經(jīng)濟(jì)模擬和保真度

Economic Simulation And Fidelity

模擬現(xiàn)實市場的哪些部分很重要，哪些部分只會占用你的性能預(yù)算

What parts of real life markets are important to simulate and what only eat your performance budget

AXIOMS

2023年5月26日

簡介

Introduction

無論是歷史題材還是奇幻題材的策略游戲，經(jīng)濟(jì)運(yùn)行方式都是其中的關(guān)鍵部分。當(dāng)然，你可以使用金幣、點數(shù)、護(hù)盾等簡單4X游戲的東西。在這種情況下，你只是在做一些平衡測試。但如果你想要一些有意義的東西呢？一個有助于區(qū)分超過 4-5 個派系的系統(tǒng)？如果你關(guān)心歷史性或真實性呢？那事情就變得復(fù)雜了。

An important part of both history and fantasy strategy games is how the economy works. Of course you can have simple 4X type stuff with gold, mana, and shields or w/e. At that point you are just doing some balance testing. But what if you want something meaningful? A system that can help differentiate more than 4-5 factions? What if you care about history or verisimilitude? Then things get more complicated.

當(dāng)你希望經(jīng)濟(jì)管理成為詳細(xì)策略游戲的核心部分時，你需要做出很多選擇。你想要大量的材料和商品嗎？建筑？這對戰(zhàn)斗部隊的招募有什么影響？你想要復(fù)雜的地理環(huán)境嗎？如何讓貿(mào)易變得有趣？ 除非你想要有限的資源需求和單純控制貿(mào)易商品得到的抽象增益，否則擁有一個良好的貿(mào)易系統(tǒng)是很困難的。

When you want economic management to be a core part of a detailed strategy game you have a lot of choices to make. Do you want tons of materials and goods? Buildings? How does that play into combat unit recruitment? Do you want complex geography? How do you make trade interesting? Unless you want to have limited resource requirements and just provide abstract bonuses based on trade good access having a good trade system is tough.

對于一款規(guī)模龐大、代理眾多的游戲來說，性能是一個重要限制因素。即使是許多大型工作室制作的游戲，也會因為次優(yōu)的設(shè)計選擇而嚴(yán)重影響性能。部分原因是 "設(shè)計者 "和實際 "執(zhí)行者 "是不同的人。還有很大一部分原因是花哨的圖形設(shè)計。這兩件事 《Axioms Of Dominion》 都不需要處理。盡管如此，重要的是要考慮你能承擔(dān)的性能預(yù)算分配。由于多線程潛力和對回合更新速度的期望，回合制游戲又是一大優(yōu)勢。小眾回合制策略游戲玩家自然也會更有耐心，不過你也不能過于濫用這種寬容。

An important limitation in a game with a large scope and a lot of agents is performance. Many games even by major studios hit performance limits pretty hard because of sub-optimal design choices. Part of this is that the “designer” and the actual “exectutors” are different people. Another large part is fancy graphical stuff. Both things Axioms doesn’t have to deal with. Still, it is crucial to consider what part of your performance budget you can afford to assign. Being turnbased is a big asset yet again due to multithreading potential and expectations on turn update speed. Niche turnbased strategy gamers are also naturally more patient, though you can’t abuse that leniency too much.

核心設(shè)計選擇

Core Design Choices

很多進(jìn)行復(fù)雜經(jīng)濟(jì)模擬的游戲都選擇完全專注于此。城市建設(shè)游戲、中世紀(jì)城鎮(zhèn)模擬游戲、采礦游戲、經(jīng)營游戲等等。這顯然會帶來一些優(yōu)勢，比如核心游戲循環(huán)緊湊、不需要爭奪性能預(yù)算以及整體系統(tǒng)更簡單。但在某種程度上，這也會犧牲游戲的完整性。這些游戲通常也會利用其大部分優(yōu)勢來實現(xiàn)實時性。

A lot of games that do complex economic simulation choose to focus entirely on that. City builders, medieval town simulators, mining games, shop games, and so on. This obviously provides some advantages as far as a tight core game loop, no competition for the performance budget, and a simpler overall system. But it costs you context, to some degree. These games also generally use much of their advantage to go real time.

