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1->''Privatize all factories, mines, and logging camps. 10% of the proceeds will go to your Swiss Bank account and the private buildings will pay you annual rent''
2-->--'''Description of the ''[[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Privatization Edict]]'' in ''[[VideoGame/{{Tropico}} Tropico 3]]'''''
3
4Tired of VideoGames economies being managed like CommieLand ones? This trope is for you!
5
6This trope is when sectors of the economy, such as the building of buildings or the training of units, in a VideoGames nation are managed by the VideoGameAI, so as to allow more immersion (try telling yourself you are managing a country with free market economics when you are setting the prices of the goods like a [[DirtyCommunists Dirty Commie]]!) and reduce the player's workload; however, apart from issues with performance, [[ArtificialStupidity the AI can be REALLY stupid]].
7
8Subtrope of GameplayAutomation. Compare PlayerGeneratedEconomy. Contrast CommandAndConquerEconomy.
9
10----
11
12! Examples
13
14[[foldercontrol]]
15
16[[folder:Four X]]
17* ''VideoGame/Aurora4X'' lets private companies transport civilian passengers, mine planets and asteroids and buy and sell goods, alongside the Empire, who can actually subsidize them.
18* ''VideoGame/DistantWorlds''
19** The universe contains a vast and thriving private economy that the player cannot (directly) control. This economy does many things that other games abstract out. Examples include the transport of resources from one point to another (be this within your own economy or trade with other civilizations) and tourism. These are then taxed by the player's government. Therefore, it is financially beneficial to arrange things so that a private economy develops, even if you can't control the details. In addition, one can delegate large swathes of gameplay to the AI which will automatically manage it, or so that the AI will make suggestions of the player, asking for only a thumbs-up.
20** A major source of income comes from private entities using your unused spacedocks to build their starships. Interestingly enough when things go poorly and pirates and enemy factions start ripping into your empire, the constant need for private fleets to replace their losses can be a [[WarForFunAndProfit huge boon to your treasury]]. That is, until your economy starts to suffer for it.
21* In ''Videogame/StarRuler2'', the AI will slowly build structures on worlds based on what type of resources you order imported from other worlds; import jewelry, and they'll build banks that generate tax money for the budget cycle, whereas importing oil will build refineries that generate energy for special research and reactivating {{Big Dumb Object}}s. Certain resources generate more economic 'pressure' than others or can make several types at once. The AI will also build freighters and civilian infrastructure to support them in trade, and generate small defense craft based on military reserves that can later be assigned to a flagship's fleet.
22[[/folder]]
23
24[[folder:Browser Game]]
25* Nations in ''Website/NationStates'' have private sectors on which their policies can influence, whether for good or for bad.
26[[/folder]]
27
28[[folder:Idle Game]]
29* ''VideoGame/AntreematterDimensions'': Once you reach a certain amount of antimatter, you can spend it on autobuyers for dimension tiers, tickspeed, and dimension shifts. They initially work one at a time, but turn into buy max with an upgrade for 75 BP.
30* ''VideoGame/TheChristmasTree'': The milestone for getting 7 present machines autobuys one of each elf buyables per tick.
31* ''VideoGame/CompactO'': Autobuyers for squares, resetters, and other systems are unlocked by getting XP/Shrinkinator upgrades.
32* ''VideoGame/TheCompactTree'' The milestone for 7 compactors grants you the option to autobuy condense buyables.
33* ''VideoGame/DistanceIncremental'': At 1 Tm, you unlock the automation tab, in which you can build bots that automatically perform rank ups/tier ups with scraps and upgrade their effectiveness with intelligence. Later on you unlock a few other automation toggles.
34* ''VideoGame/ExponentialIdle'': You can buy autobuyers for variables and upgrades, with each one pressing the Buy All button at the max setting every second, though it can be sped up. Due to the speed, this may make purchasing upgrades difficult if you have a variable autobuyer and vice versa, though there should be no problems if you have both and you can always turn them off.
35* ''VideoGame/FE000000'': You can buy slow autobuyers that trigger every 16 seconds for Stars and unlock fast autobuyers that trigger every tick by beating challenges. They can be turned off or have their frequency adjusted.
36* ''VideoGame/TheFuelTree'': The Autobuyer I upgrade makes the game buy all four buyables per tick by itself.
37* ''VideoGame/TheGFRIENDTree'': Producing 4 GFRIEND songs unlocks autobuyers for all three money buyables.
