17-02-2026, 07:32 PM
In response:
On Currency:
Yes, the idea was to develop the USD as the base currency, but as a synthetic base which was worth +/- .05% (or 5/100 of a percent) the USD, so it wouldn't be exact, and you would only see major diversions in very large numbers. Then In game currencies could float against that based on two vectors: monetary policy of each nation (which we can set up as variables that players could select based on how they want to play it- Does it float, is it moderately controlled, or is it tightly controlled,) and the second which is Economic RP, which we could probably develop an AI analysis to show countries that are aggressively trading, growing etc. A number of economic policies produce stronger or weaker currencies depending, and I think we could code for that. High demand creates a stronger currency against a benchmark, low demand/convertibility tends to drag a currency down. Often the value of a currency is not in control of the issuing country, despite what they might like to argue, while a country can pretty easily strengthen or weaken its own currency by fiscal policy.
Point is, once we set a benchmark, and let currencies float against it, we can determine easily the moment by moment exchange rate between any two currencies. The important thing is establishing the benchmark currency. I have argued that that should be a synthetic currency, external to anything players can themselves affect to make it fair to all players. Selecting an in game currency gives that currency and therefore the player that controls that currency an advantage. And if we want to do this without requiring strong consent from every single nation, we can just all agree that a synthetic currency based on the USD (or whatever one we want to pick, I think lots of people use the USD as comparison for IG costs) is the neutral benchmark against which our currencies float based on our own actions or inactions, then we can make it an objective measure that we can influence by our RP. I have some ideas, including a market where players can select which international currencies they are trying to buy, which ones they are trying to sell, which ones they allow in their country, and which they reject. All of those can provide variables for the Economic RP aspect of currency that can help us get an in game handle on currency which is both objectively determined and also dynamic. And in turn, this feature can be considered in what countries can and cannot do. If I have a currency that is worth .00013875 of a LOD, for example, because my RP has been to do things that are only inflationary and not very responsible, I at least know what I have to put together to buy Lodamese stuff, as well as every other country's stuff.
On Sanctions
Yes, the consent issue is a very sticky subject. You wrote "I think the community has largely agreed that a country cannot unilaterally invade another, but can unilaterally apply economic sanctions." I think the issue we are grappling with then is that the country may do something that will, if we RPd the results of that out, my country or my interests would be hurt. I can easily ignore those results and instead level sanctions in retaliation, and the sanctioned state doesn't even have to acknowledge that I have done that at all. Even if you approach them about the RP, and they say, "nope, no way," or even if they do agree to the sanctions, but then never ever RP any pain at all or even a change to the policy, then the sanctions may as well not even exist.
And then, yes there is the issue of "I don't even trade with you, so sanction what?" That happens very frequently in this game. Its not good or bad: It assumes a world that is as economically interconnected as the Real world is, but 1) that is not a safe assumption on any level, and 2) even in the real world that situation exists: The US can't really very effectively sanction a place like Somalia, but serious sanctions against Mexico would be devastating to both the US and Mexico.
Then there is the issue of just inactive players, or players who post once in a while. Yeah, they could agree to the RP, but then if they only post once every other week, it sort of makes the consent pointless. Again, no judgement, it is what it is and it is how some have to play the game, but it also does neutralize the RP almost completely.
At this point, if we rely on pure consent, sanctions do not mean anything. Without some mechanism to bring some actual pain economically, which doesn't necessarily rely on players having to do anything specific other than give their consent. There will always be players that say "I get to do x, y and z, and you can't do anything about it, even though it is very irritating to you, because I explicitly do not consent to any of your retaliation to me..." I know I have done that myself. I can think of a handful of others as well. That's an annoyance and really undermines the realism of this simulation, because in the real world, actions have consequences that we often cannot foresee and so this simulation is not a very good simulation of the real world on that point. However, if you do agree to the RP, there should be some mechanism for carrying it through whether I do anything with it or not. If we don't want to do that, we should simply say sanctions are not a thing.
