Sim Country by AnthonyT

REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS

Sim Country

POSTED BY: ANTHONYT
UPDATED: Wednesday, November 2, 2011 10:48
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Friday, October 28, 2011 10:11 AM

Freedom is Important because People are Important

Hello,

If you had 100 million dollars and 1000 square miles of non-coastal desert land bereft of mineral resources, do you think you could plan and build a successful nation? Could you provide incentive for immigration, and an environment of prosperity? Could you protect your nation from external and internal threats? Could you maintain the ecosystem? Would you have tariffs and taxes? How many and what type? What would your city-state be like?

I find the prospect both daunting and exciting. I remember playing Sim Earth and Sim City some years ago. Is there a good Sim Nation game where one might have to tackle these difficulties?

I think it would be fascinating to imagine what sorts of nations our Fireflyfan community would build.

--Anthony

_______________________________________________

"In every war, the state enacts a tax of freedom upon the citizenry. The unspoken promise is that the tax shall be revoked at war's end. Endless war holds no such promise. Hence, Eternal War is Eternal Slavery." --Admiral Robert J. Henner

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Friday, October 28, 2011 11:30 AM

NEWOLDBROWNCOAT

Without water ( it's a land-locked desert.) you might as well have 1000 square miles of the Moon. I don't think you could sustain cities or even large towns without spending all your cash on water. And ya can't grow anything to eat without it. So it would cost bunches of your cash just to survive. Mineral wealth could replenish your capital, but you ain't got any of that either.

You'd have to create something like Frank Herbert's Dune, because you couldn't live anywhere for more than a few days. Spend enough money on wind-traps and dew- collectors, and a rigorous enough water conservation discipline, you might be able to support nomadic bands. Continue them for long enough, a period of many years, you might achieve enough surplus water to begin small water stealing agriculture.

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Friday, October 28, 2011 11:51 AM

CANTTAKESKY

I think we've tackled the Fantasy Land scenario before. But it'd be fun to do it again.

I would love to play Sim Nation if such a thing exists.

Welcome to CTSLand

1. Open immigration. Our only "law": The Golden Rule. If you do it to someone else, be prepared to have it done to you.
2. No land ownership. Land belongs to the earth, like air and water. Like air and water, it is a public commodity and is shared and cared for collectively.
3. You own whatever improvements you build on the land/water. You till the soil and sow the seeds, you own the crops.
4. Disputes can be solved by Professional Arbiters, whose arbitration is non-enforceable. Basically, you pay someone for his/her wisdom and advice. Whether you choose to act on that advice is your choice.
5. Only businesses with more than 10 partners pay taxes. Corporations would be recognized, taxwise, as a business with more than 10 partners. All partners/shareholders are held personally responsible for the actions of their business. So if the business in which you own shares pollutes a river that destroys the livelihood of fishermen downstream, be prepared to be hunted down by said fishermen.
6. Taxes are used to build transportation and communication infrastructure that can be enjoyed by all for free. These are the only services the collective treasury provides.
7. It is highly recommended that all who enter CTSLand be armed and trained to use arms. We have no police and no military.
8. Our government has 2 main employees. The first is the Treasurer who pays a) road construction/maintenance crews and b) thugs who rob tax-refusing businesses of the money owed in taxes. The second is a charismatic spokesperson whom we call the "President." They are voted for by direct democracy

Other than those points, it is pretty much like living on the Outer Planets of the Verse.

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Friday, October 28, 2011 12:08 PM

ANTHONYT

Freedom is Important because People are Important

Hello,

CTS Land doesn't sound like so bad a place. I wonder if anyone would move there? If so, it would surely say something about the other alternatives. I notice the Treasurer holds the real power in CTS Land. Nucky Thompson would be happy there. ;-)

Water is a problem in a desert, but I don't want to imply that there is no water there. It does rain occasionally, and a deep enough well will usually find some water underground. I just wanted to envision an environment where conservation and planning were important. It's so much easier to build a nation in a virtual paradise land of plenty.

