17-02-2026, 04:20 AM
Thanks for your thoughts and feedback, Doc.
You've written quite a bit (which I appreciate!) so I will try to address/respond/build on what you've added in as structured a way as I can.
On currency
I agree that reforming in-game currencies would be a major positive (and if I am not mistaken, I remember you have some sort of model to that end?). For my part, beginning in PT Classic, I have always defaulted to valuing things in US Dollars if for no other reason than it provides a real-world value that players can widely understand, given the real world centrality of the US Dollar. My only hesitation – or perhaps better stated, the reason I focus more on commodity exchange than currency – is that the economics around money are both tied to the production of economies and the monetary policies of countries relative to others, among other macro factors. I think this is more complicated to simulate, dependent on determining the production of economies, and perhaps harder for the average player to engage with and understand as compared to "I produce A, I sell A, I buy B." This is not to say it cannot or should not be explored, just that it's an issue I view as being a bit more complicated in design and implementation.
On sanctions
I agree with the need for sanctions to be painful for both parties, though it runs into the issue of consent to a large degree: in previous discussion on WC interventions, for instance, I think the community has largely agreed that a country cannot unilaterally invade another, but can unilaterally apply economic sanctions. If this is the case, the issue then emerges that the "sanctioned party" may not explicitly agree to the impacts of being sanctioned.
Assuming both parties consent to sanction/be sanctioned, though, I think there should definitely be more emphasis on the effects for both parties. However, the unclear relations of individual countries to each other and the global market makes determining what those impacts are problematic.
Take the recent Luthorian and Egelian sanctions against Temania, for example: these countries have not established what – if any – economic exchanges exist between them, yet we still RP them as being significant developments, at least on the Temanian side given its dependence on commodity exports (presumably including to richer countries, etc.). This is not to say what I have done in this arc has been effective, but on the contrary, that it underscores how muddy the global economic ties between sanctioning and sanctioned parties make such RP.
On resource scarcity, oil, and climate change
I agree also with your note re: oil and climate change, though I think that it is a related though distinct topic (how should we think about the scientific fact of climate change in our fictional world which is tethered to current tech, etc., but with 3000+ years more history?). I think the practice to date, and for the foreseeable future, is that it should be assumed that new reserves are continually discovered and extraction technologies improved, while other reserves diminish. It might be useful to think of the environmental externalities of these activities in terms of "pollution" and ecological disruption limited more to the sites of production and refinement, with players forced or otherwise compelled to include them as part of any new development of these resources, but this solution is not ideal nor does it encompass the multi-scalar and complicated impacts of industrial production on global ecology. I have no good solution here... perhaps this would be another interesting topic to discuss elsewhere?
On proposal 3(a): Resource register, or Economic Protocols
I like the EP idea, and think that's essentially what I am proposing in 3(a). This said, I do think that this is somewhat restrictive in a way that players have historically resisted ("who are the Mods to say I cannot be the leading global producer of semiconductors, photovoltaics, uranium, oil, gold, steel, rare earth minerals, and lumber?!"), but it is a decent approach to at least determining who has what, and who imports what from where, to some degree. Absent the degree of automation we both mention in our proposals, however, I see this as pretty onerous on the Moderation team (though they can feel free to weigh in!) and players alike in terms of having to submit proposals, review proposals, debate proposals, and implement proposals, in order to undertake a certain economic RP arc. Given the current turnaround on Cultural Protocols, I see this as a major limitation of such a system – particularly when global economics should, at their best, be rather fluid and dynamic.
Nevertheless, I think what you say about developing budgets and GDP figures on the basis of such a system is interesting, and would like to see that idea further flushed out (as with currency generally); I find it conceptually interesting and possibly preferable to anything I've proposed, but I have resisted trying to think of particracy economics in "hard figures," so to speak, considering their contested nature and what I wrote earlier re: currency. In a similar way to the problem of climate change, I think determining a country's GDP over at least 5000 years of development, and into the future, would be difficult (if it is assumed that a country's economy generally experiences positive growth over an average decade or century, does this not scale unrealistically over time given the scale of time in game?)
