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[Nilbert]

Hello all, first time posting in the forum but long time forum follower and DF player.  Steel Jackal posted it'd be great if someone with a degree in analysing economies was following this post and you could just ask him your questions... Well... I gotta phd in studying economies and such (aka, economics).  Ask away!

As a general point, for there to be a realistic like economy, dwarves will need some realistic preferences, or wants.  They also will have to value leisure and have a method of deciding if they want to work in order to get 'stuff' or not work and enjoy 'stuff'. There also has to be a more realistic scarcity of goods which would mean a much different method of production.  After all, under the present version, one dwarf can easily produce enough food for a hundred and have left overs for trade.  All this requires is a 20x20 tile room and time... And last, even if dwarvish thinking and working can be modeled more realistically, there is no guarantee an economy can be successfully built and 'work' consistently or reliably. After all, even in the real world, crazy things happen, like hyperinflation, that would easily ruin a fort in a bizarre way.

I would really love to see a realistic economy, but honestly that is asking a lot of Toady!  If he succeeded, hed likely get next years Nobel prize in economics...  That said, with player input in defining preferences, scarcity, etc., a simple flexible model could be pretty easily developed that would be a good mimic and fun...

[Sanctume]

I would put a dwarf's worth based on their skill levels, and use their personal room value as means of compensation.

We have a way to see if a dwarf has no skill, dabbling of legendary. 

How should they be compensated for this?

We can also see room value, and use the properties of those.
Room size, smoothed natural vs constructed blocks.  Building materials.  Furniture quality.  Amount of funiture.

You can even go further to match specific likes of individuals.

For military, skills on weapons, armor user skills can be used to determine material and quality via uniform and specified item. 

Let's take a carpenter with +5 skills from embark. 
Do you expect that carpenter to keep on going when he hits legendary skill level? 
Can he afford to "retire" from carpentry after making 30 masterful beds? 50? 100? 
If for this example, we use number of masterful beds, will apprentice carpenters only be allowed to make barrels and buckets until a certain level of carpentry? 

As for miners, reaching legendary can give them the option to retire to full military training where they can receive better quality weapons / armors as a progression.

Doctors, Mechanics, and others upon reaching legendary can retire to scholarship where they just do not labor except ponder and perhaps write.

[Ironfang]

I always thought dwarves were paid with alcohol.

[DrTank09]

If dwarf produces more than they are worth, not affording them isn't going to be likely.

Still, issue is that lot of jobs are going to be done only at setup, once, etc - you'll end up producing food, booze, trade goods (to pay, at least) and maybe clothes. So, going to pay the rest hauler pay, even if they're idling their days away?

Now, it means that stuff like every citizen getting royal rooms isn't possible...But what about fallbacks?
So what happens to the legendary miner who dug out the fortess on their own, including their royal room?
What happens to the legendary woodcutter who provided the materials for the fortress standing over landscape and wood for the forges beneath?

They can't pay, so...Move out? When they can simply make their own legendary rooms?
Which is why nobles jailed and hammered those, I suppose. Either way, feels like there's some injustice here.

Here is the thing, if we treat the game as we are the company and the only stuff we can actually see is the stuff we own, then this system can work.  The legendary housing we give to dwarves isn't just payment for a short period of time, it is like tenure.  We are building this nice room for them to show that hey, no matter what, I'm going to put you to use, and if not you have earned this.  It is an employee reward.  Even if I'm not paying you anymore because you have done your job, this is your house and retirement.  If you decide that you want to start over with a new skill because you are getting bored and even though I no longer need a legendary miner, I'll let you start over somewhere else.

If room value exceeds dwarf cost, then no offering to the mountainhome required.

So yes, we have dwarves idling their lives away because we don't need them.  They are just like any other retail and manufacturing job if you have ever had one.  When the work runs out, you cant just send your employees home they require money and they have entered into a contract with you and you have already paid their salary.  So what do you do when your clients have no orders?  you clean, you train them on new things, you have meetings and strategize.

