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[Sarmatian123]

- Treasury Workshop

In Ancient Athens people were stockpiling their gained common wealth on a hill with their God's temples.

In DF Treasury Workshop could store all metal coins. Both those own individually by citizen Dwarves and those minted and controlled by fortress (player).
Sieges could beside demand on artifacts do also demands on coins. Balanced loss of coins would be written off from all Dwarves accounts.

- Trading Depots -

In Medieval Europe, there were no banks, but some merchants were opening offices in various cities they were trading with.

In DF Trading Depots would be functioning like regular Depots, just assigned to some traders for whole year for a fee.
They would open, after you reached economic agreement with a diplomat, exception of your own civilization, as there suppose to be already an agreement.
Those would be open for trading whole year. Caravan here would be just moving merchandise in and out once a year.
Offers of buy and sell should be limited on trading civilization/town size and on actually available raw and manufactured resources in them.
You could demolish Trading Depot only after providing new one for a trader, or having contract running out.
Trader would need to move his warez to new Trading Depot first, before you could do what you want with old one though.
You could leave your coins in Trading Depots in one town and pick those in other. Or use them like a bank for safe keeping.

- Caravan/Siege Workshop

Instead of only hosting Trading Depots of others you could open your own. However to move goods there and back, there is a need to build wagons and train yaks or horses to pull them.
Sending caravan would be like a missions. Squads could be assigned for further protection of those.

- Dwarves are vassals, not slaves!

Feudal economy, despite what socialists want people to believe, wasn't based on slave economy. Feudal peasants, in the very contracts they signed for life, were getting to own own capital. They were in feudal economy the little capitalists.

This means that for their work Dwarves besides free food, free booze, free cloths, free sleeping quarters receive property, which is a stake in the embark.
The stake should be calculated depending on Dwarf's skill and category of their enabled professions. So basically legendary metal smith/legendary ax lord Dwarf should be payed double, but diagnostician, surgeon, bone setter and etc Dwarf should be payed only once. Also nobility status would have impact how much they need. Basic "wage" could be anything, like 1 copper coin per day or per month on lowest pay for example. Legendary could be payed 16 copper coins daily or monthly.
Dwarves no more pick up items due their preferences from stockpiles or eat cheapest of foods.
Cloths and beds have to be assigned. Dwarves should be able to rise general DEMANDS for what they need. Like "my cloth is xx worn and I need a new one". Given clothes would become owned by Dwarves. Cabinet, as storage, should not preserve old cloths indefinitely. Cloth should age like they would normally in a stockpile.
Food and booze can be picked still by preferences and the Dwarves liking. Cups should be like it is now, a negative felling if missing.
It would be players duty to place in timely manner metal coin deposits in the Treasury Workshop,  equal what embark is owning those Dwarves for their effort. There could be allowed seasonal or yearly delay in balancing it out though, before the peasants revolt.
DEMANDS should not be restricted only to nobility. Player should still have ability to construct chest/bag in the Dwarf rooms and from time to time and fulfill individual Dwarf DEMAND for items and goods, lowering in this way need for stored coins in the Treasury Workshop.
Demands should last longer. Like 3 years minimum. So goods can be ordered in caravan next year and another year for materials to arrive. Then demands could change for new one next year.
Dwarves emigrating from embark to new embark should be able to take their stakes with them. They can deposit those later on either in Trading Depot or Treasury Workshop.
Mayor and nobles shouldn't make any more infinite production orders. Those should be still ordered, but only if there are no free items of such sort in stockpile.

- Bow/Fletcher Workshop

Currently Fletcher Workshop's role is taken by Craft Workshop, but it should belong rather in never used Bow Workshop imho, even if still same wood and bone craft skill is used. Surely bone and wooden bolts are used way often for training purposes. This is only about bone and wooden bolts. Not metal ones.

- Fortress Value

I know it is used for different tasks, but instead of Fortress Value, maybe value of goods in Trading Depots and Treasury Workshop should be taken under consideration.
Currently there is a little point to track quartz blocks worth 5$, while tracking 1500$ worth 500 adamantine coins in Treasure Workshop does more sense. The option "hide" in "z-stocks" menu would help player to remove some objects, like blocks spent on constructions, from being continuously tracked. There could be some new command in orders, to track, but only once, all those hidden objects. The list of hidden objects could be refreshed like once a year on automation too. It could improve fps somewhat. Not hidden objects still would be view-able and accessible from z-stocks menu, as always.


Dwarven migration would be somehow subject of further alterations to balance issues. Immigration on demand? Enticing legendary artisans, scholars and artists to move in from other civilizations?

Roof of population and demographic decisions set rather by ingame choices, then editing init.txt?

Diplomacy should be more involved part of later game. Peace offers, Trade offers, Temporary Cease Fire offers (to temporarily trade even with evil Goblins), War declarations.

Intelligence gathering? Town diplomat? Civilization diplomat? Own spies? Military reconnaissance?

Riding horses for military on expedition/caravan duty for speed of travel and improved survival/success?

Civilization management, when some other settlement falls and its surviving population (king maybe?) arriving as flying refugees (becoming capital without need to bribe?).

When fortress achieves a certain value to attract FB, Titans, Cyclops, Dragons and son on, they should not be generated on begin of month and subject to vanish due reload. They should be spawned (if do not exist somewhere already) some other place on map and slowly travel to your embark, like a siege does. Tick-Tack-you-can't-reload-from-that.

etc

Toady can do with those ideas above as he pleases or nothing, like he probably will anyhow. No strings attached. Maybe better to use more flashy Dwarven names instead? Eh.

PS. I have note here with 260+ entries, so maybe I missed quite few things. I know I wrote extremely too short about some things, but  I tried to present it as concise as possible in a military fashion. Sorry for my poor broken English too, as I am not native English speaker.

[KittyTac]

Economy is coming in 20 years. Patience is a virtue!

[GoblinCookie]

Feudal economy, despite what socialists want people to believe, wasn't based on slave economy. Feudal peasants, in the very contracts they signed for life, were getting to own own capital. They were in feudal economy the little capitalists.

No socialists have ever claimed that the feudal economy was based upon slavery!  Feudal peasants also did not 'sign contracts' with anyone, in fact for the most part they were illiterate.  Basically your history is totally mangled anachronism, the whole idea of contracts is a Capitalist concept, not many contracts were involved in the feudal economy at all (illiteracy remember?).  Pretty much the situation worked on the basis of folks in power leaving the folks not in power alone as long as the folks not in power delivered the goods (the goods vary).  The folks not in power produce stuff in addition to the above requirements mostly for their own direct use but also for their neighbours or to sell to merchants and doing the latter eventually resulted in capitalism. 

In any case it does not matter what the situation in medieval times even was, because we are not *in* medieval times.  Medieval peasants are *not* dwarves.  If they were dwarves in medieval times then they would not be organised in a feudal system, unless they were not living underground in underground cities; which basically just makes them short humans.  Feudalism would require a complete overhaul of the game mechanics, the gutting of the whole present system of sites and well the un-dwarfing of any dwarves that would exist in that world.

I know it is used for different tasks, but instead of Fortress Value, maybe value of goods in Trading Depots and Treasury Workshop should be taken under consideration.
Currently there is a little point to track quartz blocks worth 5$, while tracking 1500$ worth 500 adamantine coins in Treasure Workshop does more sense. The option "hide" in "z-stocks" menu would help player to remove some objects, like blocks spent on constructions, from being continuously tracked. There could be some new command in orders, to track, but only once, all those hidden objects. The list of hidden objects could be refreshed like once a year on automation too. It could improve fps somewhat. Not hidden objects still would be view-able and accessible from z-stocks menu, as always.

Just get rid of value.  Value is what is keeping the AI from ever being able to run an economy in any kind of way that actually makes any kind of sense.  Value results in what I call the silver-spear problem, which will mess up any realistic economy in which the AI is involved.

If I make a spear out of silver that spear is inferior to one made of bronze.  But according to value, the silver spear is more valuable than the bronze spear.  That means the soldiers will trade better weapons for worse weapons, just because the value of the worse weapons is more because they are made of more expensive materials.  Instead of bothering with value simply reduce things down to a list of demands/needs and assign objects various weighting, representing how good they are at meeting those various functions. 

The silver spear then has a high money value but has a low weapon value.  That means if they are trying to get money they buy silver spears, but if they are trying to get weapons they will prefer bronze spears.  If they have no spears they will melt down silver coins to make spears, but they won't do that if they have bronze. 

This means that for their work Dwarves besides free food, free booze, free cloths, free sleeping quarters receive property, which is a stake in the embark.

You are aware that the whole idea of 'stakes' comes from about the 17th century Netherlands, round about when the stock exchange was invented. In Feudal times there were only things directly owned by individuals and various collective institutions that are basically governments, plus families which tend to be seen as governments.  There are no collective institutions that are reducable to their individual owners, that is Capitalism. 

