Dwarven Fortress Planners = Private Fortress Planners

Simulations with high failure rate in a game are eerily akin to real life.

I remember hitting RUN on a community simulation software for a hunter gatherer tribe. This was back in college. I don't remember details, but I do remember having just input a savings of 800-ish calories due to co-parenting implementations (nannies help in caloric savings, who knew? Demographic Anthropologists, that's who). Just adding that variable gave us astounding results for long term survival. Several generations were added, and absent unforeseen problems, they'd live for long enough that their offspring could mate with other tribes.

Note the absent unforeseen problems. Communities are almost never closed systems. Environmental factors so simple as changes in water salinity can change migration patterns and throw a big wrench in the viability of a community. There are other factors which are more interesting to me: technology, invasion, mutiny, factionalism, resource mismanagement, resource competition, policy creep, bureaucracy, oligarchy, corruption, anomie, etc .

All things that private cities need to account for.

That's why I look to the dwarven (dorfs, for those in the know) life in Dwarf Fortress. The idea is that you lead a team of these dwarves and build...well, a fortress, with shops, and food, and carving stations, and trade, war, lava furnaces, the works.

It's an engrossing and complex simulation that makes games like Civilization look like tic-tac-toe.

Sometimes your dorfs (how I'll refer to them hereafter) decide it's a good idea to go fishing. Fishing is great. What isn't great is that if there's catfish in the water your fishing dorfs could get eaten. So on and so forth.

Sometimes they cut down trees and anger elves. Elves then declare war. (Sounds like a normal day for a lumber company).

Invasions can happen. Hunger can happen. Sickness. Vampires! Sometimes people can go crazy and start a chain reaction that ends in bloody death.

Sometimes you open a gate to hell.

A lot of things can go really bad really fast.

Isn't it the same thing for any type of endeavor? Look at our banking system. Didn't it explode back in 2008? Didn't the gov't have to pay a lot of those Dorf Fortress administrators a lot of money to keep their fortresses from falling apart?

Every fortress is, essentially, a private city, which brings me to the next point...

What We Can Learn And Apply To Startup Cities

ONE!

The first lesson is basic: Cities are complex systems that require a multitude of dorfs performing different services( craftsdwarf, fisherdwarf, miner, etc.). Some private cities forget to think about cleaners. Dorfs don't like dirty cities.

TWO!!

Complex systems have a multitude of variables that need to be managed by good city managers: morale, hunger, poverty, equal opportunity, equal access to services, etc.). Dorfs don't like corruption. Inequality up to a point is tolerable, but not so much that they are miserable. Humans sometimes forget this point, specially those that look like they listen to too much Ben Shapiro. Some inequality is okay as long as the game feels like it's not rigged.

THREE???

Planning for exogenous or local actors is necessary. Dorfs settled in the middle of a sacred forest for the elves? Uh-oh.

How do we learn to deal with that? Are we strong enough to fight elves in their own field? Or do we begin to trade with them? This goes to the point of my first blog post. The Puerto Rico Private City project is basically dorfs trying to settle in an elven land. By Armok, you're a dorf that's expecting to be loved by elves? Then why are you cutting down trees? That's how you die.

Learn to adapt to eliminate friction with local actors. I'm currently going strong with keeping elves as friends, and thankfully, no invasions. (Though any DF gamer will tell you I'm a traitor for doing so).

FOUR!!!!

Failure rates are high unless outside intervention is possible.

Again, cities are hard. Hell, international banking is hard. Do you know how many cities over time have been bankrupt? A lot. Thank the gods for bailouts right?

That's why the ability to form alliances with current actors, (such as governments and other institutions with lots of capital available), and gaining assurance to de-risk the endeavor are necessary, even if you're an anarcho-capitalist. (All dorfs are anarcho-capitalists, but it's not like they won't dance with a government when needed, if not they'd be like those commie elves).