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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]

I can just imagine a dabbling hauler falling and being crushed by an aluminum floodgate. And then the floodgate gets a name suffix "Roaring Crusher of Peasants". It's also perpetually blood-covered.

[zwei]

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.

I'd wait for vehicles and various carts/pack mules/etc that would be used for hauling jobs, so skilling up even with stats, but only with 'advanced' hauling jobs, just like carpentry is not trained by building walls.

Well in DF communism does work better.

Because DF has limitless resources. You can easily afford lots of luxury for each dwarf and they perform well.

Real world communism always fails because there is never enough resources to satisfy 'to each according to his needs', mostly because 'from each according to his ability' gets transated 'noone cares, lets flunk it'. In communism, only trully self motivated people actually do good job.

Absolute job security - fail, people flunk and steal.
Collective ownership (aka, noone owns anything) - fail, managers do not care.

Dwarves work like robots at top performance, you never get legendary produce -item-s or even just plain items because he lacks incentive to do better job.

If your x-craft dwarf has guaranteed room and great meal and free booze, he should take it for granted and perform poorly and according to true communit spirit: spend more time 'on break', produce mostly -crappy item-, even if he is legendary, take longer time to work, and steal stuff related to his job for 'personal use'.

Communist trader should, for example, do 'stealth trades' for items he desires with random goods (noone owns then, noone cares if they disappear).

Pretty much every dwarf should pick up piece of furniture on his own from stockpile and install it in his room. Replace worse quality item with better or just get new -statue-.

Preeconomy military dorfs should not really spend much of their time training, but just simply just hang around and mildly rough up civillians. And yes, weapons and armor pieces should get 'lost' sometimes.

They should also be forced to queue for toiled paper and have fights over who gets bananas from trade caravan.

Simply, 'economy' and living standarts of pre-economy dwarves should be pretty crappy and it should be beneficial to get economy started asap. Mostly, the fact that now money-incentived dwarves would start making stuff better than -item-, work harder and steal less, rapidly improving living standarts for everyone.

(Yes, I am from ex-eastern block country, having experienced commies in powe and yes, real life communism is really, really crappy like I pictured it here. Worse actually.)

[Aeltar]

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...

Go into %DF%\data\init\init.txt and edit max number of dwarves up to 1000 if you want more little men under your despotic control.  This'll kill your FPS, though, unless you rent out some time on a computer farm.

Topic-wise, I don't.  Once it's improved, I might, but it just seems too much hassle for me.  I usually focus on giant constructions anyway, such as a huge upside-down glass pyramid surrounded by rivers and waterfalls of magma.

[Crossroads Inc.]

The only time I ever used Economy was on my first few Forts.  I loved the concept of it, I love thinking about shops, of people with money, buying things ,rooms full of item,s gems etc...

But as other have mentioned "roomrent" slowwly kills all.. By the end of the first year after Economy started up, half my Dwarfs were being evicted from rooms they had since the begginng.  (Mostly because I didn't know how rent worked and most dwrafs were living in heavily engraved rooms with metal furniture)

By the next year almost 80% of the fortress has been forced into tiny 1x3 rough hewn 'rooms' wuithout even a door so as to keep the rent down...

IKn a game where its easy to dig up vast amounts of GoldSilver and even platnium, where you can make a gem studded iron chest for every dwarf in your fortress "Economy" just deosn't make sense at that level.

The only way I could see it wokring is if there was some sort of "AI" that calculated the abudance of items and then calculated prices, so if you vast amounts opf gold or something, items made with them would be considered "Cheap"

But yeah as of now "Communisim" works best.  My Current fortress has most people in well furnished 2x2 rooms, higher workmen in 2x3 rooms, and any Legendary craftsmen ahas a two level workshop "house" all to their own.

Though to add a bit here, what exist in DF isnt really even Communism, Its more of a Quasi-Dictatorship mixed wiht a communial socialism.

For most of Dwarfs can live well of because "WE" choose to make well furnished luxorious rooms, there is no choice by own Dwarfs involved. (not that there could be for a game like this)

[ManaUser]

(Yes, I am from ex-eastern block country, having experienced commies in powe and yes, real life communism is really, really crappy like I pictured it here. Worse actually.)

That's a little different though. A commune with 7 members can work just fine. Two hundred might be pushing it, but it's still not going to have corruption on anywhere near the scale of a country. At that size it's still possible for the mayor, baron, or whoever to come out have personally have a few words with the dwarf who's been making xLimestone Floodgatesx.

[The Dog Delusion]

"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."

LOL, I'm gonna say this to my wife and see what happens.

[Untelligent]

I have the economy on, and none of my dwarves have ever been forced to sleep in the barracks, nor have I ever had to micromanage anything (beyond labor management) or use tricks and exploits (such as constant pumpers and lever-pullers) to prevent this. This is likely due to these reasons:


1) If I get a dwarf with a profession I have no use for (such as a fisherdwarf, soap maker, stonecrafter, etc.), I make that dwarf something more useful, such as a mason.