就經(jīng)濟(jì)模型而言，《Axioms Of Dominion》 希望擁有一個與城市建造游戲大致相似的系統(tǒng)，但規(guī)模更大，并提供更多 "為什么"的背景解釋?！禔xioms Of Dominion》 還希望采用奇幻工藝機(jī)制和動態(tài)建筑類型，這就產(chǎn)生了一些問題，但由于采用回合制，很多問題又得到了改善。

Axioms wants to have a system generally similar to a city builder as far as economic model but it needs a larger scale and provides more context for “why”. Axioms also wants to engage with fantasy crafting mechanics and dynamic building types which creates some issues but a lot of this is again ameliorated by being turn based.

因此，眾所周知，"后勤 "絕不是一個可以解決的問題。游戲中經(jīng)常會出現(xiàn)商品過量和短缺的情況。當(dāng)然，電子游戲模擬的數(shù)據(jù)要少得多，因此可以說比現(xiàn)實生活更難。許多由電腦玩家進(jìn)行經(jīng)濟(jì)模擬的游戲都存在很大的問題。

So it is pretty well known that “l(fā)ogistics” is in no way a solved issue. You are going to have over and under runs all the time. And of course a videogame is simming far less data so it is arguably harder than real life. Many games with economic sims handled by computer player have huge issues.

這里有一個非常簡單的捷徑，那就是不要試圖做到完全最優(yōu)。這是一個相當(dāng)不錯的方法，因為在現(xiàn)實生活中，人們一般都不會做到最優(yōu)，而且這實際上只會對玩家產(chǎn)生影響。其他參與交易的 NPC 不會輕易利用次優(yōu)結(jié)果，因為他們的行為也是次優(yōu)的。

A very simple shortcut here is to simply not try to be totally optimal. This is a pretty good method because in real life people generally aren’t optimal anyway and because it really only impacts the player. Other NPCs involved in trade won’t be able to easily exploit the sub optimal results since they’ll also be acting sub optimally.

《Axioms Of Dominion》一如既往地從這種選擇中獲得了獨特的好處。游戲可以為那些有經(jīng)濟(jì)和貿(mào)易相關(guān)屬性和技能較高的角色花費一些額外的時間，以找到略微更優(yōu)的交易。游戲還可以根據(jù)這些數(shù)據(jù)對處理隊列中的角色進(jìn)行排序。

And Axioms, as always, receives a unique benefit from this choice. The game can expend a little extra time for Characters with high Attributes and Skills related to economics and trade to find slightly more optimal deals. The game can also order Characters in the processing queue based on this data.

此外，由于《Axioms Of Dominion》總體上是一個前工業(yè)時代的游戲，因此市場和貿(mào)易區(qū)并不是全球性的，這也降低了模擬的復(fù)雜性。很多人問我，《Axioms Of Dominion》在什么時期會在機(jī)制上 "終止"，即使你當(dāng)然可以繼續(xù)玩下去。答案大致相當(dāng)于現(xiàn)實世界中的 1900 年，即使魔法會讓事情變得有點復(fù)雜。這也有助于解決任何形式的工業(yè)革命都會造成的平衡問題。事實上，我也曾考慮過將時間拉長到20世紀(jì)40年代，但我認(rèn)為這將是一項艱巨的工作，而且會引發(fā)大量問題，最好還是放棄。當(dāng)然，公元前5000年到公元 1900年之間，經(jīng)濟(jì)會有無數(shù)高峰和低谷，但不會像工業(yè)革命真正開始后那樣持續(xù)增長。

Additionally because Axioms is a pre-industrial setting in general the markets and trade zones are not global which reduces the complexity of the simulation. A lot of people ask me what period Axioms “stops” mechanically, even if you can of course keep playing. And the answer is roughly the equivalent of 1900 in the real world even if magic muddles things a bit. This also helps with balance issues that would be cause by any kind of industrial revolution. I actually considered going all the way to like the 1940s but I decided that would be a ton of work and cause a ton of issues that are best avoided. Sure there are peaks and valleys between ~5000BC and 1900AD but things don’t ramp up at a continuously increasing rate like they do following the industrial revolution truly kicking off.

