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[StagnantSoul]

So there's been some suggestions to bring back dwarven economy, some of them look like they'd be pretty good. I think, however, there should be some negative to not providing for your dwarves: revolution. Let me explain.

Okay, so currently, dwarves will just run to grab whatever the new expensive thing is like it's black friday. I don't think this is that great. It leaves used clothes all over the fortress, and is an eyesore. I think dwarves should have to pay for things such as clothes and high-quality food. Food from the kitchen would A: Fill the hunger meter longer. B: Give happy thoughts. C: Cost money. To distribute meals, dwarves would have to pay money. For biscuits, a low amount. Stews, a moderate amount. Roasts, a high amount. Unprepared meals, such as plants and butcher products, would cause slight stress, like the "drinking the same old beer" one. However, they wouldn't have to pay for unprepared foods. They could just go to wherever the food is stored and grab it, then go eat. Alcohol would cost money as well. Thus, more reason for dwarves to work. Using a well would be free. Likewise, clothing would cost money to buy at a dispensary. The more expensive the clothing, the more it costs to buy. There would be other items the dwarves could buy, too, less vital items.

These prices would be worked out by the game itself, using the same trading values as adventure mode. The building for dispensing would be made, requiring basic building materials, and some way to store the goods. Clothing would need a bin, drinks would need a barrel or pot, prepared meals a barrel or pot, and so on. The dwarf would come up, say what they want, which would probably be based on preferences mostly, and, if they have the right amount of money, they could buy what they want. Personalities would also have a play in this: a dwarf who doesn't like art would probably buy something basic, whereas a dwarf who loves art would buy something with images on it. A dwarf who likes something may pay more for it than it normally would be. Need does add value to things.

Okay, so that's the basic buying and dispensary subject done. But what about how the dwarves get these coins?

Dwarves would have pouches with them, with a certain amount of coins in them when they come. This'd work like it does in adventure mode, they just magically have some. Once they come to the fort, if you make it so, they might have to pay an amount to live their. Say, thirty urists worth of coins. A pair of gold, three silver, or six coppers. If the dwarf happens to not have this money, they'd be turned away. At intervals you apply, this living tax could be re-applied to those living in the fortress. This could be a way of doing an in-game population cap. If the dwarf has this money, your current broker or another such representative will either leave the coins where they got them from, or take them to the bank. The bank would have multiple chests/bins/whatever to store coins in, and would have all the fortresses excess wealth. Excess wealth could be made by producing coins yourself, taxing the people, or trading for coins. Coins made of other metals would have their own values relative to their cost compared to copper. Whereas bismuth would have the exact same value as a copper coin, a platinum coin would be worth 20 copper coins, 30% more than gold coins. A seller with a preference for a metal may let the coins cost more than they are worth. Dwarves would be paid for their work, which would come with basic wages that are in the raws, or, you could change them yourself at the bank. When a month/season/year or whatever time you set for payday is over, the dwarves will come to the bank and be given their coins. If you don't have enough coins, the unpaid dwarves will get large bad thoughts, maybe even throw a tantrum. Some, if they go unpaid long enough, may try to take coins from another dwarf, or steal from the bank. If a dwarf tries to steal from the bank, and they are caught, they will receive a large bad thought, in line with losing a masterwork, and, if it's set up, be subject to the legal system. Likewise, taking coins from another could break out in a fight, again, subject to the legal system.

With the upcoming Tavern Arc, it makes sense to make dormitories taxable. This would be based on the quality of the room. A meager dormitory would be cheap, any dwarf could afford that. A royal dormitory would be worth a larger amount, in the same way a masterwork costs more than a basic quality craft. Assigning a room to a dwarf frees them from having to buy the space. You could also have a vender who sells "apartments"/rooms that you designate for sale. This is yet another way to get money from your dwarves. Dwarves would pay to use a room for a month/season/year or whatever time you designate, with a season being default. All the coins from these sales would go to your bank, like the rest.

The main difference between coins in the bank and your dwarves coins is that you have a say over the coins in the bank. You can move them to be melted, sold, and forbidden. However, anything the dwarves possess, such as their clothes and coins, you have no say over. You cannot dump them, melt them, sell them, forbid them. Nothing. Same goes for their personal items, like rings and socks. The only way to repossess the coins is to wait for the dwarf to buy something. You can't get rid of a room once it's bought, you can't cancel a dwarf's rent. This is in the hands of the dwarves. Items in stores, however, that haven't been sold, are free game. Dwarves wont keep their worn clothes, these would either be disowned. You can either toss them to the traders, destroy them, whatever you may. Maybe a second hand store for items previously worn?