On 3(c): "Credits Proposal"
I do think what you describe as being a risk from this proposal ("players in cliques could theoretically team up") already occurs in various degrees throughout the game, particularly in geopolitics, and in large part contributed to by the destruction of the World Congress as a more singular authority for diplomatic endeavours, or at least centralizing the "international community" in some sense. I simply don't think this is a dynamic that can be removed from a game that is inherently social. I similarly do not like IOs much, but it's hard to otherwise have a system implemented that everyone agrees to abide by, given the principle of consent in the game, and given that my credit system is a bit of a "game within a game," I think this is particularly relevant.
But I will also note that, at least as far as my credit proposal is concerned, I don't necessarily see this as an issue. Are there not already "cliques" and "alliances" within the real global economy, and the distribution of global resources? Do some trading blocs not already exist, and prioritize exchange with its members internally before those external to it?
I also see the issue of "cliques" being similar under the EP-based system, in that I could choose to only trade with preferred countries/players, or sell my resources well below market rate (however that is determined) to an ally, and so on. To the extent this becomes an issue, I am not sure on how it could be resolved within the context of the game as it is, though I will say (perhaps naively) that I have a degree of faith in our now very small community that perhaps I would not have had in earlier iterations of this game.
I think giving players equal credits ameliorates the deleterious impact of "cliques" to some degree. Under my proposal, a country could spend 100% of their credits internally, and still be classed a high-momentum economy. Similarly, highly-developed economies will be penalized for failing to spend their credits (and assuming they are highly developed, they have fewer places to spend them internally and among each other) by being classed "low momentum."
This model is a bit new as an innovation to the game, and so I can only hypothesize about these things of course, but I would like to play test this or something similar in the future just to see if it's a worthwhile way of approaching things in the first place. Finally, as a general note, I want to add that I think the initial term of 10 years is rather long in real-world terms; I just chose it arbitrarily. This term could be much shorter.
You've written quite a bit (which I appreciate!) so I will try to address/respond/build on what you've added in as structured a way as I can.
On currency
I agree that reforming in-game currencies would be a major positive (and if I am not mistaken, I remember you have some sort of model to that end?). For my part, beginning in PT Classic, I have always defaulted to valuing things in US Dollars if for no other reason than it provides a real-world value that players can widely understand, given the real world centrality of the US Dollar. My only hesitation – or perhaps better stated, the reason I focus more on commodity exchange than currency – is that the economics around money are both tied to the production of economies and the monetary policies of countries relative to others, among other macro factors. I think this is more complicated to simulate, dependent on determining the production of economies, and perhaps harder for the average player to engage with and understand as compared to "I produce A, I sell A, I buy B." This is not to say it cannot or should not be explored, just that it's an issue I view as being a bit more complicated in design and implementation.
On sanctions
I agree with the need for sanctions to be painful for both parties, though it runs into the issue of consent to a large degree: in previous discussion on WC interventions, for instance, I think the community has largely agreed that a country cannot unilaterally invade another, but can unilaterally apply economic sanctions. If this is the case, the issue then emerges that the "sanctioned party" may not explicitly agree to the impacts of being sanctioned.
Assuming both parties consent to sanction/be sanctioned, though, I think there should definitely be more emphasis on the effects for both parties. However, the unclear relations of individual countries to each other and the global market makes determining what those impacts are problematic.
Take the recent Luthorian and Egelian sanctions against Temania, for example: these countries have not established what – if any – economic exchanges exist between them, yet we still RP them as being significant developments, at least on the Temanian side given its dependence on commodity exports (presumably including to richer countries, etc.). This is not to say what I have done in this arc has been effective, but on the contrary, that it underscores how muddy the global economic ties between sanctioning and sanctioned parties make such RP.
