| DexterK (Kebir Blue) | Friday, February 27, 2009 - 01:51 am 
I have 25 or so state companies in Nullarbor and for the most part they tick along making a profit and doing their thing. Obviously there are a lot of things I could be doing to micromanage them to get the most out of them, focusing at the moment on left over products. The assumptions I have made are, that "Some Left" is the words I'm looking for, "None" means the product is too cheap, "Too Much" it's too expensive, that I can set the sales and purchasing for all companies at once and that I should wait for a pattern of sales problems (None of Too Much) before reacting. Should I try to set a quality based or fixed price, and what sort of % reduction per month? I'll set it for all companies and tinker with the ones it's not quite right for.
Dex |
| Scott Hifeng (Kebir Blue) | Friday, February 27, 2009 - 02:48 am
Hey, Dex - We talked about this in chat. You're on the right path. Hang in there. |
| DexterK (Kebir Blue) | Friday, February 27, 2009 - 05:42 am
Thanks Scott. I'll let those changes settle for a couple of days before I start on my productivity and hiring questions.
Dex. |
| Jim (Golden Rainbow) | Friday, February 27, 2009 - 04:53 pm
I have noticed that my state corps tend to order relatively large quantities of supplies. I have seen supply inventory stocks of 20 to 30 months. It would seem that a 12 month supply would be more reasonable. However, I have not been able to locate any place to set a quantity for automatic ordering.
First question is do I want to let these large supply inventories continue, and so inflate corp asset value?
Second, if I want to lower the supply inventories, where do I go to change the automatic ordering for quantity?
Comments and suggestions appreciated! |
| DexterK (Kebir Blue) | Friday, February 27, 2009 - 10:04 pm
Hi Jim,
Obviously I'm no expert here, but your asset value doesn't change when you buy the supplies. As supplies don't perish and there is no interest on cash in bank, both assets are static and when you buy supplies, you just swap one asset for another. Besides, I can't find a place to fix it anyway. I'm more concerned about how late the company leaves it to buy supplies.
Dex. |
| DexterK (Kebir Blue) | Friday, February 27, 2009 - 10:13 pm
My hiring and productivity is suddenly all over the shop in my slave. I played with the salaries recently, trying to lower costs, and that is getting the blame, but I'm having trouble correcting it.
So much for waiting a few days for next question, but this morning things are worse. All bar 1 or 2 of my corps used to read 112 and 100 production and hiring. Today about 1/3 have 100 hiring so it's obviously one of the group settings. There are plenty of workers available in all fields.
Dex. |
| Blue Serpent (White Giant) | Friday, February 27, 2009 - 10:36 pm
selling strat can effect production and hiring.
A "too high" for several mths in a row will reduce production.Continued "too high" will result in workers being fired. |
| DexterK (Kebir Blue) | Saturday, February 28, 2009 - 01:10 am
That might explain it. I had selling strategy at +100% on quality (miss understood the setup) and had too much stock left for quite a while in some cases. Scott has set me straight there and I'm waiting for the correction. The lowering of salaries coinciding with the hiring drop looks to be a coincidence.
Dex. |
| Scott Hifeng (Kebir Blue) | Saturday, February 28, 2009 - 01:30 pm
Hi, Dex -
I looked at some of your corps in The Riverland. You might consider changing your buying strategy. Right now you are buying supplies at 102%, raising 5% each month that product is not delivered. I use 90% of market, raising 8% per month. That might get you some of your supplies at less cost.
In automatic settings, what do you use for Quality of Corp Supplies? (I use 190, though to be honest I don't know exactly what effect this has.)
While your employment numbers are headed in the right direction, you seem to have zero LLW available. Best to get more if you can.
Regards -
Scott |
| Blue Serpent (Little Upsilon) | Saturday, February 28, 2009 - 05:26 pm
190 for corp supplies is too high, lower to 160.
Buying at 190 was the ideal, until gm's tweaked the game. |
| Zdeněk Pavlovský (Fearless Blue) | Saturday, February 28, 2009 - 05:35 pm
"Value of Supplies" does count towards "Assets".
