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[HartLord]

Real world cities however can have millions of people. 

Cities of the 1300-1400s most certainly did not have millions of people. Most modern cities don't have millions of people.

A quick glance around Wikipedia found me this listing that shows the absolute largest city in the world in 1400, Hangzhou, had at most 1.5 million people. It is much more likely it did not even have 1 million people, and the city actually lost population by the 1500s.

Most cities of the time period would fall in the 50 thousand to 200 thousand population range at max.

Going further back in time cities have even less people.

[Andeerz]

At the moment there is no choice as to whether to X or Y in your example.  A dwarf does not have to decide whether it wants to eat goat meat or get itself a new *pig tail cloak*.  Provided that both items are in stock it can have both since both items are freely available and not commercialised, there is no need to evaluate whether it would rather have one or the other. 

Except in cases where one or both items are not available to take freely.  This is where being able to steal, barter/trade, beg, or receive a gift would be really nice to have (from the dwarf’s point of view).

I cannot think of a situation where pricing will work better than direct rationing.

The dwarves might if we give them the behaviors necessary.    Or maybe they will agree with you.   

 
Ultimately there is a whole legion of factors that apply in a real-life economy that do not apply in Dwarf Fortress and unless Toady One turns into an elf and lives for centuries this will always be the case.  For one the population of a player settlement is capped by default at 200 people and the largest AI settlements only ever have 10,000 people. 

Real world cities however can have millions of people. 

So?  Why not try and implement as good a model as possible for the game’s purposes?  And who is to say that this model couldn’t work for smaller populations (actually… the model and others I have come across deal with much less than a million people... more around hundreds... and recapitulate macroeconomic phenomena quite nicely)?  :3   Regardless, none of us here can make the ultimate judgment as to whether it is worth Toady doing.

Also, for what it is worth, bartering and trade between peoples and individuals predated the first urban settlements by many millenia.

The deceptive part is the assumption that it will make the game easier to manage.

I never said it would be easier to manage, at least not likely easier than managing a central planned economy for a population of 200.

The truth is that it merely adds a whole legion of additional values to keep track of.

A truth I gladly embrace.

It is certainly possible to have the computer track down all the values for the player I admit.  But that comes to a question of realism, the game could tell you how much money is in every dwarf's pocket.  But how on earth do we actually know that information, magic? 

Hmmm… perhaps I am not being clear.   The agent based economic models I am talking about model individuals as having access to information as you and I would in real life.  For example, with the paper I linked, the only information handled and learned by a shopkeeper are things they would realistically come to know, such as the amount of goods traded through the shop, initial start-up costs for the shop, overhead costs, etc. 

As for what information the player could access and how, they would only have access to information that individuals in the fort could (not saying that all individuals would have access to all information!!!)... sort of similar to what you suggest with the manager.  For example, I would only be able to know how much of a good was traded through a given shop as accurately as it was recorded by the shopkeeper and if the shopkeeper and/or the document recording the information was still accessible. 

I should really formally write out this suggestion and organize it… synthesizing the stuff I’ve learned here…

In my system I have at least modelled the labour required in running the system and transmitting the information.  The player is only informed as to the current unmet demands as a result of the labour of the dwarf reporting the demand at an office and (perhaps) the labour of the noble collecting the information. 

This is fantastic and I am all for it!

Internal commerce requires us to keep track of all the existing values (supply+demand) AND a whole set of existing values, in order to make far more complicated maths about prices basically.  All of this however adds no additional functionality into the game at present.

At present, I agree with you, no.  But as behaviors get more complex as planned… it might and, I think, likely will.  We really can’t know until we try.

The manager is more than just the player.  The manager represents the fact that things do not run themselves and that there is labour involved in administrating a centrally planned system.  However the 'Player's Labour' is too much of a factor at present, I would like to make it for instance so that in order for the player to do anything it must be 'done' by a suitable noble, so essentially the only thing the player does is control nobles. 

Ok.  I understand now.  I actually like this. 

Trade however is unlikely to happen.  This is because the other dwarf has nothing to give the dwarf in return for the microline table, since everything he has was taken from the stockpile for free.  If the dwarf comes along with something that he does not want but he knows the microline table dwarf wants then the microline table dwarf will refuse the trade because he can simply take the item from the stockpile once the other dwarf gives up and stockpiles the item. 

