Economy : "The system by which country's money and goods are produced and used."
Money? Goods? Where to insert them in CV's? For money, we will use Betza's zorkmid currency. For goods, at least some good candidates are the pieces and the available moves in each turn. Of course, if you are in a capitalist mood, you can use your imagination to create and sell new goods.
I leave here some notions and concepts until many goods things - I
hope - are created from them!
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Loans |
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Money |
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Interest |
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Unemployment |
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Monopoly |
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Oligopoly |
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Inflation |
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Deflation |
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Share |
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Stock Market |
There are some variants where you can keep some of your moves, in order to use them later (eg, Progressive Piggy Back).
Why not introduce the symmetric concept? Loans!
Loaning in PieceLand
note: rule 3 and 4 implies that you cannot buy a queen.
Of course, money is always important in a complex social system. Betza made a game using this concept, csipgs chess. Here goes another try:
variants: changing the initial zkd value, change the cost list (add powers,
change values, ...)
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Money can be seen as having two functions - as a mean of exchanging and as a mean of saving. If you keep money in a bank, you will have a "reward" for letting your savings circulate once again in the economy, that reward is called interest.
The interest of some moves
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Unemployment is also an important concept in economic analysis. How can we insert it in a CV?
Do you want a job?
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When a single company (or a government) gets the control of all or most of a business activity, so that other organizations cannot easily compete with them, we have a monopoly.
This horse business is mine!
More frequent is the oligopoly, where there is a control by an association of a small group of companies.
Taking turns
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Another known concept is inflation, ie, the average rate
at which prices increase.
Hard Times
When inflation becomes negative, we call it deflation.
Great Expectations
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I talk to Ralph Betza about this, and he sent some nice ideas:
Traditional equities for cash: I think that right now the price of Knight moves is a little low, so I'll buy one and keep it in reserve....
Futures Market, or Selling short: I think Bishop moves are overpriced, so I'll sell one that I don't have and buy it back later when the price drops.
Derivatives: I own a Rook move, which is currently worth 1 zorkmid. For 0.05 zorkmids I will sell you a contract that allows you to buy my Knight move for 1.05 zorkmids any time within the next 10 moves. If the price goes up to more than 1.2, you will profit.
So, the next step must be the stock market!
What are the main concepts that we can use? The first one is the share
(or stock), ie, one unit of ownership of a company. Since we do not have companies
here, just pieces and stuff related, can we see a piece as a companie? What would mean if
a player owns 75% of a black bishop??? In that case, you could adquire a piece with 51% of
its shares? Time to make a portfolio (ie, a combined holding of many kinds of financial
securities)!
Making a portfolio
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Another interesting concept is the option. Here is part of the definition that I
found at http://www.lyonsrange.com/cse/info1.htm.
The right of choice [snip] to buy or sell a particular commodity or stock or
currency at a particular future date at a particular price, called the exercise price. The
buyer of an option is not obliged to buy or sell at the exercise price; he will do so only
if it suits him. [snip] Options protect an investor from unfavourable fluctuations in
price.
From the same source, here is the definition of selling short:
Sale of shares, which he doesn't possess, by a spectacular. He usually borrows the
shares from his stockbroker, promising to replace them at a future date, hoping that the
price will fall by then. If the price falls, he buys the shares at the lower rate, and
makes a profit on the difference. If the price has risen on the other hand, he has to buy
the shares at the higher price, and sustains a loss.
As somebody said: "A thing is worth what people will pay; and people will pay what they think it is worth."
To introduce these ideas, there must be a way to give a dynamical value for each
resource in question. What are they?
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Player's moves |
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Moving/capturing powers |
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Strenght difference between armies (that means you can use an eventual opponent superiority to your advantage) |
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Number of pieces of a certain type |
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Some positions (two white rooks in the 7th row, a pawn just next the promotion line) |
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A question remains! How to do it? One possibility lies on:
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