| johnV | Saturday, May 23, 2020 - 01:17 pm 
This game is becoming dumbed down and boring.
With the recent changes to mining most other products have become useless.
Some corps cannot make a profit, a lot just barely do.
All a player has to do is build all mining and then the 5 or so good products that are left and let it run.
There are no extreme shortages any more. There is no need to build corps for strategic purposes. Contracting for essential supplies is a waste of time. As long as you set your low water mark above 10 your country and corps will never run out of supplies.
Just my thoughts, |
| Andy | Sunday, May 24, 2020 - 07:49 am
You probably did not check for some time.
There are severe shortages on all the worlds.
Asset values are up and the total is among the highest ever.
Maybe too easy now to become very profitable.
All our countries, we use to test, are in a much better financial shape than they have been for some time. |
| freeya1980 | Sunday, May 24, 2020 - 11:13 am
The main problem I see is any corporation highly dependent on natural resources (example, Gasoline, which I believe Oil is 86% of the base supply cost), is very hard to have as profitable unless the market price is near maximum. While some other corporations (like most offensive weapons, some country consumption goods), so far have always been at the absolute minimum price.
I recently came back after 11 years, and I remember back then corporations usually weren't "always" maximum price like natural resource corporations are now.
From the week or so I've played, I mostly agree with John V. |
| Andy | Sunday, May 24, 2020 - 02:50 pm
Welcome back.
We have a different situation now with the natural resources.
It caused severe shortages and influenced the market in general.
we were assuming players will make more efforts to resolve the problem but they do not.
wars are now easier.
On FB wars are open to everyone after 60 days of protection and there are many such countries that can participate.
but not many takers.
There was a lot of talk about war before it became so easy on FB.
no talk about war now.
Conquering a C3 country with a potential for 40 Natural resources corporations is quite trivial for new players and ones with very few countries. It becomes more complex when you have 5 or 6 countries.
Purchasing a country with many natural resources went from 300 to 30 gold coins.
Lots of complaints about the 300 gold coins. no talk at all about it now. Only very few takers. The countries you can purchase can build many natural resources corporations, more are found each and every month and the potential for profits is very high.
We hope to introduce a new feature next week, that will make it possible for smaller CEOs to build natural resources corporations.
We have also increased the production in such corporations and the reserves of natural resources so they produce much longer.
There are C3 countries now with nearly 40 natural resources in the ground.
We will continue such measures and I am sure that the numbers of such corporations will increase a lot and shortages will decrease.
These corporations are very profitable.
but shortages are now showing everywhere. and assets values in all worlds are on the rise.
this is proving what we are saying about profitability in general.
I think you should realize that many complaints are born with a reason but presented quickly as disasters.
We are looking into all of them, but must react only in cases it really makes sense.
Simcountry has in fact too many features, many resulted form false views and misjugment of their importance.
We make mistakes. |
| freeya1980 | Monday, May 25, 2020 - 12:23 am
Yes I've seen as high as 45 natural resources in the top 100 on White Giant. My main country has 20. From looking at the shortages of natural resources, even if most of the natural resources were used, there still would be severe shortages. There's just not enough of them. Many corporations use too much of them and not enough of other products. I noticed for example that a lot of natural resources use 80%+ coal/chemicals. There should be more variety and less dependence on 1 or 2 types, which I think would immensely help the market situation. Fruit is over 90% potassium. There are many other examples. I realize its an immense task balancing all of these variables. Move one and it could put a lot of others out of balance.
I never was really much into the war game, I always focused on economics. On White Giant, literally no one has warred unless that list is broken, and only a handful of people are even war level 3 or higher. Was quite surprising to see, as I was around during part of the giant LDI conflicts (on Golden Rainbow).
I actually have purchased 2 C3 countries, I'm happy with the drop to 30 GC personally. It saves me the expense and trouble of having to conquer multiple countries. I'd rather wait till my economy is much better to go into the war part.