For each military squad, there'd be a sort of "budget". This would start out at the beginning as a set amount of urists you assign when you create the squad, and also what they earn. They earn money based on their time in service and their amount of kills. A dwarf who spends two months stationed will be owed two somewhat large amounts of gold, and a dwarf who killed fifty crundles will be owed a set amount of money for each thing he killed. This would assure that dwarves in the military wouldn't get evicted for their proud service. This money would also go towards replacing their equipment: getting some nice steel swords for the squad to replace their older bronze swords, another set of mail shirts, etc etc. Living would be prioritized over equipment.

Small items made by craftdwarves would be sold as well. These would cause good thoughts based on preference, quality, and numerity. A dwarf who likes copper and rings with ten masterwork copper rings would be very happy. A dwarf with no jewelry who likes crowns would be stressed a tiny amount. This would work just like selling other things.

Some stores could be made for less obvious things, such as self defense and pets. A dwarf could go to a self defense store and buy a shield, or buy a knife, giving a dwarf who appreciates martial prowess or is paranoid about their own fate a means to work on this appreciation during breaks. Pets would be those small pathetic animals you get, such as fire snakes and hamsters. These could be bought and brought around like a normal pet, fed by the owner, providing a small, constant happiness boost. Larger pets such as stray dogs and elephants could be bought, and cost a lot more.

Schools are also another big potential. Dwarves would pay for advancing their skills, and, depending on the teaching skill of the teacher, as well as their own listening skill, they could learn faster or slower. Dwarves would spend maybe a week game time at the school, learning the skill the school is set to teach, that can be changed at the school. This wouldn't require any special items, only a teacher that knows the skill. The teacher cannot teach higher than their own skill level in the craft, making a professional weapon smith teacher's teaching cap professional, and a legendary wood crafter teacher's teaching cap be legendary. Of course, even with legendary teaching and learning skills, you could only advance one tier at a time per lesson. The money from schools goes directly to the bank.

However, if dwarves go unsatisfied with their pay, ie, unpayed, for long enough, they will either revolt or leave the fortress. A revolt would be the dwarves doing the same thing as a child, not being able to be ordered around. They'd do whatever they please, even if that means sitting in the dining hall and doing nothing. This would be remedied at the next payday, if they get their pay. A dwarf leaving would just mean they simply are sick of living here, and leave for other fortresses. Maybe they'll come back one day. The amount of payed dwarves would be noticed by the liaison, making your fort more popular to migrants if everyone is happy.

While it may seem like it'd be forcing a new system onto you, all you'd have to do to play like normal is build the bank and have a craft dwarf produce ten stacks of copper coins once in a while. Nothing major.




Sorry for the long read. This is basically economy 2.0 in my suggestion. It mixes the tavern arc, the old economy, some new ideas, and ideas from other suggestions together. I hope you like it, and any thoughts are appreciated. It also adds a layer that you are in loose control of, adding more !!FUN!! to the game.

[Alfrodo]

Quick thought:

Wouldn't the coins system cause the broken clutter of coins everywhere that plagued the original economy?

Also, we go into detail on semi-independent academies on an earlier thread, for schools.  Which goes onto other threads..

[StagnantSoul]

Nope, because they'd have pouches they could put their coins in. My pouch in adventure mode contains a little over a thousand coins, thanks to bandits.
Also: they'd most likely buy stuff on their first break or second. Most of the money would be exchanged around rather quickly, unless the dwarf doesn't believe in material things, which I've rarely seen in profiles.

[NW_Kohaku]

OK, a few things, but first off...

Dwarves should not use coins for day-to-day transactions within their fortress.  Historically, that just didn't happen.  There wasn't NEARLY enough precious metal in the world for undiluted precious metals to be used in day-to-day transactions, and only the most major cities had more than a handful of coins in the whole town. 

In fact, the last time it was brought up, I was going to start a new suggestion thread just to talk about that point... I guess I should revive that attempt.  (Although I abandoned it due to a power outage eliminating my work...)

Second of all, this is really only a more basic version of the same systems people have been arguing in economy threads for a while.  I've seen dozens of different threads on how Supply and Demand should work, and even two or three just recently.  (One is still on the front page...)  I don't see this bringing any new ideas to the table.

Also, keep in mind, we're discarding the whole prepared food system we have now fairly soon, and replacing it with a more proper "recipe" system, anyway...

[StagnantSoul]

And that's Earth. This is dwarf fortress. I really don't know why I have to repeatedly point that fast out. One fortress probably has more gold than the entire Earth and probably more than the whole solar system.

