Economics 101

I am going to start writing a series of posts on economics and solar system/planet creation. I have decided to do this for two reasons. First, several reviewers and beta testers have had a problem fully understanding the economic system because of its depth and the UI not giving enough information/control yet. And, second, because this is a rather complex economic system, many of you are going analyze it. I know its going to happen and by giving out a lot of information I hope that this analysis will tell me something I don’t know/didn’t think of, instead of just telling me something I already know.

I also wanted to talk about micro vs macro management in MOO3. When it was decided to move MOO3 in the direction of macro management early on in the design process, I knew that any player that micro manages(and that’s me) would hate to be forced to macro manage. For my part, I decided the best way to ease the micro manager into macro management as the game progressed would be to create a planet development/economic system so vast…so intricate… that the micro manager would THANK GOD he could delegate some of those tasks to the AI as the number of planets he controls reached into the hundreds. In other words I’ve tried to kill them with kindness. At least this was my goal.

OK, now for some meat.
Below I have created a table that interconnects the relationship between food, minerals, industry, test tubes, production points(PPs), research points(RPs), and, of course, AUs. Briefly:

Food and Minerals - are the basic commodity needed to nourish the population and fuel the economy.

Industry and Test tubes – are used as governors for the final price (in AUs) of production points and research points respectively

Production Points and Research Points – are used as the cost for any construction and research respectively(I.e. a ship that costs 1000 means it costs 1000 PPs – the number of AUs needed depends on the Industry base of the planet and your Industry overdriving efficiency)

And AUs make the worlds go around (pun intended)

Oops….looks like I can’t quite create a 2D table in this forum so bear with me as I post this info in more linear form

COMMODITY
Bioharvest(food)

WHAT PRODUCES IT
Bioharvest DEA
2 regional blds (Hydroponic Farms and Subterranean Farms)

WHAT USES IT……………………..WHAT IS CREATED BY CONSUMPTION
Population (except Geodic)…....=>….life, Industry, and AUs
Industrial DEA (/w bio blds)…...=>….Industry, and AUs
excess food sold off…………….....=>….AUs


COMMODITY
Minerals

WHAT PRODUCES IT
Mining DEA

WHAT USES IT……………………..WHAT IS CREATED BY CONSUMPTION
Population (only Geodic & Cybernetiks)…=>…life, Industry and AUs
Industrial DEA……………………………..............=>…Industry and AU’s
excess minerals sold off………………….........=>…AU’s


COMMODITY
Industry

WHAT PRODUCES IT
Population
Industrial DEA

WHAT USES IT……………………..WHAT IS CREATED BY CONSUMPTION
AUs (Industry determines cost of PPs)…=>..Production Points(PPs), Pollution


COMMODITY
Test Tubes

WHAT PRODUCES IT
Population
Research DEA

WHAT USES IT……………………..WHAT IS CREATED BY CONSUMPTION
AUs (Test Tubes determines cost of RPs)…=>..Research Points(RPs)


COMMODITY
Production Points

WHAT PRODUCES IT
Industry + AUs

WHAT USES IT……………………..WHAT IS CREATED BY CONSUMPTION
Building anything(the cost is in PPs)….=>…construction of building, troop, or ship


COMMODITY
Research Points

WHAT PRODUCES IT
Test Tubes + AUs

WHAT USES IT……………………..WHAT IS CREATED BY CONSUMPTION
R&D of tech.(the cost is in RPs)….=>…any tech discoveries


COMMODITY
AUs

WHAT PRODUCES IT
Population
Bioharvest DEA
Mining DEA
Industrial DEA
Spaceport DEA
Recreation DEA(with game patch)

WHAT USES IT
maintenance
pollution cleanup
Production Points
Research Points
terraforming

In the table above there is no connection horizontally between “what produces it” and “what consumes it” (other than dealing with the same commodity). How a commodity is produced has no effect on what can consume it. BUT there is a direct connection between “what consumes it” and “what is created by that consumption” (hence, the use of “=>”). So “life, industry and AUs” is only created by “population” consuming food, not by “excess food sold off”(which only produces AUs)


Next I’ll talk about the basic four DEAs – Bioharvest, Mining, Industrial, and Research DEAs

Tom Hughes, designer, MOO3

Posts like this should be put in the Gameplay forum. The general forum is pretty much the place for constant battling between people who hate the game or like the game. So posts that are actually informative are just going to get buried.

Btw for your future posts, do you mind posting some indepth stuff, especially on bioharvesting. IE: Actual numbers. Most of us are at a loss as to how the final bioharvest numbers are reached. While there is a general understanding, the numbers available to us just don't add up (ie giving examples would be great in helping us figure this out).

Tyrsis

[kziti kat]

Originally posted by TomHughes
I am going to start writing a series of posts on economics and solar system/planet creation. I have decided to do this for two reasons. First, several reviewers and beta testers have had a problem fully understanding the economic system because of its depth and the UI not giving enough information/control yet.

Let me get this straight: Even the beta testers didn't know what the game was supposed to do? Oh, brother!!

