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Re: How to stop every single AI from becoming super-rich

#16
The economy's been raised several times already, most recently by me :)

Money sinks are a gamey concept. They're just a problem of inadequate aggregate demand, in market terms. LT already has a system which shouldbe quite good at providing technological change, and thus stimulating demand as technology improves. I've also suggested a simple way in which other commodities can be progressively generated and how market trends and fashions can be simply quasi-simulated, which should be a reasonably good way to split up market power amongst traders. Plus, of course, in an infinite universe, infinite growth isn't as much of a problem as it is on our single, very finite planet.

I also think it would be a good idea if NPCs retired rather than having to die, if some of them reached a point where they'd made enough money to go off to space Barbados out pay off their debts or whatever, and so let space behind. Not everyone should be the most ambitious player in the world.

For me the most important thing the economics simulator will do is work without player input. If I spawn a universe and then just sit in the hangar, there won't be any NPCs idling away, waiting for a special Player to give a series of quests to. They'll all carry on with their simulation just as if I wasn't there. If I want to influence the shape of the world, I can get out and work at it - but if I just want to explore, I needn't worry that the world is somehow worse off for my inattention to matters of finance.

To be fair, the game will have difficulty modes and access to a lot of base data. So if you find things difficult you can mod a new setting. I imagine after a couple of weeks there'll be quite a few player-released "settings packs" gearing the game more towards slow mining or fast shooty combat with lots of pirate fodder.
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Re: How to stop every single AI from becoming super-rich

#17
McDuff wrote:For me the most important thing the economics simulator will do is work without player input.
This.

I've also always been a proponent of the "It should be INCREDIBLY difficult to unbalance the simulator by myself alone". This is because the game system itself is massive. A single player SHOULDN'T be able topple that balance. I'm not saying it should be self-righting, but even taking out a complete system or three shouldn't cause rippling effects (it might due to reputation of the AI possibly wanting to band together to try to stop you, but it shouldn't mean that the economy crumbles and falls apart).
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Re: How to stop every single AI from becoming super-rich

#19
Agree with everything being stated. I want the macro-economy to function independently of me. The only way I should easily be able to screw up the economy is if I ever attain the equivalent position as the chairman of the Federal Reserve or head of the Bank of England (since screwing up the economy should only then be natural, judging by reality :P ). Then I'd quantitatively ease the hell out of the economy for shits and giggles.
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Re: How to stop every single AI from becoming super-rich

#21
ThymineC wrote:Agree with everything being stated. I want the macro-economy to function independently of me. The only way I should easily be able to screw up the economy is if I ever attain the equivalent position as the chairman of the Federal Reserve or head of the Bank of England (since screwing up the economy should only then be natural, judging by reality :P ). Then I'd quantitatively ease the hell out of the economy for shits and giggles.
Technically your job wouldn't be to screw up the economy, but to take every measure you could to avoid it becoming naturally screwed of its own accord, then denying all possibility of fixing it in case someone thought you might be terrible at your job. ;)
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Re: How to stop every single AI from becoming super-rich

#22
Not everyone can be rich. Doesn't work that way. Read your post again and you will see how your point is fundamentally flawed. "Everyone realizes they can mine a bunch and get rich." Yeah, except, then ore supply skyrockets and demand plummets because everyone is mining, not fighting/manufacturing. Then these miners are left with tons of worthless assets. They aren't rich. Besides, rich is relative. If everyone is at the same wealth level then there is no 1%. None of them are rich, because they are all equal.
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about steamrolling factions

#24
So now that josh started working on the strategy aspect of LT, it get me to think about a common problem of strategy game :

The more powerful a faction get, the easiest it is for it to be more powerful .

Because it have more resources to invest to get more resources, developing more or less at an exponential time . which mean that, first, the starting condition are often determinant on development and second the game actually end, in term of domination, somewhere around the point where one faction have as much power than all other factions combined (which generally mean when someone control half the map, a time most people consider as mid game ). once that point is over, either the player steamroll the opposition, which is not really fun, or one of the AI steamroll all the other AI plus the player, which is even less fun.

That OK for short games, like most RTS, because domination is the sole focus of the game, there is often a limited number of opponents and the steamrolling part is really fast, which mean it ends before it become tedious (let's be honest, a bit of steamrolling is fun from time to time ).

However, from my understanding, LT will not be a short game and furthermore will allow different playstyle, with total domination being an option, not an obligation.

I'd like to talk about two games that took a different approach to this problem, Crusader Kings 2 and Victoria 2. Both are made by paradox and are grand strategy game.

