I am still working my way through the linked thread. And it is important to distiquish betweed the various types of economy, because they behave by different rules (well, sort of). I would prefer a mix of free market and feudal type economies, simply because i think they will provide the most interesting gameplay, but it realy is irrelavant to this conversation. What mtters here is the how, not the what or why.
Criptfeinds piont is a perfect example. How do you determin the value of unmined space? What if something realy good is found there? What if the player decideds they want to put a dining hall there now? What if the AI hits HFS? These are all cases that need to be handled, and the player needs to have apropriate controls in place to do so.
As to the fortress account, you do have to make sure the player does not get the (still active) fortress into an unplayable state. If there are no funds left, how is digging handled? What about food production? I think fortress wealth should be phsical wealth only, but dorfs are paid in "work credits" that do not count twords actual wealth. They are mearly a way to aquire actual wealth from the fortress. With a system that simple we can also do away with inflation models. We can do that since we are more or less dealing with a closed system, with finite resources. If a dorf makes a billion dorfbucks hauling, and there is not a billion dorfbucks of stuff available, he buys what he can and either sits on the rest or buys out caravans. I lean twords the sits on it part, as i prefer the caravans to only take phisical goods, or phisical coinage. Payment from off site (traders buying ale at the inn for example) would obey the same rules. So player interaction would be paid out of the "fortress cedit," which is onlt good on the local map, and for local units, all other trasactions would need to be phisical.a dorf who owns a shop that could not sell stuff for lack of demand wold either have to return to the general fortress work pool or be hired by a more succeddful dorf to earn credits to buy food. If they are renting something, they loos it, if they own it outright then they can sell it (prefered) or keep it. Dorf bums (dorfs with no monies and no available jobs) eat on the forts dime, drink water and sleep either on the floor or in an avaialable barracks/unclaimed bed, similar to what they do now. This would obviously make them unhappy. The price of goods would not fluctuate, except by noble mandate. This would keep things simple for the player. However, i am totaly for the idea of trade caravans refusing to take more of a paticular good. Not pay less for it, just refuse to take it. There should probably be a warning though, like a liasion telling you "the human caravan is not interested in any more mugs"
It think that is a good balace for player fun and a workable ammount of "realism"
I dont know if this whole thread sounds like a contradiction, if it deos let me know and i will clarify.