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Cassini -> RE: Further issues for consideration (12/17/2021 10:48:20 PM)
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16. Zone income calculation (bottom left of screen).
There is still a problem with this calculation (there was with the Beta, it was revised but there is still a problem). The program is taking the sum of public sector wages and adding that to ALL of the sources of private income by the zone – hidden, sales to ‘traders’, and I believe asset private credits - then dividing by zone populace. Since the whole ‘economy’ has no basis in linking wealth creation to the population (all those minerals and food ‘floating around’ the ‘trader’s bazaar’), it is no wonder the final value calculated is junk. So, I recommend this statistic should be calculated by the program thusly:
Zone average pay = (Sum public worker pay) + (Private credits produced by private assets) / Zone POPULACE
Needless to say… this will require a reassessment of the linking of private credit production to each private asset…
The economic model is frankly a mess – I turn a blind eye to it – but this change will START to fix this statistic from being so skewed. And yes, the private assets NEED to have private credits produced in proportion to their employment level.
So… if a private asset uses 1,000 population to operate, it should produce say 3 private credits as part of its production (3 milli-credit per pop assumption). If the city hex ‘farm’ employs say 35,000 pop – don’t have the game open right now – it should produce 105 private credits as part of its production.
The concept of tying private credits to private assets (based upon their employment level) can also be embellished to reflect varying productivity levels of each asset. A farm asset would produce private credits at say 2 milli-credits per pop working, most early improvements would produce 3 mills per pop working, and the higher skill assets would produce 4 mills per pop working in them. So that 35,000 pop farm would produce 70 private credits if the labor was valued at 2 mills (determined as part of design process – not player adjustable). A library, casino, hospice would be valued at 3 mills per pop – so the 1,000 pop asset would produce 3 private credits in this case. The higher skilled industrial assets (industry, logistics, mining, etc.) would be valued at 4 mills per employee. As the asset becomes more ‘productive’ the baseline assumption for private sector employee pay can go up. So, a high value asset can have an assumption of 5 mills per employee pay ‘baked into’ its private credits production amount.
The concept of ‘hidden economy’ can simply be dealt with by putting a ‘productivity’ level of 1 milli-credit per population (1 credit per 1,000) for population not engaged in either a public or private ‘asset’. So, a zone with a populace of 50,000, possessing 10,000 in public sector being paid 0.004/pop (40 credits), a private sector farm with 20,000 producing private credits (0.002/pop = 40 credits), a number of private assets (casino, library, hospice, etc.) employing 5,000 producing (0.003/pop = 15 credits)… leaving 15,000 unemployed (not within an asset) producing credits at 0.001/pop (15 credits).
Grand total production of wealth = 40 + 40 + 15 + 15 = 110 credits per round.
Head tax (service tax) would merely be 0.001 credits/pop, so for a population of 50,000. 50 credits would be pulled as ‘service tax’. The remaining 60 credits in wealth produced by this population would be subjected to ‘income tax’ at whatever rate (starts at 20%). So, income tax in this example would gather 12 credits for the government, and 48 credits would stay in the private ‘pool’- to be used to develop the private economy of the zone (build schools, sewers, casinos, brothels, etc.). In addition, should a zone experience ‘hunger’ – no service tax should be collected (and credit production for the zone would be reduced by Population/1000 credits). In the example of the 50,000 population zone, the credit production would be reduced by 50, leaving 60 credits being produced subject to income tax with NO service tax being collected – that 50 credits in potential wealth creation is being used by the population to come up with sources of food on their own (‘hidden’ traders) – the government has failed in its obligation to keep the population fed and pays the price.
This leads to the obvious link between value of food and productivity – 1000 population produces 1 credit (if not in asset employment) – and consumes 10 food per round – so 1 food = 0.1 credit.
If the central government needed a bigger bite of the total economy, increase the income tax rate (service tax rate needs to be FIXED) – but more being taken out of the private sector will result in slower growth of all those private assets needed to increase civilization level.
