Cantr II Economics:

[viktor]

World size should be linked to player population, as it expands we have mechanisms to expand it, and god help anyone brave enough to suggest a mechanism for shrinking it.

Gold help me.....

Earthquakes, continental shelf collapse, volcanoes, tidal waves, LARGE asteroid impact.

How about an island out in the middle of nowhere with only 25 to 30 locations, 20 years sailing from any inhabitable land in the fastest ships?
Allow all players to create 2-3 characters there. I know I`ve suggested it before, but it`d be perfect for dense population and economic experimentation....hell experimentation of all types.

I love the idea of a new island with possibilities like suggest above. I can see the drawbacks, but the scramble for power, resources, structure. It'd be...wowzer.

Just give us a launch date for it and see the population boom, the sighs at gaining physically weak characters and poor fighters, the raise in sleeping character's else where due to dedication to the new characters. It would be great though.

man i'd have so much fun creating a new area, my thoughts on it are, create an island inside of what is to some known as lake Lenai. this would be ideal for every new players first char to spawn on, make it 3 locations close together, or a 2 city island and a 1 city island in the lake, since there are no cities on the shore of the lake, contact with the outside world is impossible barring implimentation of flight and dependant upon availability of radio making resources on the island.

[Mykey]

World size should be linked to player population, as it expands we have mechanisms to expand it, and god help anyone brave enough to suggest a mechanism for shrinking it.

Gold help me.....

Earthquakes, continental shelf collapse, volcanoes, tidal waves, LARGE asteroid impact.

How about an island out in the middle of nowhere with only 25 to 30 locations, 20 years sailing from any inhabitable land in the fastest ships?
Allow all players to create 2-3 characters there. I know I`ve suggested it before, but it`d be perfect for dense population and economic experimentation....hell experimentation of all types.

I love the idea of a new island with possibilities like suggest above. I can see the drawbacks, but the scramble for power, resources, structure. It'd be...wowzer.

Just give us a launch date for it and see the population boom, the sighs at gaining physically weak characters and poor fighters, the raise in sleeping character's else where due to dedication to the new characters. It would be great though.

man i'd have so much fun creating a new area, my thoughts on it are, create an island inside of what is to some known as lake Lenai. this would be ideal for every new players first char to spawn on, make it 3 locations close together, or a 2 city island and a 1 city island in the lake, since there are no cities on the shore of the lake, contact with the outside world is impossible barring implimentation of flight and dependant upon availability of radio making resources on the island.

Too bad it will never happen. Hopefully somewhere between item quality and true lasting deterioration, we will get a real economy, and political structure.
I`m not betting on it though. Because the sparse population, and some people`s frustration with a dense population will never allow it to be so.

And just to add..... People PROFIT is okay, excessive profit at your expense is what should be guarded against but a 10-50% profit for a trader isn`t unreasonable. The DOW should be used to not get ripped off, not to wipe the idea of profit out of the game.

[kaloryfer]

excessive profit at your expense is what should be guarded against

That's communism.
Greed moves the society forward.

[Mykey]

excessive profit at your expense is what should be guarded against

That's communism.
Greed moves the society forward.

You obviously lack true understanding of what communism and the materialist dialectic is all about. Communism (while it masquerades as anarchy to a degree isn`t even in the same boat.) is something much more sinister than the benevolent socialism you are referring too.
Besides individual people protecting themselves from excessive greed instead of a government(or the game sytem) doing it, can`t even be called socialism. It`s just common sense. Greed as you suggest, catapults one segment of society forward at the expense of another.

I was just trying to say the DOW is a tool to not get raped economically, not to justify absolute equality economically. I agree greed is good, but there is a limit. Like with too much of anything it can become harmful.

[Cwalen]

I believe the DOW obsession is one of the great evils the game faces economically.

I have seen people who would refuse to trade for meat (because lets face it it is just about everywhere in abundance) but would happily trade for potatoes because they have a DOW value.

The utility of the food is expressed as "how many days can I keep alive with this" not "how many days did it take to gather"

Similarly I have seen people refuse to consider trade for propane on the basis of "how much does this increase the productivity of iron production" preferring "how many DOW is it"

It is easy and simple to calculate, and it can lead to someone traveling, raising a group, founding a town and transporting goods. Just to find that they could have gotten a better deal by simply wandering though where their target resource is and gathering it themselves.

If a pile of resources is worth it's weight in DOW, especially in a world where land and resource slots are abundant. Initiative and enterprise are RP concepts rather than economic ones.

I only wish I could offer some solution other than raising awareness.

[RedQueen.exe]

It is easy and simple to calculate, and it can lead to someone traveling, raising a group, founding a town and transporting goods. Just to find that they could have gotten a better deal by simply wandering though where their target resource is and gathering it themselves.

If you're talking about the DOW, then that doesn't make sense. The DOW is the value of the time it would take to gather it themselves. Add in transportation time, and trading at DOW will always be cheaper than going there to gather yourself. People think that doing something themselves rather than trading for it is somehow "cheaper", which I am completely baffled by. Turns out there just isn't any real difference between working a day for 260 grams of bauxite, spending a day of gathering salt to trade for it, or spending a day gathering it yourself. You've spent a day of your time for the same result in each case. Yet people will work on something they're awful at, rather than collecting or making something they're good at to trade for it, or they'll travel a couple of towns over on foot for a couple days worth of a resource rather than pay a trader a 20% markup on it and save themselves the travel time.

