I also have 100k plus of each T3 good and < 50k of each T1 and T2 and I agree that this seems to represent a "glut".
I don't agree that "the economy is broken" and I don't agree that it is clear that this glut will lower retention.
In my first 3 months I had a variety of manufactories, not just my boost, because it is not "obvious" that you should only build your boost. If I recall, the early game teaches you to have a variety of manufactories, and it is only later when I joined a fellowship that my fellows explained that I should focus on my boosted goods.
So that's my conclusion:
- I think that very new players will not be turned off because the trader doesn't have a lot of trades.
- after several months of playing, they will join a fellowship and then they can coordinate with their fellows
- players like me or you are fine: we already know how to play the game
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I also think that there is rubber banding built in. When I first acquired my dust buildings they were the crown of my civilization. I traded down for everything I needed. My surplus in all tiers was mighty. When I did the math to compare dust per square from the event building to steel per square of my boosted manus it was like, the event buildings were many many times better. I sold my steel buildings and used the space for armouries.
If I re-did those calculations today, I am certain that the dust buildings would be close to worthless. Why? Because of the chapters? No! Because dust is almost worthless in the current economy! Very soon every reasonable player with a dust event building is going to sell it off and the glut will end (and there will be a short period where everyone is on the forum saying "the economy is broken because no one is selling T3 goods!"
Yeah so: there is no "free dust building" because when dust becomes free it becomes worthless, which means those tiles are wasted, which means we remove them, which means no more free dust. Maybe some "prisoner's dilemma" stuff will make it so that people are slow to sell their T3 event buildings because they don't want to be the clown who turns out the lights.
That's what I think, anyway.