Resource Proposal

[Andreas the Wise]

This is a first draft. Most things are up for negotiation. At the bottom I'll include major questions to think about. Here, I'll just say that I'm aiming to make this be able to do most of what we want, but trying to avoid unnecessary complexity (for example, measuring thing in kilograms etc). Also note I'm building this pragmatically (ie what will work with three people) rather than theoretically (which would assume one person per county). Any time I feel comments are necessary that aren't part of the charter, they'll be in italics.

First Draft - Kildare MITO Resource Economy
Purpose: To create a system to use MITO resources for an individual nation's economy, to include the building of infrastructure, the development of citizens, and the accumulation of wealth for individuals.

Definitions: Resource: A resource is a good shown on the MCS Resource Map. Generally speaking, up to 100 units of resources per day can be gained from each overall deposit of resources. Well, that's not entirely true. Each nation in simple-MITO can get up to 100 per deposit. Two nations can share a deposit and both get 100. So there's a maximum of 200 per deposit, but only up to 100 can be got by one nation. At least, in MITO. More may be allowed with high levels of advancement.
Unit: A single unit is the amount of resource that can be produced by one Hired Labourer in one day being paid one unit of gold. All resources are measured in Units.
Hired Labourer: One Hired Labourer represents ten NPC workers who will work for one day for a unit of gold. Travel time is irrelvant for hired labourers, and hired labourers cannot be paid more to work more efficiently. There is no limit to the amount of hired labourers that may be employed at any time (though see Plot for the max of resources that can be mined)
Tenant: A tenant represents ten NPC workers (and, at higher levels, their families) who will work for a Governor in exchange for room and board. There is a limit to the amount of tenants a plot can sustain per Level of Development. Tenants are like citizens who live and work for you, and so it is your responsibility to tend to their needs (and, at higher levels, their wants).
Labour Units: Buildings require labourers to build them. A unit of labour is ten NPC workers doing the same amount of work as they would need to to get a full unit of Resource.
Player: Any real entity participating in the economy. There are three types: Governors, Rulers and Traders. Generally there is only one Ruler and Trader. Both the Trader and Ruler may play as a Governor also, but may not give their own Governor special concessions. I'm using semi-generic terms. The Ruler is the Duke, initially, and the Trader is MiniTrade.
Governor: A Governor is a PC, an actual person who controls tenants, hires labourers, buys plots and accumulates resources. Governors can be thought of as Counts, Barons, Dukes or Bussinessmen who look to develop an area and it's resource extracting potential. Governors are the main players.
Ruler: The Ruler is the starting owner of the land, who then sells it to Governors. The Rulers overriding concern is the accumulation of Gold, and keeping the general populous happy. Thus the Ruler will buy resources only to develop tenants on plots where gold can be mined, though he may also force other Governors to build roads or other infrastructure for him. There can only be one Ruler for each plot.
Trader: The Trader is the representative of the nation that trades with other nations using MITO. The Trader will buy up to the amount of resources the nation exports per day, and will sell Governors up to the amount of resources the nation imports per day.
Plot: A plot of land is a division of the overall land into manageable chunks. Governors can buy plots from the Ruler, and plots will have a certain amount of resources they can produce, at maximum, per month.
Gold Unit: The effective "currency" is units of gold. Gold units may or may not have a special name. This currency is only important for transacting with the Ruler, however - most exchanges of resources between players will be trading/bartering resources directly for other resources.

Starting: Each Governor shall start with a single plot of land, and 100 gold pieces.

Acquiring Resources: A map of all plots is prepared that includes, on another document, exactly what resources are available in what quantities. For a small fee, Governors can explore their land and determine it's resource capabilities. Some resources may be mutually exclusive (for example, you may not be able to mine and farm the same area at once).
Each day then, the Governor of a plot can arrange for resources to be extracted, based on how many NPC workers they have. Where a plot has multiple resources, they can choose how many workers devote how much time to each resource.
Each plot can, at maximum, employ one NPC worker for each unit of resource acquirable per day. So even if you have two first level Tenant who only produces 1 unit between them, you can't hire another Hired Labourer to fill the gap if you've already got as many people employed as units of resources possible to acquire.
Tenants can work in the plot they live for no travel time. They can work outside that plot, but their productivity is decreased as they must spend some time travelling to other plots, depending on its distance.
At the end of each day, the resources extracted will be added to the Governors stockpile, and any resources consumed by the NPC workers will be removed.

