Original post taken down for lack of necessary techs. Title changed to a discussion thread.

Not to be a joykill Dear Lord Civius :) But they need to work the tile first to get it, plus we need currency to convert it to fixed prices we can buy for, but you are right, gold pieces is needed for a commercial economy.

Also, only New Giruvegan may use gold as a means of purchase until Currency is discovered, giving the religious city an early advantage in buying from the other cities.
At this era, gold was used for statues, jewelry and such, not yet standardized coins, and there was no way to estimate the value (not even mathematics, which is required for what you propose, even on the barter level).

Also when it does come around, what reward for owning a farm that feeds the city of Arete, surely I do not do it purely out of nationalistic fervour (not that seymoo is not fervantly nationalistic)

Didn't get to see the original post, but here it goes:

If we want to strictly abide by the tech tree rules, yes, we need currency first (although one could argue that we haven't followed those rules elsewhere.)

However, if the gold economy does come around, we have to make it very basic (I've always liked a more complex one in the past, but I think they are so many complex rules in this game, no one would pay any attention to it.) We might as well start discussion now on how it would work.

I say we go the traditional way. Citizens start out with x amount of gold (usually 500) and a small house in the city of their choice. Each turnchat (or week) they receive y amount of gold (usually 50 or something like that.) Citizens may start a business for a base cost and sell goods or services. When recording profits, a tax is taken for supply and other costs. They may also buy land, and each turnchat (or week) they receive gold based on the number of hammers, food and gold on their tile(s.)

Now I have always favored a more complex system in which there are 4 types of business. Harvesters, manufacturers, retailers and services. Harvesters sell resources (obviously must own land with resource or have access to resource) to manufacturers and are taxed minimally. Manufacturers manufacture products and are taxed slightly higher and sell their products to retailers. Retailers are taxed slightly higher than them, and sell their products to the public. This way it creates more of a need to buy things, than just buying things for the hell of it. Also in a more complex system, a business must buy a plot of land or rent space in a city, and must have a building for their business. I fear, however, that if we wrote out long rules such as this, people simply wouldn't read them and be turned off to the economy. I would like to hear your thoughts on this though.

I proposed something sort of like that a couple weeks ago.

Lands gained that either have a resource or discover a resource will give the owner the ability to start a trading guild. The trading guilds will be the source of all supplies to the economy. All resources start off as raw material and the guild will receive a predetermined amount of RM each week. The RM now must be turned into goods and that is where our Specialist classes come in. Keep in mind that even horses are Raw Material as they must be trained so the RM goes for all resources no exceptions.

Specialist Classes:
Craftsmen- Buy RM from the Trading Guilds and produce goods from this raw material. A craftsmen can include anything from ironworker, Horsetrainer. Gemsmith, Winemaker, Chariotmaker, Engineer, etc....

Traders- Buy a quantity of Goods from the Craftsmen and sell it to the Merchants. Craftsmen must sell their goods to a Trader as it is their specialty to travel the known world to find all things exotic for the local populations.

Merchants- Buy the goods from the traders and sell them at their local shops (buildings) and companies. So by the time a steak reaches a citizen it has gone from the Pasture (Guild) through the chop house (craftsmen) and down a long road (Trader) to your local Eatery (Merchant).

Citizens- The default class for all participants that are not Specialists.

A Citizen can only hold one specialist title at any one time.Though Craftsmen may learn multiple skills. The first one is free and aech additional one will take 2 weeks to master. Traders must own a form of transportation to get the goods from one place to another. Right now chariots would be our only means of transportation. The vehicles will have a limit on the amount of each RM they can haul. I propose using a weight unit system to simplify this. For example gold is heavier than corn so 1 unit of gold would be equivelent to say 10 units corn. Merchants can own multiple shops (or buildings) but must build them. In turn they will need to pay an engineer to build one and the payment and time to build will depend on the engineers experience. I propose a Specialist earn xp but we can debate that later.

Though it is a little too complex for this game now. I can't repost my original statement its on my notepad at home. If you want me to I'll post it when I get home. Basically Landowners construct Buildings on their lands that they profit from when units pass through their land. If workers are passing through they need a place to sleep.

Inn- requirements- None
Earn 2 Gold Pieces if any unit passes through your tile. Recieve 1 gold per turn the unit stays in your land.

