic, residential, agricultural, transport and any other tangible or intangible elements of the civilization not reflected in the top level.
The portion of resources of all kinds provided to the top level as private capital to be used as working capital and for capital investment is provided in the expectation of returns - profits will yield dividends or capital gains and at least a portion will be reclaimed for the maintenance and betterment of the owners living in the underlying level of the society. (It might be reclaimed due to loss of confidence when in economic trouble, or when there is excess private capital without profitable uses in the top level.)
Economic growth is highly dependent on both the creation of wealth and the percentage of that new wealth that is saved after investment in the maintenance of the benefits of civilization, whether termed “consumption” or investment. Economies growing 5% per year are doing well. A 7.2% growth rate would be excellent. This is really good, but translates to roughly 0.3% economic growth per turn. The PON economies tend to grow much more quickly – because societal maintenance is not really covered.
Including societal maintenance would represent this fact. The important thing about this is that it need not be a fixed amount per turn. It can often be deferred for a while – as many countries often do – but at a cost if neglected for too long. Rail and River pools would become impaired, development might decline, etc., until the maintenance is paid or the decline in some item becomes permanent rather than temporary.
Unlike structure maintenance, which is fixed and taken off the top, societal maintenance would be PC drawn from PC surpluses when they become sufficiently large. So the player could aggressively use PC for a while, leaving little left over each turn. This usage level would raise the threshold up to which PC could be accumulated without any reduction effect, allowing saving it up for big expenses. Cutting back on PC expenditure rates would lower the moving average-based threshold and above that threshold PC would start to flow to the underlying economy to meet societal maintenance requirements. To be clear, the threshold is high enough to accommodate the recent rate of trade, production and capital investment plus a cushion, and I suggest no absolute cap – in theory, PC can accumulate indefinitely, but at the high end of the range and up 90% of each turn’s increase will be taken away as part of this social dividend to pay maintenance or if paid address the following item.
My second concept is societal improvement: once societal maintenance requirements are met, a possibly reduced percentage of the portion of PC that would otherwise go to societal maintenance could go to societal improvements. This serves the game function of trimming excess capital and curbing growth rates to more realistic levels and reflects the dividends of economic success to the country at large.
The current “Business Emergence” reduction doesn’t seem to provide any benefit – what I’m proposing does provide a benefit, but one that is scattered and diluted enough to be a poor substitute for regional decisions and construction directed by the player to specific regions, so great powers won't try to abuse it. It’s what the people want, not what the player wants (gala balls, ice sculptures, beautiful gardens, opera houses, local libraries, etc. serving the goals of members of the public, but useless “consumption” from the player perspective). Small positive effects on stats in various regions, however, will provide some benefit that will be cumulative over time. The more advanced and complex the society, and the more populous and developed the region, the more PC it will take to shift whatever stat it is by 1 or inspire the people of a region to create a road upgrade etc. – these will be pleasant surprises for the player, compared with getting nothing.
It can also provide a smidgen of prestige from zero to maybe a point or two, depending on the nature of the use to which the game allocates the PC. Shipbuilding is always going to be a much better deal for prestige, for example, and telecom for development, but, hey, something is better than nothing.
In the majority of countries that have limited options for improving themselves, and nothing to invest their PC in, this may be the only way to generate some development. Even in China (which I have played for a while) that’s not going to unbalance the game.
The alternative, of course, is just to deduct the PC and provide no positive side effects - assume it all goes to “consumption” with no contentment or militancy impact. Less fun for the player, but by making the deduction dynamic based on player behavior it avoids stepping on the player’s toes.