Tenant Development: Tenants who live on your plot and work for you start out as vagrants begging food, and, with your help, may eventually become wealthy, cultured and highly efficient workers. Tenants, unlike Hired Labourers, are employed for a period of a week at a time. Though their "wage" for the week might be small, they also require (after Level 1), some sort of housing, and as you train them and develop them, their wants become ever more extravagent.

The competency and development of your Tenants is done by Levels. All owned plots start at level 1, and up to eight tenants can be hired to work that plot, each for a cost of 1 food per week. However, these tenants are less productive than a Hired Labourer - they will only produce 50% of the work of a hired labourer per day - that is, they'll produce 0.5 resource per day. You can improve the quality of labour in your plot by making a one off development investment to advance to Level 2. Once you are at Level 2, you can employ up to 9 Tenants at level 2 wages. You can no longer employ tenants at Level 1 wages - they've seen better, and refuse to work down. If you can't afford to, you don't have to employ all nine tenants - but you must employ at least 1 tenant per week at that level to stay at that level. For each week you have no tenants employed at the current level, the region will un-develop one level.
As long as you keep employing at least 1 tenant per week, you can stay at level 2 for as long as you like, without having to pay the Investment to upgrade to level 2 again. You also now have the option to upgrade to Level 3, and start employing Tenants at Level 3 wages instead of Level 2 etc. You may only upgrade levels once per week.

At Level 5, your tenants are as productive as Hired Labourers, producing one unit of resource per day. Above this level, your tenants have reached an advanced level of development. They can now extract extra resources from the same land. At level 6, each tenant you employ will produce 1.05 units for the unit of resource on the plot that you get them to extract. That means at the Top Level, a plot that can produce a max of 50 units can actually produce 75 units of resources, because of the high quality work methods you use.

Tenants generally work in the same plot that they live in, but they can also work in other plots. You have to allow time to travel between plots, which reduces their overall resource extracting potential. This travel time can be reduced by building roads between plots. See 'Infastructure' below.

Investment (to advance to this level)
Level 2. 5 Building Materials
Level 3. 10 Building Materials
Level 4. 10 Building Materials, 5 Transport
Level 5. 15 Building Materials, 5 Transport, 5 Metal,
Level 6. 15 Building Materials, 10 Transport, 5 Metal, 2 Clothing, 3 Power
Level 7. 20 Building Materials, 10 Transport, 5 Metal, 2 Clothing, 3 Power, 2 Luxury Goods
Level 8. 20 Building Materials, 10 Transport, 10 Metal, 4 Clothing, 6 Power, 4 Luxury Goods
Level 9. 20 Building Materials, 10 Transport, 10 Metal, 4 Clothing, 6 Power, 6 Luxury Goods, 5 Luxury Metal
Level 10. 25 Building Materials, 15 Transport, 10 Metal, 8 Clothing, 10 Power, 8 Luxury Goods, 5 Luxury Metal
Top Level. 30 Building Materials, 15 Transport, 15 Metal, 8 Clothing, 10 Power, 10 Luxury Goods, 10 Luxury Metal

Wages (Weekly Upkeep)
Level 1. 1 Food
Level 2. 1 Food
Level 3. 1 Food, 0.5 Clothes
Level 4. 1 Food, 0.5 Power, 0.5 Clothes
Level 5. 1 Food, 0.5 Luxury Food, 0.5 Power, 0.5 Clothes
Level 6. 1 Food (two types), 0.5 Luxury Food, 0.5 Power, 1 Clothes
Level 7. 1 Food (two types), 0.5 Luxury Food, 0.5 Power, 1 Clothes, 0.5 Luxury Goods
Level 8. 1.5 Food (two types), 0.5 Luxury Food, 1 Power, 1 Clothes, 0.5 Luxury Goods
Level 9. 1.5 Food (two types), 1 Luxury Food, 1 Power, 1 Clothes, 0.5 Luxury Goods
Level 10. 1.5 Food (two types), 1 Luxury Food, 1 Power, 1 Clothes, 1 Luxury Goods
Top Level. 1.5 Food (two types), 1 Luxury Food, 1 Power, 1 Clothes, 1 Luxury Goods (two types)