I suppose the libertarian ideal of the rational consumer is no less a fantasy in cantr than it is in real life.

But to answer your question about DOW and say, propane is worth more judging by how much it increases iron production (which, I ought to point out, is not the only way it is used, it is also a cooking and engine fuel. Why should any one of these be chosen over the others for the comparative analysis?), then why would anyone ever buy it? You will spend more time earning the things to buy it rather than just making it yourself, so no sane buyer would purchase it unless the alternatives were just that prohibitively expensive and propane was rare in the area. But then, you're only able to make that cost comparison via the increase in iron production because you're assigning a set DOW value to iron. What if you took the same approach and judged iron by the increase in productivity via machines and tools that you could build with it?

People use DOW because it is really the only solid basis available and that is how they compare it to the cost of making it themselves. If you sell things for above the DOW, then a rational person should always prefer to make it themselves and nobody should ever buy it. If you sell it below the DOW, then everyone should buy it and nobody should make it. And the example you gave is partially flawed because raw meat actually does have zero practical value as well. It has to be cooked first, and that does take time. But assuming you actually could eat raw meat, that shouldn't raise the cost of meat (unless meat were rare, and then due to its rarity you would have to treat it as a special case, no trader worth a damn values goods on DOW alone) it should drop the demand for potatoes. Why spend time picking potatoes when you can kill an animal for (effectively) free and just eat the raw meat?

And yeah, maybe people shouldn't be so uptight about the DOW values. That's fine. Just more people for those of us who do pay attention to take advantage of.

[RedQueen.exe]

And I can all but guarantee you that if animals ever become rare and the stockpiles wear down, meat will have a price. You already see it for animal parts that aren't readily available in certain locations or that are in low supply. I've sold hide for crying out loud.

[Cwalen]

"If you're talking about the DOW, then that doesn't make sense. The DOW is the value of the time it would take to gather it themselves. Add in transportation time, and trading at DOW will always be cheaper than going there to gather yourself."

That's exactly my point.

It's only the noble souls amongst us who bother trading.

I can have a character go somewhere, gather the resources personally, pay for the travel the social dislocation, and the general pain in the butt. Or I can wait for a trader to sell me one DOW for a day of my work.

Ideally I would like a world where someone says "OHH you brought me X, from Y. I want three DOW of that, it would take me 10 days to travel and get it, would you accept 8 local DOW for it"

And I have seen a little of that, but generally as you say "trading at DOW will always be cheaper than going there to gather yourself."

No scope for profitable enterprises, no economic reason for initiative.

[Doug R.]

There's several inconsistencies in realism in Cantr that doom the economy:

1) Characters are immortal, therefore, time is not a consideration.

Given that most of the time, characters are looking for anything to do to keep themselves entertained, it's little wonder that they prefer to travel out of their way to go get things themselves. It's not like they're going to die of old age before they acquire what they want. Also consider that they're operating on an accelerated time-lime. Would I spend several months in real-life learning to make a chair from scratch? No. But in Cantr I would, because I can make it in days with no learning curve, and it's entirely irrelevant that I just spent 1/4 of a year to do it.


2) Land is not controlled.

The biggest obstacle in real life to me wandering down to the local strip mine and digging my own ore is not that I don't have the equipment in my house to refine it, it's that the strip mine is owned my someone! The biggest obstacle to me digging up my own carrots is that I don't own enough property to enable myself to be self-sufficient. In Cantr, control extends only as far as the crossbow-wielding person willing to enforce it. When they inevitably die, ownership ends.

3) Infrastructure investment cost is too low.

Being able to convert your house into a blacksmith in two game years, + infinite lifespan = 0 net infrastructure cost for pretty much any product if you're willing to get all the materials yourself.

4) Lack of scarcity - Resources are wide-spread and infinitely renewable.
5) Lack of centralization of civilization

Long travel times, and a (necessary) spawn mechanism that scatters characters as far as possible from each other discourage the formation of "cities" in the real sense. Real life has centers of culture and commerce, and such places simply do not exist in Cantr. If there was resource scarcity, and urban centers of trade, I foresee a commodities market emerging to manage the price of trade goods, except...

6) Lack of programmed tools to help players manage an economy.

If we expect players to control a complex commodities market using their own free-time and a spreadsheet, it's doomed from the beginning. Economies thrive on standardization. I know we hate automation, but it would be nice if I could come into a town, make a trade for a set price, without having the other character necessarily awake. Waiting for others to wake up is probably the #1 killer of trade in the game - why wait for you when I can dig it up myself? This concept was put forth and debated to death several years ago. Who knows, I might have even been against it then, but it's clear it's needed now. We also need programmed mechanisms of land control and ownership.

