40d Talk:Currency

Copper makes silver coins?

When I mint copper coins and then check the currency display, I find they are counted as silver. --Geekwad 17:13, 19 November 2007 (EST)

It's a bug, and has been reported on the forum [1]. All coins are counted as silver by the currency display. You can see the actual coins you have on the stocks screen. --Turgid Bolk 17:17, 19 November 2007 (EST)

This has been fixed in the current version (38c). Yvain 06:15, 31 March 2008 (EDT)

Monies?

Who coined this term, anyway? It bugs me every time I see it. I personally use "currency" (as a mass noun), if you're wondering. --JT 03:00, 15 April 2008 (EDT)

I have no idea where it came from, but this isn't the first time I've seen it used; might be Engrish.--Eurytus 13:30, 20 April 2008 (EDT)

Monies is the correct English plural of money.--Niaba 07:09, 28 April 2008 (EDT)

And 'correct english plural' is actually kind of confusing, since its a mass noun. If you have a lot of one type of money its all just money. But if you have multiple types (gold, silver, copper) then it is both money (its all currency) and monies (multiple types of coins) depending on whether you're desiring to refer to them as one type of thing or care about there being multiple types of things. Similarly, 'fish' and 'sheep' are also words whose normal plural is the same as the singular (many fish or many sheep), but if you have multiple species (types) you could use either 'fish' or 'fishes' depending on whether you were interested in in the subdivisions in the group. Both of 'There are many fish in the sea' and 'These are the fishes of the amazon' are correct and necessarily include multiple species. Note, fishes as a plural simply signifies number of species, there is no number of actual physical fish implied by that sentence. Similarly, monies merely signifies number of coin types with no reference to a number of coins. Ie, these plurals are conceptual plurals - they are only grammatically appropriate when talking about the conceptual organization of 'money' or 'fish'. --Squirrelloid 13:15, 28 April 2008 (EDT) (I hope that isn't too complicated.)

I can't see the need for 'monies' when DF has a single, universal currency. You wouldn't refer pounds and pence as different 'monies' even if it may be strictly correct. Extar 19:05, 4 June 2008 (EDT)

Not quite true – a dwarven economy uses coins of different values, although such is unnecessary and can be worked around.

At least, I'm pretty sure they did in 2D. --Savok 22:52, 4 June 2008 (EDT)

Monies is a joke term used for comedic effect. Such as "I NEEDED THE MONIES!!". --AlexFili 04:29, 9 June 2008 (EDT)

Possibly it is used for comedic effect. However, it is actually the plural of "money."

That in itself, is a joke. There is no plural of money. Just like there is no plural of Sheep or Deer. --AlexFili 09:26, 9 June 2008 (EDT)

Reading is fundamental. --Mattmoss 21:18, 8 August 2008 (EDT)

Dictionary time! Monies Deers

Yep, they be words. --Savok 15:31, 29 November 2008 (EST)

For what it's worth, I'm fairly certain this was popularized by the bio force ape hoax. --ThunderClaw 10:25, 18 December 2008 (EST)

For what it's worth, I'm fairly certain that it is a correct spelling which has fallen out of usage. Also note that the term "monies" is correctly used as a meta-reference to multiple units of money, e.g. "The Member nations of the EU have many varied monies", not as in "How much monies do you have in your bank account". Riffraffselbow 08:08, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

This section has nothing to do with dwarf fortress, please stop adding to it.--CrazyMcfobo 16:48, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Monetary value NOT affecting their value to you as the fortress deity?

What does this mean?--Richards 02:21, 21 April 2008 (EDT)

Coins have both an item value and a (higher) money value - the question is which of the 2 is added to your created wealth totals. (deity refers to the player but i guess thats obvious)--Koltom 08:12, 28 April 2008 (EDT)

I will change this. This nickname for the player is confusing since the dwarves already have their own deities. In fact, I'll comment it out. It is a bit redundant since the page already says the monetary and item values are independent. --Rusty Mcloon 05:54, 29 May 2008 (EDT)--

Speaking of Deities, is it possible that a dwarf does not believe in any god at all? (ie. an atheist?). --AlexFili 04:30, 9 June 2008 (EDT)

Not sure about dwarves. It is possible for powers. The correct term, according to Toady, is "godless." --Savok 09:03, 9 June 2008 (EDT)

