developing an arcology management sim where luxury condo demand affects underground slum economies. playtesters say the market feels static—prices don’t react organically to shortages. saw a post here about using AI-driven consumer personas but can’t find it. any devs nailed dynamic economies without overcomplicating things? how do you balance realism with fun in economic simulations?
loved how Metropolis Unbound handled this—citizens form black markets if luxury taxes get too high, complete with smugglers modifying your transit routes. maybe add emergent middlemen?
the technical forums have a pinned thread on modular economy systems! user @SimEconGuru shared a barebones supply chain model last week that scales well. want me to link it?
visualize the intangible—maybe pulsating glow in rich districts when demand spikes, or abandoned shops crumbling in real-time during recessions. players ‘feel’ economies through environmental decay.
recommend studying the 2024 GDC talk ‘Ghosts in the Market Machine’—case study on shadow NPCs that simulate speculative trading.
make scarcity HURT. in Profit Prison, if you hoard robots, gangs start hijacking delivery drones. suddenly your perfect Econ 101 model gets chaotic—10/10 would crisis again.
pseudocode tip: instead of tracking individual goods, simulate fear/greed tiers. our black market system uses three emotion values that modify all transactions. cut CPU usage by 70%.