Commodity Trader Instructions & Information

1. Getting Started
2. Tips
3. System Requirements
4. History

Getting Started

1. Go back to the game set-up page.
2. Choose new names for your commodities or use the defualts.
3. Select the options you want, difficulty level and so on.
4. Hit the "Start New Game" button. This will launch the window in which the game is actually played. It will take a few seconds for the game to load.

Each turn, you need to decide whether to buy or sell any of the commodities shown at the prices listed. Between turns, prices will rise or fall, giving you the opportunity to make money and creating the risk that you will lose it.

For example, Sugar is selling for $5/unit, so you buy 2 units. On your next turn, Sugar is selling for $8, so you sell those two units you bought. You net $3/unit or $6 total. But you also have fixed storage costs. Since you had 5 storage units at your disposal, they cost you $5 for that turn, which means that at the end of the day, you gross $1 on the transaction.

Tips

• Manage your transport capacity. Regardless of whether you are using it, there is a one dollar charge per unit of capacity.

• The bank will charge you interest on money you borrow and give you interest on any positive balance you keep. The staring rates are 4% and 2% respectively.

• When you visit the bank, make sure that you remember to close the banking window when you're done.

• Cheating is entirely possible if you like to play that way. The one thing you can't do is directly change your cargo levels. Buy or sell commodities to adjust them.

• You can short commodities. That is, you can sell them before you buy them, in anticipation of the price falling. To do this, you will need to have enough credit to cover the sale price of the commodity when you short it. Check the bank screen to see what your credit limit is.

System Requirements

I've tested the latest version of the game with several Netscapes 4.x and IE5.5 on Win NT/ME and Linux.

I cannot guarantee that the game will work on other systems and have little time to perform those tests. If you find a problem, let me know and I'll see what I can do.

Version History

This version of the classic trading game was conceived of and written in early 1998 by me (Michael Leikam). I can be reached at leikam@yahoo.com

v1.4   12/16/01
	fixed a few bugs dealing with short selling
	changed the frequency of some events
	redesigned the banking screen

v1.31  5/15/98
	made game playable on Opera browsers.

v1.21  5/7/98 
	changed gui slightly
	got rid of cities (what's the point?)
	demand and volitility now document objects instead of field values
	moved storage from banking window to main window

v1.1	5/1/98
	added options: difficulty, confirmations, random events
	added variable interest rates
	broke out this page of instructions

v1	first iteration