Let's talk plans to economize Cantr!

[Just A Bill]

I think the "councils" that you talk about function more like "tribal elders" in most cases, some are elected, which is a little odd, but from what I have seen they seldom deliberate or vote. This might be the result of the difficulty carrying out long conversations with multiple people. I could be wrong, I have few characters involved in any sort of government...

Cantr as a game is about societies and co-operation so I think those that play Cantr tend to be players who will join groups readly. Often, later, they feel like a cog in a wheel or a slave at some point and either drop out or nominally participate (sleep a lot ect). My hunch is that the successful leader in Cantr is one that can give that sence of belonging yet still providing their followers the feeling that they are part of the decision making process, and have a reasonable amount of autonomy.

As far as MWS is concerned, I would be curious as to what percent of employies actually leave the company and redeam their shares. My hunch is its actually very low. The promise of shares is a great marketing device, it is a way of telling the employees they are valued when in reality very few actually take anything from the company in return for their labor. Still the ability to vote the shares is something new in Cantr as near as I can tell.

Personally I would like to see democracy and free market economics evolve somewhere in cantr. I have seen areas where the government is al but nonexistant (few laws exist, beyond prohibtions on attakcing others, stealing) and a free market exists by default.

[Jur Schagen]

As far as MWS is concerned, I would be curious as to what percent of employies actually leave the company and redeam their shares. My hunch is its actually very low. The promise of shares is a great marketing device, it is a way of telling the employees they are valued when in reality very few actually take anything from the company in return for their labor. Still the ability to vote the shares is something new in Cantr as near as I can tell.

Noone has left the company indeed, AFAIK. It's not immune to the sleeping disease, though. And the democracy in it is a farce; Goram sets out the lines and everyone votes for anything he proposes at the shareholder's meetings, just making minor amendments, which he decides if he will listen to or not. And he and a few of the other senior employees have accumulated so many shares that they could effectively block any call for change from the new recruits. But yes, it is indeed an efficient marketing technique which has allowed for fast growth.

[kinvoya]

With the restrictions of game mechanics and the ever-looming sleeping sickness/sudden death of important figures, I don't think an economy modeled on rl will ever be possible in Cantr. Cantrians will have to struggle through and develop their own unique monetary systems which, I think, are more likely to resemble ones in societies where very expensive or very hard to aquire items will be the only things able to hold significant value and only as trade items. I don't think a currency system utilizing the coins will ever be widely accepted.

I was very impressed with the one company which established a trade currency of silk cloth. It worked because the cloth, itself, had value as oppossed to the coins which only represent (an uncertain) value. I'm not sure if they still have the silk cloth system but I thought it was a great idea and seemed to work fine.

Cantrians are not thinking very abstractly yet because they are so close to death on a daily basis that they are too pragmatic to consider the symbolic value of a Quill or a coin. The more I think about it the more I realize that economics is a lot like religion in that it requires a leap of faith.

[Robert Shmeashter]

I think people all are talking about currency, as in coins and stuff, but I never said anything about currency anywhere. As in "pay" and "economization", I meant not exactly coins, but at least some form of return for an individual's work, whether it be potatoes, steel, whatever. But the problem is, Most Cantrians are being paid for their work with something that they can produce themselves.

A lot of my employed characters are wondering, "What's the point of repairing this or digging for that, if all I get are some measly potatoes that I can grow myself?" I mean, everyone can survive by themselves, growing potatoes or growing rice. You don't have much fun as a player if all of your characters do just that, though.

What I'm getting at is this: What if something is progged that allows much bigger differences in character skills? Each character would have one or two "hidden skills" in which they excel at, and then they are worthless at everything else. For example, a person that could hit really high when hunting, but can only produce 10 grams of potatoes a day, without exaggeration. Then lessen the degeneration of skills. This would force everyone to find employment that would make good use of their hidden skills. Different groups will have a monopoly over clothes, weapons, food, or animal products, healing foods, everything a Cantrian needs. This will introduce a marketplace in which lots of goods will be sold for other goods. This may also develop into a type of community service in which people just lay all their stuff on a table, and just get what they need. It may also develop into true trade, in which a real quantity of stuff may be traded for a real quantity of other stuff. But it will make more sense than the system right now, because unless your hidden skill is farming, you won't be able to grow potatoes to survive, exactly like you can't in the real world. You will have to rely on each other, selling or contributing what you can.

What do you guys think?

[Peanut]

Yes this might be one of the reasons what hinders trade.

Cantarians excell at almost everything (except attacking?)

[formerly known as hf]

I like the suggestion that skills should be more varied. I too hate the 'we'll give a know-nothing better newspawn some rotting carrots in return for a few days sweatin over the smelter, which makes us rich with iron' philosophy of much of Cantr...

But... making life more difficult for some people, in terms of getting food to eat, will just serve to increase the inequality gap between those 'in their twenties' and everyone else. It'll also affect those characters who aid Cantr society in non-material ways, devoting their times to maps and guides and so forth, asking for nothing in return. They'd dissappear if food collecting was more difficult...