So yes, there will be idling, but idling isn't just idling in this game, its baby making, relationship making, pondering, training, etc and this increases the value of the dwarf if you are going to say need that legendary wood cutter, but you are training him up as a stone smoother as well and so now if you want him to do both, you have to pay him for both jobs and each skill rate.  otherwise, its just the one skill that is being paid for.

I'm not looking for a super realistic economy, just a simple employer employee economy.  I make circuit boards for a living and regardless of whether I am making multimillion dollar panels with multiple thousand dollar boards on them, I get paid the same.

The difference between myself and the dwarves is three-fold.

1. They are salaried and can not be paid as wage labor, which requires a contract of responsibilities and demands from the employee and employer.
2. Their employer compensates them with room and board based on a number of factors.
3. They can not be fired.  If the company runs out of one type of work or can't pay the cost of a dwarf's skillset, then they must function without that dwarf's skill.

Hello all, first time posting in the forum but long time forum follower and DF player.  Steel Jackal posted it'd be great if someone with a degree in analysing economies was following this post and you could just ask him your questions... Well... I gotta phd in studying economies and such (aka, economics).  Ask away!

As a general point, for there to be a realistic like economy, dwarves will need some realistic preferences, or wants.  They also will have to value leisure and have a method of deciding if they want to work in order to get 'stuff' or not work and enjoy 'stuff'. There also has to be a more realistic scarcity of goods which would mean a much different method of production.  After all, under the present version, one dwarf can easily produce enough food for a hundred and have left overs for trade.  All this requires is a 20x20 tile room and time... And last, even if dwarvish thinking and working can be modeled more realistically, there is no guarantee an economy can be successfully built and 'work' consistently or reliably. After all, even in the real world, crazy things happen, like hyperinflation, that would easily ruin a fort in a bizarre way.

I would really love to see a realistic economy, but honestly that is asking a lot of Toady!  If he succeeded, hed likely get next years Nobel prize in economics...  That said, with player input in defining preferences, scarcity, etc., a simple flexible model could be pretty easily developed that would be a good mimic and fun...

The last bit of that quote is what I am attempting to achieve.  A mock economy that is controlled through player input.  We set the rules for ourselves, we can tweak them.  This game is all about challenging yourself to see how things go any way, right?

The thing is I was trying to figure out was a realistic cost for dwarves.  I already know the system I want to use but wanted input on costs.  quality jobs require a higher compensation because they have a higher pay output on average.

Should I just average the costs of every item that could be produced by a dwarf with this skill set and allow a dwarf with a medium skill in the profession to ply his trade to see the number of crafts made over the course of a month,  multiply that by a fraction for royalties, then multiply that by 12 to get a yearly salary?

one fairly cut gem could be worth 2-60db.  The dwarf doesn't care because it is not his property.  He was hired to do a job and that was cutting gems.  the goods produced doesn't matter to him because there is no way to see what the global economy outside of the embark is.  We have to assume that he came to us, plying his trade and that his guild requires proper compensation at a set rate.

So, because the difference in goods produced could be as much as 2-25db for a bloodstone or 60-240db for a green diamond, a scale needs to be put in place for every dwarf.  Gems are very valuable, but they are not always abundant, it would be up to the player to decide whether or not they want to wait for their rough gem stocks to fill up before hiring a cutter.  Maybe they hire the him as a gem setter instead while he waits for gems to pile up?

The only compensation we can really give them is a room, armor, pets, time to form relationships, or a job they want to learn, or a craft they want to make.  If I don't need to sell something to pay for the dwarves, I can either stockpile it or think of it as a bonus for a dwarf I like.

Let's take a carpenter with +5 skills from embark. 
Do you expect that carpenter to keep on going when he hits legendary skill level? 
Can he afford to "retire" from carpentry after making 30 masterful beds? 50? 100? 
If for this example, we use number of masterful beds, will apprentice carpenters only be allowed to make barrels and buckets until a certain level of carpentry? 

As for miners, reaching legendary can give them the option to retire to full military training where they can receive better quality weapons / armors as a progression.

Doctors, Mechanics, and others upon reaching legendary can retire to scholarship where they just do not labor except ponder and perhaps write.

