Topic: Crypto Kingdom Game Design (Read 9450 times)

Double bump...

If anyone is interested, I would like to sell the following domains related to this project:

cryptokingdom.me
cryptokingdom.com
cryptokingdom.gold

The .me domain was the original one Risto used, and I had to acquire the .com on the secondary market since he didn't think to register it when he started the project.

Additionally, I am willing to sell the complete game database and source code. The code is nothing fancy at all. Actually you'll be shocked at how bad it is considering how much Risto spent on it. But someone could possibly use the database and historic price data to create NFTs or a reboot or something. I mean there are some insane levels of "proof of burn" or "proof of value" to Crypto Kingdom items, considering items as pointless as unicorns went for 1000+ XMR in the past.

The database also has user email and account information, so if you wanted to airdrop assets to old users, it is possible for those that included a way to recover their accounts.

Please contact me via direct message if interested.

.

Posting this here as it seemed more fitting.

Ok thank you very much but damn that is a lot to go through but I will go through it later today. Thanks for helping me. It's not so easy finding info for this game and its very complex. I do enjoy the whooenidea of the game and having ot as an investment. It is fun.

Start by reading:
Princess Roopatra's Beginners' Guide to The Health Challenge

and

Princess Roopatra's Advanced Guide to The Health Challenge

(Keep in mind this is the original design of the health challenge.)

Then reread the last post about The New Challenge.

A lot of this does not make sense to me and a lot of it is not in the game. Like action points ?? Where are those ? Where is my happiness level ? How do I see my health ? When must I eat ? When must I have my health from eating up high ? It decreases 2% per day so when does it end ? How does it work ?

TESTNET:

Shouldn't a BUY ITEM prompt come up in building if you are short on materials or BUILD points?

In favor - thank you for all the hard work both Risto & Crichton, and others involved in sketching this into being!

I've read through the constitution, and whilst some of it goes over my head (I'm just a pony, after all) I'm broadly in agreement of it, and I think that it will provide a good framework for the game to move forward. Thank you for your work and effort on it, Risto!

What are the design plans for chat? Will MODS be enacted to control SPAM output? Will MODS (if enacted) be volunteer or paid rank? With all the COINS being offered, it should prove interesting on how to define and process them...

Can a player make a SHIELD that absorbs HP from lesser players who are unprepared for a DERAGON event--

  ^

So yesterday I asked the most obvious question to a co-worker (20, attractive, female: would she play?), "What would you do in the game?" Her reply surprised me: she wanted to play as a Viking, rain havoc from the skies with her dragon, kill peasants for their gold and run a small contingent of warrior-bandits from her lawless castle--

How was countryside defined: Free-roam, all items available for GIVE and THEFT, KILL resulted in property TRANSFER, Nobles could create BOUNTIES (but they would be held to the same Wild-West Rules), also SEAS were open to these same rules, so pirating became an option. I made sure that she knew that HELP was just a CALL away and MAGIC might be used to gain advantage--i'm assuming she was visualizing actual graphics, but to what degree of development was never specified. Back in the day, Zelda graphics provided enough graphics to entertain general audiences, so that might be a good starting point.

The Counties, in my simplest definition, are Franchise-Kingdoms that let us explore different rules and features. When playing that aspect, my goal was to gain PRE at an efficient pace, see how others used new powers as they were granted, measure whether the payoff could exceed time and investment (effort), mainly it required someone with limited resources being able to compete with larger budgets, the real test for the future is: how much hegemony can a County achieve, can this hegemony break free the game without breaking the game, or do we put controls in place to make this near impossible--which would likely stress the game (bit-monero)....

Economics aren't my strong suit, but will read up and see if I can't learn that aspect. As far as strategy goes, whatever allows for quick adaptability, will have the necessary elements to allow for flanking and out maneuvering. Two tactics were particularly effective against superior Roman shock troops--mounted cavalry and mob attacks while Romans were on march--one requires well-trained forces with capable horses, while the other requires knowledge of terrain, capable strike force, and the element of surprise--think of Counties as agar.io and you'll see simple and effective tactics for quick growth, splits, and re-emergence.

humbly submitted,

hmc_

Yes, it is correct, and thought out. The definition of CK-days means "number of CK items owned multiplied by the number of realdays of owning them". It could be changed to CK-years of course, scale the figures, and "year" would mean gameyear.


Board does not have supermajority rule, it is only in General Meeting and only when the rules are changed.


We will have the "deflation adjustment" called GSL coefficient, which directly affects the NPC salary level, and indirectly to everything that is produced in the game. If you want to have a financial contract that is denominated in GSL-adjusted XMR, you can do. If you want it in hard XMR, you can do.

In the 1970s the governments needed to issue securities whose value was shielded from inflation so that anyone would buy them. Here we have the opposite problem!  


The Senate might have an online chatroom always open. In my proposal, all Earls may attend Senate, but when it is time for voting, determining the votepower is not simple. In my thinking about fairness/functionality, the optimum would be votepower based on wealth and activity. These are the direct determinants of character level, though. Should it be based on level? If wealth is used, then I am trying to get an automatic calculation of CK-days. This will make the owning of CK important in every rank, and that is very very good from the

To shock you, the system is economically quite similar to Masternodes in Dash, but here it would not be limited to big holders. And that here the total time owned is important. Also the "deep holdings of time" only start to accrue now, as CK was only created now.

My thinking has always been that the King rules the countryside via the Earls, with little interference from the Senate that is based in CryptoTown (used to be called "Town" remember ). So not sure if the fiefholders should enjoy over-representation in Senate.


We have the urban land and its buildings feature, and the land not used for buildings, will be able to be used for lot improvements. Also building appearance is detached from its stats for more degrees of freedom.

All new players would be allocated their very own tiny lot, 100 or even 50 sqm, so that they can start building their homebase.

In the countryside, I am thinking of having a modular building "tree" that would allow anyone to start their farm, which would grow to be a manor, and maybe even a county seat (town). This process would be with clear economic rules, and would involve lots of time and energy (and money) to get there, and would also be subject to risks that are completely so much higher and more varied in the countryside.


The more counties become economic entities, the better defined need the calamity rules be. It is difficult to define roleplaying and storytelling beforehand in economic terms. In my belief as the GM, the right limit goes exactly where it has been so far - ownership of CK item and urban land is guaranteed (respected by all powers, just like usually you did not lose your townhouse just because of occupation during the European wars). But fiefdoms will be subject to change, and everything you build on the countryside (or in the town), may be eaten by fire, and if you just had built or bought it at a great cost - bad luck for you. Hopefully you had insurance.

  ^ Looks good. A few minor items

Is 100,000,000 ck days figure correct or does ck days not mean game days of 365 per 1 real week?

As far as the board #: 3 would need a total majority, 4 would need 3 of 4, 5 would need 5 of 5, 6 would need 5 of 6, 7 would need 6 out of 7,  8 would need 6 and 9 would need 7 to get to the 75% mark--so my question is "do you want a small board or a big board and can that size be changed later if there is stagnation?" Not that stagnation is bad when things are going well...but more so, when times are tough, is self-preservation going to be a potential drag on the in-game economy?

Will rules/laws governing tax be negotiable if there is a non-reciprocating rise in the value of XMR--in a civil manner ? And if not, are any means made available to manage this potential in the present, or near-term future, within the context of the financial tool-kit. I think you covered this to some degree in IRC yesterday, but with so many ideas being discussed, it's tough for me to remember if this was among them.

Senate is interesting in how it will be arranged. CK (the asset) already seems represented in the Board's makeup, so perhaps a mix of CK and land holdings? People usually fight for land in a way they wont fight for their financial instrumentation--we are essentially running a VR world with VR land as its main feature, so it only follows that how people rate their VR lives would be similar to how they rate them in the real world. People should always have a piece of earth to call their own and be able to count that as a blessing for themselves, but also for their heirs--who should inherit the game with a personal stake in its growth and continued development. To add to this, the building features should invite a level of personalization that carries with it a sense of community and status.

To Gamers (starting at PRE, is also for CEO's consideration, as well as being a discussion topic for Gamers):

The rules and laws look very well thought out and should allow for some interesting game-play. It's easily the most complete (and complex) strategy game I've come across and provides different levels of game play that match personal style with the ruthless efficiency of the modern corporation--time management and risk analysis make the game modern, feature rich and slightly addictive. Your level of play and commitment are up to you, the PRE game is where I started, it requires you manage a county's finances, it's armies, and its politics--you decide if you will be kind or merciless, aggressive or passive, fool-hearty or shrewd, and through those choices, and making it work economically, you acquire PRE. PRE determine your freedoms to rule, the more PRE you have the more Liberty you are granted in determining how your county should be ruled. I'd like to rearrange this so it's more automated, depends less on time intensive RPG tasks, has an element of real-time-battle-simulation, and gives the right of ownership to the counties leadership to sell or trade as they see fit--of course a negotiation program could alter each arrangement to better suit the demands of the real world...

CK Founding Document A.D. 1647 - Rules V.2.0 (working copy)

. Preamble

(edit the earlier "TOS" document)

I General Meeting

The General Meeting of CK holders is called, if:
- the Board so wishes, or
- the owners of 10% of the outstanding CK so demand from the Board for any reason. If the Board does not promptly respond with practical arrangements, it may be held nevertheless.

The General Meeting with its agenda must be announced 7 realdays in advance.

The General Meeting may:
- Change the Documents with a simple majority;
- Change the Founding Document with a 75% majority;
- Decide the number of Board members, which has to be 3-9;
- Appoint the Board members, so that each faction of votes gets to appoint members in proportion;
- Determine the compensation of Board members.

II Board

The Board determines the strategy and oversees the progress of CK project.

The Board may:
- Appoint a Chairman from among the members;
- Appoint a CEO and decide her compensation;
- Determine the CEO powers and responsibilities;
- Appoint a GM and decide her compensation;
- Determine the GM powers and responsibilities.

III Project Team

The Project Team is the organisation consisting of full and part time professionals, designs, develops and hosts the game, and overall provides the means for hosting the gameworld.

Project Team is lead by the CEO, who appoints other people and decides their compensation. CEO is responsible for conducting the operations in an effective and efficient manner.

IV Admin Team

The Admin Team is the link between Project Team and the gameworld. Admin Team conducts the operations that ensure the functioning gameworld, they are "gods" of the world, and decide how the events in the world are solved.

Admin Team is lead by GM, who appoints the other admins and decides their compensation. GM is the supreme judge of the state of the gameworld and ingame disputes.

For brevity, Admin Team is abbreviated by "GM" from now on.

V Gameworld

The gameworld is the virtual existence of land, things and ideas in the game.

VI Kingdom

The gameworld is in a geographical sense divided to Powers, of which Crypto Kingdom is one, and possesses an area bounded by other Powers. Mostly all gameplay happens inside Crypto Kingdom. GM plays the other Powers.

"Crypto Kingdom" or "CK" may refer to either the whole construction of this game, or the part of the gameworld claimed or possessed by the King, or to the ingame item CK - Crypto Kingdom, which is the vote and dividend bearing stock of the whole construction.

VII King

King is the highest level and position in CK. Normally there is only one King at a time. The King administers the whole kingdom and has the ingame account #1: Crown, in addition to likely many others.



VIII Senate

The Senate is a collegium of prominent






X Levels

There are several levels a house may attain. The levels may be gained in different ways. The right to Titles is separate from levels, so it is possible to have a higher level than any of the titles, but also other way round. It is also possible to be demoted in level, which usually happens with reorganisations.

20 King
19 Archduke
18 Grand Duke
17 Duke
16 Prince
15 Marquess
14 Earl
13 Viscount
12 Baron
11 Baronet
10 Knight
9 Grand Wizard
8 Doctor
7 Wizard
6 Master
5 Expert
4 Novice
3 Beginner
2 Stranger
1 Visitor

The levels from 1...7 are system-administered and level-up will happen based on playing.
Levels 8...9 are commoner bonus levels that must be applied, and a ratified by Senate.
Levels 10...13 are minor nobles, and are appointed by peers on their own right.
Levels 14...19 are appointed by the King, but can also be claimed by owning enough CK for enough time.
Level 20 may only be gained by becoming the King and holding the position enough for GM to recognise it.

Level-up in commoner levels is free of charge.

The exact rules governing the level-ups in noble levels, and the mandatory stamp tax charged by the game, are as follows:

20 King. The successor of a deceased king is in the same house. King may also abdicate in favor of another house. However, kingdom can be challenged by military might or deception, in which case GM events ultimately rule who is the King. Only GM also grants the King level, which stays with the ex-kings (their houses become permanently Royal). Tax 50 mil.

19 Archduke. The King may only create Archdukes after his 10 years in power. Alternatively, 300,000,000 CK-days are needed for self-promotion. Also, a new recognised king is promoted Archduke first and gains King level only after GM-imposed trial period. The number of Archducal houses may not exceed the number of extant Royal houses. If abdicating in favor of an Archduke, no new Archduke may be created in connection. Tax 50 mil.

18 Grand Duke. The King may create Grand Dukes only from Dukes that have been on the level for 10 years, and so that the number of extant Grand Ducal houses is maximum 1/4 that of the total number of Ducal and Grand Ducal (L17-L18) combined. Alternatively, 100,000,000 CK-days are needed for self-promotion. Tax 25 mil.

17 Duke. The King may create Dukes so that the number of Ducal houses (L17) is maximum 1/4 of the number of extant counties. Alternatively, 30,000,000 CK-days are needed for self-promotion. Tax 10 mil.

16 Prince. The King may create Princes so that the number of Princely houses (L16) is maximum 1/2 of the number of extant counties. Alternatively, 10,000,000 CK-days are needed for self-promotion. Tax 10 mil.

15 Marquess. The King may create Marquesses so that the number is at max the same as the number of extant counties. Alternatively, 3,000,000 CK-days are needed for self-promotion. Tax 5 mil.

14 Earl. The King may create Earls so that the number is maximum 2x the number of extant counties. The holder of a county must be created Earl. Alternatively, 1,000,000 CK-days are needed for self-promotion. Tax 3 mil.

13 Viscount. Landed Peers may appoint Viscounts, but only so that one Viscomital house is extant per county (it is possible to appoint a new one only after the previous one has been created peer by the King. Tax 2 mil.

12 Baron. All Landed Peers may grant Baronages up to the limit determined by their county stats, plus King at will. Alternatively, 300,000 CK-days are needed for self-promotion. All Baronets are also promoted to Barons after maximum 10 years. Tax 2 mil.

11 Baronet. Becoming a Baronet requires purchasing a BT-item directly from the King, and becomes subject of the King. No system tax.

10 Knight. All peers may create Knights at will, and these become subjects of the peer. Tax 1 mil.

The tax is subject to changes in GSL (General Salary Level, closely tied to XMR price in fiat currency). In leap-promotions, all stamp taxes accumulate.



XII Judges

Senate appoints judges.




XIII Documents, Rules, Laws, Proclamations, Bylaws, Decisions, Orders, Rulings

Documents govern the systemic function of the game. Only the General Meeting may amend Documents.

Rules are practical mechanisms and boundaries along which the gameworld operates. Rules are decided by the GM, but they may not be in disagreement with Documents. There is no appeal however, except by calling a General Meeting.

Laws are passed in the Senate. Laws may only affect the happening inside the gameworld. The difference between a Rule and a Law is that a Rule may stipulate that an unpinned farm yields 1,000*VEG. A Law may say that 10% of that must be given to the Town for the upkeep of roads. Rules are enforced by the system, but laws are not. So the VEG will be created if the rule says so, but the law must be obeyed voluntarily. If not, there are means of punishment though.

Proclamations are the King's tool of reigning. They are similar to laws, but often appeal to the voluntary spirit of the audience.

Bylaws apply to members of a certain group, so that membership in the group is voluntary, for example a guild may have bylaws.

Decisions refer to agreement in a body.

Orders (in this context, there are also Chivalric Orders with the same name) may be given by anyone who has authority. An order applies to a specific case, and is therefore supplementary to a law or proclamation, which deals with general principles. A lawful order requires the recipient to be a feudal subject of the giver. A successful order includes mechanism to punish the recipient for refusal to comply.

Rulings are decisions reached when there is a dispute. Depending on the situation, GM, Admins, Senate, King, Judges or Peers (alone, together, or in combination) may give rulings. The highest authority is GM, but she may refuse appeal, or institute a fee. Rulings, especially from higher authorities, form a case law.

XIV Dispute resolution

Disputes may be civil or criminal, and involve the system, or just the ingame entities.

Systemic criminal dispute (eg. character farming) is handled by the GM and may result in termination of account and damages reaching the value of it.

Systemic civil dispute (usually a claim that the world has acted against its own rules resulting in a loss to the player, or corruption of data) will also be handled by the GM.

Ingame criminal dispute (breaking the law) is handled by the judges.

Ingame civil dispute may be handled by anyone whom the parties agree to arbitrate. If not, by judges.



XX Senate

Senate inherits the former Town non-financial assets, in account #4: Town, and also the public responsibilities of the Town.

All peers may sit in Senate.



XXI Self-existing entities

Self-existing entity refers to an ingame non-systemic account that is not permanently owned by anybody (or this ownership is concealed), although the controller has wide powers of accumulating or disposing of assets, checked by the community only. Such accounts are:
#1 Crown (by the King)
#4 Town (by the Senate)
#49 Church (by whoever is in power)
Accounts that refer to a geographic entity, such as Counties (by whoever possesses them)

XXII Systemic accounts

The Project Team and GM operate the systemic accounts that host the game funds. The game does not have external funds, all its assets are in the game.

XXIII Player accounts

Player accounts may be in the form of House (a clan, in the beginning consisting of a single character), or a Foreign-Owned-Corporation (FOC), which enables presence in the game without a character and responsibilities to play.


XXIV CKIP marketing incentive plan

XXV CKFUT playing incentive plan

Under CKFUT, new players in the game receive delayed CK items, "CK futures". The futures are converted to free-trading CK upon expiration, at no cost. The conversion requires that the player has played the game actively during the maturity period (this will be defined with precision), and that she has enough CK on her own to match the new CK to be converted. In practice, since the maturities differ, it is enough that the player purchases some CK to redeem the first batch, and then holds.

Zechariah: General Meeting of CK holders has the following functions:
[5:53pm] Zechariah: - makes the rules of the “system”
[5:53pm] Zechariah: - nominates the Board
[5:53pm] Zechariah: Board has following functions:
[5:54pm] Zechariah: - oversees the overall development
[5:54pm] Zechariah: - nominates the CEO
[5:54pm] Zechariah: - nominates the GM
[5:54pm] Zechariah: - and sets their pay
[5:54pm] Zechariah: CEO has the following:
[5:55pm] Zechariah: - practically handles or recruits people to handle: design, development, hosting, finances, marketing, legal and such
[5:55pm] Zechariah: GM has the following:
[5:55pm] Zechariah: - conducts the game
[5:55pm] Zechariah: - supreme authority in ingame disputes and disputes between system and player
[5:56pm] Zechariah: - coordinates the admins, who help him in this
[5:56pm] Zechariah: The other layer is the ingame things.
[5:56pm] Zechariah: There, Senate is the collegium of all prominent players
[5:56pm] Zechariah: They:
[5:56pm] Zechariah: - make laws
[5:57pm] Zechariah: - appoint judges
[5:57pm] Zechariah: - inherit the Town buildings and ingame items (excl finances that pass to the system)
[5:57pm] Zechariah: King may be changed by many peaceful and violent ways
[5:58pm] Zechariah: The outcome of revolutions is in the end a GM decision
[5:58pm] Zechariah: There will be interplay between King and Senate
[5:59pm] Zechariah: Because King can make “Executive Orders” that act as laws as well
[5:59pm] Zechariah: King gets his income from the royal house (Char#1: Crown)
[5:59pm] Zechariah: King can reign and govern his kingdom as he wishes
[6:00pm] Zechariah: Judges once appointed, are difficult to remove
[6:00pm] Zechariah: They settle ingame disputes, and may balance between King and Senate in case of disagreement
[6:01pm] Zechariah: So the whole game continues to be self-incorporated, but the roles are made clearer in the “system provider side” and CEO given power to handle matters efficiently
[6:03pm] Zechariah: and ingame, the roles of Senate(ex-Town), King, Church and perhaps other self-existing entities (by which I mean that they are neither corporations owned by other chars, nor FOC’s owned by the accountholder) will be more defined also, yet in a way that makes great and interesting possibilities for player actions.
[6:04pm] Zechariah: so that the GM, as a more separate authority than before, can solve them with less personal stake in the issue at hand.

Good that we agree.


I am tentatively proposing that the governance in providing the world would be corporatic, ie. one share => one vote. This model is fair because the value of the voting CK items is about 100k XMR and the aggregate value of everything else in the game is only a fraction of that. If we tinker with the principle, it is likely that CK will not maintain its status as an interesting investment for the investor-minded. It is already the reality that the new players are not able to buy too much simply because it is so expensive. And tricks to distribute the ownership widely don't work: as long as it is given to players for free, they will just sell and buy something that is needed more, or withdraw.

The above issues can be tackled with delayed delivery, such as stock options that come to the player possession only after 1-2 realyears, and therefore encourage long-term play. The other way is to encourage small holdings as we did in the Ancient era with regressive dividend schedule.

The role of the SB is to help the CEO, who calls the shots regarding the project. SB would be nominated by either a "simple majority nominates all" or "1/9 of votes is needed to dominate one" model. The latter was used with Town Council, at least in letter.

The general meeting could be called if a percent (eg. 10%) of CK holders so demand. The board will appoint and remove CEO.

All rules that the CK holders decide (mainly to give protection to the players and limit their own power to increase player trust) should have a supermajority requirement, which could be for instance 2/3, 75% or 90%, or needing to have the majority in two successive meetings.

All this is very basic and used everywhere in corporate world. Having the World governance handled such, allows much more interesting ways to govern the ingame events.



CEO appoints GM, who appoints admins. The work that the World does is administrative, so it is good to have clear command structure. If this principle is to be changed, it needs to be changed "at the source" - in the way how the General Meeting votes are allocated. Having multiple opinions in the administrative structure is not a good idea.



It is not important to address these matters in a constitutional level if it is agreed that the whole structure of admins is centralised under the GM, and that to the CEO and that to the Board and that to the General Meeting. I repeat that in this level, people get paid for their work so efficiency is important and they'll figure out the best ways according to situation.

Inside the game, it's totally different - playing happens for fun - as we'll soon see

King
The King is an important position because he exists regardless of the World (is not nominated by any shareholder decision). What the king does, we need to see in what level (A...C) he is operating. If he is purely in (C), the office becomes very much like how the player makes it.

To add interest, there could be a senate as well. Senate is reasonable to consist of peers (Earl+) but on the other hand, King appoints them!

One way is to make peerage depend on objective achievements, or at least be possible to be gained so. A method we were using earlier is "CKG-days" that makes holders of large amounts of CKG gain levels when they have owned it long enough (to prevent recycling).

In Clans, to get a fresher start, we could reset the levels (while allowing the House of rpietila in Tavastia etc. era levels and titles to be used as courtesy titles). This would encourage people to buy CK, or do other things that are requisites for levelups.

Today, the CK-days concept would translate to approx.: "To become an Earl, you need to own 50 XMR worth of CK for 6 months". Since CK costs 0.01 XMR each, we are talking about 5000*180 =~ 1,000,000 CK-days. This would be scaled to apply to all levels, and used as an alternative, or in connection with other possibilities for levelup.

The violent death / coup / civil war route is available as a GM action. Meaning GM is unable to initiate it but if someone calls for an event solver, it will be solved.

CK ownership and Urban Land will still be protected, since they are great value and allowing them to be robbed "legally" is not a good idea.


I still feel that this separation is important to be achieved. Playing the game becomes much more interesting when there is an "outside force" deciding the outcome of the events, even conceptually (since the General Meeting consists of players and even if CEO and GM may not be active players in the distant future, most of the admins will certainly be).

Ingame Judiciary could be made independent, so that changes on the throne would be less of a discontinuation. I would not be surprised to see a few admins doing double-duty as Judges also, because the skillset required in both jobs overlaps, and also at present we need everyone If so, the judges process need to be described.

The right to give Rules, Rulings, Executive Orders, and other Decisions, and how they supersede each other, need defined.


Historically, King had the following powers:


In addition, king owns now somewhat massive royal buildings in CryptoTown, including of course the whole of Borough Versailles and the partially-built palace of 5,000 sqm.

So yes, king is a king and can do everything, except not change the Rules (that power belonged to Town Council and their appointed GM, and will be similar in the future).

As for the Laws, this is an important matter because the laws are an ingame thing, and therefore not the domain of the GM-Admin system.

Also ingame taxation is to be discussed. The World will make their collection from NPC upkeep as previously, and ensure that all counties that are not well protected will be burned to the ground soon. But whether king and nobles will tax or subsidy their subjects, is up to discussion.

