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[lucusLoC]

I am still working my way through the linked thread. And it is important to distiquish betweed the various types of economy, because they behave by different rules (well, sort of). I would prefer a mix of free market and feudal type economies, simply because i think they will provide the most interesting gameplay, but it realy is irrelavant to this conversation. What mtters here is the how, not the what or why.

Criptfeinds piont is a perfect example. How do you determin the value of unmined space? What if something realy good is found there? What if the player decideds they want to put a dining hall there now? What if the AI hits HFS? These are all cases that need to be handled, and the player needs to have apropriate controls in place to do so.

As to the fortress account, you do have to make sure the player does not get the (still active) fortress into an unplayable state. If there are no funds left, how is digging handled? What about food production? I think fortress wealth should be phsical wealth only, but dorfs are paid in "work credits" that do not count twords actual wealth. They are mearly a way to aquire actual wealth from the fortress. With a system that simple we can also do away with inflation models. We can do that since we are more or less dealing with a closed system, with finite resources. If a dorf makes a billion dorfbucks hauling, and there is not a billion dorfbucks of stuff available, he buys what he can and either sits on the rest or buys out caravans. I lean twords the sits on it part, as i prefer the caravans to only take phisical goods, or phisical coinage. Payment from off site (traders buying ale at the inn for example) would obey the same rules. So player interaction would be paid out of the "fortress cedit," which is onlt good on the local map, and for local units, all other trasactions would need to be phisical.a dorf who owns a shop that could not sell stuff for lack of demand wold either have to return to the general fortress work pool or be hired by a more succeddful dorf to earn credits to buy food. If they are renting something, they loos it, if they own it outright then they can sell it (prefered) or keep it. Dorf bums (dorfs with no monies and no available jobs) eat on the forts dime, drink water and sleep either on the floor or in an avaialable barracks/unclaimed bed, similar to what they do now. This would obviously make them unhappy. The price of goods would not fluctuate, except by noble mandate. This would keep things simple for the player. However, i am totaly for the idea of trade caravans refusing to take more of a paticular good. Not pay less for it, just refuse to take it. There should probably be a warning though, like a liasion telling you "the human caravan is not interested in any more mugs"

It think that is a good balace for player fun and a workable ammount of "realism"

I dont know if this whole thread sounds like a contradiction, if it deos let me know and i will clarify.

[lucusLoC]

cross reference linky to the new econ thread:

http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=40709.0

[lucusLoC]

thread now on ESV

[Chromie]

what is the point of being able to pay dwarfs out a meaningless infinite number to get stuff back? Also I would like to see after many years a rich family having more leverage than even me, I think that that would add a whole new level of game play.

This this this!

(although it does break the fourth wall a worrisome amount... dwarves are gonna go sentient and take over the world one day...) ;-)

[lucusLoC]

i guess it is all a matter of taste. of course if the player actions are not payed out of an infinite fortress credit, you have to consider the scenario that you will run out of food because there is not enough credit to pay the farmers to farm. how does this play into the whole "designate the whole map for digging my super-project-hole-in-the-ground." how does the player generate wealth for paying dorfs? will it force the player to manufacture things they don't want to (like coins)? how does architectural or other non transferable wealth play into it? how do you keep it from becoming nothing more than an arbitrary limit to how many jobs a player can queue up (i.e. "you must wait till next seasons to get 1000 dofola to pay the miners to dig some more.")?

as a more immersion factor, what is the entity that holds the fortress credit? how does that entity work into the economy as a whole? granted that the infinite fortress credit for the player does not play into the economy at all, but that is why i proposed having it be non transferable credit. you can rent rooms, and buy food and items from the fortress with it (and by extension, buy things from other fortress entities who also have the ability to use the credit). it is not very true to an economy, but it does elimiate a lot of the gameplay issues with having limited player funds.

that is not to say that you cannot wind up with very power families in the fortress, but it would keep them from becoming so powerful that they stop construction of your mega project because they can out pay all the serfs. i personally would find that annoying.

if you can propose a good way to work a limited player credit that would not get in the way of the player doing a whole lot of pointless and non fund generating jobs (i.e. super project digging/building) without forcing them to go do fund raising jobs, then i would be open to the idea. otherwise you wind up with an economy expansion simulation game al la sim city.