Thanks but WHY OH WHY isn't this info in that 120+ page manual?

[warden]

Originally posted by TomHughes
Recreation DEA(with game patch)
...
Next I’ll talk about the basic four DEAs – Bioharvest, Mining, Industrial, and Research DEAs

What does that reference to the game patch mean, please?

The discussion of the economic model didn't do much for me. What you really ought to be discussing is what makes the military AI tick. Get talking to the modders about what they're doing to make the AI players fight. And what's going on with the point defense when it doesn't shoot down incoming missiles. These should be the top priority issues.

[Hari]

Thanks! This will be helpfull.

BTW,I have to warn you, since you're one of the devs, you are likely to get attacked by certain induhviduals around here. For your own safwety, I suggest that this is moved to the strategy/gameplay forum.

....is that fresh blood I smell?

Thanks Tom! Keep it coming. It's great to see someone from QS posting. Good luck getting a moderator to move this to the Strategy forum though. It appears the inmates are running the asylum here.

Thanks,

Just keep em coming. Both needed and appreciated.

Mixing Worlds

[Kralizec!]

TomHughes wrote:
Bioharvest(food)
excess food sold off…………….....=>….AUs

Minerals
excess minerals sold off………………….........=>…AU’s

At last! Confirmation that excess bioharvest/minerals are turned into AU's!

Thanks for the great info!

[Kralizec!]

TomHughes wrote:
Below I have created a table that interconnects the relationship between food, minerals, industry, test tubes, production points(PPs), research points(RPs), and, of course, AUs.

Oops….looks like I can’t quite create a 2D table in this forum so bear with me as I post this info in more linear form

In the table above there is no connection horizontally between “what produces it” and “what consumes it” (other than dealing with the same commodity). How a commodity is produced has no effect on what can consume it. BUT there is a direct connection between “what consumes it” and “what is created by that consumption” (hence, the use of “=>”). So “life, industry and AUs” is only created by “population” consuming food, not by “excess food sold off”(which only produces AUs)

So what are the chances we could see all of your explanation posts combined and put into HTML or PDF format (basically some format that would allow you to do the tables you had wanted to do)? Perhaps some nifty on-line expansion to the manual?

:bump:!

Youhou! Sticky this plz!

Thanks

ElPape

WHAT PRODUCES IT

...

Recreation DEA(with game patch)

Interesting. So Recreation DEAs are supposed to make money for a planet? I always wondered what their purpose was, considering that Military DEAs seemed to reduce Unrest by a lot more. Is this a bug, do you know?

Regarding the selling of basic commodities: to whom are they sold? Do planets sell them to other planets with needs, or are they sold to 'private industry' in Abstraction Land? What prices do you get for them? Are they different; ie do you get more for minerals than bio or vice-versa? Does this selling price change? If so, how? Is there anywhere in the damn interface where you can SEE this info?

This also brings up the freighters. We know that they are considered always available and in Abstraction Land. But do they _cost_ money to ship things? Is there some hidden fee taken from your economy when you have specialized planets due to shipping minerals and bio around?

Thanks for the insight! I, for one, appreciate it.

[LittleFuzzy]

Originally posted by warden
What does that reference to the game patch mean, please?

The discussion of the economic model didn't do much for me. What you really ought to be discussing is what makes the military AI tick. Get talking to the modders about what they're doing to make the AI players fight. And what's going on with the point defense when it doesn't shoot down incoming missiles. These should be the top priority issues.

Except I don't think Tom prepared the military AI design, Warden. Different designers handled different sections of the game. Also, just because YOU don't care about the economic model doesn't mean OTHER's don't *people like ME* Warden, this does not look like an official contact. Tom never makes those. He's just trying to explain how something works, something people are having difficulty figuring out. Let him alone.

Tom :

I read a description somewhere about 2 days ago regarding the econ model. At the time, I thought that it seemed to me the econ system, along with the viceroy AI econ management, was generally good. It was clear to me at the time that this aspect of the game had depth, and worked as designed (WAD). Since you are the primary designer here, let me hand you belated cudos from someone who has been critical of other aspects of the game.

I won't get into those other aspects here, except to say that my primary beef with the game, aside from the onion layer interface which nearly everyone agrees is a terrible click fest with key information scattered and deep instead of concentrated and easily visible, is the way the viceroy AI decides to build with the military build queues. To give you an example, in my current game I have around 40 systems and I'm real careful about what I allow to be a non-obsolete ship design. What do the viceroys try to produce? System colony ships in systems that are already fully populated, and with a system colony ship design that's been obsolete for 50 turns. I can't stop them from producing these system colony ships, yet if I turn off the planetary AI I have to engage in a micromanagement nightmare in a world of sliding blue block panels with dozens of mouse clicks per system. So, I use the planetary screen each turn and dutifully go into the queues and delete the system colony ships. So, to sum up, your beautifully constructed econ system is being wasted by the crappy and totally idiotic build queue decisions. Now, if you guys could fix this decision algorithim, we might have an actual game.