And, I've never seen anything about revolts or leaving the fortress.

[NW_Kohaku]

And that's Earth. This is dwarf fortress. I really don't know why I have to repeatedly point that fast out. One fortress probably has more gold than the entire Earth and probably more than the whole solar system.

And, I've never seen anything about revolts or leaving the fortress.

Actually, I had Toady respond in FotF that there should be difficulty keeping dwarves around outside of the earlier parts of your fort.  I quoted it in the tavern-like academies thread, but I can't be bothered to go dig up the links again at the moment...

But more than that, your logic is still flawed, as there would be no reason for coin money in a society of mostly permanent settlers in small enough numbers for everyone to have direct relationships with one another and develop personal reputations that would serve better as credit than coinage would.

One of the biggest reasons coinage was so rare in the Middle Ages, in particular, was that religious institutions the world over (the Catholic Church in the case of Europe) was simply collecting it all, melting it, and making religious iconography with it, rather than redistributing it as coins.  It was only during time periods where there was extensive looting and melting of religious structures by mercenary bands that coins ever came into prominence in the first place.

The Middle Ages, ironically enough, were too peaceful (or at least, their wars more limited and territorial in nature,) in comparison to the earlier barbaric excesses of the Greeks and Romans or the later Age of Exploration for there to be much coinage.

(Again, I really need to make that thread on the prevalence of coinage as a symptom of how genocidal warfare is becoming.)

[StagnantSoul]

Again, you're acting like we're dealing with Earth. Why does everyone do that? This is Dwarf Fortress.

[NW_Kohaku]

Again, you're acting like we're dealing with Earth. Why does everyone do that? This is Dwarf Fortress.

Because on Earth, things happen for a reason. 

What reason is there to do what you're proposing, other than just because you say so?

[StagnantSoul]

Because it falls in line with what Toady has been working towards, and would add a new demographic to the game. Why should we do any of your suggestions?

[Shazbot]

I've never heard this "Rome melting coins" theory before and would rather like a source, since it would be exceedingly illegal.

Here's some good original sources and all I can say is these are some ridiculous kings demanding forty pieces of silver or Roman denarii if a city didn't have enough coins to fill a fist.

[Splint]

Regarding Earth vs Dorf Fort

As the player race are dwarves, it's understandable that they'd do things differently from how we silly humans in the real world would. It's fair to use Real life as a basis to start from, but adhering rigidly to it can cause some problems. Additionally, any talk of the Economy should (in my opinion,) should focus solely on intra-fortress wealth and such. Extra-fortress and world-gen commerce/trade can come later, when it's on the horizon.

Dwarves don't recognize any coinage in thier society as legit if it isn't made from the holy trinity of metal scarcity: Copper, Silver, Gold. And they use pure metals, more or less.

IRL, humans typically make coins from alloys. However, on earth, precious metals are harder to come by than in some DF worlds, which may have copper, silver, and gold out the ass and other metals being fairly hard to find. The game worlds' random natures which can make some places cities sit on almost devoid of metals while others have half the city plated with gold or what have you somewhat limits using explicit real life parallels (again, in my opinion.) Especially with dwarves, who in player care are prone to use precious metals for such silly things, in addition to thier use in making coinage.

As to scarcity of coins, the smaller rural towns probably did only have maybe a couple hundred coins spread around, if that. And most of it was probably in the hands of the local lord or church/temple and only trickled down when the family or clergy had to pay for things (like replacement doors for a house or church for example,) leaving little real money for others to use overall. In the towns and cities though, I'm sure most families probably had a few silver coins and a modest sum of copper coins or the analogue to them to thier name at least. The average people probably did thier business mostly with copper coinage in addition to bartering since it was likely somewhat plentiful in those larger population centers, while they paid thier taxes with the silver first and any differences with copper or goods.

That's my conjecture anyway, since it seems reasonable.

Bank suggestion

A bank activity zone could be just what we need, at least as a stop-gap measure until something better can be done. A "noble" with [RESPONSIBILITY:FINANCE] or something similar would go to the zone and recombine loose coins from intra-fortress dealings back into larger stacks and store all the coins in one or more chests. Obviously such a zone would need at least one chest (to hold the coins,) and ideally this noble would need an office from which he'd doll out everyone's pay at the designated seasonal or yearly time.

Reinstatement of the Tax Collector would have the guy bring the taxes to the bank as well, whereupon this bank worker "noble" or even profession would do the same recombining of coin stacks. Set up the zone and office, appoint the bank dude, and at the designated time (Seasonal or Yearly,) and dwarves will take a day or two to collect thier wages and go from there.