When I think of Lumania, I have trouble skipping to the end-product of a glistening city of tomorrow. My imagination is stuck on details.

I imagine that water is in such short supply that a municipal water collecting organ may be needed to supply the water needs of the community. Hence, a community well or network of wells. A community reservoir. A community water-treatment and pumping station. I wonder how much all of that would cost?

I feel that the community that grows in this desert land of Lumania will probably be forced to have laws that center around the availability and distribution of water- the primary resource of life. I'll have to give that some thought, because practicality may force certain laws into place which I'd otherwise find abhorrent.

--Anthony

_______________________________________________

"In every war, the state enacts a tax of freedom upon the citizenry. The unspoken promise is that the tax shall be revoked at war's end. Endless war holds no such promise. Hence, Eternal War is Eternal Slavery." --Admiral Robert J. Henner

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Friday, October 28, 2011 1:20 PM

FREMDFIRMA

*laughing*

Err, I do play 4X type games, and as a rule they tend to end very badly for the other guys, mostly cause they just can't keep their greedy little hands/paws/tentacles to themselves and wind up provoking something they really shouldn't...

Remember what I said about how with many ideologies the mere EXISTENCE of another is perceived as a threat to them, and they'll mercilessly attack it, therefore you'd have to build an Anarchist community around a bigass nuke if you wanted it to survive even a month ?

FIRST ORDER OF BUSINESS: Doomsday Weapon.
Then peaceful exploration and expansion.

A few incidents, forgiveable perhaps, but continued aggression results in THIS.

And it always does wind up happening cause the other guys can't just leave well enough alone.

So given your scenario here - again, first order of business, the ability to blow the crap out of the others who will go "Oh noes, another ideology and culture exists besides our oppressive one, we cannot survive competition, ATTACK ATTACK!"

Come to think of it, that last statement fully exposes the abject hypocrisy of cultural xenophobia on behalf of so called free-market advocates - cause *MY* first reaction is "Hey, cool, people to trade with!", and then they start shootin at me....

-Frem

I do not serve the Blind God.

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Friday, October 28, 2011 1:38 PM

ANTHONYT

Freedom is Important because People are Important

Hello,

I've never played that game, and it looks and sounds like so much fun. Is it a multiplayer online game?

100 million could probably get you a nuke. But you could probably convince people that you had one for a fraction of the cost.

--Anthony

_______________________________________________

"In every war, the state enacts a tax of freedom upon the citizenry. The unspoken promise is that the tax shall be revoked at war's end. Endless war holds no such promise. Hence, Eternal War is Eternal Slavery." --Admiral Robert J. Henner

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Friday, October 28, 2011 4:39 PM

CANTTAKESKY

Quote:
Originally posted by AnthonyT:
CTS Land doesn't sound like so bad a place.

High praise indeed. ;)

Quote:
I wonder if anyone would move there?

I would. I would like to imagine that Mal would, though he'd probably shoot the Treasurer. Of course, his business only has 9 partners, so he would be tax-exempt.

Quote:
If so, it would surely say something about the other alternatives.

Indeed. Alliance controlled territory isn't a fun place to be for some of us. I think CTSLand would probably attract the kind of people looking for non-extradition territory. Therefore the need to be armed....

Quote:
I notice the Treasurer holds the real power in CTS Land.

Such as it is. If you can call building roads and robbing people for the funds to build roads "power." The USDOT's under-secretary's personal assistant's pet would probably snicker.

Quote:
I just wanted to envision an environment where conservation and planning were important.

For me, it is a paramount issue. Which is why I make it an important point to not have land ownership. I don't want that "I can do whatever I want on my land" mentality. No, dickhead, the earth belongs to everybody. You use the land. You use the water. You use the air. You don't own it.

Please pardon my profanity.

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Friday, October 28, 2011 5:32 PM

FREMDFIRMA

Quote:
Originally posted by AnthonyT:
I've never played that game, and it looks and sounds like so much fun. Is it a multiplayer online game?

