16-02-2026, 02:30 AM
Hello everyone,
I wanted to open this thread just to have a place to discuss some of my thoughts and ideas regarding the Particracy global economy. If you don't care about my analysis and assessment of the background and issues surrounding this topic, skip to section 3 where I put forward some ideas for how economic RP could be made more interesting. I am curious to hear what people think, or any other ideas or proposals that players have. I will also open a thread on this topic on the Discord, but I am old school and like to put forward my ideas and proposals formally on the forum.
1. Background
With the death of the mechanics side of Particracy, much of the "game" element of Particracy has died, leaving just the collective writing project that the forum side represents. This is not necessarily a bad thing, and I (along with many others) have long advocated for an approach to the game that privileges roleplay over mechanics. This said, I think a major element of what worked about the mechanics was that players had to contend with somewhat randomized circumstances constraining their actions (i.e. if your party doesn't win enough seats to enact/prevent a change, you had to react by making deals with others, forcing elections, or pivoting RP, etc.). Obviously we all are aware of what the flaws of mechanics were – most notably that they did not, and could not, take RP developments into account, and often they would produce results contrary to the narrative that players had been working towards. However, that rng element is part of what kept roleplay and gameplay dynamic.
However, for economic roleplay this has never been the case, either on the mechanics or forum side. Unlike nuclear or chemical weapons, the use/development of which are highly regulated by moderation, economic development is completely laissez-faire. There is nothing preventing me from moving to a country like Istapali (a country with no forum posts nor wiki page) tomorrow and announcing the construction of a 100% renewable and state-of-the-art power grid, or a new automotive plant, or an investment in massively upscaling our semiconductor production. In a more holistic sense, these developments have very similar bearing on the overall power projection of a country, like WMDs, yet there is very little oversight or similar consideration.
It would be easy to say that moderation should take a more active stance in regulating what players can feasibly do economically, but this is obviously flawed for a number of reasons, including but not limited to:
(a) "the Moderation team generally do not have the time necessary to effectively keep track of the role-play happening in every country" (from Jamescfm on 'Nukes');
(b) this depends on the subjective determinations of moderators, which is bound to cause strain between players and moderators depending on their rulings, as well as demand a lot of moderators regarding their knowledge of global economics, and;
(c) it would likely produce a similar problem as that which existed during the "rankings" era, with players moving to a country and then repeating a similar arc of economic development RP and optimization to achieve a certain level of economic complexity/development.
What I'd like to see are moves, within the consensual framework we operate under pursuant to the game rules, towards a more dynamic, constrained, and vibrant way of approaching global economic RP – or at the very least, among those most interested in it. In other words, to "gamify" global economics in Particracy.
2. Issues in Implementing a Global Economic Simulation in Particracy
(a) Every country's economy can be entirely self-sufficient, if the player so chooses, without the need for any imports or exports (I do not need your oil, we meet our own needs domestically). Relatedly, there is no reason (other than established through roleplay and agreed upon OOC) why an economic downturn or financial crisis in one country would have any impact whatsoever on the global economy (what does it matter if Egelion is in recession? We can meet our own needs anyway), or that economic sanctions should carry any weight.
(b) As every country can produce virtually any resource, supply chains in production are rendered useless and exports worthless (why buy your iron when I can mine my own?). Relatedly, why produce any product for export if there is no market for it?
(c) Related to (a) and (b), commodity prices and values are entirely made up (and largely just carried over from the present-day real world). What is the value of oil, or gems, or iron, etc., if everyone can access a domestic supply sufficient to their domestic demand? In other words, why is oil valuable at all? Why is a sapphire valuable if they are abundant in many countries?
(d) All information or data in this game is necessarily qualitative, rather than hard quantitative economic data; translating qualitative data into quantitative data in the context of Particracy is dependent on establishing a commonly-agreed upon methodology. Moreover, since players can essentially produce any qualitative or quantitative data that they wish to present with respect to their country's economy, determining what data is "valid" or "authoritative" carries its own issues and baggage.
3. My Ideas to "Gamify" and Simulate the Global Economy
I think the primary characteristic that needs to be introduced is scarcity. Without scarcity, economics in the game are purely decorative. But how can this be achieved in a game where scarcity does not exist, and in many ways, cannot exist given the consensual framework? What follows are a few ideas I've thought about recently, but these are just outlines at this stage:
(a) An import/export and resource register with moderation oversight:
(b) A global commodity price register with moderation oversight (possible AI solution?):
(c) A consensual global economic organization that countries join, that has a more OOC heavy component:
Outline:
The idea here is to generate constraints and scarcities in economic activity which make international trade and cooperation important and relevant, while leaving it open-ended enough that it doesn't feel constraining (nor possible to be a rank-maxing, power-playing vehicle). The "momentum" determination is intended to be read somewhat broadly as an indicator of economic activity and dynamism, but not necessarily of wealth (i.e. a country could have high momentum, but be poor overall, due to an influx of investment and so on; a rich country could be low momentum as they don’t have as much need to spend their credits and develop) in the same way that GDP growth for developing and developed countries is often very different, despite the latter being wealthier than the former.
