A Quiet Week

Civilization: India
Difficulty: Settler
Game Speed: Normal

Not much to report this week, except that I'm greatly impressed with the Indian "Fast Worker" unit. I only chose India for a little variety, but now I'm glad I did. India (the geographic location) has a crazy amount of resources, and Fast Workers allow you to take advantage of them. Anyway, it's early in the game, and my new strategy has yet to reach the stage of full implementation, so this will be a short post. However, you can expect longer posts in the coming weeks as my scheme comes into its full glory.

What is this glorious scheme? World conquest! I have finally given up notions of peaceful, diplomatic victory and intend to wage a full-scale war of domination against my rivals. The plan is to focus on technological development and expansion early in the game, then, when space starts to run out and my military is sufficiently superior in technology and size, seize capitals and incorporate the fallen empires into my own. Thus far, I'm in the stage of technological advancement, which (following my conclusions from my last game) is proceeding extremely well. I don't expect this stage to last much longer, though. Eurasia is already getting tight, so by next week I should be able to report some action.

I do have more in mind than blood-lust. Thinking like an economist, I'm curious to find out what large-scale and long-term conflict will do to the economic growth of my civilization. It could be detrimental, diverting resources that would otherwise go toward growth to the continuation of conquest. However, assuming that I am successful in my conquests, incorporating resources from other empires and bringing them up to speed should swell the imperial coffers. In short, conquest could go either way, helping or hindering economic development. It's a balance, and it will be interesting to see which side of the scales I wind up on.

One final note: This week's reading in Colander talked about growth theories. Of specific interest to me was the new growth theory, which "emphasizes the role of technology rather than capital in the growth process" (Colander 575). This concept and the accompanying discussion on the role of technology in growth supports my conclusions from last week's experiment. And I anticipated this central concept in modern economics! Too bad I don't get points toward my place in history; surely this would elevate me above the level of Dan Quayle, the only person to whom my leaders have ever been compared. . . . This game will be different. Conquest has to at least get you to Nero. . . .

References
Colander, David. Economics. 6th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2006.

The Results Are In . . .

I'm beginning to think that China is blessed. Both of my games as China have far surpassed my other games, and my strategies, while varying slightly, have not been radically different. I can only conclude that there is something innate in the Chinese soil, the Chinese air, that is highly conducive to prosperity.

But enough mysticism. If you remember, I focused this game on technological advancement, equating research with capital investment and hypothesizing that increased technological research would increase my prosperity. When I left off last week, the early signs were that my hypothesis had some merit, though it was too soon for victory dances. I've now finished the game; the results are in, and since I know you're dieing to hear them, I won't keep you in suspense any longer.

Technological advancement certainly has advantages. I researched every single technology, reaching (to my great delight) the mysterious future tech and discovering that, once you've discovered everything else, you just keep researching future tech. I reached about future tech 16. Since this adds health and happiness to your cities, I wasn't complaining. Health and happiness is where I saw the biggest difference from my first game as China (the best game for comparison). In the first game, my emperor's approval rate was 79% and the average life expectancy was 73 years. In this game, the approval rate reached 83% and life expectancy hit 82 years. Maybe that's why so many rival cities along my borders revolted and joined the Chinese empire. When rival averages were 65% approval and a 63-year life expectancy, who can blame them.

Advanced technology also allowed my to prepare for a space race victory, building all but one part until about three turns from the end, while pursuing other avenues of victory. I'm really keen to get a diplomatic victory, but I think it's nearly impossible. I built the UN, was elected Secretary General eight times, passed every single resolution, and tried nine times--nine times!--for a diplomatic victory. Each time I was the leading candidate but didn't get enough votes. This just goes to show that being technologically advanced won't make people like you.

Two other statistics were higher than in my first game as China: Imports/Exports (666/365 vs. 588/290--units are million gold) and GNP (1229 million gold vs. 1129 million gold). GNP, like GDP, is a measure of wealth. My civilization was wealthier the second time I played China than the first time, even though it's only by 100 million gold. Given that the first time I played China I had more land, a larger population, high crop yields, and produced more manufactured goods, the fact that I wound up wealthier in the second game (even by a small amount) is significant. To me, it indicates that technological advancement does indeed correlate with prosperity, since in this game it compensated for lower crop yield and population, which also correlate strongly with growth and prosperity.

