Hello! I would like to deal with "Possibilities for self-regulation in a mini economy with the example manager game" in a skilled work. Initial situation: I've selected "hattrick.org" as an example. I want to analyze the economy and find possibilities to make the game economy regulate itself. Problems: Teams which are deleted cause big changes in the recirculated quantity of money. If a manager deletes his team which has got 200,000,000, the recirculated quantity decreases fast. The recirculated quantity has to grow from season to season in order to keep the game interesting. Money mustn't be distributed unfairly: It can't be permitted that 1% of the teams own 20% of the money. Approaches: 1] Decay of values: Players end their career earlier so that money (market value) leaves the system earlier/faster. 2] Percentaged taxes on player trades and money transfers: Whenever two human managers exchange money, a part of it must leave the system. The higher the exchanged value, the higher the amount which leaves the system. 3] KI teams (money transfers to them leave the system) sell players for 200% of their market value. Thus 50% of the money is "lost" and leaves the system. 4] Temporary advantages: Teams may buy temporary advantages for high amounts of money, e.g. improving the fitness level of their players (fitness coaches are expensive). 5] Limit help between human managers (not concerning problems but money), e.g.: Players can only change teams every third season so that teams can't make money that fast. 6] Bank accounts of teams can only keep limited amounts of money. Earnings exceeding this limit are lost so that the rich teams can never get too rich. 7] Teams must pay taxes on capital exceeding a given limit, e.g. the limit 300,000,000 with the percentage 10%. => A team with 310,000,000 loses 1,000,000 and on the next day 900,000. 8] Watch sources: If a source is generating too much money, it gets reduced. What do you think about these approaches? Are they good? Would they work? Thanks alot in advance! Sorry for my bad language, I'm German! ;)

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Original post by Ecomas The recirculated quantity has to grow from season to season in order to keep the game interesting. Money mustn't be distributed unfairly: It can't be permitted that 1% of the teams own 20% of the money.

These two goal conditions appear to be in direct conflict with each other. The first sentence suggests that money is a prize for victory, something the players compete against each other for. The second sentence places a cap on the prize, and suggests that even distribution is the goal.

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[Edited by - Awoken on September 15, 2009 6:31:00 PM]

Thank you very much for your answers!

I've created a graphic which shows the model of my economy:
http://i26.tinypic.com/1tub89.png

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Original post by AngleWyrm These two goal conditions appear to be in direct conflict with each other. The first sentence suggests that money is a prize for victory, something the players compete against each other for. The second sentence places a cap on the prize, and suggests that even distribution is the goal.

Both is a partly correct: Money is indeed a partial goal of the game. Players compete against money since more money gives them more possibilities. I think that's normal in a MUD/MMOG. But the second point (even distribution is the goal) is not completely correct: Such a distribution is not the goal. But the opposite (an disparate distribution of money) should be prevented, of course.

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Original post by Awoken Include inflation. this will solve your problems. When a team is deleted, allow the teams wealth to exist in limbo where it can't be touched. But over time (lots of time of course) inflation will slowly drive down the value of capital that is locked in that team. Thus that wealth will do little to help the future of the game. And include the ability for teams to borrow money from a bank, the bank of course using the money locked in limbo by deleted teams for its terms of lending. And the interest rate can be adjusted by how much money is locked in limbo. Adding more money to to board relative to the capital in play (for new players of course) is where you'll find your source of inflation. Just make sure that prices go up for your stuff, and that can be a constant against the demand for such things that will be needed for players. Cheers Awoken

How exactly do I include inflation? What must I do? Do I need a constant for the inflation (e.g. initial 1.0) which all prices in the game are multiplied with? Every day, it could be increased by 0.05 or so and all prices would uniformly go up. Is this what you thought of?
If a team is deleted, the account balance of this team is set to 20,000,000 and the team gets new random players.

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[Edited by - Awoken on September 15, 2009 6:50:17 PM]

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Original post by Awoken I think your solution is perhaps the best, the one regarding special abilities. Maybe you could set it up so that in the top rounds of competition a player will need to invest a lot of money to provide the necassary training and equipment to make them contenders for the top prize. And then the players will have to save and train for a long time to actually be able to afford the special abilities. Maybe even the entrance fee or something to this nature. But then when they win they get enough money to cover the next world championship but they have the exact same odds as anyone else. Then maybe the best teams are listed by the number of world championships or like wise that they have won.

Thank you for this idea. I've done exactly this now.

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Original post by Awoken As for my idea about inflation. Well, I'm not so sure it's suited for the type of game you're making. But, I do think you can encourage money to leave the system if you set up a banking role within the game. where the program would be auto-banker. You could then set up lending practises and debt practises. this is a sure way to have money leave the system. [...] you could work it so that a player is more eligable for loans depending on how good their winning record is, meaning their more likely to aquire capital. So a player can win money, but also be given the opportunity to borrow more money. this could allow some eager players to rise up faster in the competition chain, but also tie them to debts that will draw money out of the system.

But wouldn't that make fraud/cheating very easy? A Player creates a second account. With account 1 he borrows money from the bank. Then he buys some players from account 2 for much more than their market value. Finally, he deletes account 1 and has a rich account (2). Wouldn't this happen then?

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[Edited by - Awoken on September 15, 2009 6:25:35 PM]

Thanks, then I'll start to develop these functions. :)

Last question: :)

How do I calculate the price level? The formula is P = MV/Q, I know. But I can leave out V since the velocity of circulation doesn't change much, can't I? So what is correct?
- SUM(account balances of all teams) / SUM(market values of all players)
- SUM(account balances of all teams) / COUNT(players)

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[Edited by - Awoken on September 15, 2009 6:23:50 PM]

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Original post by Awoken I'm sorry, I'm sure your last question is easy to understand for those with basic excel skills and econ 100, but I'm not so informed. Can you explain a little more what your after?

Yes, of course. :)

You can calculate the current price level in an economy with the following equation according to the Quantity theory of money:

P = MV/Q

... that is ...

P = price level
M = total amount of money in circulation
V = velocity of money (frequency)
Q = value/count of goods

The problem is (you can see it above): I don't know whether to take the total value of goods in the economy or the count of goods. For example: Should I divide by 160,000,000$ (value of all players) or by 53,000 (number of players)?

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantity_theory_of_money