I will also reply to your longer proposal and pick the salient points in my understanding.

Document base of Crypto Kingdom

Founding document / TOS

I like the idea of the "TOS" to be somewhat "weird" as they currently are. The principle of "sovereign existence" (non-incorporation in the outside world) is essential to my vision of what is CK's place in the sun. As such, there is probably no need for a more fundamental document about principles, because they are words only, so can be written and adhered to voluntarily anyway as long as they are regarded important. Somithing like a preamble to the Constitution could add to the flavor of the game--while they are only words--they serve as a symbolic refernece point, that may or may not, highlight the Libertarian and CryptoAnarchist's roots and aims of the game's origin. My guess is some may appreciate the nod more than others

Our most recent complete Rules btw. are somewhat outdated.

Constitution

Crypto Kingdom is self-incorporated. The supreme power is the General Meeting of CK Owners. The meeting nominates a Supervisory Board of 3-9 members. The SB appoints a CEO, who is in charge of everything related to the providing of the game, and reports to the SB according to how they see fit. Members of the SB need not be active players, some can be outsiders who provide perspective. --What is the path to board and CEO change? What, if any, are the rules regarding regular meetings, board disputes, changes of structure, ect...?

There has to be a Gamemaster (GM) and a sufficient number of admins. Also all the corporate functions need to be handled. The CEO handles or appoints people to handle all these roles. --What is the path to Admin and GM change? What, if any, are the rules regarding regular meetings, disputes, changes of structure, ect...?

There is an Admin Board, consisting of senior admins. GM leads the activity here. Admins are needed both to carry out GM orders, and actively be available to address player concerns. --when does this board meet? What is its structure? Are there any protocals for dissent, disruption, time-management, ect...?

King passes on his power to the next king. The role of the King is to be an ingame character. There are also Nobles --With this being a game within the game role, I think it's essential to keep it within the confines of the ingame procedure: Oderly Succesion through Heir, Queen (same rules would apply for Queen as King once she takes office), or appointment by King through peaceful abdication; the King can forcefully be removed by Death, Coup, or Civil War. This seems more in line with RPG or strategy game rules and procedures.

(With a recent idea, King could have a term of eg. 10-15 years after which he nominates a successor, or there could be elections for King among princes. Also the possibility to remove the kingship by armed ingame rebellion should be an option.)

So, there would be the following structure of important activity centers:

(General Meeting of CK owners)
v
Supervisory Board, Chairman, CEO, staff  -  These handle the game project and are called (A)
v
Admin Board, GM, admins  -  These handle the upkeep of the game and are called (B)
v
Ingame meetings, King, nobles  -  These handle the ingame events and are called (C)


It is hard to grasp how the difference between GM and King would go in practice, since the roles have been merged. I am trying to do something like:

GM (via his admin system) decides how things are. Example, in a situation with changelog corruption, he may rule that certain trades are in effect, others not.

King (via his court system) decides how things should be. If the GM decisions are unacceptable from the player level, King can change them.

If the dispute involves the system, the GM will rule. The King cannot make flowers grow or money appear from systemic coffers, those powers are reserved for God, represented by GM. (And actually even GM cannot print M, and issuing more CK can only be done by Supervisory Board/CEO).


So we have 3 levels of powers, but these do not correspond directly to the "separation of powers" doctrine. Or to make them such, all 3 branches should exist in level (C), and levels (A)-(B) from the player character perspective would be Acts of God.

Ingame Judiciary could be made independent, so that changes on the throne would be less of a discontinuation. I would not be surprised to see a few admins doing double-duty as Judges also, because the skillset required in both jobs overlaps, and also at present we need everyone If so, the judges process need to be described.

The right to give Rules, Rulings, Executive Orders, and other Decisions, and how they supersede each other, need defined.


Accounts in the game can be:
- Clans (player accounts)
- Corporations (ingame institutions of various kinds, with ingame owners)
- FOC's (foreign owned corporations, ie investment accounts)

Clans and FOC's are controlled by whomever holds the access to the account. Corporations have a charter determining their ownership and control. They may have ingame stock listed as well.


Certain game items enjoy incorruptibility, which needs to be strictly defined, these are M, CK and urban lands (even the implicit rule in each of these is slightly different)

The items that enjoy protected and (nearly) unchangeable dividends, such as CK, land, and perhaps a few others, may be listed.


World finances
The World is what used to be called "Town", whose collection of funds from the game enables the (A)-(B) level staff to get paid and the game to continue. Also, an important part of the solidity of the game is that it is self-owned via item CK, and that one must be paid enough dividends to uphold its value.

The world collects its funds mainly via NPC salaries, and sales of stock/bonds, land and items. Apart from these, the gameworld runs on ingame items and their production and consumption, without too much need for money.

Having NPC is a prerequisite for doing anything great in the game, and land sales will become a bigger one as the previous unbounded lands of the King passed to World ownership.


TBD, as we agreed.



--Above I listed in bold questions and suggestions to current proposal. Also, can King appoint offices such as Queen and King's Hand? And create and confer power to Knight Orders? These would esstially act as permanent ingame workgroups or have specific tasks and be disbanded once complete--with special honors, titles, ect, going to the members. The document and power structure seem fine, but some details need fine tuning or expanded.

As far as Game Play, a more Greek or Roman model might be better as those civilizations had world commerce flowing through them. The Greek archipelago model adds more hegemony, while the Roman model adds more intrigue and stability to the existing power structure.

In the Greek model, the Agememnon-King would be deposed by intrigue, by breaking a covenant/law, or by civil war. Or peaceful succession.

In the Roman model, the Caesar-King would require a rebellion, coup, war, or peaceful succession.

My real world views shouldn't interfere with the quality of the game play, so looking at your proposal, I think it can work as long as there are clear paths for change when it is necessary.

Document base of Crypto Kingdom


Founding document / TOS

I like the idea of the "TOS" to be somewhat "weird" as they currently are. The principle of "sovereign existence" (non-incorporation in the outside world) is essential to my vision of what is CK's place in the sun. As such, there is probably no need for a more fundamental document about principles, because they are words only, so can be written and adhered to voluntarily anyway as long as they are regarded important.  

Our most recent complete Rules btw. are somewhat outdated.

Constitution

Crypto Kingdom is self-incorporated. The supreme power is the General Meeting of CK Owners. The meeting nominates a Supervisory Board of 3-9 members. The SB appoints a CEO, who is in charge of everything related to the providing of the game, and reports to the SB according to how they see fit. Members of the SB need not be active players, some can be outsiders who provide perspective.

There has to be a Gamemaster (GM) and a sufficient number of admins. Also all the corporate functions need to be handled. The CEO handles or appoints people to handle all these roles.

There is an Admin Board, consisting of senior admins. GM leads the activity here. Admins are needed both to carry out GM orders, and actively be available to address player concerns.

King passes on his power to the next king. The role of the King is to be an ingame character. There are also Nobles

(With a recent idea, King could have a term of eg. 10-15 years after which he nominates a successor, or there could be elections for King among princes. Also the possibility to remove the kingship by armed ingame rebellion should be possible.)

So, there would be the following structure of important activity centers:

(General Meeting of CK owners)
v
Supervisory Board, Chairman, CEO, staff  -  These handle the game project and are called (A)
v
Admin Board, GM, admins  -  These handle the upkeep of the game and are called (B)
v
Ingame meetings, King, nobles  -  These handle the ingame events and are called (C)


It is hard to grasp how the difference between GM and King would go in practice, since the roles have been merged. I am trying to do something like:

GM (via his admin system) decides how things are. Example, in a situation with changelog corruption, he may rule that certain trades are in effect, others not.

King (via his court system) decides how things should be. If the GM decisions are unacceptable from the player level, King can change them.

If the dispute involves the system, the GM will rule. The King cannot make flowers grow or money appear from systemic coffers, those powers are reserved for God, represented by GM. (And actually even GM cannot print M, and issuing more CK can only be done by Supervisory Board/CEO).


So we have 3 levels of powers, but these do not correspond directly to the "separation of powers" doctrine. Or to make them such, all 3 branches should exist in level (C), and levels (A)-(B) from the player character perspective would be Acts of God.

Ingame Judiciary could be made independent, so that changes on the throne would be less of a discontinuation. I would not be surprised to see a few admins doing double-duty as Judges also, because the skillset required in both jobs overlaps, and also at present we need everyone If so, the judges process need to be described.

The right to give Rules, Rulings, Executive Orders, and other Decisions, and how they supersede each other, need defined.


Accounts in the game can be:
- Clans (player accounts)
- Corporations (ingame institutions of various kinds, with ingame owners)
- FOC's (foreign owned corporations, ie investment accounts)

Clans and FOC's are controlled by whomever holds the access to the account. Corporations have a charter determining their ownership and control. They may have ingame stock listed as well.


Certain game items enjoy incorruptibility, which needs to be strictly defined, these are M, CK and urban lands (even the implicit rule in each of these is slightly different)

The items that enjoy protected and (nearly) unchangeable dividends, such as CK, land, and perhaps a few others, may be listed.


World finances

The World is what used to be called "Town", whose collection of funds from the game enables the (A)-(B) level staff to get paid and the game to continue. Also, an important part of the solidity of the game is that it is self-owned via item CK, and that one must be paid enough dividends to uphold its value.

The world collects its funds mainly via NPC salaries, and sales of stock/bonds, land and items. Apart from these, the gameworld runs on ingame items and their production and consumption, without too much need for money.

Having NPC is a prerequisite for doing anything great in the game, and land sales will become a bigger one as the previous unbounded lands of the King passed to World ownership.


TBD, as we agreed.

Constitution

Article. I.

Section. 1.

All legislative Powers will be vested in the Senate of CK.

Section. 2.

The Senate shall be composed of Citizens holding 50,000 CK. Each Member only has one vote, but CK may be pooled into a voting account and given to a Citizen for Voting power--only Citizens of CK may be Members of the Senate.

A Senator must be a Citizen of CK for 10 game years.

The Senate will convene yearly in game and approve measures for CEO approval. Once ratified the measure is Law and must be overturned by another Senate vote. Measures will be approved by 2/3rds majority--in the event of a tie, the King will cast the deciding vote.

The Senate will choose their Speakers and other Officers; and shall have the sole Power of CEO Impeachment. When the CEO is tried, the GM will preside: No CEO will be convicted without the Concurrence of 2/3rds of the Members present.

Judgment in Cases of Impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from Office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of honor, Trust or Profit under CK's juridstiction: but the Party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to Indictment, Trial, Judgment and Punishment, according to Law.

Section. 4.

The Senate will assemble at least once every Game Year, and such Meeting will be in December, unless they legislate that it be held a different month.

Section. 5.

Each Senate will be the Judge of their Elections, Returns and Qualifications of its own Members, and a Majority of each will constitute a Quorum to do Business; but a smaller Number may adjourn from day to day, and may be authorized to compel the Attendance of absent Members, in such Manner, and under such Penalties as each Senate may provide.

Each Senate may determine the Rules of its Proceedings, punish its Members for disorderly Behavior, and, with the Concurrence of two thirds, expel a Member.

Each Senate will keep a Journal of its Proceedings, and from time to time publish the same, excepting such Parts as may in their Judgment require Secrecy; and the Votes of each Memer, at the Desire of one fifth of those Present, will be published for review of the General Population.

Section. 6.

The Senators may receive Compensation for their Services, to be ascertained by Law, and paid out of the Treasury. They shall in all Cases, except Treason, Felony and Breach of the Peace, be privileged from Arrest during their Attendance at the Session of the Senate.

Section. 7.

All Bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the Senate.

Every Bill which has passed in the Senate, shall, before it become a Law, be presented to the CEO; If the CEO approves it, it will be Signed into Law. If the CEO dissaproves of it, the CEO will list objection(s) and send it back to the Senate to be Amended for a new Vote, or dismissed by a Majority Vote. If the Amended Bill passes by 2/3rds Vote, it will go back to the CEO for Approval.

Section. 8.

The Senate shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of CK, (but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout CK),
 
To borrow Money on the credit of CK;

To regulate Commerce with FOCs, and among the several Counties, and with the Satalite Organizations;

To establish a uniform Rule of Orginization, and uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout CK;

To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures;

To provide for the Punishment of counterfeiting the Securities and current Coin of CK;

To establish Communication Channels;

To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors, Artists and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;

To constitute Tribunals inferior to the GM's Court;

To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas, and Offences against the Law of Counties;

To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;

To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;

To provide and maintain a Navy;

To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces;

To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;

To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the CK, reserving to the Counties respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by the Senate;

Section. 9.

No Tax or Duty shall be laid on Articles exported from any County.

No Preference shall be given by any Regulation of Commerce or Revenue to the Ports of one County over those of another: nor shall Vessels bound to, or from, one County, be obliged to enter, clear, or pay Duties in another.

No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law; and a regular Statement and Account of the Receipts and Expenditures of all public Money shall be published yearly.

Section. 10.

No County shall enter into any Treaty, Alliance, or Confederation; grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal; coin Money; emit Bills of Credit; make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts; pass any Bill of Attainder, ex post facto Law, or Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts, or grant any Title of Nobility.

No County shall, without the Consent of the Senate, lay any Imposts or Duties on Imports or Exports--the net Produce of all Duties and Imposts, laid by any County on Imports or Exports, shall be for the Use of the Treasury of CK; and all such Laws shall be subject to the Revision and Control of the Senate.

Article. II.

Section. 1.

The executive Power shall be vested in the CEO of CK. The CEO shall hold his Office during the Term of 100 game years, and, together with the GM, chosen for the same Term, be elected, as follows

Each County shall appoint, in such Manner as the Leadership thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Citizens of that County--each vote will be tallied in Destroyed M--the number to be determined by the Senate in its first session. The Senate may not Vote on any other Measures until this first item is Passed into Law. A Special Vote will be performed in the Case of the Impeachment, Dissapearance, or Death of the CEO, it will convene at its earliest convience or on the normal schedule of the Senate, who will Declare a New Election to be held--the Town may choose vote at this time for the GM or King to act as CEO, or vote to continue on without a CEO until the Election Results are in--the Majority needed to achieve this Consensus will be the 2nd item to be voted for in the New Senate, and must be Passed into Law before the Senate can Vote on further measures.

The voting will be carried out by Ballot.

No Person except a Citizen of CK, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of CEO; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who has not played the game for 5 Game Years .

The CEO shall, at stated Times, receive for his Services, a Compensation, which is determined by Majority Senate Vote.

Before the Canidate enters on the Execution of the CEO's Office, the Canidate shall take the following Oath or Affirmation:—"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of CEO of CryptoKingdom, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend its Constitution."

Section. 2.

The CEO shall from time to time give to the Senate Information of the State of the Kingdom, and recommend to their Consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient; he may, on extraordinary Occasions, convene the Senate, or with Respect to the Time of Adjournment, he may adjourn them to such Time as he shall think proper; he shall receive Ambassadors and other public Ministers; he shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed, and shall Commission all the Adminstrators and Developers of CK.

Section. 4.

The CEO, GM and all civil Officers of CK, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.

Article III

Section. 1.

The King shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of CK, and of the Militia of Counties, when called into the actual Service of CK; he may require the Opinion, in writing, of the principal Nobility in each of the executive Departments, upon any Subject relating to the Duties of their respective Offices, and he shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences within CK, except in Cases of Impeachment.

He shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, Grant Titles, and create Orders of Knights.

Section. 2.

The King shall from time to time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Kingdom, and recommend to their Consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient; he shall receive Ambassadors and other public Ministers; he shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed, and shall Commission all the Officers of the United States.

Section. 3.

The King will be elected by the Senate by 2/3rds Majority and Aproval of the CEO. The King Must be removed by in-game Play, and Cannot be Voted out once Approved--the Senate has the Power to Appoint a Queen by 2/3rds majority and CEO Approval. The King's Death or Succession by Heir will be Triggered by this Event--a di-quest with RPG accepts will engage at this time and determine the success of all outcomes. The King may Request to Activate this Response, or Abdicate the Throne by hand-picked Ascension.

Article IV.

Section. 1.

The GM will be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Senate may from time to time ordain and establish. The Judges, both of the supreme and inferior Courts, shall hold their Offices during good Behaviour, and shall, at stated Times, receive for their Services, a Compensation.

Section. 2.

The GM's Power shall extend to all Cases, in Law and Equity, arising under this Constitution, the Laws of CK, and Treaties made, or which shall be made, under their Authority;—to all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls;—to all Cases of admiralty and maritime Jurisdiction;—to Controversies to which CK shall be a Party;—to Controversies between two or more Counties;—between Citizens of different Counties,—between Citizens of the same County claiming Lands under Grants of different Counties.

In all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and those in which a County shall be Party, the supreme Court shall have original Jurisdiction. In all the other Cases before mentioned, the supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact, with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Senate shall make.

The Trial of all Crimes, except in Cases of Impeachment, shall be by Jury; and such Trial shall be held in the County where the said Crimes shall have been committed; but when not committed within any County, the Trial shall be at such Place or Places as the Senate may by Law have directed.

Section. 3.

Treason against CK, shall consist only in levying War against CK, or in adhering to its Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.

The Senate shall have Power to declare the Punishment of Treason.

Article. V.

Section. 1.

Full Faith and Credit shall be given in each County to the public Acts, Records, and judicial Proceedings of every other County. And the Senate may by general Laws prescribe the Manner in which such Acts, Records and Proceedings shall be proved, and the Effect thereof.

Section. 2.

The Citizens of each County shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of CK Citizens.

A Person charged in any County with Treason, Felony, or other Crime, who shall flee from Justice, and be found in another County, shall on Demand of the executive Authority of the County from which he fled, be delivered up, to be removed to the County having Jurisdiction of the Crime.

Section. 3.

New Counties may be admitted by the Senate; but no new County shall be formed or erected within the Jurisdiction of any other County; nor any County formed by the Junction of two or more Counties, or Parts of County, without the Consent of the Legislatures of the County concerned as well as of the Senate.

The Senate shall have Power to dispose of and make all needful Rules and Regulations respecting the Territory or other Property belonging to CK; and nothing in this Constitution shall be so construed as to Prejudice any Claims of CK, or of any particular County.

Section. 4.

CK shall guarantee to every County in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened), against domestic Violence.

Article. V.

The Senate, whenever 2/3rds deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several Counties, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which, in either Case, shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as Part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several Counties, or by Conventions in three fourths.

Article. VI.

This Constitution, and the Laws of CK which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of CK, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every County shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any County to the Contrary notwithstanding.

The Senators before mentioned, and the Members of the several County Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of CK and of the several Counties, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious or political Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under CK.

TLDR: It is a modernization of United States Constitution (staked democracy) with added game features to allow for quicker play--it is quite adaptable and can be forked infinately for increased competition, and defense capability--being early only grants you increased opportuities, but doesn't alow for static pyramid building. A path to County hegemony allows CK to move from the agar.io board to the VR rhizome of evolving autonomous political systems. Once Counties succeed, or secede, they are given the opportunity to engage in a new board or act as a Protectorate of CK. Also, added was a Shakespearean succession model that, while it adds some Chess-play, strategy, and other classic elements--also allows the chance for intrigue and theater--Risto built it, and I added a few tweaks, now we just need a face for this Franchise.

ORDERS:

Would be similar to knighthoods in that they either go out on quests in groups or alone to perform tasks dictated by the rules of the order. A game to look at would be Dark Souls--I haven't played the new one, but the older versions had great D&D aspects combined with the realism of the Knight's Templar--though I guess you could throw in Monty Python in there just for fun. This would be just a questionnaire page with user defined capabilities--easy to produce, manage and adapt to user specifications.

COVENS:

This would be the equivalent of MAGE class. Quests would be to gather ITEMS [bought, found, produced], and within a group or alone, and CAST spells. Covens would be comprised of different levels of magicians, who could join multiple groups, work alone, or just collect badges. Again, the Dark Souls franchise has this down pat and should be a good guide for development.

Gun-fighters

Hired hands willing to ambush or protect. Lone Clint Eastwood's roaming the West for adventure. Future train robbers and bandits, a desolate landscape of cactus canopy, native fighters, and great vaults guarded by Gatling guns.

Example of an order to create

ORDER of the DRAGON

You would first be asked to decipher an ancient text. Whether this text must be found or is given outright, is up to each branch of the order. Quests would be designed by a HIGHER SECRET ORDER ostensibly the DRAGON. Quests could be treasure/leveling-up/powers. Games to look at would be portal/MGS-V/Assasin's-Creed/Uncharted.


--the value for the counties and CK would be that it creates a user defined experience and can evolve into its own natural state. It creates revenue from land buying, you'd have to live near your coven or order--also creates lasting appeal, replay value, and item sales (probably missing a few more).

Marketing? Would a launch party in Keene be a possibility? http://freekeene.com/reasons-to-move-to-keene/

(just throwing ideas out there)

DUELS (watching Fight Club) and would love to have an MMA-style Dojo where you could train, level-up, and fight--prizes and wagering optional.

With the current land situation, I think we are missing the game within the game. There are a great many players who invest all there XMR and let it ride, not because they mismanage the risk, but because they don't even think about it--this part of the game is quite powerful and shouldn't be dismissed, but I think the rules should reflect the various game styles--and some sort of guarantees should be made going forward. The fact that many will have to sell their lands, rather than pay the tax, shows how committed they are to the game financially. I've always kept just enough to keep from getting hooked by turn of events, but for most people this sort of thing is taken care of by insurance IRL. Is there a way to offer insurance for these types of players? I think the random dynamic has a few businesses scared of offering a market solution.

Also, I think personalized monsters/pets would be a nice trade-off, for current game-play, a BIG character with a set amount of points to be divvied out as the player sees fit, they would also get naming rights, and to pick the avatar/pic (back story optional). It could be turned based with Saddam going first for his work on the depository and being the one who dolled out so much for a unicorn.

*Caveat being that these are position based or gifts. (Added 04:47am EST)

A portal (I'm not even sure if this the right technical word, but it fits the game and words have lots of relations) that hooks-up the economy with video-streaming would be nice--is there any one working on this? I feel like this would add to roleplaying aspect.

Back to NPC: I think what these new characters would give you are options as to personalize the traits to fit the owner. The County would have rights to the ownership for a kick back to a company or the TOWN, it would adjust depend on the needs. It opens up unique opportunities for CK, the Counties, and the player. Can't stress enough how this will increase PRE desire--because you now know the value of an open franchise-- it has to have open source capabilities, and likely some limitations that can be redone if the County is willing to put in their own time and commitment.

How would you evaluate Plath now, without any changes? Now how would you evaluate Plath if you knew portals could be attached with the possibility of special luxury items personalized for a County's taste? That's the magic--you create incentive for personalization and time commitment--someone has to feed and maintain it. County owners should realize the value and race for first dibs on franchise returns (that stands for portal companies and counties).

Where do I find more about CKIP?

Here's my condensed explanation of the beast/creature/pet company:

Firstly, it's a weapons design factory, you are using various traits: speed, flight, size, swimming, weapon-system (fangs, fire, tusks, ect), to create unique weapons for counties, the counties would benefit by having unique fighting capabilities to reflect their owner, while the town would benefit by having a more motivated and varying strategy capability in case of invasion and so on.

Secondly, it adds motivation to players to play regularly (take care or exercise pets or create new ones), to explore other counties to find that they might want, a stream of revenue from the point of county contract to buying of supplies for the creation and maintenance of their pets, and to actively participate in the defense capability of the county of residence, or to help other counties in need.
 
Thirdly, it adds a little home and littler reality to your VR experience, we have money to make the game real, but without a population to nurture and fight and be general PITAs through and through, how will we ever get to the level of realism that people cling to--you need a hook, something for people to care about..

saved for backup, in progress

CKIP specification

Background: read the /CKIP tab 4 times from TownMgn.

New fields
Account:parent (int, validation: existing char_id)
Account:CKIP_level (int, only system sets this)

New commands
DEPOSIT char_id amount     (superadmin only)

If amount not a positive integer, print: "Invalid amount." and abort
If char_id is not a valid char_id, print: "Invalid char_id." and abort

  player_amount = floor(0.91*amount)
  system_amount = amount  - player_amount
    CREATE M player_amount char_id [deposit]  //action type = deposit
    CREATE M system_amount 500 [deposit]   //"500" will be replaced with the CKIP system account char_id


If char_id:parent = ""
   town_amount = system_amount
   player
   CREATE M



CKIP

find ancestors
print: "Your ancestors, starting from parent, is
[list of parent char_id, char_shortname, CKIP_level_text
[/list]

As long as I am the CEO among other duties, I will need to ensure our finances.

