I said this on the reddit, but really good post. Even with the interviews, the "rules" blog post, and watching the gameplay, I still had questions. For example, how do you know you should shut off an iron mine. How much is it really costing to run it. Now I know, not that I can play this yet, but I'm pretending in my head. Give this guy Karma +.
Thanks! The resource costs are really really important, and, as I've said a few times, I believe that its one of the most important for a new person to learn. Hopefully the resource and building chart that the dev's made at the start of the prototype gets updated once they are confident the resource/conversion values are set. I just want new players (and to remind myself!) to have a way to easily view the values of everything so they can begin to understand whats driving the prices.
Often it can be a bit tricky to see what should be shipped, turned off, etc. Even deftmunky was doing it during the time he was streaming today with fuel, although fuel is one of the hardest to manage since its not constant, and its hard to estimate how long a blimp drains .1 fuel/second.
But there are a few obvious instances, like power, when the conversions shouldn't happen or buildings need to be turned off. Anything that helps with the presentation of such information will help with the learning curve, because the game is won or lost based on the most effective use of resources.
One of the best examples is the pleasure dome because its easiest to see and a good representation of costs. It's a pure 1:1 conversion of power into money, so if power sells for a higher value, the dome should be turned off. Currently, since power spikes most of the time early on, the pleasure dome tends to be a wasted building early on, particularly in non 8 player games with the smaller population size since power generally is higher than returns.
Anyway, if there's anything else that you feel needs to be added, let me know.
Edit: The other thing that is shown is the early importance of aluminum and steel, since those are used to construct most buildings. Therefore, there is strong demand driving up those prices in most games.