| Marshal Ney | Thursday, May 31, 2012 - 12:31 am 
Countries have a consumption order form - with all the products used. Which allows them to vary Quality desired by product. Enterprises are limited to ordering quality automatically within a narrow range for all products at the same. Or running through each corporation in turn to order.
I suggest gaining parity, by allowing an Enterprise to also set up a monthly order by product on the World Trade page.
Corporations would still have to be micro-managed, for those products whose needed supply quality are different in different industries.
If the micro-management is to be cut out completely, adding a recurring monthly option to the purchase products and services page would be invaluable.
The attentive CEO would still have to keep abreast of current market conditions, but his workload would be decreased.
Benefits: less time needed to run each corporation, allowing more time for other venues in the game. (shares, investment funds, et al) |
| Rick | Friday, June 1, 2012 - 09:20 am
Would really like to see this implemented.
It has been suggested before.
Would sure save many clicks over game months setting up and monitoring strategic stock.
And...as M Ney says, would greatly reduce workload in other areas. |
| Drew | Saturday, June 9, 2012 - 04:53 pm
+1 |
| Andy | Saturday, June 9, 2012 - 06:07 pm
Countries are able to set quantities and quality to products they consume on monthly bases. not to products they never consume.
enterprises do not consume any products and they do not order them on a monthly bases.
their corporations do.
When enterprises are ordering products it is meant as a strategic storage of products for trading purposes. |
| xiong | Sunday, June 10, 2012 - 12:11 am
once settings are done, should be done until the owner change again. too much works to re-set every day/month.
for each product should be the monthly consumption, production rate, and over/under qty. and the player should be able to say what qty/amount to sell or to stock away, whether be a percentage or specific quantities/units.
this up and down thing is driving me crazy too; one day i log in i have millions over and the next day i have thousands under in some products. player should not have micro managing every thing, little twig here and there should be it once you set the settings for your country/empire? |
| Andy | Sunday, June 10, 2012 - 12:19 am
the settings are never changed.
you do need to understand them and set them correctly. |
| xiong | Sunday, June 10, 2012 - 10:18 am
@andy,
for example, per the documentation, the education index can be increase by setting the priorities, which should be from 5 to 30? the default from the game is 5? every day i log in i have to reset these priorities? if i set them to say 30 already, why don't they stay that way until i decide to change them due to shortage of resources, or whatever reasons i have? |
| Andy | Sunday, June 10, 2012 - 10:39 am
Xiong
I have no idea what priorities you talk about.
please explain because there is clearly a misunderstanding.
Education priorities are one of the most important pages and should be set correctly.
also, the education index can only increase by setting up more schools and universities.
it will decline if your population grows and the number of schools and universities does not increase. |
| xiong | Sunday, June 10, 2012 - 11:05 am
i'm not getting it?
every time i log into my country, i check the education and the priorities are not what i set previously. this morning i set them to 30, now i log on and they are not 30. so i have to set them again to 30. every day i do this whenever i log in.
"Education Priorities in HMONG"
so they went back to 5, 7, 12, etc after i log off?
i have to re-enter the figures i want again at "new priority" whenever i log in again.
(1)if the "operational" figure is what i have in my country and the "needed" figure is what i should have in my country, then i exceed the number of required schools.
(2) if the "needed" figure is that i still need in addition to the "operational" figure, then i am very deficient.
so which is it, (1) or (2) above? |
| Crafty | Sunday, June 10, 2012 - 11:56 am
Its (1).
You need to understand that the individual ed. priorities are a ratio, so, for example, setting them all to 50 is the same as setting them all to 10. Ones that are higher than others will get a higher priority!
You are either not clicking the "use new priorities" button when you are done or your worker balances are so badly out of shape that the game might be setting them for your own benefit. I guess you could turn off the automation on the country home page but you're probably best letting the game do it for a while.
One good idea would be to check what individual priorities good countries at about 50M population use, (check their employment page) and follow it. No two countries will be identical, depends on corp types, infrastructure etc, but you can get a good idea and adjust yours accordingly.
Last comment...give it time for the new priorities to take noticable effect, a few days real time. |
| Andy | Sunday, June 10, 2012 - 09:01 pm
Xiong
Here too.
your automation is on.
turn automation off and it will not happen again. |
| xiong | Sunday, June 10, 2012 - 11:35 pm
@crafty,
are you saying that these priorities are to be add up to a certain number, say 100%?
i have been looking around at many players countries to learn what they do that they got to high levels
@andy,
at some points i was making trillions in cashflow positive, now i'm in cashflow negative. i did not do much, other then building corps for products that are deficient on the world market hoping to sell those products to increase my cashflow. then suddenly i went negative cashflow. i haven't figure out all the formulas of what variables depends on what other variables yet in this game. the documentation are too general of guidelines not specific enough, to say that if i want this to happen then the formula is x = (2p/10)+m, or whatever else
i'm sure that the programmers have formulas for each condition to happen if a player do this, or do that, etc? |
| Andy | Monday, June 11, 2012 - 12:12 am
Trillions?
you did not.
