Cantr II Discussion Forum

Honestly there is really NO Society or even a Economy in Cantr, its like no one cares to try...almost half my chars are try to developed the Economy some way in there area, but its tough because how do you get people to agree with your currency? What is truly needed is some short of currency that is not used in crafting, some short of stock market maybe? Things like this are hard to come by and get others to do/like and so on. Now the Coin machine is a great new machine! Towns should make one, and then make money from it, making a CURRENCY! And thus we have birth to the Economy, but without a good set Currency, no one is going to want to try and get there hands on that stuff, when they can go off and harvest whatever there selves, I mean I am trying to run a Car company, a rubber/silver company, a Corporation, and a couple other deals, but with the Cantr Economy going down hill, there is nothing I can really do to pull it back, all these islands are becoming to over runned, no one wants to trade, everyone wants to work for themselves, but what’s the point? I mean once you get a house, and iron/steel, what else is there? I mean its like real life, ounces you have 100 billion dollars and everything in the world, what else is there? So in Cantr we need to look at possible having spawns on the new islands, or SOME PEOPLE ACTUALLY TRY TO HELP THE ECONEMY. If we don’t, then this game will seem really boring and supper slow to new players, not a good thing, I know back when I frist started playing in 500, I loved the game, fresh soil, areas untouched, it was a beauty, not things are so developed, but still there not, its just crazy how Cantr does survive? Butchering other people, and towns is now somewhat boring as that is all there really is to do? Or sit in a safe town and do what? psh lame...we need some sort of increase here! Maybe the Devs can come up with some short of Stock Market idea that can be made in Cantr, like a certain building with a certain machine, and a machine that makes shares or something...

Well theres my thoughts, how about the rest?

~Storm~

Patience, Storm, patience. There is an economy, but perhaps you just need to step away from the usual connotation of the word. Try and think of economy as the distribution and allocation of resources. This doesn't have to involve currency...a bartering economy is still an economy. It just sounds like you are looking for something that closer resembles the modern world.

Actually, there are towns where that develops to some extent, but you are right, it does require cooperation. This is often difficult to come by and has been discussed for a while here. But I'm not sure that currency is the solution to the problem. Currency may work well in the real world, but it doesn't appear that it automatically works in Cantr. That is the beauty of the game. It seems that there are many different ways to run the economy, despite what capitalistic indocrination tells us in the real world.


Just give it more time and you will figure out how goods flow and people tend to interact and/or cooperate where your characters are living. In time, you may be able to change it. Who knows? But that is what makes Cantr interesting!


Just my thoughts.

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i currently have a caracter in that island.....Burgo,or whatever, thats making a trading post and is going to try and set up an echonomy based on that trading post's profit. hey, thats a good idea! but how can it work. lets see, i get wepons from k island, wood,and suggest A RESON FOR CLOTHS! and a hous for that matter, and i have to have a currensy that people want.

well, thats it. DO SOME ROLEPLAYING PEOPLE! ROLEPLAY THAT YOUR CARACTER THINKS THAT GOLD IS PRETTY! i mean, do you know how our ecconamy is based? ITS BASED BY GOLD! all of that gold in fort knox is what we base the doller on. so, whats the pound based on? or WHATEVER currensy that you use? its GOLD, or some other pretious metal.

And consernng your post,wichita, all of you traders out there, THINK A LITTLER. if it took you a year to get that wood and bring it to blaman, THEN IT SHOULD COST MORE! Its all about supply and demand. supply and demand.


Edited in: its based on somthing, west. its based on somthing.

Actually the dollar hasn't been based on the gold standard for decades, Pie.

Pie wrote:
Edited in: its based on somthing, west. its based on somthing.

what is it based on anyway. tutor me about the worlds echonamy, so i may RULE THE WORLD! the cantr world, that is.

I have toyed with the idea of creating an economy. I have a rather large surplus of iron stashed somewhere and a coin machine. It will take a sacrifice on my part in both time and "money". You see, making coins uses iron.

So, I make enough coins so that each coin represents 10 grams of iron in my "bank". I tell anyone that has a coin that they could turn it into my bank for 10 grams of iron.

What about conterfiete money, you say. One would need to make a coin press and use iron to make coins. It cost more 10 grams of iron to make a coin, so anyone that would counterfeit my money would be a fool.

Why would I pend 10 grams of iron to make a coin, then have 10 grams of iron set aside to back it up? Why would I cut my money in half? Because iron locked away in a building doesn't do anyone any good. I already own a vans, cars, motorcycles, and a Limo.

Any thoughts on my plan?

aha, so thats how ile rule the world.

It sounds like a good plan to me. However how are you going to give them coins in the first place? For work they do?

