A MOD-dable Economy

[jchastain]

With all the discussions and opinions regarding waste, I can't help but think how neat it would be to have many of the central economic parameters be included in a file so that they could be modified.

Imagine an Econ file where:

Waste for each commodity is defined by a formula where:
%B = Current (start of turn processing) Balance
%P = Amount Produced
%T = Amount Received (Given) in Trade
and then parse the math functions *, /, +, -, (), int(), and max()

And we could enter something such as:

HorsesWaste = int( max(0, (%P + %T - 10) * .5) + max(0, (%P + %T - 30) *.8))

That is just an example using the current calculation, but let everyone decide for themselves how much is lost to waste. [Note: I think it is silly that accumulated balances do not waste, only excess production so I included a separate parameter to allow waste if too muchy is stockpiled]

Additionally, the impact of farms, factories, and banks on production could be included:

FarmFactor=1.1
FactoryFactor=1.1
BankFactor=1.1

With a little forethought, the entire economy could be moddable so that (1) we could get more experimentation to determine what works best, and (2) everyone could then alter the game to match their taste. If you want to steamroll the continent, eliminate waste and go ahead! It's your game, play it however you like.

[kerguelen]

Feudalism should in fact have a negative influence on production, because people don't care any more. (Remember all the russian 19th century writers dealing with the problems of serfdom: serfs don't work much because it's mostly for the nobles, nobles get lazy because they don't have to work --> no improvements and new technologies in agriculture and industry).

[jchastain]

Great point! In a perfect system, Feudalism likely should have some impact on waste. %F = feudalism level?