The dwarves never retire, but if I don't need them, they get reassigned to a different department.  Either that or we can say that once they hit a certain age limit, or a certain amount of time working for us, they are then allowed to do something else.  maybe my miner wanted to create a great work of art someday.  He's been working with me for 50 years, its time for him to retire.  He loves malachite and earrings.  I'll let him make malachite earrings until he has, and then once he is legendary there, maybe I'll retrain him, or I'll give him time to find a wife.

[DrTank09]

I always thought dwarves were paid with alcohol.

Dwarves aren't paid with alcohol, alcohol is a basic dwarven right.

[Ironfang]

I always thought dwarves were paid with alcohol.

Dwarves aren't paid with alcohol, alcohol is a basic dwarven right.

Dwarves have rights? I wish I knew that before the whole, flooded stockpile incident involving the ice.



But from what I am seeing, the solution you are looking at being a good boss and rewarding effort. In reguard to the economic principles, you first have to look at economics in a more historical sense. Even then, it is complex due to the fantasy nature of the game. Even in an academic setting, economics are known as a very "soft" study. No offense to economists, to do such an undertaking is respectable. But programming something of such volatile and variable nature would be a tremendous undertaking, requiring not only an economist, but a few historians. Proper economic behavior will likely only occur properly after DF produces sentience.

[Nilbert]

The last bit of that quote is what I am attempting to achieve.  A mock economy that is controlled through player input.  We set the rules for ourselves, we can tweak them.  This game is all about challenging yourself to see how things go any way, right?

The thing is I was trying to figure out was a realistic cost for dwarves.  I already know the system I want to use but wanted input on costs.  quality jobs require a higher compensation because they have a higher pay output on average.

Should I just average the costs of every item that could be produced by a dwarf with this skill set and allow a dwarf with a medium skill in the profession to ply his trade to see the number of crafts made over the course of a month,  multiply that by a fraction for royalties, then multiply that by 12 to get a yearly salary?

DrTank09, I agree that a mock economy would be a great goal.  As for input on costs, as the wage isn't be determined by supply and demand, it is really arbitrary and based on whatever someone thinks is realistic.  The 'weighted scale approach' is one method that I think a lot of the posters on the forum like, such as haulers earn one times the minimum wage rate, gem cutters earn 1.5 times the minimum wage rate, etc.  The scales can then be aggregated (1 for each hauler, 1.5 for each gem cutter, etc. all added together); this gives the total adjusted number of workers.  If you want a situation where every dwarfbuck is paid back to the workers, you could then divide the total production in a year by the adjusted number of workers and this gives you the minimum wage.  This could be adjusted each year as total production will change.  You could also through in a markup for the nobles (10% of production?) or for the horde.  As for accumulating wealth, why not private stockpiles filled with items of the appropriate value?  Crafts have a low value so they are easily divisable, stack well in bins, and quick to produce.  How to get the right number in each stockpile would be a challenge but this would be in my opinion a cool method for wages.

But from what I am seeing, the solution you are looking at being a good boss and rewarding effort. In reguard to the economic principles, you first have to look at economics in a more historical sense. Even then, it is complex due to the fantasy nature of the game. Even in an academic setting, economics are known as a very "soft" study. No offense to economists, to do such an undertaking is respectable. But programming something of such volatile and variable nature would be a tremendous undertaking, requiring not only an economist, but a few historians. Proper economic behavior will likely only occur properly after DF produces sentience.

Ironfang, economics is considered a soft science, not a soft study.  Its called a soft science as we very rarely can conduct experiments in the traditional sense, like in chemistry or biology, as our 'test subjects' are people (we are social scientists after all).  Instead, we have to rely on assumptions, like in some branches of physics, and then conduct our hypothesis testing using a highly developed and complex method of statistical analysis called econometrics.  This is what is meant by 'soft.'  Also, there are plenty of models that don't require sentience, just a decision formula, preferences, and goods is the minimum.  These can be complex or simple.  Last, there is a branch of economics called economic history and there is a lot of work done on explaining and modeling medieval economies as well as economic thought during that period of time.  In fact, my specialty is economic history and do see the value of a historical view.  Further, dwarves in my opinion are horders, so the fantasy element could easily work into the preferences.  Dwarves like stuff... lots of shiny stuff...  Elves (which I always have in my fort) don't like to work and don't care about stuff.  Preferences!  All we need is a labor leisure decision formula and all would be well.