[lucusLoC]

i was reading another thread here:

http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=47604.0

it was on personal gardens.

that got me thinking. non free market dorfs can still buy room entirely for recreational reasons, such as a statue garden or personal farm plot or whatever. the maintenance of these rooms would not interfere with the dorfs fortress duties, of course, but how would the player make that room available to the general population without confusing the game into thinking the owner was a free market dorf? could the rent mechanic be used? would it be compatible with the free market controls? what if the rented burrow contained a workshop? would that be just a hobby shop for the dorf, where he made goods only or himself? perhaps a migrant stone carver who was assigned to farming duties would rent out a burrow with a craftshop where he can practice his trade in his free time. i think it would be cool to see dorf have hobbies that they try to preform if given the opportunity.

even cooler (but vastly more complex) would be to have empty rooms rentable as an "empty workshop" and have the dorfs fill it with the workshop of their desire so they could preform the hobby of their choice (including things like purchased statues and cages for socialites). these hobby professions would obviously not have to be enabled for the dorf in question, and would only be able to use goods bought on the free market from the fortress or other dorfs, but would still train up the profession in question. weather or not the produced goods could be sold or not i leave up to someone else to discuss.

edit: incidentally has anyone thought of a response to my above post (#19)? it seems like a rather important question to the game and i would like some feedback.

[Felblood]

There are already mechanics in place to limit the amount that the fortress can owe, before penalties start to crop up.

Due to the fact that the economy is currently broken beyond all reason, and coins are a massive pain in the neck, these penalties are very minor, but in the future it would be fairly trivial for dwarves that are owed a relatively (based on fortress wealth, happiness, personality, etc.) large sum to stop working until they have been paid down to a more reasonable level.

This would also help with the the problem of fortress debt snowballing out of control as a fortress grows and the player leaves more and more jobs on "repeat". It would force players to slash the production of non-essential goods, when the debts started piling up.

This opens up a whole new area of consideration, wherein dwarves take sabbaticals, or even vacations. Urist McWoodchopper might look at his savings of fortress scrip, and decide to take some time off to write his novel, or work in his garden, or any number of things that have the potental to add texture to the world.

Naturally, dwarves should prefer to have their savings in the form of a chest full of gold bars.

[lucusLoC]

i admit that that is a more realistic approach, my question was how will this impact gameplay. specifically, will it force a change in player behavior if they are forced to maintain a treasury?

take, for example, megaprojects. no transferable wealth is generated during the construction of a megaproject. will this mechanic force a player to divert resources and dorfpower to generate that wealth to pay the dorfs? is that something the community is willing to accept? what happens if all the farmers go on strike? what if everyone goes on strike? is that just a loosing state and the fortress is lost to poor management? is that an acceptable outcome to the community? how will the player be notified that job are not being done due to lack of funds? how does a player get out of a tight situation? what about soldiers? do they not solder if they are owed too much?

these are all questions that would need to be considered if the player is to ever have limited funds. i suggested that the player have an unlimited amount of site limited funds because that would more closely maintain the status-quo as far as player actions are concerned, while allowing a more robust economic interaction between entities. dorfs can trade fortress credit for available physical wealth on an as needed basis, otherwise they simply use it to rent rooms and buy food, clothing and trinkets. dorfs with no credit eat the most basic available food, drink the most basic available drink, sleep on the floor and cannot buy goods or clothing. dorfs with a surplus of credit can rent more rooms, buy nicer meals, cloths and trinkets and do what they want till it runs low, or whatever else is appropriate. they just cannot use that credit to interact with off site entities. for that they would need to purchase physical wealth (like coins). free market dorfs could use fortress credit for local interactions and physical wealth for interactions with off site entities. off site entities would always deal only in physical wealth.

that is pretty much the mechanic we have now, and i think it benefits the player as they do not have to think about a trade economy if they do not want to.

[darkflagrance]

i admit that that is a more realistic approach, my question was how will this impact gameplay. specifically, will it force a change in player behavior if they are forced to maintain a treasury?

take, for example, megaprojects. no transferable wealth is generated during the construction of a megaproject. will this mechanic force a player to divert resources and dorfpower to generate that wealth to pay the dorfs? is that something the community is willing to accept? what happens if all the farmers go on strike? what if everyone goes on strike? is that just a loosing state and the fortress is lost to poor management? is that an acceptable outcome to the community? how will the player be notified that job are not being done due to lack of funds? how does a player get out of a tight situation? what about soldiers? do they not solder if they are owed too much?

