Beiträge von londenio

How do you know you have been playing too much?

When you get up in the morning and some of your to do's for the day are buying "Oil" to make "Plastic" to make "Dolls". This happens to me. I make this mental list of things to do for the day. Write emails to some colleagues, meet with my boss at 4pm, call the phone company, make sure I have enough "Precious metals" to make your "High-grade steel". All of a sudden, the tasks in the real world become conceptually indistinguishable from the task in the virtual world of IT. Someone mentions the world "Cutlery" and that reminds me of the "Precious Metals" that I have not yet bought and I MUST before I ran out.

I was in a supermarket, doing some late evening shopping. Looking at the shelves, trying to remember what I needed. "I need eggs," I think. But then I freeze. Do I need eggs for my fridge or "Eggs" for the "Breakfast" I sell in my "Cafes". Shopping lists, todo lists, all become one in the mind of the avid TI player.

I completed a survey recently about online games (the one that is linked in this forum). There, they ask (in other words) whether you bring your own personality into the online games. But they fail to ask the other, perhaps more interesting question, of whether the game is affecting the way you think about your everyday tasks, for instance on how your keep household inventories.

I also find that I develop some affective dimension towards the industries that I decide to nurture. I know that at this stage in the game it is better to sell "Wheat" than "Breakfast", it is better to sell "Steel" than "Tricycles". And yet, and yet, I keep on doing it. Because the cafe and the toy shop are part of my mini empire and I like them.

I have only been playing this game for 20 days. I do not know how long I will last. I would like to ask my fellow players (suppliers, customers, competitors, all of above) whether they also have thoughts to share about how they think about the game when you are not playing (e.g. while you are on the metro) and whether thoughts of the type "I wish people would sell more milk" or "I hate that the price of Cotton is so high!" pop up during your everyday life.

Thanks and my apologies if this is out of the scope of the forum.

Wow! It does mimic a real economy pretty closely!

The bad thing of being 5 days old is that I still cannot afford any research (I am getting there, but not yet). So by the time all the players start building cars and demanding all the steel I will be paying through the nose for the iron ore to make my coffee cans

Oh, but then the price of coffee will go up as well.

Thanks for the reply.

I am a relatively new player (5 days old). I am slowly understanding how these complex interrelationships. I have one question and maybe someone on this forum can shed some light on it.

If you look at the commodities ("Resources") you will find that many of them trade for a value that is slightly higher than the cost of extraction. Right now, if you want to buy Quartz Sand or Iron Ore, the price you get in the market is comparable to the cost of building a mine (with some reasonable depreciation) plus the extraction cost. Something like 400 money units.

But with Logs there is a problem. Logging logs costs around 400 money units, but buying Logs in the market is quite expensive, more like 1700-2000 money units.

Is this because players are endowed with too little Timber resources when they are given a map? Is it because everyone is massively investing in furniture and paper industries? Is this just an anomaly that will revert with time? Or is it an intrinsic characteristic of the game: many industries available that require Wood products and too little Timber to "mine" from?

Any ideas or speculations are welcome.

Game is great!