In this sense it's possible, and sometimes desirable (before IPO for example), to stock large quantities of supplies, then transfer in cash to replace what was spent for supplies. |
| DexterK (Kebir Blue) | Sunday, March 1, 2009 - 11:45 am
Good thread people. Well for me anyway. I had my buying strategy the same as Scott, but changed to 102% + 5% trying to have less shortages. I'm happy with all the results so far. When the changes have had a few more days to settle down, I might start creeping the buying strategy down towards 90% and see what happens.
Does anyone know what the star next to a company name means?
Dex. |
| Pathetic Sheep (Little Upsilon) | Monday, March 2, 2009 - 04:31 am
At 90% you won't get many supplies. At 98% you will get most. 106% you will rarely have a shortage but it is possible especially if the price is rising.
If you start your first bid at 96% you are more likely to get your bid. |
| shaun (Little Upsilon) | Monday, March 2, 2009 - 06:55 am
star means new corps your not able to close or bid on |
| DexterK (Kebir Blue) | Monday, March 2, 2009 - 03:01 pm
Taking all that on board. I've got a little red triangle with an exclamation mark in it next to one of my corps. No need for expert advise here. I'm putting myself through a crash course in saving a corp from the nackery.
Dex. |
| DexterK (Kebir Blue) | Monday, March 2, 2009 - 09:55 pm
Unprofitable corps? The message I'm getting on a few of my companies is "corp salaries have been reduced because 1: corp is in debt or not making a profit 2: Government salaries are less than halve the av corp salaries". The salaries are reduced to 16.7 and this message would show in all corps if the salary problem was my issue, so I'm not looking there. I'm transfering money to the corps to fix the debt, but it seems it would make more sense to make them profitable. Question is, how? One in particular has all its product contracted to my country, so is making sales. That leaves purchasing price.
Dex. |
| Jim (Golden Rainbow) | Monday, March 2, 2009 - 10:49 pm
Product sold on contract to your country is priced at market. If you are contracting higher quality goods at market price, you may be leaving some profit on the table. Your selling price per unit has to be higher than your cost per unit. If your quality is relatively high, you may be better off selling into the world market and buying what your country needs on the world market. |
| DexterK (White Giant) | Tuesday, March 3, 2009 - 10:59 am
That makes sense, I think. The GM makes up the difference between quality premium and market price, right? |
| DexterK (Kebir Blue) | Saturday, March 7, 2009 - 05:03 am
Profitablility may be questionable in local markets, but you seem to get points for it (Departments/Business/Trade Statistics). I'm looking into common markets now, because I'm told I should. Are common markets basically the same idea as local markets but with a select group of entities, rather than just the one country/enterprise?
Dex. |
| Jim (Golden Rainbow) | Saturday, March 7, 2009 - 06:53 pm
From your home page, Click on "Common Markets" on the far left hand side of the screen. At that page, you can select to join an existing common market or create your own.
The value of common markets is debatable. If you do not join a common market, you take a hit on some indexes. On the con side, you may get better prices for your products, with a greater chance of selling at higher prices on the world market. |
| JoKeRman (White Giant) | Sunday, March 8, 2009 - 08:35 am
I've heard its better to join a CM, but not participate in it. The products sold on the CM are sold for base price. Products sold on the WM have quality upgrades, and are sold for much more. |
| DexterK (Kebir Blue) | Sunday, March 8, 2009 - 12:15 pm
It's a shame if that's the case because it wastes a large part of the game. The concept that all products aren't just sold into the ether but someone has to want to buy them, and pay for better quality, is integral to this being an economic simulation. To join a common market, can you just roll up and join, or you need to be invited or at least accepted? Same question about feds, actually.
Dex. |
| Scott Hifeng (Kebir Blue) | Sunday, March 8, 2009 - 11:36 pm
Hey, Dex -
Speaking only from my own experience...
Common Market: I've belonged to one for about 4 real time months and have never offered, or been offered, a contract. I think it's fair to claim that this hasn't affected my country score. Does simply belonging help in that regard? I don't know.
Fed: I've been in a Fed for about three months. Activity there would be nil, except for the chairman occasionally kicking out inactive members and the odd warmonger who proposes a change to the rules that will make bailing out his ass happen faster. But there has never been an actual call to assist anyone. In short, I don't get it. |
| Jim (Golden Rainbow) | Monday, March 9, 2009 - 07:13 am
I have not joined a common market as yet, choosing to concentrate on my local economy and will worry about index points a bit later. Thus, I really have no comments on them.
