I would like to suggest both Animus and Silver Coins be used interchangeable for both claim expansion and claim maintenance (the constant drain from the claim's invested pool). There currently does not exist a real currency-sink in the game, so it seems obvious to make claiming land the main way to pull currency out of the economy and control silver inflation. Before I get into methodology, allow me to lay out some of the foundation for my thinking.
Current Costs
To expand a claim, each tile costs 1 animus.
To maintain a claim, every 25 tiles (rounded down) costs 1 animus per day. This animus is drained from the invested pool within the claim pole, not from the character.
Discussion
So far, we have seen mostly small claims of less than 200 tiles in size (14*14). I'm sure staff knows what the largest claim size is. I believe we don't see large claims yet because they are just not worth it to players at the current prices.
It is true that multiple players can contribute to a claim, but the prices are still rather high, in my opinion, based on what I've seen thus far for claim sizes even for large groups of players. Animus is vitally important for character progression, and people seem to favor building their characters over spending on an expensive claim system.
I would consider a large claim to be something 5 to 10 players could live in comfortably. Imagine several 7x7 houses and a guild hall the size of a large smithy with patio (normal UO) which is 15x14. Add some gaps between the structures and you get a player village the size of perhaps 40x40. A claim that size would currently cost 64 animus per day (40x40=1600 tiles, divide that by 25 = 64 animus drain per day). It would also cost 1,600 animus to expand to that size.
For reference, Fort Praesidium is made up of 3 rectangles:
Main District ~ 110x130 tiles
Guild District (west side, currently unreachable) ~ 50x65 tiles
Fortress (north side where chapel is) ~ 90x90 tiles
Let's figure out an improved formula for Claim Maintenance:
In our example of the 40x40 player village, perhaps 10 characters are investing resources (animus and/or silver) to maintain the size of the village. This is a large portion of the active playerbase. Let's say these 10 characters are willing to provide an average of half of their accumulated silver and/or a quarter of their passively gained animus towards the village.
Take all the characters that belong to the Order guild and the First Provincial Merchants in game (probably close to 10 active players). Run a report to figure out how much combined silver they have. Call the combined silver X. For the purposes of this suggestion, and since I don't know how much money people have, let's pretend X equals 1,000.
We've been playing Requiem for about 4 weeks now, and our efficiency in gaining silver has steadily increased. We will likely be able to get 1.5x to 2x more silver in the same time-frame once we reach end-game skills. Let's try to create a formula with the end-game in mind, so let's double X, then divide it by 28 days.
1,000 x 2 = 2,000
2,000 / 28 = 71
Assuming some of them are willing to part with 50% of their silver as they accumulate it, that's about 35 silver per day (71 / 2 = 35.5).
We also know that 10 characters will passively gain 6 animus per day each. That's 60 animus.
Assuming some of them are willing to part with 25% of their daily passive animus in order to support a village-sized claim, that's a fair-market value of 15 animus per day for our example 40x40 player village size claim. (60 animus x 25% = 15 animus)
Some players will be happy to donate silver and some players will gladly give some animus. I'm assuming that some will be stingy and not give anything and that some will give both animus and silver. So I am assuming it will either cost 35 silver per day or 15 animus per day, or some combination thereof, for the 40x40 claim.
Please keep in mind that my numbers for silver are likely very low. I used 1,000 for X, but it's likely a lot more than 1,000 silver among those characters because we started with around 800 silver among us on day 1. I just don't want to assume how much people have in their bank boxes on day 28.
So my suggestion is to use a formula as derived above to allow characters to either donate silver or animus to the claim. Whichever is donated would be converted from animus to "Claim Points" at a 1 to 1 ratio, or from silver coins to "Claim Points" at a different ratio as you derive it.
Final Thoughts - Initial Claim Expansion
I think the 1 animus per tile of expansion is probably a fair amount for the time being. I suggest claim expansion should cost something like 10 silver per tile as an alternative to spending animus. An 8x8 mine shaft would therefore cost an initial 64 animus or 640 silver for someone that has never owned a claim before.
