International banking system

[jaune]

Your grants/fees are much to high on the grants side. Your giving 500 a month to your biggest grant, but only taking 80 s month from your biggest debtor. That's completely opposite to what you need. Overall, you need a lot more fees in order for the guild to generate revenue.

Yes, in BM we cant just create gold from nothing like we do in RL :)
"You need money, just a second i will start money machine!"

[Chenier]

Guilds can't work as a bank, because as others have stated, any lord can easily game this by dumping a ton of gold before taxes, and withdrawing it all just after. Heck, he can probably hike taxes just for tax days, and I think that as far as guilds are concerned, it'd be as if taxes were high all along.

[pcw27]

Your grants/fees are much to high on the grants side. Your giving 500 a month to your biggest grant, but only taking 80 s month from your biggest debtor. That's completely opposite to what you need. Overall, you need a lot more fees in order for the guild to generate revenue.

Sorry it didn't line up right when I copied and pasted.

500 is the cost to become a gold class creditor, they get an 80 gold grant. The highest debtor has a 100 gold fee.

Guilds can't work as a bank, because as others have stated, any lord can easily game this by dumping a ton of gold before taxes, and withdrawing it all just after. Heck, he can probably hike taxes just for tax days, and I think that as far as guilds are concerned, it'd be as if taxes were high all along.

I addressed that already. Hiking taxes would harm his region and piss off all his knights and then on top of that I'd kick him out of the guild because I intend to make all branch managers swear to a maximum tax rate. You can't hike taxes on just guilds you'd have to raise the base region tax rate. I'm pretty sure when you hike taxes on just tax day you only get that last day's taxes at a higher rate.

[Indirik]

Why would hiking taxes make your knights angry? I can't imagine they would care. Also, i can think of a few ways break your guild financial system, without breaking any rules. Also, swearing to a maximum tax rate? Yeah, that's a bit overreaching.

[pcw27]

Why would hiking taxes make your knights angry? I can't imagine they would care.

Oh never-mind I was thinking "Lord's Share".

Also, i can think of a few ways break your guild financial system, without breaking any rules.

That's ok real financial institutions can be broken as well.  As long as the abuses can be policed enough to let the bank grown I'm fine with it. I'm not doing this to create a secure stable institution for safe investments. I'm doing it to create an unstable, corruptible institution for risky investments that create chaos and drive conflict.

Also, swearing to a maximum tax rate? Yeah, that's a bit overreaching.

Why? Real banks and corporations do it all the time. Comcast for example gets to operate in Philadelphia nearly free of city taxes. The rational is if the city taxes them they'll move somewhere else and take the jobs with them.

I was thinking no more then 15% tax rates almost no one operates more then that anyway. Or maybe no more then a 3% increase in the rate you had upon joining.

[Chenier]

Why would hiking taxes make your knights angry? I can't imagine they would care. Also, i can think of a few ways break your guild financial system, without breaking any rules. Also, swearing to a maximum tax rate? Yeah, that's a bit overreaching.

Indeed: higher taxes means more gold for them. Guild taxes are based on region taxes, not lord's share.

I had started a Dwilight Banking Guild, though I don't recall the name, but I quickly came to realize that it could be so easily gamed that I never put any effort into developping it and let it die.

[pcw27]

Indeed: higher taxes means more gold for them. Guild taxes are based on region taxes, not lord's share.

I had started a Dwilight Banking Guild, though I don't recall the name, but I quickly came to realize that it could be so easily gamed that I never put any effort into developping it and let it die.

Well now I know what to look for. I imagine it will take a while before a branch manager even thinks to commit this kind of embezzlement.

[Chenier]

Even if they don't, you still face two funamental problems:

1) people never really pay their dues for any guild or religion.
2) even normal taxes that don't intentionally drain your guildhouses will drain them, and will stack up on upkeep, meaning your scheme would have to generate a lot of revenues just to compensate for that.

There's also a lot of other lesser problems, like the fact that building a guildhouse doesn't influence one's balance, and such nobody is really likely to want to build them for you unless you pay for them yourself.

