The goal of using Spendies is to make exploration more of a monthly recurring activity and to cause players to have to budget other interests against oil exploration.
I think that the problem described in four can be fixed by creating a community refinery and causing inactive players refineries to be auctioned. Additionally, I planned for there to be roughly one auction per two weeks and around fifty refineries, meaning that there would be a wide period in which to acquire them. Also, the Railroad Commissionor (if anyone is wondering why I propose calling it that, this is a reference to the Texas Railroad Commission, which has nothing to do with Railroads and everything to do with oil and gas regulation) will be given one refinery if they do not already own one and one set of exploration equipment. I expect that it would be a campaign promise to enact an Administrative Regulation that these are rented out at reasonable rates. On Wed, Oct 15, 2025 at 7:39 PM Trigon via agora-discussion < [email protected]> wrote: > I am excited to see more economic subgames being proposed. Thoughts are > inline. > > On 10/14/25 9:01 PM, EarlyRetirement via agora-discussion wrote: > > *1. An Agoran uses Spendies to purchase an Oil Block, or for a lower > price, > > the rights to explore an Oil Block with the option to purchase it later > > (the Agoran may also sell the Oil Block after exploration). Then, the > > Agoran uses a fixed asset, Exploration Equipment, to explore the plot. > > Exploration Equipment would be relatively expensive, so it would be > > possible to hire another Agoran to explore your land, for a fee of > course. > > The chance of oil and/or quantity would be randomly determined when the > Oil > > Block is created* > > To be honest, Spendies seem like an imperfect fit to implement directly > into this game. Even if they didn't reset every month, they're so > coarse. For instance, 20 is considered to be a lot of spendies. This > would likely lead to a fairly anaemic auctioning game, among other > issues. I might recommend taking inspiration from the Agoraculture rules > which make players convert in a lossy fashion between spendies and the > more granular and persistent currency pyrite, which Agoraculture uses > for its main gameplay. > > > *2. If oil is found on the land, the Agoran would then need to extract > that > > oil. There would be multiple tiers of Oil Derricks, which are priced > > accordingly, and allow faster/more complete extraction.* > > > > *3. The oil that is extracted is Crude Agoroleum (CA) and must be stored. > > Upon purchase of an Agoran's first Oil Block, they would be awarded 50 > > Barrels worth of storage capacity. Additional storage can be purchased > > based on a linear formula that causes storage to become more expensive > > the more is purchased.* > > > > > > *4. Finally, in order to convert CA into usable currency, it must be > > converted at a Refinery into Refined Agoroleum (RA). A Refinery refines a > > fixed amount of CA per Agoran day that it is operated. There would only > be > > a fixed amount of Refineries. If an Agoran does not own a refinery, they > > may either sell their CA to an Agoran who does or pay for it to be > refined > > at another player's Refinery. Refineries would be auctioned off gradually > > after implementation of Agoroleum to prevent hoarding.* > > In point 3 you proved that you are mindful of including catchup > mechanics for new players, but this mechanic seems less than ideal in > that regard. We can't have a group of people who happened to be here at > the start of the subgame control all the refineries forever. I have two > suggestions if you want to keep a fixed amount of refineries: (1) you > could have all refineries owned by Agora with a system allowing players > to loan them out; or (2) maybe refineries have upkeep costs that need to > be continuously paid and which perhaps increase over time. > > I will of course have more to say once this is written up in the style > of Agoran rules text. > > -- > Trigon > > Popular Polygon and Treasuror Extraordinaire > -- EarlyRetirement8 "Seek the Uncomfortable" PGP/GPG: 52436D6D <https://keys.openpgp.org/vks/v1/by-fingerprint/52436D6D16A474173989264953FD4511719833F6>
