Economic Discussion

[Magicman2051]

This is going to affect everyone so I'm discussing it here, and remember this is only a discussion. None of what I'm about to propose is going to be applied retroactively, which means that in many ways you're all getting a huge bonus for very little investment.

Ponti, any changes to the Wealth Calculator which need to be made I will make and check myself, so you're just free to enjoy.

This OP will be routinely updated as ideas progress, refer to it for the most recent iteration of discussed ideas.

Current topics of Discussion:

Trade ships/ports.
Mines.

[Pontifex Maximus]

No, that's far too much income.

[Magicman2051]

I was thinking that, hold on a second.

[Magicman2051]

I made a mistake in my initial rewrite, it is now corrected.

Small Farms: A Small Farm costs 2,000 denarii to construct and adds 1.5% to the base income of the Senator. Each Small Farm may be worked by five slaves, you may only have four Small Farms.

Large Farms: A Large Farm costs 6,000 denarii to construct and adds 13% base income of the Senator. You must first purchase two Small Farms for each Large Farm you construct. Large Farms may be worked by twenty slaves each, you may only have two Large Farms.

Latifundium: A Latifundium costs 15,000 denarii and adds 40% to the base income of the Senator. You must have two Large Farms to purchase a Latifundium. You may have eighty slaves on your Latifundium, you may only have one Latifundium.

Slaves: Slaves may be used in several ways; personal protection or labor. Each slave shall cost 500 denarii. When applied to an income estate, slaves an additional .35% income to the overall productivity of the estates.


Senatorial income of 12,800.

EDIT: Also, Ponti as much as you might not want to. income for elected positions should be reduced. Far too much income.

Try to remember that this is a much more significant uphill struggle than the current set up.

[Aetius]

First off I've abolished that ridiculous "if your wealth exceeds x you pay x" rule, which was largely a holdover from before Farms were capped anyway.

Yes it was very pointless.

Secondly, this is the core of my proposal, I bring forth the idea that farms should only affect your base Senatorial income of 5,000. Discuss this as you will but I'm going to address the next bit anyway.

Finally. 100% agreed. But we need to triple or quadruple farm income if its gonna be based on senators.

Thirdly, Farms/Slaves as they stand now.

My suggestion.

Small Farms: A Small Farm costs 2,000 denarii to construct and adds 3.5% to the base income of the Senator. Each Small Farm may be worked by ten slaves, you may only have four Small Farms.

Large Farms: A Large Farm costs 6,000 denarii to construct and adds 20% base income of the Senator. You must first purchase two Small Farms for each Large Farm you construct. Large Farms may be worked by thirty slaves, you may only have two Large Farms.

Latifundium: A Latifundium costs 15,000 denarii and adds 72.5% to the base income of the Senator. You must have two Large Farms to purchase a Latifundium. You may have 150 slaves on your Latifundium, you may only have one.

Eh...farming is no fun. Basically, what we are doing at this point is saying. Invest roughly 35,000 + slaves and have a flat farm income of 12500 forever. *Yawn* Where is the risk? Are we even farming or getting just getting a flat income return?

How about this; Farms cost the same, caps are the same, slaves are the same, income is the same (based on senators though although lets triple or quadruple farm income for each farm)

-but we add harvest risk-

On payday moderator will rolls one dice 1-3 bad harvest, 4-6 good harvest

Then the risk part is what kind of farms you have. Every farm you must also designate as low, moderate, or high risk;

low risk farms (example: grain)- these farms have income that never changes based on the harvest
moderate risk - (example: olives) these farms benefit from good harests and will give you +50% income on good harvest years but conversely lose -50% on bad years
high risk farms - (example: fruits) these farms require good harvests and will give you +100% income on good harvest years but conversely lose -100% on bad years

You can change your farm risk every year if you choose to.

Slaves: Slaves may be used in several ways; personal protection or labor. Each slave shall cost 500 denarii. When applied to an income estate, slaves an additional .25% income to the overall productivity of the estates.

Slaves give hideous returns if they cost 500. A latifundum slave would get you an extra 9 denarii a turn, a large farm slave 2.5 denarii, and a small farm slave .43 denarii. It would take 1000 turns to recoup the losses from a slave on a small farm.

[Magicman2051]

Your response, it was clearly delayed! Slaves can be changed easily, to be honest my current thinking is to actually reduce how much the constructed farms generate and dramatically increase what each slave generates, allow me to get back to that in a bit.