So there you have it: it pays to invest in technology. In future games I'll definitely keep technological research as high as possible. I'll also be more aggressive. In this game I was nice to my rivals because I wanted to achieve a diplomatic victory, but after nine failed attempts, I've given up for now. I could have crushed some of my neighbors so easily with my planes and tanks and artillery, but I refrained from doing so since I thought it would put me in bad standing with observing nations. Not any more. Next time, I'm going for a land victory, conquests included.

An Experiment with Investment

Civilization: China
Difficulty: Settler
Game Speed: Normal

Yes, I returned to China. I don't have to explain this; one only has to read my previous blog about my enormous success as China to understand my motivations. The more pertinent issue is whether or not my game is going better, worse, or about the same as my first attempt playing China, and why. But first, I must explain my premise for the game.

I'm conducting an "experiment" with the percentage of my imperial coffers going toward technological research, cultural research, and wealth accumulation. In the past, I've started the game with 50% percent going towards technology, dropping it to 30% when I gain the ability to research culture (which gets its own 30%). I hadn't given this practice much thought until I read someone else's blog (http://nautilus009.blogspot.com/), which mentioned upping the amount of resources going to technological research when the game entered the Industrial Era. This got me thinking, and so when I started my latest game I decided to do something different and see what happened. This game, I started my technological research at 70%, only lowering it to 60% when I discovered music and received the ability to research culture, to which I allocated just 10% of my resources. I would have kept the percentage higher, but this resulted in me accumulating a negative amount of gold per turn, which I did not think would be beneficial.

What do I expect increased technological research to achieve? My main thought was of Heilbroner, who on page 118 briefly discusses the importance of investment expenditure to economic prosperity. In an economic context, investment "means devoting labor and other inputs to the creation of capital goods" (Heilbroner 74). Capital goods are "the stock of tools, equipment, machines, and buildings that society produces in order to expedite the production process" (72), and Heilbroner makes the interesting point that they "give people mechanical and physico-chemical powers of literally transhuman dimensions" (73).

With the definitions out of the way, back to the point: Essentially, the more resources a society invests in the production of capital, the more prosperous it will be. I took technological research to be the Civ equivalent of capital investment, since it allows you to use more advanced, more productive tools in the expansion of your empire. And so, I reasoned that if I focused on technological advancement I would be more prosperous than in previous games.

Was I right? It's a little too early to tell, but I have definitely advanced faster: I reached the Modern Era in 1815. The first time I played China, I didn't get to the Modern Era until 1900, and I didn't even get there in my last game, only entering the Industrial Era in 1914. My population is lagging behind a little since the last time I played China, but I've just discovered flight and built some bombers, which offer great opportunities for conquest. I'm optimistic about my experiment. For results, tune in next week. I promise it will be exciting. ;)

References:
Heilbroner, Robert L. and William Milberg. The Making of Economic Society. 12th ed.

Ignorance Is NOT Bliss and Other Hard Lessons

No victory this time, not even a time victory. I take pride in the fact that, though my civilization was weak, I was not conquered, but a rocky start hobbles the rest of your game, no matter how brilliantly you play it. And to be honest, I did not play brilliantly.

For a reminder, I played Persia, selecting that particular empire because of its geographic location and the supposed advantages to be derived thereof. A good theory, but in practice I was harassed by barbarians, constricted by neighbors, and generally prevented from building an empire "to stand the test of time," as the game says at the beginning. Once I'd finally secured my borders from barbarian attack, I became caught up in the blood lust of my neighbors (who kept asking me to join with them in declaring war on some third party) and foolishly declared war on Mongolia. I was in no financial or technological position for any large-scale conflict and, realizing thin, I quickly signed a peace treaty with Genghis Khan. Not long after this, Greece declared war on me. In my one clever move of the game, I persuaded Egypt, China, India, and Rome to declare war on Greece. Thus, Alexander was distracted, my empire was saved from destruction, and Greece was conquered. It pays to have good relations with your neighbors.