In Crusader Kings 2 you control a medieval dynasty. in the game it's actually quite easy to gain a lot of land, but it's very hard to keep it. First, you can directly control only a limited number of land and you are more or less forced to distribute them to your vassals once your over the limit. Your vassal can like you or not, based both on their personality trait and your actions. if they really don't like you, they can decide to rebels and fight you for their independence or to force you to change the laws in your kingdom (for example reducing taxes or the amount of levies they give you). at first, with a small kingdom, vassals won't be too troublesome, because they are weak compared to you and few in number so they are easy to manage with gift and title, but as the size of your lands grow they soon start to cause trouble.

As you have a hierarchical system in the game, you can make some choice on how to manage your vassal, either a lot of weak vassal (count level) that are so numerous that there always be some of them unsatisfied , or few powerful vassals (duke and kings level) that manage their own vassals. They are easier to manage, but more powerful and dangerous.

Furthermore there are succession were your vassals tend to dislike the new boss (particularly if it's a child, a woman, or not of the good religion or culture), so they sometime take arms to push another pretender, and you can very well end up as a vassal to one of your previous vassal.

So what happen is that you often see empire rise only to devolve in civil war, with quick change of leader or some vassal becoming independent or even a splinted kingdom. that tend to make play were durable land gain are rare but there is lot of very dramatic change. The bigger you are the harder it is to maintain your kingdom whole, so you naturally turn your attention inwards instead of outward. It's completely possible to conquer most of the world, but very hard to keep it long.

In Victoria 2, you manage a country trough industrialization (1836-1936). It's relatively harder to get big fast (although you can colonize a lot, the land you get doesn't necessary translate in more power , you need a industrial setup to correctly exploit it). You need justification to start war, and you can add additional goal (like taking more land) to your war only if you population support you (generally if the war is started not too long ago and they didn't suffered from it). You have a measure call infamy, that increase every time you take land, once it's over a certain threshold other countries can attack you freely with very penalizing losing condition for you. because of that, you tend to choose your battles carefully as to not waste too much infamy on useless land.

By the way, land can vary a lot in value, some desert land in Africa with a small population of illiterate farmer that are of a different religion and culture than you and produce a not very valuable resource (like fish) are infinitely less valuable than one of your core land with hundred of thousands educated worker working in giant factory and as much laborers exploiting coal or iron mine.

You also have the possibility of forcing a country to release another nation (say, forcing Russia to liberate Ukraine) and this cost less in infamy than land grab. this way you can significantly weaken a rival without getting more powerful.

A particular interesting point is that the game give you significant bonus (more prestige, more diplomacy, more game mechanism available) for getting more powerful (they're is a ranking for nation in the game: uncivilized nation that can more easily be invaded and are technologically limited, civilized nation, secondary power (small bonus, the nation ranked between 16th and 9th places) and great power (lot of bonus, the first 8 nation in rank)). That mean that it's easier to stay at the top, but also make loosing too badly worse as you can loose your status.

If reach the great power status, you can add to your sphere of influence other nation. That mean adding them to your private market, which mean that they are force to buy first your product and that you can first pick their resources. That mean the without war you can access a whole lot of resources that are either vital to your industry or basically monopolize the access to some resources. Of course you can forced a nation to get in your sphere or be forced to release a nation from your sphere by war.



Although war generally doesn't change frontier too much, there a mechanism call great war that allow big changes. Great war occur when a war happens with at least two great power on each side (remember there 8 of them). great power generally have lot of allies, colonies and satellites so they generally turn in enormous war that span the whole world. In great war, war goal cost half the usual infamy cost, so you can really make some dramatic change to the world.

Finally there is a crisis system where a former nation whom land is owned by an other nation can call a great power to help liberate itself (so Crimea could call Russia to free itself from Ukraine). If the great power accept , then the international crisis occur and every great power nearby (on the same continent) are forced to take side (faraway great power can choose to participate or not). they can propose solution to the crisis. If nobody accept, the crisis will eventually devolve in war, which usually turn into a great war. if they accept, the great power on the loosing side loose lot of prestige, which can make them loose their great power status.

So the dynamics is really different, you alternate period of relative peace where great power crystallize their power by developing their economy, forming alliance, colonizing and extending their sphere of influence and big war were the balance of power can be completely change. as infamy work the same for everyone, military might translate in a linear progression, but the economy actually have an exponential progression. it very hard to conquer enough to reach the point were you are too powerful to stop caring about other, but growth is not only not penalized but actually bring lot of advantages.

In both game, it's harder to keep land or have good relation with other country if they are of different culture or religion.

(That was a "short" overview of some of the mechanism of the game, I made some simplifications and lot of omissions. )

I personally think that the approach of Victoria 2 make more sense for LT, especially in regards of soft power, although some internal trouble for big faction could be fun.

