After thinking this whole thing through, I'm not sure that it's
actually a
problem if people with zombies have tons of money. It's completely
possible
to amass a fortune by living off of public land, so little guys can
still
get money that they can spend on zombies and/or land eventually. The
monthly
salary ensures that less affluent players have a constant source of
income
that they can use to survive.
Included in the salary is 10 coins, 5 apples, and 2 papers. I will now
explain how this allows one to sustainably live.
Having some coins ensures that a player can, with enough time, gain
wealth
by using careful spending. If you don't purchase anything for two
months and
are just living off of the base salary, you have 20 coins. That's
more than
enough to buy land unit, as demonstrated by the previous land unit
auction,
where the highest selling unit was worth 16 coins. And as long as you
take
some public action during that time, you are safe from the legal
theft of
zombiehood. Additionally, with time, some land units will become more
valuable to control, leaving others neglected. Going for neglected land
units will make it so that you won't have to pay nearly as much to get
yourself started.
Having some apples ensures that you can move around the map. Assuming
you
stay around the origin, you can do a few rounds of nabbing stuffs to get
even more resources. Inconveniently, more coins are out of your
reach, but
that's intentional since I wanted you to have to work for a little while
before you can basically print money. But, as demonstrated in the
past few
weeks, you can get more apples and more corn from the preserved farm and
orchard, making it completely possible to stay living in the center
of the
map for a while.
Proposals are the most powerful thing in the game, and under the current
rules, you're guaranteed to be able to submit some every month
because you
get two papers every month. Perhaps there can be a coin reward for a
proposal passing. I think we had that under the proportional economy
rules.
If we institute this change, then it provides incentive to create good
proposals. I think it would give these less affluent players more
opportunity as well, which is a good thing.
But that's not even all of it. As we all know, officers are given 5
coins
and 1 corn at the beginning of the month for faithful service. Less
affluent
players can get a low-effort office that no one is currently occupying,
which allows them to receive extra income. But, as I've made clear
before,
I'm dissatisfied with the way officers are paid, since some offices
clearly
require more recordkeeping than others. See this message[1] for my
previously published ideas on how to fix it.
In conclusion, I think it's clear now that less affluent people actually
have way more opportunities than lots of people here estimate. Even
still, I
think some reforms are in order to improve the state of the economy,
namely
the officer fix and reinstitution of proposal rewards.
It is because of all this that I don't think redistribution to poor
players
is the reform we need.
[1]
https://www.mail-archive.com/agora-discussion@agoranomic.org/msg42699.html
On 4/11/2018 5:58 PM, Kerim Aydin wrote:
On Wed, 11 Apr 2018, Reuben Staley wrote:
I think Corona was talking about the thing where Agora would get
all the
money that people spent and distribute it tbuno the poorest
players. That
was
under the proportional economy where only 1000 shinies could exist.
I think if we were to reimplement that system, it would be too easy to
scam, with zombies and contracts and whatnot, so I'm not sold just
yet.
If
another proposal comes forth proposing a different way of filtering
assets
back into the economy, I might be willing to support it.
The issue I had with that system is you couldn't distinguish "poor
because
I don't have an income source/others are always ahead" from "poor
because
I
had a bunch of money and just now spent it." If you award the
latter it
leads to weird incentive systems to either hold everything or spend
everything but not to stay in between.
In "game-balancing" here, there's two separate issues to think about:
1. Can someone get enough possessions to participate on a basic
level on
a
regular basis? (e.g. by pending proposals, walking around the map, and
other fixed-cost things to buy). For this, monthly salary takes
care of
it
(more or less), secondarily land production. This was what
redistribution
was supposed to accomplish when salaries and land production didn't
exist,
but now that we have salaries that's fine (if it's not enough, just
increase
salary rather than adding a separate mechanism).
2. Is someone so far behind they can never be competitive in auctions?
This is the bigger issue, if zombie-owners always earn at 2x the
rate they
will always outbid and raise prices. This is multiplicative - the more
auctions they win, the more they get and so on so early leads build
into
big
ones. Redistribution won't help that unless you redistribute so
much that
it wipes out all leads (if it does that, why would anyone bother to
play
the
subgame?)
There are ways to address both, but I don't think redistributing to
poorest
players addresses either?
On Wed, Apr 11, 2018, 10:04 Kerim Aydin <ke...@u.washington.edu>
wrote:
That's what monthly salary is right?
Problem of course is that applies to zombies too - excluding zombies
from
salary would balance though of course would devalue zombies.
I was really surprised that the zombie auction prices were so
low. In
the
current system, the ability to occupy multiple land units/move in
multiple
directions and place multiple bids in auctions is huge (that wasn't
planned
on my part when I made zombies - I was pretty much thinking of
them as a
way to get an extra vote or two).
On the flip side, zombies are a precarious investment because you can
lose
them at any time.
On Wed, 11 Apr 2018, Corona wrote:
Well, it would be good IMO if something like the now repealed
redistribution of Agora's money to the poor was enacted.
