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"This detailed system for pricing raw materials in a game world using gold as a reference is quite comprehensive and well-thought-out. It provides a framework for economic interaction in a fictional setting that mimics real-world principles, especially the idea of using a stable commodity (gold) to anchor the pricing of all other goods, ensuring that the market remains balanced and consistent across different regions and goods."
It then goes on to explain the system without being asked to do so. Therefore, what I propose to do, below, is to post the html version of the wiki page. Then, if you really want to understand, copy this into Chat and feel free to ask it questions. It can explain it better than I can.
The '''gold standard''' explains a method for pricing raw materials in a game world based upon their raw material production and their comparative availability, determined by a single location's geographical relationship to those places where goods are produced. Before the system below can be employed, "[[References (trade)|references]]" must be placed in the game world, either arbitrarily or randomly. Additionally, details for the [[Transport (trade)|transport]] of goods must also be calculated. These details are necessary for the work that is explained and shown below. __TOC__ In determining a price for raw resources — agricultural produce before coming to market, mineral ores, harvested oils, quarried stone and more — gold is a convenient standard because, first, it occurs naturally as nuggets or flakes, and is therefore tradeable without alteration. The first tokens of currency were fashioned of gold, with minimal hammering. As a material, it's rare, measurable and consistent — unlike, say, a system based on labour or grain production — especially since European-consistent cereals aren't produced at all in many parts of the game world. Gold is therefore practical where pricing is concerned. With gold as the standard measure, we ensure that the value of gold itself differs only slightly from place to place. Otherwise, the effect on the price of gold would cause all other prices in the system to fluctuate wildly (and make the availability of gold the only meaningful factor in determining those prices). The method employed here, therefore, is to make gold 100 times less flexible than the price of any other material. "Flexibility" itself is a system-defined metric with its own logic, which we shall explain going forward. == Gold Price == Let's begin with the value of gold in the fictional market we've introduced elsewhere: that of [[Locating References (trade)|Marzabol]]. On that linked page, we defined the number of gold references in Marzabol as 1.2 — after transport distribution. The total references in our localised "world" is 2.0, that Marzarbol has access to most of it. The total production of physical gold within this narrowed system is 2,640, or 1,320 oz. per reference. To handle this, we build the following table: {| class="wikitable" style="float:left; margin-right: 25px; text-align:center; background-color:#d4f2f2; font-family: inherit;" |+Gold References ! style="width:70px"|local references !! style="width:70px"|total references !! style="width:70px"|production !! style="width:70px"|unit |- | 1.2 || 2.0 || 2,640.00 || oz. |}<div style="clear:both;"></div> This shows the initial structure of the table we want, giving us only those things we know as raw data. We can see this as a foundational table intended to be built out step by step, to explain the structure of the system. This gives space for each concept to be introduced and defined before moving on, promoting understanding without overwhelming. Our next step will be to determine how much physical gold is flowing in and around Marzabol. To do this, we divide the production by the total number of references, then multiplying that by the local references. It can be seen below that the columns are identified left to right by letter, and top to bottom by number. The heading "local references" is "A1", so that the local references for Marzabol is "A2". The differently coloured line at the bottom is not part of the table, but rather seeks to translate the table into an excel spreadsheet. {| class="wikitable" style="float:left; margin-right: 25px; text-align:center; background-color:#d4f2f2; font-family: inherit;" |+Locally Available Gold ! style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"| !! style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"|A !! style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"|B !! style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"|C !! style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"|D !! style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"|E |- ! style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"|1 !! style="width:70px"|local references !! style="width:70px"|total references !! style="width:70px"|production !! style="width:70px"|unit !! style="width:70px"|local availability |- | style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"|'''2''' || 1.2 || 2.0 || 2,640.00 || oz. || 1,584.00 |- | style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"| || style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"|A2 || style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"|B2 || style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"|C2 || style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"|D2 || style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"|C2/B2*A2 |}<div style="clear:both;"></div> Columns F and G seem to be a repeat of columns to the right, but for other goods that are not gold, these numbers given the world value of that commodity in gold, as well as the local value in gold. It's interesting to note that 2 references of wheat are considered by this system to have the same value as 2 references of gold. This leap means that the whole value of wealth in the world is not equal to the value of gold alone — but is, rather, a completely separate total. Prices are not measured by comparing the total weight of a given commodity — say wheat — against the total value of all gold. Rather, the total value of all wheat depends on how many "wheat references" there are... with each reference being equal to the value of the weight of gold in the world divided by "gold references." Likewise, the number for "oz. per local availability" seems deceptively simple, because the value of an ounce of gold is correctly 1:1 with the price of gold. Wheat, in