Low disparity economy model in an everlasting game

[Chris]

* Everlasting game (no resets)
* I want old players to have income not hugely higher than new players (like x2-x5 max)
* There are predefined cities (not owned by individual players, only by groups or by "the game"; no new cities emerge during the game, these are predefined and exist from the start) players can travel between cities reasonably easy & fast
* Theme is medieval (but that's of low importance, you can pretend it is something else if you wish)

How to make the economy system out of it?


I was thinking something along these lines:
- Players have their home city and their workshop/farm there. They can have only 1 of such production facility (or max 3, anyway, it is very limited and they are forced to choose in what they specialize). If they have a wheat farm they produce grain, if they have a wind mill they process grain into flour, if they have a cow farm they produce milk and hide, if cheesemaker workshop they process milk into cheese, etc.
- Each city has a separate "market", depending on the sales volume by players the price change (players always sell to the market, never to other players), they can also buy things for market price. There is a price cap and NPCs buy/sell goods too so the price differences between cities won't be huge.
- Players can sell/buy from their home city for free, but if they want to do it in another city they have to pay (they have to purchase one time use "carts" to transfer goods which means additional costs).
- Now the problem with economical progress... I would make it crawling (and focus the game on gold accumulation and its use instead on increase of production capabilities). Like: you start with production of 100, in your first month of play you improve production to 200, in next 6 months to 300 and after that +100 per year. To reach this I would make gold irrelevant/almost irrelevant to production facilities upgrade (you can't buy better workshop). Maybe some upgrade points earned over time (so the production facility, kind of, level up by itself?)

[Delifisek]

limits, running costs, reparis etc...

[Parazitull]

Well, you could give out loans and have an upper limit for older players income.

You give the new players loans so they can upgrade faster, to the same level as older players.
Maybe the old players are the ones giving out the loans ( as the only way to surpass the upper limit for their income ).
The more money the older players have, the more loans they can give, the more they get from interest and so on.

[Chris]

running costs, reparis etc...

Hmmm, you mean like infinite upgrade of production capabilites but increasing upkeep per production facility? So after you get 100 workshops, the next one will produce 1% of the first one when we include expenses?

[CygnusX]

Chris, you're in a relatively new capitalistic economy... learn from this

Wealth is generated when people make/gather stuff that other people want.

So, gathering food, ore, or anything of this nature is 'adding' to the economy.
Making stuff out of ore (weapons, armor) also adds to the economy
Eating food is a drain on the economy (it takes a resource out).

Personally, I'd like to see your everlasting game designed around these core concepts.  Consider:

A blacksmith can't make weapon level 2 because he doesn't have the tech.  He can't just research the tech either, but rather he needs to gather materials and do an experiment to try to invent something new.  His product may or may not turn out to be usable.  If it is usable, and is a better item, he can sell this item at a higher cost.  He can also sell the tech as he has learned it.  The cycle can continue indefinitely. 

Add wear to weapons/armor, and there is a constant need for players to upgrade their stuff.  Thus, the value of mining is always high, letting even newbs have access to money.

[Chris]

I real capitalistic economy "rich gets richer and poor gets poorer". I want the opposte Rich gets slightly richer, poor gets much richer.

[cylentwolf]

a tiered tax approach where the more you get the more you get taxed or have production costs.  til you don't get as much bang for your buck.  the only trick here is the players finding a sweet spot and just hanging out there rather than building at all.

[Marek]

In simple mathematical terms, I think you need to decide on an "equilibrium" point. For the sake of example let's say the equilibrium is 100 workshops/farms.

Then, a player has a modifier which "pulls" them towards the equilibrium. If they're below the equilibrium, they get a boost to production. If they're above the equilibrium, they get reduced production. This could be a linear or logarithmic function based on how far they are: so that the farther you are from equilibrium, the stronger the pull.

So for a player with 80 workshops, they have tiny production boost. For a player with 10 workshops, they get a bigger boost. For a player with 120 workshops, they get a penalty to production. With 200 workshops, they get a bigger penalty.

If you were to draw a graph, then it would look like a valley, where the equilibrium point is at the middle, and gravity pushes you down the slopes towards the middle.

[Chris]

OK, everyone agree, there is only one solution for the workshops formula, make it degressive effectiveness and/or progressive upgrade cost.

Now, how to make the production/economy system more fun and exciting? Maybe use the cities somehow? What/how exactly they produce/sell/whatever (medieval)?

[cylentwolf]

how about keeping a ranking maybe per guild / per player per city so there are multiple leader boards with bonuses (small ones) per city.  i.e. preferred trader or favored guild.