Core Economy and Trade Design

The economy needs specialization, otherwise everything gets optimized into one equilibrium.

Player archetypes (v1)

• Landlord: focuses on stable ownership + tax yield
• Miner: prioritizes rare resource discovery
• Trader: arbitrages tax basket and production gaps
• Generalist: broad mixed strategy
• Warlord: controls choke points and protects routes

Trade drivers

1. Neighbor taxes require local resource combinations.
2. Rarer resources are more expensive but unlock more efficient yield uses.
3. Neutral fallback tax keeps gameplay accessible.
4. Auctions and reassessment constantly churn value.

Good market behavior target

• active secondary markets on low/medium resources
• occasional scarcity spikes for rare drops
• no complete lock-in (fallback channels always exist)

Anti-lockdown guard

Never design single-source forced inputs. If a local monopoly exists, keep optional alternatives:

• reduced discount instead of hard requirement
• regional substitutes for fallback
• temporary mitigation mechanics