In this case, turn off the economy, and remain a totalitarian command economy rather than a capitalist one.

[Astramancer]

The biggest problem I'm seeing is how to make the transition from state-run command economy with everything owned by the state (player) to Urist McLandlord now owns 47 bedrooms.  At some point either the dwarf is going to have to effectively steal land from his neighbor (how would it decided who gets to steal, and how would the other dwarves react to this?), or the state (player) is going to have to manually tell the dwarf it's cool if he starts charging rent to the other dwarves living there.

[hatcher]

 It would be cool as a fort progressed the economy would change with it also, as in businesses and companies would be created, and the player would start playing more of the role of the King or government.
   The player could assign a burrow to a dwarf lets say a farmer which consisted of 4 fields and a home. This dwarf could start a company in which he could micro manage his turf how he sees fit, hire/fire helpers sell buy supplies and such. Perhaps his family would also work for his company. His activities would create wealth in which is taxed by the king. A fort might have a brewer/tavern shop, several crafter/shops, clothing/shop armor/shop weapon/shop alchemist/potion shop, Inn, etc. As the fort reached city size NPC adventures, pilgrims, migrants etc would stop in to visit, repair, heal or trade. of course the player could really decide how many and who would be automated.

[Felblood]

So long as we have to pay the miners to dig it out, the fortress should own all the space inside of it, until such time that rebel forces steal it from the lawfully established rulers.

The ability to sell rooms and burrows would be cool, but I don't think many players are going to get behind a homestead act, where dwarves can take ownership of the rooms and workshops that they have been assigned to.

The trouble with dwarves taking vacations is that we still can't really communicate urgency to dwarves. If you have a job that needs to be done now you want every available dwarf on the job. Nobody should take the weekend off during a siege alert, at the very least, but we should probably have the means to declare no holidays off, like old Ebeneezer Scrooge.

I can see this being integrated into burrow settings, along with the ability to ban parties. These settings should give unhappy thoughts to dwarves who would otherwise do the prohibited thing.

Still, there are other ways to punish the players for letting their bank balance go to pieces.

You could give nobles unhappy thoughts for every consecutive season that the deficit increases. Worrying about these problems is their job too.

Merchants might try to shaft you on deals, as they assume you have poor business sense, and drive a harder bargin. In practice this would just raise the price you have to pay to the caravans, for the same amount of goods.

Dwarves that are owed large sums might start forcibly taking their payment in other forms. They already take their rent and taxes out of what you owe them, but they could walk into a stockpile and declare ownership of a bunch of valuable items, and haul them back to their homes.

Imagine Urist McShafted walking into a room and claiming a bin full of stone mugs as payment for his labors. To keep him from walking off with vital floodgates and such, the player should probably be asked to approve or deny his payment, with denial causing an unhappy thought and leaving the dwarf still unpaid.

-OR going unpaid could just make dwarves unhappy and make them more inclined to party or overthrow the government.

Whatever the solution, it needs to wait until coins get fixed up more. Thee's no sense in punishing players for not doing the impossible.

[lucusLoC]

@darkflagrance

what about the case where i want the dorfs to be able to do free market econ, but i still want to not be limited myself? and i am not trying to be picky here, as that is the way i probably would prefer to play.

@Astramancer

i could have sworn i talked about land disputes before, but maybe it was another thread. i believe i got the grudge mechanic involved, but i do not remember now. i do remember it needed fleshing out. and the transition would be fairly simple i think, as it would only happen one or two dorfs at a time. player would mark burrows for sale, dorfs with enough credits would buy them and start plying their new trade. they would behave like nobles, with no fortress responsibilities. if you could spare the dorfpower you could them make more burrows available for sale, and mark serfs as available for hire (possibly through the job manager). the player would also have to mark fortress goods as available for sale to the free market as well.

which brings me to hatcher:

how would you manage resources in a 100% free market fort? i would think that at the very least the mining would always stay under the control of the player, unless the previously mentioned mechanic of marking space as "available to dig" is implemented. i really think that all forts are going to need a core of at least farmers, brewers, miners and masons to function right.

@ felblood

some good points. i think there are a lot of players that would not mind dorf owned land, as long as they had the option to take it back. also remember that this is a suggestion for during/after the econ/bustling town arcs. hopefully a lot of the communications issues will be fixed by then as well.