Maybe my all time favorite of all your vids! - Reminds me of the board game Settlers of Catan. Used to play it with my kids, brother, and neices. Good times! - Any vid with baseball in it, especially the 2019 World Series Champions Nats, is a keeper. - Finally, reminds me of a little tune from back in the day: "When the log rolls over we will all be dead." Seriously doubt anyone here gets that one. 😎 Kudos, Oearth. Well done!!
Darnit! My treehouse was under construction when you made this video! 😅 Edit:Oh yeah. Funny you want the word Ecology when the video is about Economics.
The server I just played on this had a lot of luck with 1. Starting the game with a pre-made currency (backed by gold iirc, presumably spawned in with an admin command. ) 2. using some pre-made laws to ensure everyone started with some of that currency 3. Developing wealth tax and UBI laws, alongside more classic tree-planting and public works laws to help distribute this wealth (along with a jeff-bezos law towards the end to smack whoever had the most money if they had a huge percentage of the total available currency) As the game progressed and we smacked hard into the fact that the world was a small world, thus causing us to actually have to WORRY about how much we polluted each day, we introduced cap and trade with UBI, and a rather complicated law that demanded more pollution credits to pollute the closer the world got to the sea-level rising point (and bringing pollution to a halt if it got TO that point). Then we added wealth tax on the pollution credits so that they'd be use-it-or-lose-it, making sure no one player could just save up and bring everyone else's ability to produce to a screeching halt in one go.
Fair and competitive - are diametrically opposed aren't they? I would think being self-sufficient vs buying a commodity would save you money most of the time. Very thought-provoking to think of how the ecology pertains to the life of a server.
In ECO you can still have competition in several ways. For prices, you can still have varying prices from people at different stores, but still make it fair by keeping thing within reasonable bounds, which the government can help establish. The self-sufficiency you mention is actyually a server-killer in ECO. When most of the players take on the self-sufficiency approach then there very little if any reason to trade. The self -sufficiency would be completely true if the objective in ECO was to make the most money, but the game is more about collaboration as a means to “win” and enjoy - greed drives folks out and winds up creating an empty server.
I've always set my sale prices based on the buy prices on input materials on the market, even if I can make it myself, and add 20-25% profit. On items that are sold in large quantities, like lumber or bricks or glass, I also figure out my cost per calorie from the local cooks and factor that into the price (labor isnt free). It helps to have a spreadsheet where you can just input the needed values and it does the work for you. Though, the issue I have sometimes run into is when the same person is always trying to undercut pricing. You lower your price to match theirs exactly, thinking everything is cool cause we're the exact same price so people will just buy from whoever is closer or has that secondary product they want as well. Then you log on the next day to find they lowered their price again. Repeat. And you finally ask them what formula they are using to figure their prices, and the answer usually contains no math at all.
I know exactly what your saying about undercutting. Folks need to get on the same page with pricing, which is part of why I emphasized the negotiation (in one form or another) of a buy/sell price at least for those 3 items. With those agree to by players, it creates a kind of spongy bottom floor for prices to keep them from falling infinitely lower and in turn damaging the price of any goods made from them. Economics across layers is one of the hardest things about ECO, but is actually "part of" the game - having to work through all that. The profit margin you mention factors in the scaling I mentioned at the end which I'll cover in Part 2! =) Really appreciate you taking the time to write out your thoughts and experiences!!
I’m new to the game so I’m curious if a free trade system works in the game? This seems to be very regulated or at least a system to control by things other then supply and demand.
@Clan Hawkins It's 100% free market - complete supply and demand. The players get to decide what something is worth based on how much of it is needed. They even get to decide (whether or not) they want laws that regulate abuse such as overpricing or anything else around the economy. The players make it what they want. Demand largely drives the price balanced with supply, and I can't remember exactly what aspect of the pricing is covered in Part I and Part II, but Part II of this Pricing Guide might help fill in some of your questions. If you watch that, let me know if it helps. :)
Thank you! The economic approach in ECO is kinda' different than other games - you win by helping others, not competing with others...very hard to think that way when games are generally designed to win by crushing other players positioned as "opponents". ...and Good Luck!
