It is not stupid to ask. I paid $1,000+ for the donator status and know people who have paid more. It's an exclusive club and comes with a price.

I also have a BMW760Li which is not really that much better than the half-cheaper one with only a 3-liter engine. Some people perceive that they need status, and are ready to pay for it. Also some people are so rich that they don't need to care.

I encourage everyone to produce more luxury goods to the market and sell them at high prices, that makes life better for the buyers and sellers alike!

Crosspost for the paramount importance:

+1.

Bitcoin is the King of crypto, commanding 93% of the total marketcap. It's nice to be a king, but it has the downside that you can only be dethroned, never advance

Of course I believe that BTC has a great possibility to go up in purchasing power, even by a factor of 1,000 (after all it's my biggest holding, would not be if I did not think so ) but in terms of relative market share, it can only go down (or 7% up if all the other current and future cryptos are abandoned, which is unlikely).

The sway that Bitcoin holds in cryptosphere is so great that it is very difficult for an altcoin to gain traction. But if any of them does to a sufficient degree, I take it as a strong indication that the market is making a shift.

If any one of the altcoins gains a 20% share of the total cryptocoin marketcap, the value in Bitcoin will likely move to that coin.

Caveats:
- No gimmicks. Short-term volatility is excluded. Sufficient trading volume.
- Marketcap must be calculated from the free-trading amount, leaving some room for total planned issuance (future mining) to be taken into account.

It does not take more than 10-25% of the value in Bitcoin to decide to migrate, to trash the Bitcoin remaining value, and make the value of the alt mushroom. For historical reference, Bitcoin marketcap went from about $1M to $200M in 2010-2011 in less than a year. During that period, only about $10M was invested into bitcoins. The rest was wealth effect. The same mechanism applied to the potential migration situation can make the contender quite valuable if only 2% of the wealth in Bitcoin decides to move (and inflict a proportional loss to the remaining bitcoin holdings).

I repeat in bold, because the issue is important: Not every Bitcoin holder needs to sell all their bitcoins for the value to plummet and the alt to take over. It is enough that 10-25% do it, then the ones who migrated will gain the value (as appreciation of the new coin) which was stored in the 75-90% of bitcoins (whose value has plummeted), while the coins still belong to the bagholders. If this were not true, there would be no change in the world, and Bitcoin itself would never have had any traction whatsoever.

I am not always correct, and even when I am, I tend to be ahead of the time. Don't sell your bitcoins, but make sure you have at least the same proportional amount of coins in every alt that has the slightest chance of making it. (It costs basically nothing but your bitcoin maximalism pride).

This is what I have done. And Monero is the only one I believe has the chance currently. I will tell when the situation changes.

The most optimal distribution in my understanding (see my hundreds of posts on the issue for the development process of the understanding) occurs naturally if the market is as well as possible unfettered by friction. The greatest visible source of friction are taxes and regulations, but they can't hinder the achievement of the natural distribution in the long run, just make it slower to achieve.

In practice the more important sources of "friction" (I am using the word figuratively to couple it with the previous) are 1) ignorance and 2) length of the thought process before investing. These two issues do not alter the optimal state, but are important for the growth of the tree.

As we know, the tree looks quite much a tree no matter in which stage of growth it is. The same can be observed in the distribution of cryptocurrencies regardless of their phase in lifecycle. They always have the roots, the stump, the trunk, branches and leaves. The premine or other dysfunctional start can make the tree very maimed in the beginning, but if it lives on, it will attain the functionality (the things are consequences one of another; if no functional distribution is achieved, it dies). The taxes and regulations make this process slower. But what are needed for the tree to grow, are the two numbered things.

1) You can only invest in what you know exists.

2) The typical length from awareness to committing money (in case all the factors are favorable) averages 24 months.