After Greece was subdued, I began rebuilding my damaged infrastructure. This didn't take terribly long, but it cost my already small, weak empire precious development time. I was still recovering when Germany achieved a space race victory. And so ended my third game of Civ, the first game in which I did not achieve some manifestation of victory. This was no surprise, and at least by the third time around I was able to accept the now-expected comparison to Dan Quayle without indignation.

Going through my scores, I cringed at my poor performance: Number one in no category, only one city in the top five, only twelve cities built. Embarrassing. However, when I finally reached the Hall of Fame, I realized that the game's difficulty level was listed as "Noble," not "Settler" as I had intended. I must have forgotten to change the difficulty when I was setting up the game. Seeing that, everything clicked: The constant harassment wasn't just because of Persia's position; it had to do with the increased difficulty. And my less than stellar performance was the result of a flawed premise--my belief that I was playing "Settler" level. . . . I managed to rack up an unprecedented number of stupidity points this game.

I know I've rambled on somewhat about how and why I lost, but my mediocre game reveals an important economic concept. In the chapter on the Industrial Revolution (Chapter 4), Heilbroner talks about the importance of saving and investment. "Saving is the releasing of resources from consumption; investment is the employment of these resources in making capital" (pg 74). According to Heilbroner, rich societies with unemployed resources can build capital without decreasing consumption; however, poor societies with little or no unemployed resources must somehow decrease consumption. This is a difficult feat and results in slow growth. Though Heilbroner does not explicitly say so, slow growth would also lead to slow recovery were the society's fragile economy to experience some kind of hardship. My game clearly displays this: Repeated barbarian attacks caused Persia serious economic setbacks during the crucial formative stages, and it never truly recovered from these setbacks. Growth was always slow, placing the Persian "empire" behind others and leaving it even more vulnerable as a target for conquest. The slow growth is pointedly illustrated in one telling comparison: In this game, I reached the Industrial Era in 1914; last game, when I played China and was able to develop virtually unmolested, I entered the Industrial Era in 1680. I never realized just how difficult growth can be until this game.

In sum, the important lessons learned from game three are:
1. Ignorance is not bliss; knowing things like the difficulty level are key in planning strategy.
2. Do NOT declare war on another empire if you do not have the means to achieve victory! You'll just wind up draining your resources and embarrassing yourself.
3. If a more powerful empire declares war on you, try to persuade friends (who are hopefully even more powerful than your enemy) to declare war on the offending empire. Hint: This works much better if you have good relations with your neighbors.
4. The beginning of the game is arguably the most important for the development of your empire. Focus on expansion, but also on defense. Expansion will do you no good if your outlying cities are constantly ransacked. The beginning is the period to get ahead, so make the most of it!

I think I have imparted enough Civ wisdom for one night. In my next game, I think I'll go back to playing China. I had great success as China, and I have a soft spot for Qin Shi Huang. . . . Or maybe I'll play Germany. Germany seems to begin in a rather out-of-the-way, isolated position. But then, so does Japan. We'll see.

References:
Heilbroner, Robert L. and William Milberg. The Making of Economic Society. 12th ed.

Expansion and Demand: Relating Real Economics to the Quest for World Domination

"Quantity demanded falls as prices rise, other things constant." Thus runs one version of the law of demand as defined by Collander. (pg 91) (This definition can also be reversed to read "quantity demanded rises as prices fall, other things constant.") At first glance it may seem that this concept could not be any more remote from fictitious conquests led by long-dead generals. Yet the law of demand is highly relevant to expanding empires. How? you may ask. Read on, dear blog peruser, and you shall see.

But first let's back up. We all know how a game of Civ IV starts: You, the illustrious head of a would-be empire, are dumped on Earth with nothing but a Settler unit and a Warrior unit, ignorant of pretty much everything (terrain, location of resources, existence of potential enemies, shape of the continents, etc.). From these humble beginnings, you proceed to construct the skeleton of a world power. And what forms this skeleton? Well, military is important, as are population and resources. But you need one crucial element before you can grow a population, found a military, and hunt for resources--before you can do anything else. You need land.