I consider federations to be absolutely critical -- to your sucess if you find a good one, or your failure if you do not. I would suggest GREF on Golden Rainbow as an example of a very good one! A good fed will provide a lot of answers to your questions and will contribute enormously to your success.
I also suggest you read the thread on the Golden Rainbow Forum section entitled "Looking for a fed and/or common market" (Feb 20). I started the thread by asking for help in finding common markets and federations. Nute Gunray and Zeba, in particular, explain exactly how to go about finding a good federation, which is what you are looking for -- the questions you need to ask when looking for one to join.
If you are not getting what you need from the fed you are now affiliated with, look for another one. |
| DexterK (Kebir Blue) | Thursday, March 12, 2009 - 12:08 pm
As advised, I have started as a CEO and was curious to hear how others started. I have bought 8 companies so far, starting with a good one and a cheap one from my own countries, and a complete random from a different continent, just because I can. I set up two from scratch actually. The thing is, I have cheated 1T or so in from coins and have a 400B debt, and it still seems to take a long time to build up enough cash to buy the next company. With no roads or hospitals to build, there isn't much to do but wait for enough cash to buy the next one. Did everyone else just swap heaps of coins for cash? What makes one company a better buy than another?
Dex. |
| Zdeněk Pavlovský (Little Upsilon) | Thursday, March 12, 2009 - 12:58 pm
Instead of waiting (for few corps to turn profit) one might consider constantly building up even at the cost of getting loans and paying interest.
Interest on loans is relatively low when compared to profit created by corps.
Bidding on corps as addition to setting up new corps can be quite profitable because:
a) its possible to find corp with lower Market Value than their Cash Available Now, which is self explanatory
b) of 30 Quality and 30 Effectivity upgrades added to a corp upon successful bid, which speeds up upgrading process, thus turning profit by almost 25%
Obviously, more corps CEO has the higher earning potential, the more diverse (thus safer against market fluctuations) portfolio, the more options and power in general.
The most useful booster for serious starting CEO is the one which allows to build 3 corps per game month, allowing for fast expansion.
The reason some CEOs use gold coins to buy game cash is either to loan the cash, which is not all that profitable, or to use the cash to buy (either to supply own corp or play the market in some way) commodities and services, and store (for free) weapons and ammunition. Not sure what the rule is now, but certain level of Net Cash was required for CEO to be allowed to buy stuff from market, hence the need for game cash from gold coins. |
| DexterK (Kebir Blue) | Wednesday, March 18, 2009 - 03:37 pm
Damn. Just wrote essay, then pressed wrong button. Generally,
-how to use boosters for companies
-things I can try to get a corp profitable, hiring and production up and stock management.
Sorry, more detail when I'm not aslepp..
Dex. |
| DexterK (Kebir Blue) | Thursday, March 19, 2009 - 06:38 am
Sorry about the gobble-di-gook. I won't post tired again.
I'd like to discuss boosters. They seem to simply speed up the normal upgrade process, but not offer anything beyond aiding impatience. Given that they extend membership, is it more value to buy them than it is to pay the next 30 GC? I have noticed chatter that suggests all new corps should be SuperBoosted straight away.
On corp profitability, where should salaries be set? Is a simple trade off? Reduce salary cost until you don't have enough workers (ie: less than 100%), then raise it a bit. I'll look at the countries' corps and see what everyone else is paying and match it.
Dex. |
| DexterK (Kebir Blue) | Friday, April 3, 2009 - 07:32 am
Hiring?
Worker numbers are dropping but I checked the country the corp is in and unemployment is at 28%. I set hiring to 100 (when do you have it otherwise?) and am raising salaries to 500 (310 and climbing) to try to poach from or at least be level with other corps. Am I missing something?
Dex. |
| Joe3811 (Golden Rainbow) | Friday, April 3, 2009 - 09:38 pm
I kept havimg problems with my Corps in they would cut production due to inability to hire staff. When I raised salary level, the corp profitws would decline (or go negative). I happened to find the table at the bottom of the "change professions" screen (in the labor icon). The table show unemployed and employed by profession, as well as nedded staff (by profession) to get to 100% production. I think this is working as my unemploymnet rate has dropped and production percentages are increasing. In my case it appears I'd run short on Mid level workers ( in all my industries). My education and health levels were ok so I moved a bunch of nurses, doctors, teachers, so that the available workers were split into their three catagories in the same proportion as the employed workers.
