On Thursday, Donald Trump will walk into the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, shake Xi Jinping's hand, and declare it a great meeting. There will be announcements. There will be numbers — billions of dollars in Chinese purchase commitments, a new bilateral mechanism with an important-sounding name, possibly a joint statement on Iran. Trump will post on Truth Social. Markets will rally briefly. Pundits will argue about who won. None of that will tell you what actually happened. What is actually happening in Beijing this week is something more consequential and more uncomfortable than the summit theatre will reveal: two leaders of two deeply mutually dependent superpowers, both of whom need this meeting to succeed for entirely different reasons, sitting across a table in a world that has already moved past the assumptions that defined their last nine months of negotiations. The Iran war changed the equations. The rare earth gambit changed the power balance. Taiwan is sitting in...
This guide is part of the official guides released by Empires and Allies. There are four resources in Empires & Allies: Coins, Wood, Oil, and Ore. How much of each a player has is displayed at the top of the screen: Coins are the most important resource in Empires & Allies. You can Coins to buy anything that does not cost Empire Points to purchase. You can earn Coins during combat, from Farms and Houses, through Daily Bonuses, and from performing tasks for your Friends. Wood allows you to build all buildings and decorations. You can obtain wood for your Empire by clearing trees on your island (10 Wood for trees and 1 Wood for bushes), through the Gifting Menu, or purchased through a friend’s Market. You can generate Wood from a Lumbermill with Coins. There are three types of Lumbermills. More advanced versions are unlocked by increasing your Empire’s population and producing more Wood. Oil allows you to build all Advanced Ground, Air, and Navy Units. Oil is produced by Oil Well...