Land is central to the formation of an empire, a centrality illustrated by the fact that the very first act of any game is to found a city. We've heard this argument from Diamond in Guns, Germs, and Steel: Land feels people, provides raw resources like timber, stone, and iron, and provides something concrete and immovable for military to defend. Can you imagine a country existing that possessed no physical territory? It defies our very concept of a nation state.

Anyway, back to the point--how does territorial expansion relate to the law of demand? It's quite simple, really. When empires are first founded, there is an enormous amount of available land at a relatively cheap "price": If you can plant a city there (and defend said city from marauding barbarians), it's yours. Also, demand is high (as the law states it should be) because let's face it, empires need land for food and resources. Intially, empires expand quickly, gobbling up land adjacent to their capitals and spreading from there. However, as the empires reach a level of sustainability and start to rub borders with other empires, the rapid pace of initial expansion slows somewhat. In other words, the demand decreases. This is due partly to decreased availability but is also directly related to the increased "cost" of land. Once another empire has claimed a plot of dirt, the "price" of acquiring it increases dramitically because now, if you want it, you must fight for it. War is a very expensive and risky enterprise, so you have to want (or need) land particually badly to attempt to wrest it from another empire by force. Most empires try to avoid the costs and risks of war, which means demand for land drops sharply. Or, as Collander states it, "quantity demanded falls as prices rise, other things constant."

There are, of course, other ways to get land than by bloody conquest. If you're playing on Earth, you start on the Eurasian continent, and by the time Eurasia and Africa start to get crowded it's possible to develop the technology to launch an expedition to America. Yet even this is more expensive. Starting cities so far away takes extra resources--particularly military, since you have to defend against the small barbarian settlements over there. You have to know what you're doing to keep these sorts of colonization attempts from turning into suicide missions. (I speak from experience.) Again, cost is much higher than crossing the valley and planting your flag on the next hill. Thus demand (willingness and ability to "pay" for such expansion) decreases.

I have deliberately avoided any discussion of supply. My reason is simple: the law of supply assumes there is a "supplier" attempting to derive profit from the sale of some commodity. In the case of territorial expansion in Civ IV, there is no supplier, no real estate agent trying to convince China to pay a few extra bucks for plot X because it offer an ideal avenue for launching an attack on Mongolia. Empires could conceivably function as suppliers, but I can't imagine any emperor/empress selling his or her land except under extreme duress. That is why I have not discussed the law of supply in this post: I do not believe it functions (or if it does function, it does so weakly) in the expansion efforts of the various empires.

Well, there you have it. Territorial expansion reflects the law of demand. Economics really can be applied to Civ IV. Who would have thought it.

Works referenced:
Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond
Economics, sixth edition, by David C. Collander (Chapter Four)

It's All About Location

Civilization: Persia
Difficulty: Settler
Game Speed: Normal

When I started this game, I was still pumped from my last victory--ambitious, confident, and determined to take over the world for real in round three. With the aim of expediting my rise to Warlord-In-Chief, I selected Persia as my future master race. Why? Persia is located at the convergence of Europe, Africa, and Asia. This, I reasoned, would provide a geographic advantage by granting me fairly easy access to just about every other empire on the landmass. Yes, China would be a little distant, and Japan might prove tricky, but Persia is ideally situated to strike Egypt, Greece, and India, and once those three fell could easily squash Rome, Germany, and Mongolia. Considering my plans for world domination, this access was key. So I chose Persia, clicked the final "OK," and settled back for an easy victory.