[Sarmatian123]

No socialists have ever claimed that the feudal economy was based upon slavery!  Feudal peasants also did not 'sign contracts' with anyone, in fact for the most part they were illiterate.  Basically your history is totally mangled anachronism, the whole idea of contracts is a Capitalist concept, not many contracts were involved in the feudal economy at all (illiteracy remember?).  Pretty much the situation worked on the basis of folks in power leaving the folks not in power alone as long as the folks not in power delivered the goods (the goods vary).  The folks not in power produce stuff in addition to the above requirements mostly for their own direct use but also for their neighbours or to sell to merchants and doing the latter eventually resulted in capitalism. 

In any case it does not matter what the situation in medieval times even was, because we are not *in* medieval times.  Medieval peasants are *not* dwarves.  If they were dwarves in medieval times then they would not be organised in a feudal system, unless they were not living underground in underground cities; which basically just makes them short humans.  Feudalism would require a complete overhaul of the game mechanics, the gutting of the whole present system of sites and well the un-dwarfing of any dwarves that would exist in that world.

Polish feudalism I admit was way more tribal, but also not very different then in Western Europe. I give you, the worthless in Western Europe nobility, was not downgraded in Poland to peasantry, but lifted up to aristocracy and there was also royal Polish-Lithuanian noble democracy instead of absolutism. However everything else worked like in feudal West. Maybe with time the feudal contracts were forgone for other laws in West due downgrade of Western nobility into peasantry. They all just payed regular taxes of commoners. Not in Poland. In Poland taxes were payed only by nobility and aristocracy. Feudal peasants still operated on life signed contracts, which often oldest son was just inheriting. Those contracts maybe become in Poland-Lithuania and in Western Europe more generic and more a part of land's law, but they were there everywhere in the beginning. In Poland also there were 3 types of feudal contracts for peasantry: Appalachian law, German law and Dutch law. Feudal peasantry didn't settle in Poland on Polish or Slavic law. That Slavic Natural Law "rodovodovi" was restricted only to nobility and aristocracy. All Eastern European kingdoms and principalities had this law once upon the time.

Dwarves do operate on nobility system. Feudalism do not require DF world to change much. Immigration mechanics could be tweaked for performance, so you skipped mending init.txt settings manually, but that's it. Also game tracks total population number for each species for some reason. Do not forget feudalism was economic system and society system, which perfectly well operated under rules of absolute dictatorship, under rule of almost anarchist noble democracy in Europe, under rule of tribal clansmen and the British mercantile society. Even merchant republics had their bourgeois society ordered in a feudal like way.

Just get rid of value.  Value is what is keeping the AI from ever being able to run an economy in any kind of way that actually makes any kind of sense.  Value results in what I call the silver-spear problem, which will mess up any realistic economy in which the AI is involved.

If I make a spear out of silver that spear is inferior to one made of bronze.  But according to value, the silver spear is more valuable than the bronze spear.  That means the soldiers will trade better weapons for worse weapons, just because the value of the worse weapons is more because they are made of more expensive materials.  Instead of bothering with value simply reduce things down to a list of demands/needs and assign objects various weighting, representing how good they are at meeting those various functions. 

The silver spear then has a high money value but has a low weapon value.  That means if they are trying to get money they buy silver spears, but if they are trying to get weapons they will prefer bronze spears.  If they have no spears they will melt down silver coins to make spears, but they won't do that if they have bronze. 

I think this is not issue of value, as your record keeper issue, keeping track of all items.

Furthermore Dwarves do not form military on their own, but are using uniforms, that do come with presets. Improve presets or AI and noob players maybe?

Feudalism was very restricted in trade and economy was based on bargaining and not on coins. Coins were like in DF just another product you could make to trade with or store as wealth for later. Now you can basically do a quantum stockpile and just pile endless bars of metal. Game then tracks all those bars. Treasure Workshop, would save information on all kept there bars, but game would need just track on total wealth stored in it. That would improve fps somewhat. Imho

You are aware that the whole idea of 'stakes' comes from about the 17th century Netherlands, round about when the stock exchange was invented. In Feudal times there were only things directly owned by individuals and various collective institutions that are basically governments, plus families which tend to be seen as governments.  There are no collective institutions that are reducable to their individual owners, that is Capitalism.

I never wrote capitalism didn't originate from feudalism or from feudal economy inventions. Stakes always were part of trade by ship and/or by wagon in feudal Europe. Companies were formed not only for trading purposes. Even when you were looking for hired mercenaries, they were coming in form of companies.

Is not Dwarven embark a band of Dwarven mining brothers company? Mercenary miners company, who settle down and turn into more of a trading company? Form own government, get nobles among their peers and form regular feudal contractual society?

Stakes are also contracts. In medieval times you didn't have to sign with your name everything. Even spoken word was enough for contractual purposes.

[GoblinCookie]

Polish feudalism I admit was way more tribal, but also not very different then in Western Europe. I give you, the worthless in Western Europe nobility, was not downgraded in Poland to peasantry, but lifted up to aristocracy and there was also royal Polish-Lithuanian noble democracy instead of absolutism. However everything else worked like in feudal West. Maybe with time the feudal contracts were forgone for other laws in West due downgrade of Western nobility into peasantry. They all just payed regular taxes of commoners. Not in Poland. In Poland taxes were payed only by nobility and aristocracy. Feudal peasants still operated on life signed contracts, which often oldest son was just inheriting. Those contracts maybe become in Poland-Lithuania and in Western Europe more generic and more a part of land's law, but they were there everywhere in the beginning. In Poland also there were 3 types of feudal contracts for peasantry: Appalachian law, German law and Dutch law. Feudal peasantry didn't settle in Poland on Polish or Slavic law. That Slavic Natural Law "rodovodovi" was restricted only to nobility and aristocracy. All Eastern European kingdoms and principalities had this law once upon the time.

You talk about there being 3 types of feudal contract and then you talk about three different legal systems!  Law and contract are not the same thing, a law is something imposed by a power over a group of people, while a contract is something that two entities 'freely' enter into!  What you appear to be describing is a hotpotch of foreign laws operating in Poland, which given that the Dutch never ruled Poland suggests that our feudal lords are initially picking off-the-shelf legal systems for their own estates, which then become traditional I guess. 

In Feudalism the distinction between taxes and rents is an meaningless one.  So telling me that in Poland only nobles/aristocrats pay taxes is rather pointless because the rest of society pays rents *to* said nobles and the nobles are paying their taxes out of those rents anyway.  These nobles rule over their estates in effect as little dictators, resulting in a hodgepodge of local legal systems but they themselves are subject to the king who uses the 'actual' Polish legal system, what you call 'rodovodovi'.

Dwarves do operate on nobility system. Feudalism do not require DF world to change much. Immigration mechanics could be tweaked for performance, so you skipped mending init.txt settings manually, but that's it. Also game tracks total population number for each species for some reason. Do not forget feudalism was economic system and society system, which perfectly well operated under rules of absolute dictatorship, under rule of almost anarchist noble democracy in Europe, under rule of tribal clansmen and the British mercantile society. Even merchant republics had their bourgeois society ordered in a feudal like way.

Feudalism only operated under the first two of your systems.  The tribal clansman operate under the system of tribal society that preceded Feudalism and was ultimate destroyed by it.  British mercantile societies and merchant republics are an (early) form of Capitalism, any Feudal elements are the result of 'contamination' from the wider society and tend to be superficial in nature. 

Feudalism is based upon largely autonomous peasant households producing things without much central oversight and then being taxed/paying rent to political bodies of which they are not really a part.  Why is feudalism incompatible with dwarves, the reason is that autonomous peasants are not possible because of the artificial nature of their collective subterranean existence. 

It does not matter whether of not there are nobles; if you want to breathe in a dwarf fortress, you breathe the governments air.  That means you cannot have autonomous households, since you cannot for instance cook anything in those households since cooking fires will create smoke that cannot be got rid of and use up scarce air.  In order for a dwarf fortress to avoid becoming a tomb, all the details of all the individuals living in it's lives must be taken account of and planned out by whoever rules over the fortress.

Without the ability to create their own individual households, there is no feudalism; however many 'nobles' we invent since the fundamental relationships cannot exist without both components.  The irony here is that the lack of the implementation of realistic mechanics in certain areas (air, water, sewage etc) is badly glossing this over but that all the same the 'undeveloped' social/economic order we actually have better represents the situation that follows from the 'absent' mechanics in the game than the typical ideas that are put forward to develop that societal order (such as yours). 

I think this is not issue of value, as your record keeper issue, keeping track of all items.

Furthermore Dwarves do not form military on their own, but are using uniforms, that do come with presets. Improve presets or AI and noob players maybe?

Feudalism was very restricted in trade and economy was based on bargaining and not on coins. Coins were like in DF just another product you could make to trade with or store as wealth for later. Now you can basically do a quantum stockpile and just pile endless bars of metal. Game then tracks all those bars. Treasure Workshop, would save information on all kept there bars, but game would need just track on total wealth stored in it. That would improve fps somewhat. Imho

Coins have nothing essentially to do with Feudalism at all.  Some forms of Feudalism are based upon money, while others are based upon payment in kind and others on labour payments.  While it is true that coins are necessary for us to have a transition to Capitalism, but that is not what we intend to model. 

Yes, present AI dwarves are armed using uniforms.  But the point of implementing the Economy is to make it so that the soldiers are armed according to what resources are 'actually available' to the entity fielding the soldiers. 

