Relating to Real Life
Understanding how different aspects of the game relate to real life is a crucial part of the reflections after the game. It is useful to lead the participants into a discussion of how the content of the game gives them insight into their own lives and the world.
Question: What is infrastructure, and what does "infrastructure level" in the game represent in the real world? Do you find that the distribution of infrastructure level accurately reflects the situation in real life?
Answer: Infrastructure levels represent the complex of indicators that makes the economy in one region more robust and increases the quality of life for its citizens. These indicators include the state of the health care system, the justice system, the environment, the educational system, and the transportation system, as well as the level of technological advancement. At the beginning of the game, the comparative infrastructure levels of regions roughly correspond to the real world situation, with North America, Europe, and Japan at the highest level, and Africa, India, and the Middle East at the very bottom.
Question: Why are infrastructure levels important for regions?
Answer: In real life, when a region makes improvements to its infrastructure, it is able to use resources more efficiently, produce wealth more effectively, and increase the quality of life for its citizens.
Question: What do regional resource cards represent? Why are they worth more when a region's infrastructure level is higher?
Answer: Regional resource cards represent raw resources in that region. When a region's infrastructure level is higher, it is able to use its raw resources more effectively and thus extract higher value from them. For example, the work force in a highly developed region with a better school system will be much better educated and trained than a region still at the "low" level. Workers who are more trained will be more efficient and more productive.
Question: What does it mean to be "responsible", in the game, and in real life?
Answer: "Responsible" is the highest level that a regional team can achieve in the game. In real life, it is an ideal state in which a region has solved the important problems of its own communities. All wealth that it has at that point is surplus wealth.
Question: Why do regions need technology and human interest cards to advance an infrastructure level?
Answer: In real life, the level of advancement in technology, education, human rights, environment, and health are all important indicators of a region's development and economic stability. Thus, in the game, in order to advance an infrastructure level, a region must devote some of its wealth and resources to find solutions to problems in each of these areas.
Question: Why do regions get more wealth at the end of every trading round?
Answer: The new wealth represents the cumulative population and economic growth in every decade.