This assumes that the dwarf is willing to part with the thing the table-owning-dwarf wants without something in return.  What if it is useful to the dwarf?  Useful enough to not want to give it up for free back to the fort, but not so useful that she wouldn’t be willing to give it up for a microcline table. 

The only kind of trade that is actually possible is where one dwarf only wants a table in general and the second dwarf wants specifically a microline one; agreeing to share items that are sharable also makes sense (items having multiple owners).

An agreement to share is another solution to a demand in addition to trading or stealing or what-have-you.  This should also be something allowed in the game.  And the models I suggest in no way exclude this.

No, most of the things that you and presumably the overpriced paper you are linked too take for granted as somehow natural are anything but. 

First off, sorry about the pay wall.  Here is a free version should you care to read it: http://www.econ.brown.edu/fac/Peter_Howitt/publication/horg.pdf

Second off, what am I taking for granted as natural? What do you even mean by natural?  And what does it matter?

Anyway… it did get me thinking… I should have said that the default situation would be that every individual has the option to either steal, barter, or ask for what they want, as well as to give stuff freely to other individuals.  Essentially, the individual determines and enforces property rights until other structures are in place to do so (i.e. government institutions).  This would lead to a decentralized economy of some sort on its own.  All of these still must take into account value of not just commodities but also the intangibles (fears, hopes, etc.), and actually these intangibles would be what determine the values of commodities, at least largely at first.  Gotta think this through a bit more... 

People's very thinking is determined by the basic social order they live in and this determines their economic behavior+logics.  The basic social order is POLITICAL act not an economic one, so to use an analogy economics is simply the smoke rising from the political fire. 

It is an foundational political decision that things are for sale and that people have only limited wealth to use to buy things.  This is enforced by a state with laws backed up with police and armies.  As a result we end up with a particular psychological setup by which we have to rank all our desires and this leads to all the supposadly spontaneous economic behaviours described by economists.

What do you mean by political vs. economic? 

Regardless of semantics, I fail to see how anything I say necessarily refutes this or is in conflict with this concept at a fundamental level with the exception that a decision that something is for sale (and its enforcement) can be an individual one.

And even the most simple of decisions involves a ranking of desires.  For example; if I have the choice between getting eaten by a lion I just encountered or running away, I obviously would rank running away from the lion above being eaten.  Even the fruit flies I work with for a living make calculated decisions, with certain choices being ranked above others measurably!

As another perhaps more relevant example… let’s say in proto-human times, I find a rock and pick it up and want to make something with it, but someone else wants to make something else with it.  Regardless of any formally recognized “ownership”, I, as the person in closest interaction with the rock, have to make the choice whether or not to go ahead and do what I want to do with the rock, or accommodate the wishes of the other, which in this case would be exclusive of my wishes.  If I end up doing what I want with the rock (essentially declaring that I have the rights over this rock… in other words I own it), I will have to back it up myself in the absence of any other institution. If I end up giving the rock to the other person, I will likewise have to deal with the consequences; I will have given up not only the rights over the rock, but the opportunity to do something I wanted with it which might have been important for my survival or happiness (not to mention any other social ramifications).  However, as a third option… Instead of just giving it to the other person, I could also ask for something in return now (barter) or at a later time (credit of sorts) to compensate for my lost opportunity to ensure my survival or happiness, in which case everyone gets what they want (or something close to it).   

This last option is a decision (I guess that “political” decision you talk about) that determines the rock is for sale.  What determines that people have limited wealth in this case is the fact that there was only one rock in that place and time appropriate for the things me and the other proto-human wanted to make, that I was closest to it and picked it up first, and that making it into one thing precludes making it into another.  Enforcement of my decision would depend on how much the other person respected me, or how much stronger or persuasive I was compared to the other proto-human, unless I had buddies to back me up.

If this is in keeping with what you meant by a “foundational political decision”, then we are in agreement. 

There is no need to prohibit most of those behaviors because they do not make sense for individual dwarves to engage in to start off with. 

How so?  Please elaborate.

In order to have a market economy emerge items must first be coercively restricted from general availability, which is their natural state when you think about it.

Of course!  I agree entirely.  However, what happens when a person decides to "own" something as in the proto-human example I detailed above?  Is picking up the rock not coercive restriction of availability, taking it away from its “natural” generally available state?

