Economic Rules

Economy/Resources

Initially, there are four slots of resources, namely food, construction materials, metals and culture goods. In the beginning of the game, food is the main resource that is needed. The player begins with one unit that collects and consumes 1 food every turn, meaning a circular, natural economy on a very low level.

X + 1 – 1 (1 food is incidentally what a Population Unit demands, no matter its size, so it can vary)

The first goal of the player is to break this deadweight. Instead of in Amauvala I, where hunter-gatherer tribes could expand quickly and indefinitely, hunter-gatherer societies in Amauvala II tend to stay on a low population level in the same area, both to the cost of movement, the scarcity of food, an increased number of NPC tribes and new and more realistic game mechanics. The only way to increase the population of your tribe is to join together with other tribes or to adjoin them to you.

To advance to the Archaic Age, you need to advance on all three available tech trees. You can either receive technological advances through your neighbours or discover them by yourself.

When you reach the Archaic Age and agriculture, you will still have the X + 1 – 1 curse, but with new technologies in toolworking, cultivation (in which we count animal husbandry) and engineering, we will experience a small increase in your yields, from X + 1 – 1 to X +1,yz – 1, meaning that you can generate a small surplus which represents the exogenous energy.

This exogenous energy will allow you to move population units away from agriculture, and create priests, artisans, labourers and similar. We generate more energy than we are working for, and this allows for a division of labour where people can focus on other needs than to sustain their need to not go hungry.

Environmental factors, such as floods, earthquakes, climactic phenomena and climate change can and will affect your food yields. War and pestilence can also affect your internal stability, and you will get more vulnerable as your society advances, because a collapse could lead to a revolution and a collapse of the hierarchical pyramid. Advanced civilisations, such as the Mayans, have for example historically experienced declines that have been very steep.

There are two ways to move resources from the food collector units to the other, more refined forms of units. The first way is automatic and happens through trade. Labourers and artisans are receiving food in return for raw materials and refined goods, a voluntary exchange which allows the economy to grow and to specialise.

As the economy grows however, it will attract groups specialised on plunder, and would thus need defence. This leads to the need for system administrators to coordinate and lead the tribe (or community) against external offenders. Thus, the need is rising for a warrior caste.

Subsequently, in other areas, there is a need to control and tame rivers that are regularly flooded. That would mean that a central coordination is needed and thence a government which could employ labourers and engineers in building vast irrigation systems. You will need bureaucrats to accomplish that.

A third group which is contributing administrative and ideological duties are priests, which initially are necessary in order to contribute civilization points and thus advance (especially in the early phase without large urban centres).

Bureaucrats, Priests, Noblemen, Officers, Warriors and similar military and administrative units are requiring taxation. Thus, a state is born. But taxes are seldom popular, and could lead to popular revolts (and/or hunger) if they are too high.

Another way to earn income is through merchants, which are selling either base goods or culture goods that generate civilization points. Thus, for example a city-state heavily reliant on importing food can “break” the need for food self-sufficiency. This could however, if you desire an authoritarian society, lead to the merchant caste demanding more influence, creating the foundations for a revolution.

Of course, you can also just plunder other human entities of their goods.

Taxes are also a source of income.

Settlements/Cities & Tiles

Settlements are seats of administration during the Primordial and Archaic Ages, which are overseeing and in some cases centralising food collection. There are generally still not enough resources to specialise in cities. A settlement can oversee a limited spatial area of land.

In the early civilized age, a civilization can boast of five settlements per city tile, which generally are supplanting the city with food and resources.

A city is a collection of settlements characterised by professions other than farming, such as trading, manufacturing, artisanship, religious matters and bureaucratic administration. The population units in cities do not work with their sustenance, and thus a more stratified society will arise, with new challenges, but also with a more concentrated division of information.

A city will cover a tile, and thus remove that tile from food production ability. In early ages, cities (pre-industrial) only cities which are part of civilizations with over 15 cities can expand beyond one tile.

From cities arise taxes and trade, but also more research. Every tile in a city is worth civilization points, which are necessary to move through the ages. You can fill a city with buildings, which cost construction materials.

Each city tile can have up to 10 buildings. A wonder is counted as several buildings. Buildings can also be levelled up.

A tech tree for buildings will be added later.

Construction materials

Wood
Reed
Stone
Mud (Bricks)
Copper
Tin
Iron

Trade Materials

There are trade materials with which you increase your civ points, such as spices, silk, sugar, salt, amber, incense, animals, papyrus and similar. Then there are materials which could be means of exchange, such as gold, silver and copper.