The optimal distribution is a circular definition and refers to the dynamic equilibrium where each market participant holds exactly the number of coins that satisfies his utility function. This tends to form a distribution where the largest owners own coins approximately in the power law ratio (if largest stash is 1, the next largest is approx. 1/2, third 1/3, 1000th 1/1000 etc. until about 3% of the total owners own half of it. The 97% own the other half and their proportions are governed by other functions, based on demographics and conditions. Whether debt is possible, also affects the distribution.

It is important not only to reach the distribution, but reach it in a way that the ones on top of the ability rank are also the ones on top of the pyramid. The combined "dev gets premine" & "early adopters get the coins cheaper" & "coins can be bought with existing money" approach is very popular in coins, and leads to this result better than the alternative approaches tested so far.

Its main problems come in the later stage with the hoped mass adoption. No coin yet has a viable scheme to expand the money supply fairly in connection with the extent of mass adoption. I am no tech guy and don't know how difficult it is to code in a P2P software. I am on the opinion that everyone so far has just tried to copy Bitcoin's early success with a declining yearly inflation, perceived to lead to exponentially growing coin value which becomes the mechanism to drive the adoption. I have written brilliant pieces in favor of this approach, but it does not mean it is necessarily copiable (if it was, by reductio ad absurdum, we would have a million blockchains and everyone would become rich - what we observe instead, is that even Bitcoin is struggling).

What has happened to my thinking over the time I've dedicated to the matter, I have become less purist and less dogmatic. When designing the economic engine for Crypto Kingdom, I conceived CKG, which is a 100% premined, 100% non-crypto. The distribution has mainly happened via direct sales against monetary value, and to a lesser degree via grants and donations. It has always had a 2-way market, which has severely limited the effectiveness (and thus the scope) of donations. If I donated too much to a person whose utility function would consequently go out-of-balance, he would feel inconvenient and balance it by selling to the market. The existence of a market is therefore a more important tenet than the exact mechanism of the early distribution.

From now on, the CKG money supply will expand in proportion to the time spent on playing the game. This will be a very equitable way of getting the new CKG to the hands of the people in small increments, and will in my hopes be the missing link for the wider distribution, which in the case of cryptocoins has typically been tried with faucets but with little success. The reason why I hope this will be a much better method is that the playing is a prerequisite for getting the value, so there is the equivalent amount of commitment to the value received. Theoretically, this trumps industrial mining, which is a commercial activity with little connection between profitability and commitment.

The key points in achieving success for a cryptocoin (or in CKG's case, even a non-cryptocoin) are thus:

1) Getting people to know of it.

2) Having the value proposition that makes them interested in getting in, which also typically takes 24 months if they need to divert their existing money to buy it. The coin needs to offer something interesting, or unique, or be fair. The more of these are present, the better.

3) Having the markets that make it possible for the coins to settle in hands who value them the most, and provide the means to cash out to other assets which are needed for cash flow needs.


What I don't regard to be key points, despite popular thinking:

1) Wallet software or ease of making transactions

2) Ways to spend the coin directly on goods and services

3) Trying to reach people who are not ready for it, forcing value down on their throat.


As outlined in the previous post, my stance is that the coin needs to be valuable and worthy of being a portfolio asset. To achieve this, it needs to have only minimum transactional utility. The stage of mass adoption and mass utility (50,000,000+ users worldwide) will be driven by direct usability, but we will never get there unless the coin first has intrinsic value and the buyers of last resort.

I am not here to argue. I think it makes sense to buy XMR at this price. I don't think BTC is able to destroy it, everyone whom I know trusts ring sig anonymity more than the BTC plugin solutions, but it's up to everyone to make their choice (or hedge).

A lot of people know about Mt.Gox coins, but for reasons obvious, they do not publish their knowledge.

The buyin price is of secondary importance. If you are now properly weighted, keep it. If you are overweight, sell some at a loss (remember to check that you get some tax credit and how many years it is valid) and buy something that has a negative total_loss_intercorrelation profile or a better upside (or both, such as crypto).


