The Value of Gold

i think that can be said about ANYTHING written in the forums, not just this. at least thats how i've always looked at it. a seeming pool of raw data for the devs to parse thorugh and get a pulse on what we really want - even if our posts don't say exactly what we really want, just what we percieve that we want.

 

Ahhh, the barter system! (I think). That feudal economy would go great with the medieval theme of Shroud... Maybe

 

I agree that gold should have weight. Its a commodity just like anything else. You will find though however many people just want to have it digitized and not take up space or weight. I prefer it to be at par with everything else. How does one mine gold and it has weight as an ore, but not as a coin?

 

And there already is silver, copper, and bronze ore in the game, so maybe coins too are not stretch?

 

one could hope!

 

Unfortunately it's been mentioned so infrequently.. like once or twice in two years it's hard to get a handle on whether or not 3 tier currency is still current thinking or was Richard just talking off the top of his head last time he mentioned it.

 

for years i hated the idea that the gold you own in a game can have weight. because in games where it does, there's always a fairly strict limit on what you can carry.

however, with sota, i'm NOT that way, but do wish that we have to spend LESS points towards carrying capacity skills. i like the idea that the coin has to weigh - AND that the skill points are needed to be spent - but fewer points, please. thats WHY we have banks, right?

question: if coin has weight, does that also mean it is lootable in a pvp/loot scenario? - i wouldn't want that to be something lootable, mostly because i want to swim in a sea of coin like scrooge mcduck.

 

i think they may be going a different route - regional coins instead of tiered coins. because they too can have different tiers in the overall system.

two phoenix republic gold coins could equal one britannian...

 

I was thinking about regional deniminations and would love seeing how that would work. Could be very cool...could be a cryfest for people who don't want to be bothered with the complexity...especially if there's some foundation of dynamic exchange rates.

 

I did understand. I just don't think the solo player should be at the mercy of the multiplayer crowd. There's supposed to be a solo game here.

 

i agree with your sentiment of the solo player should not be at the mercy of the multiplayer crowd when in single player offline mode- i feel that in the multiplayer version, or friends only version, or single player online version, the pc vendors, and players themselves should drive those economies BECAUSE it is online, and all subject to the very same metrics.

if it is simple where for example: elysium gold is worth more when in elysium, but ardoris gold is also worth more when in ardoris. i'd think a static difference like 1 ardoris gold is worth two elysium gold, when in ardoris and the exact opposite is true when in elysium. - then the capital city of the continent, is worth more than BOTH, everywhere. so it takes 3 gold (either ardoris or elysium) to equal one from new brittany.

it will certainly drive the economies locally.

 

There were early discussions about multiple currencies like we saw in Serpent Isle but it either wasn't very popular or very practical. If the city states for example all used brass coin.. when why would it be worth any different? Brass is brass.. silver is silver and gold is gold. So long as we're talking currency who's value is derived by the material they're made of there's little reason to have exchange rates and it would be too much of a hassle.

There are what? at least 6-8 city states.. not including the Vale? So if each city state had their own currency.. even if it's all 1 tiered currency.. you either need to track and calculate values for 8 different currencies.. or limit yourself to where you do your shopping. Whatever currency we have should be universally accepted.

 

Hmm.. would it be interesting if there were 8 coppers to a brass, 8 brass to a bronze, 8 bronze to a silver, and 8 silver to a gold. That's 64 coppers to a bronze, 512 copper to a sillver, and 4096 copper to a gold.

Would this make 1 gold = 4 kilocoppers?

If we look at densities, since brass and bronze are mainly copper, an equal amount of one weighs almost the same as the other. Brass is about 30% Zinc, which is a bit less dense than copper, so if all coins were the same volume, the brass coin would weigh the least. Bronze would be next, usually consisting of about 12% tin, weighing just a little more than the brass, and the copper weighing a bit more than the bronze. The silver would be heavier yet, but still not by much, and the gold would feel twice to 3 times as heavy still.

I feel it's important to note, that until steel, bronze was a better metal than iron - just not as easy to work with, and the tin was hard to find. If tin is more common in New Britannia, bronze weapons, armor and items would certainly be more prevalent, and favorable over iron.

I believe the reason for moving from the 'Bronze Age to the Iron Age' wasn't the discovery of Iron, but the lack of good access to tin to continue making bronze, so iron was considered 'good enough for most applications'.. iron is the most common metal in Earth, so its availability made it a good default choice (cheap). Iron is lighter than bronze too.