38* ''VideoGame/{{Incremenergy}}'': Reaching 50 Super-Energy lets you access the Auto tab, where you can buy autobuyers for Super-Energy.
39* ''VideoGame/TheIncrementalDevTree'': There's a bunch of upgrades that unlock autobuyers for buyables. Some other upgrades which unlock features disable ones that are no longer useful to improve performance.
40* ''VideoGame/InfiniteLayers'': The ability to auto-purchase dimensions for a single layer is unlocked once you unlock the one two tiers after it. For instance, you can have autobuyer for money once you unlock eternity.
41* ''VideoGame/Lit2021'': Cyan light automates mechanics once you have enough of it, with perks like autobuying upgrades at level 1 and autobuying buyables one at a time at level 3.
42* ''VideoGame/LNGIIncremental'': There's an autobuyer for the first button. Upgrading it lowers the upgrade interval by 50ms and maxing it makes it press the button instantly every second.
43* ''VideoGame/OmegaLayers'': After reaching the Beta layer, you can buy automators that max all generators, prestige, and once its unlocked, buy Aleph upgrades.
44* ''VideoGame/APrestigeTreeModAboutMerging'': Reaching a high enough Mergeable Score unlocks automation for buying in mergeable slots and merging.
45* ''VideoGame/Primordia2022'': Plenty of the Advancements provide automation for the various layers to simplify progression:
46** Starting from Advancement 4, many of them provide 100% passive elemental particle gain per second, making resetting the affected layers unnecessary once achieved.
47** Advancement 14 automatically purchases all Flame upgrades within one second of a reset if you can afford them.
48** Advancement 17 automatically purchases all Life Buyables each second.
49* ''VideoGame/ThePrestreestuck'': Like many games of this sort, you can frequently get upgrades that'll let you buy other upgrades automatically. The stock market will buy low and sell high whenever possible once buy an upgrade for 1e11 boondollars.
50* ''VideoGame/Rapture30'': Getting Hell Boost 2 unlocks the Auto tab, with the only option available being Auto-Spirit Boosts.
51* ''VideoGame/ReinhardtsHouse'': For 1e300 gold, you can buy the ability to automatically purchase potions. They won't make a dent in your money at that point, though.
52* ''VideoGame/TheStardustTree'': There are upgrades which unlock automation. They can be toggled in a tab which is accessed by clicking the grey icon in the top-left.
53* ''VideoGame/{{Synergism}}'': You can unlock the ability to buy buildings and Automators/Multipliers/Automator Boosts automatically when affordable, which are usually bought in the Automation Shop. You can also unlock upgrades that let you automate upgrade purchases for different categories, NewGamePlus tiers, and tier resource gain per-second.
54* ''VideoGame/UniverseShrinker'': After performing a Heat Death for the first time, you can buy automations for purchasing shrinkers, Rho upgrades, and Universe Layer upgrades.
55[[/folder]]
56
57[[folder:Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game ]]
58* ''VideoGame/ChroniclesOfElyria'': 70% of the characters on a server are {{Non Player Character}}s, who are able to craft, write contracts, trade, and gather resources just like players, making them the bread and butter of a political entity's economy. An NPC could even be a member of the nobility and undertake the management aspects that their title confers, setting tax policy and funding infrastructure.
59[[/folder]]
60
61[[folder:Real Time Strategy]]
62* ''{{VideoGame/Majesty}}'' : most of the infrastructure of your city - houses, sewers, graveyards, and places of ill repute - is outside your control, and can interfere with your municipal/strategic planning (not to mention spawning sewer rats and undead). So is the control of the heroes themselves, who must be incentivised with bounties if there's any particular place or monster you want them to discover or slay, even if the heroes are hired only on royal order.
63* In ''VideoGame/{{Patrician}} 3'', while town councils will not build additional houses and facilities, your AI competitors will.
64[[/folder]]
65
66[[folder:Roguelike]]
67* ''VideoGame/DwarfFortress'': Showing us the pitfalls of giving the AI controls over sectors of the economy is the DummiedOut [[http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/40d:Dwarven_economy eponymous feature]]: when some conditions were fulfilled, all dwarves were awarded private accounts to spend on food and other items they could buy from shops--except for nobles and legendary dwarves, who could take whatever without spending anything. Dwarves were able to buy shops and sell items in it for their own benefit. This led to bizarre things like children of nobles/legendary dwarves being ''poorer'' than average and dwarves spending all their time counting their coins. It also led to computers chugging to a screeching halt trying to process individual coins as they were passed all around the fort.
