Join the new world

Cash flows are critical to any business owner or investor. Without them you cannot buy raw materials, pay workers, invest in currency, or anything else necessary to make money. They give you freedom to make changes and react as well as to help float yourself through periods of rough waters. Today I will discuss several different options available to players when they look to invest their money and how best to get some immediate cash flows.



The Stats Option

Many young players get their first gold and immediately go blow it on strength training, weapons, or fighting. While it does show slight benefits over the long term there are no real cash flows to come from investment in your account stats. It’s always fun to see your strength or rank shoot up quickly, but without proper cash flows you will burn through what gold you have in very little time. Then, you’re back where you started and broke. Keep this in mind when you get gold.



The Company Option

This is by far the easiest option for immediate cash flows and this is where every player should begin investing their money. Due to the “work as manager” ability, every player can make easy profit each day with almost zero work. For new business buyers, I would recommend iron or grain as their first purchase (I’d start with grain first since food sells better than weapons). Raw material companies are by far the easiest to run because you do not need to do anything beyond work and sell what you make. The grain and iron markets are solid because people always need food and the weapons market is decent most of the time. Keep this in mind as you begin buying companies and remember to diversify your investments in order to protect yourself against slow downs in the markets (buy one grain, then one iron, then another grain, etc). In terms of workers and profit, I wouldn’t bother hiring employees at all. It’s a ton of hassle assuming you’re hiring random people and the profit margins are tiny or nonexistent depending on the day.

Buy Company -> Work As Manager -> Sell Product -> Profit and Repeat



The Monetary Market Option

This option is the most difficult to manage and takes time and practice. Due to the new 10 gold monetary market limit, you can only purchase 10 gold off the MM each day. This seriously limits the ability to speculate or play on the margins between individual currencies and gold, so be prepared to be more heavily invested in individual currency in the future. Nonetheless, this is still a viable option if you have a few gold that you’d like to see do more than sit or if you would like to make money on the currency you have lying around in companies or in your personal accounts. There are two methods to making money on the MM and they are as follows (note: these are brief descriptors and there is way too much to effectively explain here):

The Sell/Sell Method

This is my name for the method and it simply means that you sell gold for currency and then sell that currency for gold. The idea behind this method is that you make money on the price differential between the gold to currency price and the currency to gold price and end up making a small profit. The big things to consider for this method are the volatility of the market (ALWAYS), the profit margin, and the turnover time from gold to currency and back to gold. Remember, a quickly moving currency with small profit margins can often do better than a slow moving currency with high profit margins. This is the least risky way to trade on the MM, but you are not in control of how fast currency moves or when you’ll get your gold back.

The Speculation Method

This is much harder than the Sell/Sell Method and much riskier, but the payouts can be much higher. This method requires experience with the individual markets, knowing where they normally sell and how they fluctuate, and a person who is willing to take a risk. This method requires that you purchase an amount of currency and hold on to it for a period of time in hopes that the value of the currency will increase so it can be sold for more than it was purchased. For most players this is a guessing game, but it can be wildly profitable if done correctly.



Alternative Cash Flows

Keep in mind that you will make money from Hard Worker and Super Soldier medals as well as leveling up periodically. Another great way to get easy cash flows is by inviting friends to the game. Not only do you make gold when they hit level 10, but you also get 10% of any gold they get from medals and level ups. Inviting friends can be difficult, but it’s worth the time if they continue to play for quite a while. Also, if you have a ton of strength, Battle Hero hunting can be easy money since the money spent on weapons and food is usually well below the 5 gold you get from the medal. Don’t try it though if you have anything less than 2000 strength (my opinion only and attempt at your own risk).



I hope this breakdown of cash flow options clarifies things and gives some young investors ideas to build on. Be smart, be confident, and be prepared to learn. Anyone with questions can feel free to drop me a PM or track me down on IRC (I can be found lurking in #TC most days).

In My Next Article: Equilibrium and Economic Flaws







I love to hear opinions and comments, especially if they are contrary to my own or from young players who want to learn this game!

A silent nation is a dead nation. Speak up and be heard!