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[Xveers]

In the end, I think we come upon two very important issues:
1) DF is a socialist or communist world, in which an authoritarian power dictates the jobs available, the work permissions, etc. There's no place for any kind of freeflowing economy based on supply, demand, etc.

Even a tolitarian economy is vulnerable to inflation and financial meltdown. Zimbabwe for example is a virtual dictatorship (just with some opposition window dressing) and their economy has been gutted in spectacular style.

2) A realistic, modernized, or complex economic system given the conditions above
   A) serves no practical purpose beyond providing bragging rights about our beloved DF,
   B) would be incredibly convoluted and difficult to create,
   C) and thus logically is nothing but a burden to the programmer, processor/game speed, and players.

A) In fairness, playing DF at all is a level of bragging
B) Assuming certian assumptions (like making transactions happen instantaniously and not treating currency as an item needing hauling) it can be made reasonably simple
C) In addition with B, values can be calculated monthly or seasonally, providing basic adjustments to costs, lessening ingame lag. A simple system that adds depth can be added to the current system without requiring in-depth overhaul of the code, and the additional crunchyness can provide another facet of gameplay in DF.

[The Architect]

XVeers: I see the reason in your last two points, especially the latter, but other than that I think you completely missed the intended meaning of my statements. For your first and second points: I'm talking about the reality of DF, which does not have any room for an economy to work. We obviously need elements of corruption, free will simulation, and some kind of room for some kind of market before a more advanced economic simulation will have any value or meaning.
The lack of those elements and others is the reason why implementing an advanced economy will be convoluted and difficult: there's nothing to model; we have an absolute unimpeachable fascist paragon of socialism. We are absolute law, dictating the jobs to be done and who can do them. This is even more true in the new version. For that reason, any advanced economic model has no meaning nor room to be implemented.

NW: No, I don't see the economy as something to help the player. I don't even know what you mean by that. My argument/thesis is actually the one restated in the above paragraph. If you see it as an added level of difficulty, I have to inform you that Toady has already told us what it is. It's intended to be a step toward advanced simulation of the DF world and economy, and the reason we can enable or disable it is not to allow us to adjust difficulty but because it is severely broken in a programming sense and a practical sense.

[jseah]

^Exactly.  We need to change how we control dwarves if we want to use a free market. 

Perhaps if we had "pay X amount to get Y job done" as an order mechanic and dwarves would prioritize work done based on which job paid best.  And dwarves would have to be able to decide which jobs they would do, instead of the player telling them. 

[NW_Kohaku]

^Exactly.  We need to change how we control dwarves if we want to use a free market. 

Perhaps if we had "pay X amount to get Y job done" as an order mechanic and dwarves would prioritize work done based on which job paid best.  And dwarves would have to be able to decide which jobs they would do, instead of the player telling them. 

... You're suggesting we get into a bidding war against ourselves in order to force priorities?

We're still a single, Communist overlord, as all workshops are owned by the state.  The only way to truly be capitalist is to let dwarves build workshops themselves, based upon their own ability to assess what the market will bear, granting players only the ability to "zone for commerce" or "zone for industry".

... and letting dwarves be masters of their own destinies would be an engraved invitation for all kinds of facepalming fun.

[Andeerz]

Perhaps it would be more feasible to first address the issue of the global economy of the game and work down from there, like the needs and wants of a nation or whole city vs. the demands of individuals in an isolated community.  To me, this is the level where interesting stuff would occur, like different civs vying for different resources and production centers, using peaceful means (trade) or warfare to satisfy their demands.  I think it would make for a much more compelling and in-depth world history, to say the least, giving some excellent reasons for wars to occur and the rise and fall of civs.  It would also give additional ways for the fort to impact the goings-on in the world and pissing off the elves besides flooding the world with water or magma and killing caravans.  Not to mention, it would add to realism...  >.>

[NW_Kohaku]

Yeah, I find the global economy much more interesting than the internal economy, which largely amounts to dwarves getting evicted if they can't pay rent, or wasting money on goblin bone bracelets.

[AngleWyrm]

B) Assuming certian assumptions (like making transactions happen instantaniously and not treating currency as an item needing hauling) it can be made reasonably simple

Two hundred years ago there were no telephones. Kingdoms have come and gone shipping and trading and such.

[The Architect]

He's talking about game mechanics, bro. Not communication.

[profit]

IMO the dwarven in fortress economy needs to be scrapped.... when the only way to effectively deal with it for me has been to turn everyone into legendary pump operators or most of the fort lives in squalor compared to the resources we have it is time to reconsider it.

I really think we should only be considering external economy in this thread.  IE Traders.

That's all... Inside the fortress things are too chaotic to model realistically without slowing the FPS down even more.  And I am not sure we would want to as military dwarves could not afford equipment sometimes, constantly being evicted, not being able to afford the most plentiful food, unable to afford a drink, going on a tantrum, killing a legendary crafter....

And if exceptions were made for all the cases then why even bother modeling it.   I kinda think our fortress should be socialism modeled because unlike in real life it can work in a game...

I would like a functioning economy but realistically the only way I have seen to use resources to their fullest has been to cause dwarves to bypass it by them becoming legendary.... And if I do that then it is just the socialism economy the fort started with.

