Why is the currency the Florin?

[_Aetius_]

why doesnt just each faction have different currencies?

Wouldnt they all have different gold or silver values and just make things overly complicated?

AFAIK 1 currency tended to dominate like the Byzant which saw circulation far from the Byzantine empire.

[FactionHeir]

They might just have called it silver or gold pieces, I guess there would be less debate about it then

[Foz]

why doesnt just each faction have different currencies?

Presumably because you won't be able to find a reasonable currency for each country that:

1. Existed throughout the time spanned by the game
2. Was equal in value to those currencies chosen for all other factions

#2 is probably more important, because differently valued currencies would necessitate the game converting currencies from florin to whatever else on the fly (probably a conversion table). This would undoubtedly lead to the prices of things no longer being displayed as the nice numbers we currently have (only divisible by 100 generally, and the occasional 50) which would make economics much harder to decipher while you play. There's an undeniable niceness to neat-looking numbers...

As someone also pointed out earlier, different currencies would imply in-game exchange rates, since each country you do business with is undoubtedly paying you with its own currency. The result would be a whole lot more code to determine and handle the fluctuations of exchange rates, i.e. vast economic simulation to determine currency value. You'd need new interfaces to buy and sell currencies too in order to do business with other countries and possibly speculate on their currencies, which I suppose means the game would also need to track how much you have of every currency, not just your own. While I'm sure some players would love the currency sub-game, I'm equally sure that some players would despise it, and therefore the necessity of using it would surely upset part of the player base.

The last and biggest reason is again a rehash from earlier in the thread: that the florin really was a key currency in the vast majority of factions represented in-game, and the governments of all said factions would've had some accounts in florins. That being the case, it seems to make an awful lot of sense to avoid the unnecessary baggage of multiple currencies and instead adopt a historically accurate currency of the times, that a man would be guaranteed would be excepted wherever his travels took him.

[JCoyote]

Exactly. I think a lot of people get confused between the currencies in everyday transactions and the ones used by governments and banks. Historically, they are often different things. A slightly less divided example was in the banknotes used in the earlier part of the 20th century and before... bills in the $1000 or more range were printed, and were used almost exclusively between banks for their transactions... regular account holders were NOT given them, and sometimes were prohibited from having them.

Each government would have its own coinage, many being different than the florin. But that local coinage was only used inside the country, the government and banks used florins for most inhouse accounting and exchange with other governments and banks. It vastly simplified things for them... they liked it because they DIDN'T have to consider exchange rates for transactions between themselves. It started becoming more important later in the world of interest and investing... working on exchange rates with interest at the same time without decent calculating machines could quickly drive you nuts. So... governments used florins between each other.

[Mithradates]

Couldnt everyone have a different currency name but the same value? Simply to make thing a little different.

[JCoyote]

Couldnt everyone have a different currency name but the same value? Simply to make thing a little different.

But why?

The only case I can see for that is the Muslim factions, all the others used florins/bezants, which were made to the same standards, had names used interchangeably, and in many cases accounts might have had a mix of the two. (After all, precious metal coinage can remain in circulation for literally thousands of years.)

[FactionHeir]

Interestingly enough, clicking on a neutral Byzantine merchant yielded "Florins, Guilders, I care not, all coin is welcome"

[Slug For A Butt]

So you want stock exchanges included too now? Or you just want different currencies included to confuse the game more? What is the point?
Damn what a daft question...

[Razor1952]

Please sir ..... I know..... I know.....


The developers are Australian so they used an Australian Florin of course, don't you guys know the usual map of the world is upside down. The south pole (and Australia close by) should be at the top of the map.

Its an aussie-centric issue.

[Bobo]

Presumably because you won't be able to find a reasonable currency for each country that:

As someone also pointed out earlier, different currencies would imply in-game exchange rates, since each country you do business with is undoubtedly paying you with its own currency. The result would be a whole lot more code to determine and handle the fluctuations of exchange rates, i.e. vast economic simulation to determine currency value.

The exchange rates didn't change at the time: it was the amount of gold and silver that determined their respective values. As long as that didn't change, the exchange rates remained fixed.
Nevertheless, I agree that there is not much point in complicating the game with more micro management that has no added value whatsoever.
I kinda like the Florin because that is what we call our currency here in our language, so my 8 year old son understands perfectly well what '500 Florins' means.

[alpaca]

lol how did you change the currency to big-uns?

Ah sorry didn't check in here for a few days.
I simply replaced all mentions of "florin" with "big-un" while preserving case in all the text files (i.e. everything in data/text). It's a playable mod if you want it