Issues:
4. Summary
These are just a few of my thoughts and ideas about global economics in the game. I have thought about this topic for as long as I've played the game, but have never been able to come to a solution alone. I think my proposal under 3(c) is the most fleshed out and compatible with the game as it is, but it still would need to be tested (if you would like to be part of an informal "playtest" of this concept, please consider reaching out to me).
If anyone has any other thoughts or ideas on global economics in the game, or anything I've written in this very long post, please contribute to this thread.
Thank you!
I wanted to open this thread just to have a place to discuss some of my thoughts and ideas regarding the Particracy global economy. If you don't care about my analysis and assessment of the background and issues surrounding this topic, skip to section 3 where I put forward some ideas for how economic RP could be made more interesting. I am curious to hear what people think, or any other ideas or proposals that players have. I will also open a thread on this topic on the Discord, but I am old school and like to put forward my ideas and proposals formally on the forum.
1. Background
With the death of the mechanics side of Particracy, much of the "game" element of Particracy has died, leaving just the collective writing project that the forum side represents. This is not necessarily a bad thing, and I (along with many others) have long advocated for an approach to the game that privileges roleplay over mechanics. This said, I think a major element of what worked about the mechanics was that players had to contend with somewhat randomized circumstances constraining their actions (i.e. if your party doesn't win enough seats to enact/prevent a change, you had to react by making deals with others, forcing elections, or pivoting RP, etc.). Obviously we all are aware of what the flaws of mechanics were – most notably that they did not, and could not, take RP developments into account, and often they would produce results contrary to the narrative that players had been working towards. However, that rng element is part of what kept roleplay and gameplay dynamic.
However, for economic roleplay this has never been the case, either on the mechanics or forum side. Unlike nuclear or chemical weapons, the use/development of which are highly regulated by moderation, economic development is completely laissez-faire. There is nothing preventing me from moving to a country like Istapali (a country with no forum posts nor wiki page) tomorrow and announcing the construction of a 100% renewable and state-of-the-art power grid, or a new automotive plant, or an investment in massively upscaling our semiconductor production. In a more holistic sense, these developments have very similar bearing on the overall power projection of a country, like WMDs, yet there is very little oversight or similar consideration.
It would be easy to say that moderation should take a more active stance in regulating what players can feasibly do economically, but this is obviously flawed for a number of reasons, including but not limited to:
(a) "the Moderation team generally do not have the time necessary to effectively keep track of the role-play happening in every country" (from Jamescfm on 'Nukes');
(b) this depends on the subjective determinations of moderators, which is bound to cause strain between players and moderators depending on their rulings, as well as demand a lot of moderators regarding their knowledge of global economics, and;
(c) it would likely produce a similar problem as that which existed during the "rankings" era, with players moving to a country and then repeating a similar arc of economic development RP and optimization to achieve a certain level of economic complexity/development.
What I'd like to see are moves, within the consensual framework we operate under pursuant to the game rules, towards a more dynamic, constrained, and vibrant way of approaching global economic RP – or at the very least, among those most interested in it. In other words, to "gamify" global economics in Particracy.
2. Issues in Implementing a Global Economic Simulation in Particracy
(a) Every country's economy can be entirely self-sufficient, if the player so chooses, without the need for any imports or exports (I do not need your oil, we meet our own needs domestically). Relatedly, there is no reason (other than established through roleplay and agreed upon OOC) why an economic downturn or financial crisis in one country would have any impact whatsoever on the global economy (what does it matter if Egelion is in recession? We can meet our own needs anyway), or that economic sanctions should carry any weight.
(b) As every country can produce virtually any resource, supply chains in production are rendered useless and exports worthless (why buy your iron when I can mine my own?). Relatedly, why produce any product for export if there is no market for it?
(c) Related to (a) and (b), commodity prices and values are entirely made up (and largely just carried over from the present-day real world). What is the value of oil, or gems, or iron, etc., if everyone can access a domestic supply sufficient to their domestic demand? In other words, why is oil valuable at all? Why is a sapphire valuable if they are abundant in many countries?
(d) All information or data in this game is necessarily qualitative, rather than hard quantitative economic data; translating qualitative data into quantitative data in the context of Particracy is dependent on establishing a commonly-agreed upon methodology. Moreover, since players can essentially produce any qualitative or quantitative data that they wish to present with respect to their country's economy, determining what data is "valid" or "authoritative" carries its own issues and baggage.
3. My Ideas to "Gamify" and Simulate the Global Economy
I think the primary characteristic that needs to be introduced is scarcity. Without scarcity, economics in the game are purely decorative. But how can this be achieved in a game where scarcity does not exist, and in many ways, cannot exist given the consensual framework? What follows are a few ideas I've thought about recently, but these are just outlines at this stage:
(a) An import/export and resource register with moderation oversight:
- Players write in a thread what the major imports and exports of their country are, and what resources that country has (along with the reserves – high, medium, low – of that resource, based on the country's geography, lore, RP, etc.). Moderators compile these into an "official" thread or resource map. Ideally, these should include 2-4 inherent strengths and 2-4 inherent vulnerabilities.
