Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[PainRack]

With the caravan arc in development, is the dwarven economy going to be back?
If so, I understand that the old problem in 40d was with regards to wages. Dwarves like haulers might not earn enough monies to pay for food and rent.

How about overhauling wages instead? Instead of being a town based economy, each fort is more like a company, along with its own company store and town(you know, like Hersheyhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milton_S._Hershey#The_town_of_Hershey).

Your migrants are your employees. Each employee you get, you pay their wages. Peasants obviously get paid the least, but your legendary metalsmith is going to draw very high wages. This should help rationalise the problem of micro-managing each dwarf to earn enough money.

So.... How does the Fort earn enough money instead? How about you know.... the traditional ways? Mint your own, pillage or Trade?  The next time you dump 100 thousand dwarfbucks of crafts on the caravan, you're actually buying Specie to help pay for your bills to your migrants. I can just imagine how this can tie in with town development, markets, supply and demand. Poorer caravans might bring less money to buy stuff with unless your goods are of high demand in the rest of the world, relying on barter trade instead. Shift trade in DF from a barter based economy to a money based economy instead:D

Then there would be the interesting question of rent to be paid by your dwarves and etc, you know, "taxation" so as to speak. This ignores the issue of minting specie and if you even wish to bring economics to bear on THAT. A reason to stamp coins....

[peskyninja]

economy is planned to stay away for a longtime.

[Martholomule]

I wasn't around for the economy, but that's perfectly fine with me; I prefer that my Dwarves remain Communist.

[Mickey Blue]

I'd love to see it come back just cause there is so much related stuff that is mostly useless without it.  But you always have the option to turn it off depending on which style you like.

[astaldaran]

PainRack, your idea is one of the better Ideas I've read in terms of economics...but from the players perspective you basically do this already--play to help the fort and not the individuals.  I do see the cool advantage of seeing dwarves being able to buy according to their work..but not sure how much it adds to the game.

What challenges would it add?
What fun would it add?
What FUN would it add?

things like thievery, jealousy, Risk/Reward for jobs would have to implemented/more prevalent. For example, with an economic system it should add a Reward/Risk system and each dwarf should be somewhere on a scale from Risk ADverse to RISK loving...and their dreams and hopes would play in as well.  This would play into labors..for example let's say your millitary dwarves get paid based on their rank (or skill level) but they also get bonuses for every enemy they kill..therefore some dwarves will do all kinds of daring things to kill the enemy for the REWARD but that entails a lot of RISK. Other dwarves don't have much desire for lots of REWARD or can't stand the RISK so they hide and do as little as possible.

The same idea could be extended to every job..heck even the tree feller--"hmm is it worth cutting 10 trees today and risking my life 10 times? 1 is enough for me..."

The RISK doesn't have to be lethal..or dangerous.

[PainRack]

To be honest, I was thinking more along the lines of providing a solution by changing the way players have to manage stuff. And also, to manage trade.

Right now, there is literally no reason to enter into trade with anyone else. Similarly, you have a huge excess production problem going on right now in your fort. Even if minerals scarcity was to be enforced, there is still little reason to trade with anyone else apart from the dwarves. The humans offer of two or 3 metal bars and leather is quite useless when compared to mandates.

We don't know how well the issue of supply/demand will change gameplay, but frankly, there is no "need" to engage in trade, so supply and demand won't be game changing. Your dwarves will still have excessive production. I have literally no problems in running the whole gamut of trade industries, from mason products, crafts, glass, leather, cloth.... the only problems I ever have is metal and that's due to my reluctance to bring up magma 70 z levels to the surface.


So. Let's "fix" that. You have excess production? Ok. You now have a need to actually "dump" that production by selling, because you need to meet wages or face a tantrum spiral.
Sieges can no longer be turtled off, because while you can meet all your physical needs in house, unless you have planned for it beforehand, you're going to run out of the currency to meet your dwarves wages in time.

Once you activated the economy, you're going to have to meet this challenge of minting wages, and that's ignoring how outposts, armies, or demands from the mountain home may link up with this.

If you want to be entirely self sufficient,you're going to have some means of minting your own currency which will bring about its own challenges, especially if you bring supply/demand, inflation and deflation into play there... I have some ideas along those lines, but that will depend on how the new markets and etc are going to come about.

Imagine how if rents on bedrooms go up and down based on keynesian economics. If you have excess cash floating around that could be spent, then rent go up as there's too much money in the system chasing the same amount of goods. Too little and you have reduced demand, so, rent go down to chase the number of people who can buy the services. Ultimately, don't have enough cash and you get scenarios like deflation, or just your internal economy shutting down.