And, really, we ought to do something with these posts if the devs are going to make a habit of explaining things as Tom has so marvellously done. Maybe a special dev only forum / library where these things get collected. Call it the Developer's Game Mechanics Library forum or something.

Mods ?

[Hari]

It would be a good idea, but I am affraid it will turn into a Troll's shooting range in no time. A sticky in the gameplay section would be better. Perhaps some modder could include this in the encyclopedia.

Originally posted by TomHughes
For my part, I decided the best way to ease the micro manager into macro management as the game progressed would be to create a planet development/economic system so vast…so intricate… that the micro manager would THANK GOD he could delegate some of those tasks to the AI as the number of planets he controls reached into the hundreds. In other words I’ve tried to kill them with kindness. At least this was my goal.

I think that instead of achieving this goal, this merely put unnecessary complexity into the game.
There is no need to have all these layers of stuff in the economic model when in reality you just make the AI deal with it. All it did was confuse and irritate people, I think.
If there wasnt all this complexity and people were simply forced to macro, they would either just decide "I dont want to macro, I dont like the game becasue I cant" or "I guess I'll do it this way, then".

The way it is, thye try to micro everything, get pissed at the game because they cant make sense of it, and then go and bash it....

But anyways.....

Hopefully your continued explanations will fill in for all the stuff that should have been in the manual but wasnt.

I cant help that think that if this game had had very good documentation, and didnt have the "pathetic agressiveness AI bug", then it would have been well received by most people, instead of attacked from all sides.

Originally posted by TomHughes
Bioharvest(food)
excess food sold off…………….....=>….AUs

Minerals
excess minerals sold off………………….........=>…AU’s[/b]

That explains so much of the income weirdness in some of my games.

I guess having 3x the mineral production as I needed isn't as bad a thing as I feared.

Now if only those numbers would be displayed so I didn't have to blindly adjust my buget to make use of that exess, I'd be all kinds of happy.

Enjoying the game, and thanks for the post.
I do want to agree with Alexfrog above, however, that I am left with the feeling that there's a lot of stuff visible that should either be moved "under the hood" (fine with me) or be easier to control (also fine with me) (at least this is what I take from Alexfrog's post, apologies if I'm reading it wrong). But maybe your posts will make it easier to control, so I'll be reading them.
Thanks again.

Thanks for taking the time Tom, I really appreciate it.

Thank you for the informative post. I'm looking forward to future explainations of various aspects of the economics in Moo3.

Also I would like to mention, I love the way industry works in Moo3, with the ramp up in costs for building things beyond a planets basic industry capacity.

check your pms tom

Yes, I also like how production capacity is turned into production points....thats really cool.


and yes Mentarman, you understood what I meant

There is too much unnecessary detail that needs to either be abstracted away, or have us given full access to. Since giving us full access wouldcreate insane micromanagement hell, it needs to be abstracted away....

Too much detail is not a good thing if that detail doesnt actually contribute to the game because the AI just deals with it all....

This is great. It'd be especially nice if this information were consolidated (with the forthcoming posts) into something like a manual or an encyclopedia update in the patch.

Keep em coming.

Originally posted by Bolted
And, really, we ought to do something with these posts if the devs are going to make a habit of explaining things as Tom has so marvellously done. Maybe a special dev only forum / library where these things get collected. Call it the Developer's Game Mechanics Library forum or something.

Mods ?

Originally posted by Hari
It would be a good idea, but I am affraid it will turn into a Troll's shooting range in no time. A sticky in the gameplay section would be better. Perhaps some modder could include this in the encyclopedia.

How about putting DEV responses and info in a folder where only DEV's can post. Instead of putting the response to the question here, it is posted in the DEV advise forum and a link to that is placed in the original post or even a copy. Either way, we would start geting an instruction manual started in the forum instead of having 12 useful DEV postings buried in 1000 useless bashing posts.

My 2 cents

I just want to say that the complexity of the economic model is one of the things that makes me like the game (to the extent that I do.. which will no doubt be going up after patch). I'm no micromanager, but all that "stuff" going on that I can't ever hope to understand makes me believe that there is a living breathing empire there.

I'd also say that I love the diplomacy model, with all its flaws, so tell that guy good job too. I love the fact that each message I get from the AIs is unique, even if they are kinda kooky from time to time. But they do have to fix the thing where the AI threatens you and then doesn't tell you what his beef is about..

These two parts of the game help to create a richness that I really admire. if you could just pass that along..

And lastly, is it possible to reinstate the Imperial Focus Points as a mod?

Thanks for going to the trouble..

[Ragnoff]

Alex - though I often find myself agreeing with some of your assesments and love the stuff you have contributed to the strategy I disagree here.

The complexity is what makes the modle rich, simple models rarely make believable environments... and even if there are parts of it I cannot touch, nowing how it works will allow me to make better decisions about what I can touch!!

SO far i really like theis model, and am willing to take on faith that there is a logic to the parts I do not understad, a logic that I hope Tom keeps revealing!!!


Thanks for the time Tom!


Ragnoff

I like the current economic model and would really like to see the whole picture from Tom before I help him redesign it.