Only the current BTC people are in love for Bitcoin. But they/we number a few million at most. My experience from selling to cryptovirgins, is that Monero is even more easily grasped and accepted, with the following reasons:
- more early stage (people want to be early)
- no reputation of scams, hacks, drug dealing, Mt.Gox
- anonymous.

Of course Monero will get its share of scams and hacks when it grows larger, but the other points are very valid.

I don't go as far as to give a high or even decent probability for XMR overtaking BTC, but I am proud to be among the first of the elite bitcoiners to recognize it as a possibility. (I was also a world class silver theorist before - even wrote a book on silver - but have forsaken it because facts are facts: crypto is just better.) But to me, it's almost a given (25-50%) that XMR will end up being the 2nd most important coin in the next 1-2 years, and this alone makes the price appreciation against BTC quite likely.

As for plans, it is mostly boring stuff which I know is very important but does not personally interest me. I am very grateful that there is the large dev community taking care of it. The goal is just to maintain an uninfringeable global ledger of truly anonymous transactions, same as BTC's goal is to have transparent transactions.

I seldom need to correct you, but that one is actually a fallacy.

Commodities are thought to be selected as money because they were useful in trade and consequently people started to hoard them to match their present and future spending needs. While that might be possible, there is another mechanism that is even more valid.

The buyer of last resort. Any single entity with enough economic or coercive power can make anything money by making markets for it. The modern day examples are true not only with the various fiats, which are held together by the debt and tax payments, but also in voluntary interaction. My game Crypto Kingdom has plenty of assets that are pseudo-monetary, and some of them have (rumor only) started to be used IRL transactions as well.

Also Monero has worldwide only a few thousands of users, but among my friends, it has become as accepted as Bitcoin (or cash), simply due to the perception that it retains convertibility at market rates (which of course is a nonstatement - it either does, or becomes completely worthless, a phenomenon that only arises in the market, requiring everyone to perceive it worthless, contradicting the premise).

Money is not a communist concept and does not require a majority or even a superminority. I also thought so previously but everything around me seems to prove it wrong. The short history of CK has opened up the understanding that the monetary future of the Knowledge Age might be more fragmented than the dominant theory. As TPTB have declared war on money the same way as they have declared war on drugs, money needs to go underground the same way as drugs have gone. Both are very essential to the individual so there will always be people who put their survival first and the government's wishes second.

Yeah, you can always cherrypick. If you take the whole price history, and compare buying in immediately to any other buyin strategy, it's hard to find one that yields a better result, even if we didn't take the resources spent in forming and executing the strategy into account. SSS is a simple, passive strategy, suitable for long-term high variance +EV investments, done with small-to-moderate % of your portfolio. It's not intended for dealers, traders, gamblers or the like.

I can only think with my own brains, and yes - I am telling you that the more I think, the more bullish I am on XMR, and at some point this will mean a relative bearishness even towards BTC.

I still own all the silver I had when I was a silverbug. But I am not really thinking that silver will make me a billionaire (not that I cared so much of that literally, but let's use it as a buzzword).

I still own about the same BTC that I ever had, the conversion to Malla Bitcoin Castle and buying some XMR did not make an appreciable dent.

So, despite that the number of XMR is less than that of BTC, you can buy them for 1/500 of the price. You don't need to sell your silver, you don't need to sell your BTC, the only thing you need to do is to buy some XMR.

The whole time I've been monitoring altcoins (about 2 years) I haven't found anything else worth buying.

XMR does everything that BTC does. Its development is even more active (by number of github commits), I like the community better, the CN technology (ring signatures) makes it anonymous in a way that Bitcoin can never be, my friends accept is as readily as bitcoin, it can be acquired with bitcoins from Poloniex (or converted back) with 5 minutes email-only registration, it has mymonero.org wallet, as easy as blockchain.info, ...

In a word, it's exactly where Bitcoin was in 2010 when I missed the train. I'm not going to miss this one, I lay back and let it play out 

What I mentioned some time ago, but got sidetracked, The Monero Investment Group and its associated website, it is now coming to fruition. I found a new partner and the idea is to make an introduction/resource website for XMR investment, not at all focused on the technical side of things, such as the blockchain, wallets, security or anything that is important, but is already covered very much by the existing resources.