This actually gets me thinking, though, if there shouldn’t be a more nuanced definition of ownership in the game and these models for the purposes of the game.  Property isn’t a thing, but a status of rights over an object… hmmmm…

[GoblinCookie]

So?  Why not try and implement as good a model as possible for the game’s purposes?  And who is to say that this model couldn’t work for smaller populations (actually… the model and others I have come across deal with much less than a million people... more around hundreds... and recapitulate macroeconomic phenomena quite nicely)?  :3   Regardless, none of us here can make the ultimate judgment as to whether it is worth Toady doing.

Also, for what it is worth, bartering and trade between peoples and individuals predated the first urban settlements by many millenia.

Because the problem with models is that they are typically disputable in real-life and even if they are correct in real-life this is not real-life.

I do not know how anyone can know that trading proceeded the first urban settlements by millenia.  All they can presumably tell is that items are moving between settlements, it is an assumption that they were traded.  They could equally have been stolen, given or simply folks took stuff freely from eachother's stockpiles. 

Hmmm… perhaps I am not being clear.   The agent based economic models I am talking about model individuals as having access to information as you and I would in real life.  For example, with the paper I linked, the only information handled and learned by a shopkeeper are things they would realistically come to know, such as the amount of goods traded through the shop, initial start-up costs for the shop, overhead costs, etc. 

As for what information the player could access and how, they would only have access to information that individuals in the fort could (not saying that all individuals would have access to all information!!!)... sort of similar to what you suggest with the manager.  For example, I would only be able to know how much of a good was traded through a given shop as accurately as it was recorded by the shopkeeper and if the shopkeeper and/or the document recording the information was still accessible. 

I should really formally write out this suggestion and organize it… synthesizing the stuff I’ve learned here…

I was pointing out that creating a system to inform the player automatically of all the relevant information that is needed to properly calculate the effect of their own actions on the economy aas a whole requires the player to magically have access to information that realistically they should not simply have automatically.

This assumes that the dwarf is willing to part with the thing the table-owning-dwarf wants without something in return.  What if it is useful to the dwarf?  Useful enough to not want to give it up for free back to the fort, but not so useful that she wouldn’t be willing to give it up for a microcline table. 

Something in return is the problem here.  If you take everything freely from the stockpiles then your "ownership" of the item depends upon you presently having the item or demonstrating that you personally care about the item enough that losing it will actually hurt you.

By demonstrating your willingness to hand over the item to others, you are demonstrating that the item does not really belong to you.  You hand the item over and it is not you handing over the item to the other dwarf, it is you handing the item back to the fortress. 

It is only when items are first rationed or sold that private possession becomes the kind of solid fact that allows for commerce between individuals; otherwise the item belongs to the one who holds it and thus the one who shows himself willing to give the item away simply loses legal possession of the item.

The only kind of trade that is actually possible is where one dwarf only wants a table in general and the second dwarf wants specifically a microline one; agreeing to share items that are sharable also makes sense (items having multiple owners).

An agreement to share is another solution to a demand in addition to trading or stealing or what-have-you.  This should also be something allowed in the game.  And the models I suggest in no way exclude this.

First off, sorry about the pay wall.  Here is a free version should you care to read it: http://www.econ.brown.edu/fac/Peter_Howitt/publication/horg.pdf

Second off, what am I taking for granted as natural? What do you even mean by natural?  And what does it matter?

Anyway… it did get me thinking… I should have said that the default situation would be that every individual has the option to either steal, barter, or ask for what they want, as well as to give stuff freely to other individuals.  Essentially, the individual determines and enforces property rights until other structures are in place to do so (i.e. government institutions).  This would lead to a decentralized economy of some sort on its own.  All of these still must take into account value of not just commodities but also the intangibles (fears, hopes, etc.), and actually these intangibles would be what determine the values of commodities, at least largely at first.  Gotta think this through a bit more... 

What I mean by natural is that the situation initially works out a certain way prior to anything consciously being done by political power.  I believe by contrast that the emergent economic system is a consequence (often an unintended one granted) of particular policies that are initially implemented by the political powers. 

For instance in your example the individual 'enforces' property rights, actually the individual is acting as a 1-man political power that is creating the property rights.  This however is irrelevant because we do not play with individuals unaffiliated from political structures. 

What do you mean by political vs. economic? 

