Here's another fairly simple question: How long would the economy be able to run itself, without interference with the player, before disaster strikes? So far the various moving parts you've described don't need/allow much input from the player, except tariff rates and taxes which govern how much money the government pulls in. What does the player use that money for?

Here's another fairly simple question: How long would the economy be able to run itself, without interference with the player, before disaster strikes? So far the various moving parts you've described don't need/allow much input from the player, except tariff rates and taxes which govern how much money the government pulls in. What does the player use that money for?

Short answer: Forever; on Army & Police

Long answer:

One important thing, the purpose of the economy is not to deliever money to the player (government), or at least not only. It's to provide to the population, so they do not rebel and not overthrow you. If the population is well fed, healthy, clothed your need to spend less on police, propaganda, army, fighting rebels, etc.

There is a danger here, if I made a typical "build factory & it produces for you" gameplay it would be more interesting. But, it's overused and, well, there are no games where you have a real economy (makro), so I kind of traded the "exciting things to do" for "exciting model how it works" (which I'm not sure is the right decision ). Of course I could be mistaken and the system would be both exciting to do & be an exciting model Anyway, yeah, as you said, there is a danger there won't be much to do economy wise...

More about the use of money:

- government buildings/infrastructure: electricity, roads, ports, hospitals, schools

- police & army (upkeep, forming new, better equipment)

- propaganda (so people know why they love you and why they should not listen to dissidents)

- administration costs (bureaucracy)

- edicts & laws (subsidies, social insurance, pensions)

- cultivating terrain for new plantations (unlocking new plantation slots) & setting up and enlarging cities (maybe)

- making powerful factions/people happy (bribing, favours - usually in form of tax exempts so no direct spending of money)

I was thinking (off topic: geez, I really hate the amount of thinking this making games uses :D) and came some conclusions:

- I will go for this macroeconomy thing, it's unique and there really is not a single game like that; yet the danger is the player will not have much to do

- So, the player will need some indirect ways of affecting economy, like roads system for example (another topic)

- Generally, the polantations looks super cute to me and want me to interact with these, so I thought, maybe add soem non economic option to these (so the player can visit and upgrade these rectangles on trhe map)? I mean the NPC owns the plantation, but the player build a village shool there, or a police station, etc. Like if these plantations were villages (with one rich persona owning all/most land inside).

Anyway, I look for ideas for:

* what the player can do with the plantations/villages?

* and how to handle cities (I suppose there must be some separate screen for city buildings because on the "world" map it won't fit)?

* and how to handle cities (I suppose there must be some separate screen for city buildings because on the "world" map it won't fit)?

I way thinking of something along these lines:

There is a spearate page (whien you click on the city on the map) it shows the city, the background is of the same colour as the province (for easy identification which city you are browsing, plus that's consistent). On the city map you have slots, just like on the map, some can be used for industrial buildings (owend by NPCs, identical to plantation), government buildings (schools, hospitals, dictator's palace) and for regular houses of citizes (not sure why but these look good/make sense, so these should be there somewhere ).

You decide what to "build" where by directly building in a slot (governement buildings only) or by granting a licence to a slot (like: I allow here to be a rum distillery - but it works only if any NPC is interested). Also/or maybe allow NPCs some initiative, if they want to build some factory there whould be a "!" in an empty slot, you can check it and browse the offers (who wants to build what factory where and how much he/she is willing to pay for the licence)?

I could use some ideas/feedback how it could work with cities...