When you say one coin, in what minted material did you mean? You can mean gold bars, because one gold bar is 10 coins and to make 10 coins is the same as making one iron bar. You must mean a different currency.
Pricing and value of a coin, and even what it is minted from, is all relative in ECO, and is set by the players. You can use gold to back your currency, but you can also use grass or sticks...something like that. The value of the backed material is also variable. 1 stick or Gold Ore (or bar) can make 1 coin, or 10,000 coins...it's up to whoever is operating the Mint and most likely who is elected as Treasurer. Also, 1 coin on 1 server can have a totally different buying power than on another server depending upon how the citizens start establishing prices (assuming the government doesn't establish some sort of baseline)...many variables. Because of all these variables, it why what the exact price of something should be is a highly-debated topic on every server. This pricing guide should be viewed with that relativity in mind - what is being presented is an example, and that basis is purely relative to whatever server your playing on. Hope that helps!!
interesting pricing concept as it is not very neo-liberally. Will be interesting if and how long our current rl economical system changes due to climate change. ecology
That a really great and interesting observation! In the real world, there is a foundation established based on an earned wage, the cost of living, the cost of doing business, and that sort of thing. Even an independent manual labor solo farmer has a certain cost he has to cover perhaps inclusive of seeds, feeding himself, property taxes on his home and farm, and similar fundamentals of food, clothing, and shelter. That's not necessarily as present in ECO, and least not as presented by default gameplay, so that negotiated pricing for those core set of 3 items is incredibly important to mimic that foundation inherently present in real life. Your observation is fantastic, and it actually a great lead-in to the next video that I roughly referred to as "scaling" to establish pricing! :) Would like to hear your thoughts on that one when it comes out as well!!
@@Oearth yeah, the economy being sooo much smaller and without a long running tradition means that even one person deciding to do a thing can throw everyone else off all at once. Curiously, I'm kinda surprised the server I was on didn't have more of a sector of people acting as dedicated haulers, even though we were gradually looking at bigger and bigger profit margins compared to the prices of things for doing this.
I know you did this video a long time ago and I don't know if you will ever come back to read this but I honestly have to ask. On almost all of your videos I have watched about cultivating an economy and opportunity, etc. Most of it is contingent on a server base that is not what 99% of server bases are. Everyone takes supporting skill sets, everyone buys low and sells high. I really would love to see a video that specifically addresses how to counter the fact unless you have a dedicated private server of close friends with like minds how does any of this work? We have tried a few of your suggestions regarding pricing, opportunity creation etc. and they routinely get bypassed or exploited by self serving players. I would love to be on a Utopia server but I keep getting stuck with the internet. Please help.
Great Question! The DadSpeed server I refer to isn’t really close friends as it’s open to all and everyone there are people who have stumbled across their server one way or the other, and are looking for that longer term experience. Your observation of.most other servers, or folks circumventing a servers good intentions is spot on. To help curb some of the self feeding, DadSpeed created a couple basic laws that set a skill cap at 2, then works on the honor system (with government monitoring) to help ensure the two skills aren’t self-feeding. I did work with another server group to actually build a set of laws that prevents taking the self-feeding ones - not the simplest method, but it works. In truth, the current default setup for the game doesn’t work too well for long term play, and even with a 30 day meteor world, it’s pretty easy to accomplish the goal with just a couple people. The developers are though working towards a more long term kind of server setup because they’ve seen such a strong interest in the longer term play. So maybe before too long more in-game settings will available. Like you though, I had to cycle through many servers before finding one with good admins, and had the style of gameplay I was looking for - keep at it and try to get a couple supporters to operate the government it’ll happen! 🙂 DadSpeed started out like any other server, and in a way, I guess I hoped my videos would help show other folks how to build that better economy.
UBI and wealth-taxation (perhaps bracketed) laws can go a LONG ways towards making an eco economy more resillient, even if someone barges in without really planning out how they'll fit into the economy at large, or if one person happens to be the only person able to make skidsteers. If one or two players seem to be hogging ALL the money despite the wealth tax, an extreme wealth-tax targeting whoever has the most money can help as well. (we called it the kill jeff bezos law).
one point not mentioned that at least for me affects pricing... renewable resources... logs are renewable, ie you can grow more trees... rocks and ore are not renewable.. they don't grow back... if a server runs long enough then eventually you will run out of mine-able rocks and ore....