I never wrote capitalism didn't originate from feudalism or from feudal economy inventions. Stakes always were part of trade by ship and/or by wagon in feudal Europe. Companies were formed not only for trading purposes. Even when you were looking for hired mercenaries, they were coming in form of companies.

Is not Dwarven embark a band of Dwarven mining brothers company? Mercenary miners company, who settle down and turn into more of a trading company? Form own government, get nobles among their peers and form regular feudal contractual society?

Stakes are also contracts. In medieval times you didn't have to sign with your name everything. Even spoken word was enough for contractual purposes.

In medieval times if they entered into agreements that were 'contractual' they did so by swearing oaths, usually over holy relics or the like.  However this was normally done by people who were already politically powerful, lowly peasants seldom made contracts with anyone, which is why they did not need to learn to read.  Word of mouth does not make for very sound contracts, especially if there is nobody around to consign your words to paper and we

You are confusing the development of Capitalism IN Feudal society with Feudalism itself.  Stakes were not always part of trade by ship or wagon, it is this fact that is the reason why the stock exchange is such a LATE invention!  Ships/wagons prior to then were usually either owned by individuals, by individual households or by (usually) municipal governments. 

We are not presently a mining company.  I generally don't get round to actually mining anything until about the 3rd year, everything prior to then is mostly just building stuff (which for dwarves is mechanically the same).  By the time we have finished the 'building' part our population has increased to the point it matter little what idea was in the heads of the initial 7 dwarves.  The idea of starting scenarios is to change this, but I cannot see how this idea is anything but senseless as the development of no actual settlement has ever been defined by the purposes of it's initial founders. 

[Sarmatian123]

You talk about there being 3 types of feudal contract and then you talk about three different legal systems!  Law and contract are not the same thing, a law is something imposed by a power over a group of people, while a contract is something that two entities 'freely' enter into!  What you appear to be describing is a hotpotch of foreign laws operating in Poland, which given that the Dutch never ruled Poland suggests that our feudal lords are initially picking off-the-shelf legal systems for their own estates, which then become traditional I guess. 

In Feudalism the distinction between taxes and rents is an meaningless one.  So telling me that in Poland only nobles/aristocrats pay taxes is rather pointless because the rest of society pays rents *to* said nobles and the nobles are paying their taxes out of those rents anyway.  These nobles rule over their estates in effect as little dictators, resulting in a hodgepodge of local legal systems but they themselves are subject to the king who uses the 'actual' Polish legal system, what you call 'rodovodovi'.

Yes, you are right about foreign laws hotpotch and the rest of it, but in the same time you're entirely missing the whole point of "rodovodovi" Natural Law. It wasn't originally feudal law, but Slavic tribal law. It was adapted to work with feudalism. Alike DF tribalism of embark adapted to work in frames of its feudal civilization. There is no conflict. There never will be.

Feudalism isn't an ideology. Feudalism system was based on obligations for some people to be part of always standing up militia army. In return for tax breaks. Equipment was expensive. Those armies were territorial. Kings did their offensive wars with their own royal troops and mercenaries rather, then with masses of drafted nobility/peasantry.

Feudalism only operated under the first two of your systems.  The tribal clansman operate under the system of tribal society that preceded Feudalism and was ultimate destroyed by it.  British mercantile societies and merchant republics are an (early) form of Capitalism, any Feudal elements are the result of 'contamination' from the wider society and tend to be superficial in nature. 

Feudalism is based upon largely autonomous peasant households producing things without much central oversight and then being taxed/paying rent to political bodies of which they are not really a part.  Why is feudalism incompatible with dwarves, the reason is that autonomous peasants are not possible because of the artificial nature of their collective subterranean existence. 

It does not matter whether of not there are nobles; if you want to breathe in a dwarf fortress, you breathe the governments air.  That means you cannot have autonomous households, since you cannot for instance cook anything in those households since cooking fires will create smoke that cannot be got rid of and use up scarce air.  In order for a dwarf fortress to avoid becoming a tomb, all the details of all the individuals living in it's lives must be taken account of and planned out by whoever rules over the fortress.

Without the ability to create their own individual households, there is no feudalism; however many 'nobles' we invent since the fundamental relationships cannot exist without both components.  The irony here is that the lack of the implementation of realistic mechanics in certain areas (air, water, sewage etc) is badly glossing this over but that all the same the 'undeveloped' social/economic order we actually have better represents the situation that follows from the 'absent' mechanics in the game than the typical ideas that are put forward to develop that societal order (such as yours). 

"The societal order (such as yours)"? You mean a society based on loyalty oath? Or on some particular economic solution, which does not need to even be a part of any feudalism?

Embark simplified is like Scottish Clan, Viking Economy or Slavic Rod. Each household is lead by nobles. DF checks. Tribalism is totally feudalism.

Always a household, not independent 100 peasants in huts strewn around in wilderness. This is entirely different economy system, then feudalism. So much effort put to tell me that feudalism can't work, can't survive, can't be implemented without independent peasant living on their own plot of contracted land from a noble. Feudalism worked perfectly well for 500 years without lone peasant huts. In Poland this "land reform" was earliest 14th-15th century. Very late feudalism. In Sweden this happened in 17th century, when country was modernizing in a process known in Western Europe as "GERMANIZATION" and in Russia just simply as "modernization". Early capitalism. Everyone points to 16th century as a moment when capitalism was born to existence. Not feudalism.

We talking feudalism right? Social order based on honor and loyalty. Not who rents what apartment from which landlord or which class works for which class.

Law of land contract can't be mistaken for law of code of honor. Feudalism was not based on peasantry servants. Feudalism was based on warriors and their loyalty. On honor. So when I write it is ok in DF to freely shuffle some of the bourgeois crap Dwarves have here or there, then I do stand correct within feudalism and this is how feudalism worked with merchants.

Coins have nothing essentially to do with Feudalism at all.  Some forms of Feudalism are based upon money, while others are based upon payment in kind and others on labour payments.  While it is true that coins are necessary for us to have a transition to Capitalism, but that is not what we intend to model. 

Yes, present AI dwarves are armed using uniforms.  But the point of implementing the Economy is to make it so that the soldiers are armed according to what resources are 'actually available' to the entity fielding the soldiers.

If coins have nothing essentially to do with feudalism at all, then renting cars at airport has nothing essentially to do with capitalism at all. Both those statements are false. Feudalism was before capitalism. All those things we take for granted in capitalism were already in feudalism. So, if you want to model capitalist economy instead of barter economy and call it feudalism, then it still will pass, I guess. Feudalism wasn't about economy at all.

Based on barter economy of feudal household, troops led by feudal lord would be armed accordingly to... with economic accordance to... a contract with king. Player can set their uniforms and AI and noob players could use some more presets I guess. AI could use the best available materials on its site to chose the best uniform. Problem solved.

Let us concentrate on barter economy of feudal society. If noble was obliged to rise 100 swordsmen, then he settled a smith (production and repair of armaments) in his village and bought metal from merchant. Many DF players already on some embarks are doing this. Smelting what they call "a merchantite". DF checks. Totally already implemented feudalism in the game.

Now you will say, but hey how it is possible with 100 relatives in a clan or rod? Well in 18th century Poland, in Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, it wasn't so uncommon for a person to lead to a voting box a whole battalion, a whole 500 people, who were their closest relatives (same surname too) in attempt to vote some things through. Were Scottish clans ever tiny also?

In medieval times if they entered into agreements that were 'contractual' they did so by swearing oaths, usually over holy relics or the like.  However this was normally done by people who were already politically powerful, lowly peasants seldom made contracts with anyone, which is why they did not need to learn to read.  Word of mouth does not make for very sound contracts, especially if there is nobody around to consign your words to paper and we

You are confusing the development of Capitalism IN Feudal society with Feudalism itself.  Stakes were not always part of trade by ship or wagon, it is this fact that is the reason why the stock exchange is such a LATE invention!  Ships/wagons prior to then were usually either owned by individuals, by individual households or by (usually) municipal governments. 

We are not presently a mining company.  I generally don't get round to actually mining anything until about the 3rd year, everything prior to then is mostly just building stuff (which for dwarves is mechanically the same).  By the time we have finished the 'building' part our population has increased to the point it matter little what idea was in the heads of the initial 7 dwarves.  The idea of starting scenarios is to change this, but I cannot see how this idea is anything but senseless as the development of no actual settlement has ever been defined by the purposes of it's initial founders.

This is why in feudalism peasantry didn't partake in trading and why merchants were hated, specially when they sold bad merchandise for high price. Nobility could enter contracts any time, but Church put limits on it.

This is why mass production made such a late introduction during industrial revolution. I believe it was an American Ford, who "loaned" this method from some... kitchen? It doesn't mean it did not exist earlier. Like those companies of mercenaries, which not only existed way before any wagons or ship loads got "staked", but even forced pope in Vatican to introduce a new sin for all Catholics, for not paying hired hands. Funny this science of history, trying to sell you the propaganda, but leaving the juicy parts out. I blame the non-conservative politicians actually for politicizing history. Nationalists. Socialists. Liberals. The lot.