Some Buildings have requirements like Stables require 2 Steeds to construct it but it yields a whopping 5 gold to its owner if a mounted unit passes through their land. Bronezesmith requires one unit of Bronze (copper) to construct and gives 5 gold when an axe or spear comes through. The Eatery was my favorite, as you add new edible resources to it you gain +1 more gold when a unit passes through. Like adding a new item to your menu. These are just a few examples of the ancient buildings and as we gain new resources they would increase. I feel the system would not be to complex though we would have to do a better job mapping movement within our borders. We also wouldn't have a starting set amount of gold which is always good to avoid. The City Dwellers (non-landowners) could earn a living as a specialist in their City. I didn't have a chance to get into this in my original post and do not have time right now. I'll lay out a revised system when I get home and try to avoid the Math and Currency hurdles. Though I think by Mathematics they mean something more advanced then simple addition that the cavemen and my 3 year old use.

The Topic was originally called "Gold Discovered". I went into a short RP story about how the churcgoing settlers of New Giruvegan discovered shiny rocks on the hills N of the City. They thought the rocks were divine and called them gold. They found them so valuable that they began trading the divine rocks for goods and services and the practice spread throughout our borders.........

I used pieces of gold nuggets as another bartering material trying to sidestep the "Currency" issue. Prov then brought up that we don't even have math yet let alone currency.

Maths is merely the formalisation of a number system, and techniques to work with it (theorems and the liek). It doesn't mean our people are unable to count. It is one of the core needs in agriculture and animal husbandry, and has been around for as long as people have traded animals

Maths is merely the formalisation of a number system, and techniques to work with it (theorems and the liek). It doesn't mean our people are unable to count. It is one of the core needs in agriculture and animal husbandry, and has been around for as long as people have traded animals

I agree and great point about math. I would also add that the greeks coined Silver as far back as the 7th Century BC. I am not talking about making Gold a currency or even a coin. Just that the nuggets are divine (to the paganist Aretan people) and is used for trade. The system has to start somewhere.

Also when it does come around, what reward for owning a farm that feeds the city of Arete, surely I do not do it purely out of nationalistic fervour (not that seymoo is not fervantly nationalistic)

Good point. We can add any worker improvements as Great Buildings (for lack of a better name). These would give their owners a steady income stream and would not require units passing through to earn gold.

Also, only New Giruvegan may use gold as a means of purchase until Currency is discovered, giving the religious city an early advantage in buying from the other cities.

I like this idea. It gives us a history of our gold system. My only problem with this is what if the Protectors choose not to add the gold to the trading guilds.

I like this idea. It gives us a history of our gold system. My only problem with this is what if the Protectors choose not to add the gold to the trading guilds.
We will. However, we don't even have a worker yet. After this play session, we should start distributing.

We will. However, we don't even have a worker yet. After this play session, we should start distributing.

Do you plan on distributing Gold to the citizenry or with the other Trade Guilds? This decision will have a major impact on the creation of our economic system. Whatever the decision may be it seems the weight is on the shoulders of the Protectors.

I think the plan is to inject it through the use of a guild in the name of the church. I'm not exactly sure what you're asking, is this solution ok?

I think the plan is to inject it through the use of a guild in the name of the church. I'm not exactly sure what you're asking, is this solution ok?

You said you guys were waiting to mine the gold to start distributing it. My question was are you going to distribute it to the citizenry individually (100 GP per citizen for example) or trade gold as a resource like the rest of the trading guilds.

Seems your solution is a little different and makes alot of sense. If I understand you right you guys plan on injecting gold to the citizenry through a Gold Guild of some kind. Seems this is as far as you have gotten on the ins and outs. You can continue the discussion on how you plan to form the economy here if you want. I'd very much like to help in its formation.

We have already had conversations about needing to be careful with the gold, as to not allow it to corrupt our people, so I highly doubt distributing it freely throughout our nation is going to happen.

What I'm envisioning is a guild, yes, through the church, but it needs to have wider appeal than simply trading things for gold, if you follow. The gold needs to be accessible to a lot of citizens in order to start laying the foundation for a gold economy, correct? Is this what you're aiming for?

That I agree is the best way to go about it. I look forward to seeing this plan in action. One question though, should we come up with a mining capacity on how much gold is available per turn to the church?

Yes. I'll leave you to that :)

Perhaps it could increase as we get more technologically advanced?

I have been using barrels for most of the resources so far. The mines can produce 1 barrel (100 gold nuggets) from the mine per week. These nuggets can be divided into GP (Gold Pieces) if need be.