Musings on Intergalactic Economic Strategies

Company Inc.®™© had an amazing opportunity to play in the popular megagame Watch the Skies. If you have no clue what a megagame is, take some time to watch this video. You won’t be disappointed.

As the alien race in this particular game, Company Inc.®™© was tasked with mining the planet Earth for special crystals known as CZero. However, there were these pesky rodents called “humans” that “tried” to stop us from mining our precious mineral. As soon as play started, I immediately seized the control of the alien economy and technology sectors. Here’s what I learned that day.

Maximize Spending Power

At the beginning of our space adventure, our space company was making 8 space credits every space turn. Any business man worth his salt knows that spendable capital is the backbone of any company. Increased capital leads to more opportunity. Opportunity leads to growth. Obviously, it was in our best interest to give our economy an early boost. Our reconnaissance missions to Earth proved useful, providing us with a decent supply of rare Earth minerals, “human” DNA, as well as some live specimens. I put these resources to good use on several technological advancements. I was able to strengthen our income to 10 space credits per turn, a whopping 25% increase in capital in just the first turn. By prioritizing economic boons, you build a framework on which the rest of your enterprise can grow.

On a side note, we were also able to learn the “human’s” language(s) on that first turn. At first, we thought they were very primitive beings, as they were drawing simplistic pictures as a form of communication to us. We ended up writing a scientific paper about how their once promisingly intelligent species are slowing reverting to simplistic organisms.

Expand Aggressively

With a stable economic base, we were able to shift our focus to collecting CZero crystals. We had gathered a few CZero crystals with the tractor beams on our heavy saucers, but this was not good enough for us. Since these crystals could be mined effectively at mining stations, building mining stations became my mid-game priority. Our mining stations are of stunning complexity and quality, taking multiple turns to build. Using every heavy saucer in our fleet, I devised a pipeline system of production. Idle equipment is money wasted. As soon as one heavy saucer completed its job, it was able to immediately move on to the next location to begin construction of another mining station. At its peak, we were completing mining stations at an astonishing rate of 1 per turn. It took a few turns for production to ramp up, but CZero crystal started to quickly pile up. With 6 mining stations spread around the entire world, we had a steady income of crystal and were well on our way to completing our CZero quota.

Invest in Yourself

Now that that we have amassed funds, I needed to figure out what to do with it. Of course, most of it will be spent on advancing your immediate plans. Flying saucer fleets need to be fielded, secret agents need to infiltrate “human” governments on Earth, and life support needs to be maintained. While I spent 75% of our budget on actionable items, I always made sure to keep progressing up the tech tree. There is no better investment you can make than in yourself. As your tech gets better, all things become easier and all sectors of your corporation benefit. Our mining operations were refining CZero crystals at max efficiency. Our military forces reigned supreme and dominated the skies. All “human” tech paled in comparison to our glorious alien craft. Improvements to infrastructure are always advantageous. Our economic engine was bursting and by mid-game we had more space money than I knew what to do with.

There is one corollary to this rule. One must always be wary of ROI (Return on Investment) of any expenditure. In terms of the game, I knew that there was maximum turn limit. The amount of time we would have benefit from an upgrade became a factor in my decisions. Nearing the end, bonuses towards our standing military were more beneficial verses a small boost to economic gain. It was tempting to continue to improve our economic standings, but there simply wasn’t enough turns left to put the extra capital to use.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the basic principles of economy work in almost any circumstance. It doesn’t matter if you are a conglomeration of alien races, an aspiring entrepreneur, or a kid with a lemonade stand, the above 3 principles stand. So get out there. There’s a lot of money out in the world, but it won’t earn itself.