Efficiency and max Tenants per plot.
Level 1: 50%, max 8
Level 2: 60%, max 9
Level 3: 70%, max 10
Level 4: 85%, max 12
Level 5: 100%, max 15
Level 6: 105%, max 20
Level 7: 110%, max 25
Level 8: 120%, max 30
Level 9: 130%, max 40
Level 10: 140%, max 50
Top Level 150 %, max 100.

Substitutability: Some groups of resources can be substituted for other resources. Luxury Food can be substituted for food. Luxury Metal can be substituted for Metal. It must be noted, however, that where you are substituting one resource for another and you are required to have a type of that resource, it must be a different type than the one you are substituting. For example, if you are required to have two types of food, you could have Fish and Wine (a Luxury Food). If you need two types of food AND one luxury food, you could not have Fish, Wine and More Wine. You would need to have Fish, Wine and Tropical Fruit, or, instead, have Fish, General Farming and Wine.

Infrastructure: Resources gained via this system can be used to produce infastructure beyond room and board for tenants. They can produce roads linking towns, create new settlements, create custom buildings etc.

Roads can be produced at a cost of 3 Building Material, 5 Transport per pixel, 2 units labour.
Travel Time:
Distance/Without Road/With Road
0 plots / None / None
1 plot / -10% / - 5%
2 plots / -20% / - 10%
3 plots / -35% / - 15%
4 plots / -50% / - 20%
5 plots / - 75% / - 25%
6 plots and above / Cannot travel / A further - 10% per extra plot

A Building can cost any of the following materials: Building Materials, Labour, Metal, Transport, Power, Luxury Metal, Luxury Good. They are placed in order of commonness - all buildings require Building Materials and Labour, many require Transport and Metal, some require Power, fancy ones require Luxury Metal, and the really, really expensive ones will be decked out in jewels, pearls and other Luxury Goods.

Some buildings help resource extraction. If you have both minerals and farming on one plot, you cannot normally do both at once - however, if you construct an underground mine, you leave enough land to farm and can also gain resources. Likewise, if there are forests on the plot (either for wood, Game or Fur), you cannot remove the forests to farm and, at the same time, harvest things from within the forest. But you can construct special reserves to allow you to do both. Prices for these buildings can be worked out in consultation with the author of this document.

Plots: The Ruler is the starting owner of all plots. He sells the plots to Governors for a fee of 20 Gold Units. Plots are sold without explicitly declaring what resources are available in them, though a basic idea can be gleaned from the MCS Resource Map. For a fee of 5 gold units, a team will survey the plot and determine what types of resources can be extracted, how many, and whether they are mutually exclusive. To start, he will reserve any plots capable of producing Gold, but these may be available for sale later at a higher price.

My thought with buildings is to leave it for now and see what people want to building, and work out costs as we go. It's a bit like DnD and skill checks ... if you decide you want to make the check/build the building, you tell the DM/me, and I work out the value.

[Andreas the Wise]

Ok, so I only got a bit done before I got too many questions. Oh well.

I did manage a starting Plot Map. They seemed appropriate sizes at the time. You can find it here.
But then I went through and tried to put resources in based on their map and trying to be semi-even between plots. 4 ended up about 90 units, there were a bunch with 20 units ... ideally, there would be another resource where 26-27 was. So I rejigged things to where the resources are, and came up with this.


It may look funny, but believe me, you'll be much happier searching for plots this way. All have 40-60 units of resources (tending around 50), so people won't waste their money. The Duke holds no.4, btw . Apart from the generous addition of 5 cotton to Melangia (so we have more than one clothing option), the resources are exactly what Shireroth holds in Kildare overall.

