Make coins inspectable

[DDDsDD999]

Just give each coin press and its currency a randomly generated seed. Bam, solved.

Doesn't solve the issue of an oversupply of coin, though. Solves the counterfeiting problem well, but IMO, solving one issue without fixing any others is putting the cart before the horse.

No one cares about that. I just want to stop getting counterfeits.

[DatSheep]

Just give each coin press and its currency a randomly generated seed. Bam, solved.

Doesn't solve the issue of an oversupply of coin, though. Solves the counterfeiting problem well, but IMO, solving one issue without fixing any others is putting the cart before the horse.

No one cares about that. I just want to stop getting counterfeits.

Maybe one step at a time for this one magic man?

[Granger]

Counterfeit coins could be solved by making the name of the currency unique (while stripping leading and trailing spaces to stop shenanigans like we can pull with character names when inheriting).

Topic isn't about similar named currencies though, it's about limiting the ability of the issuer to silently increase the amount of a currency in circulation.

[MagicManICT]

Maybe one step at a time for this one magic man?

The problem is, as best as I can see it, is that each individual problem when discussing currency has a unique solution set that isn't necessarily compatible with other solutions other than the presented "track individual coins." That's not really practical on a small scale database, and can be problematic in other ways. You then run into "I solved this problem, but now my solution is trash because I have to throw it out it to fix another related problem."

IMO, the "easy solution" here is to simply say that any coin with a given name is interchangeable with any other coin of the same name as long as type and quality requirements are met. That means that GQs might get devalued due to counterfeiters, but this is how it works in real life when some random guy wants to "get rich quick" by printing up a bunch of fake $20s. Most countries (with a currency that has any real value in the world market) have changed the way money is printed multiple times in the last couple decades to combat the ease of modern counterfeiting. The goal here is to put the onus on those that would issue money to try to do the best job possible at controlling the value, not the players that use it and get screwed by those looking to scam others.

edit: that just popped up in my head. should be easily doable from a code standpoint as well as design. It shouldn't interfere with any other changes that may be needed in the future, and would be easily reverted if some other more specific mechanic or algorithm were to be developed. (Code could probably be left without causing any bugs, it'd just be useless.)

2nd edit:

Topic isn't about similar named currencies though, it's about limiting the ability of the issuer to silently increase the amount of a currency in circulation.

It's all one and the same, though. Same thing that would stop counterfeiting would stop intentional devaluation of currency, and vice versa.

[Granger]

Only that there is no way to counterfit H&H coins (in the RL sense that the forged ones are accepted by a real merchant).

You might build a press, give it the same name as an existing currency and press away - but you won't be able to buy stuff with your creation as the only possible exploit with counterfit coins is to setup a barter stand and offer stuff, then pay with coins that look legit but are incompatible with the real ones.

What is possible though for the one(s) controlling the legit press is to create coins which only cost them the metal to create (which is in abundance once you have a large scale mining operation), that can then be used to corner the market on valuable goods.

Sure, you could argue with the intrinsic metal value of coins. But that only works as long as metals are actually scarce - which they are not in Haven.

[DDDsDD999]

You might build a press, give it the same name as an existing currency and press away - but you won't be able to buy stuff with your creation as the only possible exploit with counterfit coins is to setup a barter stand and offer stuff, then pay with coins that look legit but are incompatible with the real ones.

People trade in person all the time. I just want to be able to tell these fake coins apart from the real ones, how is this such a hard concept for people.

[Granger]

You might build a press, give it the same name as an existing currency and press away - but you won't be able to buy stuff with your creation as the only possible exploit with counterfit coins is to setup a barter stand and offer stuff, then pay with coins that look legit but are incompatible with the real ones.

People trade in person all the time. I just want to be able to tell these fake coins apart from the real ones, how is this such a hard concept for people.

Maybe you should use this link instead of trying to hijack only marginally related C&I topics?

[shubla]

Not too fond of being able to magically see more coins of the currency being minted just from having a single coin on the other end of the world. I also think there should be some amount of trust involved in issuing currency, just like there is trust involved in more mundane trade.

I think you should re-think your opinion about the thing.
The harsh reality is that there will be like 1 currency that most people trust, and no other currencies, because the risk is too big that owner would flood the markets with them.

If you added some way to identify which coin is which. For example, when coins are pressed, maybe they should include some information (batch number, date) like. "Coin forged on 69th day batch #666".
This would not be "magical" way, it is very realistic that coins would have some information like this. This way it would be possible for players to identify if somebody is forging some currency for his own benefit, but it would still require some effort to investigate this.

Then we could have multiple currencies as people would have to trust a bit less on owners of currencies, as there would be additional means of telling when somebody is doing tricks with the currency.

[Sevenless]

I feel like this violates the social experiment concept haven is based on. A coin is only worth the trust you put in it. I wouldn't object to the mint itself storing the data but I'm with loftar on the whole magic info coin feeling weird for this game.

[shubla]

I feel like this violates the social experiment concept haven is based on. A coin is only worth the trust you put in it. I wouldn't object to the mint itself storing the data but I'm with loftar on the whole magic info coin feeling weird for this game.

Its not magic, but physical text on the coin!