The debacle about if we can pay the CON dues, abated for now. More than a third of the main dissident's CON are already bought by others, and when there is no more overhang, Town can begin to issue more. The interest payments are paused with the time, which is unfortunate, but fits in with everything else being paused as well. On the other hand, I don't believe changing the rate of the passage of time is required. Buying CON now seems risky short term, but it is a long term investment! Rather than thinking small, think of CK's chance to make it big, and how valuable CON is in that scenario, and how much it has already paid as interest by then. After all, if CK fails, CON is not any more risky than anything else!

We need to enlarge our full-time team, and the fulltimers need to be always available and up to their tasks. Only the best is good enough, so we will pay well. The fulltimer pay will consist of base pay (EUR/week converted and paid in M every friday), plus bonus-options (determined and paid monthly, in gold, and come free-trading only after 12 realmonths if work is still ongoing).

The gold for the bonus-options, which will be massive in amount, comes from Coinshop, which, despite owned by the King, was recently pledged to be for the benefit of the game, so that King may not take back of the gold. Up to 100,000 CKG can be used for this purpose.

Full-time team is important, but no less important are the various admins and other helpers. Their duties will be mapped, and the compensation will be "by minute" as before. Unlike before, the admins also qualify for bonus-options, for fairness' sake, and to help retain them.

Town Council will also get a token compensation. It will become a more supervisory body when the 4-member team is large enough to handle most practical issues. Town Council will nominate the CEO, who in turn will decide on the other team members.

CKIP starts, and makes deposits yield "only" 91-92% to the depositor, and the rest goes to the marketers. The immediate sponsor, whom the depositor indicates, gets about 2%, and the person who recruited him, gets something, etc. Town's share is 9% on the deposits made by anons, and a fraction of those where the upline does not contain a diamond. <-MLM terminology.

We will get CKIP ready as soon as possible, and (well everyone is free to aim to whomever..) aim the marketing to the new XMR owners who can now join the "XMR club" = CK. To make the game interesting as a speculation platform before it is opened, we need to make up something. But these guys are coming from Poloniex so even with time stopped, we should be able to offer a more wholesome speculation experience.

Casino will open. Raffles will be organised. The rules that determine the value of the various ingame items are made more clear to allow more interesting trading.

Meanwhile the CEO will be recruited, and the push towards Clans done. When Clans is ready, clock will start ticking again, and we have a greatly increased community playerbase, and are fully ready to welcome the gamers to CK, and to XMR.

Lot area is currently underused. It can only be used to build buildings on, and leaving space for anything else is not really encouraged. Empty lots are sitting empty with no income, even small.

This will change so that a Lot will have possibility to contain Improvements whose number is limited by the Lot area. The earlier thought about wood buildings (which will come in Clans) is integrated with the new thought of having possibility to boost any Lot - perhaps unless it is completely filled with a building, in which case most of the improvements cannot be built.

An example 400 sqm lot which contains a nice 120 sqm 2-story house, and has about 280 sqm of free space, this could have a CAN field, VEG garden, lawn and outbuildings. Most decorations will not yield very much, but on the other hand they can be built by hand (lower levels get free self-WP), and tie up land so that its demand and value is also upheld.

Larger plots of land that are not immediately needed for building, can be made parks that will grow in stature over the decades and promise to yield quite nice income after a long time, depending on game success. A park can also be cut down if building is needed. Parks will continue to increase the nearby buildings' yield.

Another use for lots of any size is farming. The best VEG come from inside the walls  - natural fertilizer or something - so over time all the space not needed for other purposes should become veggie gardens.

Once again, an attempt of making a Rulebook, something more illustrative than the "TOS" and more compact than the Wiki

Before Clans, there is the Building Repair Editor (or how you call it - additions to the Building Editor that was released partially ready)


And this one finalises the Building module, and is not a small thing. Because it also completes the rehaul of Urban Land module.

To move on with the longer-term design goals, the lots would inherit most of the properties of Chapelries, and new land would come pre-zoned in most cases.

- Farming (S-VE1) and weed harvesting (S-CAN) would be possible in lots directly, no need a chapelry.
- They would be automatised, with "designate to VEG / designate to CAN" automatically granting the production shares.
- If you want to build, the "de-toggle" from farm/weed, would require the number of shares to be able to be done.
- This can be used as an option to tap on the land you don't want to sell nor build yet - just sell its produce and buy back when ready.
- The granularity of the said shares will be increased to allow small lots to be used as well.
- Quarry geology will likewise be lot-specific (initially the same for all lots in a chap), so everyone may quarry a small area if they so wish, to gain stone or improve the building foundations.
- Quarry points (QUA) can be produced in Quarry companies, as well as Building points in BuildCo's. They can be used to quarry the lot in an instant.
- Lots would have "elevation" in meters (voxels). This is not used for much just yet, but it's nice to know if you have views over the city or flood risk. Later, this will be baked in to the formulas as well.

- Wood buildings will come in a simplified form, with the aim of getting new players "more skin to the game". Also they need to have a stone place before getting to L6, so there will be an active market for wood houses that do not produce except to the resident (and thus are better sold).
- Lots with existing buildings have several options:

* Quick Repair structure (increases Repair% a little, small part of Lux% is converted to IC (half lost))
* Complete Repair structure (all Lux stripped off and converted to IC (half lost); Repair% reset to 100%) - this will cost half of the original construction of the structure, so demolish is always an option
* Lux update (increases Lux% at the usual cost)
* Demolish (converts the whole building to its parts (STO1 and windows, half of Lux is credited as IC, work is lost)
* Add floor (increase the # of floors at normal cost, the new floor requires same Lux% and inherits the existing Repair%)

Lot splitting will remain admin action due to too many variables regarding the Visibility and Commerciality calcs. The admins doing this will be instructed well and there will be a standard procedure and fee for the owner to apply these changes.



 

Technical specification (in progress)

The main components are:
- gamedaily (hourly) script.
- its decisions to generate (create to the S-VEx) or destroy (spoil from current owners) VEG.
- the script functioning to make a realistic annual cycle.
- balancing of the market by automated ask placement by "Farmers" yet not in actual famine.


Hourly script contents:
- Determine "x" in NEWDIVIDEND S-VE1 VEG x
- Determine "x" in NEWDIVIDEND S-VE3 VEG x
- Determine "x" in NEWDIVIDEND S-VE5 VEG x
- Determine "x" in NEWDIVIDEND S-VE7 VEG x
- Determine "x" in NEWDIVIDEND S-VE9 VEG x
- Determine "x" in NEWDIVIDEND S-VE11 VEG x
- Determine "y" in SPOIL VEG y
- parameters and random rolls change variables that affect the results of the above.

The Dream of the Ages - Vegetable Race - Coming Live

In connection with Clans, Vegetables will finally assume the life-and-death importance they have in people's nutrition to this day (well, especially if grain is counted).

VEG is produced from several types of S-VEx shares, which are different based on their distance to CryptoTown. Longer distance means:
- higher transport cost
- longer transport time (delay in arrival)
- more chance of spoil by heat/frost in transport.

An hourly script will determine yields and spoils to cause a realistic yearly circulation and fulfilling the important principle that the system current state is public, but the future state is unknown to all except as a scenario universe. This for instance causes "fair" (not GM-administered) shortages of food and also bumper crops.

During harvest season, a small amount of VEG is coming to the owners every hour. This abolishes the need to lurk to catch the admin-random creation time, and leaves some incentive to check after every full hour, whether the frequency is after every, second, 4, or 12 hours.

The declining health value of VEG will serve as the pressure, ensuring that VEG gets eaten as soon as possible. On the other hand, the frequencyBonus will be refocused on FOOD alone, discouraging the eating of Superveg alone. And the market will take care of the rest

In the new system, automated purchase and consumption of staple items (VEG, MEAT, CAN, MEAD, BEER) is enabled by timed commands happening every week, at your chosen time. Also it is about certain that futures markets will develop to offer fixed price VEG streams to the consumer, with the issuer bearing the market risk and getting their cut.

HM_The_King: sneak peek on Clans consumables mgmt:

[8:52pm] HM_The_King: the system will have the consumables management automatised
[8:52pm] HM_The_King: this means that VEG is created automatically each hour(!) during the harvest time
[8:53pm] HM_The_King: and the parameters are selected such that it is not known what the total harvest will be
[8:53pm] HM_The_King: it takes time to bring VEG from the manors - this causes a few hours delay
[8:54pm] HM_The_King: which would not otherwise be significant, but VEG’s health value (currently 5(super)/4(normal)) will start to degrade by the hour
[8:54pm] HM_The_King: and may start very high such as 6.0
[8:54pm] HM_The_King: and go down over the autumn, winter and summer to 3.0ish
[8:55pm] HM_The_King: in addition, spoil may happen at random extent and time
[8:55pm] HM_The_King: spoil is caused by the cellars freezing in the winter
[8:55pm] HM_The_King: the more distant places can also produce VEG
[8:55pm] HM_The_King: with the challenge being that the road transport takes so long
[8:56pm] HM_The_King: and VEG can really take only the temperatures between 5-15 celcius
[8:56pm] HM_The_King: so, taking night/day difference into account, only very limited time window 2/year is available
[8:57pm] HM_The_King: so due to this, and the transport cost, farming in a more remote place, such as Ramsey, NL or Stonehaven, is a high risk/reward business.
[8:57pm] HM_The_King: it may save us from famine though

1st class consumers:
L13-L20 PCs
Any PC with age 75+
Health minimum: 2500
Happiness minimum: 500

2nd class consumers:
N7-N9 NPCs (1250-2500 mil annual consume book value)
L8-L12 PCs
Any PC with age 40-74
Health minimum: 2000
Happiness minimum: 100

3rd class consumers:
N5-N6 NPCs (750-1000 mil annual consume book value)
L5-L7 PCs with age 15-39
Health minimum: 1600
Happiness minimum: 20

4th class consumers:
N3-N4 NPCs (500-625 mil annual consume book value)
L1-L4 PCs
Health minimum: 1400
Happiness minimum: 5

5th class consumers:
N1-N2 NPCs (250-375 mil annual consume book value)
Health minimum: 1200
Happiness minimum: 0

Suits handling
Each NPC item_type would have a requirement of clothes based on his level and the work (eg. Army wear grey always, stonemasons wear brown). This will be calculated, and be readily visible what the requirement is, and how well it is fulfilled. Having extras (esp. Orange) will give happiness bonus. The managing of suits needs to happen only after the spoil round because they are not affected otherwise.
 

How is consume allocated?

(preliminary thinking)
- The number of consumers is calculated internally for each class
- Each consumable item has highest_class parameter, making eg. MEAD be consumed by the lowest levels only
- Otherwise, the highest classes get served first, so that in a typical case, the more expensive things make sense to be consumed first
- There will not be the same kind of variety in the total amount of HealthChallenge, the Quests/Events will administer the Sicknesses, which require additional consumption of spirits etc, separately, so the total "minimum amount" is pretty much deducible beforehand, and will have only slight if any random annual variance.
- It is also possible to make the Health to be treated as a lump sum, so that only the happiness requirement scales up greatly (and the consumption of MEAT, FOIE would be incentivised by the variety bonus alone, which can be done easily)
- If Happiness is treated as lump sum, it would be easy to implement (no need for different classes to be taken into account except in the initial calc) but this will make it very demanding to play a single high-level PC without servants (the servants would dilute the total quota, allowing less total cost, but requiring everyone to get used to the new mechanism and tinker with the suits etc every 3 years, which however they need to do even now though..)

Example of a Corporation with the typical number of staff (yielding 50 WP)

1*MGR-4
1*MGR-2
1*ASS-3
2*ASS-2
1*ASS-1
5*WOR-3
10*WOR-2
15*WOR-1
-----------------------
class2 = 1
class3 = 1
class4 = 8
class5 = 26

Consume quota = 36*200 = 7,200 + 7,200 + 7,200
Health minimum = 2000 + 1600 + 8*1400 + 26*1200 = 46,000 HP
Happiness minimum = 100 + 20 + 8*5 = 160 CUL

If varietyBonus scales as it has (modified for the # of consumers=36), the planned eating might be:
1,800 * MEAT => 13,500 HP
5,400 * VEG => 25,200 HP
1,800 * BEER => 5,400 HP
1,800 * MEAD => 2,700 HP
---------------------------------
total 46,800 HP (minimum achieved!)

this is such that all the Wisdom quota is left, and half of the drinks (and frequencyBonus not used).
Seemingly it allows a base to be used with some fixing, and not even much.
Current challenge is whether it is necessary to force using the higher-valued items based on the higher-class NPC (more design&implementation), or if this cannot be achieved by steeply rising requirements for them, which are put into the same pool nevertheless (causes the result of "needing" to have lower valued NPCs as well to have large enough quotas), or some other way to manage it.

Syksy: hmm, interesting, NPCs bound to the player chars
[5:10pm] Syksy: sounds promising, and definitely good for the economy that the clans will explicitly have to consume for the NPCs that they employ (and have an increased quota accordingly)
[5:13pm] HM_The_King: there are soem design challenges
[5:13pm] HM_The_King: which of course keep the work interesting
[5:13pm] HM_The_King: one is: how to allocate the consumption to the different NPC classes
[5:14pm] scinawa left the chat room. (Quit: Leaving)
[5:14pm] HM_The_King: as N1 allocation is 250,000 per year
[5:14pm] HM_The_King: which is not very luxurious life, given that suits also needed !
[5:14pm] HM_The_King: N9 is 2.5 mil
[5:15pm] bit2017 joined the chat room.
[5:15pm] HM_The_King: and therefore he requires wine and foie, just as any baron would
[5:15pm] HM_The_King: Another one is the frequencyBonus
[5:15pm] HM_The_King: currently max 4x, and maxbenefit is 1/4 of quota
[5:15pm] HM_The_King: (50 units in a quota of 200 will give benefit)
[5:15pm] Syksy: indeed
[5:16pm] HM_The_King: If this is scaled by #NPC
[5:16pm] HM_The_King: it will mean 500 units in the highest bracket, 4x
[5:16pm] HM_The_King: kinda destroying it
[5:16pm] HM_The_King: but scaled it must, somehow
[5:17pm] HM_The_King: my design challenge is that only one set of consumes is needed, and the allocation (who eats the veg and who drinks the clxii) would be automatic
[5:17pm] HM_The_King: with full feedback, no purposeful secrets
[5:18pm] Roopatra: That sounds like it will be very interesting!
[5:18pm] HM_The_King: the frequencyBonus is a continuous function, it is just now discrete with 1 decimal
[5:19pm] HM_The_King: if we make the max_benefit_amount to be 25% of a quota of one consumable_type (or a lower %) * TIMES the amount of NPC to be fed,
[5:20pm] HM_The_King: and the function continuous with no maximum, then it will boost the value of luxuries even more
[5:20pm] HM_The_King: as if 1*AYA is shared between 3 ppl, it might give 4-6x freqBonus,
[5:21pm] HM_The_King: but shares among 500, it will be considerably higher
[5:21pm] HM_The_King: (assuming we leave 4.0x bonus in case the # of consumers is 1, as has been the case always so far)

Clans Challenge etc stuff, preliminary thoughts

- NPC will become part of the owner's challenge. Half of the current NPC payment will be allocated to this purpose. When/if NPC lodging will be the owner's responsibility (this may or may not happen, because it makes the scaling of NPC hordes much more tedious with possibly no fun effect), then the payment would be reduced even more.

- Consuming basics will be mostly unchanged (frequency and variety bonuses, item health, CUL, WIS ratings), the biggest difference is that the consuming quota will be waay larger (up to 6 figures of instances cf current 200) and will be credited automatically towards a few "classes" of consumers so that drinking mead will make the WOR-1 healthy and happy but not contribute anything to a BUT-9.

- CUL rating may be changed to Happiness and wines' effect changed more to this (from the current outsized Health values).

- If health or happiness does not reach the minimum # of points in each of the classes, this will lead to such NPC having a chance to quit

- If happiness goes over the minimum (not even difficult), this will cause more NPC to spawn to you as a bonus, which can be used or sold

- Automatic fulfillment option will be provided so that you can consume on autopilot up to the minimum required amounts. This will not be cost effective vs. own management, but will probably beat the so-far "self-assigned health management" in ease.

- Clans will bring new Quests, which are similar to other games except that these are 1-3 weeks deadline (many games have daily) and these are more challenging, requiring actual problem solving. The quests will be raffled from a pool, and each quest in a pool has parameters to which level it may be assigned.

Jewelry Editor NEW Spex

Jewelry Editor is a Main Menu GUI feature for NEWing custom items of item_type JEW (jewelry).

The following fields are prompted from user:

Type of Jewelry Item (this goes to item Description; all jewelry belongs to same item_type (JEW))
1 Crown
2 Sceptre
3 Coronet
4 Tiara
5 Baton
6 Orb
7 Bracelet
8 Signet Ring
9 Ring
10 Necklace
11 Chain
12 Pistol
13 Custom item

The mouseover texts for different types are listed in the post above.

Name

(name of the item as text box)

Elaboracy
Choose: Most Elaborate / Very Elaborate

Amount of Metals

Gold: (fill in)
Silver: (fill in)

Constituent Parts

(the items are listed so that user can type the amount to the fields he wants and leave the rest empty; these are the usual items)
TOP
EME
SAP
RUB
TOPX
EMEX
SAPX
RUBX
DIA1
DIA2
DIA5
DIA10
DIA20
PEA
PEAZ
AMBP
JADN

Other items to be added

(box prompting any item_id and amount next to it and note "do not add CKG/CKS items here, amounts will not be credited")

Additional IC to be added

with note: "please add more IC to account for the parts that are not paid as items"

Description

(text box for user description of the item, only that, no stories - the item:description will be populated from "jewelry item type text" (it is not an actual item type - all belong to new item type JEW), a list of Constituent Parts, Other items to be added and "user description", so no need for repetition)

History

(text box for user storytelling)

Backdating

Year is asked in [1600, current] with current as default. Each year in the past increases the IC cost by 3%, no other effects.

Payments of metals

CKG is paid via text box + amount similar to the one in Other items to be added.

CKS is paid via text box + amount similar to the one in Other items to be added.It is also possible to consume IC, which will be counted as 2*CKS/IC (normal rate).

Preview Item

Calculates the IC cost and the level of item. Backdating does not affect level.

Create Item!

All Constituent Parts, Other items, Payment of metals and IC cost will be consumed and item created.

No excess validations needed, just let the items be created if the price is paid, it is up to the players if they create funny items.

Some item parameters need to be set at defaults such as repair=1, let's see.


***
Item IC cost calculation:

[(Amount of CKG + Amount of CKS) * 0.1 * (2 if Very Elaborate / 1 if Most Elaborate) + Additional IC + 4] * (1 + 0.03 * backdating_years)

Item Level calculation:

Add together the IC cost and the "embedded IC" of the constituent parts:
each K1 item = 1
each K2 item = 2
each K3 item = 5
each K4 item = 10
each K5 item = 20
each K6 item = 50
each K7 item = 100
each K8 item = 200
each K9 item = 500
each K10 item = 1,000
each K11 item = 2,000
each K12 item = 5,000

The same table will determine this item level, so that the level is the fulfilled amount (eg. if total = 723, the level is nearest down (500) = K9).

Overall Game Scoring, Ranks and Levels system

When moving on to the more scripted gameplay for larger audiences, getting the score tracks more defined is important.

The scoring is planned to be from 1-20 with "1" as the lowest level possible (achievable even with zero effort) and "20" being the highest.

The char level is already in 1-20, and no major changes are planned there.

The wisdom and culture are both in 1-20, so will continue. It is still a little bit unknown how the split of WIS+CUL of the dead characters will become part of the char_highscore and whether it will continue as clan_current_items.

The CKIP will have a 9-level system, scaled to the 1-20 for ease. CKIP will determine the levels independently. They are be demoted if qualifications are no longer fulfilled.

Admins and gamemasters will be graded according to their experience and authority to the 1-20 scale. Past contributions to development can also raise the level. The level is not directly correlated to admin permissions level. Most admins have more system permissions than what they need for jobs that they usually do or even are comfortable doing.


Therefore, there is a 1-20 graded scale for each of the major success factors of the game:

1. Playing the game, ingame success
 - CUL
 - WIS
2. Design and development of the game, GM/adminwork
3. Marketing the game by gaining more players and deposits.

Thoughts?

Specification of Jewelry Item Type Texts

These will be displayed on the right (or a suitable place) when the type is selected. They will guide the user to select a correct amount of suitable materials for his jewelry item. There are no system-enforced restrictions whatsoever, to keep it easy to develop.

1 Crown

Crown is worn only by the King and it is not allowed for the subjects to make them. Lawfully possessing a Crown is not a crime.

2 Sceptre

Sceptre is part of royal regalia and it is not allowed for the subjects to make them. Lawfully possessing a Sceptre is not a crime.

3 Coronet

Coronet is a metal headpiece worn by others than the King. It may be crown-style, or a metal band around the head. Making and wearing a coronet are both restricted to certain occasions, and now the occasion is the Coronation of HM rpietila II. Only nobles may use precious metals in the coronet (and are required to use them). A gold crown-like coronet needs to be 300-900 CKG and a silver one may be a less (due to gold's greater density). This style has (up to) 16 points for jewels or pearls, in different positions. Princes and Dukes may have 2 arches in their coronets, with 20 additional pearls. (The King has 4 arches with 40 pearls.) The most important are the front stones, which can be 2 on top of each other. If a band-like coronet is used, it can only have one stone in the front (or none at all) and up to 8 pearls. Band can be made from slightly less metal than crown-style. Peers are exhorted to wear crown-like with more jewels and minor nobles can have band-like. The choice of metal is individual preference. Coronet may not be backdated.

4 Tiara

Tiara is a metal headdress worn by ladies only (a treasury item). Female nobles may wear a tiara instead of a coronet in coronation, but they are allowed coronet as well. Tiara creation or backdating are not restricted. As little as 150 CKG or 75 CKS can make a good tiara especially with some pearls and possibly a gemstone. A tiara must be of precious metal and commoners may create and wear them if wished (main limitation is ladies only).

5 Baton

Baton is a richly-adorned handheld item that designates general or supreme command. The creation of Batons and public display of them is restricted to those with the command. Currently the only Baton in existence is the AOK-C (Commander in the Ancient Order of the King) Baton of Princess Roopatra (made 1583, of wood overlaid with 500 CKG). There is a plan to evaluate the existing Orders and military structure, with possibly the establishing of the Corps of Marshals of Crypto Kingdom, who would be entitled to a baton. The Supreme Commander of the RCA (King) is entitled to one but does not have it. Batons are used in the field, where also the King could have one. In court, the King has the Orb whereas the guests may have the batons.

6 Orb

Orb is a piece of jewellery, an often hollow sphere of gold or silver, pearls, and typically one gemstone on the cross (the part that protrudes upwards). Usually a royal object, in CK there is no prohibition against making and bearing orbs. They can even be made in miniature or large size as indicated by the metal content. The current Royal Orb from 1530 weighs (only) 100 CKG as it has a wood frame, so a new one will probably be commissioned. If CK follows the suit of other countries, the creation of orbs may stop, causing them to become rare.

7 Bracelet

Bracelet (wristband) can contain anything between 15-300 grams of metals depending on style, plus other things if wished.

8 Signet Ring

Signet Ring is a typically large ring that can be used for sealing documents. Due to its affordable price and availability, Jade (JADN) has emerged as a popular material for the engraving, but pure gold and other gemstones are usable as well. A large ring can weigh over 50 grams (of gold, silver is half the weight).

9 Ring

Ring is worn in a finger and may feature gemstones. There are many rings existing in sizes 3-25 CKS and 5-50 CKG.

10 Necklace

Necklace is defined as being a piece of jewellery worn by ladies only. They are therefore treasury items for most players. Necklaces may feature anything hanging from them, and can be of quite many thicknesses - and weights - as well.

11 Chain

Chain means a wide and heavy necklace that can be worn by men also. While they are often made to designate something special, such as a position, chains are not restricted items and can be made by anyone. In AOK, 100 CKG Chain is the first token, the second one is 250 CKG Bracelet (Chain is first because it is more visible even with less gold). Third is Baton.

12 Pistol

It is possible to tailor your pistol, and this adds not only to its level, but also to its value in the shooting contest. The item remains a pistol, just unique and much cooler.

13 Custom item

It is possible to make any items of course. Even all the items already listed are in the same type.

Jewelry Editor Edited in May 6; additions in blue


Jewelry is an upcoming game concept to absorb the gold, silver and gemstones. Jewelry items are in principle unique, but it is possible to create several similar items if this is done at once. Jewelry can be broken into its constituent pieces with no loss of materials. Therefore they are a good and liquid store of value as if they don't sell whole (even with item history), they can be sold as parts upon need.

Jewelry editor is a GUI Main Menu item, easing the creation of jewelry.