[Ironfang]

The last bit of that quote is what I am attempting to achieve.  A mock economy that is controlled through player input.  We set the rules for ourselves, we can tweak them.  This game is all about challenging yourself to see how things go any way, right?

The thing is I was trying to figure out was a realistic cost for dwarves.  I already know the system I want to use but wanted input on costs.  quality jobs require a higher compensation because they have a higher pay output on average.

Should I just average the costs of every item that could be produced by a dwarf with this skill set and allow a dwarf with a medium skill in the profession to ply his trade to see the number of crafts made over the course of a month,  multiply that by a fraction for royalties, then multiply that by 12 to get a yearly salary?

DrTank09, I agree that a mock economy would be a great goal.  As for input on costs, as the wage isn't be determined by supply and demand, it is really arbitrary and based on whatever someone thinks is realistic.  The 'weighted scale approach' is one method that I think a lot of the posters on the forum like, such as haulers earn one times the minimum wage rate, gem cutters earn 1.5 times the minimum wage rate, etc.  The scales can then be aggregated (1 for each hauler, 1.5 for each gem cutter, etc. all added together); this gives the total adjusted number of workers.  If you want a situation where every dwarfbuck is paid back to the workers, you could then divide the total production in a year by the adjusted number of workers and this gives you the minimum wage.  This could be adjusted each year as total production will change.  You could also through in a markup for the nobles (10% of production?) or for the horde.  As for accumulating wealth, why not private stockpiles filled with items of the appropriate value?  Crafts have a low value so they are easily divisable, stack well in bins, and quick to produce.  How to get the right number in each stockpile would be a challenge but this would be in my opinion a cool method for wages.

But from what I am seeing, the solution you are looking at being a good boss and rewarding effort. In reguard to the economic principles, you first have to look at economics in a more historical sense. Even then, it is complex due to the fantasy nature of the game. Even in an academic setting, economics are known as a very "soft" study. No offense to economists, to do such an undertaking is respectable. But programming something of such volatile and variable nature would be a tremendous undertaking, requiring not only an economist, but a few historians. Proper economic behavior will likely only occur properly after DF produces sentience.

Ironfang, economics is considered a soft science, not a soft study.  Its called a soft science as we very rarely can conduct experiments in the traditional sense, like in chemistry or biology, as our 'test subjects' are people (we are social scientists after all).  Instead, we have to rely on assumptions, like in some branches of physics, and then conduct our hypothesis testing using a highly developed and complex method of statistical analysis called econometrics.  This is what is meant by 'soft.'  Also, there are plenty of models that don't require sentience, just a decision formula, preferences, and goods is the minimum.  These can be complex or simple.  Last, there is a branch of economics called economic history and there is a lot of work done on explaining and modeling medieval economies as well as economic thought during that period of time.  In fact, my specialty is economic history and do see the value of a historical view.  Further, dwarves in my opinion are horders, so the fantasy element could easily work into the preferences.  Dwarves like stuff... lots of shiny stuff...  Elves (which I always have in my fort) don't like to work and don't care about stuff.  Preferences!  All we need is a labor leisure decision formula and all would be well.

Oh, your study is economic history?  Why didn't you say so? By all means, your expertise is appropriate here. And thank you for your correction on study vs science.

But for a system that would be simple to implement, why not use the system of moods and happy thoughts dwarves already have? If a dwarf does not get their pay, say yearly, they work far less efficiently. The more each one is paid, the happier they are, and better they work. That makes the player pay their best workers more. So if you want your legendary carpenter to make beds of higher quality faster, you give them more pay. That way, it is balanced by the player.

[Fleeting Frames]

Happiness doesn't affect effectiveness to my knowledge; needs do - and I don't think syndromes can target those.

That aside, making their praying and leisure needs red would help simulate going on strike.

[Ironfang]

Needs can work, same principle. I just forgot the terminology relevant to it. I did not want to say "the focusing things".

