Bay 12 Games Forum

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Originally posted by Felix the Cat:
<STRONG>Money is a commodity and is affected by supply and demand, just like everything else. This is why economic simulation is so difficult: there is no fixed measure of value in the actual economy.</STRONG>

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Of course, but obviously not all of that can apply here. There is no "global" economy to speak of. All trade done with coins is between neighbors. The supply and demand mechanics which should exist anyway are still waiting to be implemented. When they arrive they will still be localized.

Pockets would be great, but i would think that once dwarves start amassing a large fortune pockets would no longer be big or secure enough. Dwarves would start to demand wallets or belt pouches. Of course thats not a problem at all, you could build a large supply and stick them in a general store.

What do you think of the mint idea? If you didnt catch it earlier it works like this:
1. Forge creates blank coins, using a mold or whatever. These blank coins are not worth anything yet because they are not stamped with the credentials of your fortress bank. This would prevent the problem of cluttered forges.
2. These blanks are taken to the mint. The mints responsibility is to guarantee that every coin the bank puts out is worth the same. The mint weighs and stamps every coin, then bundles them up for transport to the bank. (which is probably nextdoor)
3. Now the bank is where the coins are tallied and distributed. Taking coins out of the loop before they reach the bank is illegal pretty much everywhere.

This way, instead of changing owners all over your fortress and creating a mess, the bank would handle everything. Dwarves would leave the lions share of any money they own in the bank vault under thier name. Rent is deducted from this supply. If dwarves wish to have some money on hand for shopping or otherwise they will get a moneybag and fill it with some coins, then store this bag in a personal chest.

The only time that coins change hands is at the bank where they are not moved. Or in a store cash register (or whatever the dwarves use). No more mess!

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One thing that can possibly turn into a fiasco is how the money owned by the dwarves and the money owned by the fortress "government" are seperated. Obviously there would have to be some form of taxation. Rent is already calculated as a form of property tax.

If say, a trade caravan comes up to your fortress and you order 10 barrels of beer, whos money is being spent here? Since food is communal this would no doubt come from the government. But lets say your government somehow ran out of money and traden for the same, would it start to borrow money from your population?

As someone mentioned, just minting more coins is only a solution up to a point as that causes rampant inflation. But that is only a problem when a society uses "tokens" for money, just like how we use paper currency.

The current system seems to use the value of the material itself, but that can lead to problems as well. Say you were paying for a solid platinum statue. In order for you to pay the artist for the material used you would have to give him the statues weight in platinum coins! And then add even more for his effort and time.

That is especially true when you think of the elves. They show up to your fortress with plants and cloth to trade, useful stuff of course.

But since they do not smith anything for export, its doubtful that they would use metal currency. They could write numbers onto leaves for all we know but they certainly do not trade with em.

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Originally posted by Felix the Cat:
<STRONG>*Actually, as the Roman economy declined, the emperors debased the coinage several times, reducing the actual amount of precious metal in a given coin. They did this because of inflation: </STRONG>

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That brings up a good point, would we have to deal with inflation in any form? If you simply produced a mountain of coins or dug up a huge load of platinum and sold it, it would be worth less and less, a loaf of bread would cost 500$!

What real life methods of controlling inflation exist? I know very little on that subject. At the very least, the "money grubbing" nobles should control or advise you on that situation.

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Originally posted by Savok:
<STRONG>Coin vaults already exist: Just make a large amount of coins and put it in a sealed room. The economy will run on credit.</STRONG>

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The reason that solves the coin problem is it cancels out every single hauling task. Under the new system with a central vault it would work the same way. Money changes hands but it does not actually go anywhere.

Also FYI it is possible to add more coins to the stockpile. It involves an airlock system of doors and levers and making the stockpile part of your smiths bedroom.

 

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Originally posted by Grek:
<STRONG>I think money should be stored in a vault room, defined from a safe. The government money goes in the safe, the dwarfs on the tiles around it.</STRONG>

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Personal coin chests and vaults should still exist however. I imagine the central vault would have to have very tight security. Presumably you would want to put it in a secure location to prevent thievery. The problem is that would make it very inconvenient for dwarves who just want to get a bit of money to shop. Plus the dwarves might not trust thier government   .

Its not a big deal anyway since nobles already demand storage containers. Giving one to every dwarf in your fortress is not much of a stretch, unless we have to build and maintain locking mechanisms for all of them, but that comes later. Dwarves would only carry around a "wallet" of coins. When they need to buy something at a shop they take the wallet with them, and put the remaining money back in thier personal vault. Rent and other expenses are taken out of thier account at the central bank. The only time dwarves would have to go to the bank is if they need to refill thier wallet.

On the other hand, you would have dwarves who insist on keeping all of thier money in personal vaults. Mostly this would be your fortresses nobles. Powerful ones would even demand personal vault rooms. Makes sense right?