The following fields are prompted from user:

Type of Jewelry Item (this goes to item Description; all jewelry belongs to same item type (JEW) - is this reasonable??)
1-13 Crown (King only)
2 Sceptre (King only)
3 Coronet (headdress, restricted creation period for coronation only, no backdating)
4 Tiara (unrestricted headdress, worn by ladies only but makes a good treasury item)
5 Baton (upon permission only)
6 Orb (round piece of heavy metal with typically one gemstone on the cross, unrestricted for now)
7 Bracelet (wristband; men and ladies alike depends on style)
8 Signet Ring (required for displaying a Large stone)
9 Ring (with or without gemstone)
10 Necklace (worn by ladies only but makes a good treasury item)
11 Chain (a sash made of gold, or a heavy male necklace)
12 Pistol (modified for appearance)
13 Custom item

Name

(name of the item as text box)

Amount of Metals

Gold: (fill in)
Silver: (fill in)

Constituent Parts

(the items are listed so that user can type the amount to the fields he wants and leave the rest empty; these are the usual items)
list tba

Other items to be added

(box prompting any item_id and amount next to it and note "do not add CKG/CKS items here, amounts will not be credited")

Description

(text box for user description of the item, only that, no stories - the item:description will be populated from "jewelry item type text" (it is not an actual item type - all belong to new item type JEW), a list of Constituent Parts, Other items to be added and "user description", so no need for repetition)

History

(text box for user storytelling)

Backdating

Year is asked in [1600, current] with current as default. Each year in the past increases the IC cost by 3%, no other effects.

Payments of metals

CKG is paid via text box + amount similar to the one in Other items to be added.

CKS is paid via text box + amount similar to the one in Other items to be added.It is also possible to consume IC, which will be counted as 2*CKS/IC (normal rate).

Preview Item

Calculates the IC cost and the level of item. Backdating does not affect level.

Create Item!

All Constituent Parts, Other items, Payment of metals and IC cost will be consumed and item created.

No excess validations needed, just let the items be created if the price is paid, it is up to the players if they create funny items.

Some item parameters need to be set at defaults such as repair=1, let's see.

Bank Automated Mortgaging

The Hypothecary Bank in CT has sought this opportunity for a long time, and now the development is finally possible so that they can commission a house-developed, 3rd-party paid module of Lot Mortgaging, Automatic Loans.

New Main Menu item: Loans

Will list the lots that the character owns, and their mortgage value
Next to each lot, a button showing Free/Mortgaged, pressing it toggles the state

On top, listing of the stats (explanation for spex only):

- Maximum mortgage value (total mortgage value of all owned lots)
- Mortgage value used (mortgage value that is mortgaged to the HB)
- Outstanding loan amount (how much the player owes to HB)
- Loan percentage of collateral (outstanding loan amount / mortgage value used)
- Limit (when loan percentage reaches this value, HB may take any of the mortgaged properties to possession, auction it, and credit the money less fees towards decreasing the outstanding loan amount)
- APR (annual percentage rate of interest, which is added automatically weekly to the outstanding loan amount, variable)

Limit is 120%. Demortgaging (flipping a Mortgaged property to Free with the button) is possible only so that the Loan percentage of collateral after the change is 80% max.

DB changes and scripts:

New global variable Base_rate (will be used as basis for all HB variable rate lending)
New field lot:mortgagevalue (HB will populate from googleDB dump "when needed" approx once in 5-10 years)
New changelog-type table loan_transactions (or a "Loan" item with negative intrinsic value, which for this reason cannot be gifted nor consumed)
Script count_char_maximum_mortgage_value
Script count_char_mortgage_value_used
Script
Script determine_char_loan_premium (secret formula)

The total APR is calculated as: Base_rate+Char_loan_premium

Bank admin interface

At minimum, possibility to dump the balances and other relevant data of current debtors to googlesheet for monitoring.

Sure, at present the system is that you can save SCI (or buy from the market when need) and spend the desired amounts to get more intelligence of the situation. With enough SCI, you are such a master of happenings that the result is likely the same as you sought

I get the need for the all powerful d20, but can we add a point accrual system? A way to bank points to spend when there is an especially important roll. Or even a way to bank/spend points prior to a roll? Probably not realistic to implement ATM, but as the game becomes more automated it might make a nice addition.

Preliminary spex on Clans

CK - Clans is a core module that is aimed to address certain deficiencies in the current core functionalities in the game, and to redefine the previous Skills core module, which was already postponed to autumn-16 due to the consideration that the present players would not enjoy having more mandatory weekly activities, especially if the time they require is positively correlated to the extent of the player's empire.

Design goals

Make the administration of a player's CK presence easier, so that as the player's wealth and "empire" grows, it will cause as little as possible increase to the mandatory weekly administration time. The main way how this is accomplished is to restructure the account such that with one login, a player can handle all his wealth and all the (PC) characters that belong to his "clan". A clan consists of all of one player's characters that serve a single goal, and in case of nobles, it can also be called a house. This is different than "tribe", which is defined to be several players (and now - several clans) banding together for common purposes, such as inhabiting a new town in an opened county.

For instance, the clan of rpietila (the current Royal House of CK) would consist of a single account with single access to the game and a single account_id, single wealth and items mgmt, and the following characters:
- HM The King rpietila II (PC)
- Lord Ezekiel, son to the previous (PC)
- All the NPC's hired by the above PC

The health challenge will be redefined to be a weekly (consumption) challenge, with elements from both the current negative health challenge, from the consumption quota of the NPCC and new positive elements of 1) aspiration challenge (fulfillment will cause the clan to advance in stats and levelup and 2) a weekly quest, with reward badges and also contributing to advance in ranks and levels.

The system will administer the challenge based on the total extent of the clan so that regardless if the clan consists of a single PC and no servants, or 10 PC and thousands of NPC, it will not be markedly more time-consuming to manage it - only the amounts that need to be consumed are different. Neglecting even the basics of the challenge will cause deterioration of health of the PC and increased loss of the NPC. Neglecting the positive parts of the challenge will cause a stall in the advance of the clan, and that the newcomers and inferior clans overtake you in progress.

The premise of the clan is the foundation of CK, so the new module should only be regarded as an improvement in the administration, not a big change in the fundamentals. In most MMO, the PC do not die - it is possible to play a character as long as desired. In CK with a realistic approach to the world and a timescale of several centuries, individual characters will necessarily have to die, but this has never been intended to be a showstopper. With this new module, the players can retain their preferred ever-expanding empire, so that the death of their head of the clan causes as little as possible managerial annoyance, even if the roleplaying effects continue to be significant, comparable to losing a large building to a fire, or a county or a manor to invasion or insurgency.

It is now intended that one player only has one account and one clan, since the benefits of having several clans do not really exist, except in the case someone with limited means and unlimited time wants to gain as much foothold as possible with active play - which of course is much appreciated and desired.

Particulars

When moving to clans, the definitions change somewhat:
- char_id becomes account_id and is permanent and does not change upon any character's death
- the clan only has one economy as previously described, to ease the administrative effort of the controller
- the distinction of PC and NPC becomes more blurred as all the characters controlled by a clan are in a sense PC (the controller tells them what to do and what to consume) but the player is not associated with a single character, although most will probably continue to associate themselves with the current head of their clan, named after themselves, as I also did upon the death of rpietila I, renamed the successor rpietila II and the show goes on
- the levels will be based on clan, so that the levels of the current heads are grandfathered to the clans. In the event of clan head dying, the level is unaffected (King will retain the right to demote but as that has never happened so far, it is unlikely to be used too much in the future either).
- the titles that have been tied to the levels (eg. level L15 being named Marquess/Marchioness/Margrave/Margravine, also the PC in the level have been titled such) will undergo slight changes: the clan will be entitled to some titles and will have the liberty to divide them between the clan members. Each peer title (Earl and higher) will bring subsidiary titles such as Viscount and a quota of Barons, which the clan controller may bestow on anyone, either the PC in his clan, or the characters controlled by other players to forge alliances with them or reward them for services.

Countryside will be mapped and the map published, to visualize the location of counties, manors etc. It will be of great significance where the domains are located, as the world is in tumult and CK may gain and lose influence in different counties, affecting the production. Areas closer to the capital will likely be more peaceful and yield more, especially as the road network in the kingdom is in a sorry shape, preventing the transport of low-value and/or spoilable items over great distances.

PC are of limited quantity, and will spawn as rewards for good fulfilment of the weekly challenges. (It will be possible to pay money to gain new PC to your clan to speed up the play though). The increase of # of PC in the clan will cause a slight increase in management effort since PC are unique and have certain individual parameters that need to be nurtured:
- Health of a PC cannot be affected directly, the overall weekly challenge of the whole clan affects the health of the PC
- PC have individual Wisdom and Culture stats
- PC have individual Skills, but they will accumulate as automatically as possible, with only limited controls to the player
- PC have Time Points, which the commoners (with a clan typically consisting of a single PC) will be able to use for work to gain money, and the nobles can allocate their PC for important missions or assign them to study and practice to gain more skills
- Skills have been specified earlier in this thread, main alteration is to lessen the micromanagement in gaining them. They will be of paramount importance in both weekly and individual quests.
- A clan with many PC will be able to participate in the game in a more rich and more time-consuming way. If time is sparse, it makes sense to have a clan with only the minimum number of PC.
- NPC management will not be a burden since their actions are largely automatic and it takes the same amount of time to feed 100 NPC as it takes to feed one, since the requirements are clearly laid out in the weekly challenges.

Corporations and FOC will continue as separate accounts. There will be less incentive than before to have an FOC since the clan system will also effectively ensure a permanent account with guaranteed wealth. (Clan accounts that are neglected and ignored will still be swept after a period of inactivity, whereas FOC are guaranteed 7 realyears of untouchability so they still serve for the people who do not have any interest in the playing, only in the speculation).

In the UI side, there is a development as we speak, to make a functional ingame chat system with IRC functionalities. Also the messaging system was recently deployed. In these, players may use any character names to indicate in a storytelling way which of their characters they are playing.

The look and feel of the UI will be reviewed so that the game will not look as industrial

Closing

We are in a middle of a transition from "monopoly" to "civilization" in our game. The transition is not without difficulties, but it is necessary to morph the game to the next stage in order to make it accessible and interesting for gamers, who will then get hooked and will become members of the Monero community. This is the purpose of the existence of CK so we will need to embrace the change.

Change of the CKG tradable asset for ingame needs, as well as possible exchange integration

Currently HM02B100 is the trading asset, and its lot size is 1 bar = 70 XMR. This is a problem for many, especially the prospective ones.
S-CKG is a proxy asset with a lot size of 1 share = 1/100 CKG = 0.007 XMR = 1,400 sat.

The new conditional command feature allows automatic replenishment of market maker orders as they are being fulfilled.

Coinshop can offer "infinite ladder marketmaking" at a density of 250 CKG per 1% change in price, as it already does.

Currently, 1 bar is offered at every 0.4%. This can be changed to 2,500*S-CKG offered at every 0.1% (if wished, any resolution is now possible). When an ask fills, a new bid is automatically placed with a (theoretically infinitely) chained command

n(SELL S-CKG 2500 7000>BUY S-CKG 2500 6930>)

Once the ladder is set up, the execution of any order by market participants, always causes an opposite direction order be placed by the market maker. If malfunction happens, it is risk free for the market maker, as only the others suffer by the widening spreads. (This has been the modus operandi constantly so far with the manual order replenishment.)

The coinshop has enough CKG to absorb all XMR, so even 50k should be enough to be deposited to S-CKG holdings to allow the creation of enough S-CKG to provide better service than currently with HM02B100.

The role of HM02B100 would be the "take-delivery" asset which the large holders can possess from the ETF, and deposit back when needed. Separate market making for it would be discontinued.

The small unit size of S-CKG allows anyone to price their assets relative to CKG by having triggers that cause the clearing of previous orders and placement of new ones as S-CKG price changes.

Exchange integration becomes easy and risk free with S-CKG being the asset traded there and deposit/withdrawable against the ETF, who can develop the needed interfaces with little coordination needed from PJ.

That the asset is traded in exchanges, does not alter the market making structure ingame in any way - all arbitrages will be gained by market participants, but the market maker still makes a continuous income stream by having a spread. 1% is deemed enough in these conditions, vs. 4% currently.

Trading in Agora system is currently free, no fees. Fees are planned strictly to recoup the added computing resource costs, and will be fixed (negligible) sum per order placed and/or executed, and small traders (<1,000 transactions per month) excluded.

Production shares

We assume 3% IRR (internal rate of return, the interest rate used in calculation) because that is in the ballpark with buildings (slightly higher) and NPC (slightly lower) and significantly better than the no-hassle investments of CKG and CON.

S-VE1 (~100 VEG @ midprice 1,500) = 5 mil (in practice lower b/c limited to 1/char)
S-VE2 (~75 VEG @ midprice 1,000) = 2.5 mil
S-ME (~50 MEAT @ midprice 6,000) = 10 mil
PIG (~50 MEAT @ midprice 6,000) = 10 mil (in practice lower b/c limited to commoners)
S-FOI (~3 FOIE @ midprice 50,000) = 5 mil (trading is discouraged; near-term production may be higher)
DIS (~100 MEAD @ midprice 1,000) = 3.3 mil (in practice lower b/c limited to commoners)
S-BB (10,000 BEER @ profit 1,500) = 500 mil (building will soon be required)
S-MUS (~1 MUS @ midprice 150,000) = 5 mil
S-CAN (~100 CAN @ midprice 1,500) = 5 mil

The counties in advanced PRE stages will get the production shares and while the amounts may seem low, these are the values that justify them. When the Manors are implemented, the number of shares will go up more (better administration) but the Earls cannot easily handle the manors any more so will need to lease/sell them to other players. The number of Manors (and production shares) allocated to a county in the mature stage will be dependent on:
- Number of PC residing in the capital of the county (urban land+house)
- How many years the county has been under our rule
- Pacification (no enemies, rebellions; garrison, standing army)
- Administration
- Properties of the county
- Distance and travel time to CryptoTown
- Perhaps other factors.

The game economy in broad lines

All NPC labor (including building, quarry - suspended) costs go to Labor pool, from where NPC's pay their consumables and suits (hungryMob), and the rest is divided between Town and Rental pool.

The Rental pool is able to live well on this money, because many buildings are not rentals, they produce CUL, IC, SCI and act as factories instead.

Town has several direct income sources, one being sales of spirits and other luxury items (SFS brought 665 mil). The direct taxation has been at 0% for some time now.

Town also sells the urban land in CryptoTown, for which an income of 4.5 bil per borough is gained (difference between purchase price and whole chapelry sell price; smaller lots fetch more; King is rulebound to sell all the land in town for 4.5 bil per Borough and Town can choose - Currently King also cannot sell the unopened boroughs except to the Town).

15% of Rental pool is divided between Rental buildings, which dividend has increased in 4 years to 6,100 (was 3,500) and rentals now pay very nice APR such as 3% and over.

NPC are also valuable investments who produce, much in excess of their cost, worth CUL, IC, and SCI (seldom m), the money going to Labor as mentioned.

Town pays income to commoners but this total amount is currently quite small (~100 mil annually, compared to 400 mil paid to consols, 900 mil allowance of hungryMob and 1-9 bil of historical gold dividends). Nobles must live on their own.

The PC and NPC must consume to stay healthy. The total consumption per year is ~2 bil, so therefore a very important sum to keep the things going. The production of consumables happens as follows:

VEG - Only the Manors and independent Farmers (system acct controlled by Mooo) produce them close enough to allow for transport in our bad roads (or even if good roads, VEG spoil in transit very easily). Also characters can produce small amounts in their gardens.

MEAT - This is a conserve, with a 10% annual spoil. It is more valuable by weight than VEG, yet is in practice produced in the nearest manors and farmers only, but this will change in the future with better roads and more population. Pigs also provide meat for commoners.

FOIE - With even better price/weight ratio, this is brought from all over the counties, but stable administration must be present. Also historical nobles have the shares that entitle them to FOIE income for now at least.

CAV - Imported from Rossiya (Town pockets the import proceeds).

Spirits - Town sells the imports and pockets the money.

Wines - Converted from IC, historically the most important convertible.

BEER - Due to weight, must be produced locally; 7 licensed breweries exist.

MEAD - Is produced locally by commoners (DIS items).

AYA, COH - Restricted luxuries and no more can explicitly ever come.

SHI, CIG - Luxuries that may be reproduced but no plans exist (SHI in at least 50 years).

MUS, CAN - Are produced in many places and with excellent price/weight, are often the first things to bring home from new counties. Some CAN can be homegrown as well.

The Counties act as complete units until they are Inaugurated. When this happens, the County will have a Seat (a town with expandable size, potentially larger than TMA CryptoTown) and Manors. It is a historical fact that urban land (land in town with ownership protection) is very expensive, as a single Borough is worth billions (or even a Lot can be). What is not yet commonly understood is the very high value of Manors, since they can crank out products valued at 30 mil a year, which at 3% interest rate (compared to CON=0.6%) means that the Manor is valued at 1,000 mil! Since few players have the possibility nor willingness to invest even that sum (let alone 2 bil for 1.5% etc..) the only manors so far are all tenancies. To differentiate the eventual fully purchased manors, their owners will be able to use Free Lord of XX in place of just Lord and the Earls can create them Barons at will.

This is the biggest sure income for the County players. Having a county well situated, free of enemies and garrisoned from rebellions, will spawn Manors as the player count rises and the need for more products is felt. The Earl can then either operate them on his own, lease them out for guaranteed income, or give them to freehold against a windfall of cash.

The other towns will operate similar as CryptoTown with no need to pay the devcost, but no profits from the imports either. Each county with PRE=50 and more, will have a single pool of money acting as the rental pool at this time. These County pools will also benefit from gold and CKG appreciation as a part of their money is invested in these assets. So far CryptoTown has not been able to do this as it would mean self-collateralizing.

Once the necessary defence, infrastructure etc. is present (or often before), the County can sell, or do whatever with the urban land in its Seat. It is likely that the land values are cheaper in the counties, making situation interesting for the land magnates who can possibly gain large areas of urban land in the vicinity of the center point.

The Gold dividends are paid from Town surplus, which in the times of large land sales has occasionally been very large. The thrifty dividends in December-January were because of the initial Ultima project final milestones which were large (to have the incentives correctly aligned). Now the realmonthly cost is lower and can be met from the operating income even without resorting to CON sales.

The CON sales are expected to continue, however, to provide more liquidity to CON, and of course enable the Town to play more loosely, keep taxes at 0% and also increase gold dividends at least somewhat. The devfund is added to every year, and used for paying the devcosts. There are no plans to increase the spending to technical development (no more Wizards), but on other fronts more resources are needed.

Now the time is coming to make a huge push in game mechanics

- Wood building
- Stone building
- Unique building
- Countryside production
- Multiple towns
- Kingdomwide logistics

The wood building is pretty much designed, though it needs some coordination with PIG, DIS, etc that were already implemented as items. They will probably be merged to the wood building at least partly, because the early years of a commoner are supposed to be spent much with the house, with exponentially more expensive modules for a declining marginal utility.

Stone and unique buildings require a potentially huge conversion work so that the existing ones are implemented in the new system with as little as possible manual work. After this, the construction of them in Ultima will not be difficult at all.

At the same time, the Lots require a large rework. Possibly the Buildings will be such integral property of Lots (as at least wood buildings are planned to be) that the current lot structure needs revamp and new zoning needs to take the new rules into account very well. As all the chapelries in the 25-borough area will be implemented in graphics, that also requires resources.

The commoner lots, designed for wood buildings only, may be as small as 40 sqm and do not get benefit for being larger than 400 sqm. Street access needs to be had (2 m counts as an alley), so narrow lots may become a norm with some aspect ratio rule in place to prevent stupid ideas.

I am planning to open B.23 (between 1 and 3 on both sides of the historical Boulevard (ca. 1560)) for a project loosely similar to B.22. Neither could be zoned before both are completed. The B.23 conversion would be based on stone (and money, to redeem it from the King), and the stone would be used for constructing the fortifications around the whole town including 18 casemattes. The SCI is not yet there, but each one would house several cannons for the total of hundreds of cannonposts (in practice, many of the cannons would be moved to the side under attack). Heavy cannons could also be housed permanently especially in vulnerable areas near gates. The bulk of the defence spending falls on the King obviously, but at least the 10-20 million stone could be raised by selling this land.

The plan for this and the map of CryptoTown with vegetation is revealed in GameDB.

To be continued in a separate post.

The design of the Wisdom module

Wisdom module builds on top of the existing Consume subsystem, so very little new things are needed.

Wisdom is a general character trait (same as Health, and soon also Culture(PC)/History(Corps))

Wisdom is amended every time there is an event that increases it. Currently such an event is consuming things that increase Wisdom. Frequency and Variety bonuses apply normally.

Items may have a Wisdom value (UND substances do, but there may be others). The values of item:Wisdomness are secret and the value of Wisdom of a character is also lightly masked. Consuming Wisdom items does not give immediate feedback.

New field in Char table: Wisdom (encrypted field)
New field in Item table: Wisdomness (encrypted field, denoting the # of Wisdom points per item consumed - base value)
New lookup table: Wisdom->Wisdom_print (masking the exact value of character's Wisdom point total)

The Wisdom_print is displayed in MyCharacter.

New code to be added to consuming consumables   

   wisdomBonus = Bonus   //wisdomBonus gets the same frequencyBonus that is already calculated for "Bonus" in health challenge
if item_consumed_already=FALSE   
effect = floor(wisdomBonus + variety_multiplier * item_id:healthiness) ; 0)    //variety_multiplier is the same as already in the script; note that effect_multiplier is not used


New treatment of CUL/HIS

Culture and History are the same thing except History is awarded in place of Culture for those in level 0 (Corporations) and 42 (Estates of the dead).

Find a way to either implement them as character-specific variables (while retaining the possibility to use the value as a command parameter), or make the item:Untradable=1 mean that no bids and asks may be placed and the item may not be Given (but may be Transfered).

Also make it possible that consuming items can award CUL to the PC. This consuming does not award IC, however (that would be preposterous). There would be a separate list of item:consumeCULbonus, with a flat (no frequency/variety bonuses) addition to char:CUL, (in addition to the health and wisdom effects of such things).

Production and consumption of consumables

This is a very important update but I put it here instead of the main thread since the beauty of it is mainly of design nature 


After some experimenting, we will have a competitive system in all consumable markets. What are the consumables?

Food:
VEG, MEAT, FOIE, CAV

Drinks:
MEAD, BEER, Wines, Spirits

Wisdom:
CAN, MUS, imported products

All will have similar production shares as FOIE has S-FOI currently.

The main players in the markets will soon be:

- HungryMob, which produces some VEG and MEAD (they are NPC who are simulated to act as junior commoners) and consumes quite a bit of many things with 600 mil budget to feed and clad 600 NPCs.

- Farmers who replace Town as the main producer of VEG, MEAT, MEAD and CAN (the account is still owned & operated by Town)

- OldDuchy from where the farmers mainly come from, is an established administrative entity in the position to levy taxes in kind, and consequently "produces" VEG, MEAT, CAN and MUS (and would produce FOIE as well but it is already accounted for in King's personal S-FOI quota)

- Other counties will see their production growing a lot if preparations continue and dependent on policies chosen. MEAT, FOIE, CAN and MUS will be produced. It is uneconomical to transport vegetables over long distances with no roads, and they also spoil easily.

- Nobles will continue to have their historical S-FOI shares but they will dilute in value when counties are awarded their shares.

- Breweries continue to produce and sell BEER.

- Commoners will have access to S-MEAD (equipment producing 100*MEAD) and can also acquire a share of common gardens producing VEG.

Therefore, all the different locally-produced consumables will have markets consisting of many profit-driven actors, just as we already have very well-functioning Wine markets.

In total, 8 different times-of-year have been specified when actions happen in the markets. Main actions are as follows:
- Beginning of year: many things spoil. Even BEER and prepared meats will start to spoil 5%.
- In March (tuesday): VEG spoils more, but many things come to market after being dried over winter.
- Summer: VEG spoils completely, and after a short period of no VEG at all, the new produce starts to come. In the beginning days (hours), these new VEG are specially healthy. This will reset to the usual value soon. VEG is coming in many batches over the summer and the quantity (price) is dependent on how much the Earth gives, which in turn is not knowable beforehand.
- Slaughtertime is before Christmas and new FOIE and MEAT come to market.

Admin (GM) will create all the new production and dividend them immediately. The market players take care of listing and pricing.

Countryside Opens

A long-awaited expansion, Countryside is moving towards production. There are earlier expositions of long-term plans, so this concerns itself of the immediate and near-term new features only.