[DrTank09]

you want a situation where every dwarfbuck is paid back to the workers, you could then divide the total production in a year by the adjusted number of workers and this gives you the minimum wage.  This could be adjusted each year as total production will change.  You could also through in a markup for the nobles (10% of production?) or for the horde.  As for accumulating wealth, why not private stockpiles filled with items of the appropriate value?  Crafts have a low value so they are easily divisable, stack well in bins, and quick to produce.  How to get the right number in each stockpile would be a challenge but this would be in my opinion a cool method for wages.

I'd love to be able to do this, but I think the one thing we are missing for this to work properly, is a stockpile value cap.  We can set what type of goods, what quality, what material, but we can't set how much value each good could be worth or what the total stockpile could hold.  I think this is what we need for this sort of system to work.  I hope that this capability is added later on, if not through vanilla, then through dfhack but for right now, I am looking for options that we can create quickly through our available means.

One issue I am seeing with the thought that we pay all dwarvebucks out evenly, is that this doesn't leave room for dwarves that don't get paid.  Even if we have the system in where we can divide up all the loot appropriately without sending it back to the mountainhome, we still need to find a monetary value that each dwarf is worth.  If we do go with the system of variable cost (i.e. 1x, 1.5x, 2x where x is the base cost) then what is a reasonable number that we can successfully increase based off of skill so that there is not such a huge difference between my hauler and my blacksmith?

[Nilbert]

Oh, your study is economic history?  Why didn't you say so? By all means, your expertise is appropriate here. And thank you for your correction on study vs science.

But for a system that would be simple to implement, why not use the system of moods and happy thoughts dwarves already have? If a dwarf does not get their pay, say yearly, they work far less efficiently. The more each one is paid, the happier they are, and better they work. That makes the player pay their best workers more. So if you want your legendary carpenter to make beds of higher quality faster, you give them more pay. That way, it is balanced by the player.

Ironfang, my pleasure.  Using the present happy thoughts makes sense (not sure on moods which seem pretty random).  Happy workers tend to be productive workers; pay though isn't what I think makes a worker happy.  Rather, it is what they can get with the pay; plus, what makes it interesting is that work does the exact opposite than make a worker happy (aka, the labor leisure tradeoff).  Time off work to enjoy things purchased with the pay generates the happy thoughts, not having those makes them stressed.  In economics, we have a theoretical construct measure of happiness called a 'util.'  The more utils a person has, the happier they are.  Does the 'good thoughts' mechanism work in a similar manner?  That is, are happier thoughts cumulative (and can they be negative)?  I have never used the dwarf therapist and am unsure.  If they do, the dwarf is likely already set up as a rational economic person.

What I am thinking in terms of a labor leisure model is that a dwarf makes 'a decision' on how many hours to work and then how many hours to not work.  If they work more hours, they get more pay but they have less leisure.  Ideally, a model would allow each dwarf to make a decision using such a model in that pay allows more goods to enjoy during leisure time but more pay (and thus goods) means less leisure.  The dwarf chooses the balance based on an assigned wage, assigned cost of goods, and preferences on leisure (and goods) that makes him/her happiest.  The actual decision model could really be a simple heuristic to begin with (have to think on that some more). 

I'd love to be able to do this, but I think the one thing we are missing for this to work properly, is a stockpile value cap.  We can set what type of goods, what quality, what material, but we can't set how much value each good could be worth or what the total stockpile could hold.  I think this is what we need for this sort of system to work.  I hope that this capability is added later on, if not through vanilla, then through dfhack but for right now, I am looking for options that we can create quickly through our available means.

