There are many factories worldwide. They produce more than 300 products and services. Some products are in oversupply and others may be in short supply. Over supply will result in lower prices, as products remain unsold. Shortage of products will result in higher prices. Severe shortages may cause more damage down the line as many corporations need products in their own production process and cannot produce if supplies are not available.
If some products remain unsold on the market, corporations may adjust their production levels and start producing less. Their output will be reduced repeatedly and some of their staff will be fired. These reductions will result in reduced offerings on the world market and reduced use of materials. The changes in production levels can gradually bring stabilization of supply and demand.
On the other hand, shortages in the market will cause corporations to produce at 100% of their capacity. If even this is not sufficient, the corporation building process will start new corporation in many countries that do not have a president. These corporations will make the products that are in short supply and again support a stable supply and demand in the world.
Presidents and CEO players will also react to over supply and demand and adjust their production. This results in a dynamic market and many opportunities for good business.
Very severe shortages may however cause wide range damage on the market. If the shortage in a widely used product becomes large and continues for a long period, many corporations may stop their production and some may close.
As a president or CEO, you should watch the market numbers for extreme shortages and in some cases manually purchase raw materials at any price, to prevent corporations from failure.
There are about 80.000 to 150.000 corporations in each world. There are many corporations making each product. Some products are produced by thousands of corporations. There are some exceptions with products that are hardly used and there is a limited capacity to produce.
Shortage in production capacity or over supply may change quickly as corporations adjust their production levels. Severe shortages however will be hard to correct and may persist for a long time.
When choosing a corporation to build, choose products for which there is a long-term shortage on the market. Such corporations have a good chance of selling all their products and they may benefit from high product prices that may result from the shortage. Natural resources corporations are very profitable. Build them if you have resources in the ground in your country.
The factory utilization page in the world trade section shows the number of factories in the world that producing each product, the production capacity (at 100% production level), the actual production last month and the percentage of utilization of factories per product. The table also shows the orders last month and the surplus or shortage per product.
Low utilization levels for some products have several possible reasons. The product may be in over supply. Raw materials for the production of a specific product may be in short supply.
Factory utilization is shown as a percentage on the market utilization page. It is intended to show the production capacity in the world for each product and the real production each month. The utilization percentage can, in theory, become higher than 100% because a number of corporations can have production levels higher than 100%.
A quick look at the table will show that high numbers are frequent. The reason for these high percentages is that some players have products in stock; many of them being weapons and ammunition but also other products, and they can offer them on the market.
When large numbers of weapons are offered by players, it is very easy to reach percentages that are much higher than 100%.
The number of products offered does not mean that these products where produced in the past month. It is the number of products offered in the last month.
The numbers showing in the utilization table represent the quantities that were offered and requested at market price.
Products that are offered at unrealistic prices and have no chance of being traded, are not counted in the utilization table and do not influence product pricing that is based on supply and demand at reasonable pricing. The only products counted are those offered and requested at market price.
Another reason for slightly higher percentages is high production in corporations with a high welfare index. A high corporate welfare index results immediately in a higher level of production. A low welfare index will reduce production. The welfare index is in general a value between 80 and 125.
Most countries and corporations place their orders on the market by the automatic process. You may of course stop the automatic process and start shopping on the market yourself. As there are many products and many orders each month, this may result in a lot of work. Most countries and corporations leave the automatic process in place.
The automatic order placement process is always ordering the products needed for 12 months. The number of months can be changed by players. This is done in order to prevent huge numbers of orders every day and also to preempt urgent orders for small quantities that are placed in order to prevent shortages. In this way it is easy to see which products are in short supply, and react in time to get them. As products are ordered once in 12 game months, the number of products that may be in short supply in a corporation or the country is generally small. Players can change the settings and order more or less products.
All the worlds in Simcountry have seen periods of short supplies and many needed products where not delivered on time.
6. Contract delivery of products and weapons [ top ]
Contract delivery of products and weapons is bound by the spending limits. Setting up many contracts for delivery of weapons may cause overspending. In cases of overspending, contracts will be automatically scaled back by 10%. In case of severe overspending that exceeds the spending limit including the available spending space for an additional month, contracts will be updated automatically. The quantity of products in such contracts will be cut by half.
7. Canceling all contracts is free of penalty [ top ]
There are no penalties for the cancellation of any contracts. This is valid for all common market, local market and manually closed contracts for any period of time.
The purchase price of products depends on the quality and the purchasing policy. Market price buyers have frequently been the victims of extremely high pricing. When they requested market price for products that were in short supply, prices could jump because some of the offers where at a high price level.
Max pricing is introduced and products that are offered at prices that are far beyond the market price remain unsold. This reduces the max cost of materials and makes whole range of industries more profitable.
There are several types of contracts in the game. The objective of contracts is to create a stable situation for countries and corporations and ensure them of timely delivery of the products they need and for corporations, it creates a stable market and reasonable pricing.
The price of the products was fixed at the start of the contract and remained the same throughout the contract lifetime. This was true even for common and local market contracts that are running forever.
When contracts are closed, the agreed price may vary from the market price by 50% (higher or lower). During the contract period, the price is updated in all cases where the market price changed so much that the agreed price is outside the 50% margin. This means that if the agreed price varies more than 50% from the current market price, the price will be corrected to either market price + 50% or if the market price is much higher, to market price -50%.
10. Trading Strategies - follow the market [ top ]
It is possible to make the price of products you offer on the market depend on the quality. As the quality of the products rises, the price you request for these products will rise automatically and follow the quality level.
In order to make product offerings competitive on the market, it is possible to make the price trail the quality by a percentage.
Example: If the quality is 160 (60% above base quality), you can choose to trail the quality by -10 percentage points. This will set a price of 150, or 50% above market price. It will make your products look cheaper and improve the chance they will be purchased.
The lower the trail percentage, the more you will get for the products but they may become less attractive. The trail can be very low for products that are scarce with shortages on the market. Products with a surplus, should trail by a higher percentage.
It is also possible to set this automatic feature in the automation page. This will cause new corporations to have this feature set on when they are created.
11. Shortages and Oversupply on the world markets [ top ]
Product shortages are periodical and sometimes they are followed by oversupply in many products. The economy in the game is less flexible or "creative" in finding solutions for shortages than the real economy and collapse may occur. When the gamemaster intervenes, he never adds or removes large quantities of products and he never changes a shortage in a surplus or a surplus in a shortage. The gamemaster also does not change any pricing.
Corporations that are not producing due to shortage of supplies should reduce their staff to limit their cost and as a result, free their workers to work for new corporations that produce products that are on short supply. This process should be capable of creating a dynamic market that does not require any outside intervention.
The pricing on the world market always depends of supply and demand of products and on the quality of the products being offered. The price movements are limited to 4% up or down, each game month.
Some products may not sell for a prolonged period and remain stuck on the market. Such products are frequently being ofered at a very high price. A huge oversupply can also leave some products unsold.
A "Buy Old" procedure may kick in after some months, and the game master will purchase these old products for a low price to remove them from the market. This procedure makes sure that the trading process does not get clogged with many unsold products that remain on the market for ever.
Make sure you offer your products for a reasonable price. The Buy Old procedure will not deliver a high revenue for the products it is forced to purchase.
Some products are produced only on one world, and cannot be produced on the other worlds. These are natural resources, that can be moved to the other worlds by cargo shuttles and can be traded on the markets. Only their production is limited to the Tiny Atlas world.
More such products will be introduced in the future.