So now it is me, who is confusing a capitalism economy system with a barter economy system? I don't think so. Basics of both economic systems are pretty simple to comprehend and sound. Specially if you add on top, that there are 6 (SIX!) entirely different capitalist systems, which each differ from each other like they all differ from barter economy. I can even name half of those capitalisms without help from Wikipedia. Can you?

[Azerty]

- Trading Depots -

In Medieval Europe, there were no banks, but some merchants were opening offices in various cities they were trading with.

In DF Trading Depots would be functioning like regular Depots, just assigned to some traders for whole year for a fee.
They would open, after you reached economic agreement with a diplomat, exception of your own civilization, as there suppose to be already an agreement.
Those would be open for trading whole year. Caravan here would be just moving merchandise in and out once a year.
Offers of buy and sell should be limited on trading civilization/town size and on actually available raw and manufactured resources in them.
You could demolish Trading Depot only after providing new one for a trader, or having contract running out.
Trader would need to move his warez to new Trading Depot first, before you could do what you want with old one though.
You could leave your coins in Trading Depots in one town and pick those in other. Or use them like a bank for safe keeping.

- Caravan/Siege Workshop

Instead of only hosting Trading Depots of others you could open your own. However to move goods there and back, there is a need to build wagons and train yaks or horses to pull them.
Sending caravan would be like a missions. Squads could be assigned for further protection of those.

Going further, we could have another way to have resident, that is, trade: foreign merchants and craftsmen/dwarves/elves/goblins/kobolds could come to the fortress and ask to come to establish their shops and their workshops; it could give another way to have exotic goods and, when economy will be reestablished, another source of taxeable income.

And this will be a realistic thing since, before 1400, there are several instances of foreigners going live into another country to trade, sich as Greeks in Egypt or Italians in Constantinople.

[GoblinCookie]

Yes, you are right about foreign laws hotpotch and the rest of it, but in the same time you're entirely missing the whole point of "rodovodovi" Natural Law. It wasn't originally feudal law, but Slavic tribal law. It was adapted to work with feudalism. Alike DF tribalism of embark adapted to work in frames of its feudal civilization. There is no conflict. There never will be.

Feudalism isn't an ideology. Feudalism system was based on obligations for some people to be part of always standing up militia army. In return for tax breaks. Equipment was expensive. Those armies were territorial. Kings did their offensive wars with their own royal troops and mercenaries rather, then with masses of drafted nobility/peasantry.

First you say that Feudalism isn't an ideology and then you claim it is based on it's ideology (obligations and so on).  But no, obligations for some people to loyally serve in the army is not feudalism because all systems would be feudal by that definition. 

No, the tribal law was not compatible with Feudalism.  That was why the Polish lords had to bypass their own national law and go shopping for various foreign laws to use on their estate IN ORDER that a Feudal Poland could actually exist.  This is because the tribal system is what exists prior to Feudalism and Feudalism is based upon the destruction of the tribal system, even if that destruction is gradual and piecemeal rather than a single blow (the former is what happened in Poland). 

The thing that is confusing you here is that medieval Poland is actually a tribal society, it only starts to become a feudal society at the very end of that era and the process is never actually fully completed by the Polish State.  Western Europe on the other hand is a Feudal society during the middle ages.  To western European society middle ages = Feudalism, but to Poland middle ages = Tribalism, essentially Feudal Poland is something that really emerges during the Renaissance, when western Europe is transitioning to Capitalism. 

The reason for this situation is that the Romans never conquered Poland.  The Romans were (along with other similar empires) a vanguard of the Feudal order as opposed to the Tribal one and they were uniquely successful in destroyed the tribal arrangements throughout their empire.  Since the Romans (and their Frankish imitators, the modern germans) never successfully conquered Poland the tribal system continued to govern Poland until the Polish gradually adopted Feudalism in a gradualistic, imitative manner.

"The societal order (such as yours)"? You mean a society based on loyalty oath? Or on some particular economic solution, which does not need to even be a part of any feudalism?

Embark simplified is like Scottish Clan, Viking Economy or Slavic Rod. Each household is lead by nobles. DF checks. Tribalism is totally feudalism.

Always a household, not independent 100 peasants in huts strewn around in wilderness. This is entirely different economy system, then feudalism. So much effort put to tell me that feudalism can't work, can't survive, can't be implemented without independent peasant living on their own plot of contracted land from a noble. Feudalism worked perfectly well for 500 years without lone peasant huts. In Poland this "land reform" was earliest 14th-15th century. Very late feudalism. In Sweden this happened in 17th century, when country was modernizing in a process known in Western Europe as "GERMANIZATION" and in Russia just simply as "modernization". Early capitalism. Everyone points to 16th century as a moment when capitalism was born to existence. Not feudalism.

We talking feudalism right? Social order based on honor and loyalty. Not who rents what apartment from which landlord or which class works for which class.

Law of land contract can't be mistaken for law of code of honor. Feudalism was not based on peasantry servants. Feudalism was based on warriors and their loyalty. On honor. So when I write it is ok in DF to freely shuffle some of the bourgeois crap Dwarves have here or there, then I do stand correct within feudalism and this is how feudalism worked with merchants.

All societies are based upon loyalty to something and all societies have warriors!  Your vague definition is so all-encompassing as to include all societies in it!  Nobles are just what we choose to call nobles, all societies have a group of individuals with more power than the average person, whether we call them nobles or not is arbitery unless we are paying attention to the actual social structure in a more detailed way. 

Yes, we are not talking about independent peasants living solitary lives in the wilderness!  We are talking about households and that is the fundamental difference between the tribal and feudal system.  The feudal system involves greater households giving land to lesser households, by which is meant nuclear family groups (father and mother, plus children/grandchildren/possibly some in-laws).  A tribal system on the other hand involves the land being owned by an vague extended family group, which also functions as the government and all nuclear family households (they are not strictly necessary) are subordinate to the extended family group. 

At the apex of the Feudal system we have a King and Queen, with all their little princes and princesses.  Their subordinates (vassals) are not necessarily their relatives and if we go all the way down to the bottom with the peasants then it is pretty much a given that a King is not related to some random peasant.  Feudalism is ultimately then a sort of cult to the rights of the nuclear family household, as opposed to the rights of the extended family.  The real purpose of the feudal hierarchy is to create a social order that allows for the nuclear family to defend itself against the claims of the extended family, which would in the absence prevail by weight of numbers.

We start off with the tribal situation because to begin with the nuclear family household is not independently viable for reasons of it's small size; that means we end up with tribes controlling things rather than nuclear families.  However nuclear families *can* exist under a tribal system as a subordinate element.  However once they are established and become powerful enough they can bypass the tribal system by subordinating themselves to unrelated *other* nuclear families (recall kings are not related to peasants), in this fashion creating a social order that allows them to dispose of the need to cooperate with their innumerable tribal cousins.

Consider why people in feudal societies care so much about whether the king has a male heir?  It is not like there is a shortage of random cousins/nephews/uncles that are legally in the line of succession is it?  The reason they care is the very purpose of the system is to empower the nuclear family and the royal family is the ultimate tokenistic nuclear family.  Having the king simply go through his innumerable relatives and appoint one of them to be his heir is quite functional, but it still counts as a 'failure' even though it would work fine.  The reason it is a failure is that it represents the failing of the nuclear family's (Feudalism) ability to produce an heir and the victory of the extended family's (Tribalism) ability to do so. 

The problem with dwarves living a subterranean dwarfy lifestyle developing a Feudal society is that their very lifestyle stamps out the ability of the nuclear family household to in any exist independently of the tribe whose fortress it is.  With the the dwarf nuclear family (husband+wife+children+grandchilden+some inlaws) never being to assert itself independently since due to the limitations of their lifestyle there is no way for them to ever develop a Feudal system.  That in turn means they will never develop a Capitalist system either. 

If coins have nothing essentially to do with feudalism at all, then renting cars at airport has nothing essentially to do with capitalism at all. Both those statements are false. Feudalism was before capitalism. All those things we take for granted in capitalism were already in feudalism. So, if you want to model capitalist economy instead of barter economy and call it feudalism, then it still will pass, I guess. Feudalism wasn't about economy at all.

Based on barter economy of feudal household, troops led by feudal lord would be armed accordingly to... with economic accordance to... a contract with king. Player can set their uniforms and AI and noob players could use some more presets I guess. AI could use the best available materials on its site to chose the best uniform. Problem solved.

Let us concentrate on barter economy of feudal society. If noble was obliged to rise 100 swordsmen, then he settled a smith (production and repair of armaments) in his village and bought metal from merchant. Many DF players already on some embarks are doing this. Smelting what they call "a merchantite". DF checks. Totally already implemented feudalism in the game.

You say it is not about economy and then you say it is not about ideology.      The problem is already 'solved' for the AI, the idea is to make it 'unsolved', this is what the very point of introducing the economy *is*.  The AI should have the weapons the economy makes available to it, not continue to use the present system of preset uniforms!

