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[LegoLord]

The world in dwarf fortress doesn't wrap; this means that the areas you can go to are not the entire globe.  This is fourteenth century; there is a small continental economy, not a global one.

[Granite26]

The world in dwarf fortress doesn't wrap; this means that the areas you can go to are not the entire globe.  This is fourteenth century; there is a small continental economy, not a global one.

1: Just because it doesn't wrap doesn't mean it isn't the whole world
2: Care to elaborate on what you mean by 14th century? 

As for global trade... don't believe everything your history books tell you... It was a pretty big deal, just because Europe wasn't sending goods to China doesn't mean that the Silk Road and Indian Ocean trade didn't link Europe, Asia, North Africa, India, and Madagascar into one big trading network.

Plus the Vikings and arguably the Chinese had hit the New World...

What do you mean by continental?  No one (to my knowledge) has suggested trade with cities that aren't on the map...

[Pilsu]

It isn't clear to me what Toady means by a 'real' economy, especially as there are local economic things that would have been really easy to implement thus far and haven't been implemented.  (like rent decreasing to the point where dwarves can afford it when housing is abundant but unused).

Dwarves don't have steady jobs so their money flow is erratic. Hard to build anything on that

Problems with dwarves buying something stupid with this month's rent is fixable I guess

[LegoLord]

The current economy is just a placeholder, Pilsu.  Toady intends to improve it.  It's not going to work like it does now when we hit v. 1.00.  That is an important thing to consider with any suggestion.

[Fedor]

I generally find Squirrelloid's arguments more logically convincing than those of most other thread participants.  But only within narrowly-defined limits.

Dwarf Fortress is a game.  It is designed to amuse.  However logically convincing or realistic a suggestion for change may be, it must contribute to the Fun.  That, and not adherence to any model, however important and correct that model may be, is what a good game designer cares about.

To make sure the Fun doesn't get tripped up, a game designer must clearly understand the nature of the game.  Is Dwarf Fortress (fortress mode) about exploring and exploiting a locality, or a sandbox for building magnificent constructions, or a simulation of a living community, or a war or strategic game, or a trading and economic game, or something else entirely?

How do players most enjoy playing DF (fortress mode)?  Would an economic model based on supply and demand help or hinder those ways of playing?  Would it open up new Fun ... or shut down existing game coolness?

These are the questions we need to consider, not the theoretical or even the empirical merits of any given model or the nature of science or of knowledge.

I ask Squirrelloid in particular to think, not as an economist or a scientist, but as a game player - to tailor his arguments in ways designed to appeal, not to seekers of truth, but to seekers of Fun.

[Fedor]

To illustrate the above:

Dwarf Fortress has dragons.  A DF dragon is a reptilian living being that's heavier than an elephant, both breaths and is immune to fire, and capable of flight.

Let us imagine that a professional biologist were to post a suggestion that the DF natural world should be realistic or even just work on even vaguely plausible lines, adding much - utterly convincing - detail about just how logically absurd the current system is.  The immediate response from all players would be:

"But dragons are fun!".

[Silverionmox]

There are ways around that, by giving dragons a huge wingspan or a gas bladder like fish have, filled with a gas that could be used for both staying aloft and belching fire (therefore expended gas would make it more difficult to fly, etc.)

I do agree that we should just be able to mandate things in the raws, without providing a physical explanation down to the quark level. Just remember that realism=suspension of disbelief, and as far as realism is concerned, DF is the frontier. There's no telling where the balance lies; trying to keep the game fun during development isn't a bad strategy though, and that automatically limits the effort spent on too etherical realism.

[LegoLord]

To illustrate the above:

Dwarf Fortress has dragons.  A DF dragon is a reptilian living being
[. . .] and capable of flight.

DF dragons don't fly, actually.  They don't have the [FLIER] tag; they don't even have wings.  Where are you getting this?  Toady described DF dragons as giant fire-breathing komodo dragons, I believe.

