to the miner to expand his fields
I see some problems here. Firstly, how could the game know that the work the miner was doing was to expand farms? Every time a farm plot is placed, the miner who originally dug the tile gets credited? Every dirt tile the miner digs gets credited?
How do miners get paid, anyway? Does every single boulder and gem they winkle out become their private property? If so, what happens when we, the players, need to build a wall? Does the miner lose their boulder, or does it become the miner's wall? Or do the masons buy the boulder from the miner, in which case, how do they make their money?
An excellent question! It's come up in
this thread... it has some ideas that might be applicable here to help come up with a good answer to it.
Aw, hell, I'll throw in what I said in the thread:
[spoiler]Yeah. Underlying sort of "intangible" things like motivation, willingness, want, etc. will need to be modeled in a reasonable way. Personality traits definitely should play a role, but there should be more to the picture...
Another thing that will also need some clarification in addition to the stuff mentioned is ownership of the raw materials, tools, and stuff that are the basis of the economy after the dwarven economy sets in in a fort. If a guild in this game is going to follow the definition of what a guild is, this needs to be addressed. Guilds were a lot like cartels and corporations in their own right, mandating that its members produce and sell things meeting a standard of quality to satisfy market demand and make the guild money. These mandates would often be independent of other governing bodies. Guilds would provide members with access to tools and raw materials that the guild itself owned provided that the members give back to the guild a good deal of their profits and time.
Let's use mining as an example of what I would suggest:
If YOU designate mining of an area, the fort itself should pay miners from the fort's own coffers (paying with goods? or with coins?). The miners could use fortress-owned picks (or guild owned picks if part of a guild) if they don't own their own. If the miners were part of a guild, the guild would likely want a share of the profits from the workers, their rationale being that they helped provide employment/training to the workers and helped provide labor for the fort's project. Whether or not the fort will accomodate the guild's demands would be up to the player.
If a guild allowed to automate mining designates mining of a vein of ore, does the guild end up owning what it mines (likely with an imposed tax by the governing body of the fort i.e. you), free to sell it to the fort or other buyers? Perhaps this could be determined by the player and/or other nobles.
Basically, the player should be able to set what degree of ownership there is of raw materials, produced goods, workshops, tools, etc. Does everything made become communal property? Does the maker of the craft own it, or is it the fort's or guild's? Does the worker or guild own the workshop? Do they have to rent it? Is it free for use? What taxes are there? The player should be able to dictate all of these as the ruler of the fort. Guilds should have internal rules, like guild fees, ownership rules, and rules about price-setting. Guilds and individuals should be able to protest or accept rulings made by the player/fort, and if guilds are at odds with the fort's rulings, then they can protest, leave, or whatever. /spoiler]
In essence, I think a fort (as the game seems to be headed right now) functions more like a "
commune" (in the MEDIEVAL SENSE!!!! Not so much the communist sense...), and in essence a corporation of sorts...
EDIT: Also...
I'd like to see a system where you set a designated digging area then assign it to a miner and he gains credit for the hours he spends digging. Dug-out material still becomes property of the fortress.
The fort would sell the material to a mason to build a door, then buy the door. Same for woodcutters/carpenters. Woodcutters get paid per hour spent chopping, fort sells the wood to the carpenter, he makes a bed, fort buys the bed.
Obviously there would need to be a wage adjustment based on skill as well, or skilled miners would make less money due to digging faster.
I like this idea. But I also think there should be an option of sort of a serfdom sort of system (which ties in with the class warfare thread and social hierarchy modeling) where a higher-up dwarf can "own" some land (but this might be actually what the player is doing sort of, so it is sorta already like this), and the serfs who work it aren't necessarily sold working materials or anything (that's all owned by the lord or the fort in the player's case). The serfs are tied to the land (or mountain) and work it in exchange for protection and a place to live. I dunno... Actually, this is sorta what you said, except at no time are raw materials sold to the crafter nor craft bought from the crafter by the fort. This is pretty much how serfdom worked, to my understanding.
EDIT: EDIT:
I will throw in another idea here... the player should be able to set the degree of ownership people have over this, that, or the other. In this way, one could have a fort that behaves as a Medici-era city-state, a feudal town under a system of serfdom, or something in between.
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Topic: Abundance of Resources, Metalworking, Improved Economy, and Caravans (Read 23018 times)