What I'd like to do is collect a number of suggestions to improve the economic simulation in BL, which I think a lot of players have been struggling with. Once it is fleshed out here, I'll x-post the best ones to Suggestions. It's also in the realm of imagination that I might make a mod to do some of this stuff myself - though I doubt the engine can handle all of what I want, since a lot of my suggestions are AI changes rather than economy changes.
I have a decent Econ background to start with, but I'm lacking in knowledge of the game's code and principles game design in general, so I'd like to summon: @SadShogun @Flesson19 @Bannerman Man @Apocal @Kentucky 『 HEIGUI 』 James, @Spyware and @Ananda_The_Destroyer.
Summary:
The current system is simultaneously too complicated and too simplistic, because I understand it relies on a bunch of assumptions that don't really mesh and then a few stopgap rules to stop it from going out of control.
In the past, the system would break when a town would - for instance - produce too many horses (increasing Prosperity), increased Prosperity would increase food consumption and then the whole town would starve, wiping out half of the garrison/militia.
BTW: Here's a great - if somewhat outdated - breakdown of how pricing works currently.
My ideas may seem kind of complicated, but they'd actually streamline the game by turning it into an internally-consistent system that doesn't cause runaway-stupid economic breakdowns. It would simultaneously gear the economy to first-and-foremost prevent starvation (90% of any medieval economy), allow massive profit potential for selling luxuries to prosperous areas and also fix the denar-sink issue.
What do you think? Do you have more suggestions?
I have a decent Econ background to start with, but I'm lacking in knowledge of the game's code and principles game design in general, so I'd like to summon: @SadShogun @Flesson19 @Bannerman Man @Apocal @Kentucky 『 HEIGUI 』 James, @Spyware and @Ananda_The_Destroyer.
Here's a summary of consistent economic problems I've seen in EA:
- Caravans and workshops are generally extremely weak investments
- Towns regularly fail to stockpile necessary materials, leading to unnecessary price shocks and economic collapses
- Bandit scaling at higher levels breaks the econ simulation and bankrupts the entire realm
- Pricing of certain goods fluctuate too much or too little - according to a semi-broken equation with maximum and minimum prices
- Denars magically appear out of nowhere and are hoarded/spent in massive quantities by lords, who also do not participate in the horse economy and bypass markets entirely when they sell loot
Here are some basic economic principles I'd like to see reflected in-game: (I'm sure some already are and I'm just not aware)
- Price elasticity of demand: Some goods (like food and firewood) should have near-constant demand which does not substantially decrease as price increases (because, no matter how much it costs, you still have to eat)
- Time value of money and opportunity cost: Money you have now is worth more than money somebody promises to give you a year from now. Anything you purchase now as an investment needs to be worth more when you sell it than if you'd invested it on something else.
- Price elasticity of supply: Greater profit opportunities should motivate traders to create more caravans and vice versa
- Substitution effect: Some goods should share a demand curve because one can be substituted for another (out of grain? eat fish!)
- Prestige/luxury pricing: Some retail goods should have demand specifically because there is limited supply (fish should be luxuries inland and dates should be luxuries in the north)
- Income effect and marginal propensity to consume: Higher income levels should mean higher spending in both increased consumption of basic goods and increased consumption of luxury goods
- Monetary Inflation vs. Supply-Crunch Inflation: Prices in general should reflect the supply of money as much as or more than the supply of goods
- Speculation vs. Investment: Market prices should take into account prevailing trends: for instance, a town with 3 silversmiths should reasonably speculate that demand will remain high for silver ore in the future and keep prices high even when current demand is met
Here are my own starting suggestions for fixing the economy:
- Every town should stockpile enough goods to supply them for the next year (half a year or 1 month at least), with demand slacking significantly ONLY after the supply chain is secured. I could also see a tiered discount of 5/10/20% per additional month up to a year. Also towns and villages should demand firewood depending on their climate and time of year.
- Prosperity should no longer simulate luxury demand or market decisions: notables/nobles should be practically the ONLY purchasers of luxury goods, with demand increasing based on their disposable income - with a daily/monthly spend that prioritizes consumables and then spills over to pure luxuries like velvet/jewelry. This would more accurately simulate the extreme price swings in luxury retail, which would be less about "how much stuff there is" and more about "how much the rich folk have to spend". Also, notables should respond to market conditions - if, for instance, their pottery workshop isn't making money because nobody's buying their goods... then they should invest in a caravan to get their goods to market.