Needless to say, starting down this path would require a complete reassessment of the economy. All of the assets would remain unchanged, they would just be assessed for wealth creation, then the relationship between wealth creation and tax assessment would change. Another change would be the reeling in of the ‘traders’ that are the MAJOR source of wealth creation in the game (the government gets all the wealth – the population just gets fed – feudalism at its finest).
Assets like the private mines (scavenging, metal, oil), need to produce private credits and private credits ONLY. The resource needs to be depleted – but unlike the public versions of these assets, they produce private credits NOT the metals, machines and oil. Here is where the ‘magic traders’ come into play: should the government need to purchase the actual metals, oil, machines etc. that these private assets produce– they would be available in proportion to what the asset would’ve produced if in public hands.
I’ll use a metal mine as an example. If a metal mine was to produce 250 metal in a round (if it was a public asset) – and the base value of a unit of metal was 0.1 credit, then the mine would have a total value added amount of 25 credits per round. This value added would have to be linked to labor input – so let’s say 0.005/pop employed by this asset (plus 0.001 profit – hidden, used in asset valuation). So, every 1000 pop employed by this mine would be paid 5 credits – so dividing 25 by 5 yields total employment at this asset of 5 thousand employees, creating a total of 25 private credits per round.
A private metal mine will ‘add’ 250 metal to the round’s available metal for the traders’ stock. If the government wants to buy part or all of the production, they pay the market rate plus a transaction fee – and the metals appear in the SHQ inventory. If the government doesn’t buy the production, it is assumed to be absorbed by the private economy (the private credits get added into the zone balance), to develop the private economy further. Either way, the zone private economy gets its 25 credits per round.
The final part of the ‘rationalization’ of the economy would be the assessment of the ‘worth’ of the asset itself. Given the 2 month time scale, an asset should be able to produce wealth for its investors of about 20% of that 2 month production – or in this case 5 credits per cycle (works out to be 0.001 credits/pop employed by the asset). Given the very high risk present In the ‘game environment’, the asset should have a ‘payback’ time of about 6 years – or 36 rounds. 5 credits times 36 cycles yields an asset valuation of 180 credits.
A private ‘civilization’ asset with say 1,000 employees being paid an assumed 0.003/pop would create 3 private credits per round – so the asset ‘purchase price’ would be in the ball park of 20 credits. A farm which employs 10,000 (being paid 0.002/pop) would produce 20 private credits/round and would have a purchase price in the ball park of 140-150 credits (this asset feeds and shelters about 20,000 pop from game stats).
You may be thinking, “These numbers don’t match up with what the game is currently producing”. The numbers the game is producing frankly have no realistic relationship with each other – and that is why the government’s credit balance by round 70 or so is up to the 50,000 credit level. The economy (as it currently stands) is simply to keep the game rolling and has no real relationship between productive capability and consumption – it simply develops an ever increasing number of credits for the player to use, thus continuing the progression of the game.
Going back to that 50,000 pop zone… It produces a net of 48 credits per round for the private funds pool. So it would take (180 credit cost for private mine / 48 credits per round ) 3.75 rounds to ‘pay’ for a metal mine that employs 5,000 employees. This is the entire excess productivity of a 50,000 wage earner zone going to create a mine over 8 months of time, which produces enough metal every 2 months to create 20-30 tanks. This now productive mine adds 20 private credits per cycle to the zone totals (remember, 5,000 previously unemployed are NOT producing their ‘base’ 0.001/pop credit). So the zone produces 130 private credits per round (previous 110), the income tax from the zone increases from 12 to 16 credits/round and the net additional wealth per round to the zone goes from 48 to 64 credits.
Everything would have to be placed into a spreadsheet (labor, productivity (IP), prices, resources per unit production requirements, etc.) to get an integrated economic model that holds some credibility under play conditions (the current model simply does not once one begins to really disassemble it and look at the existing interrelationships). Two years ago, I started on creating such a model, but had to discontinue participation in the Beta-testing process due to personal commitments. If there is any interest from Vic in taking this direction, I could restart that work – but otherwise what I put up is merely for illustration to show what is possible.
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