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My forts never get big enough to get the economy.

33 (23.1%)

I have economy turned off.

43 (30.1%)

I do the economy but don't use coins.

47 (32.9%)

I do the economy and do use coins.

20 (14%)

Total Members Voted: 143

[LeoLeonardoIII]

The economy really sucks right now and the only way to make it bearable is to exploit certain jobs so your lesser dwarves can afford things like food and a bed.

I guess I'm looking for people to give me a reason to ever do the economy. It looks like a lot of hassle for exactly zero gain. Unless you just wanted hassle. But I suspect you really want fun hassle, not unfun hassle that leads to Fun.

[yarnosh]

I guess I like the idea of an economy, but you're right, the few times I used it, it seemed unfair that some dwarves couldn't afford a decent room even. I don't really want to build "slums." That's not part of a glorious fortress. I mean, there's usually more than enough of skilled labor (engravers, masons to build statues, etc) available. It isn't like the dwarves just can't afford to keep everyone livign comfortably.

I think if building a fortress were more challenging and resources were limited, I would feel better letting some dwaves live a meager existence. But once you hit a few gold/platium veins, it's like "free gold chests for everyone!" No reason to let it all just pile up unused in storage.

Maybe I'm just a communist at heart.

[They Got Leader]

For DF, communism seems to work better. Its a small group of people that can rely and depend upon each other because they give the power and the right to be the same. Now, if DF made it so that there were 1000 dwarves instead of 200, one might look into the economy...

[LeoLeonardoIII]

Well in DF communism does work better.

The difficulty is not in a huge number of people. It's that some people want more than what others have. Or just that they do not want to share their excess with others. You could have an enormous communist system but with more people you have more selfish people.

Honestly though from the perspective of a harmonious civilization where none feel deprivation the beginning DF system is so much easier than the later DF economy.

I mean honestly, the haulers who pull the roasts from the kitchens before they rot are adding as much value to the fort as the cook who made them. If every cook had to haul his own dishes out we'd need far more cooks. Basically a bunch of haulers would have to become cooks to make up the difference in output.

But we want one cook to specialize and get really good at cooking, which requires that others specialize as haulers. They give up self-actualization so the cook can have his, and the fort is better off.

It's kind of like how a real-life couple who have kids might decide which parent will go out and work and which parent will stay home with the kids. They could both work, but the kids never see them and they pay money out in child care.

In both cases one gets to have a full career and the other is a housekeeper / caregiver. More value is added to the skills of the worker than the homemaker. One is sacrificing for the other. It would just be ugly and sick and ridiculous if the worker came home and said, "Sorry dear, I go out and work for a living so I'll have this ☼Unicorn Roast☼ for dinner but you're stuck gnawing on a cold mushroom in the cellar because you stayed home and hauled diapers."

It's telling that DF had to include communism in the Dwarven Economy in the form of welfare for the nobles and legendaries. But couples don't share resources, do they? How does a couple split the rent on a bedroom in the game?

[Tirin]

All the useful dwarves can afford stuff or don't have to pay at all. All my idiot slacker/haulers get evicted from their rooms and must live in squalor. I love the economy. No coins though, they do nothing but annoy.

[They Got Leader]

Well, the issue for DF Econ, is that I use a group of people (siege engineers when there is no siege) to haul around stuff. Thats what they do. Haul stuff. Thats it. If the Econ was on, theyd be screwed while my Mason would get all the best rooms. My treasurer doesnt do much other than haul because his legendary skill has the record keeping at highest all the time

[Margrave]

Perhaps it's just me being sadistic, but I really don't care about the dwarfs living in squalor or packing my barracks with their worthless hauling hides. I just like to watch my shinies fill up the vaults; with magma traps, hippo moats to keep out the unwashed masses. My tax collector Ebenezar counts my coins and safely watches over the few artifacts worth not burning up.

Did I also mention that I love watching the Hammerer do his job? Muahahahahaha!!
"Work harder serfs!"
*Cracks his whip*
"I need a window in my basement!"

[LeoLeonardoIII]

I use dedicated haulers too.

I'm sure if they had their way though they'd stop hauling, build a crafts workshop in the mines, and churn out stone mugs. And when that got cluttered they'd move over a ways into more stone and build a new workshop. Anything that puts money in your account, right?

Dwarves who are starving should wait by the stockpile for someone carrying something valuable to come by, knock him over, pick the thing up, and haul it the remaining few tiles.

Heck, Dwarves should mug each other. Steal from the stockpiles. Frame the Hammerer so he can be deposed. At least, start choosing the hauling tasks that are worth the most pay. And outright refuse to haul a stone from the bottom level up to the mason shop.

Then again, I think the Dwarves are probably pretty deluded to stand for the nobles at all. Once a 7-dwarf expedition gets entrenched not even the mightiest dwarven seige could take them out. The King should be a totally nominal figure.

I'm just thinking about how, if placed in the same setting with all the same rules, any of us would work to survive and prosper.

Oh, and a measure of dictatorship is present in the DF economy - there is still an overseer (you) deciding who gets to do what jobs. A dwarf peasant can't come in and just build a craft shop in the basement mines. If you tell him to haul, he just has to go haul.

He walks up with the other immigrants and gets his orders, and becomes crestfallen when he realizes he left the Mountainhomes to come here for this. Slow starvation among opulence. Sleeping in a rough stone corner while rhino lizards eat your toes and a moronic Baron's kid walks by with strands of ☼Quarry Bush Leaves Roast☼ dangling from his insipid jowls. Dreading the moments when you'll be sent to the surface after a seige to pick up Narrow Giant Cave Spider Silk Loincloths, hoping there isn't a goblin murderer hiding behind a rock waiting to throttle you.

