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[chuckthegr8]

So the economy is not in this version. Bummer, I just got back. However, while playing around I got a few ideas from the way I set up my fortress.

Restaurant consists of a Cook, a possibly separate owner, and assistants for personel. It has a kitchen, a food stockpile and a dining room for rooms. What happens is the Cook or the Owner buys the rooms/workshops and the food. The cook prepares the food and the assistants bring uncooked food for cooking and cooked food to hungry dwarves. Dwarves pay tot he assistant to put in the chest. Every so often its 'Pay Day' and the owner hands out each dwarf's pay. It is more expensive to eat in a restaurant, but it gives an extra good thought "I ate in the restaurant of the legendary Urist McChef" ontop of nice dining rooms or nice food.

Bar consists of just a Brewer who has conversational skills. It needs a still, a barrel seller, a stock of mugs and a drink stockpile. Tables saloon style are optional. What happens is a dwarf comes in and orders, brewer takes a mug of drink from a barrel from his stock or brews a fresh barrel, or even mix a special drink ( and hands it over. While the consumer drinks they talk. Then the Dwarf leaves some money and leaves. It is more expensive to drink at a bar, but it gives an extra good throught "I drank at the bar of the Legendary Brewer Urist McBrew" and mixes break time with drink time, doubling potential happiness there.

Pawn Shop just needs a good Appraiser, perhaps with some Liar, Persuader and Negociator in there. He probably wants to rent an all purpose stockpile and have some backup coins in a chest. What happens is that a dwarf who needs money sells his extra clothes or crafts he got when times are good or he made and no one else will buy/doesn't own a store. The Pawner will buy it off him and turn around to sell it on the dwarves' behalf. It gives a negative throught "S/he had to part with a possession to meet a payment lately" but prevents negative thoughts "Didn't sleep on a proper bedroom, didn't eat a proper meal" ect for a homeless dwarf.

And Dwarves can bring their own items to a Trading Depot with other races if "Allow Individual Trades" is set at Yes. They can trade their own items for what they want.

Finally, Office Manager would actually OWN a workshop and hire workers. The workers would then be paid by the Manager for the crafts instead of owning the crafts to bring to a shop. There is a bonus in productivity for workshops owned by an Office Manager instead of just being there.

Also, the 'Government' gets X of the production of any workshop which can be taken to the trade depot, and 100% of the coins which is used to pay the smither. This will make an almost self-sufficient economy with the government stockpiling a treasury to hire workers for public works: mining new rooms to rent out, smoothing a hallway to increase value, adding/changing/removing workshops and selling at a trade depot.

How's this an idea for the economy?

[Levi]

I like the idea of the restaurant, bar and some way to automatically distribute goods(eg: clothes). 

Not quite as sold on the office manager and the government. 

[EmperorJon]

I like the idea of the pawn shop, dwarves who (for example) know they can't pay this month's rent because they've not had much work, so they pawn off their jewellery or something.

[Jake]

Some of this is apparently planned, though the restaraunt and bar are likely to be combined into a single entity. I like the idea of taverns brewing their own beer onsite, but it'd also be nice if they could buy in more expensive and exotic beverages from passing merchants.

[ApolloCVermouth]

I wasn't around for the first attempt at the dwarven economy but I don't see how much of this would improve the fortress game. I seems to me that having dwarves pawning their socks to pay the rent because they spent too much at a restaurant is adding a lot of unnecessary complexity and confusion (not to mention being pretty anachronistic.) Let the humans be the proto-capitalists-- your suggestions make sense for them.

I think of Dwarven society as a parody or stereotype of the Middle Ages-- a vast peasant commune serving a small, greedy elite. Rather than tracking lots of small and irrelevant cash interactions, I think the dwarven economy should be based mainly on constructed objects with most dwarves passing along shabby belongings through dowries and wills, while the nobles furnish elaborate throne rooms. 

[chuckthegr8]

Yeah. But this is how I design my fort these days.

I designate a burrow for my Legendary Brewer with a still and well stocked with brewable plants, barrels and pots, and customers. I also made it a meeting area so they chat while drinking.

I made my kitchen right off the Dinning room and my Legendary Cook works while they wait for their freshly ordered food. Pots, food stockpiles and such are there, with finished food laid out menu style in front and a few pools filled with fish and some caged animals ready to be slaughtered in case I see a dwarf 'Who Likes rhesus meat' is getting hungry.

I also divided my workshops into little fortlets with cubicles, a pair of Fortress Guards, stockpiles, and a 'Commuter Line' to the Downtown with my restaurant, pub, statue gardens, zoos and waterfall (which I turn on only when I have more than 50 people downtown to save my FPS). Each fortlet also has their own still and guarden, but I've noticed alot of dwarves still go to the high-quality area to eat Masterwork Rhesus Roast on Masterwork Table and a Masterwork Chair inside a Legendary Diningroom surrounded by Masterwork Engravings while drinking Masterful Rum out of my Masterwork Pots. And chatting with my Legendary Champions decked out in Masterwork Leather Armor (still collecting Goblinite... someday I will get them all in steel). Then wandering through a field of Masterwork Statues and observing Elephants in masterwork wooden cages.

My miners got a special system with a few dedicated haulers who take away their ores and bring their beds along. Then one gets drowsy I dig an instant hotel right there, and these get used for a couple of months before they hit another major series of veins, and I plant another hotel. My dedicated haulers stock the hotel with booze, food and beds.

[Cthulhu Inc]

I think the best way to fix the economy would be to add in supply and demand. Ex. you have 20 rooms for, say, 50db. Only 5 get rented, so he rent on all of them drops by 1 every other day or so until they're all taken. If more dwarfs want them, rent gets raised. If you build some lower quality rooms that originally would be 45db, but the rent on he previois rooms gets to 36, the new rooms would start out at 35. If no dwarfs desire a room, then the rent would not change. Lower quality rooms are always cheaper than higher quality, unless it is at 1.

Same basic mechanism with food--if half your population is forced to eat raw plump helmets, prices on higher quality foods drop until it evens out.