On resource scarcity, oil, and climate change
Agreed on all points.
On proposal 3(a): Resource register, or Economic Protocols
About this issue: ""who are the Mods to say I cannot be the leading global producer of semiconductors, photovoltaics, uranium, oil, gold, steel, rare earth minerals, and lumber?!"" I think I responded to this in the discord: The people who say what I have done and what I have are the players themselves, backed up by their own RP. At the time the EP would be written, it would become canonized and enforceable. We can bring in a measure of dynamism in once we figure out the currency situation, but for the time being we rely on RP already, so this would be a good basis I think as a starting point.
The point about imagining what a GDP would be in the year 5700 would be resolved by the comparison against a benchmark currency: You build this "growth" into the value of "One Synthetic currency unit". So theoretically, in 5700 the TMU (which was the term I used, terran monetary unit) is worth 5000 what ever the USD was in 2026. That means that all GDPs measured agains that inflated TMU are similarly and relatively inflated. If my GDP is 6000 TMUs, (just a number) then it is still worth 5000 times whatever that was in 2026 USD. Sort of a handwave but conceptually it works, because the TMU is the standard that all others are compared to. And theoretically, nominal GDPs do not grow geometrically, but arithmetically, so this relative comparison should work as a concept. Real GDPs have the potential to grow geometrically.
On 3(c): "Credits Proposal"
On the point about nations teaming up in the real world so we should expect it here was well made. My only counter to it is If I am part of a circle of 5 countries, in game there would be nothing that forces me to only help the others a little. I, and 3 of my cliquemates can put all our credits to a 5th member this year, and they will ostensibly have 50 credits to spend then, rather than the 10 that everyone is normally allotted. So they can really boost their economy this cycle. Then next cycle, we pick another winner in our clique, put all our credits to them, and they get to expand dramatically in a very short time. And so forth... And meanwhile, I have 40 years of zero credits using in my own country, with no real cost to my country except opportunity cost, but I trust that when its my turn, I'll get astronomical growth too.
In the real world, countries are not altruistic, on any level. Even those who would like to be simply cannot afford to be. Because it costs money to keep what I have built. And as I build more, those costs continue to go up. If you had a maintenance cost built in, like each country gets 10 credits to spend, but before they can spend them, they need to pay for what they have, they don't just get to keep a 10 AC carrier navy for 50 years without having to spend astronomical sums to maintain it, and if they are the leading economy this year, they have to spend their credits to maintain that, rather than helping others, or they just lose status, or more perniciously as in Classic, when they go empty for 100 years and then its just assumed that when players return they just pick up where they left off, that would be something that I would be more interested in, because it prevents people gaming the system.
For example, if I do happen to get a benefit from having a clique who all donate their credits to me one year and I blow up economically, I would have to pay more than 10 credits a year to maintain 50 credits of economic development, which would put me in a deficit. I either have to make up that deficit somehow, or it all falls apart. This way there is no incentive to taking 40 credits from others if I can't possibly afford to maintain it. Additionally, there would be no incentive for me as a member of the clique, to give someone else all 10 of my credits that year, because then I would have nothing to maintain what I do have myself.
Countries are egoist first and foremost. They are all self interested, and then if they have resources left over then they help others. This is what realists describe as the self help world. Where we can only really rely on our own selves, and if we get into a situation where we trust someone, and it becomes in their interests to do so, we can expect to be stabbed in the back, even by our friends. Its stark, but only the wealthiest countries can afford the privilege of offering significant and regular foreign aid. I think building maintenance costs into the model would go a LONG way at reducing this sort of collusion and increasing trust that the system will be fair to all players, thus increasing the potential for buy in by others.
I think that's all the points. Thank you for hosting this discussion. I agree that we need to improve our economic models, and I think these are reasonable approaches to do that.