If there's no coins, then it'd be a matter of collecting an abstract payment voucher or something to be used in place of coins like it was originally, in case you'd rather not deal with coins. Or perhaps coin use would have an int setting, of COINS_ONLY (causing dwarves to get angered by a shortage of money in the fortress,) COINS_CREDIT (leading to dwarves being embarrassed if they have to be paid on voucher instead of coins,) or NONE (credit only, in which case the bank trip is a formality and there's no stress incurred from coin shortages as coins aren't needed.)

Of course it'd probably require such a system be able to toggle these particular thoughts in the code, which I'm sure is much easier said than it is done. Additionally, more material-minded dwarves may still be annoyed about a lack of coins to be paid with (something like "annoyed/irritated/angered by being paid without real coins." or something.)

Food and Drink

Well use free, good idea.
Local dwarven or generally cheap surface brews would probably have a hard-coded low cost in the economy. Dwarven Wine and Beer, Sewer Brew, and so on would be dirt cheap, while nice stuff like plum wine or especially sunshine would likely rune a dwarf a silver coin or two a drink, since they'd be considered "exotic" drinks.

A small bad thought from unprocessed bucher products also seems reasonable, at least in my opinion.

Ideally though it'd be nice to have a file where we could set classes of items and the price ranges they could have (with base material value added on,) so we could have wildly fluctuating prices or prices strictly regulated according to how we want a fort's economy to behave - for example mining, gem setting, pants, and handwear could be set to have no wage/price variance beyond thier base/material value, while being a soldier, leather worker, headwear and drinks are completely unrestricted and could have thier prices altered wildly by nobles with the power to do so.

A baron who likes otter leather and a mayor who values war over peace could end up jacking up the wages for soldiers (possibly also getting thier votes come next election,) and the price of otter leather pants so only he'll have the money to buy otter leather pants or something. It's a little Gamey, but it also lets you alter the amount of irritation price fluctuations might have, and let you adjust gradually to more wild price and wage changes caused by nobles.

There's also the possibility for thoughts to be affected as well, such as miners being angry about a wage alteration or someone who likes rings being excited that rings are sold at only 75% price now.

Granted, I'm mostly talking out of my ass and what I just said might be incredibly unfeasible or sound too "gamey," which I think people need to stop complaining about because sometimes things need to be gamey for something to work right, especially in regards to fortress mode where you're not on the ground youself. That said, don't go tearing my head off please.

[NW_Kohaku]

I've never heard this "Rome melting coins" theory before and would rather like a source, since it would be exceedingly illegal.

Here's some good original sources and all I can say is these are some ridiculous kings demanding forty pieces of silver or Roman denarii if a city didn't have enough coins to fill a fist.

The units of coinage was used as a unit of measure, similar to how Celcius isn't a real, physical object, but just something you use to count some other object's status.  The Middle Ages were credit-based ages.

Anyway, if you want a source, the first that comes to mind (and is closest to my hand) is chapter 10 of David Graeber's Debt: The First 5000 Years. 

[NW_Kohaku]

Regarding Earth vs Dorf Fort

As the player race are dwarves, it's understandable that they'd do things differently from how we silly humans in the real world would. It's fair to use Real life as a basis to start from, but adhering rigidly to it can cause some problems.

The problem is, you're talking about making things deviate from reality when there's no good reason to do so, and it actually makes the game worse to ignore real-life solutions to the problems that players will face in the game, itself. 

There are real-life reasons why coins were not used in everyday transactions inside a village for getting a small amount of butter to last through the next couple meals from a neighbor.  Their society, frankly, just wasn't as capitalistic as it is today, or as much as Adam Smith would like to delude himself into thinking. 

There is a reason that Dwarf Fortress pretty much HAS to start off communist, and only work in some semblance of capitalism after the fortress is well-established. 

When people make threads like these, it's because they don't understand the socioeconomic principles at work, and they're just throwing things out because they think they "should be like that", not because they actually were.

[Splint]

I'm not saying ignore such things entirely, but it isn't right to, in the context of a game, stick rigidly to it. Video games have the freedom to be a little more loose with things, so long as it makes sense in the context of the game. Magic A is Magic A, not Magic B, if you will. Poor example but it's best I can come up with on short notice. Gravity doesn't affect things like it should, and levers rely on an abstraction that allows levers miles away from thier hook-up with no discernable connection work, and yet it seems like this strange way of doing things might be here to stay because if it did follow strict real life rules, we couldn't build the hopelessly complicated monuments and other systems we can. At least until more suitable systems are put into place if nothing else.