DrTank09, we are missing a value cap and that would be an interesting addition.  Simple one too I'd think.  How about this as a method.  I had my stonecrafter make a bunch of orthoclase crafts.  A standard craft costs 10 dwarf bucks (saw this looking at the craft); each quality increase increases the cost by 10 dwarf bucks (not counting masterpiece, which is 120 dwarf bucks).  Lets now assume we have a hauler dwarf, and his wage for the year is 100 dwarf bucks.  He has a bedroom and his own personal horde, which is a stockpile with bins activated but it will only take from links.  When the year ends, there is another stockpile that is set to receiving only rock crafts (no economic stones so all are same value).  It is 10 tiles in size, and it only excepts standard quality crafts.  It does not allow bins.  It should fill up with ten standard value crafts, worth 10 dwarf bucks a piece and a total of 100 dwarf bucks.  Then, the stockpile is set to accept from links only with no links (it therefore should not get any more crafts added).  It is then linked to the dwarfs personnel horde and the crafts go into the dwarfs bin.  Once this happens, the stockpile with 10 tiles is removed.  Repeat for all dwarves...  Of note, for higher quality crafts, the number of tiles could be decreased so that values match up.  Would this work?

One issue I am seeing with the thought that we pay all dwarvebucks out evenly, is that this doesn't leave room for dwarves that don't get paid.  Even if we have the system in where we can divide up all the loot appropriately without sending it back to the mountainhome, we still need to find a monetary value that each dwarf is worth.  If we do go with the system of variable cost (i.e. 1x, 1.5x, 2x where x is the base cost) then what is a reasonable number that we can successfully increase based off of skill so that there is not such a huge difference between my hauler and my blacksmith?

Yah, all dwarves would be paid something unless their base was set to zero.  My thinking that zero base would only apply to elves... 

As for monetary value that each dwarf is worth, if all their goods are in a bin, one could theoretically move the bin to the depot during a trade and see the accumulated value (each has a number).  The problem would be getting it back into the personal horde.  Or one could just be a tally of yearly pay for each dwarf in excel or something. 

As for skill, I see this as a fun question and I think it depends on how much wage gap you want in your fort.  In medieval days, wage gaps were enormous between the highly skilled 'professions' and the laborers, journeymen, etc. (the unskilled).  Serfs and peasants virtually owned nothing and had no pay.  In DF, they'd have food, booz, and place to sleep.  This was about 95% of the population.  I see these as the farmers, haulers, animal and fishing dwarfs, non-lord soldiers (most soldiers received little more than food, drink and lodging as wages), bards, performers, miners, wood choppers, dyers, wood burners, furnace operators, scholars, scribes (after all, monks weren't supposed to own anything), and all elves (no matter what skill level or job, unless king, which case yikes). These guys would have something like a 0.2 base and no matter there skill level they still make the same.  The rest are the skilled labor (except the nobles who are 'special').  In medieval times, guild masters got all the money (just look at the old Dutch paintings of these guys).  These dwarves make 0.2 base until expert, when they increase 0.2 or 0.3 per skill level increase (I am not sure how many levels there are); nonetheless, the max (legendary) should be a base 2.  That means they make 10 times the amount as the unskilled.  That leaves the 'lords' of the army and the nobles.  Well trained soldiers I think should be seen as something like a knight, which did have more than the unskilled but nowhere close as the rich burghers (guild masters).  I'd put them at 0.5 on reaching lord status.  Last, the nobles.  Militia commander, the general, should get base 1.  Captain of the guards (likely the most corrupt guy in the fort...) base 1.5.  Militia captains 0.8, same as hammerer and champion (who I see as an old retired soldier on a good pension).  Broker 1.0, manager 1.0, medical dwarf 1.0, accountant 1.1 (takes off the top but not enough to be caught...).  Mayor should be 2.0 like the guild masters (typically they would always come from the guild masters).  Last and certainly least, the 'real' nobility.  First of all, they shouldn't work.  As for how much they take, I'd max it out to be about half of the yearly production minus the cost of the army.  This would make it population dependent...

[DrTank09]

DrTank09, we are missing a value cap and that would be an interesting addition.  Simple one too I'd think.  How about this as a method.  I had my stonecrafter make a bunch of orthoclase crafts.  A standard craft costs 10 dwarf bucks (saw this looking at the craft); each quality increase increases the cost by 10 dwarf bucks (not counting masterpiece, which is 120 dwarf bucks).  Lets now assume we have a hauler dwarf, and his wage for the year is 100 dwarf bucks.  He has a bedroom and his own personal horde, which is a stockpile with bins activated but it will only take from links.  When the year ends, there is another stockpile that is set to receiving only rock crafts (no economic stones so all are same value).  It is 10 tiles in size, and it only excepts standard quality crafts.  It does not allow bins.  It should fill up with ten standard value crafts, worth 10 dwarf bucks a piece and a total of 100 dwarf bucks.  Then, the stockpile is set to accept from links only with no links (it therefore should not get any more crafts added).  It is then linked to the dwarfs personnel horde and the crafts go into the dwarfs bin.  Once this happens, the stockpile with 10 tiles is removed.  Repeat for all dwarves...  Of note, for higher quality crafts, the number of tiles could be decreased so that values match up.  Would this work?

