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Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#1 Old 15th Aug 2014 at 4:02 PM
Default Gold-backed currency?
So this may be another of my harebrained schemes, but check it out I've played several incarnations of the prehistoric stage of my hood and been troubled by how to handle money; there are basically two schools of thought:

1. Treat money as resources/social cohesion/evolutionary advantage. If prehistoric sims catch a lot of fish, they have a lot of food, a lot of energy and a lot of free time, so selling those fish and buying things from the catalog makes sense. This is the view I've tended towards, since dog jobs represent hunting and they produce money that can be used to order food.
2. A fish is a fish and an apple is an apple, turning them into money doesn't make sense.

How about a third option: currency has to be invented, and then issued. For every 5000 simoleons of currency in circulation, you have to have gold (a treasure chest your sims dug up) in reserve. That would add more significance to mining and prevent money from being spun out of nothing. Do you guys think there's any potential in that idea?

Check out my Simblr to follow the development of the Grand Duchy of Heimlichbourg!
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Instructor
#2 Old 15th Aug 2014 at 4:22 PM
It's a cool idea. You could even specifically mine for gold (and other valuables) with a crafting station from Plumb Bob Keep. You can find it here: http://www.medievalsims.com/forums/viewforum.php?f=240 and if you're playing prehistoric, you might want to go for salt instead of gold at first. Salt means food can be preserved and was therefore incredibly valuable for centuries.
Field Researcher
#3 Old 15th Aug 2014 at 4:27 PM
Quote: Originally posted by Heimlichbourger
So this may be another of my harebrained schemes, but check it out I've played several incarnations of the prehistoric stage of my hood and been troubled by how to handle money; there are basically two schools of thought:

1. Treat money as resources/social cohesion/evolutionary advantage. If prehistoric sims catch a lot of fish, they have a lot of food, a lot of energy and a lot of free time, so selling those fish and buying things from the catalog makes sense. This is the view I've tended towards, since dog jobs represent hunting and they produce money that can be used to order food.
2. A fish is a fish and an apple is an apple, turning them into money doesn't make sense.

How about a third option: currency has to be invented, and then issued. For every 5000 simoleons of currency in circulation, you have to have gold (a treasure chest your sims dug up) in reserve. That would add more significance to mining and prevent money from being spun out of nothing. Do you guys think there's any potential in that idea?


Sure, although you'd likely run into the same problems faced by historic regimes using the gold (or any other specie) standard, namely shortage of currency, instability, inflexibility, bank runs, etc. You'd have to make provisions for a black market and retain barter for those outside the currency economy, as well as strict central government controls on gold.

If you're a fan of rule-making, it would work, but IMO, at least, you'd need pretty elaborate rules to make it work in a meaningful way.
Instructor
#4 Old 16th Aug 2014 at 5:55 AM
I am also finding this idea interesting. In fact, my new hood is starting with a mine as the basis of the economy. The mine is currently owned by the Mine Foreman, but I plan to use the Landlord mod so that the intended owner (Lord Gristle) will actually own it and rent it to the Foreman, who lives on the lot and manages the mine as a home business.
So far there are 4 poor labourer families and a parson living in the mine slum, from which there are three employees. I am using Paladin's Digging controller (one for each employee), and as objects are dug up, the foreman sells them and then uses Christianlov's Wallet Controller to send the money directly to the mine owner.
The idea is that as wealth builds, a village will naturally grow up near the mine and include all the likely occupations and merchants, and gradually some professionals and gentry.

