I would have to agree with Lynndee and epeel on the use of natural disasters being a factor for production. I was thinking that we could incorporate it into the game by you having cards between rounds. A colony would then be able to choose between 2 cards and one being a natural disaster or something negative and the other card being something positive to the colony.
Another idea could be the possibility of unleashing diseases and famine upon colonies or the whole world. With the amount of agriculture and larbor workers causing the decline of wages to occur I am sure that lower class citizens become poor and thus suffered health wise. Due to the lack of money flowing into families I am sure that diseases slowly took over areas and killed off workers and others that contributed to society. Thus the succession of a country would decline or even die off.
It looks like the agriculture aspect of colonies and the greed of power and money slowly took over the world in the readings. The more money regions obtained the more "things" they wanted. From the readings I read; I realized alot of countries grew crops (cash crops) that they could prosper off of and it seems they only grew one crop at a time in some countries. But the country was able to grow so much more. WIth that being said, I think with the crops we are able to produce; you could possibly give us the option to rebel and grow more crops that suit our culture and this could possibly give new ways of strategy to different colonies.
I also agree with cheitman on the implementation of taxes for countries. Taxes at this time were becoming a very good way to gain revenue for themselves. The Middle East and Europe used taxes and they grew very wealthy and powerful. I think maybe a new concept could be to have you hand pick certain countries that are able to enforce taxes and see what they do with their power and their excess cash.
It just seemed that the money revolved around the success and failure of countries so that is why I came up with the ideas that I did.
mwesch wrote:
> Hi class,
> Post your world simulation ideas here. Read Wallerstein, Lappe & Collins, and the first 2 pages of Wolf. Using the ideas you gather there, re-write the rules and post them here.