Here's What The Developers Should Do: Free Market vs Command Economy

from GalCiv3 Forums

Your options are either:

1.  Command economy.  You can micromanage everything on a planet to planet basis.  

2.  Free market economy.  Where you micromanage NOTHING and let planets develop as they wish according to the planetary governors.  You can set guidelines as to focus more on research or money or production, but the planetary governors will only follow your guidelines only as much as it benefits their OWN SELF INTEREST (I'm sure there are ways to program this).  

However, if you choose the free market path you get MASSIVE economic bonuses everywhere because everyone is happier without some overlord watching over everything they do.  

To make this work, get rid of adjacency bonuses totally or nerf them down to 1%.  Otherwise Command Economy would still beat Free market economy.  

If you set up a Free Market Economy, a large challenge of the game should be you (as the president) trying to get your democratic government to do what you want them to do and sucking up to them and building planetary propaganda centers like Fox News (so you can influence the press) so they'll listen to you.

Example: You (as the president): the Drengin are planning to attack! Build more factories! We need more warships!

Governors: No.  That's scare tactics.  You didn't listen to us when we wanted 1000 credits for our pork barrel projects.  Now that you ask for help, we're going to ignore you.  We'd rather build marketplaces because it benefits our local economy more.  Your proposals are just a ploy to increase the military-industrial complex at the expense of everyone else.  hahahahaha)  

On the other hand, if you set up a Command Economy you'll be like North Korea: lots of control but very little resources to control.  

Different civs will have different preferences.  The Iridium governors if allowed to run free will spam marketplaces on more than half their worlds.  Drengin governors though will just spam slave pens and factories.  

You can switch between free market and command economies but this would lead to massive anarchy for several turns UNLESS one of your planets have recently been invaded or attacked, in which case the anarchy is minimal or zero.  

*******************************************************

With this scenario different civilizations will have different flavors.  The Iridium for example would have the highest economic bonuses from free market systems, BUT getting their planetary governors to listen to you is almost impossible.  The Drengin, though, have no trouble at all with controlling planetary governors.  Unfortunately, due to the economic inefficiency of slavery, their economy operates like North Korea or Venezuela.  

*************************************************************

This would also help with late-game issues (where the game gets tedious) because once you've conquered a lot of planets and reached a dominating position, your planetary governors start doing whatever the hell they feel like.  

13,346 views 9 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Ah, "either or", what fun.

Hmmm, "god-emperor", "god-emperor", "god-emperor"...not seeing it.

Hmm.

Anyone here read Dune?

Reply #2 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Uh..."you (as the president) trying to get your democratic government to do what you want them to do and sucking up to them and building planetary propaganda centers like Fox News (so you can influence the press) so they'll listen to you."

 

Fox News is definitely not in support of the current president. Pick a better example.

TouchTasks - Access tasks with ease on Windows touchscreens.
Reply #3 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Fox News is pretty supportive of the previous president.  As long as you act like George Bush those propaganda centers work just fine.  

Reply #4 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Point is: economic micro management should be punished, but not removed.  It's realistic.  The more you micro manage, the less efficient the economy becomes.  On the other hand, with a free market system every planetary governor would want to do their own thing regardless of what the civilization as a whole needs.  The goal then would be to balance between the needs of the few vs the needs of the many, giving the game the economic depth it needs.  

Reply #5 from LittleTinyFrogs Forums Top

marigoldran: Have you tried Offworld Trading Company? Sounds like it's more up your alley given your economy optimization fetishism.

Reply #7 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Quoting marigoldran, reply 3

Fox News is pretty supportive of the previous president.  As long as you act like George Bush those propaganda centers work just fine.  
End of marigoldran's quote

 

With that rhetoric, all news agencies are propaganda centers in the United States for sure.

 

Which is clearly not the case, they are more focused on propping up the US system, rather than any one leader...like a state-run media system would/could do. This is clearly demonstrated by how utterly "gutted" all US news is on world events - Even when its called "World News". 

State-Run Media 

That is what the OP was trying to state, although he could/should have chosen one that was, such as Pravda, or another such government run news org.

 

Also you say "propaganda centers" when you reference only the one. Its always funny to see Americans seethe in anger at themselves. 

Reply #8 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Are you sure I'm American? 

Reply #9 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Quoting hedetet, reply 5

marigoldran: Have you tried Offworld Trading Company? Sounds like it's more up your alley given your economy optimization fetishism.
End of hedetet's quote

But the point of creating a massive economy is to create a giant military to cream your opposition into fuzzy pulp.  

I just wish the AI would put up some resistance along the way to "fuzzy pulp-ness."  Otherwise it gets boring.