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[Normandy]

Well, I'm pretty much a newcomer. I've read up on a lot of DF by now, and am pretty familiar with the game. I'd like to have giant vaults of coins, just because I can. However, I don't wish to manage a whole 80 dwarves, or deal with dwarven economy for that matter. I just find having a large vault of coins rather appealing.

Perhaps coins can be used as a universal trade good, something that all merchants accept and all merchants use. Feel that you don't need any of the stuff the merchant is carrying and need to get rid of that giant pile of trade goods you didn't happen to notice building up, yet still want something in return other than an increased exported wealth? Then trade 'em for coins.

Need goods, but find yourself short of trade goods, for whatever reason (i.e. "accidental" mass craftdwarven death)? Use those coins you got by trading with the caravan.

It'd make coins somewhat more worthwhile.

[numerobis]

In adventure mode, coin can be used for trade in the way you mention (though there's not much in the way of foreign exchange: each civilization stamps their own coin).  So the basic mechanisms exist.  In fortress mode, coin is worthless because you could instead make 3 goblets worth at least the same amount each.  It's pretty clear that this is going to get revisited sometime.

Coin is also one of the most lethal weapons in the game.

[umiman]

coins are really only considered lethal because of the sheer number (3000 coins per stack...) but for damage's sake, if you really need to down something at range  and you need it dead asap (spiders or bowgoblins), go for arrows or weapons.

[GreyMario]

You can't throw entire stacks.

[numerobis]

quote:Originally posted by GreyMario:
<STRONG>You can't throw entire stacks.</STRONG>

Sure you can; just takes a long time.  You'll be multiply-legendary at the end of it.

[Dwarf Fanatic]

Maybe you get more per bar? Maybe you can stamp 'Vintage' collectables by engraving them? Maybe you get more per bar (less mistakes) the more skill you have? Never played til economy, most of my forts are too cramped. But eagerly awaiting!

[Normandy]

Ah, I mean mainly in fortress mode, not so much in adventure mode. Caravans would carry infinite (or very large) stacks of coins that you can trade for.

Additionally, you can carry very large stacks of coins, so holding a bin of gold coins is sure to be worth more than a bin of stone crafts, so it'd provide a slightly faster way to bring your trade goods to the depot. I think. Now of course, there are some items that will be more valuable than a stack of gold coins, but that leads to the question why you are selling aluminum furniture to traders.

Finally, "breaking into a vault of coins" sounds so much more cool than "breaking into a vault of semi-precious metal furniture".

[Othob Rithol]

Adding a coin stack to the caravan would be a wonderful addition. Many older forts do not need to trade at all, so this would give them incentive: Filling a huge treasury with human gold.

The real issue here is how to integrate that into the trade screen. Do we really want to add 50 entries of 100 stacks of decorative coins to the human caravan?
How do we tell the hummies to fork over the coin otherwise?

[Jay]

The same way you do in Adventure mode: with dozens of keybindings.

[Hague]

Presumably when stacking works, none of this will be a problem. It would be nice if bags could hold stacks of coins. The bags therein could be stored in coffers and the coffers taken to the depot. When humans trade coins, you can trade for the bags of coins, or a wooden chest full of bags of coins and so forth.

Addtionally, when economic elements become more prevalent, you could find that your coins will gradually become more valuable over time as your economy grows. That is, if your overall wealth grows higher than the wealth of other civs your coins become a certain percentage more valuable. Alternately, the value of your coin could fluctuate based on the amount of coins available relative to the strength of your economy. That is, if you make a gazillion coins your first year they won't be worth any more than their base material/weight value. Judicious minting can allow you to use coins as a tool for trade as your economy grows.

Personally, I'd prefer seeing traders and travellers behave more randomly and treat the trade depot as a place where you place goods for sale and random traders come and buy goods at their leisure and choice and your broker is given preference settings for whatever goods he prefers to buy and what he is willing to pay for them. That way if a particular trader doesn't like narrow socks, he won't buy any.

