I don't mind including an (untradeable) in-game asset to log people's pledges and donations once the pledges are fulfilled, that people could then use to voluntarily reward people. "Hey these guys invested when things were shit. They're part of the reason things are no longer shit, let me give them some stuff."

They would be logged anyway and I was thinking of giving initial contributors a thank you piece of jewelry or a coin or something, and I think that would be a better way of commemorating people's contribution in-game, because what matters isn't how much you give, but that you give at all.

As for the self-funding model, I'm also unsure whether it will be enough in the first iteration, since I categorically do not want to tax anyone in the wrong way. I want to incentivize people to invest their money in the game and participate in the in-game economy. Taxes would hurt that incentive, so they would only be viable along with something strong that offsets them. For example, I see nothing wrong with the voluntary negative EV model a casino uses with games like the roulette or Blackjack, but it is wrong if they take 1% of people's poker chips when they cash out.

For CK I want it to be fair and voluntary, where simply trading on the market and holding investment assets is neutral, but active participation in the game world would have a slight negative EV offset by fun and competition. Depending on the activity it could be up to 5% in the negative, as that's my personal threshold before it becomes bullshit, but I will be aiming for <1% and focus more on scaling. The more activity there is, the smaller the cut can be.

I also intend to make it so that there is a clear way to play where you can be successful just from skill and have the monetized parts of the game be only a fraction, which people can avoid if they so choose to, or in the case of things like production, technology or other services, out-compete. In other words, if an entropy system is implemented, it would only affect those who opt into it (probably most people) and it would benefit active players at the expense of not so active players, while the game would profit like everyone else by being an active player.

One thing this would allow in the future, once baseline rules and governance are established, is competing developers with different in-game solutions and services to choose from. With an affiliate system that isn't retarded and pyramid schemey you can have competing marketers. Eventually you'd have multiple in-game towns competing for resources, labor, land... you'd have an actual reason for war, external forces, and so much more.

...But this can only function with an extremely solid foundation and increasing decentralization. The main rules should be hardcoded and only changed through general consensus, via petition with certain restrictions. You would likely have different groups vying to get their view of the game implemented, they would garner support and perhaps even fight to reach their goals.

Take for instance succession. The ruling house currently has pretty much absolute control over the kingdom's succession due to it being a Primogeniture system. The only way an influential player can take over the crown in the current system is through large-scale military rebellion, but his supporters are mostly on the political side. Instead he uses his clout to propose a change to an Elective system where his political power would be more valuable than pure military might, an action for which he would have an easier time convincing more military-oriented loyalists to rebel.

A use of force by the crown against a military rebellion would be viewed as lawful, but a use of force against a popular movement would not be, and as a result the power balance would be different, and perhaps strong enough in favor of the movement to make concessions more viable than civil war. Then, with the newly implemented form of succession, the influential pretender could have a reasonable chance of taking over the crown... Then, months later, a more militaristic player could have gathered enough support to try his hand at a rebellion and change the rules by force once more.

I say whoever has enough support from the playerbase to make changes happen within the dynamics of the game should have almost absolute freedom to do so. If someone thinks that implementing a flat 10% tax on all withdrawals would help the game grow faster and enough people support this cause to take action and pressure the change in, they should be able to do it, while those who want no tax would have to defend the status quo.

If a lot of these things are set in stone, then what if they were set wrong? Nobody can claim to be all-knowing and really smart people are wrong about things all the time. We learn things as we go and, maybe, if it takes us centuries to figure some things out afk, like politics and economics, perhaps with a swift and dynamic platform experiments can be done to figure them out faster.

Maybe someone wants to try out a communist utopia. They can get together with their communist friends, talk with the king, purchase some land, invest 1000 bitcoins to build a wonderous city and then they see what would happen. Will the labor flow from other cities to their utopia? Will stability be maintained? ... Or will it go bankrupt? Can't really do that afk because people would die, and no government would let you try it out, but in CK you'd have NPCs, virtual items and (hopefully) open-minded leadership. So much potential for discovery.

So, yeah, I'd like for the absolute laws to be to a minimum, like the laws of physics, and leave the rest for the market to decide, including the way funds are raised. Hopefully you can help me achieve this.