That said, Dragons are still a good example; they just don't fly. 

Since DF is an alpha, then perhaps if Toady does work this in to the detail the OP wants, he can easily test out playability, which is something the players can help with.  He can post a link in the dev notes or something that leads to the highly experimental economy version so that new players don't have to deal with it (like 40d#).  This of course is assuming Toady decides it might be worth it.

[Granite26]

Things shouldn't be different from reality without reason...  There is the concept of natural animals versus magical or unnatural animals.  That said, the economic rules could be different for different beings, but 1+1 should still be 2.

[profit]

I actually think there would be a decent demand for goblin clothing, as it would be a good size for children to wear...

But I have to agree that the current price stuctures need some tweaking.

I would really like to see a market economy taken to the point where if we supplied a race with enough goods the currency we recieve per good would be almost nothing.  I also think it would be neat if at that point the game simulated the civilization prospering from receiving bountiful, low cost goods.

Think about it... If we actually traded food for Africa's diamonds, and the food actually reached the people who worked in the mines instead of them basically being slaves, the food crisis in that country would end, and America would have tons diamonds to decorate our pewter mugs with...

I can see where both civs could benefit from massive flows of trade goods at minimal price and it would be a cool thing to model.

[Fieari]

DF dragons don't fly, actually.  They don't have the [FLIER] tag; they don't even have wings.  Where are you getting this?  Toady described DF dragons as giant fire-breathing komodo dragons, I believe.

That said, Dragons are still a good example; they just don't fly. 

Dragons don't fly, currently.  Read the dev notes on monster ideas.  Toady expressly states he wants dragons not only to fly, but to do really scary things with their flight, including strafing runs and picking up dwarves to drop them from height.  I don't know why they don't fly right now though.

[Footkerchief]

Dragons don't fly, currently.  Read the dev notes on monster ideas.  Toady expressly states he wants dragons not only to fly, but to do really scary things with their flight, including strafing runs and picking up dwarves to drop them from height.  I don't know why they don't fly right now though.

Probably because fliers are pretty boring right now -- even if a flying dragon arrived at your fortress, it couldn't figure out how to fly over the walls, because due to technical reasons the pathfinding system only accounts for one movement ability: walking on the ground.

[Squirrelloid]

On being 'realistic':
I find dragons to be in an entirely different category of 'realism' than a market model.  Dragons are already flagged by the game as being unnatural ('fanciful').  They are magic.  They don't have to square with biology.

Despite that, dragons still need to obey some simple biological principles.  Consider mega-beasts.  The last ~5 worlds I looked at featured a marked difference in the survival rate of dragons and bronze colossi, with every single bronze colossus dead before world gen ended, and most of the dragons still alive.  Despite being magical creatures, they still follow an approximation of natural selection.  There are differences between the creatures and those differences lead to differential survival.  Ie, Dragons are more fit (for the DF world gen environment) then Bronze Colossi.  So despite being 'unnatural' creatures that don't make sense in terms of organismal biology, they still follow basic population-level principles.

Similarly, a S/D system merely requires that resources are limited, and the distribution of resources does not fulfill the desire for those resources.  As those premises are certainly true (you do request things from your trade liaison don't you?), a S/D market system should follow.  (In the cases where you don't trade at all, well, then the global economy doesn't really matter to you, does it?)

On fun:
Admittedly this is my own opinion, because I don't know what other people find fun, but here's why i think a better economy would be fun.

(1) Expands the range of metal ores you care about finding.  At present, finding Nickel merely provokes an eyeroll from me, and sphalerite is something I rarely even bother to mine.  And if i find a single magnetite deposit I suddenly stop caring about silver, copper, and tin - because the iron is worth as much or more and the sheer quantity of it found in a magnetite deposit is overwhelming.  And where there's one there's usually more.  The price of iron should be lower than it currently is, but regardless, a S/D economy would fix that and make more subterranean finds interesting.  (= fun).