It would have to be a staggeringly long-running or busy server I think? Once the initial wave of skidsteers and renewable power is gone through, the demand for those should drop way down, and there's probably a mod out there for some sort of deep drill or way to extract trace minerals from crushed rock. and...once you get to the point where inactive people are starting to have their claims ripped from them by server laws to free up space, you start recycling the high tier materials anyways.
You can use gold to back your currency, but you can also use grass or sticks...something like that...or copper...ore.... What is used to back the currency is up to the players and there are many options depending on how you want to use and run the worlds economy. The value of the backed material is also variable. 1 wooden stick or Gold Ore (or bar) can make 1 coin, or 10,000 coins...it's up to whoever is operating the Mint and most likely who is elected as Treasurer. I have a whole different video on the global currency, and on that server, I chose to make the creation of currency a "player activity" where their own labor and material contributions drove the availability of currency in the marketplace, but a different "government" on a server may choose a different strategy.
@@Oearth I like how you do currency in your servers especially getting it to circulate I find most don’t get that money is next to useless if it not being used daily I don’t have ECO but had a idea for a server based off of the old pound system where say copper could be used to have a higher metal value in theory and wonder what you may think of a system like that say 16 coins from one bar and 240 coins makes a pound
Hey eart do you know if the dad speed server will reset any time soon or if they have a second long term server that is close to like 2/3 days old.. O yeh #ecology
They started Season 5 and it’s been pretty active so I don’t foresee a reset of it anytime soon. There’s always opening for new players though - people aren’t “left behind” on DadSpeed like other servers - you can jump in any time. :). ...assuming you have or will get the game.
@@Oearth the problem is I was on the server for like 2 weeks and my friends stoped playing so I gave all my stuff away so even if I jump on again I can start cz no tent and all that
Two things that might help: 1) all you probably need to do is get in game chat and have someone give you their basic tools - just explain you came and left - with that you can start putting together work benches and the basics you need to get going again. 2) The DadSpeed server rules state that if you leave you should never give your stuff away, not that folks don't want to be nice or generous, but that it not good for the economy to have things inserted like that into the economy (and if you do ever come back you don't have anything). :) It's particularly damaging to give away land claims. I don't know the extent of what was given or to whom, but maybe they will give you your things back. Good Luck!!
Ecology Ecology EcolEcology Ecology y Ecology Ecology NO SHOT MY NAM U MAID A OTHERVIDEO AND i didnt see it im my recomendationss thats u toob 4 u HAHAAA ology EcolEcology Ecology y Ecolo : Lets get this game on the block nby next week ok ?? OKKKK
Ecology. Just finished binging this series and ended up buying the game. My friend wants to play with me but she's a little lacking in funds so ill give the copy to her if I win :)
this video is an excellent solution. another problem is that money hoarding can rob the economy of currency, literally keep the money moving.
Couldn’t agree more - keep that currency in circulation!
I hate when this happens.
Maybe my all time favorite of all your vids!
- Reminds me of the board game Settlers of Catan. Used to play it with my kids, brother, and neices. Good times!
- Any vid with baseball in it, especially the 2019 World Series Champions Nats, is a keeper.
- Finally, reminds me of a little tune from back in the day: "When the log rolls over we will all be dead." Seriously doubt anyone here gets that one. 😎
Kudos, Oearth. Well done!!
Curly W’s All Day!!
Ecology. I love you videos about . I've been attempting to find guys who make videos on your server but haven't had the best of luck
Well looks like you found one! :) Glad you're enjoying and good luck on the drawing!!
Ecology. Looked at roadmap for all the features the devs have planned, can't wait.
There is a lot being envisioned!! :D
Love the work you put in to the videos man
Keep up the good work and ecology!
Thank you - much appreciate you noting the work!! =)
And good luck on the drawing!!
I love the Star Trek clips. :) Interesting theory. I'm definitely going to watch part 2.
