The player was not producing 500 chairs to throw into the lava; the player was buying 500 chairs to throw into the lava . If it is just the player's own fortress behaving irrationally (according to the AI) then the problem can be solved with no problem. If large chunks of world's economy develop rationally upon the basis of the player's irrationally however, then there are potentially devastating consequences from the player retiring.
In the long-run the player site should behave rationally, but that has to be done gradually. That would mean reducing the irrational consumption and production every so often, every year the player's ex-fortress throws 50 less chairs into the volcano, until it behaves as an AI site would in the circumstances. It is fine to have disasters disrupt the economy, but the player's retiring should not have the force of a disaster.
RL.
Economic bubbles due human ingenuity and invention will always be occurring in one way or another. For last 100 years there was put a tremendous effort to limit their effect with financial controls, governmental regulations and also with new investments into economy. When worst happens failed capital investors are being generously rescued by grey masses of tax payers and the biggest victims are allowed into soft bankruptcy.
DF.
Every embark, every settlement and so on has what we call "self sufficiency in strategic resources". Even on maps utterly deprived from clay (meh!), sand (very handy to have) and metal (have to have), you have always lava, tree terraforming bug and adamantine. Water could be initially an issue on some embarks, but there always is some in one of the caverns and you don't need water for much of the game's industrious processes. Not like in the real life. So every site should and probably is being run with its own economic abstract model. The trade gets only surplus of created on site goods. So if player is managing to purchase 500 metal chairs to be dropped into lava, which btw makes sense, then it is logical that 500 metal chairs is logical free surplus of produced goods on a site.
Thing with metal and gems in DF is, they are limited. Resource like logs, obsidian and rain/river/aquifer/sea water are unlimited. Populations of animals and FBs are limited, but vermin is unlimited. Therefore in trade items composed from limited resources, should be more expensive in their base value. Like factor of 10x-100x to what it is now offered in caravans and this is on just hello. (Historically there was time, when iron was 5x more expensive then gold). Furthermore every substantial drop in sites resources, due trade with player, should mark equally substantial hike in price. There should be some limits what site need in the way of limited resources to be self sustainable and there should be simply a stop in trade of those goods, when this mark is hit.
So,
abstract economy model, needs this trade embargo option. This is trade caused imbalance after all. You just slap an embargo on that. DF economy saved and player need to fight HELL to get adamantine scraps.
Further conclusions to game mechanics.
This brings me to another concept which needs mending with those waffles. Adamantine is mined like 1 stone for 1 tile, instead like other ores with 1 stone for 4 tiles. They all should be synced so 1 stone = 1 tile. Alike gems. They all are finite resources and should be taken with equal care. By default adamantine is remade into wafers due its material type, but instead of wafer it should become just adamantine bar. Then you go smelting 1 mined ore/adamantine into 1 bar and that would make 1 block = 1 metal bar, which makes sense for folks who want to create an adamantine fortress impervious to breaches in sieges. I know this is huge fps harassment to trace 10x more material, but wafer should become 1/10 of bar in all considerations. This would bring entire smelting and metal working mechanics into functioning order. Also, it would make making metal clothing out of adamantine wafers a more viable option as well. Way more wafers out of adamantine this way for clothing. Making adamantine items, armor and weapons out of adamantine bars makes more sense imho.
Instead of smelting goblinite and merchantite, players would need to bother more into digging after ores and be more bold with HELL and caverns.
These new buildings do not operate using QS do they?
Since they are basically just stockpiles anyway, what do they add to the game save more micromanagement?
Well, thing with those is, you can remove in DF tracking of items inside of those buildings. So technically they simply vanish. Of course at first Trade Depot, QS Warehouses and so on remove lots of micromanagement, which makes them way easier to adopt for new players. Building carefully track stop and defining hauling route, may be quite complicated for unseasoned players. And yes, they are still stockpiles, but with Trade Depot mechanics. For example master quality prepared food [140], which is stored in such SQ Warehouse is entirely impervious to any vermin. So you don't need to keep 20+ cats, which eats into your cpu. Maybe 10 cats will do then?
However the most desirable, due item tracking and fps fortress death is, the black hole vanishing of stored items inside. Besides listing them, there is no need for other operations on them, unless they are taken out. This could add new mechanics of automatically splitting stacks and joining stacks. So Dwarf fetching stack of 10 bronze coins is not going around with 10 items, but only 1 item. Dwarf fetching 3 metal bars to make some item from QS Metal Workshop is not making 3 rounds for 3 different bars, but taking 1 item -> bronze bar [3] or bronze wafer [30]. You see?
Also storing wine in barrels is fine, but WINE CELLAR, can have huge vats to store alcohol. Here adding/removing on stacks could be huge improvement. You still need free barrels to make alcohol, pour it out into vat in WINE CELLAR or fetch alcohol for trade. Also you need cup to fetch a drink from it. Cups could be emptied into those vats too instead of alcohol being thrown out on floor. There could be some storage limit of course and for example WINE CELLAR could store just one sort of alcohol. It surely would save a lot of stockpile space that currently 3600 units of alcohol need inside of fortress. Like 22x22 at least.
