Commodities

The commodity market tracks 22 raw materials and services that flow between corporate sectors. Commodity prices shift each turn based on supply and demand from all active corporations. These prices directly affect corporate profit margins — sometimes dramatically.

The 22 Commodities

How Prices Work

Supply and Demand

Each sector type supplies and demands specific commodities at defined rates (fraction of daily revenue). The number of units in the market is:

units = (sector daily revenue × rate) / basePrice

Only owned sectors participate. Unowned market share does not contribute supply or demand.

Market price updates each turn:

marketPrice = basePrice × clamp(demand / supply, 0.5, 2.0)

Prices are bounded between 50% and 200% of base price before local adjustments.

Blended pricing: Final prices blend 75% global price + 25% regional (state-level) price. When tariffs are active, the blend shifts toward local prices.

Retail Demand

The Consumer Goods commodity is special: retail sectors both supply it and the demand for it is scaled by national GDP growth. Positive GDP growth pushes retail commodity prices up; negative GDP shrinks them.

Margin Modifiers

Commodities affect corporate sector profit margins through a logarithmic curve:

modifier = 40 × Σ(rate_i × ln(demand_i / supply_i))

Reference values for a single commodity at rate 1.0:

Sign convention:

• Buyers (sectors that consume a commodity): shortage raises costs (negative modifier), oversupply lowers costs (positive modifier)
• Sellers (sectors that produce a commodity): shortage boosts margins (positive), oversupply compresses margins (negative)

The logarithmic curve provides diminishing returns — going from 2× to 3× shortage matters less than going from 1× to 2×. The modifier is uncapped, so extreme shortages can have very large effects.

Retail sectors face only 25% of negative commodity input penalties — they can better absorb supply chain disruptions than specialized industrial sectors.

Operating Strategies

Each sector type has 3–4 operating strategies that change which commodities it supplies and demands. For example, an extraction sector might choose between Oil & Gas, Iron Mining, or a diversified Standard strategy.

Switching costs:

• Cost: 25% of sector daily revenue
• Transition: 12 turns with a -5% margin penalty during the switch
• Cooldown: 24 turns before another strategy change

The strategy confirmation panel shows a before/after comparison of commodity rates and estimated margin impact based on current market conditions.

Viewing Commodity Data

From the Commodity pages (/commodity/[type]), you can see:

• Current price and price history chart
• Global supply vs. demand breakdown
• Which sector types are the main suppliers and buyers

How Commodity Prices Affect Your Corporation

Upstream shortages: If your sector requires Steel and the global steel D/S ratio rises to 2×, your manufacturing margin takes a -27.7% hit. Competitors who are vertically integrated (owning both a manufacturing and extraction sector) partially insulate themselves.

Downstream windfalls: If you are a steel producer and supply tightens, your extraction sector benefits from the shortage while your competitors suffer. Timing sector entries to commodity cycles can significantly boost profits.

Tariffs and local prices: When a country imposes tariffs, the blend shifts toward local commodity prices. Corps operating domestically may see different margins than foreign competitors — the tariff design gives domestic corps a smaller malus than foreign corps get as a penalty.

Unowned Sector Regeneration

Unowned market sectors grow each turn at the average growth rate of same-type corporate sectors in that state (fallback 2% if none exist). This means unowned commodity supply is not permanently depleted — it slowly regenerates, maintaining a floor on supply even if no player owns a sector there.

See also: Corporations, Corporate R&D, National Metrics