This would work, but the micromanagement leaves for so many errors that I would quickly loose correct count.  The craft may be of standard quality, but how much orthoclase are we going to use to make those crafts.  Eventually the worker would become so skilled that we no longer have standard quality crafts unless we pull another worker from another area to take over.

Coins would be the ultimate value standard, but the problem lies in that stack can not be broken up except for during trade and those broken up stacks must be sent with the caravan for them to stay as stacks.  This makes it so that division of a base unit.. say 1 stack of gold coins which may be 500, can not be reduced to the .2 and .3 amounts that you speak of below.

Yah, all dwarves would be paid something unless their base was set to zero.  My thinking that zero base would only apply to elves... 

As for monetary value that each dwarf is worth, if all their goods are in a bin, one could theoretically move the bin to the depot during a trade and see the accumulated value (each has a number).  The problem would be getting it back into the personal horde.  Or one could just be a tally of yearly pay for each dwarf in excel or something. 

As for skill, I see this as a fun question and I think it depends on how much wage gap you want in your fort.  In medieval days, wage gaps were enormous between the highly skilled 'professions' and the laborers, journeymen, etc. (the unskilled).  Serfs and peasants virtually owned nothing and had no pay.  In DF, they'd have food, booz, and place to sleep.  This was about 95% of the population.  I see these as the farmers, haulers, animal and fishing dwarfs, non-lord soldiers (most soldiers received little more than food, drink and lodging as wages), bards, performers, miners, wood choppers, dyers, wood burners, furnace operators, scholars, scribes (after all, monks weren't supposed to own anything), and all elves (no matter what skill level or job, unless king, which case yikes). These guys would have something like a 0.2 base and no matter there skill level they still make the same.  The rest are the skilled labor (except the nobles who are 'special').  In medieval times, guild masters got all the money (just look at the old Dutch paintings of these guys).  These dwarves make 0.2 base until expert, when they increase 0.2 or 0.3 per skill level increase (I am not sure how many levels there are); nonetheless, the max (legendary) should be a base 2.  That means they make 10 times the amount as the unskilled.  That leaves the 'lords' of the army and the nobles.  Well trained soldiers I think should be seen as something like a knight, which did have more than the unskilled but nowhere close as the rich burghers (guild masters).  I'd put them at 0.5 on reaching lord status.  Last, the nobles.  Militia commander, the general, should get base 1.  Captain of the guards (likely the most corrupt guy in the fort...) base 1.5.  Militia captains 0.8, same as hammerer and champion (who I see as an old retired soldier on a good pension).  Broker 1.0, manager 1.0, medical dwarf 1.0, accountant 1.1 (takes off the top but not enough to be caught...).  Mayor should be 2.0 like the guild masters (typically they would always come from the guild masters).  Last and certainly least, the 'real' nobility.  First of all, they shouldn't work.  As for how much they take, I'd max it out to be about half of the yearly production minus the cost of the army.  This would make it population dependent...

I really like where this is going and where your through process went.  Thank you for your historical information.  Now lies the problem of finding our variable of base cost.

lets say that food, basic lodging, safety, and a basic tomb is equal to .5
all the non-skilled non-lords will be under this .5 limit and thus no longer require being paid.