Regardless I agree with the risk idea.

[Magicman2051]

How about this, remember people the idea here isn't to flat out say "No" or "I don't agree with it", suggest something else or argue for the current system. Regardless nothing here is going to go ahead unless there is a general consensus on it.


Small Farms: A Small Farm costs 1,000 denarii to construct. Each Small Farm may be worked by five slaves, you may only have four Small Farms.

Large Farms: A Large Farm costs 3,000 denarii to construct. You must first purchase two Small Farms for each Large Farm you construct. Large Farms may be worked by twenty slaves each, you may only have two Large Farms.

Latifundium: A Latifundium costs 7,000 denarii. You must have two Large Farms to purchase a Latifundium. You may have eighty slaves on your Latifundium, you may only have one Latifundium.

Slaves: Slaves may be used in several ways; personal protection or labor. Each slave shall cost 200 denarii. When applied to an income estate, slaves an additional .5% income to the overall productivity of the estates.


Senatorial income of 11,000.


This completely homogenises each given level of estate development, resulting in all of them giving you a base of 2000 a piece when fully worked by slaves. What I'm thinking is that the "Risk" factor can be added in terms of an increasing yield calculation as defined year by year, meaning that you can get minus values which reduce the productivity of your farms.

[Magicman2051]

Soften the Risk idea slightly.

Low - 0
Medium - +/- 15
High - +/- 30

With an extra variable adding +/- 5-10% every term to everything.

[Okmin]

Risk for farms is a bit much, imo. I'd increase risk and return on the things that already involve risk.

[Magicman2051]

As the idea stands, it isn't necessary to take the risk, but money can be made from it.

With regards to Trade etc. I have ideas to promote that also. The recent trade values list was based of a few dice rolls by myself but it is clearly in need of reform and what I'm thinking about will require some work by... myself, to keep working.

To put it simply, trade could be ENTIRELY speculative but the market will be based on a few simple rolled variables.

[Okmin]

So basically instead of individual rolls there would be one set of rolls that applied to everyone, plus the other risk?

[Magicman2051]

You'll still have individual rolls that will determine your income from a given speculation, but in the grander scheme of things everything will be organised such that it is difficult to know outright whether a given option will reward you with 5 denarii or 10,000.

[ForteS]

Not bad, not bad.

[Pontifex Maximus]

If we're going to dramatically change the way farms work I'd be more in favor of something along the lines of Aetius' proposal.

[Magicman2051]

As would I however I intended to get some small change into the way farms were developed prior to instituting something like a Risk factor.

[Pontifex Maximus]

Let's go whole hog, I'd rather get it all out of the way once and for all than revisit it again later

[Magicman2051]

Ok then, thoughts on slave driven farm income? It certainly makes importing slaves a viable option for trade.

[Pontifex Maximus]

I would like to tie in those two systems. Perhaps, when trading for slaves, one could import a 10 slaves per turn and either keep those or sell them to other people,while the slave market itself will have a fixed (and very expensive) price per slave. That would encourage some out of the box trading as well.

I'd also be in favor of perhaps cutting the slave bonus to .25% but make them cheaper so that more slaves (well, double) could work at each farm.

Then we run with Aetius's idea of different types of crops and the risk idea which we will need to flesh out a bit.

[Magicman2051]

That was where I was going with it, should this have passed my intent was to make slave trading a more valuable option, not in regards to payout but in slaves you can use.

I'll adjust the numbers in my first post, and repost here. Hold on.

[Magicman2051]

I revised the percentage up to .35, if only to make slaves more viable.

Small Farms: A Small Farm costs 1,000 denarii to construct. Each Small Farm may be worked by twenty slaves, you may only have four Small Farms.

Large Farms: A Large Farm costs 3,000 denarii to construct. You must first purchase two Small Farms for each Large Farm you construct. Large Farms may be worked by sixty slaves each, you may only have two Large Farms.

Latifundium: A Latifundium costs 7,000 denarii. You must have two Large Farms to purchase a Latifundium. You may have two-hundred slaves on your Latifundium, you may only have one Latifundium.

Slaves: Slaves may be used in several ways; personal protection or labor. Each slave shall cost 250 denarii. When applied to an income estate, slaves an additional .35% income to the overall productivity of the estates.


Senatorial income of 12,000.