And most people aren't socio-economic experts (myself included.) They may do some cursory research with a book or two and wikipedia plus a few source sites stemming from it, but otherwise they're going to be working off how we, as modern IRL people, see things; it's just a fact that only a handful of people even in this particular community will have the knowledge or the willingness to attain it (as economics-related stuff tends to be a fairly boring topic to most people from what I can tell.)

Economics are also biased based on our own society whether we like it or not, and unfortunately it's going to muddy the waters with suggestions like these. The vast majority of humans on earth now, and those living in major cities with reliable power and whatnot, just don't really seem to deal with bartering anymore. Especially not in developed nations where I'm certain most players of this game come from. So thier suggestions may have some genuine data backing it, but more often it'll be based off what they see as common sense, which to more knowledgeable people such as yourself and others, might cry foul of for justifiable reasons.

We use money in everyday purchases, and in media money is sometimes a concern even in fantasy settings such as DF, where it seems that precious metals while still uncommon are at least common enough for currency to be commonplace as opposed to only a miniscule number silver or copper coins a person - everyone with a coin pouch ingame in Dwarf Fortress usually has at least one or two gold coins on them for example (or at least most of the bandits I kill in adventure mode always seem to and a great many civies whose pockets I examine as well,) so it's reasonable that the average player will make the assumption about dwarves in this game doing the same.

Now I, as an idiot peasant with little understanding of how economics work other than "Money in, thing I want out, increase quantity of money as needed for scarcer/harder to make stuff," I personally tend to favor more game-type solutions until better and more immersive stuff can be made possible so my own ignorance of such matters can be partly left by the door, simply because I can't, with my limited knowledge, come up with more immersive things that don't run on strictly "Because this makes more sense than that" or "Because I said so" reasoning.

EDIT: Spoilered because it gets pretty damn rambly.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I will add I'm aware things like scarcity and so-on are planned for external trade, but it's going to be a long time before that comes into play, and some liberties need to be taken somewhere sometimes, as well as most suggestions coming more from internal fortress stuff. In DF, until farming is made more difficult, food and drink can potentially be near-limitless, while you're lucky if you have new pants four years from now and your shoes aren't practically falling apart and are only held together by antlers and phlegm. Hell, it seems like having constant (and severe,) shortages of things besides money and food would end up causing riots among your dwarves.

If not, we may end up with a game so needlessly complicated (by which I mean more than it already is and is getting, which are reasonable levels in my opinion,) that trying to wrap your head around everything may as well be akin to making a hyperactive FPS player try to play EVE Online. Most of the time I'm guessing that statistically they'll give up and not bother with the game.

Sorry, starting to ramble a bit but I'm going to keep this flawed-logic train rolling. Frankly I wish people'd be limited to suggestions that are feasible with the game as it is or how it'd be next release. Not the stuff mods can handle, but things with current or the next iteration systems in place can manage. Someone made a thread about service industries, and come next release the game might be able to handle something like that for example, since there'll be bards, scholars, and so on roaming around. The next logical step is something similar but locally, like someone being paid to bring food to miners or whatever.

All this stuff about economic overhauls though, the economy just isn't that important to gameplay right now or the near future, and until Toady says he's going to start work on it, we should just keep our keyboard-yaps shut and keep our ideas on file somewhere to unleash at the more appropriate time. Who knows, maybe that time will come after next release so you can gouge visiting tavern patrons for gold and silver to decorate your mayors- I mean uh... Something something competition?

[Shazbot]

Don't belittle yourself, Splint. You have the same brain any of us do.

This book? Interesting choice judging from its review. Five pages into a somewhat older document bears an interesting line. "At the same time it must not be taken to imply the rare use of cash payments, since debts were recorded while cash transactions were not." And as well have many documents of kings giving the right to mint coins to numerous nobles and churchmen, not to mention regulations against the debasement of currency or studies of the relative silver quality and weight in varying coins, we can only assume coins were worth the trouble to document them so extensively. Why else, then, would fiat money in writ and not backed by gold coins be such a ridiculous notion played for laughs in Faust? It is not, therefore, unreasonable to operate the economy on coins from a "realism" perspective. Credit should be tracked inside the fortress and coins exchanged to correct debts when they reach a certain threshold; bar tabs, etc. This reduces the need for coin-hauling jobs while still holding true to the fundamentals of 'shop credit' that were well recorded in the middle ages. Failure to pay up might lead to the hammerer making his rounds. [ETHICS:DEBT:PUNISH_SEVERE]