Map features

The Kingdom map will be hex-based and one hex defined to be 0.200 sq.km (of which 0.135 sq.km are the 450x300 m Urban area if the hex is an urban Borough). Since our land is big, it is possible it will consist of millions of rural hexes. The visualization of the map is not going to happen yet.


Peerage and fiefdom

The whole backbone of countryside is that of feudalism, the hierarchical domain over lands:

Kingdom - Duchy - County - Estate.

The whole of rural land will be organized so that each hex eventually is part of one County. Duchies are administrative entities over Counties. Estates are productive entities in Counties, but a County is not necessarily completely divided to Estates. Urban lands' standing depends on local legislation and ownership of Urban land is guaranteed. Kingdom remains the concept of the totality of all lands, yet it is possible that independent Counties will emerge in the outskirts, or based on negotiation or civil war or similar event (in the future).

Peerage means the fiefdom over land. Peerage may be held by Earls and higher, but is created separately of promotions. Only the King may "create" peerages that are for life. Upon death, the peerage is re-created to the heir of the holder, or to a different character, or reverts to the Crown in which case it may be recreated later. As a norm, the actively played peerages are hereditary but the King decides. The successive holders of the peerage may title themselves as "Sir Joukahainen, the 2nd Earl of Käkisalmi" etc.

There are currently 26 peerages in Crypto Kingdom, of which one is the Kingdom itself. Of the others, all 25 are Counties, but 5 are also Duchies. We will not do anything practical with the Duchies just yet. The oldest and most senior peerage is "TVA Duchy" created in 1366 (or probably earlier but this is not verifiable). This is the County in which TMA CryptoTown is located.

How to gain a peerage

Peerage may be gained immediately upon promotion to Earl, but in some cases characters are promoted Earl and need to wait some time to gain peerage. Each holder of peerage may also appoint one Viscount, to practically manage the affairs of the County. While being a Viscount does not directly confer levels or peerage to the appointee, Viscounts without peerage of their own are highly considered to get one in the future.

To get the things rolling, Earls of the past with no peerage are not going to get one in the near future. Instead, we start with the 25 that we already have.

The complete list of peerages is in googleDB /Peerages tab.

Purposes and Vision of the Countryside Module

It is designed long ago that the ratio of peers (landed nobles) to all the population should be about 1:50. It is easiest to think that peers will in the future be reigning over their domain in the same way as the King has done until now, with the number of PC ranging from 2 to 100+.

Each County will have its capital city "Seat", consisting of 1 or more urban boroughs. In addition, the Estates are production centers providing food and raw materials. The seat will be the administrative and cultural centre, habitation of the PC's and place of commerce and manufacturing.

New players will need to select their tribe (County) when they come to the game, and they may switch it later. This will keep the Earls constantly competing for new and existing players. The new player registration page will be modularized so that it can be plugged in to the Earls' other marketing pages where they can funnel players to their County and start to provide for them.

The economy of Counties (pools etc.) will be independent, but with common rules on resource production and consumption. Earls have a say in what kind of economic models to employ in their domains.

Economy of Counties

The county is a corporation account. Its holder may conduct all business as he sees fit. The county is not owned by the holder, though, and therefore it may not be split into shares and sold. It is also not allowed to squander the County resources for personal benefit. It IS allowed to grant the rural and urban land of the County to the holder or anyone else, with or without payment. (To raise the funds for the initialisation, it IS possible to pre-sell the land but the arrangements are at own risk.) It IS allowed to pay a pension to the Earl and the Viscount, in form of money or a resource stream, if the County is making profit. It IS possible to indebt the County if someone (usually you) wants to lend them money, and this must be recorded as a notarized admin-created DEBT instrument (the King hates debt though). These guidelines are intentionally left vague to test the character of the holders and further guidance is given by the King when requested.

In addition to the "County incorporated", each county also will have (a bit later) a pool account. This one is not yet in the Earl's control. Labor payments to the county eg. building, will be deposited to the Pool account and will later provide the dividends in the county. This will be separated later to allow large enough scale. Town pool accounts hold m only, but county pool accounts will diversify a little into CKG, CON and DEP if sufficient liquidity is guaranteed.

Getting Started

We have 5 strains of NPC in the game, and two of them will be allocated to the Countryside completely (for now):

Managerial (ASS-1,2,3; MGR-1,2,3,4,5)
Military (PTE ... COL)

These NPC will have their monetary dividends revoked (SCI will continue). Moving/selling them to the Counties, increases the County preparation capability. These are indispensable, if no managerial talent and show of force is present, the Counties will not submit to your rule.

Specialists (AR-1,2,3; SPE-1,2,3,4,5) may be moved to the Counties and will boost their CUL/SCI production and in addition give other benefits.

Butlers and Chefs (WAI; BUT-2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9; KA; COOK-1,2,3; CHEF-1,2,3,4,5) do not provide special benefit in the Counties and may be best to keep in CryptoTown.

Other Workers (OTH) will become the mainstay of NPC toiling for your county. These and some of the others will become available as new items to be purchased from the market. (OTH will cease to provide money, just work.)

NPC continue to have a 5% risk of death per year. They also promote as previously.

Battle Aquilae (COA-1...COA-27), especially the ones of historical troops, are much revered by the peasants, so attaching one or several to the Army stationed in the County, boosts the pacifying capability a lot.

Counties do not require consumables, rather produce them. The new production of CAN, MUS, VEG, MEAT and FOIE will be phased to be produced almost solely in counties.

Stone will start to be produced in Counties themselves. Because it takes time to get the peasants back into doing it, in the beginning, a maximum of 1,000,000 stone per county per year can be sent to them. It will be consumed in admin schedule and boost the statistics of the county.

Prepaid building labor (S-BLD) is a smart thing to be gained by counties, since it will steadily increase in value, and will be available for conversion to buildings when the module opens.

A "state carriage" (TRC2-x, TRC4-x, TRC6-x) is good to have in County level as well, since it is awed by the peasants.

Most of the other items are not needed yet. We will soon expand the creation of items from IC, so it will be possible to convert and backdate important regalia of the inauguration of the county.

All Science (SCI) gained by the County, will be consumed by admin and converted to preparation.

What is Preparation and what happens then?

Preparation (PRE) is a non-transferable point item that only Counties may have. Upon Admin discretion (planned yearly), the admin checks the progress of the preparations of the County and awards a maximum of 20*PRE. When 100*PRE is gained, the County Seat is inaugurated (1 urban borough). Even before this happens, counties that are pacified and well in preparation, may produce foodstuffs.

As is the custom in B-22 shares, a large amount of new preparation points is more expensive to get than a small amount. Being the 2nd town after CryptoTown in the Kingdom, on the other hand, is a worthy goal...

(Since TVA Duchy already has a seat, it gains preparation but may not have a second town.)

HM The King is so happy that the Kingdom finally is enlarged that he is offering the following Bounties for PRE accumulation:

* In the Quasquibicentennial Jubilee (1625) *
- 500 CKG to the county with highest preparation
- 250 CKG to 2nd highest
- 100 CKG to 3rd highest
- 50 CKG to 4th-6th highest, each

* All Counties that reach 25*PRE in 1630 or earlier *
- 100 CKG at once

* All counties that reach 100*PRE in 1630 or earlier *
- 100 CKG at once.

The gold will be given in historical and/or collectible coins, and we hope it will be augmented to the Treasury of the County, to provide a lasting income stream for the fiefholder. We reserve the right to give more gold as we see fit.

Closing

The Counties should be created shortly. The passwords can be asked from the admins. Please do not change the password as the admins need to be able to access the counties as well. Note that it is possible to conduct the business of the County for now even without logging in, just GIVE all the items that you want and they will automatically yield their benefits.

Corrections and amendments will be in blue.

Physical location and size of the Counties

This will be based on how actively the Counties are developed and how many residents they get. The historical seniority and prominence of the county do not affect much. Duchies also are "grown" of counties, and we of course hope that they get to be developed to be big ones to fit the designation of duchy proper, and to be qualified to "rule over" the surrounding counties.

Guidelines for human resourcing

Managers produce 1-5 "MGN points" according to their level. One MGN point is needed per 5 workers (OTH).
Assistants produce 1-3 "ASS points" according to their level. One ASS point is needed per each manager, and per 5 workers.
Having excess managerial talent is beneficial if properly assisted.
SPE are always and everywhere just good, and do not need MGN/ASS allowance.

Army is divisible to Field officers (COL, LTC, MAJ), Junior officers (CAPT, LT), Non-commissioned officers (MSG, SGT, CPL) and soldiers (PTE). In a functioning Company, each must be present. A standard Company is now defined as follows:
* Commanding Officer (Field Officer)
* Staff (2-4 Field or Junior Officers)
* 2-3 Sections, each with at least 1 seasoned NCO (more is better), and ~10 troops (count includes the NCOs)
* Battle Aquila

The exact size is of course based on need, finances and the availability of personnel. The larger the force, the more important is to have a good commanding officer. In the Ancient times, a COL has been sold for ~400 million. NCO are soldiers with experience, so might become a bottleneck, since they are promoted only slowly. Having a MSG leading a section if possible, is very valuable. NCO cannot be substituted by junior officers.

The horses will be available in the countryside soon. Also Army has their own weapons so no swords etc are needed.

Much in progress

I think the last official Rulebook is from October a year ago, so it's about time to update.

In our new governance logic, there will be a few documents that govern what happens in the game and dictate the rightful relations between the game and the gamers.

Prior notice on what should be expected to happen on certain situations (the "TOS" in the most binding context)

Rulebook (somewhat less strict, but enumerating all the burdens the game institutions have heaped on themselves on the gamer's benefit, and opening up of the main game concepts)

Wiki (a comprehensive, community-made, not authorised, not binding source on everything ingame, "growing from" and expanding the Rulebook)

Tutorial (we seek to have these uptodate but in the end cannot guarantee even that)



Crypto Kingdom Rulebook V.2.0


1. PURPOSE OF THE DOCUMENT

Crypto Kingdom Rulebook v.2.0 attempts to define the central concepts of Crypto Kingdom. The reader is expected to have understood the document "Prior notice on what should be expected to happen on certain situations". This is not an "agreement". The information provided is assumed current at the time of publication. No rights are reserved.


2. CRYPTO KINGDOM

Crypto Kingdom (CK) is an imaginary world, defined as the "State of the World", a dataset listing the status of characters, land, buildings and items. It is used via Interfaces, the one here is Ultima Gaming Platform, but others exist for humans and programs.

Residents (accounts) in CK may own gold (CKG). The owners of CKG choose the Town Council (TC), the body that governs the World in many central aspects:

- Collectively as TC, deciding the Rules of the Game;
- By selecting Mayor, who coordinates the Town Corporation. The Town Corporation is an ingame character with taxing rights;
- By selecting Lead Designer, who coordinates the design of the game and development of Ultima platform, the in-house gaming software;
- By selecting Gamemaster (GM), who coordinates the work of admins, leads the events in the game, and is the final arbiter in "State of the World" disputes;
- King is independent of the Town and has a prominent position, but the rules governing the King are set by the Town.

As of now, the Mayor of CryptoTown is HH SirJacket of North Face, and the other 3 positions are occupied by HM The King (rpietila I of Crypto Kingdom).


3. LIMITATION OF LIABILITY

All characters in CK including the Town and its associates, are responsible for their actions in CK, and may not disclaim liability. Disputes are settled in the judiciary system of CK, with King as the supreme judge.

Outside world has no domain of jurisdiction in the matters of CK, nor CK in those of outside world.


4. INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY OWNERSHIP

All information entered in CK is public domain.


5. CHARACTER

Each character (Player Character, PC) has one account, each player may have many characters and thus accounts. Corporations and similar are characters, but not PC. They likewise have one account each. Do not confuse player (the controller) with character (the CK entity controlled).

Only characters can


Definition

Attributes and Traits

Skills (Personal, Labor, Management, Military, Scientific, Victory)

Levels

Character attributes are properties which increase the player bonding to the character, and/or enable customization to create a character that gets a head start towards a certain play style. A points system will be used for customization to ensure variety and fair start for non-depositing players. The price of points will rise exponentially to allow rich players to get good start but make it expensive. (This is fair because they are anyway able to spend their money to give them advantages, so the price will just be balanced with the other opportunities.)

Attributes are largely unchangeable during the lifetime of the character.

1.1.1.2. General

Age
Can be 15-50. It is somewhat difficult to balance this because older characters have realistically earned their Masters, and are therefore capable to earn much money immediately, which is a call to character farmers who spawn free characters and earn 2 XMR per week with 10 minutes' work until they die in 3 weeks, and start over. This is not desired. Perhaps allow more than 30 years age only for depositors, or make higher age a kind of slow play where the character does not have much skills, but also starts with much better health than the age peers many of whom are dead already.

Sex
I don't know what to make of it. 95% of players are and will be men. Perhaps an unrealistic choice of completely disregarding the effects of gender on everything?


CHARACTER LEVELS

Character level is an inherent and non-transferable property of a character. Only PC have a levels system, all corporations and other non-PC share the common level L0. A new player starts generally at level L1/L2 and may advance all the way to L20. Upon death, the character becomes Estate, which is a corporation, so the level also drops to L0. In HoF, the character retains the level he had at death. It is possible (but has never happened) that a character is demoted in level.

Town promotes Commoner levels up to L9 Grand Wizard. The promotion of Nobles is King's privilege only. King chooses his successor. The current Prince Royal is HRH The Archduke Zechariah of CK, played by the same as King. Below is a list of levels and their meanings.

Commoners - skill levels
L1 Visitor
L2 Stranger
L3 Beginner
L4 Novice
L5 Expert
L6 Master

Most new players start their game in L1-L2 range. The levels system is designed so as to offer a progression through skill/experience-based ranking from Beginner to Master in the normal lifetime of a commoner (age at start 15, life expectancy 45, so 30 weeks of play). Characters who do not receive external money (free players) should generally be able to reach L5 Expert or L6 Master before the character dies. The progress through these levels may be faster with active play.

Commoners - bonus levels
L7 Wizard
L8 Doctor
L9 Grand Wizard

Commoner bonus levels are for those commoners who play extraordinarily well. Since it takes long time active play to reach these levels, the characters are often old when this happens. L7 Wizard (actual title may be different) is a level for those excelling in artesan or related skills. L8 Doctor is for those excelling in knowledge and science. L9 Grand Wizard is for the actual magi, the demigods who enjoy independent gamemastery privileges in full harmony with the world.

Minor nobles
L10 Jungherr
L11 Knight
L12 Baronet
L13 Baron

L10 Jungherr is any noble who is not yet 21 years old. L11 Knight is a level for those who have been Knighted in some or the Orders, or for other reasons. In the past, officers were Knighted. King has promised to promote to Knight all who reach 250 years of age. L12 Baronet is true to its historical equivalent, a buyable level costing 100 XMR. L13 Baron is the level in the "normal career path" for commoners. Typically prominent merchants, landowners and gold owners are promoted to Baron directly from L6 Master, skipping all the levels in between since they are special levels for special occasions. All the other minor nobles also mature towards Baron.

Landed nobles
L14 Earl
L15 Marquess
L16 Prince

The landed nobles (LN) are the aristocracy of CK. As the name suggests, the LN hold fiefdom over the territories of CK (the Rural Land). This brings to them many responsibilities, especially after the Countryside module (in development). The qualification to be promoted Earl is being a long-term player and capable to take responsibility. L15 Marquess and L16 Prince are "only" honor-levels of Earls, with the most magnificent promoted after a long service. It is notable that Earldom is hereditary, so once you reach this level in one character, when it dies, you are entitled to retain the level. Lesser noble levels (or any other levels) are not hereditary. L16 holders have honorary address HE (His Excellency), which others may have in rare occasions only (YE, Your Excellency, when addressing directly). "Viscount" is a functional title, not a level, but can be regarded as being above Baron and below Earl. Even commoners may hold Viscounty if appointed by an Earl.

Dukes
17 Duke
18 Grand Duke

Dukes are promoted from levels L14-L16. The promotion is not based on absolute magnificence but on need for Kingdom administration. Therefore it is possible to become a Duke as a leap-promotion (skipping eg. Prince). L18 Grand Duke is the highest non-royal level, with the most senior of Dukes occupying it. Dukes are addressed HH (His Highness).

Royal
19 Archduke
20 King

L19 Archduke is reserved for the heir/s to the throne. It is a Royal level and addressed HRH (His Royal Highness). There may be several Archdukes whose order of succession is determined by edict. There may only be one L20 King (HM The King, His Majesty). When the King dies or abdicates, the first in succession becomes King and it is customary to seek Town affirmation for the act.

The practical importance of the levels is linear only inside a category, not across the whole system. The commoner bonus levels (L7-L9) overlap with the minor nobles (L10-L13), Princes (L16) are often wealthier than Dukes (L17), and Archdukes (L19) are only designated such based on the succession. The guiding principle in promoting commoners is skill. Barons are promoted based on wealth. Earls based on responsibility. Marquesses and Princes based on culture and gold. Dukes based on continuity of the game.



1.1.4. Decorations

1.1.4.1. Definition

Decorations are signs of achievement, and can be added to your full title. They often include the token as well, which is separate from the decoration. The decoration may not be transferred and dies with the character (though some are hereditary and passed in practice with the player, and others can be recreated when the previous holder dies.

1.1.4.2. Badges

Badges are signs of achievements, and range from easy (which will be awarded to everyone in their first year) to very hard (of which only a few exist in the Kingdom). They are always accompanied with copper tokens with badge type, minting year and no other parameters, so will become an interesting thing to collect (both the decorations, and the tokens) because of cheap price and large selection.

Existing "set of 6" badges that are currently unique items, will be converted to the new format, and the COT copper tokens that physically look like badges, as well.

1.1.4.3. Medals

Medals differ physically from badges in that they are larger (copper: 50 g as opposed to 15 g), or made of precious metals, and are often minted to commemorate a certain event and can only be gained by participating in that event. Some medals include a decoration, others don't. MG-5 is a coveted medal that has the "MG-5" or "Medal of the Game, 5th class" decoration, but physically it is 50 grams of bronze. Some other medal might be 50 gram of gold but has no meaning in the decoration sense. "King's Hero Medal" is 50 gram of gold, and a decoration awarded to only 4 characters in the whole game.

Medals will be opened so that not only they can be minted by anyone against a fee, the "decoration part" giving authority will be given to Earls and certain institutions (Church, University), to be used wisely.

1.1.4.4. Titles

No changes. Titles do not usually include a token.

1.1.4.5. Honors

No changes.

1.1.4.6. Orders

No changes. These will be rejuvenated, with not much practical meaning but they add status to whom it is due.




5. ASSETS

"Assets" refers to all contents of CK world which can be transferred ingame and thus "owned". These are Urban Land titles and Items.

Urban Land Title registry is part of the State of the World. Before acquiring Urban Land, it is important to check the local terms of the title. In general, GM events (such as war) can not affect the ownership of land, and the local administration does not hold eminent domain over it. There may still be mandatory taxes or building restrictions, and the refusal or inability to pay taxes may lead to loss of the land.

Items ownership is a transfer registry, similarly part of the State of the World. Items are subject to wear and destruction. Gamemaster may adjust the properties of items, add and delete items, and the value of items that is determined in the open market may change as a result of these changes.

Gold ownership is specially protected. More cannot be created at will by anyone, and gold can never be subject to tax or encumbrance, does not wear, cannot be stolen, etc.

Private depositories hold non-game virtual goods such as cryptocurrencies in proven storage and emit depository shares ingame so that the value of the shares is backed by and often convertible to the non-game assets they hold outside of the game. Using such depositories or holding their shares is at player's own risk. The ingame value of such depository shares depends on events outside CK domain, including embezzlement, hack, theft and seizure of the funds in deposit.

Town does not guarantee the market value of any item. Institutions ingame are responsible according to their respective TOS for the promises they make for their offerings, and will be prosecuted for breaches of contract.


6. TERMINATION AND SUSPENSION OF ACCOUNT

Each character has one account, each player may have many characters and thus accounts.

The account will be terminated as an administrative procedure if:
- A few weeks neglect makes the character starve to death, after which the heir inherits the assets of the character. If death happened intestate, there is a 1 month grace period for the account holder to manage the estate of the deceased with original account. After this, the Town escheats the assets.
If you lose the password and have not entered any recovery information, this is what happens.

The account will be terminated as a punitive measure if:
- The character is convicted of Treason, and in major or repeated cases of Felony. Treason is defined as a wilful act, attempt or plot to undermine, corrupt, damage, compromise etc. of the CK's, (State of the) World's, Town's, King's, etc rule-bound authority, integrity or function. In addition to terminating the account, the character may be sentenced to death, and before that lose all assets and decorations.
- Illegal immigrants may be expelled without warning. Illegal immigration means mass character farming, especially if characters are bot-controlled, but only with proof that it is done for the purpose of monetary gain rather than to enjoy the game.

The account may be suspended (temporarily blocked):
- As a warning or punishment for Misdemeanor or Felony.
- As a safety measure if there is reason to believe an identity theft has occurred.
- If the account is used to flood the system or other similar activity.
- If the character is under investigation or trial for Felony or Treason "arrest". In this case the character will be kept alive by Town-appointed health manager at the character's expense and released if found not guilty or if the verdict does not include termination.


7. DISRUPTION IN THE STATE OF THE WORLD; DISCONTINUING THE GAME

CK is designed to run perpetually, which is evident from its robust governance model and data structure, and having perpetual rules such as the gold generation script, which cannot be changed by any power inside or outside the game ever, and perpetual rights, such as the right to receive 100,000 m weekly per each consol item forever.

It is possible still that 1) hosting the state of the world becomes difficult due to eg. disruptions in Internet traffic or compartmentalization of the Internet, or 2) several key administrators disappear at once and Town management capability thus suffers, or 3) a data corruption attack has despite all precautions managed to corrupt the game state during extended time, or 4) a similar event.

There are very elaborate procedures that will be activated if such events occur occurs, too lengthy to be listed here. The short version is:

If anyone is willing to play CK, it continues to exist, and if no one is, it still continues to exist in dormancy, ready to be resumed, unless all memory of it is irrevocably destroyed. It is just imagination anyway - information in public domain.

In the case of CK, nobody reserves the right to discontinue the hosting of the game and cancel your account for no reason, and keep all your stuff. Rather, it is everybody's right to continue the hosting of the game, and your right to keep your stuff.




1.2. NPC

It is possible that the current NPC will need a reorganization once again, so that they will supply the bulk of the labor to the market during the time the PC are insufficient. The "owners" will get the money.

1.3. Corp

No changes.

2. Land

2.1. General

2.2. Urban land

2.2.1. Subdivision

No changes.

2.3. Rural land

Rural land is held as a fief from the King, so the nominal owner is the (corporation) County of county_name, which is managed by the Earl (or his subordinate, Viscount). Possibly the country map will be left uncovered, not because it is technically hard to do it, but because changing it is difficult and we do not yet have enough information how best to make it. The Counties do not exist in definite physical locations, rather their parameters are general, including distance to CryptoTown and whether road exists. Economy will be simplified at this stage, but food production will largely move there, and building in the county center is possible.

3. Buildings

3.1. Structures

We will start to have important previously vaguely implemented concepts such as rural roads. They will be mapped.

3.2. Buildings with floor area

3.2.1. Preface

3.2.2. Datatype

3.2.3. Wood buildings

3.2.4. Modular Stone Buildings

3.2.5. Custom Stone Buildings


4. Game concepts

4.1. Labor

4.1.1. General

The economy takes Labor as an indispensable input in every quite many transformation process (eg. making vegetables from a field, or hunting deer, or keeping a large palace tidy). Labor is converted from time, and sold to the market where business owners buy it, or spent in your own businesses as is the case of small farms.

There are many types of labor, and when time is converted to a certain type, all bonuses are applied. Therefore, labor units are fungible despite the infinite number of different skill sets the characters have.

4.1.2. Types of Labor

We seek to have approximately the same number of labors as there are skills, but they don't map exactly. Several skills may boost the same type of labor effectiveness, and some skills are not labor skills. Further, certain skills when practiced to perfection, enable a higher detail skill as a bonus in higher levels. The possessor of this can choose to do the high detail work if it is available, but still has the lower skill as well as a backup.


TIME

The game started in year A.D. 1400 (2014-10-10). The current era is early 1600s, with the time directly corresponding to outside world time as follows:

- Year changes every week (week changes between Sunday and Monday UTC).
- 2016-1-4 is the first month of A.D. 1621.
- The 7 weekdays of outside world correspond to 7 months in CK named (January, March, May, July, September, November, December).
- Each month has 24 days, each day 24 hours, 60 minutes each.
- Timestamps are in outside world time, easily convertible if needed.