Vault

One of the ideas presented was to mint coins but keep the dwarves from getting them. I've tried ordering the coins dumped, but they seem to be claimed immediately and the Dwarves walk off with them instead of taking them to the vault. Is there some easy way to get my coins into the vault and out of dwarven hands? Rkyeun 01:30, 21 May 2008 (EDT)

If I recall correctly you pretty much have to do it before the economy starts up to achieve that. However apparently not building coins at all works too. Personally, and much to my shame/annoyance I've never actually got that far into a game, I keep meaning to but then get bored when everything is just working after a year or so. --Shades 05:26, 21 May 2008 (EDT)

Other coins

I'm not quite to the point of economy and tax collection yet. I have noticed that more than gold, silver, and copper can be minted. In particular, iron, steel, and platinum have sprung out at me (probably because of the number of RPG systems I've played who use one of those. Ah, and then there's electrum... halfway between silver and gold. :) But that's really telling my age.) So, does anyone know if these coins have any worth in this economy thingy? -Fuzzy 15:41, 1 September 2008 (EDT)
Just to follow up, the game does indeed ignore all other coins. I currently have Iron Pieces and Electrum Pieces, but I think the only thing I can do with them is either melt them down or trade them away. Bummer. -Fuzzy 11:53, 8 September 2008 (EDT)

I made a bunch of nickel coins before the economy started, since I have loads of the stuff, and it seemed to make sense. They don't show up in the economy screen, but I see them in dwarven rooms all the time. --Pyrite 20:08, 17 December 2008 (EST)

The following tokens appear in the exe, and therefore likely have some sort of hard-coded behavior: COPPER SILVER ELECTRUM GOLD PLATINUM DIAMOND EMERALD RUBY SAPPHIRE DRAGON ITEM_WEAPON_SWORD_2H ITEM_ARMOR_PLATEMAIL ITEM_ARMOR_CLOAK CAVE WHEAT. Random832 20:29, 17 December 2008 (EST)

there us a section in the entity raw:

[CURRENCY_BY_YEAR] [CURRENCY:COPPER:1] [CURRENCY:SILVER:5] [CURRENCY:GOLD:15] maybe only the currency listed there will be counted as such --Rhenaya 21:36, 17 December 2008 (EST)

In the process of testing this, but I added another [CURRENCY] tag with a different metal to my civ, and am now attempting to induce the economy so that I can see if it gets listed as legal tender. I'm fairly sure it'll work, though.--Quil 22:27, 17 December 2008 (EST)

Why no coins

The wiki is full of ominous rumblings about why you shouldn't make coins ever, and it will destroy your economy, and the dwarven gods will weep, and so on, but no one ever explains it. Could someone please either explain it, or link to somewhere where it has been explained. I would like to have more coins in my economy, but I want to know the effects before I doom my fortress to a hundred and seventy dwarves sitting in their rooms polishing their gold.--Pyrite 20:11, 17 December 2008 (EST)

I the problem you've heard about is about how you have a very hard time dealing with the hundreds of coin-stacks that tend to get spread throughout the fortress over time, and the only solution to it is to make a room for every dwarf and include MANY chests, in order to contain them. Then, you run into the problem of all the chests now costing the dwarf more in rent than they make, so you end up with all your non-legendary dwarves being evicted. The only alternatives to this cycle of doom are not minting/allowing access to coins ever, or having hundreds of coin-stacks scattered around, and more often than not, preventing you from building something where you want. I don't know if it's documented, but it's something I've personally dealt with, to include once making tens of thousands of coins and then locking them in a coin stockpile behind forbidden doors. That didn't go over too well, for the same reasons locking anything behind doors never goes well. (Things still try to pathfind to them.) --Edward 22:00, 17 December 2008 (EST)

The problem is that dwarves currently handle their hard assets so poorly that they spend an obscene amount of time stacking coins (it's a lot worse than the random "check chest" job that shows up on unowned chests), and they have a bad habit of leaving them lying around. Since they're owned, coins that are just lying around cannot be moved by another dwarf who wants to build something.

