Sid Meier's Civilization V

Sid Meier's Civilization V

Economics
Inescapable Depression Cycle
I wonder if I'm doing something wrong; the economy seems to be in an almost prepetual depression. Specifically, there seems to be an inescapable cycle of 2-3 turns Depression, 2-10 turns Boom, then right back to Depression again, and nothing I do seems to make a difference. In particular, all tax rates are set to 2%, Banking Reform policy is active, and I've just entered the atomic era (though this cycle has been going all game) and when out of the depression, my economy is generally between expanding and booming, and yet the Depression still comes like clockwork.

Mods currently active are this one, Contextual Unit Names v3, Extra Slow Research v1, and Useful City Ruins v3.

So my question is this: am I missing something? My econ training seems to imply that cutting tax rates to near-nil and maintaining an active government should promote growth. Any advice on what I'm doing wrong? It's possible it's a bug or a mod conflict, but being a programer myself, I'm well aware that 90% of the time the issue is human error. :p
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Showing 1-10 of 10 comments
Maybe you need to spend more like Keynes would say.
Wayward Paladin 22 Feb, 2017 @ 7:24pm 
Perhaps, but that's the thing; I've tried a variety of policies, including Keynsism, Slavery, Monetisation, and so on. None of them seem to make a difference. That's why I find it so odd; these depressions seem inevetable, largely due to "poor global conditions". My best guess is that the AI sucks at managing their economy and it drags me down with them.

I've just begun saying "to heck with it" and opting to raise taxes and ignore the depression; it means I'm still losing money to the Econ mod, but unless I figure out what I'm doing wrong, that's the best I can do. Makes for an interesting Marathon game, I'll tell you that; I'm the richest Civ on the map, and I can barely keep my head above water! :p Most of the other civs are losing 30-60 gold per turn. Silly billies should've nursed their economy better. :p
framedarchitecture  [developer] 23 Feb, 2017 @ 7:03am 
There are two types of Depressions: National and Global. Global depressions are, as you say above, triggered by a weak global economy. There's not much you can do about those other than promoting good relations, reducing warmongering, and increasing global trade. These periodic downturns are the price of capitalism, as we all know too well.
Wayward Paladin 23 Feb, 2017 @ 5:47pm 
Aaah, that makes sense. I have noticed a few depressions because of "poor planning", which I assume are the national ones; usually it's the world economy, though. Guess I'll just have to do what I can to stabilize the world... e_e BY CONQUERING MORE THAN HALF OF IT. Take THAT, inprudent leaders!

Thanks for the quick response, FramedArc. :) I appreciate it.
Ghost 2 Mar, 2017 @ 8:22am 
just take everyone over and fix their economies for them
Shaddap 9 Apr, 2017 @ 4:50pm 
Yeah I'd imagine that because the bots suck at managing economies and cities, you're gonna be in perpetual global depression.

Try the Artificial Unintelligence Mod. Should help.

Here's the link: https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=312060464
Last edited by Shaddap; 9 Apr, 2017 @ 4:51pm
Meadman 15 Apr, 2017 @ 1:26pm 
its just the economic cycle. as long as you have an average growth rate across time, its fine.
Wayward Paladin 15 Apr, 2017 @ 2:48pm 
@Shaddap Hm. I tried it, and it reduces the frequency of depressions but doesn't seem to stop them. (They now occur every ~15 turns instead of ~7.) Still, that's a step in the right direction!

@Meadman I feel like you misunderstood my post. Small recessions and stagnations are part of the economic cycle. Dramatic depressions are supposed to be noteworthy for their rarity, not for being ubiquitous. Major depression being the state roughly 10-50% of the time is an Issue. This is particularly true when it means that, 1100 turns in and regardless of action taken to try to rectify it, there is universally less income provided by the mod than supplied by it. To me, this suggests that the pitiable growth, which has consistently and stubbornly lagged behind government expenses, is flawed. (Note: This means there is a growing economy, but the *rate* at which it grows is lower than the rate at which the expenses grow. So I must respectfully disagree with your assertion.)

I can respect the need to nurture an economy in order to start seeing a profit, but my complaint is that regular depressions criplle the local economy and make it impossible to ever have positive cash flow from this mod. However, based on the lack of anyone else reporting similar issues, I'm guessing this is either a problem with mod interactions on my end, or else most others just use it for multiplayer where you can expect other players to protect their economies as well. Unlike the silly, silly AIs, it seems. Ah well, at least now I have a pretext for world domination; FOR THE ECONOMY! *charges*
Hsieh.E 7 May, 2017 @ 4:08pm 
Zombie thread: however I have noticed that heavily investing in infrastructure has the ability to stabilize the economy and for tax rates ~40% has no effect on the destabilization of the general economy.:CapitalDome:
Juanes 27 Aug, 2023 @ 3:29pm 
And if they do a tutorial on the concepts and mechanisms that players have to take into account to play?
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