Thanks DexterK for the idea that "some left" is good. Whenever I saw some left I changed the marketing price down--I'm definitely going to try your plan.
By the way swapping staff between countries might be more preferable than changing professions as it builds up the "migration index", though I have no idea how the migration index helps. If anyone wants to try swapping staff, message me at Mullin. |
| Joe3811 (Golden Rainbow) | Wednesday, April 8, 2009 - 11:21 am
I ran into a problem again in that unemployment was staying high (in my one slave country) even though I's tried all the fixes discussed above. Fianally I noticed that my salary for government employees was being set auto and was very high, I'm hoping that that setting this down to a level matching corp salaries |
| DexterK (Kebir Blue) | Thursday, April 9, 2009 - 12:47 pm
Someone suggested government salaries should be left on auto. I have no idea why. My problems were with a company in someone else's country, but it seems to be fixed now. The fact that I don't know why it's better, makes it difficult to know how to fix it in the future. Just wait for problems to fix themselves. |
| King Xenu (Kebir Blue) | Friday, April 10, 2009 - 06:57 am
I've been playing since Jan 2009 and through trial & much error I have found:
Best strategy is to set country tax rate to 0%, use GC to build up pop, and invite CEO's to build corps in your 0% tax country. Your country actually make money from CEO corps at 0% tax rate!
If you build state corps, keep profit transfer below 60% until they go public, then bump up to 80%.
Just stick with one country until you need to add countries. Makes it easier to level up and get more GC for free!
I set my govt salaries to 150. Sometimes the gov-sims complain that their salaries are too low - too bad! (Don't you wish the real world would work that way!)
Build schools & transportation infrastructure above 100. It seems to influence the corps production.
Join a CM and offer and accept goods & services. This will increase your business index. Just joining a CM won't do anything. On KB, the Great Justice CM is always looking for new & active players! |
| Cooper Proctor (Golden Rainbow) | Saturday, April 11, 2009 - 02:21 pm
I have a destroyer torpedo corp that's lost a consistent .91B for the last four months, supply is greater than demand for the industry, yet when i try to close the corp i get a message that "there's no economic justification for closing.." Is this a "bug? When you close a company How does SimC price the supply inventory, product inventory, other assets. |
| DexterK (Kebir Blue) | Tuesday, May 5, 2009 - 02:15 pm
In one of my countries I have set hiring to %100 but left production on auto (I read it somewhere as a strategy). Only 2 out of about 12 are at or above 100. The rest range between 50 and 80. What drives the production rate? How can I push the number up without forcing it by just setting it.
Dex. |
| AlexandeRtheGreaT007 (Golden Rainbow) | Wednesday, May 6, 2009 - 12:26 am
Cooper I would suggest emailing the GM about that message. I have never seen that and have closed many of corps in my days - I had some troubles figuring out which are best at first.
ATG |
| Kiteless (Kebir Blue) | Wednesday, May 6, 2009 - 09:58 pm
Hi Dex,
Are you short of workers in that country? That would explain the lack of full production.
I have a country on LU with a private corp that never operates at 100%, regardless of my worker situation. And there were several prior to that, but they have since closed due to debts.
So it may be a bug if you have available workers.
I can only assume that it's employment that drives production, together with government salaries. You want them to be lower than in any state corps you have, but not by much.
Kiteless |
| Ravenous Cannibal (Little Upsilon) | Wednesday, May 6, 2009 - 11:33 pm
Cooper/Alexander,
I have seen that in a country I took from an inactive. It has only come up when there was massive unemployment and debt.
Dexter/kiteless
Set production on manual. I am not aware of any reason to set it less than 100%. Any auto move is automatically a bad one.
To answer the question I would guess the market and product in stock effect the production. adjusting trade strategies might help. But since there is no reason to produce less than 100% I wouldn't bother trying to figure it. Keep in mind that the gamemaster might not notice massive flaws in automatic systems never used by players.
Worker shortage can't explain it because Dexter set hiring to 100%.
Not sure where you saw that as a strategy. |
| DexterK (Kebir Blue) | Wednesday, September 2, 2009 - 03:44 pm
Low supplies and shortages.