Besides, the economy works 100% flawlessly on credit. --ThunderClaw 10:29, 18 December 2008 (EST)

There are two main problems with the economy, as far as I can tell. The first is as people have said; coins cause the infrastructure to grind to a halt. Dwarves get paid each time they finish a job, which causes them to go and get more coins to match their account, even if it's just a single copper piece from completing a hauling job. The second is that currency is magically conjured out of thin air. When the economy begins, nobody has any money, and if you've not been minting coins, the fortress as a whole has no actual money either unless it's giving credit against its own material value. Then, when someone completes a job, credit is added to their account, seemingly from thin air. Similarly, shopkeepers don't actually overheads beyond the initial purchase of the shop, because all the goods in the shop are simply appropriated from the fortress stocks with no apparent need to pay for them (unless they're there before the shop is purchased by someone). Similarly, rent is seemingly collected by a black hole, since the money is paid to nowhere and simply vanishes (or the coins become unowned).

What I'd like to see is some kind of "bank" building that held the fortress' money and everyone's accounts. If there's not enough currency to pay everyone for their jobs, they get an unhappy thought until their back-pay comes through. It would be similar to the current credit system, except that the money would actually exist somewhere and the entity that pays people wouldn't be able to spin unlimited amounts of credit from thin air, meaning the player would have to ensure they had enough money to cover everyone's accounts rather than it being an interesting mechanism for evicting poor dwarves.--Quil 14:01, 18 December 2008 (EST)

Honestly, the whole economy is so off-kilter right now I'm considering simply turning it off until it sees a major overhaul. I think I'll mess with it again when it's further along in development, as it seems a kind of placeholder right now. I'm sure Toady One can find some real, live economists on these boards to consult with in order to make the whole thing work. – unsigned comment by Pyrite

One option might be to count coins as a REALLY small item, so small that it doesn't actually appear in-game. Smelted coins are instead simply added to the currency screen, and the dwarves continue about their lives as though on credit. The credit system would be removed, and dwarves WOULD carry coins, but all transactions would be done "backstage." No running off to grab coins, no stashing them in chests, just a running tab of how much everyone is worth. Basically I am suggesting that coins operate like the credit system does now. That would give coins meaning, without making them obnoxiously inconvenient. Bank officers could be appointed to record transactions (or the treasurer could handle it), so that all dwarves' accounts are balanced correctly, without them actually ever touching their money. (BTW, I am not yet used to the whole wikipedia setup, so please bear with me.) --zipdog

Brilliant Idea you could even control the money supply to avoid inflation or deflation and recessions. Knowing Toady tends to go overboard he will probably do something like this when he redoes the economy.--Mrdudeguy 00:38, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

If you want it to be all in the backround why don't you just stick with the credit system?--Dissimulation 08:39, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

I agree that it shouldn't always be a 'hauled item' persay, but coins that are initially minted should be brought to a bank, (I like the idea of a bin vault with a teller desk on the outside with a banker who distrubutes coinage to arriving dwarves). Leather, or cloth wallets could be made and the coins stored as other containers do (quivers, backpacks). They would all have a limit on the amount of coins stored in them, and every three months dwarves get their "paycheck" for the difference in the money that they haved earned and that amount is accredited to the dwarf by the bank. So if the dwarf wanted to go shopping he would simply go to the bank and transfer the coins into him wallet, (maybe the banker does this for him or they go in to the coin stockpile themselves).

Coins also allow the idea of "thieves" and if there were some dwarves with this personality they could go into other dwarves rooms, especially those with whom they have a grudge against, and steal their money out of their coffers. Causing new reasons and justification for justice to exist, (severe beatings causing thieves to loose that pesonality attribute).

This solves the problem of dwarves hauling their money over the map, the problem with stacking, (if you allow coins to be deposited side-by-side in bins and in the wallet), and adds some depth. As a side note, the Tax Collector should have a role in collecting taxes for the bank's services. Richards 22:05, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

As trade goods

This page says that coins are valued at 10 times the metal value. And the Metalsmith's forge page says that one bar of metal makes 500 coins! Even without quality levels wouldn't that make them vary good for trading?

The entire Stack has that value.Shardok 23:26, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Should that be made more clear? --CoolMatthew 02:42, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Yes it should. I changed it. ManaUser 04:21, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

Non-currency coins

I've read about the [extreme] problems of having hard currency and such, and I'm wondering if the same problem exists with non-copper/silver/gold coins. Will dwarfs hoard, and go out of their way for, coins of other metal? I know I could put my bars to other use, but I like flavor. And a room full of minted coins screams flavor to me. Pariah 00:29, 13 November 2009 (UTC)