Regardless of semantics, I fail to see how anything I say necessarily refutes this or is in conflict with this concept at a fundamental level with the exception that a decision that something is for sale (and its enforcement) can be an individual one.

And even the most simple of decisions involves a ranking of desires.  For example; if I have the choice between getting eaten by a lion I just encountered or running away, I obviously would rank running away from the lion above being eaten.  Even the fruit flies I work with for a living make calculated decisions, with certain choices being ranked above others measurably!

By political I mean established by social power, by economic I mean the system by which the society produces and consumes wealth. 

Yes that is the foundation of the house for certain is the kind of decision making you talk about.  Having to make a decision between two values is however, while based upon the foundation not actually a naturally occurring growth.

Putting things up for sale 'builds' the house, both economically and at a psychological level.  If things are being done on the present DF model there is no need to sacrifice some economic demands to meet others, all demands are separately met or unmet.  That means that there is also not going to arise a whole set of psychological developments also, which I will get to later. 

As another perhaps more relevant example… let’s say in proto-human times, I find a rock and pick it up and want to make something with it, but someone else wants to make something else with it.  Regardless of any formally recognized “ownership”, I, as the person in closest interaction with the rock, have to make the choice whether or not to go ahead and do what I want to do with the rock, or accommodate the wishes of the other, which in this case would be exclusive of my wishes.  If I end up doing what I want with the rock (essentially declaring that I have the rights over this rock… in other words I own it), I will have to back it up myself in the absence of any other institution. If I end up giving the rock to the other person, I will likewise have to deal with the consequences; I will have given up not only the rights over the rock, but the opportunity to do something I wanted with it which might have been important for my survival or happiness (not to mention any other social ramifications).  However, as a third option… Instead of just giving it to the other person, I could also ask for something in return now (barter) or at a later time (credit of sorts) to compensate for my lost opportunity to ensure my survival or happiness, in which case everyone gets what they want (or something close to it).   

This last option is a decision (I guess that “political” decision you talk about) that determines the rock is for sale.  What determines that people have limited wealth in this case is the fact that there was only one rock in that place and time appropriate for the things me and the other proto-human wanted to make, that I was closest to it and picked it up first, and that making it into one thing precludes making it into another.  Enforcement of my decision would depend on how much the other person respected me, or how much stronger or persuasive I was compared to the other proto-human, unless I had buddies to back me up.

If this is in keeping with what you meant by a “foundational political decision”, then we are in agreement. 

In your example what either of you think and indeed whether either of you pick up the rock matters not one bit.  What matters is what the other say half-dozen members of your proto-human group think should happen.  Neither of you can contend with the other half-dozen members, so the matter is a political one. 

The only way that you can make the decisions you speak of is if the half-dozen others decide that you have the right to do those things and they will either enforce that right, or allow you to engage in violence against others to enforce them.  What matters most therefore is not the facts of who did what to the rock, but who has the greatest amount of political power, or influence over those with political power in the group. 

That is why I call economics smoke rising from the political fire. Once both my ownership over rocks and my right to do various things with that ownership, including transfer it to others is established by the political power of the group (the fire) then all manner of complex situations of barter, trade, giving, sharing etc emerge (the smoke).

The analogy is apt because like smoke the economy drift further and further out of the control of it's original source, political power (fire). Also like smoke it works to obscure it's own basis in political power, becoming seemingly naturally emergent. 

How so?  Please elaborate.

It all comes down to the psychological effects of having to constantly decide between demands.  In a commercialized system the aim is to become a rich person and therefore free yourself from having to make that decision.  The poorer you are the more you have to decide between demands and therefore everyone is trying to get rich.

The people of the DF universe as it stands at present have never had to make a decision as to whether to have one thing they want or another.  They have already 'won the game' (they are where rich people are), there is no point in trying to increase their own personal wealth above their own demands.  If you do not have something it is because the site does not have it, this solely means you work hard to make more wealth for your site. 

Of course!  I agree entirely.  However, what happens when a person decides to "own" something as in the proto-human example I detailed above?  Is picking up the rock not coercive restriction of availability, taking it away from its “natural” generally available state?

