Currency before it's invented

[Jimmyh]

I've seen a few requests to only have gold/currency in the game until you actually get the required tech(Currency).

Now in Civ III commerce is the base unit, that is then divided up using percentages to get the gold, science and luxury values.

So My question is, if currency hasn't been invented yet, how could you see commerce being handled?

Would it just divide commerce between science and luxury? or maybe some thing else?

 

[MPK]

Prestige Value:

Prestige could be use as a form of (payment) for enlisting Artisans to build and create the Empire.

Probably the Ancient Despot Rule didn't function with Prestige as an asset, but maybe it did. Pre-Dynastic Egypt rose, from what? and with what? Wasn't $$$
But Prestige is a great factor for the growth in most, if not all the great Ancient Empires before Currency ruled. Definitely Prestige was a necessity in a early Monarchy. Prestige got people working for there rulers, and persuaded other nations to give respect. Many Kings were overthrown for the lacking these things.

 

[Takhisis]

Trade and swaps. I'll try to expand on this tomorrow but RL is not as forgiving as it once was.

 

[Ogedei_the_Mad]

For much of the world, exaction on the populace wasn't based in gold (or even silver for that matter), but grain taxes and corvee labor. Even as late as the end of the 19th century, this remained true for much of the world until the rise of Western-style economics.

Maybe rather than "gold" we could just have the more generic term "wealth."

I don't know how difficult this would be to implement, but maybe specific tile bonuses could depend on government type. For example, a Monarchy could gain a bonus in "Wealth" from irrigated tiles whereas a Democracy could gain bonus in "Wealth" from trade-boosting tile improvements.

 

[Takhisis]

That's a good way to start it. The real point would be 'productivity' of tiles, and how it's expressed (food output, construction materials such as clay, bricks, mortar, metal ores), and separated from the workforce needed to develop exploit them -this could lead to depletion of tiles through overexploitation as well, for example, peat bogs, ore veins running out, etc.-; piling up readily exchangeable currency would imply minting, or else exchanging bullion. Trading supplies of batches of resources would be the norm, does Rome getting grain from its provinces and protectorates ring a bell?

So you could have stockpiles, of minted currency (and, later on, "bank accounts") and of piled up refined ore, timber, grain, oil, etc.

 

[Cyc]

I'm not sure if we have the ability to change icons once currency is invented. If we don't, the icon would, of course have to be suitable for the whole game. I'm not sure you can beat the gold coin icon, as Ogedei_the_Mad says, the term "wealth" could replace the term "gold", but what icon would we use instead of the gold coin?

The gold piece represents commerce in the city screen, but translates to the bank on the game screen. Pre-currency would be pre-banks, but commerce existed both before and after the invention of currency.

As Takhisis says, commerce is generated by trading. Trading commodities possibly for a profit. So it's a social contract represented by an exchange of goods. I'm thinking maybe a small icon of a handshake could represent commerce. (see below)

Not sure how to represent wealth pre-currency, but an inventory of the above commodities, before or after an exchange could represent wealth. Say 50 acres of corn or enough cotton to clothe a division of soldiers. So maybe the brokerage power of the above social contract or agreement could represent pre-currency wealth. So maybe the handshake could represent commerce and the bank in all applications, if made the same size as a gold coin.

Maybe instead of using "wealth" as the term, we could use "com", short for commodity. So we would have fpt, spt, and cpt. Just a thought.

The interlocking tori was an afterthought - to make the icon simpler.

"Wish You Were Here" was another after thought.