Whether or not Persia's central location provides much military advantage remains to be seen. What has quickly become evident is that every position has pros and cons. Persia is no exception. I think Persia must magnetically draw enemies, because I've had more barbarians attack my fragile, fledgling empire than in my previous two games combined. This has proved highly problematic. The minimal attacks I had as Rome and China lulled me into a false sense of security, so I was lax in fortifying my cities. I was unable to effectively defend my territory, and I had several improvements (herding areas, camps for deer) and worker units destroyed as a result. A barbarian group even managed to capture my capital (Persepolis), and I had to send warriors from other cities to take Persepolis back, leaving the other cities undefended. I should have kept more military forces within my empire instead of sending them roving wherever they pleased. Anyway, my neglect has cost me dearly. The threats to my empire have compelled me to focus on survival instead of expansion, which allowed rival empires to expand their borders without my competition. The best land has already been claimed, and Persia is squished between India in the east and Egypt and Greece in the West. The destruction of my improvements and units has also set me back at this crucial point of development: I must spend time to rebuild that would otherwise have gone to expansion and dominance. In short, Persia is off to a rocky start.

I don't know if Persia will be able to recover from my blunders. I hope so; I was really looking forward to waging war on everyone else, and to experimenting with the trade concepts we've been learning in Colander. For now, I'm just trying to keep Persia from being overrun. It's still early; I just recently entered the Medieval Era and saved the game at AD 560 shortly thereafter. There's still a ways to go. We'll see.

Just remember, when you're choosing your civilization: location matters. Location matters.

Asian Wisdom

Civilization: China
Difficulty: Settler
Game Speed: Normal

I won another game, and I've got both bad news and good news. The bad news is that I still lead like Dan Quayle and I'm not sure how to change this. And really, this is a dubious member of the "bad news" category since it only causes me a bruised ego. The rest of the news is definitely good. In my second game, I improved beyond anything I had anticipated. Just a few statistics for comparison:

--In my first game (Rome), the civilization's population reached 10 million in AD 1946 and ended with a population of 22,705,000. China's population reached 10 million in AD 1220 and ended with 63,701,000 souls.
--Rome had a GNP (gold) of 311 million gold and a crop yield of 450 million bushels. China's GNP was 1129 million gold, and the crop yield was 1129 million bushels.
--Rome built 21 cities. China built 38.
--The Roman Empire covered 419,000 sq km. The Chinese Empire spanned 1,131,000 sq km.

You get the idea: I dominated, utterly trouncing all my rivals and far surpassing even my previous victory.

Why the vast difference? I attribute mainly to a fundamental shift in strategy. This game, my m.o. was basically one of non-violent expansion, hence the dramatic increase in the number of cities. I made it my priority to start a new city wherever there was available land, determined to beat my rivals in claiming territory. By the end, China's territory included all of East Asia, a good part of Russia, Indonesia and its surrounding islands, Australia, and most of the North American continent. The Russian part of my empire was largely gained from a successful conquest of the Mongolian Empire (which I am very proud of), but I acquired most of my territory by simply beating my rivals to it.

The dramatic increase in territory correlates with the huge jump in GNP, crop yield, population, and manufactured goods. I hate to keep harping on the same theme, but the more land you have the more you have available for farming, and the more you farm the more food you generate, which leads to . . . food surplus! Hence, as we've had drummed into our heads, your civilization's population grows, political systems develop, and so on. One thing I noticed during the game was that I could acquire new technologies much more quickly. That was a definite plus, since it allowed me to win a space race victory in AD 2026.

There are a couple of other things that were interesting about my second game. For one, on the eastern edge of my empire, two different rival cities (one Mongolia's, one India's) revolted and joined my empire! I found this a little surprising, but I suppose those disaffected citizens were attracted by the various civil freedoms I offered. I also adopted environmentalism this time around. I would have done so last game, but I had chopped down most of my trees, so I figured it would make my citizens unhappy and chose not to. This time I made sure I left plenty of wooded areas interspersed throughout my empire.

One final note: In both my games, I've reached basically the same political positions: universal suffrage, free speech, emancipation, and free religion. This I did without really thinking, following my own convictions. However, it occurred to me that I should experiment with different modes of government and economy, even if I disagree with them personally. In order to determine what forms work best, I need real data, not guesses and assumptions.

So that's the plan. For now, I will bask in the glory of my success. I know we're not playing this game with the aim of winning, but it does feel good. . . .