[jseah]

... You're suggesting we get into a bidding war against ourselves in order to force priorities?

Not quite.  Dwarves put their own bids on the market as well. 

We're still a single, Communist overlord, as all workshops are owned by the state.  The only way to truly be capitalist is to let dwarves build workshops themselves, based upon their own ability to assess what the market will bear, granting players only the ability to "zone for commerce" or "zone for industry".

... and letting dwarves be masters of their own destinies would be an engraved invitation for all kinds of facepalming fun.

Yes, zoning should be possible.  It should be something like "this space for rent" and anything built on it will cost the dwarf a rental sum paid to the fort.  The player should be able to dictate the magnitude and if the cost is one-time (freehold) or continuous (rented).  The player dezoning the area would pay the dwarves back and all things on the dezoned area would belong to the player. 

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Apart from zoning, the player can directly comission a construct building job.  And thus own the resulting building.  Which can then be sold (freehold) or rented (per job) at a price dictated by the player. 

Of course, the player would need tools that would automatically adjust the cost of buying/renting to a formula based on the current or last traded price that was not a government sale/buy.  (say a percentage higher/lower or a +- fixed amount)
or simply a number (so you can build a fortress store of food and offer a flat sell price to dictate a price ceiling to stave off starvation for a while in case the worst happens and your economy goes to hell)

Of course, this requires that dwarves would be able to add jobs to the queue themselves.  Like "I think I want a new table". 
-> Attempts to queue place table task (he doesn't own an unplaced table)
  -> If/once he has a table, he either places the table himself or queues the place table task (he will only queue the task if he has a higher payoff job to do), or keeps it unplaced and in the stockpile
-> Queues a buy table order at certain price (dependent on his ability to pay and how much he is willing to)
  -> If another dwarf owns an table he has placed a sell order for and sell order is lower or equal price than the buy order, the table gets sold at the average between the two (perhaps affected by the negotiator skill?)
  -> If there's more than one sell order, simply pick the one with the lowest price (equal prices could roll a negotiation check to see who gets the sale)
-> If there's no table for sale, a job to make a table for him at that price gets queued
-> when a mason is free, he calculates his return for that job (pay - material cost - cost of work) and compares that number to all the other jobs.  Let's say he takes the job.
-> Mason has his own workshop and attempts to use his own stones to do the job but doesn't have any.  He queues a buy stone order, which operates in the same manner as the buy table order
  -> once he gets his stone, he builds the table, receives payment and automatically sells the table to the dwarf that commissioned the job
  -> if he can't get his stone, the dwarf wanting the table might cancel his order (say he bought something else and can't pay) and the mason would then immediately cancel his buy stone order
-> Miner looks at buy stone order and looks for a suitable free mining area the player can designate (controlling cost per square mined).  Calculates his payoff from price of stone - (average number of squares mined per stone x cost per square) and decides to mine a stone and pay the state.  Poof. 

The player has control due to setting the price of stone (very low) and wood (very high or even "not for sale").  Thus the payoff for wood tables is very low or negative and carpenters won't waste wood on tables. 
The player has more subtle control over the pricing of space in the stockpile since stuff in there becomes the player's if the dwarf refuses to pay rent for it.  And dwarves will not queue unplaced loose items if they don't have space for it. 

Hauling is paid by the owner of the item hauled.  Inability to pay for it leads to the state repossessing the item and paying for it to be hauled. 
Forbid and dump causes the state to buy the item immediately at a price related to the price that type of item was last traded at. 

Of course, the player can queue his own buy/sell orders to influence the volume on the market.  Some tools to use are trackers like price index, total money supply, total jobs queued and so on.  Perhaps even allowing players to set up their own calculations. 

Of course this entire thing depends on dwarves not slacking off. 

EDIT: also gives alot of automation to every job.  Since the player can now just place buy orders for end products and all the others will get queued by the dwarves trying to do their jobs. 

[NW_Kohaku]

stuff

... you DO realize dwarves are not just stupid, not just suicidal, but absolutely impossible to prevent from killing themselves without serious use of exploits, right?  As in you have to bodily prevent them from running outside in the middle of a seige by locking the doors in their face to prevent them from picking up a forbidden item that is outside when the outside is forbidden, there are goblins waving maces directly in front of them which they can see, and the item is on fire.

Dwarves will decide that it's more important to stop and admire their new bed than it is to put up a door that will stop the impending flood from a leaky waterworks.

In fact, just read through the "Facepalm Moment" thread.  Dwarves cannot be trusted to use the toilet without you holding their hand and instructing them as to what body parts to use.

Giving them ANY of this power over their own destiny would make DF outright unplayable.  The only way you could get anything done would be to so massively exploit the system as to effectively retake all ability to micromanage from the dwarves... which would leave you back to not having a real economy at all.

[jseah]

Simply pay enough, and the first dwarf able to work will take that job. 

Although an emergency bulletin board would be a nice feature to have.  Jobs here would override everything else.  Including mild needs to sleep/eat/drink/party/be a champion/being a noble.  Would probably need some heavy payment as recompense.