Glad you enjoyed, and yes!...I like for my videos to be a little fun as well as informative. Will respond to your question on Part 2. :)
Ecology
Interesting guide for sure. Planning to binge watch all of the series from the beginning, lots to catch up!
Appreciate the support, and hope you enjoy G.K.!
Sent my friend here to learn from a well put together video, great job!
Darnit! My treehouse was under construction when you made this video! 😅
Edit:Oh yeah. Funny you want the word Ecology when the video is about Economics.
You never know when the film is going to be rolling - gotta' keep those buildings looking pristine!! :D
The server I just played on this had a lot of luck with
1. Starting the game with a pre-made currency (backed by gold iirc, presumably spawned in with an admin command. )
2. using some pre-made laws to ensure everyone started with some of that currency
3. Developing wealth tax and UBI laws, alongside more classic tree-planting and public works laws to help distribute this wealth (along with a jeff-bezos law towards the end to smack whoever had the most money if they had a huge percentage of the total available currency)
As the game progressed and we smacked hard into the fact that the world was a small world, thus causing us to actually have to WORRY about how much we polluted each day, we introduced cap and trade with UBI, and a rather complicated law that demanded more pollution credits to pollute the closer the world got to the sea-level rising point (and bringing pollution to a halt if it got TO that point). Then we added wealth tax on the pollution credits so that they'd be use-it-or-lose-it, making sure no one player could just save up and bring everyone else's ability to produce to a screeching halt in one go.
Fair and competitive - are diametrically opposed aren't they? I would think being self-sufficient vs buying a commodity would save you money most of the time. Very thought-provoking to think of how the ecology pertains to the life of a server.
In ECO you can still have competition in several ways. For prices, you can still have varying prices from people at different stores, but still make it fair by keeping thing within reasonable bounds, which the government can help establish. The self-sufficiency you mention is actyually a server-killer in ECO. When most of the players take on the self-sufficiency approach then there very little if any reason to trade. The self -sufficiency would be completely true if the objective in ECO was to make the most money, but the game is more about collaboration as a means to “win” and enjoy - greed drives folks out and winds up creating an empty server.
I've always set my sale prices based on the buy prices on input materials on the market, even if I can make it myself, and add 20-25% profit. On items that are sold in large quantities, like lumber or bricks or glass, I also figure out my cost per calorie from the local cooks and factor that into the price (labor isnt free). It helps to have a spreadsheet where you can just input the needed values and it does the work for you.
Though, the issue I have sometimes run into is when the same person is always trying to undercut pricing. You lower your price to match theirs exactly, thinking everything is cool cause we're the exact same price so people will just buy from whoever is closer or has that secondary product they want as well. Then you log on the next day to find they lowered their price again. Repeat. And you finally ask them what formula they are using to figure their prices, and the answer usually contains no math at all.
I know exactly what your saying about undercutting. Folks need to get on the same page with pricing, which is part of why I emphasized the negotiation (in one form or another) of a buy/sell price at least for those 3 items. With those agree to by players, it creates a kind of spongy bottom floor for prices to keep them from falling infinitely lower and in turn damaging the price of any goods made from them. Economics across layers is one of the hardest things about ECO, but is actually "part of" the game - having to work through all that. The profit margin you mention factors in the scaling I mentioned at the end which I'll cover in Part 2! =) Really appreciate you taking the time to write out your thoughts and experiences!!
I’m new to the game so I’m curious if a free trade system works in the game? This seems to be very regulated or at least a system to control by things other then supply and demand.
@Clan Hawkins It's 100% free market - complete supply and demand. The players get to decide what something is worth based on how much of it is needed. They even get to decide (whether or not) they want laws that regulate abuse such as overpricing or anything else around the economy. The players make it what they want. Demand largely drives the price balanced with supply, and I can't remember exactly what aspect of the pricing is covered in Part I and Part II, but Part II of this Pricing Guide might help fill in some of your questions. If you watch that, let me know if it helps. :)
Ecology! Intresting guide!