What we aim to present, is already existing in this thread and the Monero Economics thread, mainly in my own posts. The guiding idea is that a new asset class is being born, and may become as important as the existing ones: precious metals, land and its derivatives (agriculture, mining, industry, habitation), business and its derivatives (stocks), and obligations (cash, bonds, funds etc.). If the change indeed happens, , the ramifications for XMR valuation are nothing but astounding. A 1000-fold increase in price in the long run can be considered a failure.

The long periods of decline, such as the one we are experiencing, are much easier to weather when you do it according to the SSS plan.

If I had literally followed my plan, instead of buying back at a nice discount a year ago, the situation would be even better. So folks, do what I say, not what I do Load up on bitcoins (and monero) now as the scenario universe is heavily tilted on your favor, and be strict in selling on strength when it comes, and don't buy back in the subsequent slump (and of course, never ever sell on a loss).

BTC2 buys you 1,000 XMR. BTC20 buys you 10,000 XMR. I have a very strong feeling that doing it is equivalent to having bought 1,000 or 10,000 BTC when it was available for the same price (around Dec-10 to Jan-11). Hedging and risk managementwise it is the right thing to do. SSS applies to them as well, although I would advise to start selling only after a significant runup.

I am involved in a new website that will distill my writings here to coherent articles. Launch is expected next month.

Well, my portfolio does not evolve too quickly. From 2006 to early 2013 it was mainly silver. Then it was mainly bitcoin. And still is, but my interest has changed to monero.

It feels almost as if many people in Bitcoin are sitting upon their golden egg, waiting for it to fulfill all their wishes. Yes, there is the likelihood that it will, but it does not become any less likely if they also bought some moneros.

I was quicker to realize the potential of Monero as I had quite recently needed to forsake my first love, silver, for Bitcoin. The people who first fell in love with Bitcoin may have to suffer a hit in exchange rate if they refuse to "look after other women", just as I did by not switching my bulk holdings in late 2010 when you could have had 100 BTC for 1 ounce of silver, rather in 2013 when 1 ounce bought 0.2 BTC 

I haven't seen the compelling investment case in 2.0-coins, although I regard them as interesting projects.

Wow, the conversation is slow indeed...

We are releasing our gaming software any day from now. It is graphical, 320x200/256. We have no intention to go to text-only, progress is progress 

You are very welcome to play the game if you are not yet registered!

Childhood copper tokens inventory is completed!


While the eager anticipation of the new Era continues, the citizens have turned once again to the bygone era, never to return. But first some news:

The deterioration of health and living conditions has been proceeding alarmingly. It is now accepted knowledge that the Very Ancient Two Springs that once provided the water supply to the Town and beyond, have lost their blessing, if not outright incurred a curse. The waters taste bitter and wrinkles have started to appear to people whose physical age is no more than 25! The scientists are theoretizing that the water might become less hazardous if mixed with a moderate amount of alcohol. In theory, the more, the better, but since too high alcohol content causes dehydration (which in turn can only be alleviated with water), they are now debating whether a 4-5% mixture would be optimal. They are not unanimous on the reason what might be the cause of the problem with the water. Scientific advances need to be taken on that, and also on experimenting whether rainwater or water from wells could be better. We also don't have the wells in the area, because of the "paekivi" type soil which is very laborious to dig, although the stone lends itself well on massive construction.

The new drink, water mixed with alcohol distilled from whatever is available, has been named "Mead" after the ancient drink that according to the legends gave the Vikings their strength.

The other drinks that are commonly available are Beer, whose production monopoly is now officially chartered to the Church, because of all the organizations in the Kingdom, only they have the required expertise, manpower and capability to ramp up the production in quantities required, while keeping the quality high. While Mead trumps water in healthiness, Beer is considered a much better choice for those who can afford it.

