Recent changes have hurt the game

This game is becoming dumbed down and boring.
With the recent changes to mining most other products have become useless.
Some corps cannot make a profit, a lot just barely do.
All a player has to do is build all mining and then the 5 or so good products that are left and let it run.

There are no extreme shortages any more. There is no need to build corps for strategic purposes. Contracting for essential supplies is a waste of time. As long as you set your low water mark above 10 your country and corps will never run out of supplies.

Just my thoughts,

You probably did not check for some time.

There are severe shortages on all the worlds.
Asset values are up and the total is among the highest ever.

Maybe too easy now to become very profitable.

All our countries, we use to test, are in a much better financial shape than they have been for some time.

The main problem I see is any corporation highly dependent on natural resources (example, Gasoline, which I believe Oil is 86% of the base supply cost), is very hard to have as profitable unless the market price is near maximum. While some other corporations (like most offensive weapons, some country consumption goods), so far have always been at the absolute minimum price.

I recently came back after 11 years, and I remember back then corporations usually weren't "always" maximum price like natural resource corporations are now.

From the week or so I've played, I mostly agree with John V.

Welcome back.

We have a different situation now with the natural resources.
It caused severe shortages and influenced the market in general.

we were assuming players will make more efforts to resolve the problem but they do not.

wars are now easier.
On FB wars are open to everyone after 60 days of protection and there are many such countries that can participate.
but not many takers.

There was a lot of talk about war before it became so easy on FB.
no talk about war now.
Conquering a C3 country with a potential for 40 Natural resources corporations is quite trivial for new players and ones with very few countries. It becomes more complex when you have 5 or 6 countries.

Purchasing a country with many natural resources went from 300 to 30 gold coins.
Lots of complaints about the 300 gold coins. no talk at all about it now. Only very few takers. The countries you can purchase can build many

Yes I've seen as high as 45 natural resources in the top 100 on White Giant. My main country has 20. From looking at the shortages of natural resources, even if most of the natural resources were used, there still would be severe shortages. There's just not enough of them. Many corporations use too much of them and not enough of other products. I noticed for example that a lot of natural resources use 80%+ coal/chemicals. There should be more variety and less dependence on 1 or 2 types, which I think would immensely help the market situation. Fruit is over 90% potassium. There are many other examples. I realize its an immense task balancing all of these variables. Move one and it could put a lot of others out of balance.

I never was really much into the war game, I always focused on economics. On White Giant, literally no one has warred unless that list is broken, and only a handful of people are even war level 3 or higher.

I have CEO owned gasoline corporations right now, 225 quality/effectivity, 300% salary, 10% tax, with maximum gasoline market price currently, and they're STILL not making a profit.

The only issue I see is their welfare index is only 119 atm (my country is about 127). But I don't think country welfare index has much effect on corporation welfare index anyway.

About shortages, I wasn't clear about what I meant. I'm looking at the duration not the volume.
Not so long ago I would see country and corp supply orders taking a year or more to fill. Corps would have 2 years of production left unsold.
Now with a product in shortage, including mining, supply orders are being filled within a few months. In times of surplus corps are still selling their product.
This automation (for lack of a better word) is detracting from the strategy of the game. There is no need to build corps or contract for your own supplies.
Like I said, all you have to do is build all mining and the half a dozen really profitable corps and let it run.

The problem however is that there are not enough natural resources in the countries.
We need to make it easier.
It is being done by increasing production, also reducing the quantities used and shortly, by allowing CEOs to build them in C3 countries.

It will take some time to increase production.
It has to go up a lot.

The CEO corporations not making a profit is not just those which rely heavily on natural resources. Right now I have a robotics corporation that is making 200M (out of over 4.8B income), with robotics at max price and quality at an optimal spot (290's). This is a serious problem in my opinion. Robotics corporations use a wide variety of raw materials so they aren't as affected by just 1 product being maxed out (although about half is Platinum).

The issue with this, is said Robotics corporation is actually LOSING value over time, because its profit isn't enough to lower its P/E when robotics is maxed, but then it raises RAPIDLY when the price drops and robotics no longer makes a profit.

I can give probably a dozen other examples, as I'm sure others can too.

Not to mention, my countries/corporations are very well ran. Think about a newer player or a less skilled player. I feel bad for new

What about changing quality upgrades to being "use less raw materials with each upgrade"? It could be similar to how the effectivity upgrade works.

Then, the average quality of your raw materials is directly related to the quality produced, with quality upgrade providing a cap (say 100 is 120 cap, and 250 would be 345, so each 1 quality upgrade raises the cap by 1.5). The country cap for welfare index would be raised to 345, and the maximum amount raised to 10. This would provide a ready market for all quality levels.