On Wednesday, April 11, 2018, Reuben Staley
<reuben.sta...@gmail.com>
wrote:
I'm starting to think I've opened a proverbial Pandora's Box of
sorts
and
that the map and zombie mechanics are going to spiral out of
control
to
create some ultra-capitalist society in the future. Oh well.
On Wed, Apr 11, 2018, 07:33 ATMunn <iamingodsa...@gmail.com> wrote:
Actually I believe this failed, as I tried to move from black to
white
by spending only one apple.
If I am still currently standing at (-1, +1) then I spend 2
apples to
move to (-1, 0) and another to move to (-1, -1).
I then transfer all of the assets from the facility where I am
standing
to me.
On 4/11/2018 9:27 AM, ATMunn wrote:
I transfer all of the assets where I am standing to me.
I spend 1 apple to move to (-1, 0) and then another to move to
(-1,
-1).
I then transfer all of the assets where I am standing to me.
I also act on Nichdel's behalf to transfer all of eir assets
to me.
On 4/11/2018 2:22 AM, Reuben Staley wrote:
THE MAP OF ARCADIA -- APRIL 2, 2018
View an interactive version of this report here:
https://agoranomic.org/Cartographor/maps/map-2018-04-11.html
LAND TYPE MAP
============================================================
============
LONGITUDE
- 6543210123456 +
- -
6 ************* 6
5 ************* 5 aether (*)
4 ************* 4 (b)lack
L 3 ************* 3 (w)hite
A 2 ************* 2
T 1 ****wwwbb**** 1
I 0 ****wwbbb**** 0
T 1 ****wwbbbw*** 1
U 2 ******bwb**** 2
D 3 ************* 3
E 4 ************* 4
5 ************* 5
6 ************* 6
+ +
- 6543210123456 +
OWNERSHIP MAP
============================================================
============
LONGITUDE
- 6543210123456 +
- -
6 ************* 6
5 ************* 5 Agora, Aether (*)
4 ************* 4 Agora, Non-Aether (.)
L 3 ************* 3 (G)aelan
A 2 ************* 2 (K)enyon
T 1 ****G...K**** 1 (T)rigon
I 0 ****T...C**** 0 (C)orona
T 1 ****C.....*** 1
U 2 ******...**** 2
D 3 ************* 3
E 4 ************* 4
5 ************* 5
6 ************* 6
+ +
- 6543210123456 +
PRESERVATION MAP
============================================================
============
LONGITUDE
- 6543210123456 +
- -
6 fffffffffffff 6
5 fffffffffffff 5 (t)rue
4 fffffffffffff 4 (f)alse
L 3 fffffffffffff 3
A 2 fffffffffffff 2
T 1 ffffftttfffff 1
I 0 ffffftttfffff 0
T 1 ffffftttfffff 1
U 2 fffffffffffff 2
D 3 fffffffffffff 3
E 4 fffffffffffff 4
5 fffffffffffff 5
6 fffffffffffff 6
+ +
- 6543210123456 +
FACILITIES
============================================================
============
(-1, -1): Preserved Rank 1 Mine, owned by Agora
Assets: 3 stones, 2 ore
(-1, +1): Preserved Rank 1 Orchard, owned by Agora
Assets: 3 apples, 3 lumber
(+1, -1): Preserved Rank 1 Farm, owned by Agora
Assets: 3 corn, 3 cotton
(+1, +1): Preserved Rank 1 Mine, owned by Agora
Assets: 3 stones, 2 ore
LOCATIONS OF ENTITIES
============================================================
============
Player Last report This Report
---------------------------------------
omd ( 0, 0) ( 0, 0)
o ( 0, 0) ( 0, 0)
Aris (-1, -1) (-1, -1)
DFF[1] ( 0, 0) ( 0, 0)
Quazie ( 0, 0) ( 0, 0)
P.S.S.[2] ( 0, 0) (-1, -1)
Gaelan ( 0, 0) (-1, -1)
nichdel ( 0, 0) ( 0, 0)
G. ( 0, 0) ( 0, 0)
Cuddlebeam (-1, -1) (-1, -1)
Trigon ( 0, 0) (+1, +2)
Telnaior ( 0, 0) ( 0, 0)
Corona ( 0, 0) (+1, +1)
pokes ( 0, 0) ( 0, 0)
Murphy ( 0, 0) ( 0, 0)
VJ Rada ( 0, 0) ( 0, 0)
Kenyon (-1, +1) (-1, +1)
ATMunn (-1, +1) (-1, +1)
Ouri ( 0, 0) ( 0, 0)
[1]: In Full, 天火狐
[2]: In Full, Publius Scribonius Scholasticus
ALTERNATING LAND TYPE
============================================================
============
The alternating land type has been switched 4 times.
The current value is Black.
CHANGES IN LAND TYPE AND OWNERSHIP
============================================================
============
Date Unit From To
---------------------------------------
2018-04-09 (-1, +2) Agora Kenyon
2018-04-09 ( 0, -2) Agora Trigon
2018-04-09 (+1, -2) Agora Corona
2018-04-09 ( 0, +2) Agora Corona
2018-04-10 (-1, -2) Agora Gaelan
--
¯Corona
---
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--
Trigon