If a some element of the system exists then it does not mean that the whole system exists, or as the English saying goes "one swallow does not make a summer".  Since history is not the tidy instantaneous transition from one complete system to another it is very important that elements of a future system can exist in an earlier form of society.  Equally, because the process is not tidy leftover ideas and institutions are retained from previous societies often for quite some time. 

What happens is that the foreign element grows within the existing society until it gets to a certain degree of development at which point is becomes strong enough to overthrow the old system and grow into the new system.  Usually this involves the foreign element itself changing, partly as a consequence of the addition of new systems and partly as a result of the fact the foreign element tends to be 'masked', by which I mean it's outward form is changed in order to conform to the logic of the system it is part of, which would be hostile if it understood it's true nature. 

Now you will say, but hey how it is possible with 100 relatives in a clan or rod? Well in 18th century Poland, in Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, it wasn't so uncommon for a person to lead to a voting box a whole battalion, a whole 500 people, who were their closest relatives (same surname too) in attempt to vote some things through. Were Scottish clans ever tiny also?

It is not a question of the number of people, it is question of their social status.  If the 500 hundred people in question are peasants, then we have a system like that of the Scottish clans, that is a Tribal society rather than a Feudal one.  If the 500 people are instead nobles atop the feudal system and ruling over regular peasants then the situation is a Feudal one.   

This is because you calling upon 500 peasants makes you are tribal society.  A situation where the ruling nobles in feudalism collectively form a 'tribe' is rather a leftover tribal element within a feudal society; recall what I said about history not being tidy.

[Sarmatian123]

The thing that is confusing you here is that medieval Poland is actually a tribal society, it only starts to become a feudal society at the very end of that era and the process is never actually fully completed by the Polish State.  Western Europe on the other hand is a Feudal society during the middle ages.  To western European society middle ages = Feudalism, but to Poland middle ages = Tribalism, essentially Feudal Poland is something that really emerges during the Renaissance, when western Europe is transitioning to Capitalism.

Polish "gospodarka czynszowo-panszczyzniana" is legit 14th century medieval feudalistic economy, based on _GERMAN_, Appalachian and Dutch laws for feudal peasantry, but every single researcher states clearly it is form of _THE_ _EARLY_ _MERCANTILISM_. To my knowledge mercantilism is foreign to Roman Empire. Capitalist & feudal economic system all while still based clearly on original tribal Slavic "rodovodovi" Natural Law. Is tribalism or feudalism an ideology like we try to form them today into, or just a traditional and conservative way of life of our ancestors? [You gave answer in the quotes bellow btw].

Did Scottish clans die out from feudalism or those clans were dissolved eventually by English kings edicts around 16th century following complete annexation of Scotland? Fall of Poland as economic European power house is the time of 18th century and is an effect of inability of democracy to quick change like with king's/dictator's edict its standing army from professional army + militia mass levy into large forced conscript armies by corrupt democratic parliamentary process. Also partially, because Prussians were minting false Polish gold coins, after their conquest of Saxony. Polish mint was in Germany in Saxony. Poland and Saxony had common kings. So it wasn't Polish issue with Polish tribalism in 18th century, but with corrupted politicians. An issue, which killed many countries in 20th century. It absolutely has nothing to do with Roman Empire inability to spread its slavery based economy over to Scythian-Sarmatian kingdom of Hun Attila (pl. Tyla) in Eastern Europe.

I would agree that capitalism killed tribalism. There seems to be a time sync on this around 16th century, when modern capitalism was born. However I won't agree with you that feudalism killed tribalism. You are simply wrong on this issue.

All societies are based upon loyalty to something and all societies have warriors!  Your vague definition is so all-encompassing as to include all societies in it!  Nobles are just what we choose to call nobles, all societies have a group of individuals with more power than the average person, whether we call them nobles or not is arbitery unless we are paying attention to the actual social structure in a more detailed way. 

Yes, we are not talking about independent peasants living solitary lives in the wilderness!  We are talking about households and that is the fundamental difference between the tribal and feudal system.  The feudal system involves greater households giving land to lesser households, by which is meant nuclear family groups (father and mother, plus children/grandchildren/possibly some in-laws).  A tribal system on the other hand involves the land being owned by an vague extended family group, which also functions as the government and all nuclear family households (they are not strictly necessary) are subordinate to the extended family group. 

At the apex of the Feudal system we have a King and Queen, with all their little princes and princesses.  Their subordinates (vassals) are not necessarily their relatives and if we go all the way down to the bottom with the peasants then it is pretty much a given that a King is not related to some random peasant.  Feudalism is ultimately then a sort of cult to the rights of the nuclear family household, as opposed to the rights of the extended family.  The real purpose of the feudal hierarchy is to create a social order that allows for the nuclear family to defend itself against the claims of the extended family, which would in the absence prevail by weight of numbers.

We start off with the tribal situation because to begin with the nuclear family household is not independently viable for reasons of it's small size; that means we end up with tribes controlling things rather than nuclear families.  However nuclear families *can* exist under a tribal system as a subordinate element.  However once they are established and become powerful enough they can bypass the tribal system by subordinating themselves to unrelated *other* nuclear families (recall kings are not related to peasants), in this fashion creating a social order that allows them to dispose of the need to cooperate with their innumerable tribal cousins.

Consider why people in feudal societies care so much about whether the king has a male heir?  It is not like there is a shortage of random cousins/nephews/uncles that are legally in the line of succession is it?  The reason they care is the very purpose of the system is to empower the nuclear family and the royal family is the ultimate tokenistic nuclear family.  Having the king simply go through his innumerable relatives and appoint one of them to be his heir is quite functional, but it still counts as a 'failure' even though it would work fine.  The reason it is a failure is that it represents the failing of the nuclear family's (Feudalism) ability to produce an heir and the victory of the extended family's (Tribalism) ability to do so. 

Households essentially are villages. Often with palisade around them. Alike more or less Roman Empire villa with a high wall around. They don't need to be placed under ground like Dwarves' embarks to be enclosed for protection from environment. Longhouses in which many families lived side by side was typical to Viking Economy, which in such corners like Iceland lasted very well almost to modern age. I am happy you agreeing with me that German feudal law is not water mark for feudalism.

Next-of-kin issues.

1. Relatives were important for inheritance. That's why it mattered. However it didn't apply to all members of households. Not even in Scotland. Those could be even foreign guests in court.

2. What else served large family of relatives in Medieval and Ancient ages? Well, the larger family you had, all hard working on common wealth, the clan's leadership was richer and had more troops to wield. It ensured safety as well as alliances with other tribes. It still worked like this in feudal times. Kings often married into foreign royals to ensure their next-of-kin was as large as possible, just for mere safety reasons for their own country.

Household is basically a Dwarven embark. From my playing experience Dwarven kings/queens way more often form marriages, then other Dwarves. This feudalism entirely works and checks out in DF, when we exclude this German feudal law out of it!

The problem with dwarves living a subterranean dwarfy lifestyle developing a Feudal society is that their very lifestyle stamps out the ability of the nuclear family household to in any exist independently of the tribe whose fortress it is.  With the the dwarf nuclear family (husband+wife+children+grandchilden+some inlaws) never being to assert itself independently since due to the limitations of their lifestyle there is no way for them to ever develop a Feudal system.  That in turn means they will never develop a Capitalist system either. 

Viking Economy never was a nuclear family household like Slavic Rod or Scottish Clan. So Dwarves are more Nordic, then Scottish or Slavic? So what? Furthermore households never were limited only to family members. All Dwarves were just created mysteriously from tin air and "look like 80 year old", when world existed for mere 5 years. Every Dwarven civilization is feudal in its hierarchy and it all fits feudal/tribal picture, when we leave the German feudal law out of it.

You say it is not about economy and then you say it is not about ideology.      The problem is already 'solved' for the AI, the idea is to make it 'unsolved', this is what the very point of introducing the economy *is*.  The AI should have the weapons the economy makes available to it, not continue to use the present system of preset uniforms!

If a some element of the system exists then it does not mean that the whole system exists, or as the English saying goes "one swallow does not make a summer".  Since history is not the tidy instantaneous transition from one complete system to another it is very important that elements of a future system can exist in an earlier form of society.  Equally, because the process is not tidy leftover ideas and institutions are retained from previous societies often for quite some time. 

What happens is that the foreign element grows within the existing society until it gets to a certain degree of development at which point is becomes strong enough to overthrow the old system and grow into the new system.  Usually this involves the foreign element itself changing, partly as a consequence of the addition of new systems and partly as a result of the fact the foreign element tends to be 'masked', by which I mean it's outward form is changed in order to conform to the logic of the system it is part of, which would be hostile if it understood it's true nature. 

IMHO presets uniforms fit more then well into feudal economy picture, then any financial-flow manipulations by a banking system. Remember, that economy became "unsolved" only after reforms in around 18th century. Before we had even agrarianism in capitalism, which "solved" economic flow tables were even base for other economic system like socialism. Plus it fits closer picture how in medieval ages kings formed their feudal armies.

Exactly. I agree with you there. The invented in modern times views on what a "the whole system" is, is and always will be troublesome. Unless there are Karol Marx or Adam Smith idiots to refer about their artificial stupid inventions.