(2) Makes me think about what I'm producing more often.  At present, a single workshop or two set to repeat a single product type is enough to do all the trading I will ever need.  (And that workshop could well be the *kitchen*).  This leads to boring games that all play very similarly.  When the world economy varies, and you have an impact on that economy, suddenly there's a whole new economic game about figuring out which goods in which quantities maximize your trade potential, which makes every game play differently. (= fun)

(3) In a more realized system, it would be fun to compete with rival production towns, underselling them, driving them out of business, and reaping monopoly advantages.  Of course, you could always be a victim of it too, but see 'doesn't detract from fun' letter A.

(4) The knowledge that your actions have effects beyond your fortress is its own kind of fun.  This is the same reasoning that leads to the army arc.  War is diplomacy through other means - a statement that may as well apply to trade.

(5) Sid Meier defined a game as a 'series of interesting decisions'.  The problem is that the decisions in DF more or less come to an end at some point.  Adding a responsive economy creates a lot of (at least potentially) interesting decisions about what to make and how to respond to changing prices. 

And it doesn't detract from fun either:
(A) Losing is currently too hard.  Sure, when you're just starting out you can do something stupid and flood your fortress or die to goblins.  But eventually you become savvy to the nature of the game and those stop being challenges.  It should be possible to screw up the economic aspect as well - its just another challenge you have to overcome.  No one (anyone pays attention to) listens to complaints that goblins are too hard to deal with.  You just have to deal with them.  And besides, losing is fun, right?

(B) A S/D economy doesn't interfere with things like megaprojects.  I mean, you can make a self-sufficient fortress no problem, and nothing in the OP argues for changing that.  So making trade more interesting doesn't detract from your ability to do crazy things in the slightest.

Ok, that was longer than I thought it was going to be, but hopefully that'll clarify where I'm coming from.

[Hectonkhyres]

(1) Expands the range of metal ores you care about finding.  At present, finding Nickel merely provokes an eyeroll from me, and sphalerite is something I rarely even bother to mine.  And if i find a single magnetite deposit I suddenly stop caring about silver, copper, and tin - because the iron is worth as much or more and the sheer quantity of it found in a magnetite deposit is overwhelming.  And where there's one there's usually more.  The price of iron should be lower than it currently is, but regardless, a S/D economy would fix that and make more subterranean finds interesting.  (= fun).

Meh. I mostly celebrate when I find a magnitite deposit (particularly a magnetite deposit shot through with veins of platinum or whatnot) because I can then carve it into rooms. Legendary dining rooms, rooms for my king, etc... all carved out of magnetite and engraved by my legendary engraving-monkey. Delicious.

[Kanddak]

I'm all for the general idea. "Don't make the game unfun for pedantic realism" is alright and all, but right now I play with the economy turned off because it's so dumb. If I carve up the whole mountain into royal-quality bedrooms, most of the dwarves will still be forced to sleep in the barracks. I can crank out more mugs in a year than the population of the world and caravans will keep buying them for the same prices. I submit that this goofiness breaks my suspension of disbelief, and that fixing it would by no means sacrifice fun for realism.

But it would have some pretty far-reaching ramifications. As it stands right now, I can strike the earth just about anywhere and see gems and ores exposed in the hillsides waiting to be mined. I don't see why there should be any market for iron at all, when any given spot on a sedimentary layer has more of it than they know what to do with. To make this kind of thing work, it seems like metal deposits would have to have the rarity of map features, and civs in worldgen would need to exploit and deplete them instead of conjuring metal out of nowhere. That would mean a lot fewer sites with viable metalworking industries, especially if you're trying to get a magma vent, and that would threaten my level of fun.
When we have crazy Army Arc stuff going and are in charge of multiple sites, that might make a little more sense, but as it stands, not having as much metal on my site would be a pain in the ass.