comparison, is produced in a vastly larger volume than gold; 2 references for wheat in Marzabol would weigh an approximate 89.7 tons, using medieval Earth as a comparison. The two piles would be the same value, but each ounce of wheat would be price correspondingly less. {| class="wikitable" style="float:left; margin-right: 25px; text-align:center; background-color:#d4f2f2; font-family: inherit;" |+oz. per Local Availability ! style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"| !! style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"|A !! style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"|B !! style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"|C !! style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"|D !! style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"|E !! style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"|F !! style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"|G !! style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"|H |- ! style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"|1 !! style="width:70px"|local references !! style="width:70px"|total references !! style="width:70px"|production !! style="width:70px"|unit !! style="width:70px"|local availability !! style="width:70px"|world value (oz. gold) !! style="width:70px"|local value (oz. gold) !! style="width:70px"|oz. per local availability |- | style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"|'''2''' || 1.2 || 2.0 || 2,640.00 || oz. || 1,584.00 || 2,640.00 || 1,584.00 || 1.0 |- | style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"| || style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"|A2 || style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"|B2 || style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"|C2 || style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"|D2 || style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"|C2/B2*A2 || style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"|=C2 || style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"|=E2 || style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"|=G2/E1 |}<div style="clear:both;"></div><div style="clear:both;"></div> The role of this next column seems to be a point of contention — yet those I've seen attempt to duplicate my work without seem to run into a problem of expanding scale. A sort of elastic constant is necessary to restrain the flexibility of prices. In cases where local references become miniscule compare to the total world references, the end calculation tends to become stratospheric. Therefore, this constant, (B2/C2*0.02)+1, restrains that variability; but the formula here is given as it would appear for any other commodity. For gold, as promised, the flexibility is adjusted as seen in the table below: {| class="wikitable" style="float:left; margin-right: 25px; text-align:center; background-color:#d4f2f2; font-family: inherit;" |+oz. per Local Availability ! style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"| !! style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"|A !! style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"|B !! style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"|C !! style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"|D !! style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"|E !! style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"|F !! style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"|G !! style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"|H !! style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"|I |- ! style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"|1 !! style="width:70px"|local references !! style="width:70px"|total references !! style="width:70px"|production !! style="width:70px"|unit !! style="width:70px"|local availability !! style="width:70px"|world value (oz. gold) !! style="width:70px"|local value (oz. gold) !! style="width:70px"|oz. per local availability !! style="width:70px"|adjustment for rarity |- | style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"|'''2''' || 1.2 || 2.0 || 2,640.00 || oz. || 1,584.00 || 2,640.00 || 1,584.00 || 1.0 || 1.0003 |- | style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"| || style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"|A2 || style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"|B2 || style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"|C2 || style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"|D2 || style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"|C2/B2*A2 || style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"|=C2 || style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"|=E2 || style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"|=G2/E1 || style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"|=(C2/B2*0.0002)+1 |}<div style="clear:both;"></div><div style="clear:both;"></div> Now that we’ve established all the foundational values, we’re able to determine the final price of gold — or, more precisely, the price of an ounce of raw gold in a specific market. However, rather than express this value in gold pieces, we will convert all prices into [[Coin (symbol)|copper pieces]]. This is done for two key reasons. First, copper is the lowest denomination of coin, making it the most likely to yield practical, non-zero values when measuring small quantities of goods. Second, copper serves as the most widely used coin among common persons in most game worlds, and therefore offers the clearest point of reference for understanding everyday value. By pricing everything in copper, we gain both mathematical precision and economic realism. The number of copper coins per ounce of gold depends, first, upon the amount of gold actually found in a "gold coin." In the system described here, 1 troy ounce of gold = 31.1035 grams; most gold coins in the time period weighed approximately 7⅛ grams and were a mix of half-gold and half-silver and other materials, notably nickel and zinc. I eventually settled that 1 troy ounce of pure gold provided sufficient material for 8.715 "gold" coins; an oddly precise number, but one that's stuck. Again, traditionally, much of history worked on a comparison of 15:1 for silver coins to gold — far from the purely researched D&D standard. For the sake of a number more easily divisible, I settled on 16:1 silver to gold; silver coins tend to be around 13 to 15 grams of silver and other metals. Copper coins often weighed as much as 25 grams; and because there were few materials