[madfish]

I think the major inconsistency in realism in Cantr that dooms the economy is the complete lack of a supply and demand model, which is basically the backbone of any market economy irl. And in contrast to "Economies thrive on standardization" the opposite is true. Ideally every single town in cantr should have different rates on materials. Standardising prices is entirely foolish and why DOW is a pathetic economy model.

But unfortunately this will never happen because of the even bigger "inconsistency in realism in Cantr that dooms the economy": nobody has the time for it.

[Doug R.]

Standardising prices is entirely foolish and why DOW is a pathetic economy model.

That's not what I meant at all. I meant standardization of method, not price. Petrol costs are very different from corner to corner, but as a consumer, I can pull up to any pump and get gas out of it in the exact same way. I can take my money and go to any store in the US and buy anything they're offering. This is all currently impossible in Cantr.

Even in the best comparable example - medieval times, gold or silver would be an acceptable currency no matter what kingdom you found yourself in. Cantr doesn't even have a commodity like that.

I honestly believe that Cantr has evolved the best possible economic model for the crappy circumstances it has found itself in. Nothing can change unless fundamental aspects of the game mechanics change.

[madfish]

Standardising prices is entirely foolish and why DOW is a pathetic economy model.

That's not what I meant at all. I meant standardization of method, not price. Petrol costs are very different from corner to corner, but as a consumer, I can pull up to any pump and get gas out of it in the exact same way. I can take my money and go to any store in the US and buy anything they're offering. This is all currently impossible in Cantr.

Even in the best comparable example - medieval times, gold or silver would be an acceptable currency no matter what kingdom you found yourself in. Cantr doesn't even have a commodity like that.

I honestly believe that Cantr has evolved the best possible economic model for the crappy circumstances it has found itself in. Nothing can change unless fundamental aspects of the game mechanics change.

The only good thing about the DOW system is it's easy to calculate. Perhaps with the time people can devote you are right and cantr can't do any better as it is currently.

[RedQueen.exe]

Waiting for others to wake up is probably the #1 killer of trade in the game - why wait for you when I can dig it up myself? This concept was put forth and debated to death several years ago. Who knows, I might have even been against it then, but it's clear it's needed now. We also need programmed mechanisms of land control and ownership.

I would agree and say it is also the #1 killer of employment in game. If I'm more awake than my employer, and they don't set up multiple projects or give me a healthy degree of autonomy I am losing time I could be working every time I have to wait on them to set the next project up.

And the reason you gave is why I -always- give a better deal to towns that let me gather while I wait on trades, because otherwise I figure that I need to account for all that wasted time in my profit margin.

DOW is fine, it is honestly the best you get as long as you use modifiers and don't literally trade straight DOW. My traders charge percentages on top of DOW for transport costs, scarcity, and how in demand the product is, taking into account whether or not alternatives exist. If you need cobalt, for example, there is no acceptable subsitute, but if you need propane, you could probably just as easily be using coal, it just won't be as efficient.

And over time I have learned to tell the people that don't think I should be able to make the same or greater profit as a trader as someone who works the land, by marking up my goods to just piss off. Turns out there are other people who are more understanding and realize I'm not trading just out of the goodness of my heart. Most of my traders now are at points that they really don't NEED the business anyway and can afford to tell them to stuff it.

[DylPickle]

6) Lack of programmed tools to help players manage an economy.

If we expect players to control a complex commodities market using their own free-time and a spreadsheet, it's doomed from the beginning. Economies thrive on standardization. I know we hate automation, but it would be nice if I could come into a town, make a trade for a set price, without having the other character necessarily awake. Waiting for others to wake up is probably the #1 killer of trade in the game - why wait for you when I can dig it up myself? This concept was put forth and debated to death several years ago. Who knows, I might have even been against it then, but it's clear it's needed now. We also need programmed mechanisms of land control and ownership.

I would love to see a vending machine/market stall in the game that could be stocked with a few goods and set to have a variety of prices based on resources and/or coins. Put a lock on it so there's a risk to not having it guarded at least. Something like that. The hardest thing about it would be that you'd have to set the different costs individually based on the type of coin and/or resource type used to pay for the sale item. Also, it would be best if the containers/vending machines could hold tools/weapons as well as resources. Bartering would live on, as there'd still be nothing prohibiting you from trying to haggle people down. It just wouldn't be as instant.

[Cwalen]

So +1 on that.

You would only have to enter in the exchange rates for things you want in return for things you offered, so it would be perhaps 20 fields to fill in to initialize a stall.
On the down side it's like nothing else in the game so it wont be the simplest thing to code.

With the in game calculation tools I am thinking a dow converter, with a % for profit and a field for distance just to get basic trade making sense to everyone.
Some sort of food tool to translate Xg of food = Y days of eating.
Some sort of chain of production tool or table to calculate the effort put into more complex products.

On the positive, good for shifting away from the simple DOW calculations that dominate, on the bad side it might introduce a new artificial standard.
Nothing active established players don't have access to anyway, but useful for raising awareness of people who don't trade much or don't like research and maths.

The real problem is you cant polish a lump of poo, And this is just rolling it in sprinkles.

While we have production, a legacy surplus and no consumption there is no reason to have economic activity except in small examples.