Some thoughts on the private economy

[zgrssd]

The private economy is a intersting aspect, but especially around the mining category it hit's some snags:

- Most of the time, I do not want them to place a mine there. Mineable resources can be hard to find. If they put a mine there, the SHQ will only get a fraction of the stuff taht is underground. Most of the metals/fuel/rare metals will go into the privat economy. And I once had the Private economy place a metal mine the same start of turn a metal deposit was found.
- Soemtimes I really want them to place a mine there! Some resources I do not care that much. What good is fuel on a world of hills and forrests? I might as well go solar and electric. So they can dig it up and sell it, for more Private Economy credits.
Sometimes I simply lack the metal/IP/workers to build a water mine when I need one, and being able to get them to do it would help - even if they are massively inefficient (and I can buy them out later).
- fewer starting buildings should be private or it should be easier to turn them public. That the logistics and Scavenging asset starts private is rather annoying. Especially the Scavenging one, whose Rare Metals are worth a giant fortune on the market - easily enough to pay for a Turn 1 buyout, if it was not for that Militia parad event on Turn 2
- the positions can also be rather unfortunate, once they start building stuff not bound to a specific place outside the city

Some ideas to fix it:
- a way to refuse permission for them to place a mining asset. Something like them having to ask me via a decisions (the Governor can be the one asking on their behalf). Or maybe "tagging" spots as build/do not build there. Maybe something on a more Empire wide level (no to all Metal Sources, no to all scavenging, yes to all fuel drilling ones).
- a way to incentivise them building something on one spot. Not just "allow there" but "please build there". Maybe like putting up a "500 credits bounty for whoever builds a mine there", that will be bound to the spot and substracted from thd Private Credits needed to start it? A similar option for upgrades would be nice.
- a way to demolish the building, rather then nationalize it. Half the Credit cost of Nationalisation maybe? Or a way to directly sidegrade a existing building.
- maybe a "Seize Asset" option, that is disliked even more then Nationalisation but carries no credit cost?


Improoving the placement of new private assets

Where out-of-town assets are placed should be sensible. This could be doable with some simple weighting for each hex.
Stuff that is city only, would of course still just check in there.
Stuff that can be placed anywhere (like the Farming stuff) would benefit the most of it.
However even stuff that is limited to some tiles (open air farms, Wind Traps), can benefit from it. "We found the best spot, under a set of generally viable ones"

Example weights:
- +1 for a road. Obviously having a road lead there already is really good
- +1 for each asset already in that hex. This would favor the city hex automatically, but even outside it would keep assets clumped together more. A lot of cities in the real world started out of "assest creep". Just think of all the cities around fortresses, the mining towns, etc.
- +1 if there is a mineable resource there. Even if there is no road yet, somebody will need a road there to get to the resource eventually.
- +1 if the mineable resource is something this buildings public variant would consume. That would build hydroponics farms on watermines or mountains (windtrap spots). If they are bought out, that would allow the consumer and producer to be really close together
- +1 for being within the safe range for Adminsitrativ strain
- +1 for being in the "the citiy would feel endangered if a hostile is there" distance.

Most of those could stack. So the Hydroponics farm would prefer being build on a water mine because:
- road already there
- 1 asset already there
- mineable resource there
- fitting mineable resource there

[TheSquid]

100% agree on the nationalisation - we should definitely be given options on how to go about it:
- Pay them generously - less annoyed populate, but hideously expensive
- Pay them the base "cost" (current system) - annoyed more, anti-corporate attitude, but cheaper
- Take it by force - really annoys people, may possibly require using troops to force their way in, dispel protests/riots immediately afterward, etc.

If I want to forcibly take over all farms and make the people work collectively for the state so I can sell the food to buy weapons while they starve to death, that should be an option!

However, it would also be cool if you could sell public assets to the private sector. The price you get for it could depend on the general wealth of the population. This would primarily make you money, while potentially also making people dissatisfied (privatisation has both proponents and opponents, though this depends on the sector - in-game I'd imagine that how much people like/hate it should be dependent on the type of society it is, i.e. how high your commerce level is). So, I'd imagine that a society where the private sector isn't that great, one would likely not get much for it - but selling it would increase the private sector's wealth (over time), but decrease it short-term (I imagine that to make sense in-game, the private sector would use their "funds" to buy it, and if they do that then naturally it would mean it will be longer before they get around to building something new (or being in a position to pay a reasonable price for a public asset you wanted to sell).

[Cassini]

Another dead thread resurrected...

My issue is private economy choosing to construct domed farms over the 'open field variety'.

Water Level.jpg (24.08 KiB) Viewed 385 times

Domed Farm.jpg (59.33 KiB) Viewed 385 times

This is a new zone I created and quickly got 13,000 pop into it (Boom Town along with 2000 colonists/round) and played the 'private investment' card and pumped 100 credits a round into the zone. As soon as it had 1000 credits (combined public and private) available - construction commenced.

I deliberately expanded the 1 hex zone to include bordering the lake - thinking I would encourage the AI to choose to build an open air farm rather than a domed variety.... NOPE.

This is yet another case where giving PLAYERS the added ability to create a build queue in governor's orders would solve many problems (in addition to having a 'build range restriction' so players could set the maximum range from city hex to build location).

The city hex is 11 hexes from the southern edge of the map - temp 15 C when the 'round season' states 'late summer' (presumably for northern hemisphere). Just a few hexes away, there are hexes below 10 C - but nothing that would impact the city hex or the hex actually chosen for farm location - so year round farming is possible with open air farms...

Things have come a long way since the 0.96 Beta was tested 2 years ago - but things have a way to go before they approach something that can be called finished.