Command and Conquer Economy: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

In most civilisation- and city-building games, nothing ever gets built unless the player specifically orders it. While it is simpler to depict the resource management in this way, it is very unrealistic to, for example, have to build "state" stables and "state" smithies in order to recruit knights in a medieval-themed game, or have to specifically order a resource extraction operation rather than have an autonomous agent do it in response to increased demand.

* Used in ''[[Rise of Legends]]'', but somewhat handwaved as a matter of desperation, not careful and brilliant planning. The heroes aren't making a slow-and-steady push to grind their enemies down, they're running (and often flying) like mad to important sites to outmaneuver their enemies there, and have to build up anything they need from what's available instead of dragging a gargantuan army plus supply lines after them. Each mission map is technically a whole province with multiple cities, so they're also trying to establish a command economy that works just enough to keep them supplied and leaves the province sufficient once they're gone. Men thus come from the cities you build up, and mechanical (or magical) units are built in factories (or conjured on the spot) to save from having to transport an army of slow, heavy equipment all over.

* ''[[Warcraft]]'' games have the player assigning peasants to their tasks and building farms and lumber mills as well as more military kinds of facility.

* Partially averted in the ''[[Settlers]]'' series. The player decides what buildings should be built where, and what enemy building should be attacked but from that point on your peasants/soldiers just take care of it. Additionally, once you've built something like a woodcutter, sawmill, farm, etc, it will cheerfully continue to run itself as long as your economy can provide it the necessary resources.

* ''[[Total Annihilation]]'' and its successor ''[[Supreme Commander]]'' have this as a central part of the setting as well as a core gameplay mechanic. Thanks to nanotech, a single construction unit can build an exponentially-growing base and army limited only by local resources.

 

* The Sims in ''[[The Sims]]''. Without player guidance, they cannot buy furniture, get jobs, get married, etc. (Some non-player Sims will get jobs or marriages on their own in ''The Sims 3'', but they'll still only have the furniture that came with their house, and the Sims in the active family still won't.) They can still do basic actions such as cook, sleep, use the toilet, and so on if free will is turned on, but in the first two games (and even the third to a lesser extent) they tend to be rather stupid about it. Turn free will off and they'll just stand in place until they starve if not explicitly told to do otherwise.

*** Obviously, ''SimCountry'' has a [[wikipedia:Social market economy|social market economy]]. They don't get electric bills but they get taxes.

*** Granted you still need knowledge society energy if you want the nicer structures to benefit your power production.

* ''[[City Life]]''. You must manually plop every single house, work place, service and utility building. And by "services", Monte Cristo means malls, supermarkets, hospitals, schools, parks, police and fire stations, community centers, ''and even leisure businesses''. (Sounds awfully like ''Societies'', but the social class system makes it better than it sounds).

[[Category:Just for Pun]]

[[Category:Strategy Game Tropes]]