- more fun for players to set things up in fortress
- less micromanagement hassle
- easier on DF noobs to use more advanced mechanics of play
- automatic stack adding/splitting mechanic, which is currently outside of trade entirely missing
AND THE MOST IMPORTANT
- higher fps, due less objects being actively tracked by game.
The abstract economy model already factoring stuff in like workshops, taverns, temples and Trade Depots. Why not throw into it just few more buildings, which do not change mechanics or economies in the game. Just some more buildings for abstract economy model to spawn into life, when in need. I don't think it is drag on economy or on fps. Just stockpiles++.
Only shops and trade depots would change a little in their function, if they were the "caravan" accessed by fortress broker, instead of trading caravans, which could be busted to pure logistics of moving goods around, either conjured from thin air or actually manufactured by player.
Not exactly, the economic differences are actually based mostly upon tokens and allowed professions, ethics have quite a small role in it.
Well, aren't those tokens and allowed professions chosen on basis of morality in civilization? Elves for example. Unless, you mean like personal individual ethics? Then yes.
No, an abstract model of the economy (by this I mean one which does not actually model the actual production or location of actual goods) is quite functional. Recall that if nobody is around to see it, then it does not matter that it is missing. Whenever the player comes along, in either mode we simply set things up according to the abstract values and the player's own actions can directly effect those abstract values. Why this does not work in DF is because there are more than one form of economy going on at the same time, taxation is a different form of economy to trading things.
If there was only trade (or only taxation) then you can simply model the whole world by simply adjusting abstract values that represent the prevalance of things. I buy lots of wooden stuff, then I increase the 'carpentry' value so that magically there are more carpenters and carpentry related stuff when the player turns up to see. Games like Eve online can be developed in the fashion you described because there is only one economic system in the game, which is unrealistic but nobody cares because it is ideologically acceptable to have only trade but only taxation would not be ideologically acceptable hence people would complain about realism were it to exist.
It is only the existence of competing economic systems in the game that forces us to keep track of the different items so we know which system any given item is presently operating under.
Still economy abstract crutch is a crutch. You can't expect this crutch will perform miracles like real economy. However crutches is how we beat some simple issues in programming. Just don't expect to beat with a crutch complex economical problem too. It will not work. It will simply bug out. However, the key word here is... SIMPLIFICATION. Abstract by definition is simple presentation of complex thing. So what you need for abstract economy models is a further simplification.
Trade is causing issues? Restrict it! Put tariffs in! Put embargo in!
Refine trade to logistic issue rather then economy issue. Let each economy run a surplus it can spare into trade and have economy abstract crutch handle how much it is to be max conjured from thin air. Then instead each caravan dragging in 500 metal chairs every year to be dropped into lava, the number of those chairs conjured out of thin air will go down to 200 next year, 10 third year... and then total embargo on all metal things will be enacted unless player starts to sell those shiny things back. Simple enough solution? Maybe it should not be so drastic, but it won't ruin economy for other settlements. After all some embarks have tones and tones of multiple metal ores...
Player loves to dump gazzilion mugs and cups in trade? Make yearly limits how many of those can be sold. Put limit based on caravan/shop home population and economy size. You will need to change trading mechanics in Trade Depot (and shops), but then player will go and encrust those mugs, make sure to sell only master quality mugs and so on to fetch highest possible size. The trade from quantitative mechanics will turn into qualitative. I think the abstract will have easier time dealing with artifact price level few items, then flood of mass produced junk. Add in workshop option for training skills, so it is not available only through education, because education in real life won't get you there without some practice either.
Taxation is an issue? It is in game mechanic of putting tribute with caravan. However do you need to change economic abstraction to handle it?
I would suggest just adding a new crutch! Tax Office crutch! Yeah, sad but in real life people using those crutches too
. When first crutch kicks all dust up, it needs to kick. Apply this new crutch on top. Let it request metal coins as yearly tribute. Let embark have grace period of 2 tax free years. Coins have no quality, so you can have 1 adamantine coin [500000] stored in mountain home, when you need to spawn Treasury, because player came in adventure mode to visit Mountain Home and stir on the listing of the whole loot he was robbed by this game mechanic. Economics a01. LOLZ! Mountain king is the Uncle Scrooge McDuck.
Joke besides. Those coins are basically the resource on the site. So abstract should add them to available metal resources. The conjured Treasury then can have some token coins in it. After all, spending coins on training army and armaments, makes always sens, doesn't it.
The smelting mechanics is better then the mechanic for gems, because you never lose this metal in the game. Trashing gem encrusted items, pretty much removes gems out of the game. Like animal species, which die out. You want master quality encrusting? Why not allow jewelry workshop to remove encrusting from items? Too much item tracking maybe? Oh well, but it would make some sense.
PS. When programming you can use modular architecture to make sure it will be possible in future to use database and real economy, which with server-client architecture for multiplayer makes this a viable option for further development in future. Leaving open door for mmo just makes pragmatic sense. Even if game is now all about using crutches.