So what mechanisms do you think should be implemented to stop too powerful nations (or do you even think that's a problem ?).

(sorry for the wall of text)
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Re: about steamrolling factions

#25
It's a good set of questions.

However, I think state-building games aren't necessarily fully complete because there probably isn't a direct analogue between a 19th century imperial state and an LT faction.

Consider the state of the world as it stands now. Simplified, states exist as areas of currency and legal contiguity with varying degrees of porosity on their borders. Corporations, while nominally contained within one state, are fairly free (all caveats assumed and discarded for simplicity) to operate across state borders. I may have my headquarters in Asia, but manufacturing plants and markets in Europe, the Americas, Africa etc.

The rules for states are different from the rules for corporations, even though the two nominally converge at various points.

In LT the major organisational unit is the "faction." This performs the role of both corporation and state, depending on who is talking about it. What you end up with there, if a faction does everything itself, and assuming no political gameplay like elections, rebellions, etc is something like the USSR - a top-down authoritarian state with a swathe of nationalised industries under its remit.

Now this isn't the only potential arrangement of economic power. Suppose there are smaller factions with more specialisation, operating as monopolistic corporations. One is miners, the other manufacturers, the other a large-scale hauling firm, the other an association of space stations acting as a trade network across various systems, another specialising in security and armed vessels.

Between them they could subcontract in a sufficient way as to effectively run a huge multi-system industrial complex. If they reached an agreement to protect their individual monopoly concerns, both with non-compete bargains and by pressuring external competition out of their markets, they would be a powerful cartel, but they wouldn't constitute a "state" as we understand the term.

As an outsider (and as a mere feeble citizen) there would be no effective difference between a USSR-style, all contained state, and a cartel made of smaller corporate factions. However the internal structures would be very different.

This also glides over the relationship that "faction" has to "planet" or a given political subset thereof. You'd expect an entirely space-based association to have different concerns to a faction that was a fully political arm of, say, the Japanese state, taking orders from a specific planetary power base.

I think there are, at present, too many real variables here to be able to extrapolate as to what systems and arrangements will emerge from the whole thing, let alone to be able to fine tweak those systems to give us a reasonable distributions of factions, nations, corporations, independents, what-have-you.
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Re: about steamrolling factions

#26
You could always implement a 'stability' factor like there is in Europa Universalis. If you expand too quickly or become very large, it becomes easier to become destabilized and your 'empire' or faction can fall apart and fracture into smaller pieces. Just throwing out ideas.
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Re: about steamrolling factions

#27
But what, exactly, are you destabilising?

At the level of management we've seen thus far, you wouldn't need to add a "stability" factor — if you expand your mining/manufacturing operation too quickly, you'll be spread too thin with too little capital, and susceptible to shocks taking out swathes of your supply chain with no redundancy.

This is the point where details on what planets are going to look like, what the total (non-NPC) populations of planets and stations and factions are going to be etc etc would be very handy.
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Re: about steamrolling factions

#28
Hmmmm you're right about stability...didn't we discuss about how to keep factions from growing into some enormous and powerful size? All I remember was maintenance, but I know that you (McDuff) and Thymine were throwing out ideas and I can't remember who agreed with what. I just know is that someone had a decent idea.
Image "Everyone needs to have their avatar's edited to have afros." -Charley Deallus
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Re: about steamrolling factions

#29
I think it's critical that it should be impossible to conquer the "world" (or in LT anyone you come across). Partially because it's not realistic and immersion breaking, and partially because it's a surefire way of getting players bored and stop playing.

So let's try to list as much of the cause and effect as possible (including those from the Paradox games) that realistically stops a nation from growing so powerful that it is unstoppable.

* Infamy - the more aggressive and threatening a faction is the more other bordering factions will tend to seek to ally with each other against it and in general work against it.
* Internal struggle - the larger a faction becomes the higher stakes for leading it and the harder it becomes to keep control of the periphery (seen historically from Roman times to today).
* Bureaucracy - the larger a faction becomes the further from the people the leaders end up being, leading to inefficiency and dissent even in the core areas.
* Corruption - related to both of the above, in larger hierarchies and further from law/core control inefficiency can run rampant as individuals greedily grab the wealth of the state.
* Logistics - the further from home a faction has to field it's military forces the longer supply-lines are needed to maintain (meaning inefficiency and vulnerability to raiding).
* Distance - the larger empire the longer reaction time to deploy forces to an outside threat or to rebelling peripheral worlds.
* Culture - the bigger a faction is the more different and alien from each other the citizens from different parts will be.

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