I think the new expedition is not actually a bunch of Dwarves who have investors: it's seven haulers who managed to escape with their lives and about ☼3,000 in items stolen from the stockpiles. They immediately institute communism but as soon as they hit Legendary they forget what it was like and are completely corrupted by wealth. Then seven of their haulers escape ...

The King is a warlord who wanders from fortress to fortress installing his cousins and sycophants as brutal nobles. When their inevitable mismanagement and negligence causes a tantrum spiral and ruin, it doesn't matter to him. He's already seen all the lovely blue stuff get mined out and has moved on to the next fort. His entire form of government is based on the decadence of his incompetent lackeys and the oppression of the peasants.

[Skorpion]

I don't bother to turn it off, but don't mint coins, either.

Generally, with all the hauling, the mass masonry projects, and the massive overproduction of everything, I have no mass poverty.
I've got a very low FPS, though.

[Akhier the Dragon hearted]

I have not really ever gotten the economy unless 90% of the fort's population was legendary and only that because the migrants that came with the new nobles. If you have problems with people hauling their life away just set them up as pump operators till they are legends. This also has the side affect of giving them better stats to haul stuff with.

[Canadark]

The first and only time I ever had the economy start nearly all of my dwarfs were evicted because they were living in 3x3 engraved single bedrooms each with a bed and dresser. Made me pretty upset.

From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.

[darkflagrance]

I use dedicated haulers too.

I'm sure if they had their way though they'd stop hauling, build a crafts workshop in the mines, and churn out stone mugs. And when that got cluttered they'd move over a ways into more stone and build a new workshop. Anything that puts money in your account, right?

Dwarves who are starving should wait by the stockpile for someone carrying something valuable to come by, knock him over, pick the thing up, and haul it the remaining few tiles.

Heck, Dwarves should mug each other. Steal from the stockpiles. Frame the Hammerer so he can be deposed. At least, start choosing the hauling tasks that are worth the most pay. And outright refuse to haul a stone from the bottom level up to the mason shop.

Then again, I think the Dwarves are probably pretty deluded to stand for the nobles at all. Once a 7-dwarf expedition gets entrenched not even the mightiest dwarven seige could take them out. The King should be a totally nominal figure.

I'm just thinking about how, if placed in the same setting with all the same rules, any of us would work to survive and prosper.

Oh, and a measure of dictatorship is present in the DF economy - there is still an overseer (you) deciding who gets to do what jobs. A dwarf peasant can't come in and just build a craft shop in the basement mines. If you tell him to haul, he just has to go haul.

He walks up with the other immigrants and gets his orders, and becomes crestfallen when he realizes he left the Mountainhomes to come here for this. Slow starvation among opulence. Sleeping in a rough stone corner while rhino lizards eat your toes and a moronic Baron's kid walks by with strands of ☼Quarry Bush Leaves Roast☼ dangling from his insipid jowls. Dreading the moments when you'll be sent to the surface after a seige to pick up Narrow Giant Cave Spider Silk Loincloths, hoping there isn't a goblin murderer hiding behind a rock waiting to throttle you.

I think the new expedition is not actually a bunch of Dwarves who have investors: it's seven haulers who managed to escape with their lives and about ☼3,000 in items stolen from the stockpiles. They immediately institute communism but as soon as they hit Legendary they forget what it was like and are completely corrupted by wealth. Then seven of their haulers escape ...

The King is a warlord who wanders from fortress to fortress installing his cousins and sycophants as brutal nobles. When their inevitable mismanagement and negligence causes a tantrum spiral and ruin, it doesn't matter to him. He's already seen all the lovely blue stuff get mined out and has moved on to the next fort. His entire form of government is based on the decadence of his incompetent lackeys and the oppression of the peasants.

The irony is that the children of nobles, especially those of barons and dukes, are even more screwed by the economy, because they retain no noble status from birth, and because the starting account of a fortress-born peasant is based on the average of their parent's accounts, and barons never work or work up accounts, the baron's child is destitute compared to say, the children of the legendary cook.

[slink]

I use the economy but turn off the room rent.  I also, reluctantly, don't mint coins.  I like the coins, but they make too much clutter and slow everything down.  The result is that everyone gets a decent room and appears to be somewhere between happy and ecstatic unless they've lost a pet recently.

I'd prefer to still be able to assign rooms to everyone, so I could keep the clans together.  That's not an option, though.

[RedWick]

I never turn it off, and I mint coins when the time is appropriate.  Outside of a very small number, my dwarves don't get evicted.  Of course, I make everybody who isn't dedicated to a craft into masons, who sit about cranking out large numbers of stone blocks (I loves me some outdoor projects), or soldiers.  I've never had hauling issues.

[Niveras]

But we want one cook to specialize and get really good at cooking, which requires that others specialize as haulers. They give up self-actualization so the cook can have his, and the fort is better off.

That's an interesting idea, specializing in hauling. I wonder if that can be extended in a future update such that dwarves can gain skill in the various hauling jobs, giving them a speed boost when carrying an item of that type - perhaps an effective +1 in agility and strength as far as the speed/weight calculations are concerned?

To balance your pre-economy dwarves from becoming legendary, it can use a different system than experience for the job. Skill gains would be based on payment - such that they can only start gaining experience with an active economy - and would not be based directly on experience. That is, they wouldn't gain regular stats from it, just skill in the hauling job. It would be akin to a real-life job specializing in moving large furniture, like refrigerators and pianos - the more experience you have, the faster, safer, and more efficient you become.