2) What professions I keep, I distribute jobs according to how often I use them. For example, I rarely have more than two or three weaponsmiths (as I rarely need new weapons), but I have about ten masons and fourteen miners at the moment.

3) I do not have dedicated haulers. I see no reason for having them.

4) Every dwarf who isn't doing something useful as often as possible (such as my masons) or legendary (such as all fourteen of my miners) has Refuse Hauling turned on. Dumping, oddly enough, grants as much pay as a production job, rather than a normal hauling job, and I often have recently-dug rooms full of rocks that must be moved elsewhere.

[Hyndis]

I never have the economy on, nor do I never mint coins.

The reason for this is how owned items are handled. Dwarves will purchase an item, but then drop it in the middle of your dining room and ignore it forever. Because it is owned you will never be able to move it. These owned items can even prop open vital doors that must be sealed, thus leading to the demise of your fortress.

One thing I would absolutely love to see is a simple item check:

Run every time the season changes.
Item ownership is cleared unless the item is being held/carried/worn by a dwarf or stored in furniture owned by a dwarf.
All owned items laying on the floor will revert to having no owner.

This would prevent the problems of uncleanable messes that happen so often with an economy set up. No piles of clothes laying around in the barracks. If the dwarves do not put them away when the season changes, they become unowned and are hauled back to the stockpile.

Someone else can then buy them.

Also with this you can do a sort of planned obsolescence society. Rather than one item lasting forever, if you don't give dwarves any storage, they will only ever be able to rent an item for one season at a time. Thus, no inflation! 

[LeoLeonardoIII]

I think it's important that they be able to destroy xPig Tail Socksx rather than let them litter the fort.

And they should have a strong desire not only to not drop things on doors and open floodgates, but move them out of the way if they walk by.

As for the communists not working very hard and stealing, I think that happens when you don't have accountability. In a small fort you have really a very small community of dwarves, and each can see the impact his efforts make, and others can spot freeloaders and call them out.

Freeloaders get a choice before the democratic community or the elected leader or the despot. Shape up or get out. They get a season to do either. If the freeloader fails to improve or leave he's ejected, loses citizenship, and can attempt to acquire citizenship again with a black mark on his papers.

The inefficiencies of communism happen when people can fail to work or steal things without anyone noticing.

Though I'll admit that for the thing to work, you need to start with people who actually care and want to see the thing succeed. If you don't have that, the enterprise will fail for the reasons you outlined: everyone trying to milk the others without actually producing anything.

But that's the case with any group dynamic. Unless you have a civilization entirely without social supports, there will be some people who want to freeload. And that civilization is an uncaring, unjust one that I frankly want nothing to do with. It requires at the most basic level that nobody cares about anyone else, that people are happy eating hundred-dollar meals and driving home in hundred-thousand-dollar cars while others in their civilization starve.

I think that kind of brutality and sociopathy is present enough in the real world. I don't want to create it in my games.

[Hyndis]

A large fort in DF, usually around 100-150ish, is about at the limit when communism begins to break down.

Communism is absolutely wonderful for small settings. If everyone knows each other and can help each other out, its great. But eventually if the community gets too large where people don't know anyone else, then there is no longer any incentive to be honest.

A household with a single family is an example of communism that works just fine. You can go with a household with extended family, and it still works. Tiny village where everyone knows each other, it'll still work.

Apply it to a country with millions of people? Utter failure.

[Particleman]

I turn it off. I played with it on in my first fort, but it wound up being a big pain in the ass, so I disabled it.

[Quatch]

On, no coins (I want to make them, but its just silly right now), zero room rent.

I do have designated haulers.

[Rijjka]

I do tend to play with the economy on, mostly because I don't like turning things off because I want the full challenge.

So far I'm doing alright on my latest dwarf, since I separate all my dwarves into 4 main categories, everyone has something to do. Though the masonry core is far more populated then the other groups but that could be because I'm currently building a volcano from the ground up. So far, with the massive amount of masonry jobs on at any given time, and the fact that everyone who doesn't have something else useful to do is a mason, everyone seems to get by alright in the cash department.

I also mint coins, and then forbid them all as soon as they're off the presses. As soon as my latest mass dump is over (I do that to remove unwanted/unneeded stones to keep my FPS down. Atom Smasher FTW) I will have all my coins thrown into a quantum coin dump with a locked door, and then unforbid them. Yes you have a coin, but you aren't allowed to see it. Ever.

[Magua]

I will have all my coins thrown into a quantum coin dump with a locked door, and then unforbid them. Yes you have a coin, but you aren't allowed to see it. Ever.

You will get spammed incessantly by dwarves who can't find a path to their owned coins.  Just FYI.

[golden joe]

I like dwarves being able to buy new clothes and gem encrusted kitten skulls so I keep the economy on.

If you set rents to zero there's not much to worry about. Just be sure to make a lot of cheap biscuits for the poorer folk.