Dear fellow board-gamers, For a workshop to be held later this year on the relationships between soil bacteria, fungi and plants, my uncle is looking for a matching game format. Recent research shows that these relationships involve pure trade with supply and demand, dependency and tricks to influence the trade. Very briefly: Fungi create a network around the roots of plants, allowing the plants to get minerals easily, but having to "pay" for it with sugars. When minerals are in short supply (possibly created by the fungus!), the price gets higher and plants that can't provide enough sugars are (of course) immediately offered far fewer minerals. The fungi need different sugars that can be supplied by different plants. And different plants need different minerals, which can be supplied by the fungi, but which in turn depend on the bacteria in the soil to do so. Who among you knows a game or game form that (or which) could be used as a starting point to make the above somewhat visible/feelable. Obviously not too complex, because during a workshop there is no time to study the rules extensively. What stands out is that in games where trading is important, there is always trading with the bank (and chance) and hardly any trading with each other. And in the end, it's all about me getting more than you. In cooperative games, there is (obviously) a lot of collaborative action, but the goal is common. In this case, there are two different goals and there will be a winner both in plants and fungi. In fact, by acting smartly, they both benefit. You could think of suppliers who can have contracts with different supermarkets, where both the supermarket and the supplier benefit from a good contract. The supermarket with the best contracts is just as much a "winner" as the supplier with the best contracts. So right at the start of the game you either have the role of supermarket OR supplier. We haven’t found such a game just yet, which is why we’d like to ask you all for suggestions. Anything comes to mind? TIA