This actually gets me thinking, though, if there shouldn’t be a more nuanced definition of ownership in the game and these models for the purposes of the game.  Property isn’t a thing, but a status of rights over an object… hmmmm…

Picking up the rock is not a coercive restriction of availability.  A person can simply snatch the rock from your hand and nothing inherently about the fact you picked up the rock given you any right not to have the rock snatched from your hand.  It is only when you have a political power backing up your legal ownership, or in a pinch decide to set yourself up as such a power, that the fact you picked up a rock becomes a property claim. 

At the moment the property rights in the game do not make much sense.  Dwarves freely privatize items from the stockpile which they do not pay for nor are they rationed.  Why does nobody evil just privatize the whole fortress supply of wealth and then take over?  It is obvious that some customary system is in place by which nobody takes seriously anyone's claim to actually own any excessive amount of wealth taken from the stockpile, making said evil plan futile. 

We would probably do well to explicitly model the present economic system so that dwarves do not own objects as such but only items that are linked to one of their demands.  They could also own items that are assigned to them by the player, for instance the furniture in their assigned rooms. 

[Andeerz]

Also, for what it is worth, bartering and trade between peoples and individuals predated the first urban settlements by many millenia.

I do not know how anyone can know that trading proceeded the first urban settlements by millenia.  All they can presumably tell is that items are moving between settlements, it is an assumption that they were traded.  They could equally have been stolen, given or simply folks took stuff freely from eachother's stockpiles. 

Thank you for pointing this out.  I have other responses to the rest of your post, but this one is exceptionally important here for reasons I hope I can cogently elaborate upon when I am done researching the matter.  It appears you are correct and I myself was operating on an assumption here!  Hmmm... the "default state" should most definitely include more than just bartering as we both have come to agree upon.  In fact, I am starting to feel that bartering in the strict sense of the word (I give you this much of X for that much of Y or no deal) might not have at all been the major method of transactions before "money" of any sort... and it makes sense, since it requires a coincidence of wants in a very narrow time frame, and that is exceptionally rare!!!  Not to mention... I think the historical record supports this, at least indirectly.  And I am starting to see some of your concerns and statements a different way...

So, now I have a question that I think GoblinCookie might have started thinking about...

How might we model the basic behaviors (what are these behaviors?) that dictate distribution of goods amongst individuals and from this get the behaviors that dictate distribution of goods amongst small groups... then to bigger groups... all the way up to settlements...?  And along the way, how do shops emerge?  And money?  I know perhaps (I COULD VERY WELL BE WRONG) the earliest documentable currency was in Mesopotamia... how was this thought to come about?  And why?

Also, perhaps the current system mimics real life a little better than I thought...

Also... I was wrong in my operational definition of barter.  I included exchange of commodity for credit in my definition.

[Waparius]

What I mean by natural is that the situation initially works out a certain way prior to anything consciously being done by political power.  I believe by contrast that the emergent economic system is a consequence (often an unintended one granted) of particular policies that are initially implemented by the political powers.

For instance in your example the individual 'enforces' property rights, actually the individual is acting as a 1-man political power that is creating the property rights.  This however is irrelevant because we do not play with individuals unaffiliated from political structures. 

As far as I know, it's true that money isn't "natural", just a way to keep track of an individual's contribution to larger groups than the 150-or-so relationships that humans can manage without social organisation. The reason I suggest giving dwarves debit accounts for internal payments and requiring money or other valuable barter for trade with outsiders is that it seems like an easy enough way for the program to abstract the natural fuzzy-logic process of "I'll make Urist some *plump helmet stew* because she works hard and deserves it. Rigoth might be good with an axe but she's lazy so she only gets -cat meat biscuits-".

 This makes it easier to give dwarves more choices in their labouring. Give dwarves the ability to give one another gifts or steal and it becomes possible to get things like rich successful dwarves supporting their spouses, desperate poverty-stricken dwarves turning to theft, rich, indolent guildmasters living on their apprentices' labour and so on and so forth.

[GoblinCookie]

Thank you for pointing this out.  I have other responses to the rest of your post, but this one is exceptionally important here for reasons I hope I can cogently elaborate upon when I am done researching the matter.  It appears you are correct and I myself was operating on an assumption here!  Hmmm... the "default state" should most definitely include more than just bartering as we both have come to agree upon.  In fact, I am starting to feel that bartering in the strict sense of the word (I give you this much of X for that much of Y or no deal) might not have at all been the major method of transactions before "money" of any sort... and it makes sense, since it requires a coincidence of wants in a very narrow time frame, and that is exceptionally rare!!!  Not to mention... I think the historical record supports this, at least indirectly.  And I am starting to see some of your concerns and statements a different way...