I keep getting shortages, particularly in FMUs. As I check the orders with the intent to Replace Order With Immediate Delivery, I have noticed sometimes the order hasn't even been placed. Not always, but sometimes. Could I have changed a setting without noticing? Also, is there a page where I can set when the orders are placed? I know I have asked this already, but I was thinking I could set the auto-order for, say 5 months left, then I know I can set my purchasing strategy at -10% and raise it at 3-4% meaning I get above the 100 mark with 2 months left before I run out and it becomes a problem.
Dex. |
| DexterK (Kebir Blue) | Friday, September 4, 2009 - 01:16 pm
I go to 'Trade'- 'Pending Deliveries'- 'Products in Stock: Order Strategies'.
Now is there something on this page that can help with my shortage problem? It appears to only cover country needs, not corporation purchasing strategy.
Dex. |
| DexterK (Kebir Blue) | Sunday, September 6, 2009 - 02:43 pm
Is the 'decrease price by' amount related to the final price set (quality plus trail quality by X) or the x amount only.
For example: 200 quality, trail by 30%, less 10% per month product is unsold. Does that mean the product is sold for 230% of base price, and every month it's left unsold, the price drops by 10% as in 220%, 210%, 200% etc, or 10% of the total price as in 23% off? 230%, 207%, 184% and so on? This has a huge effect on the bulk settings for companies.
Dex. |
| DexterK (Kebir Blue) | Sunday, September 6, 2009 - 11:33 pm
HELP!!! Last night nearly all my companies showed 'too high' in the products left line. I changed the bulk setting to follow quality plus 30 and reduce by 10. This morning I have still got all 'too high' and my production and hiring has been set to auto and plummeted. I've set the bulk setting to best now and the purchase to -5 plus 5. Is this all because when you change a setting, it starts again of the product offering cycle? So when I had all this stuff left over and reducing in price, resetting the strategy started to pricing again. ie: back to quality plus 30.
Dex. |
| Aaron Doolavay (White Giant) | Monday, September 7, 2009 - 08:46 am
Don't set production and hiring to auto, and wait longer than overnight to see if changes have the effect you want. |
| CraftyCockney (Kebir Blue) | Monday, September 7, 2009 - 10:21 am
Dexter, there have been many reports of uncharacteristic trading occuring from all quarters of the sim universe. These things do happen occasionally and have the hallmark of the GM dabling with things without testing or thinking through the consequences. The only solice that can be offered is that in my experience, things will settle down again.
Crafty. |
| DexterK (Kebir Blue) | Monday, September 28, 2009 - 12:39 pm
Can you save a corp that has, since it founding, gradually generated a 40B debt? I have a few. There is a Silver, Fish and Home Equipment corp, with a Timber, Rail, Sulfur and Car corp on 30B and heading the same way.
Dex. |
| Joe3811 (Golden Rainbow) | Monday, September 28, 2009 - 04:05 pm
My conclusion is that corps such as Silver, Fish, Home Eq can be profitable--especially at level 4 or higher. I learned the hard way when my level slipped down to level 2 and my profits plummeted. It's also my understanding that if you close corps, your country or Enterprise will have it's debt increased by the debt of the corp. Thus, I'd suggest you sell a few GC's pay off the debt, and get the corps profitable. The reason to pay off the debt is that if you have debt over $10B, the GM's will cut the salaries of the corp, you won't be able to keep workers, and you'll find yourself limping along in a perpetually losing situation. I'd like to hear alternate view's--Someone else might have a better method! |
| DexterK (Kebir Blue) | Tuesday, September 29, 2009 - 01:05 pm
I didn't realise your game level effected your performance. How far does this reach and is there some sort of outline? I simply hit level 3, collected my GC, then let it go again. I agree that simply reducing debt is the most obvious place to start. You're going nowhere if you can't get production up. The maths doesn't seem to correlate within the corp. Simply production * sale price - the sum of the various expenses and purchase price of the contributing commodities should leave you your profit, but there is a sense that the game adds a few things in the name of 'game balance'. There is some gaps in the reporting pages. I'd like to know what price I got for products sold, and the price I paid for the products bought, so I could measure the effectiveness of my trade strategies, and more easily see the cost of immediate purchases or sales. |
| DexterK (Kebir Blue) | Tuesday, September 29, 2009 - 01:12 pm
Probably the wrong thread for that rant. Sorry.
 |