Any enforcing upon already existing in DF game feudalism/tribalism an industrialization age's agricultural reform of Germanization/Modernization does not make any slightest sense to me. Never did. Happy you agree with me about this German feudal law for feudal peasants too. None can refuse fact, that feudal/tribal order already exists in DF's Dwarven society in embark and in their Dwarven civilization, just based on missing an industrial age agricultural reform from Germany. Germanization/Modernization does not make anything feudal. At most it makes things... GERMAN!

[GoblinCookie]

Going further, we could have another way to have resident, that is, trade: foreign merchants and craftsmen/dwarves/elves/goblins/kobolds could come to the fortress and ask to come to establish their shops and their workshops; it could give another way to have exotic goods and, when economy will be reestablished, another source of taxeable income.

And this will be a realistic thing since, before 1400, there are several instances of foreigners going live into another country to trade, sich as Greeks in Egypt or Italians in Constantinople.

The thing is here you did not understand that the DF economy is not absent because there aren't any taxes  . What is meant by the DF economy is the items that we encounter in the hands of the AI in both modes (not even necessarily trading them), the production and transfer of those items is actually modeled.  At the moment, the items are magically conjured up whenever they are needed in an inflexible scripted manner.  This is what the devs mean when they say that the economy is inactive, they don't mean that the game does not have taxes and petty peddlers.

The devs could right at the moment add petty peddlers/independant craftsman into Fortress Mode along the lines you describe and could also have us tax those peddlers.  This would not be reestablishing the economy in any sense, since the goods the peddlers have and whatever they pay their taxes in are just magicked into existence.  The economy actually has little or nothing to do with fortress mode, since anything we want to see in fortress mode we can add without adding in any economy at all, just have foreigners magically have whatever items are needed for our fortress mode experience. 

The interesting thing is that the economy actually exists in a rudimentary sense in world-gen and then is frozen in place as soon as world-gen is finished, so the devs talk about reactivating the economy.  It is not that they have a fully developed taxation system just sitting there and they want to switch it on, it is that they want to actually make the economy that exists in world-gen continue over into actual play.  The fact that the economy exists in world-gen is rather annoying for us modders, since we have to make sure that all the civilizations we mod in actually work on an economic level, carnivore creatures for instance tend to have problems surviving unless we give them a large stock of initial domesticated animals.  But the moment world gen ends everything is frozen in place forever. 

[Sarmatian123]

This is why I suggested yearly fees instead of taxes for foreign trading depots. Tolls and fees are more close to what feudal taxation systems consisted mainly from. The rest being goods delivered for consumption from subjects and in embark consisting of just one household, those goods were already property of the household. However what about yearly goods deliveries from embark to mountain-home? That would be the taxation! In goods taxation too! Perfect feudal economy. You can currently do donations to kings with merchant caravan. For becoming capital it is even essential. Why not use it?

Dwarf Fortress goods production without many venues for selling them is a pretty close to feudal age economy system. The only unrealistic here in manufacturing and food production is atom smasher and merchant caravans buying endless amount of same type goods. I suggest here to keep atom smasher for fps sake. However caravans could put some yearly limits on number of some items purchased based on size of their home and their entire civilization. This would be an approximation for economy re-enabling without it being enabled and eating more cpu in background. As I understand populations still do grow after world-gen. Else I would never get those 7 Goblins large sieges again. So it is perfect.

There could be a new workshop for small individual peddlers, a sort of small generic trading depot. However their caravan had to be tiny one. Just a one packing animal, or one wagon. They would pay fee or toll for entering embark and using trade depot. The goods they offered would be even more limited and they would put forward what exact goods they want to buy. However they would work like currently merchant caravans do. They would pack their stuff after a month or two and move on.

Coins (and cut large gems?) should be a sort of universally exchangeable goods. Just for fps sake and improved automatic quantum storage I proposed this vault thingy workshop. Value of its contents would better serve for baiting sieges, wars or FB, then current fortress value. I would store there some adamantine artifacts too, instead of putting them for view in some glass boxes. Don't you think? The plunder yay!

[GoblinCookie]

Polish "gospodarka czynszowo-panszczyzniana" is legit 14th century medieval feudalistic economy, based on _GERMAN_, Appalachian and Dutch laws for feudal peasantry, but every single researcher states clearly it is form of _THE_ _EARLY_ _MERCANTILISM_. To my knowledge mercantilism is foreign to Roman Empire. Capitalist & feudal economic system all while still based clearly on original tribal Slavic "rodovodovi" Natural Law. Is tribalism or feudalism an ideology like we try to form them today into, or just a traditional and conservative way of life of our ancestors? [You gave answer in the quotes bellow btw].

Did Scottish clans die out from feudalism or those clans were dissolved eventually by English kings edicts around 16th century following complete annexation of Scotland? Fall of Poland as economic European power house is the time of 18th century and is an effect of inability of democracy to quick change like with king's/dictator's edict its standing army from professional army + militia mass levy into large forced conscript armies by corrupt democratic parliamentary process. Also partially, because Prussians were minting false Polish gold coins, after their conquest of Saxony. Polish mint was in Germany in Saxony. Poland and Saxony had common kings. So it wasn't Polish issue with Polish tribalism in 18th century, but with corrupted politicians. An issue, which killed many countries in 20th century. It absolutely has nothing to do with Roman Empire inability to spread its slavery based economy over to Scythian-Sarmatian kingdom of Hun Attila (pl. Tyla) in Eastern Europe.

I would agree that capitalism killed tribalism. There seems to be a time sync on this around 16th century, when modern capitalism was born. However I won't agree with you that feudalism killed tribalism. You are simply wrong on this issue.

The process of transition is not only only messy with a whole number of transitional forms, it is also messy in it's chronology.  The world did not instantly become Capitalist in the 16th Century, only the Netherlands did.  Britain become Capitalist in the 17th Century, though this is a very impure form of Capitalism owing to the clusterfuck-draw outcome of the British Civil War, the Civil War did see us destroy tribalism in Ireland though because Cromwell imposed his transitional form of Feudalism on the whole place after he 'won' (everybody else lost).  The rest of the world become Capitalist in the 18th or 19th Century.  Capitalism does not merely kill off tribalism, it kills of tribal societies; only feudalism can turn tribal societies into feudal ones without simply annihilating them. 

Yes the Romans were quite key to the whole thing (this is understatement), I will discuss the matter of slavery latter.  They abolished Tribalism and imposed Feudalism on England and Wales, but not Ireland or Scotland because they did not conquer those places (they only tried in Scotland).  The Irish successful re-tribalised Wales when the Romans left but the England did not successfully re-tribalise England and ended up adopting a version of the Feudal system.  The thing about Scotland is that one of the English kingdoms, that is Northumbria (where I live it so happens) managed to conquer the southern half of Scotland, which result in the spread of Feudalism to that area. 

Thing is that the Scots eventually retook the southern half of Scotland, resulting in a divided situation where the northern half is Tribal and the southern half is at least semi-Feudal.  This situation continues until the English invade in the late 14th century.  The English try to conquer the whole of Scotland and impose their own Feudal system forcefully on the Tribal areas (as they had in Wales earlier) but are eventually defeated, leaving the situation in the north Tribal as it was before.  The reason they are eventually defeated however is because the Feudal southern half of Scotland, led by Robert the Bruce rebels against the English also.  The end result however is that the capital of Scotland moves from it's traditional capital in the tribal north (Scone) to the modern capital in the Feudal south (Edinburgh). 

This change matters very little internally, Scotland continues as it was before with the being Feudal and the north being Tribal.  The reason that the capital change matters is that it allows England and Scotland, both being Feudal at the top to draw closer.  Ultimately at the beginning of the 18th century we end up with the act of union by which Scotland and England, now both governed by the same king are unified to form Britain.  What happens in the effect is the tribal north ends up on the losing side of the war between the Feudal order and the Capitalist one, supporting the overthrown Stewart monarchs against the takeover of England by the Dutch king.

Having being defeated militarily the demoralized tribes are then eliminated by offering their leaders the opportunity to become proper feudal lords, which they accept since they see that the alternative is that they and all their kin will be massacred otherwise.  Capitalism then destroys the resulting Feudalism within a few decades and the highlands of Scotland are now pretty much desolate wilderness today.  The thing here is that this situation is not the usual thing that happens, Britain despite being Capitalist still contains enough residual Feudalism that it can do this because of the untidy way their own transition to Capitalism happens. A purer Capitalist system would have simply resorted to genocide and indeed no Capitalist society has ever been able to 'do anything' with tribes except ignore them or kill them ever since then.  This is the reason why the modern world is full of leftover tribes, it has hardly any functioning Feudal societies left. 

Now about slavery.  Neither the Roman or the Greek system were 'based upon slavery', it is impossible for any system to be based upon slavery.  The reason is that in order for a system to be based upon slavery the majority of people have to be slaves.  However the more slaves there are proportionate to the non-slaves, the more of the surplus value produced by the slaves ends upon devoured by the very repressive system that is needed to keep the slaves working and not rebelling.  The Roman and Greek systems were built on Feudalism, this motivating factor before the Romans drive for Empire and the Greek concept of 'civilized' and 'barbarian' is the bitter struggle between Feudalism and Tribalism.  Only the Romans however were the fanatical Feudal vanguard set upon eradicating tribalism everywhere, though the Greeks did something as well it was more piecemeal. 

