And congrats to you too, Drinks! I was really hoping you’d still make $1b after the fluffer nutter.

And good showings for the rest of the t10 who worked through some crazy food and oil prices to put up some very good numbers!

Thanks, Drinks! And also thank you Boltar and Hardy - that land at least got me on much better footing after Hardy accidentally went to war on the wrong server :)

-Z (Post Script)

LaF's hand in the market has never really been invisible =)

I'll start by saying that I have no problem with LaF doing what they do to stabilize the market and to help their players. LaF has found what works to maximize their performance, and they should absolutely do that.

As far as this round's oil and tech prices go, I have a somewhat different take than other. What the market actually needs is equilibrium. And LaF's control of the market is just one of many ways to achieve that equilibrium. Unlike some other servers, Alliance has enough humans and enough bots to self-regulate and get to more-or-less equilibrium. If there is a big war again next reset, I guarantee that there will be more FFOs and that more will think about running unbalanced farms/rigs to respond to market conditions. I have no idea why there were so many cashers and so few (large) FFOs this round, but that won't happen again next round. So we will move toward equilibrium and a more "normal" market even if LaF wars.

Specifically for this reset, I saw FFO and techer as the only viable strategies this round given the specter of a near-server war. I chose techer (mostly so I didn't have to grab so much), got fat fast (thanks to being theocracy), stocked very early at low prices, and unsurprisingly cashed in on the food market and to some degree the oil market. And we in PS were enough of a force in the market that we guided it to work for us, e.g. my take is that we were the primary reason food didn't go over $60 as it was mutually beneficial for us to keep it in the $50s. This was not your normal market, and we were adept at anticipating it, reacting to it, and moving it when we could.

This reset was the most interesting netting reset I've played. While there was still a very large dose of math as there always is, there was a much bigger emotional element in the markets than normal. For example, once you're stocking and planning an oil de-stock, what do you do when oil hits $500? Keep going or do some type of public destock? The public market absolutely cannot support multiple people de-stocking. So if oil goes even higher, will more people consider a public de-stock (and screw you if that's what you choose) or will more people buy more quickly to get it before it rises even more? Just like in real life, the human element in the markets was huge this round, and that made it a lot more fun.

Just to be clear, Hardy did NOT pay reps - his country and Boltar’s did lose some land. Hardy WAS prepared to pay reps, but I didn’t pursue it after Gainsy declared war. I now DO expect 500 million bushels from Gains as compensation.

For what it’s worth, SoF was easy to work with for reps for the accidental hits on PS.

-Z (Post Script)

Please contact me via PM. Thanks.

-Z (Post Script)

X

We don’t have an FA. But I’ll happily take your FA.

-Z

Just like Netflix, we’re rolling straight to the next reset. If you’re good keeping the relations from last reset, you can move on to the chill part of the night. If not, please ruin the mood and send me a PM.

Also our tag this reset is PScript.

(I was tired of distinguishing between grabs and our tag in the news.)

Please PM me. Thanks.

-Z (Post Script)

PS

Serv - I think you need to read more than the very first post in this thread. =)

I'm back!

Also can't tell whether this nick looks like "zips" or "ZPS" similar to "GPS"....

Confirmed!

Excited to be trying something new and to be back together with Servant!