I saw your country making a profit.
using our settings it has a higher chance of remaining profitable.
buying weapons before the country can efford it can easily get you into the negative.
most countrries are profitable and in Simcountry it is your responsibility to keep the country profitable. most players do. |
| xiong | Monday, June 11, 2012 - 12:34 am
@andy,
i'm sure i did saw cash = x.xxT in my country at some points.
how else could i have built corps to over 60 at the moment, from the less than 20 given to me when the country was a c3?
if you and i didn't see the same figures on even this item, could there be more issues in sc?
i do want to manage a positive cashflow country/empire. it's no fun with negative cashflow, in this game or in earth life. |
| Andy | Monday, June 11, 2012 - 05:46 pm
cash could of course reach this level. as a beginner you get many gifts and your income is boosted.
you said you making trillions.
making is profit. nobody makes trillions.
having trillions, that's a different matter. |
| Marshal Ney | Monday, June 11, 2012 - 06:43 pm
Xiong - Your education priorities should be set to 120 (for the long haul, there are other strategies). If you can't find an experienced player to look at their priorities, look at what percentage of advanced workers you need for your corporations, and at their graduation rate, and retirement rates. Remember to leave space for your governmental workers (health and education). Don't be afraid to tweak them from time to time. Numbers needed in each sector will change periodically depending on deaths and retirements. |
| Marshal Ney | Tuesday, June 12, 2012 - 01:23 am
Andy,
To return to the topic. Aluminum is listed on the country consumption order form. Which country has a use per month of aluminum? None of mine do that I'm aware of. The country consumption order form looks to list all products. I just made one for the aluminum - low water mark of 100, order quantity of 1000, quality of 120. I'll wait and see if it actually processes.
I can understand it would be hard to compute the monthly use for an enterprise. Giving us the option to input our own number in the monthly use column would still help immensely.
The stock/low water mark etc. would be very handy. But again perhaps a shade too much to ask for. Even a bare bones order form just letting us order a specific quantity of each supply per month would help immensely. And give us parity with a country - right now you could still do pretty much the same - setting a monthly order bid for your country, and then direct selling to your enterprise. Looks like a lot of extra work, when it could be much simpler. The same order form, with some columns either disabled, or player set in quantities.
Many thanks for your time and consideration,
M. Ney |
| Rick | Tuesday, June 12, 2012 - 08:43 am
Was wondering if the topic would be gotten back to.
True, you can process any product you want on country order form. Done it many times.
As for a CEO order form: Heck yes, it would be very helpful.
Say your are ordering for 500 CEO corps and you want to keep in stock FMU, HTS, Elec Pwr all qual 120. You intend to enterprise trade with your own corporations to keep them supplied at all times with the 120 qual products.
In order to get that done, your ordering every time you sign on to keep up.
Auto ordering would be a time saver. |
| Marshal Ney | Tuesday, June 12, 2012 - 07:01 pm
An additional game benefit - ordering monthly instead of mass ordering decades worth of contracted goods and services will help in a small way to stabilize the market. It will diminish, but not eliminate, huge product orders and sales.
It would also allow emerging Enterprises to compete more effectively with long established ones. Newer Enterprises lack the sheer resources of the established ones (as a rule of thumb), and if they begin with a goal of stockpiling 5-10 years (or more) of every needed contracted goods and services it will diminish the rate at which they can build or purchase corporations - both of which help market stability (again, also as a rule of thumb). |
| Andy | Tuesday, June 12, 2012 - 11:17 pm
An enterprise is not ordering products for its corporations, the corporations do that.
ordering large numbers of products was explained. It is not possible to process orders for one month use as there are too many transactions.
countries order aluminum as a strategic reserve and are not using it.
This is why a country cannot put monthly orders for aluminum based on use. This is similar to enterprises. they do not use any product on a monthly bases and thus cannot base orders on monthly use.
I understand that there could be some benefit in allowing enterprises to order 100.000 tons of something each game month.
the negative is that this will accumulate while you forget about it and it is never used.
If you want a total of 10M ton, just order it once.
I also think we have a huge list of more urgent features that can be improved and new ones we want to add. |
| xiong | Wednesday, June 13, 2012 - 12:30 am
okay andy,
if make = net profit, then i did not reach that.
but if cash = revenues generated, then i did reach that.
and i do agree that making tasks to manage the country easier should be in the work. i'm trying to imagine managing multiple countries, i think it would be time consuming, that's my advocating for the option to combine countries bordering each other in an empire. |
| Rick | Wednesday, June 13, 2012 - 06:47 am
Well Andy, I acknowledge it isn't going to happen.
And..I do tend to agree with you that many enterprises would accumulate much "forgotten about" and unused stock.