On resource scarcity, oil, and climate change
I agree also with your note re: oil and climate change, though I think that it is a related though distinct topic (how should we think about the scientific fact of climate change in our fictional world which is tethered to current tech, etc., but with 3000+ years more history?). I think the practice to date, and for the foreseeable future, is that it should be assumed that new reserves are continually discovered and extraction technologies improved, while other reserves diminish. It might be useful to think of the environmental externalities of these activities in terms of "pollution" and ecological disruption limited more to the sites of production and refinement, with players forced or otherwise compelled to include them as part of any new development of these resources, but this solution is not ideal nor does it encompass the multi-scalar and complicated impacts of industrial production on global ecology. I have no good solution here... perhaps this would be another interesting topic to discuss elsewhere?
On proposal 3(a): Resource register, or Economic Protocols
I like the EP idea, and think that's essentially what I am proposing in 3(a). This said, I do think that this is somewhat restrictive in a way that players have historically resisted ("who are the Mods to say I cannot be the leading global producer of semiconductors, photovoltaics, uranium, oil, gold, steel, rare earth minerals, and lumber?!"), but it is a decent approach to at least determining who has what, and who imports what from where, to some degree. Absent the degree of automation we both mention in our proposals, however, I see this as pretty onerous on the Moderation team (though they can feel free to weigh in!) and players alike in terms of having to submit proposals, review proposals, debate proposals, and implement proposals, in order to undertake a certain economic RP arc. Given the current turnaround on Cultural Protocols, I see this as a major limitation of such a system – particularly when global economics should, at their best, be rather fluid and dynamic.
Nevertheless, I think what you say about developing budgets and GDP figures on the basis of such a system is interesting, and would like to see that idea further flushed out (as with currency generally); I find it conceptually interesting and possibly preferable to anything I've proposed, but I have resisted trying to think of particracy economics in "hard figures," so to speak, considering their contested nature and what I wrote earlier re: currency. In a similar way to the problem of climate change, I think determining a country's GDP over at least 5000 years of development, and into the future, would be difficult (if it is assumed that a country's economy generally experiences positive growth over an average decade or century, does this not scale unrealistically over time given the scale of time in game?)
On 3(c): "Credits Proposal"
I do think what you describe as being a risk from this proposal ("players in cliques could theoretically team up") already occurs in various degrees throughout the game, particularly in geopolitics, and in large part contributed to by the destruction of the World Congress as a more singular authority for diplomatic endeavours, or at least centralizing the "international community" in some sense. I simply don't think this is a dynamic that can be removed from a game that is inherently social. I similarly do not like IOs much, but it's hard to otherwise have a system implemented that everyone agrees to abide by, given the principle of consent in the game, and given that my credit system is a bit of a "game within a game," I think this is particularly relevant.
But I will also note that, at least as far as my credit proposal is concerned, I don't necessarily see this as an issue. Are there not already "cliques" and "alliances" within the real global economy, and the distribution of global resources? Do some trading blocs not already exist, and prioritize exchange with its members internally before those external to it?
I also see the issue of "cliques" being similar under the EP-based system, in that I could choose to only trade with preferred countries/players, or sell my resources well below market rate (however that is determined) to an ally, and so on. To the extent this becomes an issue, I am not sure on how it could be resolved within the context of the game as it is, though I will say (perhaps naively) that I have a degree of faith in our now very small community that perhaps I would not have had in earlier iterations of this game.
I think giving players equal credits ameliorates the deleterious impact of "cliques" to some degree. Under my proposal, a country could spend 100% of their credits internally, and still be classed a high-momentum economy. Similarly, highly-developed economies will be penalized for failing to spend their credits (and assuming they are highly developed, they have fewer places to spend them internally and among each other) by being classed "low momentum."
This model is a bit new as an innovation to the game, and so I can only hypothesize about these things of course, but I would like to play test this or something similar in the future just to see if it's a worthwhile way of approaching things in the first place. Finally, as a general note, I want to add that I think the initial term of 10 years is rather long in real-world terms; I just chose it arbitrarily. This term could be much shorter.
"Everything's computer!" – President Donald John Trump ✝️
wuhan.particracy@gmail.com
wuhan.particracy@gmail.com