[Buffalkill]

You need an array of enforcement tools. If you involve the right people with enough power and influence, then I think you can find ways to effectively deal with any of the problems being mentioned. For example, you can hire infiltrators to go after delinquent account holders, set bounties, use judges, bankers, rulers, priests, etc. In extreme cases, you might resort to military force. Lords that try to exact unfair taxes may get their guild house closed down, or they may wake to find an assassin in their bed chamber, or they might have their lordship taken away by the duke. Perhaps guild members could be asked/told not to sell food or provide any assistance to lords that have been blacklisted by the bank. The key is to have a multitude of tools at your disposal and get the right people on your side.

[Buffalkill]

This could breath new life into the game in so many different ways.

[pcw27]

Even if they don't, you still face two funamental problems:

1) people never really pay their dues for any guild or religion.

Because no one bothers to make them pay. In SA I actually try to pay my dues most of the time because I've known people to get denied promotions for high debts.

2) even normal taxes that don't intentionally drain your guildhouses will drain them, and will stack up on upkeep, meaning your scheme would have to generate a lot of revenues just to compensate for that.

Yeah to the tune of like five gold a weak. A single low level debtor should take care of that.

There's also a lot of other lesser problems, like the fact that building a guildhouse doesn't influence one's balance, and such nobody is really likely to want to build them for you unless you pay for them yourself.

The "Branch manager" rank will have a grant equal to what a creditor would be getting.

You need an array of enforcement tools. If you involve the right people with enough power and influence, then I think you can find ways to effectively deal with any of the problems being mentioned. For example, you can hire infiltrators to go after delinquent account holders, set bounties, use judges, bankers, rulers, priests, etc. In extreme cases, you might resort to military force. Lords that try to exact unfair taxes may get their guild house closed down, or they may wake to find an assassin in their bed chamber, or they might have their lordship taken away by the duke. Perhaps guild members could be asked/told not to sell food or provide any assistance to lords that have been blacklisted by the bank. The key is to have a multitude of tools at your disposal and get the right people on your side.

My thoughts exactly. If the nay-sayers don't want to join I'm not gonna put a gun to their head.

[Chenier]

You need an array of enforcement tools. If you involve the right people with enough power and influence, then I think you can find ways to effectively deal with any of the problems being mentioned. For example, you can hire infiltrators to go after delinquent account holders, set bounties, use judges, bankers, rulers, priests, etc. In extreme cases, you might resort to military force. Lords that try to exact unfair taxes may get their guild house closed down, or they may wake to find an assassin in their bed chamber, or they might have their lordship taken away by the duke. Perhaps guild members could be asked/told not to sell food or provide any assistance to lords that have been blacklisted by the bank. The key is to have a multitude of tools at your disposal and get the right people on your side.

Infiltrators: they tend to charge a lot for their deeds, so bunch of gold down the drain right there. Plus: I've been the target of many infil attacks, never really bothered me all that much. Wounded for a few days? Oh well, I'll just focus on my other characters a little more in the coming days. Usually, though, the attacks just fail, I begin patrolling the streets and the infil is caught soon after. It is no secret that I think very poorly of the infiltrator subclass. Even if you had infils continuously stab me, which I doubt you could, I'd just scoff it off: sooner than later they'll get caught, maybe tortured, banned, and next time their head will roll.

Bounties: Same principle as above, a new huge money dump. Plus, bounties rarely really attract infiltrator actions that wouldn't have occured anyways. I've seen a bunch of people, myself included, with high bounties for very large periods of time. When my characters eventually get attacked, it's usually by a realm I'm at war with by someone who would have tried it anyways.

Government members, priests, armies? Really? What do they care for your guild? Even if you had powerful friends in on it, they'd probably never get away with using the realm's resources for your guild's aims.

Closing guild houses: This also actually costs gold too. It'd also mean lowering the maximum full member count and reducing places where people can join the guild and interact with it.

All of your solutions to making people pay is to spend a ton of money, basically, a ton more than what they owe you. By all means, try if you wish, and if you'll have fun trying to make it work, but you could basically do your whole scheme even more easily by keeping track of everything you want to do on a spreadsheet on your computer (and/or on the wiki), instead of using an IG guild. Suddenly: no upkeep, no taxes.

