What use are coins?

[kobnach]

In another thread, people are quoting prices in coins. It seems to me anyone would prefer materials they can use, and I haven't yet found a recipe that takes coins as input. So what's the point of coins in H&H? Are they smaller or unstealable or something of the sort? Can one use them as if they were ingots of the material they are made from?

Just colour me confused.

[Blaze]

You'll need the skill "Basic Mechanics" in order to create a coin press and the ability to make coins. Coins can be made from cast iron, wrought iron, and steel. From lowest value to highest, respectively. They're not much more than trade goods, I personally find them cumbersome.

1 bar of metal creates 99 coins of the same metal. This can be used to trade for items which are not worth an entire bar. You can smelt 100 coins to create 1 bar of the same metal.

[sami1337]

I think he wants to know what we use coins for.

Nothing much yet. Just an easier payment method when you can't supply something the other party needs.

[jorb]

Get a hundred of them and you can smelt them into a bar of metal, which is useful. Back in the days, this was possible IRL as well. This was before the government decided that there was no need for an objective standard of value, because printing colorful paper is just that much more practical when you're looking to mint your citizens into poverty. Then the government pointed a big gun at the citizens and told them to use colorful paper instead of metals. Needless to say, the citizens complied. So now, whenever the government runs out of money, it just prints more colorful paper, which it puts into circulation by spending it, at the cost of everyone else who already owns other pieces colorful paper. This phenomenon is called inflation, though it might more aptly be named theft, or taxation, which is a euphemism for theft. It causes, among other things, enormous malinvestments due to an illusionary excess of circulating money. These malinvestments are called bubbles, and sometimes they burst, causing firms and companies to go bankrupt. Usually, such events get dubbed "Financial Crises" or "Great Depressions", and are blamed on Gordon Gecko and Wall Street greed. Which, of course, is just a rhetorical smoke screen behind which state-run socialism -- and the corresponding contraction of civil liberties that, for natural and obvious reasons, follow with that -- are advanced.

By Godwin, a comparison with Hitler would be fitting.

Put them into a finery forge and watch them turn into a highly useful bar of metal. That is all.

[Peter]

Jorb certainly has stronger opinions of this than I do, I was just about to post this:

The advantage of coins, especially steel coins, is the inherent utility of the metal in them; someone wants to get coins so they can make steel items without smelting them, so there you go.
Sell a few dozen loaves of bread for a few steel coins apiece, and you gradually get enough to buy some logs from somebody who's going to buy meat from a hunter who accumulates around, say 110 coins and takes them to a smelter who makes a bar of metal, keeps 10, and gives him back the bar. The bar can then be used to make a sword that the hunter wanted.

Of course, there's some flaws with that model, particularly in a small community where pretty soon everybody has steel plate and you get into some CRAZY inflation. But the theory is sound, and as long as the population increases and things degrade. It will only get stronger as more things to buy and more specialization come into play. As it is it is still a little too easy to get a really balanced character who can make anything, including his own steel.

[Raephire]

Get a hundred of them and you can smelt them into a bar of metal, which is useful. Back in the days, this was possible IRL as well. This was before the government decided that there was no need for an objective standard of value, because printing colorful paper is just that much more practical when you're looking to mint your citizens into poverty. Then the government pointed a big gun at the citizens and told them to use colorful paper instead of metals. Needless to say, the citizens complied. So now, whenever the government runs out of money, it just prints more colorful paper, which it puts into circulation by spending it, at the cost of everyone else who already owns other pieces colorful paper. This phenomenon is called inflation, though it might more aptly be named theft, or taxation, which is a euphemism for theft. It causes, among other things, enormous malinvestments due to an illusionary excess of circulating money. These malinvestments are called bubbles, and sometimes they burst, causing firms and companies to go bankrupt. Usually, such events get dubbed "Financial Crises" or "Great Depressions", and are blamed on Gordon Gecko and Wall Street greed. Which, of course, is just a rhetorical smoke screen behind which state-run socialism -- and the corresponding contraction of civil liberties that, for natural and obvious reasons, follow with that -- are advanced.

By Godwin, a comparison with Hitler would be fitting.

Put them into a finery forge and watch them turn into a highly useful bar of metal. That is all.

We are aiming to fix the issues with the federal reserve banks.

[Potjeh]

Well, coins are a good standard by which to measure value of goods. As a single cast iron coin has low value, all goods can have their value expressed in cast iron coins without resorting to decimals. Expressing prices of all goods in cast coins helps make trades more transparent, as people can generally check the forums to get an idea how many coins an item costs, which means that the likelihood of getting ripped off decreases. However, the actual trade doesn't need to include any physical coins.

Anyway, most people don't really want coins right now because they're not in high demand, and are thus hard to spend. I personally intend to start selling massive quantities of pastries, and I will only accept coins and metal bars as payment (coins will be preferred). My intention is to help make coins valuable. If a couple of people do that, coins should gain value of their own, which will greatly simplify and stimulate trade, making the game a good deal more interesting to play.

[Raephire]

I agree. Right now I'm constructing a massive highway, half done too, took 2 days. With tea.

2 real days.

But yea, I intend to get some trade going too.

Delicious Deer Dog
Tea
Piglet Wurst
and Tame Liverwurst will be my produce.

At least for now, when I become stronger, the map resets, and more construction options are available, I will probably construct a temple far far away.

[HumanShield]

This is the only MMO with REAL currency, it is brilliant.

[Dondy]

Right now one of my most valuable in-game resources is empty spaces in my inventory. If I can't quickly convert something into something useful and consume it or wear it I'm doubtful about picking it up. Seeds I can plant, armor I can wear, arrows I can store in a quiver. Something that might be useful later is something I don't really want.

I find that I need to keep my inventory partially full of food, since while I can eat apples to avoid starvation -depending on where I travel- apples don't raise my stats and I am usually eating for one stat or another. So if I am eating for perception I end up wandering around with my inventory slots taken up by carrot cake or deer. And then I am usually carrying around some tools and weapons that I don't want to lose, so I end up with very few spare inventory slots. This means that when I come across a plentiful resource I quickly run out of space and have to decide what I want to keep. Or if I want to build something -say an herbalist's bench- I end up going through a time consuming process of putting things down to empty inventory, doing the work and then picking things up again.

I am sure I am not the only one experiencing the game this way. But this means... coins are not a liquid commodity at the moment. A lot of this is because until recently the thieving problem was bad enough that stockpiling was impractical. People with masonry walls can probably start stockpiling again -until the next set of new developments that changes the thief-to-producer balance. If stockpiling remains practical than coins will start to appreciate in value and they will be negotiable again.