Thank you! The economic approach in ECO is kinda' different than other games - you win by helping others, not competing with others...very hard to think that way when games are generally designed to win by crushing other players positioned as "opponents". ...and Good Luck!
Ecology glad I found your channel 😁
Happy to hear you’re enjoying!! :D
Ecology! This was interesting :)
Glad you enjoyed!! Good luck to you!
When you say one coin, in what minted material did you mean? You can mean gold bars, because one gold bar is 10 coins and to make 10 coins is the same as making one iron bar. You must mean a different currency.
Pricing and value of a coin, and even what it is minted from, is all relative in ECO, and is set by the players. You can use gold to back your currency, but you can also use grass or sticks...something like that. The value of the backed material is also variable. 1 stick or Gold Ore (or bar) can make 1 coin, or 10,000 coins...it's up to whoever is operating the Mint and most likely who is elected as Treasurer. Also, 1 coin on 1 server can have a totally different buying power than on another server depending upon how the citizens start establishing prices (assuming the government doesn't establish some sort of baseline)...many variables. Because of all these variables, it why what the exact price of something should be is a highly-debated topic on every server. This pricing guide should be viewed with that relativity in mind - what is being presented is an example, and that basis is purely relative to whatever server your playing on. Hope that helps!!
thank you for another great video
You're very welcome Igor - thanks for watching!!
About to pump an excel full of calculation, so I can create an economy and work as a bank for my small ECOLOGY server :)
Thanks for the vid!
Hopefully it was helpful! =)
interesting pricing concept as it is not very neo-liberally. Will be interesting if and how long our current rl economical system changes due to climate change. ecology
That a really great and interesting observation! In the real world, there is a foundation established based on an earned wage, the cost of living, the cost of doing business, and that sort of thing. Even an independent manual labor solo farmer has a certain cost he has to cover perhaps inclusive of seeds, feeding himself, property taxes on his home and farm, and similar fundamentals of food, clothing, and shelter. That's not necessarily as present in ECO, and least not as presented by default gameplay, so that negotiated pricing for those core set of 3 items is incredibly important to mimic that foundation inherently present in real life. Your observation is fantastic, and it actually a great lead-in to the next video that I roughly referred to as "scaling" to establish pricing! :) Would like to hear your thoughts on that one when it comes out as well!!
@@Oearth yeah, the economy being sooo much smaller and without a long running tradition means that even one person deciding to do a thing can throw everyone else off all at once.
Curiously, I'm kinda surprised the server I was on didn't have more of a sector of people acting as dedicated haulers, even though we were gradually looking at bigger and bigger profit margins compared to the prices of things for doing this.
I know you did this video a long time ago and I don't know if you will ever come back to read this but I honestly have to ask. On almost all of your videos I have watched about cultivating an economy and opportunity, etc. Most of it is contingent on a server base that is not what 99% of server bases are. Everyone takes supporting skill sets, everyone buys low and sells high. I really would love to see a video that specifically addresses how to counter the fact unless you have a dedicated private server of close friends with like minds how does any of this work? We have tried a few of your suggestions regarding pricing, opportunity creation etc. and they routinely get bypassed or exploited by self serving players. I would love to be on a Utopia server but I keep getting stuck with the internet. Please help.
Great Question! The DadSpeed server I refer to isn’t really close friends as it’s open to all and everyone there are people who have stumbled across their server one way or the other, and are looking for that longer term experience. Your observation of.most other servers, or folks circumventing a servers good intentions is spot on. To help curb some of the self feeding, DadSpeed created a couple basic laws that set a skill cap at 2, then works on the honor system (with government monitoring) to help ensure the two skills aren’t self-feeding. I did work with another server group to actually build a set of laws that prevents taking the self-feeding ones - not the simplest method, but it works. In truth, the current default setup for the game doesn’t work too well for long term play, and even with a 30 day meteor world, it’s pretty easy to accomplish the goal with just a couple people. The developers are though working towards a more long term kind of server setup because they’ve seen such a strong interest in the longer term play. So maybe before too long more in-game settings will available. Like you though, I had to cycle through many servers before finding one with good admins, and had the style of gameplay I was looking for - keep at it and try to get a couple supporters to operate the government it’ll happen! 🙂
DadSpeed started out like any other server, and in a way, I guess I hoped my videos would help show other folks how to build that better economy.