Setting up a bank that isn't meant to just fund realm efforts is a complicated task unlikely to work by itself, but if it is to work, guilds are most definately not a good way to go about.

Guilds' primary use is for coordinating multi-realm military activities. Their secondary use is RP. Guilds with other activities rarely succeed in their aims.

[Buffalkill]

You raise valid points. They're all things to consider when setting this thing up. Nothing so far convinces me that the idea is sure to fail. A lot of the difficulties you raise would've applied to the first real-life banking systems and yet they found ways to make it work.

Infiltrators: they tend to charge a lot for their deeds, so bunch of gold down the drain right there. Plus: I've been the target of many infil attacks, never really bothered me all that much. Wounded for a few days? Oh well, I'll just focus on my other characters a little more in the coming days. Usually, though, the attacks just fail, I begin patrolling the streets and the infil is caught soon after. It is no secret that I think very poorly of the infiltrator subclass. Even if you had infils continuously stab me, which I doubt you could, I'd just scoff it off: sooner than later they'll get caught, maybe tortured, banned, and next time their head will roll.

It's a managerial decision how far you're willing to go to collect. You have to weigh the cost of enforcement against the cost of doing nothing. Some small debts might just get written off, but the assumption is that you'd only give loans when there's a reasonable expectation that you'll be able to collect. Even if you don't get back every penny, the use of retaliation would at least be a deterrent.

Government members, priests, armies? Really? What do they care for your guild? Even if you had powerful friends in on it, they'd probably never get away with using the realm's resources for your guild's aims.

They'd have to have some sort of stake in the system. They might also be borrowers. You can imagine a situation where a realm needs to build up its military very quickly so they may want to borrow a large amount of gold, and as a banker you could attach certain conditions to the loan.

Closing guild houses: This also actually costs gold too. It'd also mean lowering the maximum full member count and reducing places where people can join the guild and interact with it.

There may be a one-time cost associated with closing a guild house, but it would be worth the expenditure if that guild house is causing your bank to lose money.

All of your solutions to making people pay is to spend a ton of money, basically, a ton more than what they owe you. By all means, try if you wish, and if you'll have fun trying to make it work, but you could basically do your whole scheme even more easily by keeping track of everything you want to do on a spreadsheet on your computer (and/or on the wiki), instead of using an IG guild. Suddenly: no upkeep, no taxes.

Good suggestion.

[Chenier]

One of the noteworthy issues is that the BM context is not analogous to the real world. In real life, banks can get quite powerful because a lot of people NEED/want to use its services. It's safer to deposit your gold at the bank than in your house. This allows the banks to accumulate quite a lot of capital, with which they can grant loans or finance projects. This is not the case in BM. The game already provides banks. At any of the realm's cities, a noble can exchange his gold for bonds, and nothing can touch those bonds. Wealth isn't even taxed anymore as it used to be. And with but minor adjustments and costs, nobles can walk around with tens of thousands of gold on hand, and not seriously risk losing it. As trading is now done in bonds, the banking has already become international. Furthermore, depositing in a bank is safe. Giving anything to anyone in BM is risky. What if the guy goes on vacation for a few weeks and puts his character in cold storage? What if he loses interestest in BM? Or something happens to him IRL? If the player dies, you can't expect his successors to go log into his BM so that they may continue to safeguard the funds to entrusted in his character. In RL banking, something happening to someone at the bank doesn't jeopordize your savings.

I, for one, have seen many players come and go. Often in untimely manners. I would therefore be quite reluctant to give any significant funds to anyone unless I really didn't care to see them back. I also can't say that I've never had so much excess gold that I didn't know what to do with it... The family gold cap is quite high, and that allows you to invest in (your) region, so it's really like a bank too.

[Buffalkill]

Also some valid points though I don't 100% agree with you. Banks don't just provide a safe place to stash your savings. They provide many services like investing and raising capital, and insurance. Like in my earlier example, it can help you build up your army or establish a guild. In the BM context they might be able to provide some kind of food/insurance services too. Maybe not every character will have use for it, but some will.