So, now I have a question that I think GoblinCookie might have started thinking about...

How might we model the basic behaviors (what are these behaviors?) that dictate distribution of goods amongst individuals and from this get the behaviors that dictate distribution of goods amongst small groups... then to bigger groups... all the way up to settlements...?  And along the way, how do shops emerge?  And money?  I know perhaps (I COULD VERY WELL BE WRONG) the earliest documentable currency was in Mesopotamia... how was this thought to come about?  And why?

Also, perhaps the current system mimics real life a little better than I thought...

Also... I was wrong in my operational definition of barter.  I included exchange of commodity for credit in my definition.

There should be three basic means of distribution ultimately, which have different systems of property associated with them.  Items seperately have a form of distribution assigned to them at a fortress level, similarly to how items are dumped or forbidden and the general type of item has a default. 

The first form of distribution is the default system and works as things do at the moment essentially.  The dwarves take what they think they need from the stockpiles.  Personal property in this system is uncertain and only exists in so far as a dwarf actually wants an item and the other dwarves find his wanting credible.  As a result dwarves do not directly own items, they own their demands which are linked to the items.  The dubious basis for personal property rights and the free availability of items means that individual commerce is unlikely to arise in this system.

The second form of distribution is rationing.  This means that an individual dwarf is allowed to claim a given amount of an item, either per a period of time or is allowed to possess only a certain amount of an item.  This creates a more solid basis for personal property rights than the previous system, since each dwarf is entitled to a definite amount of an item.  Provided that rationing does not meet their demands completely then individuals will naturally attempt to get around rationing by getting other individuals to claim items they do not personally demand in order to give to them, whether for free or in return for them doing the same.  This kind of behavior can either be allowed or banned by the site government; banned because it increases consumption or allowed because it keeps minorities with an abnormally high demand for certain items happy.

The third form of distrubution is commerce.  This means that in order to get an item a dwarf must hand over another item which is their personal property and of equivilant value in exchange.  The act of doing so automatically renders the item a commercial item, even if it was not a commercial item before (even a stolen forbidden item) and therefore one must be careful not to accept payment in items that are freely available.  Commercial items are legally freely tradable to others in return for other commercial items (illegally other items may be traded as well), a dwarf first seeks to meet their personal demands and then seeks to acquire wealth, preferring currency over unperishable goods and unperishable goods over perishable ones. 

The brilliance of this system is that at core all we are doing is adding two more kinds of item designation, on top of dump and forbidden.  Shops as such do not have to emerge because we do not ever have a population that is ever big enough that the nobles cannot directly deal with demands, making the whole fortress itself a shop.  As mentioned before, money cannot really originate as a system of rationing for scarce resources since directly rationing items will always work better, instead money should originate in a "devil's bargain" by which we try to motivate dwarves to work harder or more reliably by paying them. 

The trouble is that commercialised items cannot coexist with identical freely available items.  Either the freely available items are quickly gathered up and commercialised, legally or otherwise; or the law succeeds in keeping this from happening in which case the commercialised items become valueless.  The thing is that for money to efficiantly work as motivation the largest number of dwarves must have demands that can only be met by buying things, which means that not having money will have the greatest destructive potential.

This is why I call it a "devil's bargain", it's utility rises directly in proportion to it's destructive potential; the player in introducing internal commerce is betting that they can manage the destructive potential. 

As far as I know, it's true that money isn't "natural", just a way to keep track of an individual's contribution to larger groups than the 150-or-so relationships that humans can manage without social organisation. The reason I suggest giving dwarves debit accounts for internal payments and requiring money or other valuable barter for trade with outsiders is that it seems like an easy enough way for the program to abstract the natural fuzzy-logic process of "I'll make Urist some *plump helmet stew* because she works hard and deserves it. Rigoth might be good with an axe but she's lazy so she only gets -cat meat biscuits-".

 This makes it easier to give dwarves more choices in their labouring. Give dwarves the ability to give one another gifts or steal and it becomes possible to get things like rich successful dwarves supporting their spouses, desperate poverty-stricken dwarves turning to theft, rich, indolent guildmasters living on their apprentices' labour and so on and so forth.