Artisans below level 10 work for the guilds and earn 1 while paying half of that to the guild until level 10 as they are only apprentices and are paying for their training.
Artisans earn 2 having completed their training at level 10, increasing by 1 each level which puts them at 7 by legendary status.  (I like the number seven)

I was thinking that soldiers should have longer contracts than regular people in order to pay for their arms and armor.  They earn only .5 for the first 30 years, after that they can continue to work as honor positions for a pay of 2 or they can retire and live freely meaning that if they decide to do any other work, they earn the .5 on top of whatever else they do.. even if it is just hauling.  The armor and weapons are theirs and go with them to their tomb.  Unretired soldiers live in a barracks, retired and honored soldiers get their own rooms.  All soldiers get a fair quality tomb and include their arms and armor.

Guild masters make the .5 off of every member in their profession.
Militia commander gets a base of 5 (Director of Defense has a salary of 205k)
Militia captain gets a base of 2 and may only be chosen from those that have mastered the art of their weapon or have worked for the 30 year period and have decided to stay.

Captain of the guard gets 4 (director of FBI has a salary of 170k)

Mayor is 10

Manager, broker, bookkeeper, etc. they all get 2.

This is all the private money going out.  So since the wealth of the nobility is owned by the state, they don't have to be paid, they just get to choose how the state wealth is used for bartering and such.. hence the mandates.

how does that look?

[Fleeting Frames]

For a more modern thought, one idea for a modding credit card of sort: Use something like Druid exp, as that skill isn't used by the game currently. Or perhaps Alchemist if one wants to know how rich a dwarf is v-g?

@Nilbert: Small note for the first section above: a dwarf can receive both happy and unhappy thoughts indeed - but being busy, doing work and creating nice things all make dwarf more focused and happier.

Though I suppose dfhack already includes a hook for job completion, so could perhaps just decrease dwarf happiness on every completed job, forcing the overseer to balance leisure with work for that dwarf.

However, stress stays around for 2 years iirc, while migrants and visitors are plentiful, giving an interesting viewpoint.

@DrTank09:

Can just ignore quality if you want when it comes to craft, or not split coin stacks. I.e. have 500 coins = 0,1.

Another interesting token might be blocks, as they're infinite with glass and clay and obsidian and wood, and also lack a quality level. Though I expect a dwarf would want royal rooms decorated with things they like rather than a stockpile full of blocks, coins or goblets , so there should be a fair possibility of using this to buy what they desire.

[mikekchar]

I'll apologise upfront because I haven't had time to read the entire thread.  Feel free to ignore me if I am ot or redundant.

Having said that, from my perspective, the biggest problem with modelling the economy without aids in the game is going to be accounting.  You'll spend your life doing data entry if you calculate everything by hand.  So, I would organise the economy around things that are already being accounted for in the game.  Pretty much that means book keeping and appraisal.

At the moment there are calculations for created wealth, imported wealth and exported wealth.  The created wealth is handily broken down.  So you can account for held/worn objects (essentially objects owned by dwarfs).  I might be tempted to issue stock for the rest of the wealth.  That would be fairly easy to do with a spreadsheet and only requires that you type in all the names once.  Then you can issue stock once a year, for instance, and keep a running total.  Nobles can be issued more stock than others.  You could then issue stock bonuses for creating an artifact, or saving the fortress from certain doom, etc.

I would not account for architecture or other things in the fortress.  Instead use it as a perk.  In other words, instead of rewarding a dwarf with stock, you can upgrade their living conditions.  Otherwise the book keeping is going to get out of hand.

Again, to keep things simple, I would not do any accounting until profit is realised.  Wealth inside the fortress is not realised wealth.  The goods are still being used for whatever purpose.  When you trade, you realise the wealth.  You can use the difference in the exported wealth to determine the actual realised wealth.  In reality, we always trade at a loss, so you could also factor that in if you want, but I'm not sure I would bother (though it would give a reason for having a good broker).

Finally, when you have calculated the realised wealth, you can pay a dividend based on the number of stocks that the dwarfs hold.  I'd pay something like 5%, but really the amount is arbitrary.  You can keep that owed money on the books, but I would be tempted to mint coins equal to the amount that you pay and keep it in a bank.  You can then RP dwarfs spending their money to get exclusive use of artifacts, or to upgrade their quarters, or to demand certain foods being stockpiled.

If you want to get super tricky, you can even track inheritance in the event of death -- with or without a tax.

Actually, this sounds like fun... I may have to try it...