This is the first societal value available to the player. A societal value, in this context, represents a commitment to put one form of pursuit above all others, and to make everything else a subset of attaining this chosen goal. Wealth, thus, means a society geared towards the increased production of commodities and profitable endeavors at the expense (pun intended) of other possible aims. If we were to reduce it to a slogan, it would unironically be “profits before people”.

As with so many other societal options in this game, the most interesting aspects are revealed when we consider the potential intersections with other choices. Wealth could, for instance, be picked in conjunction with Free market, which gives us the full monty of neoclassical economics (especially if the faction also went with Fundamentalist). It could also, however, be picked in combination with a Planned or Green outlook, which gives us a radically different definition of wealth. The wealthy free marketeer is not the same as the wealthy environmentalist, who both differ from the ever so slightly oxymoronic wealthy communist (or socialist, depending on just how planned we interpret the Planned economy to be).

Common to all combinations is the massive penalty to Morale that follows from favoring material wealth over all other social values. While the material gains are substantial – more energy, more production – there is something narrow-minded about reducing the scope of societal activity to the accumulation of mere things. To be sure, the increased production solves a lot of problems – one of which just might be the immediate challenge of survival – but it is a depressing thought that the entirety of the human enterprise is to be measured in dry, boring, phenomenologically meaningless numbers that only make sense if you accept the premise that these are the only numbers that matter. More is not always more.

Here, we must not make the mistake of thinking that not choosing Wealth actively means pursuing poverty (for factions that are not the Cultists, at least). All civilized societies seek to ensure a decent standard of living for its citizens. The difference lies in whether seeking to maximize said standard is the express focus of the society as a whole, or if it is something to be performed whilst pursuing something else. What Wealth proposes is to make a virtue out of necessity and go all in on making sure that the fundamental economic functions of society operate to their fullest extent, at the expense of other virtues.

In this, the game presents us with a stark choice. Of all the possible values and virtues a society could opt for, the player is given only three options: wealth, power or knowledge. It is an open question whether this is a limitation of the game engine, or if this is a choice that faces all societies, whether they are up to the philosophical challenge of realizing it or not.