On Currency:
Yes, the idea was to develop the USD as the base currency, but as a synthetic base which was worth +/- .05% (or 5/100 of a percent) the USD, so it wouldn't be exact, and you would only see major diversions in very large numbers. Then In game currencies could float against that based on two vectors: monetary policy of each nation (which we can set up as variables that players could select based on how they want to play it- Does it float, is it moderately controlled, or is it tightly controlled,) and the second which is Economic RP, which we could probably develop an AI analysis to show countries that are aggressively trading, growing etc. A number of economic policies produce stronger or weaker currencies depending, and I think we could code for that. High demand creates a stronger currency against a benchmark, low demand/convertibility tends to drag a currency down. Often the value of a currency is not in control of the issuing country, despite what they might like to argue, while a country can pretty easily strengthen or weaken its own currency by fiscal policy.
Point is, once we set a benchmark, and let currencies float against it, we can determine easily the moment by moment exchange rate between any two currencies. The important thing is establishing the benchmark currency. I have argued that that should be a synthetic currency, external to anything players can themselves affect to make it fair to all players. Selecting an in game currency gives that currency and therefore the player that controls that currency an advantage. And if we want to do this without requiring strong consent from every single nation, we can just all agree that a synthetic currency based on the USD (or whatever one we want to pick, I think lots of people use the USD as comparison for IG costs) is the neutral benchmark against which our currencies float based on our own actions or inactions, then we can make it an objective measure that we can influence by our RP. I have some ideas, including a market where players can select which international currencies they are trying to buy, which ones they are trying to sell, which ones they allow in their country, and which they reject. All of those can provide variables for the Economic RP aspect of currency that can help us get an in game handle on currency which is both objectively determined and also dynamic. And in turn, this feature can be considered in what countries can and cannot do. If I have a currency that is worth .00013875 of a LOD, for example, because my RP has been to do things that are only inflationary and not very responsible, I at least know what I have to put together to buy Lodamese stuff, as well as every other country's stuff.
On Sanctions
Yes, the consent issue is a very sticky subject. You wrote "I think the community has largely agreed that a country cannot unilaterally invade another, but can unilaterally apply economic sanctions." I think the issue we are grappling with then is that the country may do something that will, if we RPd the results of that out, my country or my interests would be hurt. I can easily ignore those results and instead level sanctions in retaliation, and the sanctioned state doesn't even have to acknowledge that I have done that at all. Even if you approach them about the RP, and they say, "nope, no way," or even if they do agree to the sanctions, but then never ever RP any pain at all or even a change to the policy, then the sanctions may as well not even exist.
And then, yes there is the issue of "I don't even trade with you, so sanction what?" That happens very frequently in this game. Its not good or bad: It assumes a world that is as economically interconnected as the Real world is, but 1) that is not a safe assumption on any level, and 2) even in the real world that situation exists: The US can't really very effectively sanction a place like Somalia, but serious sanctions against Mexico would be devastating to both the US and Mexico.
Then there is the issue of just inactive players, or players who post once in a while. Yeah, they could agree to the RP, but then if they only post once every other week, it sort of makes the consent pointless. Again, no judgement, it is what it is and it is how some have to play the game, but it also does neutralize the RP almost completely.
At this point, if we rely on pure consent, sanctions do not mean anything. Without some mechanism to bring some actual pain economically, which doesn't necessarily rely on players having to do anything specific other than give their consent. There will always be players that say "I get to do x, y and z, and you can't do anything about it, even though it is very irritating to you, because I explicitly do not consent to any of your retaliation to me..." I know I have done that myself. I can think of a handful of others as well. That's an annoyance and really undermines the realism of this simulation, because in the real world, actions have consequences that we often cannot foresee and so this simulation is not a very good simulation of the real world on that point. However, if you do agree to the RP, there should be some mechanism for carrying it through whether I do anything with it or not. If we don't want to do that, we should simply say sanctions are not a thing.
On resource scarcity, oil, and climate change
Agreed on all points.