I think the main problem for simcountry is your number of active players is way down from what it used to be. The game needs to be friendlier to newer players and maybe marketed more. I tried your google play app and it needs a lot of work, which I understand you have many, many things to work on so it may not be a high priority. But that's where a lot of your potential market is. There's NOTHING remotely close to this complexity on google play. |
| freeya1980 | Monday, May 25, 2020 - 10:14 am
I have CEO owned gasoline corporations right now, 225 quality/effectivity, 300% salary, 10% tax, with maximum gasoline market price currently, and they're STILL not making a profit.
The only issue I see is their welfare index is only 119 atm (my country is about 127). But I don't think country welfare index has much effect on corporation welfare index anyway. |
| johnV | Monday, May 25, 2020 - 11:36 am
About shortages, I wasn't clear about what I meant. I'm looking at the duration not the volume.
Not so long ago I would see country and corp supply orders taking a year or more to fill. Corps would have 2 years of production left unsold.
Now with a product in shortage, including mining, supply orders are being filled within a few months. In times of surplus corps are still selling their product.
This automation (for lack of a better word) is detracting from the strategy of the game. There is no need to build corps or contract for your own supplies.
Like I said, all you have to do is build all mining and the half a dozen really profitable corps and let it run. |
| Andy | Monday, May 25, 2020 - 03:00 pm
The problem however is that there are not enough natural resources in the countries.
We need to make it easier.
It is being done by increasing production, also reducing the quantities used and shortly, by allowing CEOs to build them in C3 countries.
It will take some time to increase production.
It has to go up a lot. |
| freeya1980 | Wednesday, June 3, 2020 - 02:56 am
The CEO corporations not making a profit is not just those which rely heavily on natural resources. Right now I have a robotics corporation that is making 200M (out of over 4.8B income), with robotics at max price and quality at an optimal spot (290's). This is a serious problem in my opinion. Robotics corporations use a wide variety of raw materials so they aren't as affected by just 1 product being maxed out (although about half is Platinum).
The issue with this, is said Robotics corporation is actually LOSING value over time, because its profit isn't enough to lower its P/E when robotics is maxed, but then it raises RAPIDLY when the price drops and robotics no longer makes a profit.
I can give probably a dozen other examples, as I'm sure others can too.
Not to mention, my countries/corporations are very well ran. Think about a newer player or a less skilled player. I feel bad for new players, especially those who start in the wrecks they're given as free players. Its amazing anyone sticks around honestly.
Like 90% of all the corporation types there's no way I'd ever build in a C3 country because they'd NEVER make a profit. NEVER.
And please don't give me the natural resources argument. I want a variety of corporations for my CEOs when I start my expansion, and not be confined just to 1 type which is finite in duration. Every corporation should have a chance to be profitable, and right now as I stated, 90%+ of them can NEVER be profitable in a C3 country if they're a private corporation. State corporations should NOT be vastly superior in profit to a private.
My suggestions:
1) Lower the amount of raw materials needed across the board by about 5-10% (especially natural resources).
2) Reduce output of certain corporations (mainly weapons and those that only supply countries) by a small amount, and raise their price accordingly so profitability raises in accordance with #1. This would be to prevent too much oversupply.
3) Cut the fixed property cost for CEO corporations by half.
4) Raise the maximum price (and lower the minimum) price of most corporations by 5-10%. EXCEPT natural resource corporations. These already are WAY too high. Your desire to make natural resource corporations stupidly profitable has caused most of the problems for the other 90%+. I'd cut the max price on natural resource corporations by 5-10% and increase their output accordingly.
5) Raise the maximum sell price for products on the market from about 295% to 340% so that quality above 295 can actually be sold if there is a buyer. Find some way to make quality over 295 useful so there's more of a market for it (I'll post any suggestions I think of).
6) Fix trade strategies, they are totally broken and useless.
I realize balancing things is a lot more difficult than simply applying numbers like I have above. But something needs to be done to fix these issues. |
| freeya1980 | Wednesday, June 3, 2020 - 11:21 am
What about changing quality upgrades to being "use less raw materials with each upgrade"? It could be similar to how the effectivity upgrade works.
Then, the average quality of your raw materials is directly related to the quality produced, with quality upgrade providing a cap (say 100 is 120 cap, and 250 would be 345, so each 1 quality upgrade raises the cap by 1.5). The country cap for welfare index would be raised to 345, and the maximum amount raised to 10. This would provide a ready market for all quality levels. |