Thanks for answering. |
| Crafty | Wednesday, June 13, 2012 - 10:43 pm
Lol yes, I have tons of surplus junk lying around in my CEOs collecting dust and spider webs.
Anyone want a trillion air transport units? |
| Rick | Thursday, June 14, 2012 - 08:55 am
Two trillion oil for your trillion air transport.
Seemed like a good idea at the time!  |
| Marshal Ney | Friday, June 15, 2012 - 03:51 am
Thank you for responding. Hope you don't mind if I resurrect this in a year or two real time? |
| Crafty | Monday, June 18, 2012 - 11:08 pm
So next flood of the oil market we know who to blame, huh, Rick.
Actually, come to think of it, here's an idea...
How about creating refineries, big big corp type things that create petroleum, AF and gas. You could even include plastics and maybe one or two other things (anything that uses oil). Then you do away with the old petrol corps, and the refineries use loads of oil. It makes these products and sells on, just like real life!
Now oil has to be contracted, no small individual amounts. Could be a higher game level thing...dunno.
This would fit in well with the planned localising of resources.
It would also make for a very interesting target in a war situation, really hurting a countries econ but hard to destroy if defended properly.
AY? Brilliant idea huh? No praise please, just a nobel prize or two if you feel like it. |
| xiong | Tuesday, June 19, 2012 - 01:13 am
come to think about it, if this game really wanted to educate players on financials or military, it should use the proper terms and generally accepted principles.
for example, each time i look at my finances. this "cash" thing always throws me off. i'm thinking that's what i have available to spend, then mr andy said i don'thave that (as above)?
if my memory is correct, there are basically three financial statements?
1. income statement (profit/loss statement)
2. balance sheet statement(assets and liabilities)
3. cashflow statement
these should be what would be in the game, and calling "cash" which should be revenues is just not right or misleading?
and to make the financials look real time, would be to base the accounting on the cash method (instead of the accrued method), so that the income statement and cashflow statement could be combine, so you know exactly what "real cash" you have?
please don't take this as an insult, but it is not right to use the wrong terms. |
| xiong | Tuesday, June 19, 2012 - 01:25 am
also, of the 17,000 players (base on the doc) in this game, if i am the only that has discover this mistake, then should i also get a "nobel prize" as mr crafty? :D
what' i'm pointing out above on the financial statments are base on the american system, so perhaps the rest of the world don't follow that?
if they do follow the american GAAP, then please reward me for my simple discovery. if Obama was given $1.4 million for his nobel prize, then in sc, just multiply that by 1,000,000 for me?
thank you for your attention |
| Rick | Tuesday, June 19, 2012 - 03:11 am
Crafty,
I'd go along with that idea. I'd like to see them design a couple "linked" products that could be put to use in a localized manner. Would give us something interesting to tinker with.
So sure, no praise, but absolutely a Nobel.
And..another Nobel and a half if you can get them to implement the idea! ;)
@Xoing: Nope, no Nobel for you, you were the seventeen thousandth person to discover it.
However you do get a Nobel for the most questions posted in a thirty day period.
And another for the most suggestions posted in a thirty day period.
Not trying to offend ya, you'll probably have this game figured out more than most pretty quick. |
| xiong | Wednesday, June 20, 2012 - 12:10 am
rick,
i'm just trying to learn this game. might as well ask as many questions as possible on the forum, since i cannot do much with my country when it has a negative cashflow.
then i guess the game has fail to properly teach the righ financial and military concepts. |
| Rick | Wednesday, June 20, 2012 - 07:20 am
As I said, not trying to offend you, just couldn't help but notice. Your everywhere lol.
Some things here can't be proved by a formula.
Instead of exact numbers, just go with general numbers that work. You should be able to look around the game and find them. |
| xiong | Friday, June 22, 2012 - 11:16 am
@rick,
no drama mate
the game should be more educational, or if educational then do it right.
at least there should be gc awards for good suggestions too |
| Marshal Ney | Friday, June 29, 2012 - 03:50 am
Crafty,
Definitely deserving of a Noble Prize. (I was going to offer Milk Bones, but ,,,,,).
If Oil has to be contracted out, isn't that going to affect a lot of people who presently dump it on the market? Or will there still be a way to build it up in Strategic stock? And if it has to be contracted back out, wouldn't that obviate world market pricing?
Refineries should be pretty difficult to defend. There's a lot of very tweaky infrastructure there, not to mention in the extraction process or shipment.
If those mining concerns ever get off the ground, I'd like to see blockades becoming an option. Could make for some interesting politics and military maneuvering.
The multiple end products is a great concept. And could be extended to other industrial sectors. (how about food corps/restaurants/etc.)
Warmest regards,
M. Ney |
| Crafty | Friday, June 29, 2012 - 07:31 pm
We dont do milk bones, thems for poodles. Gimme a dinosaur leg any day. |