This ignores the potential for tantrum spiral or the equivalent of work stoppages/strikes. We do know representation to guilds/mayor is going to come back. No money to buy goods= nobody buying food and drink= your fort shutting down as your population starve..... which leads to you not being able to produce anything to sell or mint  your cash or etc and bring it back on an even keel.... before the starving masses rise up in riot against your rule and anarchy/communism resumes:D


Of course, hermit forts could still be settled because you could simply not activate the economy by not meeting the conditions or by balancing self sufficiency in terms of wages and cashflow, minting is the idea I have in mind, although it may require some other stuff if mineral scarcity is also enforced. Taxation, internal economy on markets and dwarven shops selling government goods to your citizens.......

[PainRack]

Perhaps I should post the reason for why I posted this.


Insofar as I see it, one of the problems with the dwarven economy(not having played it) is that you need to micromanage jobs so as to ensure dwarves get enough wages to afford rent, food, drink or buying goods. This isn't "fun".

Part of the problem with this is that your fort simply has too much productive capacity. You can run an entirely sufficient fort with 30 dwarves, including haulers. Megaprojects can soak up production, but excess productivity and micro-management just doesn't sound fun to me. How many jobs can you create, how many hauling? Sure, that megaproject is probably going to get some money flowing in your virtual economy but the huge productivity your dwarves has means that you might not be able to provide enough money for your poorer dwarves like haulers.

This means that you have a limit on "consumption" in your internal economy. You need to provide cheap goods and rent, a challenge sure, but on the other hand, there isn't anyone there to actually BUY your expensive stuff like your grand bedrooms, FB meals.

So, why should there be a limit on consumption?

Changing wages from job based to another matrix, probably skill based although more exotic matrixes can be devisied would remove the "problems". You still need to produce cheap stuff, because you will have peasants and dwarven children/young adults. On the other hand, you have dwarves that are able to live and buy your more expensive stuff.
You remove the restrictions and micro-management so gameplay is more natural, without having to meet artificial limits.

ON the other hand, you can then tie this to other mechanics to introduce challenges and fun. You now need to trade with other settlements to earn specie, that or mint coins or plunder settlements or "something". So, if you lose your trading links once the economy is activated..... oops.

Don't earn enough specie? Oops. Note that the absurdity of buying out entire caravan now actually becomes a "need" rather than something done for shit and giggles. You NEED to increase the wealth of your trading networks, you need to get more money flowing into your settlement so you can meet your specie needs.

Can't provide enough wages? Witness the mood change and the begining of a tantrum spiral.

Can't provide enough goods to meet your dwarves expectation? Mood change, tantrum spiral.

Changing the trade and economy system from barter mode to monetary can make gameplay more "natural", provide reasons to do stuff like trade, plunder, add challenges of balancing a monetary economy.

Some of the challenges and rewards will need further fleshing out, pending how marketplaces,shophouses, outpost settlements, the army arc where you plunder other settlements play out. But the idea of reactivating a simple dwarven economy, in the end of the caravan arc does seem logical to me.

[astaldaran]

PainRack, I follow your logic and mostly agree.

I think one thing that needs introduced for the economy aspect to work is for individual dwarfs to use their wages to place orders. Mc. Dwarf likes walnut tables..so he goes to the workshop and orders a walnut table...maybe dwarf orders are secondary to your own (or it could be a bidding system where each dwarf bids how much they are willing to pay for the service and you as the government bids as well..say with taxation money...or you force production but this creates unhappy thoughts).

This would create a lot more demand and eliminate a lot of micromanagement (you don't put anything in the room; you simply designate it and he purchases it based on floor space/material and then he decorates it).

The dwarf would place his items/furniture/etc into rooms owned by him.

this could play into different kinds of economic systems but it might be well suited for the Gorgist economy as discussed here: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=87715.msg2391547#msg2391547

ps: It is amazing how hard it is to discuss economy without repeating what has been said before.

[PainRack]

PainRack, I follow your logic and mostly agree.

I think one thing that needs introduced for the economy aspect to work is for individual dwarfs to use their wages to place orders. Mc. Dwarf likes walnut tables..so he goes to the workshop and orders a walnut table...maybe dwarf orders are secondary to your own (or it could be a bidding system where each dwarf bids how much they are willing to pay for the service and you as the government bids as well..say with taxation money...or you force production but this creates unhappy thoughts).

This would create a lot more demand and eliminate a lot of micromanagement (you don't put anything in the room; you simply designate it and he purchases it based on floor space/material and then he decorates it).

The dwarf would place his items/furniture/etc into rooms owned by him.

this could play into different kinds of economic systems but it might be well suited for the Gorgist economy as discussed here: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=87715.msg2391547#msg2391547

ps: It is amazing how hard it is to discuss economy without repeating what has been said before.

Sounds like this is huge game changing, and probably will require a lot of work replacing the current code.