What is the Role of Money/Currency in Games particularly TBS Games?

Money serves as a medium of exchange acceptable to all parties, a rationing device if you will, in life and in games.  It should be used to acquire goods and services, such as for paying for troop recruiting and maintenance or as payment to another faction for a treaty, for example.

Yeah, I see it primarily as a means to purchase labour and materials. Plans for buildings are, it is generally assumed, shared in a communist fashion.

Guildar in Elemental plays the primary role of 'braking system' to restrict development. Also it plays the role of looking stupid in your resources list when you have huge masses of everything else.

currently iron ore is playing that role in my game 250+ gildar a turn, 60+ matts a turn (only cuz i stopped building matt resources), .3 horses a turn, 3 crystal a turn, 3+ diplomacy a turn.

1 friggin metal ore with all adventuring tech researched !!!

let the reign of the padded armour begin - we goin' conan style to warrhhhhhrrrrr....

But what do you all view money to be?  represent?

Is it just the coins and rare metals its made of or is it something more?

If you think it is a medium to exchange goods and service, then what does the medium represent?

And Thus from understanding this does it make sense how it is obtained?

It is a government-controlled currency. The medium represents economic power.

It is also reasonable to assume that in TBS games, money in itself also has a certain amount of GOLD or SILVER or another valuable metal inside. This prevents individual kingdoms from flooding the market with currency. On the other hand, it tilts the balance of power to those who have access to the metal - even if it has no direct function in itself.

It is also reasonable to assume that in games where multiple currencies are used (gold, silver, platinum, copper), the exchange between these currencies is fixed, and thus has to be backed by an organization that either limits or encourages the spread of unbalanced metals.

As the player in a TBS game, currency primarily purchases labour. Secondarily it purchases materials.

I think it makes perfect sense, in a computer game environment. If an organization finds itself in a situation where it can use an obtained resource in exchange for other things it desire, it will do that if the exchange is reasonable. In this case, gold purchases prosperity, and the exchange is very favourable.

If you're looking for a deeper explanation than that, then I think you should more closely examine why gold is, and has always been, a desired metal in human civilization. You might also want to read some introductory national economics or even economic history to understand how the view of currency has changed over the years, but gold has maintained its value.

I think it is important to think of gold as never leaving the system, in a TBS game. If you spend gold, the money is not consumed. It remains in the society, used by individuals to pursue their desires. The gold eventually circulates through the system. Thus, there is a huge difference between what currency you, as a player, have in your hand - and the accumulated wealth of the society you are constructing. However, only the currency is readily available - the rest is tied up.

It is most likely gold based coinage minted in a certain standard weight and shape, most likely featuring the sovereign's face on one side and the faction's symbol on the other side, or otherwise some other symbolic image.  These standards would be such that the currency would be able to be conveniently carried in large quantities so as to be easily transportable.  Depending on how much gold is available it may be debased with common metals such as copper to varying degrees.  Thus the fact that gold mines generate money is perfectly justifiable as supplying the materials to mint more money without lowering its value.  And yes there would have to be some standard of exchange so that different currencies could be traded for each other.

As a medium, it serves the function of being a standard by which to judge the value of things easily, and as an intermediary step towards the acquisition of a desired good.  Consider the following:  Joe wants apples but posses only oranges.  In a barter economy, he has to find someone who has oranges AND wants apples or he is stuck with nothing but apples.  Even if he finds someone who wants apples for oranges, they have to haggle out how many oranges are apples worth.  In a monetary economy, Joe can sell his apples to anyone with enough money to afford the price of the apples (which can still involve haggling but likely not as much).  Joe can then spend his newly acquired money on oranges.  Money thus serves as an intermediary good which enables Joe to get whatever it is he wants, because everyone will want money.  That is what is meant when it is said that money is a medium of exchange.  Barter requires a double coincidence of wants for transactions to take place, whereas monetary transactions do not.

It should be noted that anything can be money, so long as it has some perceived value.  Things like seashells have apparently served as money in the distant past.  Gold coinage has been used for money so often because it is difficult to counterfeit a rare element like gold or silver, and of course the rarity of precious metals makes them valuable in and of themselves.

Money is the same in games as in real life - a convenient substance of arbitrary intrinsic value. The purpose it serves in games is pretty widely varied. In Elemental, money is the same as most resources. Some amount of it is used to create certain things, especially units.

Whithin the context of the game's fluff, it is the physical item, and of course it also sort represents excess production, as workers sell what they have no need for, but it is not necesarily indicative of net surplus; a potter may have a significant excess of pots, and thus sell them, but not enough food, and thus buy it.

Its role in games should simulate this behavior, and draw from it.

Money, in games and the world at large, is basically abstracted exchange value. Primary economic activity involves exchanging things that have direct use value: labour, food, fibre, shelter, libations, and other 'simple' luxuries. Money has great power to transform and expand political economies, but it should never be mistaken for something useful in its own right. (I admit that some metal coins can be reworked into useful forms and hyperinflated paper currency can seem more useful as stove or fireplace fuel.)

The role money plays in a given TBS game should depend on the fictional world behind the game. I've long been hoping to see TBS engine designers get over the notion that money should be treated on a par with gravity or hit points. Money is neither inevitable nor necessary for many situations, both historical and fictional. But a combination of pragmatic dev laziness and the power of the modern cults of currency has left every game I know about assuming that some form of currency is a fundamental unit for the game math.

GalCiv2 disappointed me seriously in this regard because the base math left no real room for a money-free economy, which would have far better suited factions like the Thalans and the Yor than does the BC kludge that finds sentient bugs from the future and rebellious robots from the past both subscribing to the same currency system as the ancient humanoid Altarians and the newbie humanoid Terrans. Elemental had a chance to spackle the cracks with some lore scraps, but I haven't caught any so far. The mysterious Gildar must have pre-dated the Cataclysm because you can find them in  dessicated leather purses alongside withered skeletons out in the wastes. Yet somehow, every town, in every faction, produces new Gildar that have the same value as the oldest Gildar you might dig up beneath the feet of an ancient Dragon statue.

I'm not calling for a currency market in a game like Elemental, but maybe for GC3. In the meantime, I sorely wish that Elemental could let me play out maps where sometimes the coins were never very important compared to things like family, craft traditions, and honor.

These are all good thoughts!  I too wished the Barter system was to a greater degree more widely implemented as well as inflation.  Only a couple of you touched on the idea or concept of monetary pool expansion and the inflation which it creates.  I think it is important to continue to share your thoughts on these subjects for the 1.1 version and beyond of this game.  Consider the fantasy history behind the game...