Iron armor is lighter than brass, which is lighter than bronze, which is lighter than copper, which is lighter than silver, which is much lighter than gold. ;-) So, I suppose you could say switching to iron made it easier to wear more armor, and wield larger weapons..

Regarding regional denominations.. bronze is noted for its resistance to salt-water corrosion, so It would make sense for coastal and island cities to favor the use of bronze coinage over brass or copper.. Gold of course is universally favored as coinage because it is not reactive, doesn't tarnish, and has much greater density than other metals, but is malleable enough to cut into pieces (of eight?).

 

Good point, in theory. The difference in valuation is created by virtue of the varying nomenclatures that makes a brass coin a "dove tail" in one city state and a "kings cuff" in another. Already we have significant differences in costs of goods from one locale to the next. Attach regional coins to the equation and you give birth to exchange rates.

What you could buy with 10 dove tails in your home state costs on 4 kings cuffs here...effectively devaluing your doves tails.

 

I do kind of like the idea of iron coin.. and don't anyone get me wrong.. I was an early supporter of multiple currencies.. to a degree. But I think there needs to be a balance between complexity and simplicity here. A single 3 tier currency has enough complexity and flexibility that you can do a lot with it and if everything is universally excepted than price calculations are pretty simple. You assign a price based on the lowest tier and do a simply conversion.

If we did indeed to multiple currencies I think it should be based on continents rather than city states.. but even if there were city states I do believe there needs to be a standard currency. Basically following the same model as Serpent Isle.

Serpent Isle had 4 single tier currencies.. Monetari, Guilders and I know it starts with an F and ends in RI but I'm going to be too lazy to look it up.. and a gold standard.

Merchants didn't always accept money from the other cities but they all accepted gold. So following that model if we wanted both a mult-tier currency AND regional currency.. I would do this..

Gold standard currency I'll call it for now.. brass, silver and gold would be universally accepted. Anyone who didn't want to mess with regional currencies could just deal with this..

Then have your regional currencies with as many or as few tiers as you like..

 

thats part of the point of regional monetary systems though. kind of the 'stamp' on it denoting it is from this location, therefore worth more within that location but worth less elsewhere. - which would also make sense to have the regional banking system they have now.

 

Exactly!

 

That having been brought up now I'm reminded that quite a few people awhile back really wanted to mint their own town currency. I wasn't particularly fond of the idea from a technology and design standpoint but also at the time I hadn't considered a single universally accepted standard. I like in depth but I try not to go too overboard and to me at the time it seems like it would be too difficult to manage. A universal standard gives people a means to opt out though so at the moment I have mixed feelings.

One thing I do want to point out though is that regional currency almost demands that all currency have weight. Which I'm totally fine with.

Oh and also Richard has talked before about being able to mint custom coin. So it may not be outside the realm of possibility. One approach they might take is Novia / New Britannia having a standard.. and just allowing player towns to mint custom currency and do it that way.

I do not know how that would work for NPCs unless that coin can somehow be registered and NPCs in a town configured to accept that coin at a certain exchange rate related to the standard.

 

Ya, since we're on this discussion, this is how in past conversations I suggested it might work to keep things simple...

Coins produced in a certain region would have certain stamp on it, like a crown or an eagle, and the coin is named after the stamp on it. So, if its a crown, the coin is called a 'crown', like a 'gold crown', 'silver crown', 'brass crown', whichever. Then, following historical examples, if we wanted to create even more tiers within a single currency besides only the metals, you could have 'double' and 'half' coins, like a 'gold double crowns', 'gold half crowns', 'silver double crowns'. The Phoenix Republic could have 'phoenix' coins with a phoenix stamp

If the currency valued at the metal, though to make different types of currencies different value, you'd have to either assume a different size or a different purity. :/

Anyway, certain regions could deal with a certain currency, and banks could have money changers in them. Then in theory we could have antique coins in places like dragon's dens, from centuries in the past.

 

I'd be happy enough if they just moved away from the lazy generic RP standard of "gold coins" and gave the currency a name while including a little lore stuff ingame somewhere about what it is made of and why it is called whatever it is. It would go a long way towards grounding it in to the world they a building and would also move away from the situation of paying for a muffin using the GDP of Italy.