31-01-2001 02:25									#1
	economy Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

i think that if the people at firaxis want civ 3 to be great, the economy of the first 2 must be improved. income tax alone is not enough. yes, i know u can build caravans, but there's no point. it takes time away from improvements (i think i spelled that wrong), wonders, and mlitary units. there must be a major emphisis on trading, but in a different way (and i know what that way could be, or else i wouldn't be writing this, duh). i think that on the tax setting screen, there should be a fourth bar and fifth bar for setting the taxes on imports and exports. the government wouldn't do the trading, private industry would. the lower the tax on imports and exports, more "merchants" will be attracted to your cities,(also giving u more income tax) giving a reason for countries to compete for lower taxes, and the merchants. i think that the merchants, or private industry, should be the ones building the mines and improved farmlands, and u getting the benifits from the trade. during the age of exploration, european powers were competing for new trade routs, and of course, to expand their empires. now, this is where a whole new part of my idea comes in (drum roll please), MERCHANT FLEETS!!! what i mean by that is: if u have many merchants in your cities, there going to need something to ship (or fly or whatever) their goods in. merchants would build THEIR OWN boats (or whatever) and ship their goods. these merchant fleets will be handy in two ways: 1. they could be recruited in times of conflict (war) as transports (or whatever u want them to be) for a small sum, (hey, the merchants aren't going to give it to u for free). and 2. they will be able to explore new waters, which will apear on your map, and maybe even set up a "trading post". if merchants make contact with another civ in their travels, they would be able to set up a trading post, a small city that can't grow very much (maybe size 3 max), where they could trade with their newly discovered friends (or later enemies). at the trading post, u would only be able to build one kind of military unit, a city guard (or something, i'm not good with names). this would be because the unit would be trained so far away from the mother country. maybe if u built special improvements u would be able to build regular military units.

thanx for reading this long and boring idea through, please give me your opinion, and one more thing, sorry for all the spelling errors (if there are any), (i'm writing this in a hurry), and sorry for all the parenthases (i bet they get irritating after a while) ha ha ha ha. peace out.

	31-01-2001 02:49									#2
	Put an end to popups!

kochman626,

Welcome to Apolyton!

First off, I disagree with you on the importance of caravans. I thought they were very important to my science conscience country in Civ II.

Second, many of the thoughts you expressed can be found in old threads. The major topics are in the Related Threads section.

Finally, a very good old thread is the "Corporations" string that highlights ideas of corporations as a game concept that you can earn tax dollars from.

Take a look. And again welcome to Apolyton!