So if people are happy with these plots, I have the "what you can produce" things secret and written up! We just need a system to use it now ...

[Jonas]

Please move this to the Seanad, My Lord. The Seanad!

Why do you chose no. 4?

I like the system but I'm pretty sure it will be hard to get it up-to-date with all those levels.

I like the map, made one myself.

[Austi_Scot]

I favor the low-upkeep to start for a trial time. Would it be difficult to change to the other?

If this gets started while I have to be gone - I want plot 10 if I can have it and will pay the fee to explore and find out what resources are there.

[Andreas the Wise]

I've thought more on it and my first proposal was silly. It shouldn't cost anything like 7 resources to produce 7 seven resources over a week ... otherwise, where can they come from?

I may or may not go with Investment too (probably will), but for now, these would be the upkeep costs. These are upkeep for One Tenant for One Week.

Level 1. 1 Food
Level 2. 1 Food
Level 3. 1 Food, 0.5 Clothes
Level 4. 1 Food, 0.5 Power, 0.5 Clothes
Level 5. 1 Food, 0.5 Luxury Food, 0.5 Power, 0.5 Clothes
Level 6. 1 Food (two types), 0.5 Luxury Food, 0.5 Power, 1 Clothes
Level 7. 1 Food (two types), 0.5 Luxury Food, 0.5 Power, 1 Clothes, 0.5 Luxury Goods
Level 8. 1.5 Food (two types), 0.5 Luxury Food, 1 Power, 1 Clothes, 0.5 Luxury Goods
Level 9. 1.5 Food (two types), 1 Luxury Food, 1 Power, 1 Clothes, 0.5 Luxury Goods
Level 10. 1.5 Food (two types), 1 Luxury Food, 1 Power, 1 Clothes, 1 Luxury Goods
Top Level. 1.5 Food (two types), 1 Luxury Food, 1 Power, 1 Clothes, 1 Luxury Goods (two types)

Efficiency and max Tenants per plot.
Level 1: 50%, max 8
Level 2: 60%, max 9
Level 3: 70%, max 10
Level 4: 85%, max 12
Level 5: 100%, max 15
Level 6: 105%, max 20
Level 7: 110%, max 25
Level 8: 120%, max 30
Level 9: 130%, max 40
Level 10: 140%, max 50
Top Level 150 %, max 100.

[Kaiser Agni I]

This interests me.

[Andreas the Wise]

Ok, I've added development costs and travel time.

There are more things that come to mind that could be added, but I'm not sure how complex we want to go.
*For example, we could make resources stay in the plot they're extracted and you have to pay a cost to move them in Transport units. That would be reduced if you had roads, and could be further reduced with trainlines, shipping routes etc. However, that would make starting up extremely difficult as we'll each be producing only one or two resources and need to move a lot to advance levels to be able to produce enough to pay such fees. An alternative could be that all goods can move anywhere in Kildare within a week, but this time can be considerably reduced by paying in Transport units (that is, the resources whose type is Transport).
*Austi has talked about public servants, and the ability for the Duke to demand their employment. Not sure how well that'd go starting up, again.
*I haven't set a price for buying plots yet. What should it be to be fa and allow us enough money to start off?
*I haven't put in the "selling resources to the Duke for gold" because Austi didn't like a seller of last resort, but I can see some advantage to it ... we need some way to get gold moving, considering the Duke controls it's production, at least initially. (otherwise the Duke can just buy resources he needs to develop the gold plots appropriately, but there could be accusations of bias if I buy from myself etc).

[Austi_Scot]

While it´s true that I don´t like the seller of last resort thing - it isn´t a show stopper. If a majority thinks it´s something we should do - then we should at least give it the ole try. I do think that we should agree that we can make changes without having to scrape the whole system and start it over.

Changes will always be an effort to make improvements. So if this "seller of last resort" works - then great. If not - we´ll work it out.

I do think the other items you mention - transportation of goods etc. is a good idea but also that you´re right - it might be too much to start. It can be added at some point tho - I´m sure.

