In gil and other yen-based RPG currency systems, I always think of 100 as being kind of the default unit.
....But Eorzea has a pre-industrial economy, so it's not as simple as "100 gil is one dollar k bye". The prices of things are going to vary pretty widely depending on both how close you are to a city (vendors will charge more in places they expect to get customers who CAN pay more) and availability of product (this is still true to an extent in the modern developed world, but reliance on hazardous overland travel = much lower geographical threshold for what constitutes "local and available").
Money doesn't have inherent worth - its worth arises from consensus. So how much a gil is worth is really as simple as looking at the offerings around you and seeing how much you could get for what you have, and how much it'll buy you. When prices in one location seem too high or too low, that's a merchant's chance to make profit by buying goods in one place and selling them in another, provided transport doesn't eat up their margins. The same is true for overseas markets - gil has value there as long as the people accepting it can turn around and use it to buy other things, so the EATC and other Eorzean merchants having a presence in Kugane is good news for Eorzean who want to shop there.
(That might be an IC explanation for why gil prices are so high in Kugane? Small amounts of gil not being very useful since it's used mostly to purchase imported goods? I Am Not An Economist.)
....But Eorzea has a pre-industrial economy, so it's not as simple as "100 gil is one dollar k bye". The prices of things are going to vary pretty widely depending on both how close you are to a city (vendors will charge more in places they expect to get customers who CAN pay more) and availability of product (this is still true to an extent in the modern developed world, but reliance on hazardous overland travel = much lower geographical threshold for what constitutes "local and available").
Money doesn't have inherent worth - its worth arises from consensus. So how much a gil is worth is really as simple as looking at the offerings around you and seeing how much you could get for what you have, and how much it'll buy you. When prices in one location seem too high or too low, that's a merchant's chance to make profit by buying goods in one place and selling them in another, provided transport doesn't eat up their margins. The same is true for overseas markets - gil has value there as long as the people accepting it can turn around and use it to buy other things, so the EATC and other Eorzean merchants having a presence in Kugane is good news for Eorzean who want to shop there.
(That might be an IC explanation for why gil prices are so high in Kugane? Small amounts of gil not being very useful since it's used mostly to purchase imported goods? I Am Not An Economist.)