HH Sir Riccardo has been producing wine for the nobles to enjoy in his private vineyards in 1-S for more than 100 years. This year the harvest season is at hand, but it seems that the yield is very bad. While nothing concerning the future is certain, it is believed that the climate change will make commercial wine production impossible in the Kingdom for the years to come. The Town is organizing ways how to procure wine from the foreign lands in increasing quantities, because it is perceived as even more healthy, especially for the middle-aged (which, sorry to say, our doctors have determined to begin from the age 35, from which point the Health of a character goes to terminal decline - if Sicknesses, Unhealthy Conditions, Malnutrition, Mead, and Accidents don't finish him even sooner).

The ultimate health drink, Cognac, will be imported from where it grows, as before, and promoted, especially because of the hefty duties it brings to the Town coffers. With a reasonable amount of luck concerning sicknesses, and careful staying away from hazardous living conditions, we believe the life expectancy for a 30-year old nobleman is about 70 years total.

Future information concerning Drinks and Health will have the ingame effect starting from Version 5: Economy.


With all this hardly inspiring information on the future life surfacing from the scientists' chambers and proclaimed by the heralds (to weed out the rumors), the citizens have had time to browse through their homes to find any memorabilia of their childhood and happy times. A special attention has been turned to the toyboxes, whose contents have mostly been eaten by moth and mold. Copper has survived intact, so the inventory of the tokens from the most, even very ancient times has been made and results are now publicly known.

As the most ancient ones remember, the monereto was selected to be the currency of the town from the outset, but because of the old custom, copper tokens were still minted for a few years after the Kingdom (1400) and the Town (1430) were established. The database soon proved its superiority to the tokens, and after 1450, only very few were minted and survive.

In total, the Townspeople have 484 copper tokens, which are minted in 57 different years, between and including 1360-1478. Of the years, 7 are unique, including both the oldest and the youngest coin. 10 years have only 2 surviving examples, and in all cases they both belong to the same character. 100 coins are minted in the 1300s, being thus Very Ancient, the rest 384 coins being Most Ancient.

The Copper Tokens are now included with other Fungible Items in the googleDB /F_OWN tab. Trading in the coins is allowed as per standard rules, but please close the DB after viewing as the developers still need it for their work which otherwise might suffer.

HM The King is quite eager in expanding his collection of the coins. Especially rare coins (3-5 minted, or 1-2 if reasonably priced), coins from the 1300s, and the coins from important years of the Kingdom (1400, 1418, 1430) are in demand. We are not selling the oldest nor the newest unique coin, as the Die has impartially put them in our hands and they are priceless.

We believe the 3rd oldest coin from 1368 has a potential to become quite valuable as there are only 10 Items in the Kingdom older than that (Zenon's Medicine of Life, Collection of Scientific Instruments, and Library of Papyri reportedly from the 1000s, HH The Duke's Family Creche Set from 1321, King's toybox from 1366, and 5 copper tokens from 1360-1362). The COT1368 (11 existing) can be obtained in fair trade in exchange for other coins or value.


Only the Silver might still yield some coins that match the age of the earliest copper coins. But where is our silver? Everyone has found only silver receipts - no one seems to possess any monetary silver. Not even a single coin! Only the silver objects are intact, as shiny (or patinated) as ever...

The cry reached the King himself who went to the CFTC to inquire about the silver: how is it possible that silver is reportedly imported every decade in increasing quantities, exchange rates are calculated 240 years to the past, aftermarket trades are made and market is open even as we speak, yet the metal is nowhere to be seen or handled?

Umm.. how can you read such a message from the theses? The matter was not even mentioned.

I advocate, more than most, the idea that was mentioned - that nothing, including gold, silver, BTC, Monero, land, business, and of course all the paper investments, is safe. But they have different risk profiles. I encourage diversification, but not in the traditional sense to smooth out the volatility, but in the sense to make the simultaneous total loss of all assets less likely.

