The Metagame: PO and You

[jasonirma 0]

Today my city hit a lull at about 250k population.  I went to the trading window and saw that I had a spare 4 tokens available in manufacturing.  I thought about trading those if anyone was interested.  When I entered the trade window, I saw that Omincorp was buying 4 tokens for nearly 90c.  I also saw that someone else was selling 1 token in manufacturing for 3c.

This led to me performing two actions: I bought the single manufacturing token, which brought me up to 5 tokens, and then I sold those to Omincorp (my 4 and the 1 I bought) for a big profit.

I started seeing a lot of potential on speculation trading whereby I would purchase low-valued tokens and then sell to the higher bidders to generate excellent cashflow for my city.

While there is definitely a cap on this minigame (i.e., I'm limited in transportation), it nevertheless adds a fascinating aspect similar in MMOs.  Produced services/goods are traded for other players' goods in a marketplace.

Through very careful speculation trading, I ended up coming out ahead about 400c just through juggling around as a "power broker".  This broker role definitely acts as a potential career path for budding mayors.

Thoughts?

[Jokurr 175]

I used to do this all the time in WoW to make money. It's quite common in MMOs with a player driven economy.

[JakeMD 107]

Interesting find..

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[Androv 6]

I just get sick of the bloody people offering to buy resources for 3 C ($300/tick) .... SIF I'm going to sell my water, which costs 50 C/tick to generate, to you for 3 C. Your citizens can die of dehydration!

I have thought about playing the trade market like that, if people are silly enough to sell things for not much. But usually I just see things for sale for lots and lots of money

- offices seem to be the exception, but no one wants to buy offices!!!

[Stef42 0]

The prices of Omnicorp in comparison with the prices of players are very different.

Example: If you wish to buy Oil, the price at Omnicorp is 160 for 1 Oil, player prices are then 400/500 for 1 Oil..

I think that Omnicorp helps to get the prices a bit leveled, maybe?

[ScaryMonkey 0]

Funny you should say that, that was my first thought when I heard about the resource trading: "How long until someone makes a fortune by becoming a ruthless speculator?"

In fact, when I first saw Omnicorp in the demo, that's exactly what I assumed it was

[EAGCE 2]

I been doing this for a while.  Anytime I see people selling units of something for less than 16.6C (Omnicorps buy price) I buy it no matter what.  Once I get 5 of them I then sell to Omnicorp.  Or maybe another player paying more if I'm lucky.

[Mr. Flibble 134]

In other words, Omnicorp is a government subsidized provider of resources. I wonder how much of a national debt they're running.

[JanYpe 17]

Originally posted by: seanivs

In other words, Omnicorp is a government subsidized provider of resources. I wonder how much of a national debt they're running.quote>

Omnicorp compensates for their running costs by relying on slave labour. That red -number you see when you lose population? They're not packing up and moving, they're in chains and headed for the Omnicorp workforce.

[Kredit 0]

Yup, you can get rich by trading Omnicorp buys at 16.6 and sells at 150, which means they make 133.4 for each token they "sell on". You could basically do the same, but undercut them a bit .So for instance, continually have buy orders up for all resources for 20c/t and sell orders for 100c/t...

Imagine you have 5 holiday tokens to sell. Sell them all at 100 = 500c. You then buy 25 new tokens with this cash, which you sell for 2500c, etc. etc. etc.

There's a risk though... if you can't sell the tokens, your city will run into the ground Though you can always sell them to Omnicorp, but you won't profit then.

Also, I haven't tried this myself yet, but can you buy tokens you don't need? (i.e. can you put up a buy offer for Waste when you have +10 tokens already?)

[JakeMD 107]

Originally posted by: JanYpe

Originally posted by: seanivs

In other words, Omnicorp is a government subsidized provider of resources. I wonder how much of a national debt they're running.quote>

Omnicorp compensates for their running costs by relying on slave labour. That red -number you see when you lose population? They're not packing up and moving, they're in chains and headed for the Omnicorp workforce.

quote>

Oh Jan...

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