i realized recently that all three nations use the same currency. and that confused me because the itani were separated from the serco for a very long time and when they make contact with the serco and have a war they both use money that can be used in all three nations and that doesnt seem right to me.

heh... we used to be called the "Gold" Nation... there's still some truth to that :D

If you have an already established financial structure, you're not going to change it just to be different from your enemy.

Yeah, but over 1000 years seperate the departure of the ark and the capture of the research vessel. It would be quite possible that during that time the two civilizations would have evolved their own unique systems of currency.

Regardless, I would imagine the UIT trade juggernaught would provide the common denominator, and as such the Serco and Itani would conform to whatever system that the UIT had in place.

It mighta been buttons and beads for a few years, but eventually :)

That's an interesting concept I never really thought about in context with VO. You could add a quite a bit of depth and possibilities to the game with each nation having its own currency.

An interesting point Mr bean . In RL we have only one global economic model to base any theories on , but overall I tend to agree with Gavan , large econonic systems tend to use a standard currency unit for international trade and other currencies at a local level . Commodities are generally traded in $ prices , any conversion being done by secondary set of traders at a local level .

In practice vo is actually a small economic model , there are only 120 locations at which to trade . Even so having fluctuating exchange rates across the nations and factions would be a major peice of programming.

If in the very long term planets are integrated into the game then a local currency planetside would be fun : well fun for the players and a real headache for Ray......

cheers
Ecka

Aye but there has also been over 500 since the re-meeting of the factions Gav. Thats enough to establish a common currency, most likely due to previous similarities that are now integrated back into a single type.

No. Bad idea. If it makes the game more complicated, don't put it in.

Or maybe they do have their own currencies on their own planets, with the "credit" being a sort of index fund maintaining a balance between exchange rates, accepted at all space stations and mediated via the UIT. Or something.

The "Credit" ~= The Euro. That works.

Why? Well...

When the CCCP broke up, every country tried to make it's own currency and most of them became worthless right away. (I pulled 40 million rubles out of an ATM on my first day in Minsk. That was chump change.) Some of the countries (Lithuania and Latvia specifically) in the west chose to link their currency's worth to more stable "index" currencies (the dollar and pound, respectively). Now, a lot of those countries are trying really hard to get hooked up with the EU...partially because the Euro is a stable monetary index. I'm not an authority on VO history, but I expect that after factions started splitting up, somthing like this happened and the UIT's "Credit" became for us what the EU is becoming for Europe.

Even though Russia is too stubborn to give up the Ruble, the dollar and the euro are the true currencies there. When a Russian gets paid, he or she immediately goes to the bank and exchanges his or her rubles for dollars or euros because their value doesn't fluctuate. If there are still any Itani Smurfbucks floating around, the situation is probably analagous, ie. they are quickly exchanged for credits.

making reasons on why it should be right isnt why this thread was written.

this is a very important situation that has never been mentioned before. there should be two major currencies in this game, because there were two factions separated for a long period of time.

having one currency is ridiculous. unless both were previously on the barter system and came together to agree on nothing except "...hey, we need the same money, if we are going to be at war in connecting galaxies..."

<vote> dual currencies </vote>

plus, this could open up a whole new thing for VO, currency exchange, in-station banks, "stock market"-like currency buying, and so on...

<vote>drdoak007 undertakes the programming involved personally</vote>

I don't think its a terribly important thing at all, considering how easily it is to rationalize why the current situation exists.

That said, I would love to see an economic model that could maintain fluctuating exchange rates, economic booms, recessions, depressions, etc, etc.

Ya.

While credit=Euro thing works philosophically, I think if there are separate currencies, it might introduce a new dynamic into the economy.

/me goes to squat on the name George Soros.

There is no actual hard currency anymore, it's all just wire transfers through UIT banks. We space traders would use a common system if available even if the nations had their own currency system. There is still trade between all three nations even tho there is a war simmering.

I like the reasoning that having multiple currencies and exchange rates and such thoroughly crosses the line between what is complicated enough to be interesting and into the no-man's land of Masters level economics which almost no one likes in the REAL world... If you want to play with currency exchange rates, play Gold (the game) by Avalon Hill.

/me is in RL close enough to his pension fund to appreciate the stability of the Cr.

In the long term fluctuating currencies would be fun , but in the short term it really seems like a complication too far ....

cheers

Ecka