to mix them with that weren't almost as valuable as copper, the sheer size of the coin tended to give it value. Still, with the adjusted rate to silver, I settled on 12:1 copper per silver piece. This makes 192 c.p. per g.p. {| class="wikitable" style="float:left; margin-right: 25px; text-align:center; background-color:#d4f2f2; font-family: inherit;" |+oz. per Local Availability ! style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"| !! style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"|A !! style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"|B !! style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"|C !! style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"|D !! style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"|E !! style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"|F !! style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"|G !! style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"|H !! style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"|I !! style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"|J |- ! style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"|1 !! style="width:70px"|local references !! style="width:70px"|total references !! style="width:70px"|production !! style="width:70px"|unit !! style="width:70px"|local availability !! style="width:70px"|world value (oz. gold) !! style="width:70px"|local value (oz. gold) !! style="width:70px"|oz. per local availability !! style="width:70px"|adjustment for rarity !! style="width:70px"|c.p./unit |- | style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"|'''2''' || 1.2 || 2.0 || 2,640.00 || oz. || 1,584.00 || 2,640.00 || 1,584.00 || 1.0 || 1.0003 || 1,673.78 |- | style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"| || style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"|A2 || style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"|B2 || style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"|C2 || style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"|D2 || style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"|C2/B2*A2 || style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"|=C2 || style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"|=E2 || style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"|=G2/E1 || style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"|=(C2/B2*0.0002)+1 || style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"|=H2*I2*8.715*192 |}<div style="clear:both;"></div><div style="clear:both;"></div> This gives a price in c.p. for how much 1 ounce of gold costs, specifically for the market in Marzabol. Other markets would differ, but because the flexibility of gold is so reduced, differences are able to go unnoticed by players moving from place to place. This makes gold a firm, reliable commodity, which is desirable for measuring hundreds of other products against it. The system portrayed in this example is inordinately small and therefore exhibits more price flexibility than would be typical in a fully developed trade network. But as more and more regions and markets are added to the premise, gold prices and most others stabilise even further — especially if we add a good, healthy number of gold references to the overall. It's recommended that the number of gold references vs. all other references should be about 1.3 to 1.4 percent. Thus, if there were 25,000 references throughout the system, about 350 should be for gold. That would reflect numbers drawn from earthly references gleaned from source material in mid-20th century encyclopedias (which are closer to a medieval equivalent than a present day comparison). Contrariwise, I strongly urge the reader not to make similar adjustments to other products; these products do not affect the value of every other thing in the system and therefore can exist in isolation to those other things. As well, strong fluctuations in the presence of these things will create scarcity and game drama. These aspects should not be smoothed out in the way that the price of gold should be. == Other Resources == Now we can look at the process for calculating the prices for other undeveloped goods, comparing these to gold. To begin with, let's examine how these same calculations might affect our simplified reference for "ore." In a better defined system, the exact types of ore would each have references of their own, but as this is for demonstration, assembling different ores together should serve our purpose. The following adjustments can therefore be made to the table: {| class="wikitable" style="float:left; margin-right: 25px; text-align:center; background-color:#d4f2f2; font-family: inherit;" |+oz. per Local Availability ! style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"| !! style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"|A !! style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"|B !! style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"|C !! style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"|D !! style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"|E !! style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"|F !! style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"|G !! style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"|H !! style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"|I !! style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"|J !! style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"|K |- ! style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"|1 !! style="width:70px"|resource !! style="width:70px"|local references !! style="width:70px"|total references !! style="width:70px"|production !! style="width:70px"|unit !! style="width:70px"|local availability !! style="width:70px"|world value (oz. gold) !! style="width:70px"|local value (oz. gold) !! style="width:70px"|oz. per local availability !! style="width:70px"|adjustment for rarity !! style="width:70px"|c.p./unit |- | style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"|'''2''' || gold || 1.2 || 2.0 || 2,640.00 || oz. || 1,584.00 || 2,640.00 || 1,584.00 || 1.0 || 1.0003 || 1,673.78 |- | style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"|'''3''' || ore || 1.2 || 2.0 || 8,000,000.00 || lb. || 4,800,000.00 || colspan="5"|details to come |- | style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"| || style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"|A2 || style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"|B2 || style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"|C2 || style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"|D2 || style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"|E2 || style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"|D2/C2*B2 || style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"|=D2 || style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"|=F2 || style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"|=H2/F1 || style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"|=(C2/B2*0.0002)+1 || style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"|=I2*J2*8.715*192 |}<div style="clear:both;"></div><div style="clear:both;"></div> Note that the unit employed to designate one commodity from another does not need to match that of any other. We can thus price anything from carats to heads of livestock, without needing to adjust the formulas by which the desired number is obtained. The end result, column K, gives the price per column F, the unit given. This brings us to the world value of ore in ounces of gold. This is a bit tricky. Whereas 2 ounces of ore are the same value as two ounces of gold, remember that "local" gold has been adjusted for rarity. This means that we want to multiply the total references for ore against the value of gold '''in Marzabol''', which is distinct from its universal price. Another market would have a slightly different price for the same amount of available ore. Value is mutable, depending on our location — we want our trade system to reflect this. The bottom line of the chart gives the excel calculations for row 3. {| class="wikitable" style="float:left; margin-right: 25px; text-align:center; background-color:#d4f2f2; font-family: inherit;" |+oz. per Local Availability ! style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"| !! style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"|A !! style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"|B !! style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"|C !! style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"|D !! style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"|E !! style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"|F !! style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"|G !! style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"|H !! style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"|I !! style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"|J !! style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"|K |- ! style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"|1 !! style="width:70px"|resource !! style="width:70px"|local references !! style="width:70px"|total references !! style="width:70px"|production !! style="width:70px"|unit !! style="width:70px"|local availability !! style="width:70px"|world value (oz. gold) !! style="width:70px"|local value (oz. gold) !! style="width:70px"|oz. per local availability !! style="width:70px"|adjustment for rarity !! style="width:70px"|c.p./unit |- | style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"|'''2''' || gold || 1.2 || 2.0 || 2,640.00 || oz. || 1,584.00 || 2,640.00 || 1,584.00 || 1.0 || 1.0003 || 1,673.78 |- | style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"|'''3''' || ore || 1.2 || 2.0 || 8,000,000.00 || lb. || 4,800,000.00 || 3,347.56 || 2,008.56 || 0.000418 || 1.033 || 0.7235 |- | style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"| || style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"|A2 || style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"|B2 || style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"|C2 || style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"|D2 || style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"|E2 || style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"|D2/C2*B2 || style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"|=D2 || style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"|=F2 || style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"|=H2/F2 || style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"|=(C2/B2*0.0002)+1 || style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"|=I2*J2*8.715*192 |- | style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"| || style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"|A3 || style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"|B3 || style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"|C3 || style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"|D3 || style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"|E3 || style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"|D3/C3*B3 || style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"|=C3*$K$2 || style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"|=B3/C3*G3 || style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"|=H3/F3 || style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"|=(C3/B3*0.02)+1 || style="background-color:#fcf6e9;"|=I3*J3*8.715*192 |}</div><div style="clear:both;"></div> For those unfamiliar with excel, the dollar signs in Excel formulas are used to lock a reference, preventing it from changing when the formula is copied to other cells. $K$2 means both the column K and the row 2 are fixed. So no matter where you copy that formula, it will always pull the value from cell K2. This ensures that every resource uses the price of gold in Marzabol as a stable anchor for comparison, instead of shifting to some other row or column during replication. It's essential for keeping location-specific constants intact across multiple rows. We've thus built a template for any undeveloped good we wish to include. All we need do is repeat the line containing ore and adjust the numbers for how many local references there are, how many total references throughout the system for the commodity, and how much production we care to assign per reference. If we increase or decrease a number, that change is reflected in the calculations to make a given commodity's price rise or fall. If we introduce a new location in our game world, and increase the number of references to ore in that location, all things being equal, the price of ore will rise... UNLESS we also increase the amount of production. This is counter-intuitive, but references indicates VALUE, not SUPPLY. The actual production indicates supply. The system therefore doesn't operate on ill-considered supply counts, but upon a structured, location-weighted model, with the availability of references creating a counterbalancing "demand."