Households essentially are villages. Often with palisade around them. Alike more or less Roman Empire villa with a high wall around. They don't need to be placed under ground like Dwarves' embarks to be enclosed for protection from environment. Longhouses in which many families lived side by side was typical to Viking Economy, which in such corners like Iceland lasted very well almost to modern age. I am happy you agreeing with me that German feudal law is not water mark for feudalism.

Next-of-kin issues.

1. Relatives were important for inheritance. That's why it mattered. However it didn't apply to all members of households. Not even in Scotland. Those could be even foreign guests in court.

2. What else served large family of relatives in Medieval and Ancient ages? Well, the larger family you had, all hard working on common wealth, the clan's leadership was richer and had more troops to wield. It ensured safety as well as alliances with other tribes. It still worked like this in feudal times. Kings often married into foreign royals to ensure their next-of-kin was as large as possible, just for mere safety reasons for their own country.

Household is basically a Dwarven embark. From my playing experience Dwarven kings/queens way more often form marriages, then other Dwarves. This feudalism entirely works and checks out in DF, when we exclude this German feudal law out of it!

The issue here is not the size of the household, the top households in Feudalism are of course massive fortresses; the key thing is not the size of the house but whose house it *is*.  While the regular peasant hovel and the royal palace are considerably different in size and the number of people living them, the number of people that form the nuclear family whose house it is remains consistent between the hovel and the palace.  The extra people who are in the palace are the royal nuclear families various servants, slaves, guards and guests, individual extended family members if they serve in this fashion do so in a subordinate role to the nuclear family whose house it is.

Yes, the family/marriage ties between the nuclear families are important.  But the nature of this is different in Feudalism than Tribalism, families ties are used to establish political relationships between independent nuclear family households, they are not used to actually form households as in Tribalism. 

Viking Economy never was a nuclear family household like Slavic Rod or Scottish Clan. So Dwarves are more Nordic, then Scottish or Slavic? So what? Furthermore households never were limited only to family members. All Dwarves were just created mysteriously from tin air and "look like 80 year old", when world existed for mere 5 years. Every Dwarven civilization is feudal in its hierarchy and it all fits feudal/tribal picture, when we leave the German feudal law out of it.

That is because the Norse, like the Scots, Irish and Polish were never conquered by the Romans or Greeks, which means they are a tribal society.  The DF dwarves are presently also a tribal society and the dwarf fortress can very much be seen as like an underground longhouse. 

The problem is while some vikings lived in longhouses, the whole tribe does not all live in one longhouse and the longhouse does not simply get bigger as the population expands.  This means that the vikings were able to transition to a feudal system and then to a Capitalist one.  The key thing here is that once the tribe gets too big to all live in one longhouse it becomes possible for individuals who don't really like their extended family members much to form their own individual family houses while still being part of the tribe.  Eventually once the people living in that manner become numerous they can form a hierarchical feudal hierarchy to replace that of the tribe, a network focuses upon one particular nuclear family that the other nuclear families serve.

Not so with dwarves.  The economics of their lifestyle force concentration of people together and strict management of resources, while an individual can independently go off to build their own house in viking society without this majorly impacting on everybody else, there is no way for an individual dwarf to go off to carve his own independent household, merely a new room in the fortress and even then he would have to do something about the rubble (if the game were more developed).  He cannot set up his own kitchen because the fire in that kitchen uses up the limited oxygen that the fortress has, in addition he has to do something about the smoke.  If the fortress is close enough to the surface, like hillocks are he could perhaps dig a chimney going all the way to surface, but what happens if we have hundreds of little underground households each with their own chimney? (clue is that the whole fortress caves is).

In the end our wannabe feudal dwarf is forced to capitulate to tribalism.  He will have to go to the tribal dining hall to eat tribal food cooked in the tribal kitchen since he depends upon the tribal chimney. 

IMHO presets uniforms fit more then well into feudal economy picture, then any financial-flow manipulations by a banking system. Remember, that economy became "unsolved" only after reforms in around 18th century. Before we had even agrarianism in capitalism, which "solved" economic flow tables were even base for other economic system like socialism. Plus it fits closer picture how in medieval ages kings formed their feudal armies.

Exactly. I agree with you there. The invented in modern times views on what a "the whole system" is, is and always will be troublesome. Unless there are Karol Marx or Adam Smith idiots to refer about their artificial stupid inventions.

Any enforcing upon already existing in DF game feudalism/tribalism an industrialization age's agricultural reform of Germanization/Modernization does not make any slightest sense to me. Never did. Happy you agree with me about this German feudal law for feudal peasants too. None can refuse fact, that feudal/tribal order already exists in DF's Dwarven society in embark and in their Dwarven civilization, just based on missing an industrial age agricultural reform from Germany. Germanization/Modernization does not make anything feudal. At most it makes things... GERMAN!

Just because things are not entirely tidy, does not mean no sense can be made.  Over 1000s of years, things are far tidier than they are in the course of decades of centuries, this is because while the fortunes of both vary the newer order tends to be far better at utterly destroying the old order than the old order is at completely restoring itself on the ruins of the new order.  So no Karl Marx and Adam Smith are not idiots, they are just people able to see through the random background noise to actually understand the message.  Tribalism comes first, then it become Feudalism and then that becomes Capitalism, this is what appears if you see the 'bigger picture' and do not get lost in the random fluctuations. 

The Feudal system is not German.  The Germans, having never been successfully conquered by the Romans or Greeks were not a Feudal system, they were a Tribal system.  What happened is that one bunch of tribal Germans (the Franks) conquered Feudal Gaul (now called France as a result).  They then did something that was quite unfortunate for the Tribal cause, they adopted the actual moniker of the Roman Empire and adopted it's entire legal system.  This Holy Roman Empire then did something rather unfortunate for the cause of Tribalism, it proceeded to conquer the whole of Germany (which the actual Romans never managed) and expand the Roman Feudal system to the whole thing. 

This is part of the common theme of history.  Most new systems are fairly tolerant of the old systems, which makes the transition rather slow and messy.  Some however are not, they are the vanguard systems, which impose their new order on the world with considerable ruthlessness.  The Romans were a vanguard system of Feudalism against Tribalism, the Revolutionary French a vanguard system for Capitalism against Feudalism and the Soviet Union a vanguard system for Socialism against Capitalism.  So far all vanguard systems have perished, but before perishing they propagate their ideas and systems so widely that their ideological 'DNA' survived their fall.  New systems then emerge from the ideological 'DNA' the original system perished but from it's corpse emerges new systems which are essentially similar to their parent. 

Thing about Poland it was conquered neither by the Roman Empire OR by the Holy Roman Empire that succeeded it as the vanguard system of Feudalism. 

[Sarmatian123]

I see you point. Exception of the Roman slave economy. I don't remember which ancient state it was, probably Ancient Athens, which had ratio of slaves to citizens like 7:1. Even if some states in Greek-Roman cultures area had in some time more citizens then slaves, the later Roman Empire's, specially before the slave revolt of Sarmatian Spartacus, was particularly pointed toward large land latifundiums worked by large slave force.

Thing about Poland it was conquered neither by the Roman Empire OR by the Holy Roman Empire that succeeded it as the vanguard system of Feudalism.

Yes, those 3 wars of Holy Roman Empire in early 11th century. Indeed. Soviet vanguard was actually also beaten back in 1921 by Polish Army. Now Russia sees their Soviet invasion in 1944/45 as sort of liberation attempt from fascist murderous occupation, while Poland perceives it as exchange of one bloody 6 year long foreign occupation with another equally bloody 45 year long foreign occupation. Russians just refuse to comprehend someone was (Solidarity Movement) and still is (Polish conservative government) rejecting Soviet's socialist vanguard.

Do you see my original point about pure utopian vanguard feudalism vs miss-mash practical feudalism then?

So long Dwarves do not engage into vanguard capitalism or vanguard feudalism, alike Poland did not, they can be quite feudal economically while biding elements of early capitalism and of late tribalism together for more smooth game operation. Exactly like medieval Poland was doing with huge economic success for 400 years. Also why would Dwarven economy have to be a vanguard one? Today we have economic theories, but in old times people just did what was most practical. Missmash practical feudalism fits picture for Dwarven economy the best. Particularly that maybe some of those solutions I suggested could potentially also lead to higher fps of DF.

There are two ways of forming economies. Top-Down (socialism, liberalism) and Down-Top (mercantilism, American School of Economics). Down-Top, could be preferable, as all older economic systems were more or less structured this way. Also it is a better option, when for practical reason a more benign on fps economic feature is implemented instead of a rigid vanguard one.

Unless driving something to a ridicule is a point, like with Goblins. I see Goblins' economic system as the most predatory original liberalism tbh, like Adam Smith's England. All while Humans with a more mercantile economic system, like the one of the Queen Elisabeth in old England. Therefore Dwarves will fit here very well as Scottish feudal(southern)/tribal(northern) economic miss-mash. If someone would have in DF truly a pure vanguard tribal economic system, stripped down to primitive base, then I think only Elves actually fit this picture of barbarians best. Imho.

