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Ea-Nasir

The Copper Merchant

You are a copper merchant. Over 10 trading rounds, you will ship copper ingots to buyers and decide how carefully to inspect each shipment. Defective copper means refunds, reputation damage — and sometimes worse.

Will short-term corner-cutting actually pay off?

Choose Your Market

🏺
Ancient Bazaar
Weak institutions. Your reputation is your only contract — word of bad copper spreads fast.
🏛️
Modern Corporate
Strong institutions. Courts enforce contracts, but legal violations are very costly.

Your Trading Philosophy optional

Short-Term Maximizer
Profit now, worry later
Reputation Builder
Play the long game
Risk Minimizer
Avoid catastrophic losses
Round 1 / 10 Ancient Bazaar
Silver
200
Reputation
70
Legal Risk
Medium

Quality Assurance Level

Cost: 0 ◆  |  40% defect chance
No QA
Ship as-is. Fast and free.
Cost: 10 ◆  |  20% defect chance
Basic QA
Spot-check the ingots.
Cost: 25 ◆  |  5% defect chance
Strict QA
Full inspection. Peace of mind.
Expected Revenue +100 ◆
QA Cost −10 ◆
Expected Net +90 ◆
Round 1 Result
✓
Good Shipment
The buyer accepts the copper.
Revenue +100 ◆
Revenue penalty (low reputation) −20 ◆
QA Cost −10 ◆
Refund to Buyer −30 ◆
Lawsuit Settlement −80 ◆
Round Profit +90 ◆
Reputation
70 → 73 (+3)
Profit history

Final Ledger

Ancient Bazaar

Final Silver
—
Final Reputation
—
Defective Shipments
—
Lawsuits Filed
—
Profit per round

Your revealed strategy

What if you had played a different strategy?

Skill vs. luck

Profit volatility

Key lesson