Here is my idea of how it starts -
You said everyone gets about 100 Kildarian (money: gold) for goodness sake Jonas suggest a good name for our currency. I suggest that we each have to put a certain number of our NPCs - (I like calling them peasants, we are feudal after all) - put a number of our peasants to workThat gold is the only backing for the currency and the currency can´t be increased without more gold being mined. So if we each start with 100 - we each have to mine enough gold to back that much once we get started. After that the Duke can demand more gold mined to increase the currency when he thinks there should be more or the Duke can offer for hire the mining of gold so there will be more currency. Pay say, maybe a percentage of the production. I´ld put a few peasants to work for the profit. (Hopefully they´ld make enough to feed em and leave me a little besides).

I also think, perhaps not at the start but at some point, the Duke should be able to say to the Barons - Hey - put some of your peasants to work building this road. - Maybe the government buys the material from the percentage of gold it keeps and maybe pays a fee of some sort, or maybe just puts out bids. This would be when we start to build the infrastructure.

You always make me type too much, by packing your little bit of typing with saying so much.
Don´t let accusations of bias bother you if they do happen - just deny them and move on. We can always rebel if we don´t like what the Duke does. Then the new Duke can be accused! A share the suspicion program. Or better yet, if accusations are made, admit it and say you conspired with someone.

The last I want to say in this post is -
Don´t hold off on implementing an idea just because I didn´t like the idea or had a different way of thinking about it. I just ask we be open to developing the economy, not waiting until we have all the perfect plans or until everyone agrees on every aspect. Every idea should be worth mentioning and getting the thoughts of others. At some point we might consider an economic panel of higher thinkers, but we aren´t big enough for that yet. So either take a vote - or take the decision making position, and know that I WILL SPEAK UP, and put my ideas out there; but however we do it I want to be a part of it.

[Andreas the Wise]

OK, sounds good. I'm definitely open to modifying this as we go along to improve it. I didn't make the mistake of saying the Landsraad could edit it this time - this is a Kildarian system under Kildarian control, pure and simple. At least to start with.

A final note on currency: My plan was to not actually bother backing. Make the gold itself the currency. Just say the Duke started by mining 300 units of gold, or got it from the treasury or something. It would probably be a fair point that if new people enter and they get starting money, the Duke should pay it from his reserves of gold. And all the Duke does then is sit there mining gold (and uses said gold to buy what he needs to buy more gold off the others). Hopefully that should allow money to enter at the rate we need. Honestly, I expect gold won't be that important apart from dealing officially with the Duke. Most of the time we'll probably just trade resources.

Your idea of Dukes making barons work is good. I think the easist way to do it would be to add to Roads (and any future infastructure) a 'Labour' element. That is, you pay the resources AND a certain amount of labour is also required. That'd be easy to add in.

[Austi_Scot]

Cool then - ... implement it..

oh, I was thinking I was going to move this weekend for a new job - but that's been held off for at least a week - and even that isn't for sure just yet. Whenever it does happen I might be without access to the internet for a couple of weeks while I get set up in a new place to live. The plan is a temporary apartment for a few weeks.

At least I'll be around Feb. 1st to ask my lawyer for that new contract I want. Got the terms already negotiated.

[Kaiser Agni I]

I'm really just skimming the topic. But if this system works, I might like to see it expanded into other Duchies.

[Andreas the Wise]

Building and Plot stuff edited in. I think we're about ready to start.

[Andreas the Wise]

Anything more to add before we start? The wars over so I'm ready.

[Austi_Scot]

I'm ready.

[Jonas]

But am I? AM I?

[Andreas the Wise]

Well, are you?

[Malliki]

I'm really just skimming the topic. But if this system works, I might like to see it expanded into other Duchies.

Preferably on a voluntary basis. I wouldn't like something like this forced on me.

[Kaiser Agni I]

Would the idea interest you?

[Jonas]

Well, are you?

Good question.

[Malliki]

Would the idea interest you?

It might. I would have to study it in more detail first.

[Andreas the Wise]

Well, are you?

Good question.

OR IS IT?


Right, now that's done, can you answer?

[Jonas]

CAN I?

Yes, I'm ready!

[Andreas the Wise]

Ok, all we need is a subforum.