The thing is that very few of your 'natural' fuzzy-logic processes are actually operative in the society of the dwarves at present.  There is no direct productive relationships between individual dwarves, only between individual dwarves and the fortress a whole; so there is no basis to evaluate individual merit or otherwise for particular items.

As a result none of the behaviors you mention will logically ever happen, save stealing personal items from other dwarves in periods of prolonged general scarcity.  The 'problem' at core is that all dwarves are happy to work for the fortress pretty hard for free but that is where things get interesting.

We know that in real-life that plenty of actual work is done for free, including the making of Dwarf Fortress itself. 

[Waparius]

The thing is that very few of your 'natural' fuzzy-logic processes are actually operative in the society of the dwarves at present.  There is no direct productive relationships between individual dwarves, only between individual dwarves and the fortress a whole; so there is no basis to evaluate individual merit or otherwise for particular items.

As a result none of the behaviors you mention will logically ever happen, save stealing personal items from other dwarves in periods of prolonged general scarcity.  The 'problem' at core is that all dwarves are happy to work for the fortress pretty hard for free but that is where things get interesting.

We know that in real-life that plenty of actual work is done for free, including the making of Dwarf Fortress itself.

Well sure, the dwarves don't think this way now, but they're pretty boring right now. If they get more personality there's going to need to be room for various motivations, especially to get dwarves to do unpleasant tasks like refuse hauling. A lot of my suggestion hinges on the idea that dwarves become able to assign their own labours according to their wants and needs. Which saves a lot of time (or rather, makes micromanagement a lot more optional, since players would be able to overrule the dwarves' choices) and leads to a more interesting fort.

As for the fact that there are many people who will do particular jobs for free, that should be a personality trait. And people tend to only like particular kinds of jobs that much - there should probably be a similar kind of bias in the fortress; few dwarves will volunteer to haul rocks for free, but some will happily do it to pay for their metalcrafting hobby.

(That makes me think there's room for racial preferences as some kind of editable trait, too - something that makes a given labour more preferred in a given species. After all, dwarves are "fond of drink and industry." Maybe dwarves love homebrewing as much as humans love sports, and so the vast majority of dwarves will occasionally try to brew something, regardless of the eventual quality?)

[GoblinCookie]

Well sure, the dwarves don't think this way now, but they're pretty boring right now. If they get more personality there's going to need to be room for various motivations, especially to get dwarves to do unpleasant tasks like refuse hauling. A lot of my suggestion hinges on the idea that dwarves become able to assign their own labours according to their wants and needs. Which saves a lot of time (or rather, makes micromanagement a lot more optional, since players would be able to overrule the dwarves' choices) and leads to a more interesting fort.

As for the fact that there are many people who will do particular jobs for free, that should be a personality trait. And people tend to only like particular kinds of jobs that much - there should probably be a similar kind of bias in the fortress; few dwarves will volunteer to haul rocks for free, but some will happily do it to pay for their metalcrafting hobby.

(That makes me think there's room for racial preferences as some kind of editable trait, too - something that makes a given labour more preferred in a given species. After all, dwarves are "fond of drink and industry." Maybe dwarves love homebrewing as much as humans love sports, and so the vast majority of dwarves will occasionally try to brew something, regardless of the eventual quality?)

Yes, that is how it works essentially.  Different dwarves depending upon their personalities are inherantly more or less motivated to work.  Some dwarves need no motivating, they work hard regardless, while others work very little unless motivated.  However there should be various forms of motivation, not solely money. 

All dwarves if yelled at enough would eventually work, there could be a labour for that.  However yelling at lazy dwarves is itself a labour and it would obviously be more efficiant obviously to have those dwarves doing some productive labour.  I can think of another means of motivation other than money and that is punishments.  Basically this is already in the game in a way with mandates, if the task does not get done by the deadline someone gets punished. 

It is a good idea to go beyond individual personalities however and look at the social/economic situation.  Dwarves are less motivated to work themselves if they have seen other dwarves slacking.  Dwarves are less motivated to produce items that are in abundance than they are to produce items that are scarce (this is taking in consideration population), they are less motivated if there are other people who are more skilled than they are at a given task.