UBI and wealth-taxation (perhaps bracketed) laws can go a LONG ways towards making an eco economy more resillient, even if someone barges in without really planning out how they'll fit into the economy at large, or if one person happens to be the only person able to make skidsteers. If one or two players seem to be hogging ALL the money despite the wealth tax, an extreme wealth-tax targeting whoever has the most money can help as well. (we called it the kill jeff bezos law).
Thanks for the video
Absolutely!
Great Ecology video.
Thank you!!
Ecology for the win!
Indeed!!
one point not mentioned that at least for me affects pricing... renewable resources... logs are renewable, ie you can grow more trees... rocks and ore are not renewable.. they don't grow back... if a server runs long enough then eventually you will run out of mine-able rocks and ore....
It would have to be a staggeringly long-running or busy server I think? Once the initial wave of skidsteers and renewable power is gone through, the demand for those should drop way down, and there's probably a mod out there for some sort of deep drill or way to extract trace minerals from crushed rock. and...once you get to the point where inactive people are starting to have their claims ripped from them by server laws to free up space, you start recycling the high tier materials anyways.
Does copper or sliver money help with value or does inflation matter much
You can use gold to back your currency, but you can also use grass or sticks...something like that...or copper...ore.... What is used to back the currency is up to the players and there are many options depending on how you want to use and run the worlds economy. The value of the backed material is also variable. 1 wooden stick or Gold Ore (or bar) can make 1 coin, or 10,000 coins...it's up to whoever is operating the Mint and most likely who is elected as Treasurer. I have a whole different video on the global currency, and on that server, I chose to make the creation of currency a "player activity" where their own labor and material contributions drove the availability of currency in the marketplace, but a different "government" on a server may choose a different strategy.
@@Oearth I like how you do currency in your servers especially getting it to circulate I find most don’t get that money is next to useless if it not being used daily I don’t have ECO but had a idea for a server based off of the old pound system where say copper could be used to have a higher metal value in theory and wonder what you may think of a system like that say 16 coins from one bar and 240 coins makes a pound
Ecology. Love the video.
Thank you!! =)
Hey eart do you know if the dad speed server will reset any time soon or if they have a second long term server that is close to like 2/3 days old.. O yeh #ecology
They started Season 5 and it’s been pretty active so I don’t foresee a reset of it anytime soon. There’s always opening for new players though - people aren’t “left behind” on DadSpeed like other servers - you can jump in any time. :). ...assuming you have or will get the game.
@@Oearth the problem is I was on the server for like 2 weeks and my friends stoped playing so I gave all my stuff away so even if I jump on again I can start cz no tent and all that
Two things that might help: 1) all you probably need to do is get in game chat and have someone give you their basic tools - just explain you came and left - with that you can start putting together work benches and the basics you need to get going again. 2) The DadSpeed server rules state that if you leave you should never give your stuff away, not that folks don't want to be nice or generous, but that it not good for the economy to have things inserted like that into the economy (and if you do ever come back you don't have anything). :) It's particularly damaging to give away land claims. I don't know the extent of what was given or to whom, but maybe they will give you your things back. Good Luck!!
Ecology! 😄
Another entry never hurts!!
@@Oearth Couldn't find an earlier comment on this video, so 🤷♂️😅
Ecology :-D
...and good luck!!
Ecology
Roger that!
ecology
Ecology Ecology EcolEcology Ecology y Ecology Ecology NO SHOT MY NAM U MAID A OTHERVIDEO AND i didnt see it im my recomendationss thats u toob 4 u HAHAAA ology EcolEcology Ecology y Ecolo : Lets get this game on the block nby next week ok ?? OKKKK
;-)
Ecology xd
Ecology.
Just finished binging this series and ended up buying the game.
My friend wants to play with me but she's a little lacking in funds so ill give the copy to her if I win :)
Love the Binge! Let me know how you like the game!?
@@Oearth The game is awesome. Theres nothing else like it
Ecology
ecology
Ecology
Acknowledged!