GAME HISTORY AND ERAS

The earliest period of the game as it was played, is called Ancient Era. Its beginnings are vague, but its ending is clear: A.D. 1599 is the final year of Ancient Era. No item may be backdated to Ancient Era nor gain the attribute Ancient, if it was not implemented to the DB at the close of the Ancient Era (2015-3). The Ancient Era is after-the-fact divisible to sub-eras such as:

Very Ancient (-1399)
The game was not playable so only some "childhood items" remain (~200 in total)

Most Ancient (1400-1500)

- Pre-CryptoTown (1400-1429) the game existed only as an ownership roll, with no town present
- Early Town (1430-1450) first buildings, golden jubilee
- Jousting (1451-1499) building of citadel, olden days town life in 1-C

Ancient (1500-1599)

- Classical (1500-1519) expansion to 1-E
- Trust in Economy (1520-1549) building of 2-C , opening of B.2, B.3
- Great Depression (1550-1564)
- Cultural (1565-1599) growth in every possible way, B.4, B.5, B.7

Economy (1600-present)

- Turmoil (1600) earthquake, cold, deaths, long year
- Reconstruction (1600-1610) earthquake rebuilt, great plague, B.6, B.8, B.9
- Unnamed (1611-present)








From Version 4: Economy (2015-1-18), gold is created to the players of the game regardless of level or possessions, roughly in proportion to their time spent online (inactivity does not count, and actual receiving of the gold requires solving of a captcha). Approximately $0.025 worth of gold will be created per hour played.

Gold is an income-producing asset, regardless of the form how the character chooses to keep it (in coins, jewelry, clothes, roofplates, ...).

The dividend is game-biennial (every 2 years; in real-time it means: once per day in Ancient era, once per every 24 days from Version 4: Economy). In the Ancient era the income is in the form of stone; from Economy onwards, it will be a share of the Town council surplus.


City
Borough
The city consists of a number of Boroughs (currently: 1, and it is expected that maximum 1 other will be opened during the Ancient era). The boroughs are located near each other but not immediately connecting. A borough is 450x300 meters in size.
Chapelry
One borough is subdivided into 9 chapelries (3x3 of them in a borough). This is the area that will fit into the city view screen in the coming mobile version.
Quadrat
A Quadrat (q) is a square of 10x10 meters. Each Chapelry has 10x15 = 150 quadrats. It is the smallest unit of land that can form or be part of a Lot.
Lot
A lot is a continuous area of one or more quadrats, belonging to the same owner, inside one chapelry. The real estate registry, and therefore trades, are made by lot, which includes everything built on it.
Building
A Building must fit into one lot (adjoining buildings are allowed only according to administrator decision). It has a building year and several parameters.
Apartment
An Apartment is a part of the building that has one or more Rooms, so that they are connected with each other by doors, and there is a door leading out (to a space connected to a public road via a route not requiring going to another apartment) from at least one of the rooms. The rental contracts are made by apartment.
Room
An area enclosed by wall and ceiling and having a door. Living rooms are good to have a window also. Outside spaces such as gardens of the house are also technically treated as rooms.

In the later versions of the game, a room is the place where characters are located, and the characters in the same room can converse with each other.
City map and Building

Haw
The Nobles (Barons or higher) created in the ancient time are entitled to have a Haw in the town area. The significance of a haw is that there are:
- no building restrictions (except the ones dictated by the rules - physical limits and height limit) - and the property tax (instituted in Economy or later) is waived.

The haws are inside a created borough, but (may be) outside of the city walled area. They need therefore to be walled at the expense of the owner. The King grants the haws at the noble's request. One noble is entitled to one Haw, and it must be walled on the gameyear it is granted, by a wall minimum 3 m high. If it is adjoining a wall minimum 3 m high, that side need not be walled.

It is not intended that the building land itself is a limited resource. However, centrally located, Ancient, or nicely developed land will command a much higher price than partially developed boroughs. The city will expand to every direction from the initial borough.

The minimum price of land in the aftermarket can be derived from the public infrastructure (perimeter wall and roads). In the Ancient era, it is forbidden to build in any spaces that are not enclosed by a wall at least 3 meters high and 1 meter thick.  If we consider that a chapelry (150 q) is walled around its outer perimeter with a wall, and 50 q of its area consists of roads or is reserved for the future public buildings, the money expended on this development, depending on the exact quality of the wall, makes the building land worth 2-3.5 XMR per quadrat.




GOVERNANCE

The World can be classified to consist of three types of entities:

- Kingdoms utilizing CK principles but doing it in an incompatible way as to not allow cooperation (0 exist)

- Kingdoms utilizing CK principles in a way that allows foreign trade and relations (0 exist)

Since these entities exist in their own servers, it is clear that Crypto Kingdom does not have any jurisdiction over them.

- Crypto Kingdom.

Inside Crypto Kingdom, there will soon by Counties, which reside in the common database but are in most respects including economic model, very independent. Operating a County requires promotion to Lx Earl, or being appointed by one.

THE MOST ANCIENT CORPORATION OF THE TOWN OF CRYPTOTOWN

Who has the gold, makes the rules.

The highest decision maker in Crypto Kingdom is the Town Council, who are selected by the holders of component resource gold, CKG (component resource is embedded in the items, so no matter what items are held, they all count as votes).

The number of seats in the Town council depends on how much CKG there is in the game:
1,000,000 - 1,999,999                        => 6
2,000,000 - 3,999,999                        => 7
4,000,000 - 7,999,999                        => 8
and so on, doubling the CKG leads to one more seat existing in the council.

Seats will be filled with willing candidates that have the highest amount of gold backing them. Elections are periodical. The members of the Town council are called Councillors, who select a Mayor among them.

Town council has the authority to decide the rules of the game.
Town council is responsible for the costs of development of the game.

Town council appoints the Mayor to coordinate its activities and run the Town.

Town council appoints the Gamemaster to

Town council appoints the personnel necessary to design and develop the game, including Lead Designer and Lead Developer.

Town council



Administrator
Administrator refers to any person, program, or character that is administering the game functions.



FEUDALISM

KING

King has claimed all the land in Crypto Kingdom (an area much larger than the effective sphere of influence currently). All the Earls+ are required to make an oath of subservience to the King, in return of which they get the land as fief. Especially, the King is by birth the Duke of the Very Ancient Duchy, the area in which the habitation of CryptoTown is located. There is a deal in force that the King is bound to surrender land to the Town upon the latter's request for the expansion of the town, and be compensated 4,500 million per borough. (The town has in turn pledged to sell it to the highest bidder, and the unbid land listed for sale at double the price paid to the King.)

King is the Fount of Honor, and in this role he is the only one to grant Nobility (levels Lx Jungherr to L19 Archduke). He is the grandmaster (or equivalent) in most Orders of Chivalry, although some exist by Royal Prerogative and may appoint characters on their own.

King is the Supreme Justice in ingame grievancies. While the dispute resolution system in CK is in the state of case law, King decides what is right, or appoints the Tribunals and vests the powers upon them.


DUCHIES

COUNTIES

TRIBES AND GUILDS




The Ancient Order of the King
The Ancient Order of the King (AOK) is a monarchic chivalric order established in 1418, with a limited membership of 24 characters. The membership is hereditary (exact rules on how this happens, will be introduced in Version 7: Family and Lineage). Therefore, after reaching the maximum number of members, new members can only be introduced in the rare case of an existing member is displumed (stripped of the honor due to grave offences) or if he dies childless (effectively discontinues playing the game).

The reigning King is the Grandmaster of the order (AOK-GM). Other ranks are:
Commander (AOK-C), minimum level L11 Marquis
Sergeant (AOK-S), minimum level L10 Earl
Knight (AOK-K), minimum level L8 Knight.

The award of AOK is accompanied by gifts from the King.
The Medal of the Game
The Medal of the Game (MG) is awarded by the Town council for "Developing the Game". It is hereditary and can be awarded in 5 classes:
1st class - may be awarded earliest when the game has 100,000 characters
2nd class
3rd class
4th class
5th class.
Badges
Badges are awarded automatically for ingame activities. They are not hereditary.

First builder (FBB) - only 20 awarded for first characters to build anything (one per char)
Castlebuilder (CB) - for building a castle (a building in min. 4 q lot enclosed by wall)
Homebuilder (HB) - when the character builds his first own house.
Order of wear
The King determines the order of wear of the honors, medals and badges, which currently is:

AOK-GM
MG-1
AOK-C
MG-2
AOK-S
MG-3
AOK-K
MG-4
MG-5
FBB
CB
HB.

The game thread in Bitcointalk (highly recommended read daily for active play):
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/crypto-kingdom-1991-retro-virtual-worldcity-819073

The game IRC channel is (will be moved to ingame "trollboxes" starting Version 2: Ancients):
#crypto-kingdom @ irc.freenode.net

The Characters & Resources Database: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1tgIzgMza7NQsTpMO9pHke1ZVXYH7l5Sj5bHdZHItivo/edit?usp=sharing

Buildings getting closer...


Current thinking is to move buildings to become a very abstracted datatype. Why?

Because we will have the skills, and the items, and the factories, and maybe NPC, and all these things that in real life also are the real grantors of bonuses and factors of production. Building is after all just walls.

So the most ruthless idea is to get rid of buildings as a datatype altogether! 

Before condemning the idea, let's start with explaining that in the history, they were rather late to be implemented in the first place. Actually just 10 years ago, when the game was already paused. Before that, the bonuses were assigned by Lot, of course containing the buildings.

We already decided to move to this direction with the Wood buildings (which only have 1 individual parameter, repair%), and this move was applauded by all who opened their mouth.

So why not make the Lot contain a certain pile of stone and other materials, with the Building payouts just calculated from this?

Later on, when visualization comes, the approximation that has so far served as a building, will become a comprehensible one, and excess and deficient stone etc. will be handled at that point.

The Lot would have a "focus of production" tentatively as:

- Cultural institution (mostly CUL)
- Scientific institution (mostly SCI)
- Rental property (mostly money)
- Residence (gets payout as a cultural institution + same bonuses as the wood buildings (without need to build them).
- Production (needed to make certain items, no/low other bonus)

This would greatly simplify things and cause a building boom, while retaining the "dormant data" such as knowledge of the looks of the historical buildings.

I am playing with the idea of reducing the building data (in the Lot datatype) to the following fields (please add for ones you believe should be added):

- stonecount
- windowcount

- Location desirability (is already a Lot-specific field)
- Luxury (would now directly affect more since some soft correlating data is scrapped)
- Sqm (room height comes automatically as the stone/sqm is constant, and larger buildings have larger rooms)
- Unbuilt sqm (lot size would add to the benefit as it does now)
- Focus of production (CUL and SCI would have fixed payouts, rental is a pool)

With potentially some modifiers to add to the historical value of some lots, which cannot be compensated just by their location (or just bump their location really high).

The characters may "go to a long trip", "be exiled", "die naturally", or "be convicted and executed".

The account may be terminated with or without right of inheritance.

Felony is any ingame act that would result in prison time if done IRL, such as murder, theft, fraud; and also the stuff that other services prohibit in TOS.


In the same time, the English have just learned to write, and address their king with 3 different honorifics in the same text. Merely behaving like the English do, is not a reason to be put to death.


LOL. Highness is still a respectful address, eg. I haven't addressed anyone IRL as "highness". I know "excellences" such as ambassadors and cabinet ministers (who in Finland cough their coffee if addressed such) but no highnesses that I am aware.

Also, commoners of course need to abide by the laws of the land, but their status is not that they are sworn servants of the King as nobles are. The higher you go, the more loyal to the King you must be in word and deed.


Hacking any account counts. Because it is resorting to out-of-our-world powers to wilfully cause damage to SotW, so it is witchcraft as well, and burning at stake might be a good punishment.


If such happened in our case let's say in a battle, rules say that an archer may have 3 arrows only. After he finishes them, I charge towards in an attempt to finish him, but he shoots me dead with a 4th arrow. In this care it is simply checked if there was an unintended exploit that led to the violation of rules (in which case the move is declared illegal and he dies instead), or if the rules allowed for an unthought-of exploit, in which case I remain dead for taking stupid risks.


I am not a wizard, I am short, medium-handsome, weak in health, bad agility, medium dexterity, high intelligence, bad swordsman, bad rider, does not know any hand trades, strong in all science and culture. Some guys have superpowers but not HM The King.

I think the majority of the rules seem clear. However, I would like to see the above quote clarified (Felony especially), due to the severity of the punishment; after all, the character/account is put to death!

For example, when I first joined the IRC-channel, I kept referring to the King as "Your Highness" (I thought from some references that this might be proper). I was soon corrected, that I should be using "Your Majesty", as only this would be proper for the King.

If the King was having a bad day, would this count as "Strike #1 in Felony" for Syksy as an attempt to undermine/corrupt King's authority? It was a sincere mistake, and a very extreme example (I sure hope King didn't mark down one for me...), but above rules is a bit vague still on this aspect. Is roleplaying in a clumsy manner enough to undermine King's authority and integrity, or does it only refer to attempts to e.g. hack King's account, impersonate the King etc? I think I got the definition of "Treason", but "Felony" (which would result in "Treason" if done multiple times) in particular is still unclear to me.



As an interesting further reading, here's an oldie but goodie "Top 5 memorable events in MMOs": http://lorehound.com/news/top-5-most-memorable-events-in-mmorpg-history/, and in particular #1 out of Ultima Online is interesting in relation to CK.

Richard Garriot, the creator of the famous Ultima RPG series, had a reincarnation (Lord British) inside Ultima Online MMO in late 1990s (1997 in this example). During a public speech, he was assassinated using a bug, while the character was normally flagged as invulnerable by definition. The bug abuser was banned due to multiple accounts of bug abusing, but still this serves as an interesting example of how authority could be undermined using game's own mechanics, though in this case it was through an unintended feature.

The King could be in my opinion be kind of compared how Lord British reincarnated in Ultima Online. He was both a developer as well as a player (albeit with "superpowers" in UO case).

On the usefulness of patents:

PRIOR NOTICE ON WHAT SHOULD BE EXPECTED TO HAPPEN ON CERTAIN SITUATIONS
("TERMS OF USE")

PLEASE READ THIS NOTICE CAREFULLY BEFORE PROCEEDING. IF YOU CREATE ACCOUNT AND USE CRYPTO KINGDOM, IT IS LIKELY THAT THIS INFORMATION WILL PROVE HELPFUL.


INTRODUCTION

Crypto Kingdom (CK) is an imaginary world, defined as the "State of the World", a dataset listing the status of characters, land, buildings and items. It is used via Interfaces, the one here is Ultima Gaming Platform, but others exist for humans and programs.

This is no "agreement" between you and "CK", because both are ineligible to make a binding agreement at this very juncture.

"Town" is the ingame government of CK. It is chosen by players who own gold (CKG). Its jurisdiction in CK world is summarized as "Who has the gold, makes the rules." CK itself is just the world, in which the jurisdiction of the Town is supreme and enforceable. Because CK is only the world, and Town is only an entity inside CK, there is no counterparty who would have the authority to represent CK in any outside world matter.

CK also does not require you to agree - each one will reap the rewards and punishments of his actions regardless of prior agreement. The primitive laws of CK world are based on common sense and good conduct, and the more advanced ones apply to those who are in a position to understand them.

It is not mandatory to enter any personal data, but lost passwords cannot be retrieved without having some.


LIMITATION OF LIABILITY

All characters in CK including the Town and its associates, are responsible for their actions in CK, and may not disclaim liability. Disputes are settled in the judiciary system of CK, with King as the supreme judge.

Outside world has no domain of jurisdiction in the matters of CK, nor CK in those of outside world.


INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY OWNERSHIP

All information entered in CK is public domain.


ASSETS

"Assets" refers to all contents of CK world which can be transferred ingame and thus "owned". These are Urban Land titles and Items.

Urban Land Title registry is part of the State of the World. Before acquiring Urban Land, it is important to check the local terms of the title. In general, gamemaster events (such as war) can not affect the ownership of land, and the local administration does not hold eminent domain over it. There may still be mandatory taxes or building restrictions, and the refusal or inability to pay taxes may lead to loss of the land.

Items ownership is a transfer registry, similarly part of the State of the World. Items are subject to wear and destruction. Gamemaster may adjust the properties of items, add and delete items, and the value of items that is determined in the open market may change as a result of these changes.

Gold ownership is specially protected. More cannot be created at will by anyone, and gold can never be subject to tax or encumbrance, does not wear, cannot be stolen, etc.

Private depositories hold non-game virtual goods such as cryptocurrencies in proven storage and emit depository shares ingame so that the value of the shares is backed by and often convertible to the non-game assets they hold outside of the game. Using such depositories or holding their shares is at player's own risk. The ingame value of such depository shares depends on events outside CK domain, including embezzlement, hack, theft and seizure of the funds in deposit.

Town does not guarantee the market value of any item. Institutions ingame are responsible according to their respective TOS for the promises they make for their offerings, and will be prosecuted for breaches of contract.


TERMINATION AND SUSPENSION OF ACCOUNT

Each character has one account, each player may have many characters and thus accounts.

The account will be terminated as an administrative procedure if:
- A few weeks neglect makes the character starve to death, after which the heir inherits the assets of the character. If death happened intestate, there is a 1 month grace period for the account holder to manage the estate of the deceased with original account. After this, the Town escheats the assets.
If you lose the password and have not entered any recovery information, this is what happens.

The account will be terminated as a punitive measure if:
- The character is convicted of Treason, and in major or repeated cases of Felony. Treason is defined as a wilful act, attempt or plot to undermine, corrupt, damage, compromise etc. of the CK's, (State of the) World's, Town's, King's, etc rule-bound authority, integrity or function. In addition to terminating the account, the character may be sentenced to death, and before that lose all assets and decorations.
- Illegal immigrants may be expelled without warning. Illegal immigration means mass character farming, especially if characters are bot-controlled, but only with proof that it is done for the purpose of monetary gain rather than to enjoy the game.

The account may be suspended (temporarily blocked):
- As a warning or punishment for Misdemeanor or Felony.
- As a safety measure if there is reason to believe an identity theft has occurred.
- If the account is used to flood the system or other similar activity.
- If the character is under investigation or trial for Felony or Treason "arrest". In this case the character will be kept alive by Town-appointed health manager at the character's expense and released if found not guilty or if the verdict does not include termination.


DISRUPTION IN THE STATE OF THE WORLD; DISCONTINUING THE GAME

CK is designed to run perpetually, which is evident from its robust governance model and data structure, and having perpetual rules such as the gold generation script, which cannot be changed by any power inside or outside the game ever, and perpetual rights, such as the right to receive 100,000 m weekly per each consol item forever.

It is possible still that 1) hosting the state of the world becomes difficult due to eg. disruptions in Internet traffic or compartmentalization of the Internet, or 2) several key administrators disappear at once and Town management capability thus suffers, or 3) a data corruption attack has despite all precautions managed to corrupt the game state during extended time, or 4) a similar event.

There are very elaborate procedures that will be activated if such events occur occurs, too lengthy to be listed here. The short version is:

If anyone is willing to play CK, it continues to exist, and if no one is, it still continues to exist in dormancy, ready to be resumed, unless all memory of it is irrevocably destroyed. It is just imagination anyway - information in public domain.

In the case of CK, nobody reserves the right to discontinue the hosting of the game and cancel your account for no reason, and keep all your stuff. Rather, it is everybody's right to continue the hosting of the game, and your right to keep your stuff.


CLOSING WORD

Regardless or not whether you "hereby understand that you are solely responsible for your own conduct, and the decision to continue to play CK is yours, and any issues arising from that will be handled between you and the relevant third parties in the CK world as they pertain to CK, and between you and the relevant third parties in the outside world, as they pertain to the outside world", so will it happen.


DECISION

* I want to enter into Crypto Kingdom

* I do not want to enter into Crypto Kingdom

One additional way that quite many games use, is through Daily Quests that have some nice little rewards.
From a pool of readily made (eligible) quests like: (i): Make a market transaction; (ii): Build a wooden building; (iii): Gamble; (iv) Use the GIVE-command; (v) ...
game would offer a new random quest each day and add it to the player's pool of daily quests. Each player would have a maximum pool size of 3 to 7 quests - so if you don't log in within 3 days or 7 days and complete these dailies you'll be losing on "free money". This is quite an easy way to give new players something as a reward for their loyalty and dedication towards the game, even for freebies. Additionally, the psychological positive effect of getting something done and even a minor reward may be huge.

Hardcore gamers will quickly notice that dailies are not enough to gain momentum properly and seek additional ways, while more casual players would be happy about such a possibility catered for them.

I would guess that if space is not a concern, there will be a default 3D rendering, situated on the land with some simple logic.

If the space is very cramped, it might not be allowed to build so much by the Modulator, or at least in the rendering phase it will need to be custom handwork to fit the lot.

I don't believe the game attempts to charge for this but if manual rendering is involved, someone uses his precious time to enter the coordinates, which comes at the owner's expense.

This is great. 

When we move to 3d rendering, will we be able to renovate modular stone buildings? And if so, do you think there will be any cost associated with the renovation (I'm talking of a voxel for voxel renovation for aesthetic reasons)?

Building in the Coming Incarnation

This module will be implemented right after the current DB logic rewrite, EXP/Tutorial, and Health Challenge (2 weeks). As for Stone buildings, building will be enabled as soon as I manage the datatype ready, in a few days.

Basics

Building master will be moved to Ultima from its current residence in google sheets. After this move, google sheets will not contain any of the master data.

All buildings will utilize a uniform datatype for their game effects.

Buildings will be able to be built on lots on your ownership only. Rental to other PC will not be enabled. This decision is taken to add "ownership" to the game from the first day.

Buildings come in 3 classes of importance: wooden, stone-modular and stone-custom buildings. These differ in the real effort to build them. Wooden buildings are completely scripted with predefined parameters. Modular stone buildings generate their effects from the script but require raw materials etc. to build. Heritage buildings are similar to our current buildings requiring complete voxelcounts for stone and at least the information how to implement the building in the future 3D.

1. Wooden Buildings

Wooden buildings can be built to a lot in a loosely predetermined order (some require another building to be built before them). They give bonus to the owner of the lot if the lot is designated to be his primary residence. Owning several lots with wooden buildings in them does not have any further effect. Only one of each type may be built.

The current and near-final list of the wooden buildings (list will perhaps be expanded for buildings/effects that suit Noble residence purposes, but let's not care about that now). Many of the proposed effects were reduced to simplify the gameplay and cut short the dev implementation time.

The residence brings major bonuses to the game. If fully built, it will require a 390 sqm lot, have 260 built-sqm in 3 floors, cost 33.7 mil, require complete renovation after (no less than) 20 years, and produce the following bonuses:

2 Major and 2 Minor Health Bonuses (easier health challenge)
3 Skills Bonuses (effect accumulates until Skills are implemented)
REL bonus
8*CUL, 8*IC, 1*SCI
800,000 m income
200*VEG and reduces spoilage
100*MEAD
60*MEAT
100*CAN
Fits 2 horses

(If you wonder about CAN, it is a new consumable in the series of CAN, CIG, MUS, AYA in increasing potency, towards Wisdom and Understanding. Health effects are unproven at present.)

1.1. Conversion/grading of existing stone residences

Current residences will be graded for the Wood Building bonuses, and receive the ones that are fair, for free. It is somewhat unclear if it is possible to allow the actual building of new wood buildings to a lot already containing stone buildings, because the footprint of the stone buildings is undetermined.

Large residential buildings and Non-residential buildings will be graded for their pool shares in a system similar as before. They will not be customizable after the grading, until some further update to the whole system.

Here it is important to mention that stone buildings have a near-constant yield, so it does not matter how many or few you own. The wood buildings have overall (much) higher yield, and have the tendency of decreasing yield the more you build (some are better than the others). This is to make the game speed higher in the early commoner stage, and the total yield capped to a good sustenance level nevertheless.

2. Modular Stone

Stone building differs from wood building in a few major respects:
- 2-5 times more expensive per sqm to build
- Depreciate much slower
- Building requires amassing resources
- Can be used for other purposes than basic residence
- Can contain luxuries and facades.

Modular stone buildings are built using a calculator that ignores the actual looks and floor arrangement of the building, and lets the builder customize according to resource usage or intended effects. The calculator may be in an external source (or a 3rd party developed module) but its resulting building can be built using command BUILD and giving the parameters that the calculator produced.

3. Custom Stone

This is similar to the way building was in the early stages of the game, when yields/effects were negotiated with the gamemaster. We will have the need for custom benefits in the future as well, so this is important to keep. Another reason to build custom buildings is aesthetics, you can build whatever pleases your eye. In ingame cost terms, custom is no more expensive than modular, but in real-world costs, custom requires a lot of time to think about, BI cost, and a possible architect cost as well.

4. Designer's Notes

I am quite satisfied with the intricacies of the Health Challenge and its hoped-for effect in increasing the player identification to the character.

