> I guess you could pretty much buy out a country, keep increasing exports > and decreasing imports, and so you obtain more of their currency the trick with dragearea... how much of their actual *cash* is within the empire? how much is contained in the treasury of the houses to fund various ventures and loans? is a dragon member's promissary note made good by the empire or by the knowledge of whats in the dragon treasury? > On Wed, 28 Apr 2004, Sunny Han wrote: > > > The dragearean system can't be fiat tho, isn't it actually backed by > > gold? > > Perhaps someone with sufficient economics savvy to understand "fiat" fiat is a means by which the italiansorcerers make money for for an obscure tribe known as 'mechanics' and 'tow truck drivers' > (which I best know as the beginning to a light-making spell) above > could comment on the fact that Zerika and Kana share a common currency. > At the end of _TLoCB_ she controls perhaps twice as much territory as K, > and I assume a proportionate ratio of resources. resources aren't resources unless you can mobilize them or leverage them. and if your empire is looking shaky people might not be willing to take on your debts or loan you money/trade.... > > Can she drive his economy off the rails by messing with the money > supply? > Of course Orb-based growth in Z's territory would surely lead to > problems > for K - couldn't she simply drive the price of say horses or grain up > until K would have trouble operating? > > > > In fact, isn't Kana's economy subject to sorcerous predation? > Piro & Co could move into K's territory and lead a happy life of > banditry via teleportation without concerns about being traced... sustained guerilla attacks on the natives and razing of natural resources? not much for a hearts and minds campaign imho andy