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23a:Dwarven economy
| This article is about an older version of DF. |
Once you have a bookkeeper and a manager, your fortress will transform from an anarcho-communistic society to an approximation of a capitalist society.
How does it affect you, as a fortress manager?
Interface changes
- In each dwarf's status screen (v-p-z), an account figure appears, showing how much money each dwarf possesses. From time to time, the dwarves will claim coins and store them either in their rooms or a container they own.
- A new menus, "Prices", becomes available via the Overall Status menu (z). This menu shows what changes your various nobles have made to the price of various goods.
- A new building, the shop, becomes available from the building (q) menu.
Economy changes
- Dwarves start earning salaries according to what jobs they perform. How much each job will earn can be seen on the "wages" page of the manager screen (u-m-w or j-m-w). They use this money to pay their rent and to buy trinkets for themselves from shops. Their happiness will increase every time they make a new acquisition.
- Bedrooms start charging rent according to their quality. Exceptions are barracks and Noble/Legendary assigned bedrooms. It also becomes impossible to assign bedrooms to non-Noble/Legendary dwarves.
- Most nobles begin adjusting the prices of goods semi-randomly according to their own personal preferences. Initial prices of all goods are set by the bookkeeper.
- The Bookkeeper starts constantly mandating the production of coins. Unlike other mandates, ignoring them will not lead to any punishment, only an unhappy thought (and the same mandate being immediately reissued). For keeping the bookkeeper happy, it is sufficient to meet one of those mandates from time to time. If the Bookkeeper gets other happiness boosts (admiring fine items, owning a particularly nice room), you are advised to ignore every mandate for coins.
- It is actually possible to fulfill those coin mandates by minting lots and lots of coins. That most likely will require a near-constant operation of a magma smelter and magma forge for minting exclusively. The exact amount probably depends on how much you "owe" your dwarves, but a realistic example might be about 20-30,000 coins of each type (including platinum and electrum, after the Dungeon master arrived) at a medium size (~100) dwarf population. You get closer to the required amount when the number of coins in the mandates drops to fewer than five coin stacks.
- Dwarves claim coins similarly to how food tasked to eat is claimed. Large stacks automatically split, changing a stack of 500 coins owned by no one into one stack of 498 coins owned by no one and one stack of 2 coins owned by Urist Borushdumat. If a dwarf has quarters and no other pending job, he will take the job "Store Owned Item" and bring his coins to his room. However, ownership of a dwarf's coins will end due to a declining account balance, which happens at least seasonally when rent is paid. Therefore, it is critical to keep item hauling up to date when the economy starts. Otherwise, magma forges will rapidly become cluttered with small stacks of once-owned coins that were never picked up.
- It's possible to avoid some of the trouble of loose coin stacks in your forge if you manage to keep ahead of demand. Mint as many gold/silver/copper coins as possible ahead of the bookkeeper's arrival; any coin stacks you have lying around when he comes will get split up but if you have enough to fulfill the bookkeeper's demands you should be able to continue minting without your stacks getting split right away. Once the Dungeon master arrives, you'll still have to worry about the platinum/electrum coins getting split up however. You should also be sure to designate coin stockpiles before the arrival of the bookkeeper so any splitting occurs outside the forges.