[ April 14, 2008: Message edited by: Hague ]

[Istrian]

Interface-wise, trading with coins should just add a counter somewhere on the screen which shows how much cash you have available (in your whole fortress, not just at the trade depot). Therefore, when trading you can choose to input an amount of mmoney you wish to offer the merchants. When the deal is done, one of the merchants will run around the fortress gathering coins. That would also solve the problem of single-coin stacks.

After all, the fortress is offering the merchants protection against goblins, they could at least help with the clean up.

[Shamasu]

As long as the identity of each coin is maintained. I dunno about the rest of you but I would love looking at what kind of coins are in my vault, where and when they were minted, how many goblin heads they've smashed in, (ie: legendary coins), etc, etc. I think the problem now is that dwarves like to carry around individual coins, which after a while turns into a hauling nightmare (maybe implementing wallers/purses would be a good idea). Anyways, I'm all up for having merchants bring coins, I do like the idea of being able to liquidate all my goods into shiny metal disks.

[BurnedToast]

There is a problem with trading coins. Either:

1. the coins are worth more per 'bar' then crafts (i.e 500 coins from a gold bar are worth more then crafts made from a single gold bar): There is now no reason to make anything except coins out of valuable metal.

2. Coins are worth less then crafts like we have it now: why bother trading coins? just order goblets and crafts and think of it like buying chests full of treasure.

3. Coins are worth the same as any other craft: now they might as well just be crafts, at least until the economy starts. This would also mean they need to get a quality modifier. Might as well just make a new craft called '500 shiny (material) coins' in the raws and there you go.

The whole varying coin value based on your fort's value is interesting, but then we just go from problem 2 early on to problem 1 after some arbitrary fort value.

[ April 15, 2008: Message edited by: BurnedToast ]

[Sowelu]

quote:Originally posted by BurnedToast:
<STRONG>There is a problem with trading coins. Either:

1. the coins are worth more per 'bar' then crafts (i.e 500 coins from a gold bar are worth more then crafts made from a single gold bar): There is now no reason to make anything except coins out of valuable metal.

2. Coins are worth less then crafts like we have it now: why bother trading coins? just order goblets and crafts and think of it like buying chests full of treasure.

3. Coins are worth the same as any other craft: now they might as well just be crafts, at least until the economy starts. This would also mean they need to get a quality modifier. Might as well just make a new craft called '500 shiny (material) coins' in the raws and there you go.

The whole varying coin value based on your fort's value is interesting, but then we just go from problem 2 early on to problem 1 after some arbitrary fort value.

[ April 15, 2008: Message edited by: BurnedToast ]</STRONG>

Solution:  If I have a thousand gold chalices, I probably put less personal value on acquiring another one.  If I have no drinking vessels or at least no golden ones when the king wants one, I probably put more personal value on acquiring one.  Coins on the other hand, are pretty much always equally valuable to me.

Now, I'm a big fan of trading being more difficult:  Traders should always find a way to make a profit.  A very large one.  From you.  But while some traders might say "Yes! I really want that golden trumpet!", most would not have any particular use for it, and offer a fair amount less than it's worth to them...who says they can resell it?

"I'll offer this 100-value gold trumpet for the seeds you offer for 100 monies!"
"Hmm I don't really want your trumpet, I'd only offer 60 monies of my seeds for it.  But I'd take 100 monies of gold coins instead."
(while remembering that the merchant is already overvaluing his goods and already undervaluing your goods)

[Normandy]

Ah, Sowelu puts it well. Coins will always be... coins. They'd be dedicated trade items. They are simple to produce, hold a constant value all of the time, and aren't affected by quality modifiers (exactly why I proposed this). So, you don't have to turn to your most experienced metalsmith to churn out coins, anyone can do it (albiet slower). Think of coins as 'long-term storages of wealth'. You won't produce them all too often, so you can always keep your coin vault tightly locked. Any trader will accept them (perhaps when Toady diversifies traders a little more, this may become very important), and there's no hassle involved, just carry coins from Point A to Point B, no questions asked.

Also, since coins don't carry quality values (and don't have many other unique traits, for that matter), the GUI could possibly be simplified for them. A pile of coins is a pile of coins; each individual coin has nothing special about it.