- Goods should substitute when it makes sense: Peasants don't really demand "grain" - they demand "food". Once there is enough of at least 2 kinds of food to eat (grain + butter, fish + meat, dates + ale), then demand should drop to near-zero for everything else. So a settlement with a brewery that doesn't have enough grain or any other food should see the cost of grain skyrocket to near-equal the cost of ale, since "not starving" takes priority.
- Explanation of 1-3: A town has residents that eat 10 staple foods per day and 6 notables which demand 1 of each consumable per day. Minimum demand for "food" stands at 1320 (the minimum everyone needs to eat in a year). There are only 900 units of Grain in the settlement, which means the price of all food consumables will be high until 420 more units of food are produced/sold. Once base demand for food is met, then excess food demand is a function of notable/noble demand for greater food variety and their ability to pay for it. Let's say 1 out of the 6 notables can only afford basic food with their current profit, then that's all they buy. Let's say 4 out of the 6 have enough money to buy all different kinds of food, then they'll spend their "food budget" (a fraction of their income) on as many as they can get. Let's say the last notable has so much money that they can buy every kind of food... that notable buys a year's supply of them all and then spends the rest of their disposable "food" income on luxuries like jewelry/velvet. The order in which purchases are made should be richest-notable first, since those with more buying power should have more market muscle.
- EXTRA Explanation of 1-3: If the settlement has a production workshop like a brewery, then annual demand for grain should increase to factor in the increased need and annual demand for ale should lower to factor in increased supply. Even with the settlement starving for ANY food, the reward for delivering grain should be higher than the reward for delivering ale - because
- Weaponry, armor and horse prices should scale on troop replacement: Nuff said - if nobles are recruiting everyone in sight (especially high-tiers), then there should be more demand for armaments.
- Weaponry, armor and clothing should probably be aggregated into easily-tradable goods "packages": If part of the problem with the economy is that equipment prices need hard ceilings/floors because they're not traded between settlements, then this should change by allowing production to be easily transported from one town to another.
- MOST DANGEROUS SUGGESTION Denars should NOT be created ex nihilo - they should only be made at silversmiths: One of the problems with creating endless money out of nowhere is it screws pricing everywhere - especially when you dive headfirst into price ceilings and floors. The reason why silver historically has been such a good currency is that the production thereof has historically mapped well with the production of all goods in an economy and plagues/wars/collapses that affected the production of silver generally affected the production of everything else. This would give real wartime significance to the capture of silver mines and towns with silversmiths. It would also give rise to a more robust barter economy in regions without silver production. Also, ideally % tariffs should be paid by caravans selling goods regardless of whether the transactions are bartered - not a magic number appearing out of nowhere (at least tariffs should be earned as coinage but represented in the sim as a % of barter goods taken).
- EVEN MORE DANGEROUS Prices should only be high when there's enough money to pay them: Prosperity should drop as wealth transfers from peasants to the market and vice versa. If the peasantry cannot afford to buy food, then Prosperity (which should be a measure of the town's working-class and middle-class wealth) should drop as they starve and prices should reach a ceiling that matches their ability to pay. If Wine costs 100 denars and the peasants cannot afford to pay that much because they aren't earning enough, then the price shouldn't increase to 500 denars - because nobody cares if peasants "demand" wine if they just don't have the money to buy it. In math terms: total buying power divided by total demand should be maximum price increase created by peasant demand. This is a much more sensible "price ceiling" that doesn't have to be arbitrarily set by devs.
- SUPER DANGEROUS Crime should appropriate market goods to the peasants: When there is demand for goods that the peasants can't pay, then what goods there are should "fall off the back of a wagon" and transfer wealth from peasants to criminal notables at a discounted price, while cutting into the profits of merchants/artisans.
Summary:
The current system is simultaneously too complicated and too simplistic, because I understand it relies on a bunch of assumptions that don't really mesh and then a few stopgap rules to stop it from going out of control.
In the past, the system would break when a town would - for instance - produce too many horses (increasing Prosperity), increased Prosperity would increase food consumption and then the whole town would starve, wiping out half of the garrison/militia.
BTW: Here's a great - if somewhat outdated - breakdown of how pricing works currently.
My ideas may seem kind of complicated, but they'd actually streamline the game by turning it into an internally-consistent system that doesn't cause runaway-stupid economic breakdowns. It would simultaneously gear the economy to first-and-foremost prevent starvation (90% of any medieval economy), allow massive profit potential for selling luxuries to prosperous areas and also fix the denar-sink issue.
What do you think? Do you have more suggestions?
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