Money Sinks

[Amy]

Hello, I'm pretty new. This is an amazing game, and I think it has incredible potential. I do have one worry though- the lack of money sinks. Right now it's very easy to become rich, especially with the more advanced starts. I often find myself with 10,000 within a half hour by just selling the equipment from fallen warriors fighting around a city. After you start to really rake in the money with self produced goods from your outpost money becomes inflated and seemingly worthless. There is too much of it and not enough things to spend it on, particularly things that make it vanish from the game world without giving material goods in return.


A few ideas:

~ Reduce the value of sold items.
~ Increase the price of purchased items.

By increasing the price of purchased items money is made into a more valuable resource. It will take longer to gather the funds for that upgrade and when it is finally bought the player is removing more funds from his inventory than before. This helps control inflation by slowing down the pace. Likewise, by reducing the value of sold items the player isn't going to get rich so quickly, and makes money rarer than before. It helps the player remain less powerful for a longer time. It also helps reduces the overall rate of income and inflation.


~ Regular maintenance upkeep, perhaps taxes or protection money.

Lets' say I'm a powerful faction and I control a lot of land. A settler wants to build an outpost on my land because he wants to enjoy the benefits of the faction, but why would I allow him to do so? Because I demand a daily tax from him which helps me pay my army. By making the player pay taxes to the local authorities his money is being constantly reduced. It helps fight inflation, but it also opens up a choice for the player. Each faction could give its own allure for the player to choose from. Faction A may have better warriors than faction B, but B faction has more stores and offers better equipment. Another perk would be your outpost being added to a patrol rout which adds incentive for the player not to go independent, but rather enjoy the benefits of what paying taxes brings.

Alternatively the player could hire warriors to act as guards. This company would guard and patrol certain points for a daily fee. Unlike your followers, these guys are self-equipped and replaceable. Each warrior lost would encure a fee, while a new guardsman is hired each day when they are paid.

Caravan guards are another possibility. They could be hired similarly to guardsmen, but instead of patrolling your facilities they guard your merchants as they travel to the city to sell their goods.

~ Looting bodies you did not kill makes people mad.

The world is a pretty rough place and everyone is scrapping together what they can to get by. What happens when a scavenger hides in the shadows as you fight for your life with bandits. He waits until you win and then rushes in the claim your hard earned loot. Will you stand by and watch him pick over your treasures? Or will you strike him to protect your next meal ticket? Having NPCs turn hostile to the player who tries to loot the bodies that they just killed would be a fantastic deterrent for early players who can't fight well enough to enforce their opportunist behavior yet. Loot could still be had, but it would be what is left over when the NPCS move on.

~ Mines are rarer.

Being able to build a mine anyplace makes them pretty common, and when possibly the greatest source of wealth is so common it raises problems. If mines can only be built in special locations it would make them not only more scarce, but also make the distance to the markets more time consuming. Their rate of income would be slowed by a good bit which slows down the primary source of income for middle staged players.

~ Supply and Demand

If city B has a million sporks, yet no swords, why would they accept the same price that a country without a single spork would? Inflation of goods makes their price lower,while rarity makes them higher. By introducing supply and demand the game would not only incentive trader role playing, but prevent spamming goods to a single city. Players would need to travel to new cities, an act that also takes time. This again slows down the rate of income and adds new flavor.

[Hatsune_Neko]

the new research helps with that, for some of the plans are really expensive. plus the cost of doing research as well.
Armours will ( some now have ) have a reduced price as well, since they are becoming faction based making it not very cost ineffective to load up and trying to sell since your not gonna get much from them

Looting bodies is a well known tactic in warfare, and unless it was some king or someone that had really expensive armour and weapons, most people didn't bat a eye of it being striped clean by people who didn't even participate in the battle. even then if it was someone important, most didn't care and was on a first come first served basis.

Eventually factions will have more options. like the eventual mass battles on sieges of towns planed for later in the game.
the hiring or warriors has been discussed including fees

Mines will eventually only placed in certain areas. necessitating the need to make several player created camps.

Inflation Is a nice idea. There will be more options for trading in the future game play.

nice ideas but most has been talked about already

[Voynich]

(This has already been suggested, I just thought I'd flesh out the idea a bit more )

I wanted to add on to this discussion by talking about the taxation system. If the player builds his/her town within a certain vicinity of an NPC controlled city, a monthly tax should be imposed, the amount of which is up to debate. I'd say it should be significant enough to encourage more trade and productivity from the player to ensure he or she can pay the tax.

If the player is unable to pay the tax, the local authorities will stop by and take any goods they can get their hands on until the amount has been paid off. If there are no goods for them to confiscate, they will then rough up the player a bit. If you fight back, you'll lose relations with the faction controlling the nearby city. After beating you up, they'll leave you alone until next month, but you'll be in debt to them. This debt will carry over month to month (and your relations will continue to deteriorate) until you can finally pay it off or simply decide to declare war on the faction - a perfectly valid option, but now you have a new permanent and nearby enemy.

This will become more interesting when/if conquering mechanics are introduced to the game. Imagine starting off as a lowly vassal to a large faction to eventually take over their lands so you no longer have to pay taxes. Something would have to replace the money sink of taxation, so perhaps city upkeep and other money sinks could be introduced to keep up the challenge.