COMMUNITY - FORUMS - GENERAL DISCUSSION
Universal Currency?

It was stated in the most recent Q&A that there would be no universal currency, and that the designers expect players to use a barter system with the hope that some form of player made currency might come to exist.

Does this mean there will be no form of currency at launch? (Taxes would be pretty complicated without one...)

Or will there be some form of cultural/kingdom wide currency in place but players will have to barter with other cultures/kingdoms?


6/21/2017 6:59:29 AM #1

Coins could be made, but they only have the value that the people using them give them


6/21/2017 7:39:33 AM #2

No universal currency. Not necessarily no currency. Goods and services are a form of currency but I think you're specifically talking about coinage or something of the sort. I'm sure that will be something largely considered pre-launch by the members who have already been cultivating the world. I know that personally, our county will attempt to use a form of currency. Whether the Kingdom will adopt it or not who knows. Hehe

Note that there are often times where people/cultures have paid taxes with goods and services. For example, a Tax Collector can collect taxes in place of tax. A farmer would provide goods. Etc.


The Akashic Records

6/21/2017 7:43:12 AM #3

I honestly kinda like the idea of a no currency system...

Base tax on landowners in a Neran county is like 3 bushels of wheat a year per plot. Then the local count decides to change that to 1 buddle of silk per year... Imagine the impact this could have on the economy of not only that county but the neighboring ones and even the nearest Kypiq countys!

That being said, I'm almost positive there will be cultural/kingdom based currency.


6/21/2017 7:54:56 AM #4

As settlements already exist I would suspect there would already be something in place to barter with Currency or something else. However, if there will be no gold coins, Kairos, and Vornair for example will already be reaching to create their own currency anyway.

6/21/2017 8:14:40 AM #5

In feudal Europe, taxes were usually not collected as coinage. It was more common than not for land to be taxed based on what it could produce (for example, wheat). This is actually fairly intuitive, especially considering that many people outside of cities would use coins somewhat rarely.


6/21/2017 8:48:24 AM #6

Coins will likely be made pretty early on, which will be universal. If a coins in made of gold, gold has worth anywhere, generally.

This is true of the real world, too and was true in the era that closest resembles Elyrias time.


6/21/2017 12:05:34 PM #7

Crowfall was originally going this route, but the designers realized it was basically going to be impossible to balance and avoid exploits. Now, CoE is a different game (very) but it would be interesting.


World Class Indoorsman

6/21/2017 3:13:05 PM #8

Honestly, there's no need for a 'universal currency' right away....because of contracts. We have a universal means to say "I have this thing you want, you have a thing I want, let's trade."

And this model even allows a 'general store' to function. They'd need to gather up a heap of goods as their 'start up cost,' but after that....they could continue trading things with others to build up their inventory, and provide a one-stop location for people to come to in order to trade. (That way you don't have to find someone who can actually use those furs your brought in, and go through a long string of trades to work your way to the blacksmith to buy a new skinning knife).

Currency will be a useful addition, for sure...and it's quite possible that certain tribes already have a currency they use as an exchange intermediary. And once you have that...you can work out exchange rates between them, and there you go. Currency ends up working in-game basically exactly the same way it worked IRL before an international regulatory group was created to manage the relative values of currency.


Knowing what I can do isn’t the same thing as knowing what I can’t do.

6/21/2017 3:34:35 PM #9

Can we recognize the added burden on government in the case that there is not a universal currency created for that nation. Not to mention how that system promotes rampant corruption.


Aspisis - - - - MaYor oF WinderBerg - - Capitalizer of LEtters

6/21/2017 7:00:21 PM #10

All of these things sound like plot points to me. >:D Hehe


The Akashic Records

6/21/2017 7:52:19 PM #11

The way I understood it was, each Kingdom will have it's own currency in place, but if you go to trade with another Kingdom, taking your currency with you wont work since the other kingdoms currency is different meaning you'd have to barter instead.

However, if every kingdoms currency was coins made out of gold and the coins all had the same weight it would be fairly straight forward to sell and buy throughout the continent.


6/21/2017 8:29:21 PM #12

Pretty sure tax collectors will eventually be players which would make it interesting for them to go to each landowner, check their records of what they produced for the year and collect a percentage of that to be loaded into a wagon.

Would also be interesting to appropriate these goods while they are en route to where ever the tax collector takes them.


6/21/2017 8:47:33 PM #13

There is no need that the currency is particularly coins. The first currency to be used (excluding bartering goods) are the ingots, made of different precious metals, like gold, copper, bronze (which is an alloy). It is important to say that iron was not yet discovered by this time. If it would be coins, different kingdoms can mint their own emissions. To make it more interesting for merchants, it would be a good idea to that the different kingdoms mint coins with different weight. For example a gold coin of kingdom X weighs as much as five gold coins in kingdom Y (same goes for all metals). That would open up an opportunity for money-changing activities, scams. It would be also good, if there is a specific rules for the quantity of coins a kingdom can mint. This would give an opportunity for financial manipulations in a very natural manner.


To truly understand victory, one must know defeat first.

6/21/2017 9:12:06 PM #14

A lack of universal currency seems like a needless plunge into minutia. For players and for the game designers. Nobody is going to complain about having it but a lot of people - possibly everyone - is going to complain about not having it once the impracticality of such a thing is actually realized. Universal currency does not prevent players from bartering or negotiating other forms of payment.


6/21/2017 9:39:21 PM #15

Posted By Hieronymus at 10:12 PM - Wed Jun 21 2017

A lack of universal currency seems like a needless plunge into minutia. For players and for the game designers. Nobody is going to complain about having it but a lot of people - possibly everyone - is going to complain about not having it once the impracticality of such a thing is actually realized. Universal currency does not prevent players from bartering or negotiating other forms of payment.

I think like a few CoE features, taken in isolation few would really like it. But it could have a positive impact on the wider game.

One of the main reasons is I think universal currency tends to homogenise the economy. People will quickly start to ascribe a certain value to certain things. They will discuss these out of game, but expect them in-game. These values could be completely out of whack with in-game reality and while there would still be variation due to supply and demand, it would tend to drag the economy closer to a global norm.

The second is, how does the currency come in to being? If it has to be made from in-game resources then it would clearly give advantage to areas where those resources are common. If it magically comes in to being somehow then you lose a lot of economic depth from the game, especially at the larger scale.

Local currencies and bartering may be less convenient, but it creates gameplay and I think this is the sort of thing CoE is going for. On the smaller scale, you will get much bigger regional variation and more interesting possibilities for traders, markets and speculators. On the larger scale you get all sorts of economic decisions that a global currency would render irrelevant.