[Peanut]

I like the suggestion that skills should be more varied. I too hate the 'we'll give a know-nothing better newspawn some rotting carrots in return for a few days sweatin over the smelter, which makes us rich with iron' philosophy of much of Cantr...

But... making life more difficult for some people, in terms of getting food to eat, will just serve to increase the inequality gap between those 'in their twenties' and everyone else. It'll also affect those characters who aid Cantr society in non-material ways, devoting their times to maps and guides and so forth, asking for nothing in return. They'd dissappear if food collecting was more difficult...

Wrong they would take some stuff they can easily gather along with them to trade for food.

Or they'll ask for contributions.

[Just A Bill]

I know of at least one business that pays people in iron, which when you think about it is a something a newspawn really can't get any other way. I have set as a primary goal for a few of my characters smelting my own iron. Those that succeeded were in their mid to late 20's by the time they actually started smelting projects, and then they were using other peoples smelters. It just took that long to gather/trade for all the components.

I have heard some talk on this board (and other places) as to establishing guilds and limiting access to resources to encourage trade. Frankly this strike me as a lame excuse to attempt to gain/maintain political power.
Establishing guilds and restricting resources actually discourages trade. It might for a time make one individual or group rich, but the price of this is the goodwill of your neighbors/non guild members.

[Antichrist_Online]

I've no idea why people want cantr to copy our corrupt and badly thought out economy when it can develop its own corrupt and badly thought out economies.

Anyway, the best "guilds" that are working are those that team together and help other people, therefore increaseing overall wealth in the comunity not just their own. Eg, Company Y pay workers money, they use that money to buy from company X, Company X in turn uses that money to pay its workers who buy my products. This is how economies work, not by restricting trade and collections.

[creepyguyinblack]

Well, I wish there was more specialization by people. As it is, alot of people try to do everything and end up taking forever or not being as effective as they could be. Ideally, I'd like to see miners, loggers, hunters, weavers, metalworkers, weaponsmiths, jewelers, and so on all eventually gather in their local town to trade their goods for the things they can't make themselves while out doing their thing. Unfortunately this takes alot of people doing alot of things to really work.

[Talapus]

Kwor does a fairly decent job of having the specialization that you are talking about.

[Just A Bill]

The problem with most guilds is that they tend to monopolize the profession/trade that they are in. IRL, guilds made membership manditory to practice their respective crafts. This presented a barrier to entry into these trades. Some of the guilds in Cantr are similar. IRL, there are a few advantages to guilds, they provide training, and can sometimes improve the quality of the product thru standards. On the flip side they discourage competition, by standardizing prices and limiting/hindering others who would take up the profession.

In cantr there are two benifits to specialization. First each person only needs fewer tools to be always productive, as the number of tasks that the individual does on a regular basis is limited. Next, it allows people to use the skills that they are good at. Of course this requires people to know what they are good at, and with the random variation in production, this can be difficult to determing. Still on the whole, a group of specialists should be somewhat more productive than each individually. If they share tools, this is somewhat lessened but still present.

My problem with guilds is when they keep others out of their trade and not allow others to gather, hunt or otherwise produce whatever they specialize in. The natural benifits of specialization can be had without the top down structure imposed by guillds. It would require well developed markets to facilitate trade. As it is now, finding someone who wants what you want and has what you have is difficult and consumes real life time. Its often easier to have your character waste his time than you waste yours. An established currency would help with this, but it could be done just as easily with a relatively compact and valuable commodity (iron for example).

[swymir]

Interesting also are multi-town corporations based on some kind of promise to pay or to distribute shares, of which MWS inc is the most sophisticated.

offt... Cult Mechanicus was way better. I miss that company.

[Robert Shmeashter]

I hear lots of discussion about guilds... But I'm not talking about guilds. That is an IC, thing, and I'll leave that to your characters to figure out. What I am talking about is programming something so that your character could not survive independently by growing potatoes all the time. Whether he's in a guild or not, he would have to put his hidden skill to use, so that he can trade for food, tools, clothes, and other stuff, supporting each other, like Antichrist's idea.

[Talapus]

That is unrealistic, and as much as it pains me to say it, it is an example of an OOC solution to fix an IC problem. Allowing people to not even be able to support themself by farming would create severe problems on many fronts, such as newspawns not being able to feed themselves nor having anything to trade for food would starve until they got a character that could farm which would not only discourage new players, but would severly hamper many characters. It would also forbid characters on the frontier from surviving on their own or with just a few people (in some language groups, this is all that you have likely) unless by chance these people are farmers. This would not really allow for learning of trades, would forbid the building of new towns because there wouldn't be any trailblazers to set up an infastructure in the new location. It would have so many negative effects, while its entire purpose would be to force trade (which is sometimes infeasible) and allow monopolies of various trades that is unrealistic and totally inspired by OOC influences. Thus I give this idea a strong no