Now after quite some thoughtwork which was not even fun always (the constraints were many, and uncertain, at the same time, and this module has already caused huge unnecessary work due to difficulty of matching the effects, the data and the datatype), I believe the new Buildings will kill many flies at one time, and make the game an even stronger contender in the segment of Farmville players as well, and at the same time not burdening the rich players who get the upon conversion or can buy them with money (either a fully developed lot, or build by mouse-click).

Buying the house is a challenge. While prebuilt houses will likely be offered by nobles to get new players to their Tribe, it remains the situation that land in the town is never free. Even the smallest lot costs 2-5 mil (about which can be gained from the tutorial gift windfalls, once per character). So unlike some other games that constantly build you new buildings for free without regard to anything, we put the difficulty level up at the very beginning - at least the new character needs to figure out how to get the land and start building. (Options are to save but that takes a few weeks, exp-grind through the tutorial and sell all valuable freebies, wait for town or other land giveaway, enlist to some tribe incl. church that offers housing to members, or deposit, or why not gamble as well - selling pseudo-ingame services is usually feasible in the stage where the character already owns the house).

After securing the land and building the Chamber, which is the first room, there is already a range of options. Some outside buildings are a must-go, others require much land which typically is not available. This instantly causes the need to prioritize, and later causes the need to trade to a bigger lot, probably already developed. The costs and benefits, while adjustable both now and on the go, are carefully tailored to fit the increasing affluence of a commoner, even up to Master level, during which a natural move to stone buildings with better health, culture etc. benefits, occurs.

The order of building some of the rooms depends on the spatial arrangement. The house is 3-story. Most rooms give just CUL (which in turn gives IC, listed separately). This is in accordance with the prior and stone building yields. CUL is an important determinant in level promotions, IC once again increases the identification by allowing (later, possibly right after this module) to gain personal items. A rental block can be constructed for income, although it is expensive to build and possibly some other benefits are actually more valuable than the money. All the bonuses and benefits of a fully developed Wood residence amount to 5.0 mil per year, a huge sum in bonuses to a character whose salary income is about 2.1 mil.

My thought was that the older buildings would have to be built again when "building type 3" was started and that the buildings in "type 2" would be generic, but configurable to certain objectives (gain sci, gain cul, gain m, or a mix of them all) and for that all you would need is four building types (or maybe even less) that could be modified by voxel total, voxel type, and voxel location. The generic description looking like this: a three story research building that contains 2000 wall voxels, 100 window voxels, 16 door voxels  located in this tax and bonus area. It could be even more generic: voxels + building type + area = cost and yearly payout. Again, this is assuming that most, if not all buildings, will be built from the raw materials from the type 2 era when the switch to type 3 is made.

It is an option yes, but then it requires the utilized datatype be more comprehensive (, so that it allows not only commoner house and herb garden, but also RWWC factory, Grand Hotel, Gilded Goose, Mint, etc. buildings which have multifarious game objectives and aesthetic value. In any case, the historical buildings data will be kept, so that we can merge them in the next iterations of Building subgame.

I am considering. Google DB (current master for /BLDG) has 56 fields that are officially required. The Minor buildings sheet (link a few posts ago) has 5-7. There are benefits for keeping them separate, but also for merging.

Maybe give a historical building bonus, so the old builders are rewarded for their harder work and the game can move onto to use only the utilized data to the benefit of all?

It possibly will. Thing is:

- The building has until now had the required datatype and the utilized datatype. The required has included things such as facade plans, even though they have not been utilized, ie. had any affect on the game (and not even stored in the database).

- We seek to make a new, easier utilized datatype, which can be scripted completely and not rely on admin periodical updates. This means that Ancient buildings utilize even less of their data. It is up to me whether to continue to require all the same things as before or ease them.

If all the same things are required still, it is easy for builders who know the rules, difficult for new ones, and time-consuming for all.

If less things are required, the new Major (stone) buildings do not conform to old Major buildings, and neither to the new Minor buildings in their required datatype. In the utilized datatype, they of course all conform because that is the data the system actually uses.

Is building large buildings going to change at all in coming year(s)? Need to know if I should keep learning and designing in spreadsheet or not.

We shall now move to specifying of new1 building. Please help me, I am a bit short on ideas here

The situation is such that historical buildings have stone, windows, labor and luxuries as their main materials.

The building is designed to the voxel accuracy (from which the materials requirements are calculated). Building rules are complex and design takes a long time.

Certain mental scripts are in place to calculate values for intermediate products (such as "NearPark") which affects payouts. Many of these are problematic because the situation they describe is dynamic, but the data that defines it, does not exist in a form to allow scripted calculation.
=> Building DB gets corrupted over time and is expensive to maintain.

The payouts are in the form of money, CUL and SCI.


In the new system, the following design guidelines are to be followed:

1. Building everyday things should be able to happen with a simple system (not because players are stupid but because this stage does not allow more resources to be spent in a temporary system, and the final system cannot be implemented due to the game and its systems are not close to that stage yet.

2. Existing buildings need to be able to be converted at reasonable cost.

3. Buildings could be fixed use, so that one building produces only certain type of yield. The money yield comes from the pool (important balancing mechanism in the game), CUL and SCI yields can be fixed values of points. Other yields can be production yield, such as a Distillery directly producing MEAD, or functional yield (Mint building is a condition for mint operations to happen).

4. To boost character development (coming soon), certain entry-level buildings can have a higher payoff (cf. Civilization: Temples and Cathedrals may have same effect although the latter is 4x more expensive, this is to make more cities strive for the former at least - if the yield curve is flat, all business tends to consolidate because of skill and management efficiencies, and this is not desired for all business)

Ideas wanted for buildings that the commoners can click-build as part of their "regular" economic development, and their effects. To repeat, commoners should have access to these minor buildings, but only 1 of the type of building per character would give the lucrative bonus.

Also for items, which differ from buildings such that they can be traded directly.

5. Simple way to calculate how much buildings can fit in a lot, such as maximum e= ratio.

6. The heavy user buildings can perhaps retain the same datatype as before since they will be converted to 3D voxel images anyway at some point. These will in their gameplay effects be reduced to yields of money, CUL, SCI, products etc. but that is actually none of a difference to the previous situation.

This link is to the "Buildings v.2" planning sheet. Anyone can edit, please do it by adding new tabs/rows instead of changing data.

I'm guessing new3 will be similar to minecraft design, so having all the voxels represented should make every building prior compatible, correct?

What are the specifications of new2?

Clarification of design/dev roles

We talked in the Council about how to increase the development output. It was decided to be divided to the following roles:

Backend, DB, commands, API, modules, scripts, hosting, upkeep, bugfixing, permissions mgmt => Wizard

UI for core modules => Contractors

Testing => Testing coordinator

All other features => Freelance and/or profit-seeking 3rd parties (they need to monetize the modules themselves, eg. casino with house edge or GUI for Agora Marketplace with a trading fee)

Specification and project management excl testing management => Me (as Lead Designer)


Arrangement/priority of modules

Automated deposits/withdrawals

For automated deposits that are credited instantly, ETA is a few days. Automated withdrawals come later (no withdrawals are open yet due to ongoing desire to increase security level).

Building

Building will take a step back in detail, allowing an easy screen to be used by anyone to build things, which come pre-graded for their effects. At the same time this "new" building datatype will have to be forward-compatible with the "new2" building procedure when Skills come online, backward-compatible with existing "old" buildings, and compatible with the "new3" future visual voxel-based building editor (and every thing that is in any way related to buildings, almost everything comes to mind).

Help with ideas is appreciated at this very stage, after a week it's too late.

Despite the challenge, expect building to resume in 1611.

"Duty Paid" - Shop for items to be created from IC

We are seeking for a developer who could make this GUI module for IC->items conversion according to my specification. Paid work.

Health Challenge, including Eating

We hope to get this out during 1611 to give the challenge to that year and keep the game balance. It may go to 1612 however.

Character management, Skills module, TIME, labor, and customized entry (aka "Intermediate Version")

This is a large work in design side, and development as well. It will be commenced when the other listed features work fully, and should be completed and playable by the end 2015.

Economic subgames

These will be implemented one at a time to fit the structure provided in the Intermediate Version.

Liquid investments in the game

For the game to succeed as a self-sufficient entity, it helps a lot if it is possible for the people to contribute their time, but also their financial resources to it. Most everything in the game is buyable and sellable. To be able to do it in any meaningful degree, a time or money investment must be done first. The Ancients were required to commit money to purchase the "entry gold" of 1,000 CKG, which at the time cost 50-250 mil (now: 750 mil). They have also committed up to a real-year of their time. These both contributed to the fact that most Ancients are very wealthy in the game now.

If one starts now, considering that the total number of characters is 100 and active players even less, there is many orders of magnitude of growth ahead, and committing a year of time to play will alone yield great results after the period has elapsed. But if return of monetary investment is interesting as well, a deposit is a way to gain a starting balance that would take a lifetime to gain by grinding. (We must keep the grinding profitability low and difficulty level high to avoid (especially) bot-controlled character farming.)

In investing, I might classify the investments in the scale of time...money intensive. In the far end of time is character development, which mainly happens as a result of playtime and spending the Time resource wisely. Both do not cost money to the player. In the other end are investments whose value is not dependent on the player's activities, and that can be bought and sold in liquid markets. In between are mixed investments that require monetary stake but whose return is dependent on skill, and illiquid tradables, where the return is dependent on skillful placement of bids and asks, and often marketing.

For the investor-minded person, often unable to commit as much time to the game as would be needed to succeed in the mixed or illiquid investments, there are two strategies:

"Prince of OZ strategy"

Buy everything that does not spoil, when it comes to market, even indiscriminately. This accumulates you a massive portfolio of every asset, and there is no need to sell, the dividends rather ensure that everything can be had in good shape and new opportunities tapped. The character becomes very valuable, and if there comes a time to liquidate, you can start from the most overvalued asset and nimbly give more time to sell illiquid things without disturbing the market.

"Prince of Forte Spagnolo strategy"

Buy mainly the liquid assets that have a 24/7 market where more can be accumulated or dumped at pleasure. In the case of FS, he owns 10% of the game so slippage naturally occurs, but this is less of a concern for someone who starts now.

If some time is at hand, the two other princes offer options:

"Prince of Soul strategy"

If you trust crypto, monero and the game, appoint a wealth manager that you can trust and who is deep in the game, pay him well, and give him a nice stash of cash to develop the character for you according to your orders. Then just login to see how you get richer and chat occasionally. Let the wealth manager do everything else. WM's require payment by the hour, which limits your choices to mainly liquid investments, which on the other hand ensure that money comes in every turn.

"Prince of Ramsey strategy"

I love the game and have enough time and money to jump into every new thing that comes up. If something goes royally wrong, it does not matter, I just get a King's Hero medal and the other ventures have yielded tenfold in the meantime.


So, after the lengthy introduction, I was about to speak about liquid investments, the things where you can just sink money anytime, and get it out anytime, and receive the increase/decrease of the market price when you sell, and dividends in the meantime.

Our game has languished the first year at sub-$1 million marketcap, so it is no wonder we only have 2 of such investments at present:

Gold (CKG), and Consols (CON)

CKG is traded mainly as HM02B100 items, which contain 100 CKG each. At the time of writing, exactly 1,000,000 CKG exist, so one item contains 1/10000 of all gold that exists. New gold is being mined in relation to playtime and gold price, so that every hour of cumulative playtime makes $0.025 worth of new gold generated. This will result in a projected 2-5% real-yearly increase in the amount of gold.

CKG is the "stock of the game". The game is not incorporated in any outside-world jurisdiction and does not support them. Therefore the election of the decision-makers of the "game" - the Town Council, who are the highest decision maker, who appoint the Gamemaster (who arbitrates the status and leads the events), and Mayor, (who chairs the council and plays the char_id #4: The Most Ancient Corporation of the Town of CryptoTown, colloquially Town (capitalized)) happens in a 1 CKG = 1 vote basis.

The Town has also chosen to distribute dividends to the "stock" (CKG), which have ranged from 0.2% to 1.5% of the gold's price per week. The Town has many incomes and few costs, and consistently runs a surplus. Occasionally no dividend has been distributed but this just means that the money is retained in the Town coffer, to be distributed later.

At this point it is good to say that the money does not go to any outside entity since there are no connection to outside parties that the Town was responsible to pay anything to, and it is against our principles to ever enter into such. All financial agreements that the Town binds itself to are ingame only.

Town also does not have the authority to issue more gold (nor has ever had it(!)). All gold that comes into existence, comes through the Proof-of-Play mechanism above.

Enough of that. Just felt that it is important before you commit your money because the system is different than probably anything you have experienced anywhere else, and because the above are rules that were set in stone before the Town was even established, and will remain forever since there is nobody who may change them in the game, and the game rejects every outside attempt to change even those rules that can be changed. If you want to change the rules, buy gold. Who has the gold, makes the rules.

CKG is the most liquid investment in the game, and it has represented about 40-70% of the total value of all assets in the game during its history. Gold trading and price history are available for the entire game period (1416-). Investment wise, the following properties should be considered:

- Gold owners decide the councillors, who decide the town income. Town may freely decide to tax players excessively, but doing so would stifle the game. Historically, a modest tax rate has been applied, with the bulk of Town incomes coming from one-time sales of items, land, and buildings. My vision (as the largest gold owner) is to if possible reduce the tax burden even more, to allow the game to grow, and continue to get the cut from one-time sales of land etc. These would allow nice dividends for gold owners as well, which generally would be reinvested to the game. Having principles and continuity is important in taxation.

- Gold's yield scales up roughly with the function (number of players * revenue per player). Reaching a million players would make the number of players go up by 4 orders of magnitude, but concurrently it is likely that the revenue per player would go down 1-2 orders of magnitude. This would still mean 100-1,000 times increase, making CK gold an excellent vehicle for a diversified personal portfolio consisting of long shots.

- Gold is priced in XMR, but the revenue per player scales more with national currencies, such as USD. If CK takes off in a serious way (or even if it doesn't), it is more than likely that XMR/USD rate will react greatly. Therefore, the XMR-denominated gains of CKG are ultimately capped to the fact that a bounded quantity of XMR exist (about 20 million in a few years, at the same time when CKG is probably between 1-2 million). Unless your personal portfolio is denominated in XMR (I don't know of any who claim such), this of course does not matter. I mention it just because there is also the option to buy XMR and invest it in Consols:

CONsol is a 18th century British invention to increase the liquidity of government bonds, and make borrowing cheaper as a result. The bookkeeping is simple, because the bond only pays interest, and is never paid back. This allows new issuance to be fungible with previous ones.

CK item CON is a Town obligation. Whereas the councillors may decide if and how much dividend CKG gets, with CON there is no liberty. As long as the Town exists, every week, each CON receives 0.1 XMR interest.

CKG and CON have important differences - CKG is a gauge of the future success of the game, its price being dependent on the expectations and reality how many players we get and how eager they are to deposit money to the game, as well as just play ("just playing" actually drains money from the game, albeit little per player); CON is a gauge of the likelihood of folding of the game, combined with the risk-free interest rate of a cryptocurrency. I will explain soon, but what follows in practice is that if you believe the game has a high probability of being a major success, then you should buy gold (in a diversified portfolio), if you instead believe that the probability of success is less than the market is pricing gold, but the probability of failure in the sense of the game going bust is reasonably low, then you should buy consols.

CON is a pure play on yield, and the price is the reverse of yield. At the current price, 10.0 mil, a CON pays 1.0% per week (compounded: 68% APR). The yield follows the formula: (risk-free yield on cryptocurrency + risk premium that CK goes down).

Since cryptocurrency (or anything) does not in fact have a risk-free yield, the first component is about zero. There exists plenty of cryptocurrency earning no interest, and no cryptocurrency anywhere is earning a risk-free positive interest (or even risky interest for that matter). Therefore the efficient CON pricing consists about entirely on the risk that CK goes down. Apart from yield, this can also be expressed as a break-even point (theoretically being the half-life of Crypto Kingdom, the 50% probability point that it is still alive I know this is not exactly correct but if you know in which way it isn't, you should be buying CON already). At present, 100 interest payments and as many weeks earn back your investment, at which point you still have left what you did in the beginning - perpetual right to receive 0.1 XMR per week.

CON started relatively recently, but the intention is to increase the stock to keep them liquid. Town hedges the CON payments with other incomes such as extra land taxes that have been perpetually levied to some chapelries at a fixed rate. Even now, the CON payments are only 200 XMR per week, cf. typical CKG dividends 2,000-9,000 XMR. It is inconceivable that CON would drag the Town to difficulties when there is 1 to 2 orders of magnitude buffer in dividends that are subordinate. CON emissions bring cash to the Town that nicely allows the game development, but their real purpose is to provide economic information. For the last 10 months, the Town has had a positive balance in the development fund (ingame stash of current money, free of encumbrances).

- CKG/USD is not bounded from the upside but CKG/XMR is. CON/XMR is really about the trust that CK exists, and if the trust goes to level of that of any company, a 5-10% APR yield is possible. This would correspond to CON price of 50-100, a 5-10x gain. The British government issued consols for 150 years, and the rate declined in that time from 4% to 2.5%. Then they defaulted them. I do my best to make CK Town more trustworthy than the earthly governments - if they could be trusted, I would not have started this.

- Note well: consols magnify XMR price appreciation, since there is no negative feedback loop as in CKG (in CKG, Coinshop has a sell ladder that absorbs all XMR before price reaches 100 times the current price, denominated in XMR). Because consol yield is denominated in XMR, any success in XMR most probably translates to a success of CK as well, decreasing the risk of failure, and increasing the CON price. So, in USD terms, CON and CKG both have practically unlimited upside, in XMR terms the upside of both is in the 10-100x range.

- If XMR fails, it is conceivable that CK would just change currency and steam on. After all, in technical terms, it already has M and UB1 items, which are both depository shares representing cryptocurrencies (XMR and BTC). The only and all-powerful difference is that one of them is designated "money" and the other is not. In the scenario of XMR going bust, CKG still exists and is traded according to its own merits, but CON will turn worthless.


Practical liquidity

Gold has been traded since ever, and its marketcap is much bigger (750 bil vs. 20 bil). In practice, the liquidity of both is enough for small investors, and insufficient for a large one.

Items HM02B100 and CON have a "perpetual and all-encompassing ladder market making" system in place by the King's Coinshop. This means that there is a range of price points from zero to practical infinity, and the Coinshop is always willing to both buy and sell any quantity up to the total issuance of the item (in buy side) or the total amount of money in the world (sell side). Naturally, such backing needs to have a very high price elasticity (and huge reserves - Coinshop owns 20% of the CKG and 20% of the CON in the game, all paid for).

The ladder uses exponential steps, meaning that a certain injection of money raises the price, and thus marketcap, of the item, always the same absolute amount. Therefore it is possible to calculate the wealth effect (how much marketcap rises as a result of new purchase):

- For CKG, it is 40:1. This is in practice meaningful only in extreme market conditions, because it is a known fact that every Ancient player owns gold, and quite many of them are willing to sell into strength, and add support as well. Apart from the initial spike in the first week, CKG has never declined to a lower level than -28% from the all time high (while rising by 10x in the same period of less than a year).

- For CON, it is 2.88:1. It is very difficult to value CK (CKG valuation dilemma), but it is much easier to estimate the probability of its failure since it is bounded between [0, 1]. Therefore it is possible to have a much stiffer market making and increase the liquidity of this much smaller market cap item. It is not that likely to have many other market participants, since the speculation in CON price without massive leverage equals watching paint dry in fun factor (and leverage is not offered yet).

At the current price, investing 1,000 XMR to CKG would result in the price rise of 5.3%. The same into CON would cause a 14.4% rise in price. This is not the same thing as slippage, however, because the Coinshop also adds the bids up to the new market price, so you can sell the items back by suffering only the spread, which is 4% in CKG and 3% in CON. Also other market participants provide liquidity.


DEP An honorary mention goes to The Hypothecary Bank in CryptoTown, who sell demand deposits at 1.00 mil and buy them back at 0.99 mil so that the principal stays constant, and pay interest in the meantime. This 1% guaranteed spread is the lowest in the market. Downsides:

- Bank is not the Town, it is just one institution in the game, solvent but unguaranteed.

- They may decide the interest, which has been 0.8% per week so far.

- The system allows Bank to place a bid only as large as they have cash at hand. Since it is obviously pointless to take deposits just to have them sitting in the vault, larger withdrawals than the quota in the Agora marketplace, need to be negotiated.

Aye, I understand and agree,
that due to the tightly-knit nature of CryptoKingdom and Monero itself, there is (and should be) inevitably an advantage for those who will be able to and willing to pay real hard Monero for the game. I'm just thinking that I would like to think, that there's still a theoretical possibility that even a free2play-player could advance to at least "midgame", and have lots of interesting things to do. But this would of course require considerable time and skill effort, which would be comparable I guess to spending Monero in the first place.

But like it was already pointed out, these two different player archetypes may have different aims altogether in the game, so it sounds good enough to me


As a side note - is this thread going to be more of a blog where you're laying out plans for the future, or are you also encouraging us to pitch in design ideas and such?

Got that, and my point is that it does not alter the "balance" of the game whether or not you can buy skills and character traits, because if not, you can buy something else that gives you an advantage. I just believe that being able to start with a boosted character is a welcome addition, and money is a natural way to pay for it. The character traits are not even very relevant for those who have money.

I think we all realize advantages must be given to those who pay otherwise nobody would pay and the game would be a commercial failure.

His point was probably just to request that you limit the maximum advantage that pay for play can obtain so that the free players can still enjoy the game and develop very strong players if they are willing to put in lots of time and sweat equity instead of XMR payments for gold.

Thanks for good points!


Our world is such that "pay to win" in the general sense cannot be avoided (resembles RL here). On the other hand, the ones who pay for getting an easier difficulty level, sponsor the game for everyone else and make possible that a person who deposited nothing, is able to get real money out, especially if he (the latter) played well. Character customization revenue goes to the game economy, raising wages for all

Some levels are clearly easier to get with money, but others require real-world skills or good gameplay. I am happy by the new Viscount "vice-promotion" which allows an Earl to show that this guy is worthy of running a county. When new counties become available, he can be promoted (after all what I desire is that the game is managed properly). Then Duke is just the best guy among the candidates available. And getting to the "management board" (Archduke) is of course based on personal merit.

Therefore the road to L19 Archduke goes through few steps if your gameplay is excellent, regardless of any deposit or not:

- Commoner
- Viscount (positional title, irrespective of your character level, and does not change it)
- Earl
- Duke
- Archduke L19

Getting to L9 Grand Wizard is also somewhat difficult, because if you have money, you tend to become promoted Baron earlier. So in this sense the promotion is available for non-depositors only.

As for your specific concern, I of course will make it such that you can have a lot of skills and attributes, but the cost is going up exponentially to make it still fun and balanced. You can upload unlimited money anyway to your character, and that is not a bug but a feature. If you want to be both tall, beautiful, smart and a few more, the price will be outlandish compared to what a commoner earns in his lifetime. So you will be buying bonuses in a game that you are not playing (commoner skills-labor game) since due to your riches you are destined to be a noble anyway sooner or later, and there your real abilities matter more than either your character traits, play style or wealth in advancing the Noble ranks.

From preliminary reading (since there's a lot had to skim over in haste and I have no experience of the game in addition to the preliminary Ultima testing), a lot of these seem like well designed points!

Out of curiosity - every great game will create something new, combine and refine good mechanics from the old in a novel way, and also borrow established but good practices from existing games - I'd be interested in hearing what inspires these development ideas. You've mentioned multiple times that now it's time to move to "Civilization"-phase; what other games or sources (board games, aspects in real life) inspire you?

If I may, I also have few games that might provoke your curiosity (you probably have played many of them already, just mentioning); for example,
- EVE Online as an example of a player-driven, sustaining universe where the players create the world and economics; skill build in real world time
- Multiple games by Paradox Studios, such as Europa Universalis IV or Crusader Kings II, where the politics and intrinsic systems of history (both real and fictional) are combined
- Civilization, obviously, although I've always found economics rather redundant in Sid's games. The problem in Sid's games I guess is that they (Firaxis) try to cater to a very large audience, so they have to be average on every respect and can't really specialize very well in just one specific field.
- Story-telling-wise I just recently bought a good oldie called the King of Dragon Pass, where a world with its own history is created in an immersive way



My only concern here is that if moneros are transformable to skill points (character attributes i.e. looks, strength, etc), I would like to see that the there's no overwhelming pay2win-aspect. For example, an able player with very little to no investment should at least in theory be able to reach, in the long run, if not the highest levels at least respectable levels within the social hierarchy. By the sweat of their brow they shall earn their title I'd say

Kind regards,
Syksy

Tentative and updating feature specification of the Intermediate Version
(to be fully playable by the end of the current Ultima project end 2015)

1. Character

1.1. PC

1.1.1. Attributes

1.1.1.1. Definition

Character attributes are properties which increase the player bonding to the character, and/or enable customization to create a character that gets a head start towards a certain play style. A points system will be used for customization to ensure variety and fair start for non-depositing players. The price of points will rise exponentially to allow rich players to get good start but make it expensive. (This is fair because they are anyway able to spend their money to give them advantages, so the price will just be balanced with the other opportunities.)