[SixOfSpades]

If I could tear the thread away from medieval feudalism for a moment, I think you really had something here:

In DF Trading Depots would be functioning like regular Depots, just assigned to some traders for whole year for a fee.
They would open, after you reached economic agreement with a diplomat, exception of your own civilization, as there suppose to be already an agreement.
Those would be open for trading whole year. Caravan here would be just moving merchandise in and out once a year.
Offers of buy and sell should be limited on trading civilization/town size and on actually available raw and manufactured resources in them.
You could demolish Trading Depot only after providing new one for a trader, or having contract running out.

I give the idea its own thread, as I think it merits more attention than it seems to be getting at the moment.

[GoblinCookie]

I see you point. Exception of the Roman slave economy. I don't remember which ancient state it was, probably Ancient Athens, which had ratio of slaves to citizens like 7:1. Even if some states in Greek-Roman cultures area had in some time more citizens then slaves, the later Roman Empire's, specially before the slave revolt of Sarmatian Spartacus, was particularly pointed toward large land latifundiums worked by large slave force.

The city of Athens may well of have a large ratio of slaves to free people, the problem is that the city of Athens is not the whole population of Athensland (actually called the Delian League), remember the urban population was basically only about 10% of population in those days, so you are talking about 1-7 out of a mere 10% of the population, which puts obviously the slave population at less than 10% of the total population.  The slave revolts are the reason why you cannot build a society on slavery, it is not that you cannot suppress the slave revolts but that the cost of maintaining the forces to do so ends up consuming more surplus value than the slaves themselves produce. 

The reason for this is that the slaves get exponentially (multiplication rather than addition) more difficult to control the greater their number is compared to that of the slavery supporting free people, which in Feudalism tends to be nearly everyone.  Places where slaves are the overwhelming majority do exist, but are always relegated to a small part of the geographic area of a larger economy and society.  That is because the slave-revolt problem can be mitigated by leaning on the larger free population (provided they are slavery supported) of the rest of the civilization.  This is the reason that the old slave revolts failed, they could easily take over the urban centres where they were the majority but they are still a minority in the civilization as a whole, it is kind of tidy since if the slaves become the overall majority of the civilization the slave revolt succeeds and no more slavery. 

Slavery is an element of Feudalism, I will explain how it fits in.  If we have our Feudal lord collecting a proportion of the various foodstuffs that the various kinds of peasants he rules over he naturally ends up with a small mountain of food.  But what if the Feudal lord now wants to say build something, say a bridge.  A pile of vegetables does not have the ability to build any kind of bridge, he will actually have to find laborers from somewhere.  Getting your cousins to do it is the tribal solution while selling the vegetables and hiring folks to do it is the Capitalist solution, one lies in the past and the other the future. 

The traditional feudal solution is to demand that your peasants pay their rent-taxes in labour.  This solution is particularly perfected by the Ancient Egyptians who used it to build the pyramids.  However the local peasants do not much like having to do whatever job their lord happens to fancy doing.  A better solution (perhaps not morally  is to attack your neighbors and take some prisoners, these prisoners can do the work and you can feed them to vegetables the peasants gave you, hence slavery is born.  You can see how the institution is not the basis of anything but is an element invented by Feudalism to solve a fundamental problem that it has, the nuclear family which is the recipient of all that surplus wealth is too small to actually make any effective use of it. 

Yes, those 3 wars of Holy Roman Empire in early 11th century. Indeed. Soviet vanguard was actually also beaten back in 1921 by Polish Army. Now Russia sees their Soviet invasion in 1944/45 as sort of liberation attempt from fascist murderous occupation, while Poland perceives it as exchange of one bloody 6 year long foreign occupation with another equally bloody 45 year long foreign occupation. Russians just refuse to comprehend someone was (Solidarity Movement) and still is (Polish conservative government) rejecting Soviet's socialist vanguard.

Do you see my original point about pure utopian vanguard feudalism vs miss-mash practical feudalism then?

Yes there were three wars of the Holy Roman Empire in the early 11th Century.  Remember that at this point Poland is a tribal society and Holy Roman Empire a vanguard Feudal society, medieval Poland is *not* Feudal.  After the middle ages (or at the end of it), which means during the 14th-15th-16th centuries (it depends upon definition) Poland transitions into a Feudal one, albeit not in the tidy way that the Romans would have done. 

Yes the Polish Feudal system was not vanguard Feudalism, it was not however a very functional system.  It probably makes Polish history less horrible that they were not a vanguard system but ultimately the miss-mass was far from practical.  The sad fact is that the new Feudal Poland was a paper tiger (tribal Poland was not) and the only thing that allowed it to survive was that potential enemies looked at the material facts (the population, the economy and the political unity) and naturally assumed that this was a power that would not fall easily if invaded.

The problem is they eventually found out just what a paper tiger Feudal Poland was, resulting in the Russians, Austrians and Prussians simply carving the thing up.  In the end the exact amount of Tribalism Poland's Feudalism had retained mattered not one bit, Poland was wiped out and brought into line with the rest of the world. 

So long Dwarves do not engage into vanguard capitalism or vanguard feudalism, alike Poland did not, they can be quite feudal economically while biding elements of early capitalism and of late tribalism together for more smooth game operation. Exactly like medieval Poland was doing with huge economic success for 400 years. Also why would Dwarven economy have to be a vanguard one? Today we have economic theories, but in old times people just did what was most practical. Missmash practical feudalism fits picture for Dwarven economy the best. Particularly that maybe some of those solutions I suggested could potentially also lead to higher fps of DF.

Missmatch practical feudalism is not the best picture to use in DF, because as already discussed the original tribal society of the dwarves could not even practically develop the elements that drive the transition to Feudalism (of any kind) anywhere.  This however has already been discussed in length above; the element is the independent nuclear family-led household. 

Vanguard systems are not different from regular systems of the same type because of how they are organized or how they work.  They tend to be purer than other societies of the same type, but they frequently involve leftover elements from the old society all the same.  The difference between the two systems is how they relate to other systems, the vanguard system utterly hates the other systems while the regular system holds other systems in mild contempt but accepts they shall exist for the foreseeable future. 

Both vanguard systems and regular systems promote their ideals.  The difference is the latter does so in a more subtle fashion and while the regular system is willing to respect other systems autonomy if it is in their interests to do so, that does not mean the regular system will tolerate the development of the opposing systems 'at home'.

The vanguard and regular systems tend to work together as follows.  The vanguard system will attack all the other systems often with the initial collusion of the regular system and then when the hostile system is weakened the regular system will suddenly ally itself with the hostile system against it's vanguard version.  In the process however the regular system gains influence over the hostile system which it tries to use to transform the hostile system into itself. 

Thing is that vanguard systems always fail in the end.  The reason is their very vanguard nature forces them into endless wars, but their own resources are finite.  The clever thing though is that because the regular systems which are essentially the same but more tolerant (and cunning) exist they can take advantage of the fall of the vanguard to take over themselves.  Then they may then become vanguards themselves or not but it does matter since the system survived and expanded despite it's vanguards fall. 

There are two ways of forming economies. Top-Down (socialism, liberalism) and Down-Top (mercantilism, American School of Economics). Down-Top, could be preferable, as all older economic systems were more or less structured this way. Also it is a better option, when for practical reason a more benign on fps economic feature is implemented instead of a rigid vanguard one.

Unless driving something to a ridicule is a point, like with Goblins. I see Goblins' economic system as the most predatory original liberalism tbh, like Adam Smith's England. All while Humans with a more mercantile economic system, like the one of the Queen Elisabeth in old England. Therefore Dwarves will fit here very well as Scottish feudal(southern)/tribal(northern) economic miss-mash. If someone would have in DF truly a pure vanguard tribal economic system, stripped down to primitive base, then I think only Elves actually fit this picture of barbarians best. Imho.

There is only one way of forming functional economies.  Surplus values goes up, capital goes down; this applies to Tribalism, Feudalism, Capitalism and Socialism, all economies then are really top-down, any claiming otherwise are lying to you. 

The goblins are in the exact same situation the dwarves are in, except worse.  Dwarf feudalism could feasibly develop because their hillocks could evolve from being aboveground farming fortresses into a more hobbit-like situation (dwarves live in individual family hobbit-holes).  The goblins live however in dark pits, which means they have applied the dwarf feudalism problem to an even larger degree since all their sites have the problem. 

Both humans and elves could become Feudal quite easily, the elves actually easier than the humans.  It does not have anything to do with being technologically primitive, the tribes of Poland, Scandinavia, Scotland, Ireland and so on were on a technological par with their feudal neighbors, it is just that is easier for an ordinary elf couple to go and have their own tree-house than it is for an ordinary dwarf or goblin to have their own personal underground fortress. 

The transition to Feudalism however in dwarf hillocks society is problamatic for a basic reason.  *WE* are not to that Feudalism, because Feudalism is about nuclear families subordinating themselves to more powerful nuclear families RATHER than their extended family in order to overcome their inherent lack of independant viability.  *We* are the thing that gets eliminated as part of the transition to Feudalism.