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. Shifting consumption will also create new shortages or surpluses.
When choosing a corporation to build, it is important to find 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, 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.
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. 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 but as the quality is 60% above base quality.
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.
The feature is intended to make it easier to offer products and reduces the need for repeated manual resetting of the trade strategies.
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.
Some products are produced only on one or two worlds, hence the world specific products. This means that they are produced on a single world or two worlds and not on all worlds. The world specific products include current existing products and some new ones that will be introduced into Simcountry.
14. Description of some of the products in Simcountry [ top ]
Most products are straight forward and do not need a special description. Some do and some examples may help to understand the working of the markets and the use of products.
These products are used to upgrade military unit ammunition quality. One AQU is needed for each piece of ammunition in the unit. To upgrade the ammunition quality of the unit that has 20000 pieces of ammunition by one quality point, 20000 AQUs will be needed. The unit ammunition quality can be upgraded by two points each game month if the products are available.
All the corporations are using Factory Maintenance Units. Some use it in very small numbers and many corporations, when fully upgraded, use more of these units. Numbers vary from 2 to 9 per game month in a single corporation. Factory maintenance units must be available for the production process to continue.
Players can build nuclear power stations to produce electricity. Nuclear power stations use Uranium and other raw materials. Countries can decide to purchase nuclear power instead of electric power generated with oil.
Nuclear power stations are more effective and the base price of the electricity is lower than the price of electricity that is generated with oil. The real price however, is determined by market demand and supply.
When a country orders nuclear power, the delivery is added to the electric power stock of the country. The electric power, from both oil burning generators and from nuclear power stations, can be used by the country and can be sold, by the country to its corporations.
Nuclear Power corporations currently require game level 4 or higher.
Plutonium is used in all the nuclear weapons. All nuclear missiles, Tactical nuclear war heads and strategic bombs contain plutonium. Plutonium is expensive and only small quantities are used per weapon.
Both weapons grade uranium and Uranium are used in the production process.
Plutonium is taking place on the world markets. Plutonium trading s also possible through contracts and direct sale in the five worlds between all countries.
Selenium is use as one of the raw materials in the production of glass. Selenium is traded on the Lyncis space station only.
Selenium producing corporations can be setup in the White Giant and Golden Rainbow worlds. There is no Selenium production on the other worlds. Selenium can be imported by use of trading on Space stations. Trading is also possible on all the worlds, direct selling and contracts for selenium can also be used in all the worlds.
Weapon Grade Components are used in the production of many weapons in Simcountry, including the strategic weapons. The products are also used in the production of weapon upgrading products.
Uranium is used in Simcountry in the production of Weapon Grade Uranium for Nuclear weapons and it is also directly used in the production of Plutonium. These products are of course used in the production of nuclear weapons. Uranium is also used in the production of electricity.
These products are used to upgrade military unit weapons quality. One WQU is needed for each weapon in the unit. To upgrade the weapons quality of a unit that has 600 weapons by one quality point, 600 WQUs are needed. The weapons quality of the unit can be upgraded by one point each game month if the WQU products are available.
The missiles are nuclear devices that are used as ammunition for Nuclear Submarines. These are dangerous weapons that are produced in small numbers and have a high price.
Corporations that are producing Nuclear Submarine Missiles can be built on all worlds.
The missiles can also be traded in contracts on all worlds. Trading is also possible on the Carina Space station.