Find all of my Challenges in MTS Sims 2 Challenges "Ye Olde" Section:
Vllygrl's By George! Regency Play Style/Challenge; Regency/Victorian ROS;
The Medieval Charter Challenge & ROS for MCC;
The Crown of Laurels Challenge; & Besieged! New Medieval Challenge & Medieval ROS.
Needs Coffee
retired moderator
#5 Old 16th Aug 2014 at 6:42 AM
The way I play my prehistoric or commune hippie type hoods is no money at all in that I pretend money hasn't bought those things, because obviously they need some money to build some kind of dwelling and they need to get certain things from the buy catalogue or to fill a pet's dish. I use Bek's chopping tree which produces logs. It's not like they can use the logs to really build anything, but I like that they have worked for the wood and I can imagine what they would do with it. One pile is worth $100, this will buy a wall with a little left over to go towards something else. Changing the log pile into a wall doesn't feel like cheating like selling fish to the sky does, at least not to me. Otherwise there is no jobs, no bills, no food bought, no clothes bought (Except for baby ones) the others either get it free or in the commune they barter with the sewing lady. They all barter items. Fish stays as fish, vegetables and fruit stays as food. Only issue I have is the tree has something going on with the sound file and it sometimes causes a booming noise which is rather a pain. Apart from the sound issue I rather like seeing them chop wood.

"I dream of a better tomorrow, where chickens can cross the road and not be questioned about their motives." - Unknown
~Call me Jo~
Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#6 Old 16th Aug 2014 at 7:10 PM
That wood chopping idea sounds great, I'd contemplated that before, and I'm glad to hear you've actually used it successfully, I can deploy it with confidence now It occurs to me that this idea could also be a way to use all those rocks my sims keep digging up; that stone could function as building material. That still leaves the question of what on earth all those maps are; I've typically been using them as valuable non-gold minerals, copper etc.

I'm growing more and more convinced that I'm going to have to include at least a few townies to represent exports to nearby areas. That would also handle the introduction of the vacation subhoods, which would involve investments.

First I'll have the Hinterlands, a mountain destination representing local barbarians who will eventually be subdued and turned into a kind of periphery of the Grand Duchy. The conquest would involve killing off a few sims to represent military losses, and sinking a HUGE amount of money into building a castle (vacation home owned by the Grand Duke) to project Heimlichbourg's power into the Hinterland. Then I would gradually open up an island location and then a far east location to represent sea trade being set up. I'd probably have to use the visitor controller to keep the traders from across the sea at a specially designated "port" lot, so that a rinky-dink farmstand can't ship its strawberries across the ocean

Check out my Simblr to follow the development of the Grand Duchy of Heimlichbourg!
Mad Poster
#7 Old 16th Aug 2014 at 7:18 PM
Stop having interesting ideas that I want to explore further but that are in no way compatible with my current 'hood! :-D :-P
Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#8 Old 16th Aug 2014 at 7:22 PM
I know how you feel... that's why I reboot my hood every five seconds Ever since I joined MTS I keep hearing game-changing ideas that make me want to burn Heimlichbourg to the ground and build it better.

Check out my Simblr to follow the development of the Grand Duchy of Heimlichbourg!
Top Secret Researcher
#9 Old 17th Aug 2014 at 3:31 PM
Quote: Originally posted by samantha_kathy
It's a cool idea. You could even specifically mine for gold (and other valuables) with a crafting station from Plumb Bob Keep. You can find it here: http://www.medievalsims.com/forums/viewforum.php?f=240 and if you're playing prehistoric, you might want to go for salt instead of gold at first. Salt means food can be preserved and was therefore incredibly valuable for centuries.


Every time I think this is the weekend I'm going to finally install TS3, someone shares links to great stuff for TS2 and I go on a download spree and change my mind. Thanks for sharing the link. I just love the bunny hutch, bee hives, fish packing station.....oh never mind I loved them all.
Mad Poster
#10 Old 18th Aug 2014 at 8:04 PM
Quote: Originally posted by Heimlichbourger
I know how you feel... that's why I reboot my hood every five seconds Ever since I joined MTS I keep hearing game-changing ideas that make me want to burn Heimlichbourg to the ground and build it better.

That's both an upside and a downside of MTS, I guess! On the upside I've borrowed/adapted/nicked so many great ideas from the forum here which have really changed my game and made it much morre fun for me to play - but on the downside it means that I sometimes grow tired of 'hoods as I want to change my game-play rules/concepts etc, which is a shame as I really love playing 'hoods over time!

On the whole I love MTS, though, and other sites like Plumbbob Keep, Affinity Sims and some of the Simblrs that are around nowadays. I just love all of the cool stuff and ideas that are out there!
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