 

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Originally posted by Grek:
<STRONG>I think there should be a list of default wages/prices that nobles will change. The player should also be allowed to change the prices to the same degree a noble can as to offset any poor choices.</STRONG>

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Defaults are good to have but irl the system is more fluid. I strongly support the idea that workers of each class are part of some overall "union" or guild. Makes sense seeing as most of them have representative nobles. Nobles should not be allowed to control the salaries of other dwarves, or else they would just give themselves easy money.

Rather, the wages of everyone in the fortress should be controlled by you, as god and the government combined. They would automatically fluctuate due to a few factors:
1. The total amount of workers in a class, compared to the demand for workers of that class.
2. How much work they get done. (compared to how much work they are asked to do)
3. What the job IS, there is no need for fisherdwarves on maps with no water.

This way dwarves get paid a minimum wage for HAVING such and such skills because they took time and effort to aquire. The exception being legendary dwarves of course. At the same time, all the dwarves of a specific class would earn more money depending on how much work they do collectively. This way, all 4 of your carpenters can earn a living, even if you only provide a single workstation.

Instead of directly controlling wages, nobles would mandate changes to them. Most nobles do not have the authority to do this, the representative for the farmers guild might ask for a wage increase if the farmers complain they are not earning enough for what they do. He might also demand more workers, or more jobs for existing workers (which he does already afaik).

The bookeeper, treasurer or auditor, whichever would be responsible for the overall situation. Instead of demanding changes he would advise YOU of what needs to be done. Stuff like "there are too many fishermen" "the farmers are being overpaid".

Make sense?

 

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Originally posted by Grek:
<STRONG>It's like that currently, with each empire's coins being useable elsewhere in the empire, but an empire's towns don't seem to stay in the same area. That could change.</STRONG>

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Still, currency should be universal within racial boundaries. It doesnt make sense that the currency is simply worthless in neighboring kindoms because the stamp is different. Would they simply never trade with each other at all?

 

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Originally posted by Grek:
<STRONG>Also, let us decide to give money to a chosen dwarf.</STRONG>

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This could be a good way to control tantruming.

[ August 26, 2007: Message edited by: Tamren ]

The main points to talk about:
1. Seperating the money owned in personal accounts from the communal "government" money that the player has access to.
1. How money can be better handled: Banks, personal vaults and the like. We need to eliminate the coin mess we currently get, but how?
2. Wages: Who gets what, for doing what. This goes double for nobles.
3. Trade with other races: Bartering works but coinage is more stable. Prices should fluctuate due to rarity, demand and especially distance of transport.
4. Standardized currency within racial boundaries: If get some human coins from one town, i should be able to spend them anywhere in the human empire. As long as the coins are all the same size the markings should be irrelevant. There are a few exceptions such as a state of war between towns.
5. Taxes: At the very least, we need a property tax on rich dwarves. On a larger scale, dwarf outposts may need to pay regular tribute to the king, or somesuch thing.
6. And whatever else pops up later.

One thing i would very much want to see in future versions is a controllable standard of living. What does that mean? Well let me explain. Right now each and every bedroom in your fortress has a value rating. The value is composed of everything in the room, the floorspace and the finish of the walls and floor. In the beginning this has no use, dwarves can be assigned any room and will occupy any free room.

Once the economy starts up however, we get totally screwed! For one thing, you can no longer assign rooms to "common dwarves", where they sleep is determined by what they can afford. We have very little control over this aspect of the economy because the value of rooms is also highly variable. A 1 tile bolthole is worth quite a bit when you add a masterwork bed. This difficulty is compounded because we have no control over the quality of the items produced by crafstsmen. A legendary carpenter will churn out masterworks left and right that poor dwarves can not afford.

This is where the "standard of living" comes in. Lets say i knocked out a huge apartment block of 3x3 rooms. Ordinarily all my peasants would never be able to afford them once they are fully furnished, even if i WANT them to live there. So what i should be able to do is designate the quality level of the room. For these blocks i would tag them as commoner housing. The computer then looks at the worth of every single commoner bedroom in the fort, then calculates the average value. It will knock off any rooms that are of a very low value compared to the old average, this is to avoid empty rooms still under development from messing up the count.

Once you have the average value, you can decide how large a % you want to exempt from the rent. This sets the standard of living, meaning you can ensure that dwarves of a specific class have access to homes of AT LEAST such and such value. This also lessens the problem of masterwork furniture engorging the value of small homes. Instead of a straight discount, the averaging system ensures that dwarves with better stuff will still have to pay for it.

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Originally posted by Eagleon:
<STRONG>*reads thread* Fahhh. No fair. You guys get out of my head. Trees and plants concentrating metal is -my- idea from way back, and I use it in some of my story settings.