- Players can report internal developments (discovering new resource reserves, building infrastructure, opening mines, etc.) in this thread with links to their RP, and moderators can update that country's resource index.
- Players can maintain a strong degree of control over what their economy "looks like" and influence this through their RP
- Players can access a centralized list of what country produces what product/resource, and thus include such information in their RP (i.e. Country A produces oil, I need oil, I import most of my oil from Country A; Country B imports wheat, I produce wheat, I export my wheat to Country B), as well as gain an idea of what their major import/export partners would be.
- Resource scarcity becomes a narrative lever (i.e. Nation A controls a high supply of rare earth minerals, Nation B must negotiate access or develop alternatives)
- Requires a great deal of administration from moderators and players alike
- High chance that moderator discretion here generates tension with players based on rulings of plausibility
- High risk of running into similar issues as with rankings, where players write "optimized" RP that allows them to have a higher "rank" of a given resource reserve
(b) A global commodity price register with moderation oversight (possible AI solution?):
- Major resource groups (oil, metals, food, chemicals, etc.) are set at a baseline price/value (could be different for each commodity, or all set at the same to start).
- Every 5-10 in-game years, prices are impacted by modifiers determined through RP (i.e. Nation A increases oil production, increasing supply, causing the global price to be 12% lower).
- Players either report these economic developments in a specific thread with link to their RP article, or a similar scraping bot as that which is used for the ticker on Discord could hypothetically be employed to scrape and translate RP articles into impacts on commodity prices
- Players can still choose to accept/reject the set commodity price;
- The price can be considered by players when thinking about how to develop their economies (i.e. the global price of metals is high, thus Nation A will build a mine; the price of oil is low, I will negotiate with other oil producers to reduce production OPEC style)
- Particularly with automation/AI, this could have very little oversight and a degree of randomization (possibly the inclusion of randomly-generated price shocks?)
- Alternatively, this could be run by players who consensually join an "organization" in which the members agree to adhere to its prices.
- Absent automation/AI, this requires an additional degree of work/oversight by moderators (or players)
- It is unfeasible to keep track of the price dynamics of every relevant commodity (necessarily limited to only the most significant commodities)
- Emphasis on commodities/resources can limit the overall complexity and dynamism of national economies (why focus on expanding the fashion industry, in this instance?)
(c) A consensual global economic organization that countries join, that has a more OOC heavy component:
Outline:
- Each country gets 10 "credits" every 10 in-game years. The "credits" are purely an OOC device.
- Credits can be spent on economic projects which have different costs set by the players in the organization (i.e. small local projects might cost 1-2 credits, nationwide projects 4-6, major reforms 7-8).
- Countries can pool credits for big projects or transfer them to other countries (in the org.). IC, this transfer of credits could be explained as being in the form of loans, investments, trade, tech transfer, etc.
- Countries cannot carry their credits over into the next 10 year term; credits are reset to ten each term.
- Countries which spend all or more of their credits in one ten year term might be considered "high momentum" economies, while those who spend less than their max could be considered "medium" to "low" momentum.
The idea here is to generate constraints and scarcities in economic activity which make international trade and cooperation important and relevant, while leaving it open-ended enough that it doesn't feel constraining (nor possible to be a rank-maxing, power-playing vehicle). The "momentum" determination is intended to be read somewhat broadly as an indicator of economic activity and dynamism, but not necessarily of wealth (i.e. a country could have high momentum, but be poor overall, due to an influx of investment and so on; a rich country could be low momentum as they don’t have as much need to spend their credits and develop) in the same way that GDP growth for developing and developed countries is often very different, despite the latter being wealthier than the former.
Issues:
- Should all countries get the exact same number of "credits" regardless of base "development?" If not, how should the difference be determined?
- How should negative externalities, political events, natural disasters, etc., impact this model and/or the distribution of credits and the cost for projects?
- Relatively little "administrative" requirements (i.e. no need for moderator intervention, players do not need to spend time gathering and translating economic info from RP posts, etc.)
- Creates a "market-mechanism" of sorts for generating economic development and collaboration.
- Requires players to constrain their RP a bit by participating in this system (i.e. you cannot undertake economic RP that would cost credits you do not have)
- Requires players to continue to "buy in" to this OOC exchange and system
4. Summary
These are just a few of my thoughts and ideas about global economics in the game. I have thought about this topic for as long as I've played the game, but have never been able to come to a solution alone. I think my proposal under 3(c) is the most fleshed out and compatible with the game as it is, but it still would need to be tested (if you would like to be part of an informal "playtest" of this concept, please consider reaching out to me).
If anyone has any other thoughts or ideas on global economics in the game, or anything I've written in this very long post, please contribute to this thread.
Thank you!
"Everything's computer!" – President Donald John Trump ✝️
wuhan.particracy@gmail.com
wuhan.particracy@gmail.com