This emphasis is the direct consequence from my understanding that especially in these days, ownership of financial capital and freedom to do anything at all which matters with it, correlate negatively. On the other hand, losing all your assets is a major blow that must be avoided, even if it means below-average returns.

Of course in practice it does not mean below average returns, quite the opposite: (the total loss of all your) cryptos are so little correlated to that of other assets that it makes sense to own them as long-term investments, so the potential to hit big with a meaningfully sized and diversified crypto portfolio is good.

As for the existence of Ag on earth, I have written a book about it, with my university Economics-Geology background. But let's not go into it because it is irrelevant on the topic, even if all my research and scenario thinking somehow had managed to miss the key aspects  

I was asked to provide a short summary of my investment theses especially related to silver. Well I have to practice keeping it short.

1. Savings are deferred consumption/investment, which can be used for consumption/investment later.

2. Previously, savings without knowledge were able to provide a positive return on capital, in the 1700s this was about 5% but has steadily declined. Now it is hardly possible to get more than 2%. Taxation by inflation (capital "gains") is the main way how this is accomplished lately.

3. The Knowledge age does change the rules such that very little capital is typically needed for the most interesting projects. Some is needed, but the critical component is knowledge.

4. Accumulated capital preservation is difficult, therefore it makes sense to only hold a smallish amount and diversify it to combat threats.

5. "Don't invest more than you can afford to lose" means that every asset, person, jurisdiction, vehicle etc. you own should only be a smallish % of your portfolio that you can afford to lose, in case a threat towards that materializes. Not all assets can go to zero in the market, but most can be taken away from you, resulting in total loss of that asset. Some assets may also be very illiquid for an unforeknown time, depending on the jurisdiction, so there always need to be some assets you can tap into for the cashflow needs.

6. Keeping your skills up-to-date, both personal/network skills, productive skills and asset management skills, is very important.

7. Portfolio should contain components that are well shielded and minimally intercorrelated against total loss risks (wealth preservation) and components that have a chance to appreciate in value and/or provide cash flow.

8. I have been a "silver bug" in a sense that I regarded it as a great investment and was overweight, in 2006-2013, then I was a Bitcoin bug for a short time, and now have been a Monero bug, because it now holds the same promise that the previous ones did earlier. (Monero is so cheap that I am not even much weighted, because the potential upside is so great.) Both silver and bitcoin are now relegated to wealth preservation roles in my thinking, both still having the potential of large upside though.

9. I have never been a gold bug but have occasionally owned some gold.

10. Neither a lender nor a borrower be. Knowledge economy does not have a place for debt (obligation to pay a fixed sum regardless of the outcome of the venture) in it. Crowdfunding in all forms is the way to go.

11. The role of financial capital is to enable the most effective use of knowledge capital, and even before Bitcoin was invented, my productivity has not much been hampered by the lack of financial capital. I am content with the amount that I have, and in the long term more is probably coming when one of my current or future long-shots matures. The excess I have keenly donated to charitable purposes, although finding worthy recipients is difficult.

12. The theses do not consider the "industrial-age" situations where pooling of massive resources under a centralized command was necessary. Some projects still have these attributes, but most of them could already be reorganized, power politics are hindering the progress.

The year 1600 is flowing by in the spirit of eager anticipation

Any day from now, the selected betatesters get their hands on the player UI. The backend is also getting finished. But the intent of this post is not to go into details on these, nor guess the dates. The goal of the game is not to get one version released. It is rather the beginning.

However uninteresting the graphics and music, or even the theme, of the game were in the Ancient era, it still captivated several people by its intrinsic fundamental (and quite unforeseen) qualities of the 1) economic subgame model and 2) closed economy with no external stakeholders. This basis is very strong and allows everything to be plugged in as soon as there is the need and resources to do it.

Even before having any players but me and David, I laid out a future release scheme with lots of new features. After the current release is fully working, we get to concentrate on them. I have been thinking much about the playable scope lately. I have heard that some players are dreaming about becoming full-time in CK and making their living out of it, as I have also said that I can do with the architecture designs, or could do with the businesses (which are mismanaged because of "intentional neglect" to concentrate on the matters crucial for the success of the Game, and also to not compete too ferociously with the dear nobles, whose King I am).

