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Looks like you are basing things on Austrian Economics. A friend of mine who’s a strong advocate of this philosophy said that the reason why Keynes is so popul

Looks like you are basing things on Austrian Economics. A friend of mine who’s a strong advocate of this philosophy said that the reason why Keynes is so popular in the real world (fiat currency, national banks, micro/macro economics) is that it gives politicians something to do. It’s worth thinking about what economic philosophy your game is following or is biased towards (I always felt that the older civilization games were biased toward “research is good” and against democracy as the senate made it too difficult to go to war. Last one could be argued to pro democracy if you try to bring the lesson out of the game and into the real world. ) But zoning, setting taxes, building infrastructure, police and military are things that no one has really managed to leave to the market forces. I believe sim city added disasters because they felt players didn’t really have anything to do...

dave_sullivan 6y ago
Yes, good point. One of the key things I'm trying to explore is the effect of automating jobs (through researched technologies which business owners then apply) and how this leads to income disparity. Basic income schemes will also come into play. So automated socialism I guess, haha.
- subw00f 6y ago
  Interest rates are also important, if your game has a banking system with a central bank that makes monetary policy. If agents can start businesses, or take mortgages to buy a house or a car, that would be very cool to see the impacts of that in the simulation. Also, heritage has a very important role on wealth accumulation, if there's a way to make wealth and return on capital part of the system. This whole thing is too interesting.
- shagie 6y ago
  Game bit... look at the game Democracy (in any of its variations) by Positech Games. You can dabble in what happens by enacting and funding laws policies. For an economics simulator, score the simulated economy on say... a dozen things. Make that into a radar plot and the overall score is the area of the plot. Now the player can do things by enacting rules that cause changes in how the AI plays the game in an attempt to maximize their score.
dragonwriter 6y ago
> A friend of mine who’s a strong advocate of this philosophy said that the reason why Keynes is so popular in the real world (fiat currency, national banks, micro/macro economics) is that it gives politicians something to do. That’s a projection of the Austrian school’s overtly anti-empirical approach onto Keynesianism.

dave_sullivan 6y ago

Yes, good point. One of the key things I'm trying to explore is the effect of automating jobs (through researched technologies which business owners then apply) and how this leads to income disparity. Basic income schemes will also come into play. So automated socialism I guess, haha.

subw00f 6y ago
Interest rates are also important, if your game has a banking system with a central bank that makes monetary policy. If agents can start businesses, or take mortgages to buy a house or a car, that would be very cool to see the impacts of that in the simulation. Also, heritage has a very important role on wealth accumulation, if there's a way to make wealth and return on capital part of the system. This whole thing is too interesting.
shagie 6y ago
Game bit... look at the game Democracy (in any of its variations) by Positech Games. You can dabble in what happens by enacting and funding laws policies. For an economics simulator, score the simulated economy on say... a dozen things. Make that into a radar plot and the overall score is the area of the plot. Now the player can do things by enacting rules that cause changes in how the AI plays the game in an attempt to maximize their score.

dragonwriter 6y ago

> A friend of mine who’s a strong advocate of this philosophy said that the reason why Keynes is so popular in the real world (fiat currency, national banks, micro/macro economics) is that it gives politicians something to do. That’s a projection of the Austrian school’s overtly anti-empirical approach onto Keynesianism.