Attributes are largely unchangeable during the lifetime of the character.

1.1.1.2. General

Age
Can be 15-50. It is somewhat difficult to balance this because older characters have realistically earned their Masters, and are therefore capable to earn much money immediately, which is a call to character farmers who spawn free characters and earn 2 XMR per week with 10 minutes' work until they die in 3 weeks, and start over. This is not desired. Perhaps allow more than 30 years age only for depositors, or make higher age a kind of slow play where the character does not have much skills, but also starts with much better health than the age peers many of whom are dead already.

Sex
I don't know what to make of it. 95% of players are and will be men. Perhaps an unrealistic choice of completely disregarding the effects of gender on everything?

1.1.1.3. Traits

Height
As a measure of physical status and wellbeing, this also affects the quota of eating and drinking (while not affecting the size of the health challenge). Taller characters can eat and drink more, resulting in better alleviation for the same money, or savings of money for the same result.

Looks
On the outset, largely a vanity item, but tends to indirectly affect everything in life

Intelligence
Higher Intelligence gives a bonus in acquiring skills, particularly Scientific ones.

Dexterity
Bonus in trades that require hand skills, smaller one in mind skills.

Agility
Very good bonus in acquiring certain physical skills such as Horseback (riding) and related to outdoor life and military, thus contributing to health as well in an indirect way as healthy activities are more interesting with the bonuses.

Health
Affects the starting health directly.

1.1.1.4 Discussion

What we need to make is a system that is easy enough to use when a Visitor turns to Stranger (this would happen after 30 minutes of wandering around, chatting, receiving gifted MEAD and reading tutorial messages). It needs to be balanced both between choices, and how the traits affect the game. The number of traits needs to be correct, I believe 5-9 is the sweet spot. Another thing is what is the resolution of them. Possibilities include:
- A trait is a 1/0 bonus, which you have or don't. No "negative values".
- 3-tier system where you can pick good ones at the cost of bad ones (with perhaps 1 good for free), others being "average"
- 4-tier system with "bonuses only" (no trait, trait, most trait, very trait), but this does not parse well with some of them
- 4-tier system without centerpoint, making it impossible to be "average"
- 5-tier system aiming to get a realistic distribution of traits among characters, with good extreme being costly and bad extreme giving bad value for the points thus saved
- slider system, which requires the effect bonuses to be in a sliding scale as well (allows traits to change during the game, unintuitive for first-timers)

1.1.2. Skills

1.1.2.1. General

Acquiring Skills can be likened to advancing in the tech tree - rewarding as such, and each skill unlocks bonuses to all fields in the game. Skills once gained cannot be lost, but since they are personal, they cannot be sold either.

It is intended that Skills system is a key feature that interests players.

Skills are implemented as a variable of 0...N skill points, where certain thresholds unlock the "Skill level 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5". Once maximum is reached, the excess is allocated automatically to another skill which is related. It is intended that reaching the level 5 should not happen without lifetime determination, and it is also rewarded with a L7-L9 promotion.

When the system takes shape, a collaborative googlesheet will be opened for the exact specification of effects and bonuses. Assuming 40 skills, this means 200 rows of data to be balanced.

1.1.2.2. Personal Skills

Do not cause promotions.

Family
Spending time with family. Annual cost for the first 20 years from Family 3: Marriage, provides culture and happiness (reduced health challenge) all the time, relative to the time spent.

Social
Spending time in chat (no AP cost!), peer awards, etc. Reduced health challenge.

Conduct
Script awards for prudent and worthy play, admin awards. Bonus in culture, will be used as a qualifier for promotions and the like, plus is a prerequisite for certain advances.

Meditation
Consuming time, cigars, green herbs and mushrooms. Reduced health challenge, bonus in acquiring the highest level of skills.

1.1.2.3. Labor Skills

Beginner(L3)-Novice(L4)-Expert(L5)-Master(L6)-Wizard(L7).

Farmer
Experience. Bonus in Farm labor.

Stonemason
Experience. Bonus in Building labor, better levels unlock more advanced labor such as dome construction. (medium learning curve)

Quarrier
Experience. Bonus in Quarry labor. (quick learning curve, easy to earn money quickly)

Butler
Experience. Bonus in service labor. Butler "tree" extends as Emissary, therefore butler levels are gained quicker and do not cause promotions as per normal schedule. (medium learning curve)

Cook
Experience. Bonus in kitchen labor. (medium learning curve)

Chef
Experience. Bonus in kitchen labor and restaurant management, better levels unlock better tasting food. (slow learning curve makes the first levels earn less and latter levels more)

Tailor
Experience. Bonus in wool craft, better levels unlock more advanced labor such as gold/silver embedding. (slow learning curve makes the first levels earn less and latter levels more)

Carpenter
Experience. Bonus in making wood items and panels, better levels unlock more advanced labor such as most elaborate. (medium learning curve)

Goldsmith
Experience. Bonus in making CKG / CKS items, better levels unlock more advanced labor such as most elaborate. (slow learning curve makes the first levels earn less and latter levels more)

Blacksmith
Experience. Bonus in making/repairing metal items, better levels unlock more advanced labor such as most elaborate. (medium learning curve)

Driver
Experience. Bonus in Driver labor. (quick learning curve, easy to earn money quickly)

Scribe
Study, experience. Bonus in clerk labor.

Assistant
Experience. Bonus in clerk labor and management labor.

Gardening
Experience. Bonus in growing your own, in garden labor, in farm labor.

1.1.2.4. Scientific Skills

Basics(L3)-Bachelor(L5)-Master(L6)-Doctor(L8)-Wizard(L9).

Engineer
Study, experience. Bonus in engineering labor and in science output.

Mathematics
Study. Unlocks higher levels in other sciences and provides bonuses.

Architect
Study, experience (admin awarded for merit). Bonus in culture and science output.

Al/chemist
Practice. Bonus in science output.

Astronomer
Study. Bonus in science output.

Mystic
Practice. Gives random bonuses towards skills.

Geologist
Study, experience. Bonus in geologist labor and in science.

Archaeologist
Study, quests. Bonus in science and in quests.

Theology
Tbd with the Church.

Development
Study, experience (admin awarded for merit). Bonus in culture and science output.

1.1.2.5. Cultural Skills

Music
Practice, study, experience. Bonus in musical work, increases culture output.

Arts
Practice, study, experience. Bonus in all high level crafts.

1.1.2.6. Management Skills

Farm management
Experience and study. Bonus in Estate management and Farm management.

Foremanship
Experience and other advances. Bonus in foreman positions (lower-middle management of labor-intensive businesses)

Management
Study and experience. Bonus in management positions (high-middle management of corps and businesses)

Emissary
Experience and training. Bonus in several kinds of work where a senior spotless guy is needed, culture bonus.

Businessman
Script-generated based on business activity. Will be used eg. when distribution of some items is needed.

1.1.2.7. Military Skills

Military Science
Study in Dept of MilSci. Bonus in officer qualities.

Field Combat
Battle or jousting experience, training. Bonus in battle value and officer qualities.

Archery
Training. Bonus in battle value.

Swordsmanship
Training. Bonus in battle value.

Endurance
Several outdoor activities. Bonus in battle value and quests.

1.1.2.8. Victory Skills

Wisdom
Acquiring skills, consuming CAN/CIG/MUS/AYA. Victory skill.

Culture
Many items and buildings. Victory skill.

1.1.3. Levels

1.1.3.1. List of levels

Royal
20 King
19 Archduke

Dukes
18 Grand Duke
17 Duke

Landed nobles
16 Prince
15 Marquess
14 Earl

Lesser nobles
13 Baron
12 Baronet
11 Knight
10 Jungherr

Commoners
9 Grand Wizard
8 Doctor
7 Wizard
6 Master
5 Expert
4 Novice
3 Beginner
2 Stranger

Uncreated characters
1 Visitor

1.1.3.2. Explanations

With a rapid expansion of the game ahead of us, the levels system needs updating. The new system retains the hierarchy but in practice the categories overlap somewhat (as previously).

- Commoner levels will be promoted upon reaching certain level of mastery in a labor or artisan trade. If the trade is not in the system (eg. speculator), other criteria will be used as well.

- Previous Wizard level is split into 3, where
* Wizard is now reachable for characters in every trade in the end of their career, providing much bonuses for the most intricate work and therefore increasing income greatly at the time when health challenges also become more pressing, prolonging the lifespan
* Doctor requires academic concentration but is attainable by 30 if upkeep is not an issue
* Grand Wizard will be given to the most skilled commoners regardless of field.

- Jungherr and Knight are separated, now
* Jungherr is strictly every noble who is minor (14-20), upon age 21 they are promoted to the earned level
* Knight will be promoted from commoners based on special merit

- A new rank, Baronet, is added. Like its historical equivalent, it is strictly a purchased rank, so can be had by sweetening the King's coffers.

- Baron remains the main level to which industrious commoners in Master and higher are promoted.

- Earl, Marquess and Prince belong to the same category, by having counties but not duchies. Culture ("victory points") is the key criterion in promotion inside the category, though gameplay affects as well. To become an Earl, you need to show keen interest to the game and nurturing of other players, because that is needed as Earl. This can be shown the easiest by enlisting to an existing Earl to be a Viscount (practically managing the county for your master - many Earls are busy, and/or have several counties).

- Duke is an administrative position with work consisting of interaction with other humans (the Earls in your duchy). They have considerable income as a reward from this. A way to contemplate the scope of work is to think of what I have been doing the first year in the game. They will be promoted based on need, and leap-promotions will be seen unlike before. A Marquess or even an Earl may become Duke now if it seems the right thing. Grand Duke is the primus inter pares of the Dukes.

- The mess in the previous L14 level is cleared with the nomination of 1 or more Archdukes, who are designated Royal and concentrate on the strategic management of the game, and of the Royal House with its vast possessions, and participate in the succession of the throne as well.

1.1.4. Decorations

1.1.4.1. Definition

Decorations are signs of achievement, and can be added to your full title. They often include the token as well, which is separate from the decoration. The decoration may not be transferred and dies with the character (though some are hereditary and passed in practice with the player, and others can be recreated when the previous holder dies.

1.1.4.2. Badges

Badges are signs of achievements, and range from easy (which will be awarded to everyone in their first year) to very hard (of which only a few exist in the Kingdom). They are always accompanied with copper tokens with badge type, minting year and no other parameters, so will become an interesting thing to collect (both the decorations, and the tokens) because of cheap price and large selection.

Existing "set of 6" badges that are currently unique items, will be converted to the new format, and the COT copper tokens that physically look like badges, as well.

1.1.4.3. Medals

Medals differ physically from badges in that they are larger (copper: 50 g as opposed to 15 g), or made of precious metals, and are often minted to commemorate a certain event and can only be gained by participating in that event. Some medals include a decoration, others don't. MG-5 is a coveted medal that has the "MG-5" or "Medal of the Game, 5th class" decoration, but physically it is 50 grams of bronze. Some other medal might be 50 gram of gold but has no meaning in the decoration sense. "King's Hero Medal" is 50 gram of gold, and a decoration awarded to only 4 characters in the whole game.

Medals will be opened so that not only they can be minted by anyone against a fee, the "decoration part" giving authority will be given to Earls and certain institutions (Church, University), to be used wisely.

1.1.4.4. Titles

No changes. Titles do not usually include a token.

1.1.4.5. Honors

No changes.

1.1.4.6. Orders

No changes. These will be rejuvenated, with not much practical meaning but they add status to whom it is due.

1.2. NPC

It is possible that the current NPC will need a reorganization once again, so that they will supply the bulk of the labor to the market during the time the PC are insufficient. The "owners" will get the money.

1.3. Corp

No changes.

2. Land

2.1. General

2.2. Urban land

2.2.1. Subdivision

No changes.

2.3. Rural land

Rural land is held as a fief from the King, so the nominal owner is the (corporation) County of county_name, which is managed by the Earl (or his subordinate, Viscount). Possibly the country map will be left uncovered, not because it is technically hard to do it, but because changing it is difficult and we do not yet have enough information how best to make it. The Counties do not exist in definite physical locations, rather their parameters are general, including distance to CryptoTown and whether road exists. Economy will be simplified at this stage, but food production will largely move there, and building in the county center is possible.

3. Buildings

3.1. Structures

We will start to have important previously vaguely implemented concepts such as rural roads. They will be mapped.

3.2. Buildings with floor area

3.2.1. Preface

3.2.2. Datatype

3.2.3. Wood buildings

3.2.4. Modular Stone Buildings

3.2.5. Custom Stone Buildings


4. Game concepts

4.1. Labor

4.1.1. General

The economy takes Labor as an indispensable input in every quite many transformation process (eg. making vegetables from a field, or hunting deer, or keeping a large palace tidy). Labor is converted from time, and sold to the market where business owners buy it, or spent in your own businesses as is the case of small farms.

There are many types of labor, and when time is converted to a certain type, all bonuses are applied. Therefore, labor units are fungible despite the infinite number of different skill sets the characters have.

4.1.2. Types of Labor

We seek to have approximately the same number of labors as there are skills, but they don't map exactly. Several skills may boost the same type of labor effectiveness, and some skills are not labor skills. Further, certain skills when practiced to perfection, enable a higher detail skill as a bonus in higher levels. The possessor of this can choose to do the high detail work if it is available, but still has the lower skill as well as a backup.

The "Intermediate version" would focus much more than previously to the character development.

The clearest differences to "Final version" are:

- Lack of realism: large areas that will be there to produce grinding opportunities, are handled with click of a button, and both money and resource handling will have sweeping generalizations (while being much more detailed than in a typical similar game)

- Lack of localization: items exist in a county, meaning that all current items exist in the same space so a whole set of things to consider drops away

- Little animals, no energy.

What will be there that currently are not:

- Time/AP and Sustenance.

- Some Factories with their economic subgames. If we consider how the money is spent (20% food, 20% drink, 20% clothes, 20% house, 20% items), having the following subgames captures much of the value:

Farm (produces food and wool) 15%
Resta (sells food and drinks) 15%
Merchant (sells drinks, clothes, luxuries and items) 25%
Tailor (makes clothes) 10%
Quarry (makes stone) 5%
Builder (builds) 10%
Drink imports 10%
Item imports 10%

These allow skills to be built around them, which can be supplemented with more specialized skills (book printer) later. Also there are professions that are not catering to commoner sustenance, for instance administration, and export jobs (currently imports are not paid with m but the special IC).

I am opening this to general discussion, because I want to find the compact and expandable way to integrate skills to the game. So far the idea is that (for ease, although not optimal for every skill) every Labor, Scientific and Personal skill (might add Cultural, Military, ..) is divided to 5 levels which each are different skills and might have unique names, but will be referred by just "Carpentry II".

The skills are Beginner-Novice-Expert-Master-Wizard (aha!) and gaining a labor skill (which are slow to acquire as a byproduct of working) would cause a promotion. In the Scientific side, the same 5-classification would be Basics-Bachelor-Master-Doctor-Wizard. They are reasonably quick to acquire, because it can be done full time (if you can afford it of course). Here the speed to learn stuff is greatly affected by items, other stuff you know, etc. A "doctor" actually gets you a Doctor level, so it happens much earlier than gaining Wizard from carving stones. Most doctors end up in nobility.

I want to make the character more personal by adding stuff to the initial customization tool. To retain the clearcut ways, the character might for instance be:

Intelligence: Stupid - Slow - Average - Smart - Genius
Height: Very Short - Short - Average - Tall - Very Tall
Looks: Ugly - Unpleasant - Average - Pleasant - Beautiful/Handsome
Strength: Very Weak - Weak - Average - Strong - Very Strong
+ certain 1st level skills might be on offer as well, and choosing an older character gets more points to allocate, to make up for the skills that the others get to acquire by starting young.

A number of points need to be allocated and since it is such a tough game before the game even starts, more points can be bought by sending XMR to the QR-code displayed and if there is excess, it will become your starting balance. The character traits chosen affect the game, intelligence gives a bonus in Scientific subjects, and Strength lets you quarry more stone and get more money as a result.

Most definitely interested in testing this out when possible!

The design of the Health Challenge

This was originally intended to be secret, but due to the opening of the development side with new guys etc., it is not possible any more and would just create a situation where some people pay more due to less information, so it will be published here.

There is only one "type" of health challenge, it includes everything, food, drinks, living conditions, age, sicknesses, happiness factors   
Health challenge is generated to player characters in year_change and evaluated in the next one, giving them a year to Alleviate it.   
   
Implementation requirements:   

New field in item table: healthiness (encrypted field, or another way to give some items this property and me to edit it)   
New variable in Char table: frequencyBonus   
New variable in Char table: remainingHealthChallenge (int)   
2 new variables in Char table: eat_left and drink_left (or script)   
2 global variables: A, B (initially both 0)   
script: item_consumed_already (per char per item per year) gives yes/no   
script every hour: each char with frequencyBonus < 40; frequencyBonus += 2 (part of coming Hourly script)   
   
Determination of the initial value of remainingHealthChallenge   

1000 + A + randbetween(200; min(age; 90)*30 + B)   
   
Rules in the HealthChallenge from player side   

When the HealthChallenge is determined, the only way to combat it is eating and drinking.   
Eating (consuming edibles, quota = 200 instances)   
Drinking (consuming drinkables, quota = 200 instances)   
First time to consume a certain item this year, there is a bonus, making it reasonable to consume   
different items, and make the first act of consuming each with a sizable quantity (up to 50)   
   
New command: HEALTH (parameters ignored)   

print: "You may still eat eat_left units and drink drink_left units this year. Your    
remaining health challenge is remainingHealthChallenge_text. Your overall health   
is Health_text."   
   
Alleviation of HealthChallenge upon Consuming items   

syntax: CONSUME item_id quantity   
check if quantity exceeds quota, if so, print: "You may only eat/drink eat_left/drink_left units any more this    
year. Your remaining health challenge is remainingHealthChallenge_text."   
(in the above case, no items are consumed)   
if quantity >= frequencyBonus;    
   Bonus = frequencyBonus
   frequencyBonus = 0
else   
   frequencyBonus -= quantity
   Bonus = quantity
if item_consumed_already=FALSE   
   find variety_multiplier in Variety_lookup_table for the corresponding quantity
else   
   variety_multiplier = quantity
effect = floor(effect_multiplier * (bonus + variety_multiplier * item_id:healthiness) ; 0)   
remainingHealthChallenge -= effect (cannot go below 0)   
update eat_left or drink_left   
print "The eating/drinking felt effect_text. I feel the remaining health challenge to   
be remainingHealthChallenge_text. I could still eat eat_left and drink drink_left this year."

Variety Lookup Table (the other tables are secret)

The Ultima Engine

Originally meant a compact and fundamental classification of implemented objects and their relations, with a complete resource-based economy where money is used for trading. About like this:

Living things - people (PC/NPC), animals - have sustenance needs, and produce Time(in PC, called Action Points=AP) that can be spent to generate Labor. The Labor types available are unlocked with Skills. Some Items (etc.) increase Labor/AP. Time can directly be spent on some activities, Labor can be sold in the market for money or spent in your own Factories.

Factories - collection of resources (Items, buildings) to facilitate the conversion of Labor to Changes (in the status of the game). Again, the terminology is clumsy but well-defined. Factories are everything that can create items or repair them (including those where existing items are consumed in the process). Depending on the Change in question, a Factory might not require any tools nor skill (common gardens exist for growing veggies in between boroughs) or a load of both (Printing Press is both a capital and skill intensive business with high initial and fixed operating costs). All the economic subgames we have enjoyed in the past, will be implemented Factories, with widely different requirements for player skill and micromanagement/playtime, and investment/risk/reward characteristics.

Logistics. Every item is localized, which means that it exists in a space - if it is important that the location is a certain voxel or even a side of it (smallest possible resolution for a flat object is 1x1 m side of a voxel, for space object 1x1x1 m voxel, but it can also be inside a Container), it can be this exact, but there might also be 1,000 DEER of whom we only know that they roam around in the County of Naoned, this being their location until someone goes to hunt for them and they will localize to rural boroughs and even to voxels (voxel at zero-elevation is also called pixel in 2D). The current locations of living things change according to their desires, the others need to be moved, for which methods are available.

Heating energy is not implemented (assumed to be there) but Mechanical energy is needed in some Factories, and can be provided by wind- and watermills, animals etc. It is also used in Logistics.

Items have a variety of uses, generally financial items are a way to bet on the game's success. Collectible items are a hobby for many but may rise in value. Personal items add flavor to your character and many categories of them are needed for decent gameplay, with extra adding to status. Cultural and Scientific items give bonuses to skills generation, labor conversion, and increase the Character CUL/SCI output. Weapons will be all the more needed. The complete chain of food and drinks generation from tilling of the ground to uncorking the bottle is there. The sustenance requirements drive the necessity of obtaining the basics: Food, Drinks, Clothes, Buildings. The higher-advanced players have the chance enjoy the higher pursuits (which we already have seen in the first year.

END.

The engine is really that simple. (Well I am aware that hundreds of conversion formulas especially for factories need to be created and balanced, which in the beginning is a lonely task but later on other guys will get the experience needed to make those as well, and they can be tweaked at the instant exploits seem to stand out. And the UI for many of them, with a CLI with a library of hundreds of commands.)

Now the challenge is that to have it work beautifully as specified, there needs to be thousands of active players. We are talking minimum 100 times the current number. Wisdom is needed in the timing as well as the direction. Crypto Kingdom was started with little appeal to masses, because we wanted to get affluent, strategic, investing/management oriented people in the game, and sure enough, every other approach, with not having the robust playerbase, would have lead to closing the shop already due to the difficulties we have had.

I don't believe moving to the above system before getting a much larger number of players is the right way to go. This game is not intending to compete with existing games, lacking their strengths and diluting ours in the process. Instead, my thinking is that we now move to the 2nd year with a clear focus of gaining new commoners with a game that is fun, yet in a way that clearly targets above-average intelligent people, those prone to optimization, continues to appeal to adults, to cryptocurrency enthusiasts, and to the people that our current players might find in their friends circle.

2nd year Goals (this section is especially a primer for discussion)

- Increase the playerbase to 10,000 PC or more
- Retain the social coherence with having both play-for-free players, depositors and investors, in the functional proportions
- Develop the software and increase our development output
=> Unlock the possibility to move to 3rd phase with Ultima engine and even more open world

2nd year Means (this section is especially a primer for discussion)

- Enable effortless New Player registration with several modes (visitor, later prompted to become character; advanced start with customization of character at start and deposit option to boost you with new skills, even promotions).
- Keep it social - Tribes and Guilds as explained in game thread.
- World (town) full of things - wandering around lets you meet people and lots are full of features which give you bonuses and opportunities.
- Leverage the Agora Marketplace to the full. Trading is just fun.
- Cleverly designed sustenance system keeps players checking back regularly, and caters to desired target audience, enabling but not requiring micromanagement (can be done in 5 minutes per week in one go, but doing it "optimal" by spending 10 minutes every day saves about 50% of the money with same result - for nobles whose life is not depending on 2 XMR per week, this is not a chore, but many of the commoners cannot allocate even 1 XMR for sustenance, and also enjoy playing nimbly).
- Get the word out.
- Tune down the importance of buildings. The Ancient Era was all about buildings, initially it was not intended to have any economy happening before moving to Online, and start this part there (remember: the DB originally intended to be scope of the Online version was done by PJ in the first 2 weeks, it is this economy that takes time). Now the spending of a commoner is only 20% buildings, and that of a noble not really higher (other expenses: food, drinks, suits, horse&carriage, items, also scale up significantly for nobles and for each rank of them). Buildings represent less than 10% of the game value also. It is possible that fast-building will be enabled with formulas creating the resource and work requirements as a direct result of typing in the expected effects of the building, without the need for floorplans or facades, which can be created later when it is more clear how they will be visualized, saving a lot of work that currently cannot be seen and is unsure if it can be used. Instead, the new Building datatype will have a few fields, most importantly the clear listing of bonuses how living there profits you, and pool shares which will be updated with a system script occasionally.

Hello!

Crypto Kingdom has grown so big that the main thread is difficult to follow as it contains so many different topics, including gameplay and player announcements.

Development thread is for those interested in the technical development (coding) of the game and implementing modules via API and other ways.

This thread is aimed for strategic discussion about the game and its design, and of the core features and modules. It is moderated to keep it on topic, which means purging away CK content not related to the design, and of course all other content and non-content as well.