It is good to expand the depth so that people can make the decision to be fulltimers, but at the same time the systems need to be easy enough to allow wealthy non-fulltimers to play when they have time and achieve their objectives. If we retain only the hobbyists but lose the other supporting pillars, it is a great loss to the Kingdom.

Then the entry needs to be compelling for several types of players as well. Everybody wants to have much more players. I have been thinking what are the things in the game that would be interesting and make us stand out from the competition, which is strong. In addition to the 2 points mentioned above, I believe our strengths are 3) sense of "uncompleteness" and 4) genuine interaction and community.

The world where our current players come, mainly USA and Europe (acknowledge some Chinese and Russians), is a built-up world. It is not a world of opportunity. Typically young people start their life in relative security and abundance, and when they reach the age of 30, the life is not really any better, and what's worse - often does not offer realistic chances to go forward (both because there are no promotions available, and because the starting level already was pretty high in world scale). In my thinking, these people are drawn to the game not despite of it being in construction, but even because of it. Although the early adopter financial mindset suits the game very well, and if the game goes big, every early adopter is compensated also in financial terms, I don't believe money is the primary motive for these people. Building something new is.

The other thing that I see is a genuine asset is the interactive play: the fact that most of the time spent in CK does not go to micromanaging NPCs or even to thinking of your next plan, it is actually spent in leisurely setting chatting with high quality people about the various game issues, forging plans, negotiating, storytelling, telling stories of events in ancient times to aspiring nobles - it is clearly evident that it's not possible to play this game without very deep interaction. And this is another thing that many 30-somethings in the western world lack. Even if they had a family and job. Which is totally sad, but I feel that offering this game for tapping to that need is a good thing to have. Changing the society outside of us is hard, creating a better one is perhaps not easy, but at least it can realistically be tried! Just that we make the rules which allow the player to vary the intensity of the experience.

The future versions will offer the following new features (exact placement across versions is not locked in, also there will be lots of minor stuff that makes it more playable, and also old features will be streamlined or scrapped if necessary):

Version 5: Economy


New resources
8 types of food, perishable
Wool, customizable clothes

* Sustenance
Characters must eat and drink, and can select where they do it (totally revamped Resta game)
Health is dependent on living conditions, sickness reduces health

Stuff in GoogleDB integrated to gaming software (Bank, Stocks, Renting, Dividends, Donations, all Items)

Quarry comes back, perhaps applicable to a lot of any size
Terraforming, concept of elevation for land
Building company, to make NPC's produce BLD points that replace "labor" in building
Building editor, to automate making buildings


Version 6: Skills and Businesses

Commoner PC and NPC integrated skill management with ~15 skills and at least 6 levels on each, combinable for killer combos
     - enhance skills by online activity, by attending education, and by doing work
 
Functional Items
Creation of "artesan" Items by forging (skill, tools, time => new items)
Industrial production of "resource" Items (ordinary windows etc.)

* Businesses/proprietorships
      - Shipping
      - Tailor
      - Goldsmith
      - Doctor
      - Distillery
      - Stables
& more, for skill-based economic subgames

* Countryside
      - Farm management subgame
      - Administrative division in Earldoms, Marquessates and Dukedoms run by nobles
      - Nobles get about 15% tax of the farm produce and divide it among themselves
      - Countryside travel delays
      - Armies are located in the countryside, keeping order in small numbers and combining to larger forces to combat insurrection (teamwork)

* "Sandbox" for implementing player-defined functionalities in city plots

Random events


...and more to come.

What I see clearly is that we need to keep the fundamentals and our competitive advantages. The path in front of us is not paved, and already things have taken much different turns than first envisioned. Whatever we now do, let's keep true to the principles so if we meet success, we have made a difference. If failure, at least we offered to make a difference. 

The wish has been granted. I'm safely in the office