Well that is the question...
I like to think it is the Atic Talent (more or less 27Kg of silver)
The treaty of peace after the Second Punic War especifies that Carthage must pay 10.000 Atic Talents (a lot of money in the game mechanics)
How much is a Talent today?
Around 300-200 BC the minimun daily wage (for subsistence) in greece was 2 Obolus.
Three obols was the standard fee paid for a prostitute's services.
1 obulus is 1/6 of a drachma and 1 drachma is 1/6000 of a talent
As a rule of thumb, a modern person might think of one drachma as the rough equivalent of a skilled worker's daily pay in the place where they live. Perhaps the most appropriate comparison is that with modern-day Athens, where a skilled worker without a university degree earns approximately €40 per day, net of taxes. That is approximately around 240.000€ per talent
I like to think it is the Atic Talent (more or less 27Kg of silver)
The treaty of peace after the Second Punic War especifies that Carthage must pay 10.000 Atic Talents (a lot of money in the game mechanics)
How much is a Talent today?
Around 300-200 BC the minimun daily wage (for subsistence) in greece was 2 Obolus.
Three obols was the standard fee paid for a prostitute's services.
1 obulus is 1/6 of a drachma and 1 drachma is 1/6000 of a talent
As a rule of thumb, a modern person might think of one drachma as the rough equivalent of a skilled worker's daily pay in the place where they live. Perhaps the most appropriate comparison is that with modern-day Athens, where a skilled worker without a university degree earns approximately €40 per day, net of taxes. That is approximately around 240.000€ per talent
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I think Paradox wisely chose a generic "gold" currency, since even though there were fairly common standard measurements of weight (like the Attic talens you describe), they would not be able to accurately represent it for every country. So, like with population numbers, gold is a relative value, as opposed to a representative value. That is, 10 gold does not necessarily equate to an exact amount of money at any given time.