The Victorian age saw an enormous expansion of leisure activities, driven by increasing living standards and the reduction of working hours through both legal mandate and increased efficiency. Increased free time drove up demand for leisure pursuits enabling the economy to continue to grow, even as people left the factories, and set the modern landscape for leisure activities as a huge part of the economy. This is only lightly referenced in game, and this post is some suggestions for systems designed to model this phenomenon.
I am using numbers in this for illustrative purposes and haven't thought entirely through all the gameplay balancing implications.
Changes to Pop Needs
Add a new pop need "leisure pursuits", which kicks in at X. X should by default set to 20, but can fall down to ~12.5 through more restricted Maximum Workday Laws added to the Economic Laws tab. More highly restricted maximum workdays would decrease the threshold for leisure pursuits becoming active, at the cost of decreased factory throughput.
LATER ADDENDUM: Potentially aristocrats and capitalists should naturally have a greater need for leisure pursuits than workers, and be unaffected by working conditions laws.
Leisure pursuits could be fulfilled by:
New goods - Entertainment and Media
Add two new goods to the game, Entertainment, representing live performances, which can only be traded in the state in which it can be produced (sidenote: I'd prefer if services worked like this too), and Media, which represents books, newspapers, magazines, broadcast media, etc.. Media can be traded within a market but cannot be imported/exported between markets (imperfectly representing things like language barriers).
Urban centres (potentially through churches?), arts academies and subsistence buildings should each produce very small amounts of entertainment.
New building - Media sectors
Add a new building type basically designed to produce entertainment and later, media, with the following PMs:
What do you all think?
I am using numbers in this for illustrative purposes and haven't thought entirely through all the gameplay balancing implications.
Changes to Pop Needs
Add a new pop need "leisure pursuits", which kicks in at X. X should by default set to 20, but can fall down to ~12.5 through more restricted Maximum Workday Laws added to the Economic Laws tab. More highly restricted maximum workdays would decrease the threshold for leisure pursuits becoming active, at the cost of decreased factory throughput.
LATER ADDENDUM: Potentially aristocrats and capitalists should naturally have a greater need for leisure pursuits than workers, and be unaffected by working conditions laws.
Leisure pursuits could be fulfilled by:
- Paper (weight x0.5, capped at ~0.4), representing writing letters, poetry, etc.. Would be fun if this interacted with literacy.
- Automobiles (weight x1, capped at ~0.4) representing motoring
- Fine art (weight x2, capped at ~0.4) representing art appreciation
- Radios (weight x2, capped at 0.1 + media consumption), representing listening to the radio
- Fertiliser (weight x0.5, capped at ~0.4), representing (generally aristocratic) gardening - I've partly put this here because of the role aristocratic gardens played in botanical research, and the possibility for related events
- Clippers (weight x0.5, capped at ~0.2) representing yachting
- Aeroplanes (weight x2, capped at ~0.2), representing aviation
- Small arms (weight x0.75, capped at ~0.6), representing hunting
- Entertainment, see below (weight x1, capped at ~0.8), representing live performance
- Media, see below (weight x1.5, capped at 0.4 + radios consumption), representing consumption of mass produced media
- The art requirement should be removed, but Fine Art should also be allowed to fulfil a Luxury Items need
- Services should generally refer to "professional services" like banking, cleaning, etc. rather than entertainment services, which will be covered by two new goods categories, Entertainment and Media
New goods - Entertainment and Media
Add two new goods to the game, Entertainment, representing live performances, which can only be traded in the state in which it can be produced (sidenote: I'd prefer if services worked like this too), and Media, which represents books, newspapers, magazines, broadcast media, etc.. Media can be traded within a market but cannot be imported/exported between markets (imperfectly representing things like language barriers).
Urban centres (potentially through churches?), arts academies and subsistence buildings should each produce very small amounts of entertainment.
New building - Media sectors
Add a new building type basically designed to produce entertainment and later, media, with the following PMs:
PM Group | Name | Inputs | Outputs | Employment | Tech requirements | Political requirements | Other effects | Comments |
Publishing | - | Paper, dye | Media | - | - | - | - | Representing printing books, magazines, newspapers, comics...smarter people than me will be able to talk about technical improvements in the publishing industry 1836-1936! This should be the principal way of generating media until broadcast entertainment becomes a thing |
Performance | Traditional theatre and opera | Fabric, wood, luxury clothes | Entertainment | Academics, aristocrats, laborers | - | - | - | |
Performance | Music hall and vaudeville | Fabric, wood, luxury clothes | Entertainment+ | Laborers, engineers, capitalists | Urbanisation? | - | - | |
Performance | Early radio broadcast and silent movies | Radios, electricity, fabric, wood, luxury clothes | Media | Laborers, engineers, academics | Radio, film | - | - | Unlocks events related to early radio, early B&W filmmaking. |
Performance | Mass broadcast and talkies | Radios, electricity, fabric, wood, luxury clothes | Media+ | Laborers, engineers, academics | Radio, film, mass propaganda (?) | - | - | Needs a lv5 tech to lock it off to the end of the period. Could have a rare event for the invention of technicolour. |
Sport | - | - | Entertainment (maybe media at very high levels) | - | Organised sports | - | Would be very fun if this gave, say a scaling reduction to mortality, to say, +1% at lv50, representing healthier lifestyles for some production methods. | Representing the professionalisation and mass-marketisation of sports, both as a player and as an observer, between 1836-1936. I am not a sports nut, so I leave the details for others. |
Censorship and supervision | Religious censorship | - | - | Clergymen, aristocrats, clerks | - | NOT total separation or protected speech. Elder Council locked to this. | Scaling statewide Devout attraction of +10% at lv 50 | Pays dividends to clergymen, aristocrats |
Censorship and supervision | Free media | - | - | Capitalists, clerks | Mass communication | NOT traditionalism or outlawed dissent, | Scaling statewide ruling party attraction of -10% at lv 50 | Pays dividends to capitalists |
Censorship and supervision | State broadcaster | - | - | Bureaucrats, clerks | Radio, film, behaviourism | NOT anarchy | Output penalty of -25%. Scaling statewide literacy access increase of +10% at lv 50. | Meant to model tepid but functional independent state broadcasters like the BBC. Does not pay dividends. |
Censorship and supervision | State propaganda | - | - | Bureaucrats, clerks, officers | Radio, film, mass propaganda | Requires censorship or outlawed dissent | Scaling statewide ruling party attraction of +10% at lv 50 | Meant to model state propaganda campaigns. Dividends are paid back to the state. |
What do you all think?
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