Well, that clip is from Master of Orion II, which is a bit dated, although there are ways to have a multiplayer game with it, sure.

My current bash is Sword of the Stars, available for download via Amazon, if I recall, and I have the full set including Argos Naval Yard.

Here's a sample brawl for you.

It's pretty good, mostly I play the Hivers though, which means thinking things through very many turns in advance.

-Frem

I do not serve the Blind God.

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Saturday, October 29, 2011 4:18 AM

CANTTAKESKY

The closest thing I've played to Sim Nation would be Civilization II. (The sequels 3-5 suck.) Incidentally, Civ was created by the same folks who made Master of Orion and my favorite game of all time, Master of Magic.

Here is a cute little synopsis of Civ.

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Saturday, October 29, 2011 8:31 PM

BYTEMITE

Plenty of people live in a landlocked desert (For example, I do, Utah is a sometimes very green landlocked desert). Just because water isn't plentiful doesn't mean it's non-existent. Most people tap into groundwater or precipitation streams and then try to manage that. EDIT: Never mind, Anthony answered this.

I liked Civilization: Alpha Centauri. I played the crazy hippy planet loving environmentalists with a democratic government and usually won. Though it helped that the planet itself tended to side with me like a fantasy game druid siccing all the cute little woodland creatures on the interlopers. Only instead of fluffy critters chittering and acorn bombardment, they were horrifying collective intelligence hive mind fungal worm masses that could explode people's brains with psionic attacks. They were my bestest fwiends. :) And also tasty with reconstituted ketchup.

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Saturday, October 29, 2011 8:59 PM

FREMDFIRMA

Quote:
Originally posted by Bytemite:
I liked Civilization: Alpha Centauri. I played the crazy hippy planet loving environmentalists with a democratic government and usually won. Though it helped that the planet itself tended to side with me like a fantasy game druid siccing all the cute little woodland creatures on the interlopers.

Yanno, for reasons those less involved with nature might not understand, I always found that scene absolutely terrifying.

-F

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Sunday, October 30, 2011 11:33 AM

DREAMTROVE

We'd have to buy water, and we apparently would be very poor, but I agree with NOB, but you could still do it, just spend all the money on resources.

Then I'd create a new economic system that creates money only when work is done that more people support than oppose. It arms its people with non-lethals. The rest of the defense is automated. The power grid is all natural power, wind, solar, etc. The food is grown domestically. There would be no taxes, and no laws. The protection of people and property would be done by social network. Any damage to the ecology would be send out as a message to all citizens to be stopped, and reversed. The publically agreed upon perps would have to pay for all cleanup and restoration. The people who did the work would be paid by the system. As long as the people generally spend their time productively, the amount of worth of the economy would make the currency pretty stable. Policy ideas would be bottom up, from groups that organized themselves, there wouldn't be an eye of govt. that someone could grab hold of and use to fill their agenda. Since a the public would determine if something was productive work, you couldn't pay people to do evil.

Every community would have to be self sufficient, making it's own power and food. If it created pollution to air or water, this could be viewed a threat to national security, and if the people agreed, they could take arms to protect it, if necessary. There would be no command structure hierarchy, and no elected offices. Everything would be voted on directly by the people. The treasurer is a robot, the only guy I trust. There would be no leader, just a sentiment aggregator.

If we made any money, we'd move to a better piece of land ;)

That's what a ship is, you know - it's not just a keel and a hull and a deck and sails, that's what a ship needs.

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Sunday, October 30, 2011 12:03 PM

MAGONSDAUGHTER

You might to look to Israel for an example. Love or hate their politics, they created a society on a piece of desert and have been agriculturally very successful. A lot of that was down to creating the collective kibbutz culture of their early days.

What hasn't been so great has been living surrounded by hostile neighbours who think you've stolen their lands and want to wipe you from the face of the earth, but for use of desert country they gain full marks.