設(shè)計上的小問題

Minor Design Concerns

由于《Axioms Of Dominion》存在于一個沒有真正全球化問題的世界，特別是如果你在開始游戲之前沒有模擬超過幾千年的回合（這適用于游戲預(yù)加載的所有已公布世界），貿(mào)易和經(jīng)濟(jì)通常要簡單得多。參與貿(mào)易、生產(chǎn)和物流的 "代理"之間需要建立關(guān)系，才能進(jìn)行互動。

Since Axioms exists in a world prior to truly global concerns, especially if you haven’t simulated more than a few thousand years of turns before starting your game, which applies to all of the on release worlds the game is pre-loaded with, trade and economics are generally a lot simpler. Relations between “agents” involved in trade and production and logistics are required for them to interact.

每個 "代理 "只能與他們知道的其他 "代理 "建立聯(lián)系。當(dāng)然，有一些機(jī)制可以擴(kuò)大你的互動范圍，但你通常能互動的其它代理總數(shù)不超過200，大多數(shù)情況下甚至更少。

Each agent can only connect to other agents they are aware of. Of course there are mechanics for expanding your sphere of interaction but you’d generally be interacting with less than 200 other agents, and in most cases far fewer.

這其實也是最近一篇關(guān)于 "聯(lián)系"的文章所適用的另一個領(lǐng)域。非貿(mào)易代理的人脈可以讓你意識到新的機(jī)會。有些會是有意的交易，但在某些情況下，可能僅僅是他們在其他地方體驗過并希望再次接觸的一些關(guān)乎食物或商品的請求。由于《Axioms Of Dominion》中普遍存在的 "不完全信息"，他們不一定知道你是否能獲得他們想要的東西。

This is actually another area the recent post about “Connections” applies. Non-trade agent connections can make you aware of new opportunities. Some would be intentional and transactions but in some cases it might merely be a request for some food or good they experienced elsewhere and would like to engage with again. And due to the “imperfect information” prevalent in Axioms they wouldn’t necessarily know if you could acquire the thing they wanted.

還有一種情況是，如果你是一個獨立的貿(mào)易商，一些在政治上或軍事上強(qiáng)大的代理可能需要戰(zhàn)略物資，并資助你獲得這些物資。這也為《Axioms Of Dominion》增添了一個有趣的潛力。在歷史上，你經(jīng)常會讓商人（無論是否得到命令）、奴隸販子和戰(zhàn)利品買家伴隨軍事遠(yuǎn)征。在《Axioms Of Dominion》中，您可以作為商人角色這樣做?；蛘吖蛡蚱渌巧珌碜鲞@件事。這也是與不同社會領(lǐng)域的角色建立聯(lián)系的一種方式，他們可以雇傭你來滿足特殊要求。

You would also have cases where if you were an independent trade some politically or militarily powerful agent might be in need of strategic goods and fund you to acquire them. And this also brings up an interesting potential in Axioms. Historically you’d often have merchants, sanctioned or otherwise, and slave traders and loot buyers, accompany military expeditions. In Axioms you can do that as a merchant character. Or maybe hire another character to do so. And that is a way to build connections with characters in a different social sphere who could then hire you to fulfill special requests.

總結(jié)

Conclusion

《Axioms Of Dominion》有一些獨特的優(yōu)勢，在性能上可以抵消游戲范圍帶來的成本，因為游戲積極地期望在包括經(jīng)濟(jì)、生產(chǎn)和貿(mào)易領(lǐng)域在內(nèi)的許多情況下得到不完美的結(jié)果。當(dāng)然，游戲在組織數(shù)據(jù)處理方面受益于回合制。并且游戲設(shè)計從一開始就深思熟慮，不會每年都隨便添加一些預(yù)期之外的貪婪內(nèi)容，然后導(dǎo)致難以解釋的問題。

Axioms has some unique advantages that help offset the scope of the game when considering performance because it actively wants to have imperfect results in many situations including in economic, production, and trade spheres. Of course it also benefits from being turn based, as far as organizing data processing and it is built from the ground up with these kinds of considerations in mind. No random greedy content releases several times a year that weren’t anticipated and then cause problems that are difficult to account for.