I can pay employees so many coins a year for work, I can pay people coins for trades. The key is restricting the hematite and they have to use coins to buy the hematite. Well thats not the key, thats just an idea. Cooperation is not the blueprint for success, restriction is. If everyone has access to everything, then people wont work together. Don't let people have the things they need and make them pay, thats the way to get them all to work together in the end. Some of us my profit from it, but its the way of the capitolist world.... or we can just live in mud huts and poke the sheep with sticks

Little forecasting from my Vehicle salesman, Tanner Frost. I am going to construct a mint for coining private store credits, my goal is that some folks will get a few credits towards a vehicle and then die in a town like Blojt and it will inspire the new finder to keep working towards a car. I figure with hard monies floating around its more likely to inspire folks to shop.

wichita wrote:But I'm not sure that currency is the solution to the problem. Currency may work well in the real world, but it doesn't appear that it automatically works in Cantr.

Throughout most of history, currency was merely a way of doing a higher form of "bartering" using precious metals in small guaranteed amounts. The metal was stamped on the surface and milled along the edges to prevent anyone gouging out bits of it, or at least it would then become obvious when this had been done. Nonetheless, if you were to melt down the coins, the value of the metal obtained would equal the value of the transaction. Of course, governments were known to experiment with devaluing the coinage by admixing cheaper alloys and whatnot, but loss of confidence and catastrophic inflation was often the risk in earlier times. The idea of a currency not reflecting a precious metals content grew gradually over time and required great stability. It is simply too sophisticated for the cantrian economy.

There is little value to coinage in Cantr because when you pick up ten grams of iron, it is already a "small guaranteed amount" as described above and far less bothersome than the current in-game coins. The game engine itself guarantees the amount! When it says 10 grams of iron, it means 10 grams and not 10 grams minus a little bite that someone took out of it. So a game-guaranteed 10 grams of iron is in effect already a 10 gram iron coin! And the nice thing is, this coin is divisible into 10 coins of 1 gram each!

Proposals to save the currency concept in Cantr:

1) Coins should be manufacturable out of the material regarded as most precious, which doubtless means iron and steel. The princple reason why gold was used in history, apart from scarcity, is that it does not oxidise or degrade, whereas iron does--a factor not currently applicable in cantr.

2) Manufacturing time should be minimal and coins should be manufacturable and storable in stacks.

3) It should be possible to melt coins down again using a smelter and bellows, or some such. Or maybe a steel "ladle" to catch the output, or similar.

This means it would be possible to store iron and steel in a form that could be traded but not otherwise used for anything else without having access to the above machinery and tools. But above all the perceived value of doing this must outweigh the fuss and bother of manufacturing and handling the coins.

Currently coins are far far more bother than they are worth.

nay sayer.

well, how about this. ending resourses. eh? eeeehh? it would be a good thing once free roaming comes in part, then somone can go and find a place, stake his clame there, and say that the iron is his, witch it would be. and it would also mean, that you could discover iron(Hemenite, actually) on your property, and then, ITS YOURS! its more of a, IT MOVES thing rather thenITS GONE, AND IT WILL NEVER COME BACK thing.

and that would mean that it would be worth more, rather than only be worth a days work. so that the gold market (and iron, hemanite, whatever) would fluctuate, and the Echonamy would get better. there, back on topic. ide better use this in a suggestion i know of.

Bowser, what happens when they turn in the coins for the iron so they can build locks and tools and weapons and shields? Eventually you would run out of iron, I think, and have a room full of coins.

Gold worked (in the past, apparently) because, even though they could have, people rarely went and traded their paper and metal coins for the gold that backed it's value. They wanted and needed the other things the money could buy more than they wanted a hunk of gold. This isn't true in Cantr. The substance most likely to be able to back up an issuance of currency (iron) is also too usable and desirable in and of itself.

I'm not sure how or why gold took on such value IRL. Perhaps because of it's sheer beauty and because it was easy to melt down and reshape. I'm too lazy to research it but if we knew the answer to that we might be able to promote some similar resource.

The KDS region has come closest to being able to accomplish this, as far as I know, during the period when silk cloth was used as a currency by a wealthy and sucessful business enterprise. At the time, I believe, this business was the sole producer of silk cloth in that area because the machines required iron which was closely monitored and restricted. This meant that the cloth was 1) very valuable and 2) very desirable because it was both usable by the consumer and would maintain its value. As soon as another group was able to produce silk cloth this currency became devalued and that economic ripple faded away.

I don't believe an economy resembling rl will ever develop in Cantr. Following the "silk cloth" model, however, what it would take to introduce a viable currency is for someone (or a group) to be so wealthy that they could produce a machine that is so expensive (or whatever) that no one else in the area could ever build another one. Alternatively, it would take an organization so powerful that they could prohibit anyone else from building one. This machine would have to produce some material (lets call it spurf) that people were willing to accept as pay for work or in trade. They would be willing to do this because they either 1) planned to use the spurf itself or 2) trusted that other people wanted spurf enough that there would always be a market for it.

I don't know. I've never really understood economics. Maybe this only makes sense in my head.

EDIT: While I was writing The Sociologist answered the gold question.

Why don't people just use iron for currency, plain and simple? Makes a lot more sense than purely decorative coins.

cous iron is hard to get.

fur, Lion, and elephant, and different fur. i will trade it to a trading post(you know the one) and they will use that as currensy, becous they are the only ones who can get it. i will(when i say "i" i mean one of my caracters.) only trade it to that trading post, and will profit frome it emmensly.