Economy, sinks and one-way money

Every rule about costs in this game traces back to one worry: an economy that creates value on a schedule and has nowhere for it to go. This page explains the worry, the vocabulary the design uses for it, and the one-way rule for real money that sits on top.

Emissions need sinks

An emission is a new unit appearing on a timer regardless of what anyone did. Emissions are fine when something removes the same amount, which in this vocabulary is a sink. With plenty of emission and too few sinks, the value of a unit depends on a steady stream of new buyers, and that is not an economy that can sustain itself. So every unit needs somewhere to go.

That is why a fixed rate of currency per acre was rejected as the same trap. The alternative that stuck is that trees grow, nothing is minted until someone cuts, cutting is a decision, and clear-cutting means waiting. The only source of new value is real growth, and the question became how fast the sinks drain it.

Why the currency is board feet

Inside the prototype the currency is board feet of lumber. Logs go to a mill, the mill pays in lumber, and lumber is what you spend on cabins, barns, seed and upkeep. Using the thing the game is about as its money means every price is a statement about timber, a sink always looks like lumber leaving a pile, and there is no second currency whose exchange rate needs defending. It also keeps the unit boring: nobody speculates on board feet of lumber, which suits the rule that nothing in the game is described as rising in value.

Sinks and where the prototype has them

The sinks are the less glamorous half of the design, and they are everywhere. Dragging a log to the landing loses some of it, up to a ceiling, and a longer or steeper skid loses more. A dull saw wastes timber, and a sharp one costs a crew-day or a fee to the filer. Taking a load to a mill costs a share of the load that grows with distance. Roads, buildings, seed, ground-breaking and replanting all cost lumber. Businesses carry upkeep and a cost of goods. The town’s store takes a freight percentage on produce. Buying a stand from the studio’s Forest Reserve moves lumber to the studio and out of the player economy. The numbers are in the reference pages (crew, cutting and saws, town mills, buildings and roads, town and markets); the point here is that each of them was added to answer a specific leak, so taking one out should be treated as turning a tap back on.

The sources are fewer. Growing trees is one. The outside buyers described in Pick a lane are another, because a mill that pays lumber for logs is creating lumber that no player gave up. A third is any player who sells to the town’s store, which is simulated.

Whether the sinks are enough

The simulations suggest the balance is not settled. In the latest five-day run the leading bot finished with 127,561 in net worth, of which 119,041 was lumber in hand. Most of the wealth is a pile nobody has found a use for. It is the pattern an economy shows when emissions outrun sinks: value piles up unused, and new building room from the eras is the main lever once homesteads fill. Bots do not farm, buy Reserve stands or run in the fair, so the real sinks may be stronger than the run shows, and Balance findings is careful about that. But the direction is plain: a player with nothing to spend on is a player with no reason to cut more.

Why money never converts back

The one-way rule is the second layer. Currency never converts back to real money through the studio, and nothing in the game pays a player out. Trade inside the game is lumber for goods, which feeds engagement and sinks.

The reasons stack. If lumber could be cashed out through the studio, then farming it would be a job, and the bots and farmers that hollow out tradable-reward games would arrive. A currency that could be traded for value outside the game also starts to resemble a stake, which is why the fair has no stakes.

What the game does not promise

The game makes no promise that anything in it gains value, and nothing in it converts to real money. The game is free and there is nothing to buy, and no page, screen or announcement describes land or timber as rising in value.