On proposal 3(a): Resource register, or Economic Protocols
About this issue: ""who are the Mods to say I cannot be the leading global producer of semiconductors, photovoltaics, uranium, oil, gold, steel, rare earth minerals, and lumber?!"" I think I responded to this in the discord: The people who say what I have done and what I have are the players themselves, backed up by their own RP. At the time the EP would be written, it would become canonized and enforceable. We can bring in a measure of dynamism in once we figure out the currency situation, but for the time being we rely on RP already, so this would be a good basis I think as a starting point.
The point about imagining what a GDP would be in the year 5700 would be resolved by the comparison against a benchmark currency: You build this "growth" into the value of "One Synthetic currency unit". So theoretically, in 5700 the TMU (which was the term I used, terran monetary unit) is worth 5000 what ever the USD was in 2026. That means that all GDPs measured agains that inflated TMU are similarly and relatively inflated. If my GDP is 6000 TMUs, (just a number) then it is still worth 5000 times whatever that was in 2026 USD. Sort of a handwave but conceptually it works, because the TMU is the standard that all others are compared to. And theoretically, nominal GDPs do not grow geometrically, but arithmetically, so this relative comparison should work as a concept. Real GDPs have the potential to grow geometrically.
On 3(c): "Credits Proposal"
On the point about nations teaming up in the real world so we should expect it here was well made. My only counter to it is If I am part of a circle of 5 countries, in game there would be nothing that forces me to only help the others a little. I, and 3 of my cliquemates can put all our credits to a 5th member this year, and they will ostensibly have 50 credits to spend then, rather than the 10 that everyone is normally allotted. So they can really boost their economy this cycle. Then next cycle, we pick another winner in our clique, put all our credits to them, and they get to expand dramatically in a very short time. And so forth... And meanwhile, I have 40 years of zero credits using in my own country, with no real cost to my country except opportunity cost, but I trust that when its my turn, I'll get astronomical growth too.
In the real world, countries are not altruistic, on any level. Even those who would like to be simply cannot afford to be. Because it costs money to keep what I have built. And as I build more, those costs continue to go up. If you had a maintenance cost built in, like each country gets 10 credits to spend, but before they can spend them, they need to pay for what they have, they don't just get to keep a 10 AC carrier navy for 50 years without having to spend astronomical sums to maintain it, and if they are the leading economy this year, they have to spend their credits to maintain that, rather than helping others, or they just lose status, or more perniciously as in Classic, when they go empty for 100 years and then its just assumed that when players return they just pick up where they left off, that would be something that I would be more interested in, because it prevents people gaming the system.
For example, if I do happen to get a benefit from having a clique who all donate their credits to me one year and I blow up economically, I would have to pay more than 10 credits a year to maintain 50 credits of economic development, which would put me in a deficit. I either have to make up that deficit somehow, or it all falls apart. This way there is no incentive to taking 40 credits from others if I can't possibly afford to maintain it. Additionally, there would be no incentive for me as a member of the clique, to give someone else all 10 of my credits that year, because then I would have nothing to maintain what I do have myself.
Countries are egoist first and foremost. They are all self interested, and then if they have resources left over then they help others. This is what realists describe as the self help world. Where we can only really rely on our own selves, and if we get into a situation where we trust someone, and it becomes in their interests to do so, we can expect to be stabbed in the back, even by our friends. Its stark, but only the wealthiest countries can afford the privilege of offering significant and regular foreign aid. I think building maintenance costs into the model would go a LONG way at reducing this sort of collusion and increasing trust that the system will be fair to all players, thus increasing the potential for buy in by others.
I think that's all the points. Thank you for hosting this discussion. I agree that we need to improve our economic models, and I think these are reasonable approaches to do that.
Primary: Institutionalist Party of Kalistan (IPoK), 5146-
Inactive:
Socialist Party of Kalistan (SPoK), 2591-
Inactive:
Socialist Party of Kalistan (SPoK), 2591-