I think most of us love the visuals provided by the detailed economic models associated with "sandbox" real time strategy games such as Knights and Merchants and The Settlers, or more recent entries Stronghold and Dawn of Discovery. It's fantastic watching your lowly peasents toil in obscurity day in and day out hauling bushels of wheat and absurdly heavy rocks around your virtual fiefdom.
Unfortunately, the economic models used in the aforementioned games are so complicated and distracting that the games themselves can only be appreciated as economic simulators instead of the real time strategy games they purport to be.
To further explain my idea, I am going to reference two games everyone should be familiar with: Age of Empires II and Stronghold.
Age of Empires II was a great game. Personally I tend to elevate it on a pedestal as a golden example of striking a perfect balance between economic and strategic gameplay, however most people will at least agree that it was a good balance. In Age of Empires II the tech tree is fairly simple - you advance an "Age", and suddenly new technology becomes available. You click on your Barracks, and the you can click on "Research Man at Arms". This makes no sense whatsoever.
King Olaf the Volatile: Ulric! Ulric!
Ulric the Manservant: My Lord! What rouses you from your usual alcohol-induced coma at this early hour?
King Olaf the Volatile: I have been blessed with visions!
Ulric the Manservant: I will have your ale tested again forthwith.
King Olaf the Volatile: Men with swords and heavy armor are going to be the next big thing! We must research the Man at Arms!
In Stronghold, to be able to train Swordsmen, you must first construct an Iron Mine and a Coal Mine. Then you build an Iron Smelter, which consumes Iron Ore and Coal, and produces Iron Bars. Building an Armorsmith and Swordsmith let you turn Iron Bars into Armor and Swords respectively. As soon as you have a suit of armor and a sword, you can create a Swordsman - this is intuitive and makes sense.
Here is what you do:
Stronghold's tech tree is both intuitive and immersive, however the associated supply chain bogs down the entire game - so you remove the supply chain altogether.
You still have to construct an Iron Mine, a Coal Mine, an Iron Smelter, an Armorsmith, a Swordsmith and a Barracks to be able to create Swordsmen, however Armor and Swords should not be the currency used to purchase Swordsmen. An Armorsmith and Swordsmith are the pre-requisites to training Swordsmen, not Armor and Swords or "research Swordsmen". The game's economy needs to stay simple and stay usable by sticking to a small number of base resources (something along the lines of gold, lumber, food, stone and iron).
I still want to see the Iron Smelters sweltering over hazardous pools of molten metal and lugging huge blocks of metal around. I still want to see the armorer beating the hell out of a breastplate on an anvil and delivering it to the barracks. I still want to see my economy happening in great detail, but I don't want every detail to happen to my economy (pardon the turn of phrase). As long as I have an Armorsmith and a Swordsmith - great, you can make as many Swordsmen as you want for as long as you want. It doesn't matter if your Iron Smelter burns to the ground and your now-virtual supply chain is cut, you can keep on making Swordsmen.
This has added benefits from a game performance perspective in that all of the gorgeous detail in your city is just that - detail - and can be turned off on slower machines with no impact on gameplay.
The extent to which you carry this is your choice entirely - at some point you have to strike a balance between detail and profitability. For example unless iron is going to be a primary resource, it probably doesn't make sense to build iron mines and iron smelters - but that's no reason to cut out the Armorsmith and Swordsmith.
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