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Sunday, October 30, 2011 12:27 PM

MAGONSDAUGHTER

I'd have to ask a whole lot of questions before I'd commit to such a venture, you;d really need to do a kind of viability study to work out whether it was possible to make a successful venture given your initial investment of cash and the resources available on the land.

Some of the questions -

Is there a water supply that is accessable? Not all deserts are without water and as Byte pointed out many have access to artesian supplies. Or they may have rainfall but it is unreliable. Or there may be a country bordering you that has water that you can buy.

Conversely, are there technologies currently available that would allow the support of a reasonable population with very little water? ie some kind of arcology. Would the set up fund be enough to fund this?

What sort of plant life and animal life currently exists there? Another big misconception of deserts is that are empty wastelands. Can the plant and animal life be harvested/domesticated?

Who might want to live there? One of the things about Israel was the willing labour force they almost instantly aquired, passionate, impoverished, escaping the horrors of war - working their butts off the reclaim a desert must have been almost fun.

You'd need to look at how ecological sound or fragile the ecosystem is - while it may look like an obvious solution to flood a desert and watch it bloom, water - large amounts of it - can be disastrous, causing widespread erosion and the removal of what little arable topsoil exists. Draining artesan damns and lakes can be disastrous as it can cause land collapse.

The dilemna you pose has one that has been knocked around for years in this country, as that is exactly what we face. How do we manage our arid lands without causing widespread ecological damage? How do we allocate the precious resource of water fairly? How many people can these lands support? And so on.

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Tuesday, November 1, 2011 7:56 PM

RIONAEIRE

Beir bua agus beannacht

As soon as I heard the word "landlocked" I dismissed the idea of being interested in trying. In Eire Nua water from the sea and mountains is essential to everyone's wellbeing and thus a landlocked anything is unappealing to my great and glorious civilization.

I do think making them think you have nuclear weapons is cheaper than actually making one, it can be done you know, sometimes the hype is scarier than reality in this world.

I don't reckon I'd choose to live in CTS Land, I'd be more apt to choose DT Land, though I think even there I'd have some misgivings. But its a fun idea. In eighth grade we had to invent countries and show their economy etc. My group invented some boring island, I love islands but this one was boring, I didn't have the emotional warewithall at the time to really put any work into it. Now adays I'd enjoy such a project much more. But again, no desert, you guys can have the desert.

"A completely coherant River means writers don't deliver" KatTaya

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Wednesday, November 2, 2011 5:59 AM

BYTEMITE

Quote:
But again, no desert, you guys can have the desert.

Yoink!

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Wednesday, November 2, 2011 8:09 AM

HERO

Quote:
Originally posted by AnthonyT:
If you had 100 million dollars and 1000 square miles of non-coastal desert land bereft of mineral resources, do you think you could plan and build a successful nation?

A non-coastal desert with lots of land but no mineral or agricultural wealth.

You leave out a lot of factors such as location, terrain (moutain, flat, easily accessable), neighbors (I'd rather be next to Canada then Iran), seasonal weather changes, tectonic instability, flora, fauna, access to Fox News on Direct TV, etc.

Seems to me the deciding factor is people. Who are the inhabitants? What your talking about is the difference between Las Vegas and Afganistan or maybe Isreal and Palestine (if you ignore the coastal restriction). It all comes down to people. Give me the right people and you can keep your $100 million.

H

"Hero. I have come to respect you." "I am forced to agree with Hero here."- Chrisisall, 2009.
"I agree with Hero." Niki2, 2011.

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Wednesday, November 2, 2011 10:48 AM

BYTEMITE

Quote:
What your talking about is the difference between Las Vegas and Afganistan or maybe Isreal and Palestine

Yeek, the examples are religious fanatics, religious fanatics, religious fanatics, and a den of scum and villainy.

But, point about the people being a major factor.

My ancestors were Mormon pioneers coming to Utah. They generally worked their asses off, although curiously, the mormon church has a welfare system even then, and some pioneers did take advantage rather than work hard.

Very ant and the grasshopper kind of thing. I suppose any culture will have all kinds in it, and the society that works is the one the works the best for the most people.

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