68[[/folder]]
69
70[[folder:Simulation Game]]
71* ''VideoGame/{{Tropico}}''
72** If El Presidente doesn't build enough affordable housing, the Tropicanos will build their own, undesirable shacks.
73** In "Absolute Power", add-on to the third expansion, the player was able to enact privatisation, selling all the facilities to the private sector, which would then have to pay a rent to the State while the selling price would be sent to El Presidente's SwissBankAccount.
74** In the succeeding expansions the player was able to fundraise money to build a facility, but it had the major drawback that [[ArtisticLicenseEconomics they would get the raw materials for free]].
75* ''VideoGame/TransportTycoon''
76** The towns will automatically develop over time, without your assistance. This includes the building of roads, but you can assist in doing so if you want to coerce the development of a town in a specific way. You can accelerate, but not control, the growth of town buildings by dealing in Passengers there. This is necessary in some cases because towns will only pay for Goods once they build enough high-rise buildings, which only happens once they reach a certain size.
77** The alternate climates in the ''Deluxe'' version have additional restrictions. Arctic towns above a certain elevation have to have Food delivered before they grow. Tropical towns in the desert require Food and Water.
78* ''Videogame/RailroadTycoon 3'' has an intricate and well developed economic system:
79** There are other rivals companies building their own transport networks like in the previous installments, but the game itself implements an alternative new method: Unpicked goods and materials are gradually moved from their production sites to the places where they are needed, following a supply and demand logic and price curves. This process is usually very inefficient, but depending on the relative locations it can actually feed industries on its own, as the cargo moves slowly inland (very slowly and possibly not at all in mountain terrain), but adequately faster via rivers and other bodies of water.
80** Processing industries tend to spawn in areas with a high concentration of raw resources, simulating private entrepreneurship. These local facilities can outcompete distant ones, as the newly generated demand will be on par with the remote one, making hauling commodities unprofitable, which is not allowed by the game mechanics.
81* In ''VideoGame/{{Capitalism}}'', other businesses exist the player can merge with.
82* ''VideoGame/{{X}}-Universe'': NPC ships constantly trade goods between stations, though unlike player-owned ships they don't use money to do it. The simulated economy is managed by an engine called "GOD", which will even delete NPC stations that don't do much business (which is why Terran and Pirate weapons factories tend to disappear in ''X3: Terran Conflict'', forcing the player to build their own: there aren't enough sinks for their products). The system returns in ''Videogame/XRebirth'', with more complexity as the giant freighters that now do the bulk trading require power from energy stations supplied by the economy.
83* ''VideoGame/{{Hidden Agenda|1988}}'' features a Chimerica with an agricultural and a commercial sector the player can influe on by instituing policies ranging from free-market to [[CommieLand centrally plannification]].
84* In ''VideoGame/CitiesSkylines'', while zoning is to be done by the player, building in these areas grow by themselves and shop buy manufactured goods from factories to sell.
85[[/folder]]
86
87[[folder:Strategy Game]]
88* ''VideoGame/VictoriaAnEmpireUnderTheSun''
89** In the expansion, the Capitalist would be able to fund the building of factories and railroads with their surplus money.
90** In the II with Laissez-Faire policies all factory building is to be done exclusively by Capitalists.
91** In III, so long as you have at least one construction sector a certain percentage (Defined by your economic laws) of your weekly construction is set aside for private expansion. Who contributes also depends on economic laws - You get increased aristocrat contribution and reduced capitalist contribution under agrarianism for example, and only labourer classes contribute under cooperative ownership (As the capitalists and aristocrat classes have been dismantled). In fact, there's only one economy where this ''doesn't'' apply, and that's the Command Economy where the government owns everything.
92[[/folder]]
93
94[[folder:Turn Based Strategy]]
95* Amiga game ''Global Effect'': While you had to micromanage most things like power and sewage and such, the game would build residential areas on its own as demand increased. Sadly, this was actually ''detrimental'', as not only did it take energy (the standard resource you use for everything) from your own supply (thereby keeping you from completing more essential constructions), but it built them completely at random next to anything else you've built. So if you built a long sewage pipe leading waste far away from your planned residential zone, to keep people from getting sick? Surprise, now you have people living right in the middle of the sewage-plant area, or halfway along the pipe in the middle of nowhere. And they want you to provide power and water and roads. Presumably you could change this in the options menu, but due to a genius in the game's design, ''accessing the options cost more energy''.
96[[/folder]]

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