Dwarves own autonomous production is best handled in exactly the same way that we deal with consumer demands in general.  Rather than demanding a finished item the dwarf instead demands the raw materials and the neccessary building in the normal manner.  Autonomous production is not exactly efficient and clashes rather badly with the regular production, since it uses the same materials and we cannot ensure that the most skilled workers end up with those materials.  That is why it is best to model it as demand, as a cost as it were. 

The items produced would have the default status of the item kind.  Only if the item kind is set to commercial status does it end up personal property automatically.  Otherwise the item must be seperately claimed as meeting a demand of the dwarf that made it in order to be owned by that dwarf, but it should do so automatically without having to take it to the stockpile and then back again. 

[4maskwolf]

Correct me if I'm wrong, GolbinCookie, but I get the impression that you don't like this idea because it introduces the potential for chaos?  But there are already so many things outside of our control in the game: sieges, forgotten beasts, and other features.  Me personally, I don't think there is enough chaos in the game: none of my fortresses die unless I want them too or I mod the game, which makes for a very boring way of life.  I think that anything that increases the chaos of the game is a good thing as long as that chaos is manageable.  Sure, it will be buggy early on, kind of like how morale is still sort of buggy, but Toady will smooth out the game-breaking bugs that occur.

[Waparius]

I've said a few times before that private labours would only take from designated stockpiles. If you don't want dwarves to waste your steel making toys, make the private bar/block stockpiles not allow steel (and to be safe, forbid iron and pig iron from them as well). Stockpiles don't need to be open to private use by default, either. It's similar to using linked stockpiles to control what kinds of goods and furniture get decorated.

The step-up in complexity of stockpile management would be offset by no longer needing to cook, brew and make clothing for your dwarves, among other things.

[MDFification]

Real world cities however can have millions of people. 

Cities of the 1300-1400s most certainly did not have millions of people. Most modern cities don't have millions of people.

A quick glance around Wikipedia found me this listing that shows the absolute largest city in the world in 1400, Hangzhou, had at most 1.5 million people. It is much more likely it did not even have 1 million people, and the city actually lost population by the 1500s.

Most cities of the time period would fall in the 50 thousand to 200 thousand population range at max.

Going further back in time cities have even less people.

At the start of the 14th century, the entire population of Sweden was around half a million people. Historical populations were low. Very low. Add that to there being a smaller percentage of the population living in urban centers as opposed to a rural existence and this makes for very small cities.

[HartLord]

At the start of the 14th century, the entire population of Sweden was around half a million people. Historical populations were low. Very low. Add that to there being a smaller percentage of the population living in urban centers as opposed to a rural existence and this makes for very small cities.

Yes, that does seem more accurate. I suppose most cities would fall in the range suggested by the D&D 5E DM Guide: 6,000 to 25,000 people.

[GoblinCookie]

I've said a few times before that private labours would only take from designated stockpiles. If you don't want dwarves to waste your steel making toys, make the private bar/block stockpiles not allow steel (and to be safe, forbid iron and pig iron from them as well). Stockpiles don't need to be open to private use by default, either. It's similar to using linked stockpiles to control what kinds of goods and furniture get decorated.

The step-up in complexity of stockpile management would be offset by no longer needing to cook, brew and make clothing for your dwarves, among other things.

In that respect both our ideas have certain similarities since we both agree that items economic status should be decided by designation. 

As I have pointed out however there is no need to introduce privatised economies in order to introduce automation of production.  Automating certain types of production (already in the game by default for cloth) is quite possible without having to introduce privatised economies into the game.  Not only is it possible but it also does not add the whole set of complications that a private economy using some kind of money introduces.

It is quite possible to automate the whole productive process from demand to production as I have pointed out without having to have any buying or selling involved at all.  That is why you cannot really argue for internal commerce based upon the desire to reduce micromanagement. 

[taptap]

"farming ought to be nerfed" - has anyone writing this run a fort strictly on eatable seeds (and no cheating with input-free husbandry)? yields are surely significantly closer to realistic in them. please try and tell us, whether you think it is more fun.

[4maskwolf]

"farming ought to be nerfed" - has anyone writing this run a fort strictly on eatable seeds (and no cheating with input-free husbandry)? yields are surely significantly closer to realistic in them. please try and tell us, whether you think it is more fun.

I'm not entirely sure who's comment you are referencing here or how that's relevant to the thread.  Take that over to the "improved farming" threads.