Catalog / The economy
The economy
27 markets, 86 goods, 958 workers and the wagons between them, running every hour of the game. Any player can work it through a trade.
Markets
Every region has a market with a plan: what its land yields, what its workshops make, what its townsfolk use. The market holds a stock of each good it deals in, in three tiers: 31 raw goods from the land (grain, ore, hides, herbs…), 25 parts worked from them (flour, iron, leather, cloth…) and 30 wares the shops sell (bread, weapons, armor, potions…).
- Price follows stock. A market holding a day of what it needs is at normal, 1.00×. Short, the price rises; glutted, it falls: (need ÷ stock)0.75, held between 0.5× and 3×.
- Townsfolk answer the price: they buy less of a dear good and more of a cheap one.
- Nothing piles up. A warehouse holds at most 4 days of need; a full one takes no more. Makers stop at a day of need; the land is worked to 1.05 days of it.
- Prices against normal: appraise; one market's board: trade prices.
Workers and wagons
958 workers of 30 gathering and 49 making trades stand where the work is: a farmer in a field, a smelter at a bloomery, a baker behind the counter. Each hour the gatherers bring in what the land gives (by the season) and the makers turn it into parts and wares, while the market wants more. Kill a worker and his market goes short until he returns.
Each hour a market under 90% of its need sends for a load from the nearest market with a day to spare: a wagon on the road, a dog sled in the north, a pack-lizard train underground, a ship where there is no road (about 6 MUD hours at sea). A load carries about 2,000 gold of goods (80 units of grain, 53 of iron) and moves 0.2 MUD hours a stop. It is a real creature of the world: kill it and the cargo is lost, the market stays short, and the price stays high.
Shops and the hunt
- A shop draws on its market: a piece bought takes 0.5 unit of its good from the stock, a piece sold adds 0.5, and the shop's price carries the market's multiplier (damped for a dear piece, whose premium is craft, not material).
- A market with full shelves and good materials turns out better-made gear.
- Your kills feed the hunt: game, fur, hides, ivory, silk, herbs, reagents and trophies from the beasts you take go to the region's market.
A trade
A trade is a career on the same markets. Join one of ten trades at a market broker's counter or a trade hall (trade join), gather its raw goods where the land allows (gather) or stow loot as material (stow), work them into parts and wares at a worker's station (work), sell to the broker or a shop, and rise through five ranks. Your goods ride in a satchel: abstract units, as the ledger counts them, that never go into a corpse. One trade at a time; leaving one keeps the satchel.
The ten trades
| Trade | Does | Gathers | Makes, by rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Smith | ore and charcoal to iron, iron to tools, weapons and armor; starmetal at the top | miner, collier, prospector, deep miner | 1 charcoal-burner, smelter, refiner 2 toolsmith 3 weaponsmith, armorer 4 starmetal-smith, master smith |
| Leatherworker | hides and pelts to leather, leather to goods, furs for the cold | hunter, trapper, drover | 1 butcher 2 tanner 3 leatherworker 4 furrier |
| Clothier | wool, flax, cotton and silk to yarn and cloth, cloth to clothing | shepherd, flax-grower, cotton-picker, spider-rancher | 1 spinner 2 weaver, ropemaker 3 tailor |
| Woodwright | timber to lumber, lumber to furniture, arrows, bows and boats | woodcutter | 1 sawyer 2 carpenter 3 fletcher, bowyer 4 shipwright |
| Alchemist | herbs and reagents to remedies, potions, essence and wands | herb-gatherer, component-gatherer, beekeeper | 1 apothecary 2 alchemist 3 essence-distiller 4 wandwright |
| Scribe | flax and hide to paper and vellum, ink, scrolls and maps | flax-grower | 1 papermaker, parchmenter, ink-maker 2 cartographer 3 scribe |
| Jeweller | gems and precious ore to cut stones, bullion and jewelry | gem-miner, prospector, pearl diver | 1 gem-cutter, refiner 2 jeweller |
| Provisioner | grain, produce, milk and fish to bread, meals, cheese, ale and wine | farmer, orchard-keeper, dairymaid, fisher, vine-grower | 1 miller, cheesemaker 2 baker, cook, confectioner 3 brewer, winemaker 4 distiller |
| Artisan | stone, clay, sand, bone and tallow to stonework, pottery, glass, carvings and lights | quarryman, clay-digger, sand-digger, ivory-hunter | 1 stonemason, potter, glassmaker, oil-renderer, chandler 2 glassblower, bone-carver 3 curio-maker |
| Trader | buys where goods are cheap, ships and sells where they are dear; makes nothing | — | — |
Any line may also work the shared ground where the land allows: salt-raker, whaler, spore-farmer, sand-digger, clay-digger.
Ranks
Rank rises with trade worth: the worth of what you gather and sell, once; of what you make, 3 times over. Units bought from a broker and sold back count for nothing. Worth never touches your level.
| Rank | Worth | Units a gathering | Batches a job | Satchel | Best grade made |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Apprentice | 0 | 1 | 1 | 40 | plain only |
| Journeyman | 3,000 | 2 | 2 | 60 | fine |
| Craftsman | 15,000 | 3 | 3 | 90 | superior |
| Master | 50,000 | 5 | 4 | 120 | masterful |
| Grandmaster | 150,000 | 8 | 6 | 160 | peerless |
- A gathering job takes 3 ticks; a room gives 24 units a MUD hour, then you move on. A work job takes 5 ticks; a ware is one piece a job.
- Wares open one rank above the trade that makes them, by price band: the cheapest at Journeyman, the middle at Craftsman, the best at Master.
The counter
- The broker pays 75% of a good's priced worth and asks 110%, a unit at a time, each priced after the one before. Raw goods and parts only; wares are the shops' business.
- He keeps the town 25% of a day's need, and a full warehouse takes no more.
- Errands. A worker whose input is under 50% of the town's need posts one; the broker pays 25% over for every unit of your own that fills it.
- A hired hand. A maker with nothing to do (his shelves at a day of need) works beside you for 24 MUD hours, for 20 units' worth of what he makes: his trade's jobs take half the time and twice the batches.
Making
- Work adds value. A part is worth at least its recipe's inputs plus 50%; a ware's materials are its shop cost less 50%. Smelting pays.
- A shop's bench charges 5% of the piece's worth at the shop's rate; a worker's own station and a trade hall charge nothing. A botch loses half the materials.
- From Journeyman up, gear can come out better-made in the shops' own grades, capped by rank (above); the piece carries the maker's mark, is worth its grade wherever it is sold, and will not keep in camp. A Grandmaster's peerless piece is a signature piece, named for the maker.
Shipping and the Trader
- consign <good> <n> to <market> puts your goods on the economy's own wagon for 10% of their worth. They sell on arrival at that market's price, to your bank; robbed on the road, they are gone; what the warehouse will not take comes back to the satchel. At most 5 loads on the road at once.
- The Trader makes nothing and lives by buying, shipping and selling: consignments carry 2× the satchel at 75% of the freight; from Journeyman the market edge, 12% better at every market's shops and counters; from Craftsman appraise shows each market's stock, the road and how long the town keeps; from Master loads ride with guards; at Grandmaster a standing order: the broker sells up to 10 units an hour while the price holds your mark, to your bank, while you are away.
Rules
- The economy runs for every player; nothing of it is on the parity bench.
- In game: help markets, help trade, help trades, help ranks, help broker, help wagons, help fine.