A few newbie quwstions of the day :D (Kebir Blue)

Ok first off I am a new player to Simcountry. About 2 or 3 days to be exact. I have looked thrw the bible of simcountry and plan for these goals:

220 education index
120+ health index
180 transportation index
SS to 80

Currently I am working on these but focusing more on education atm. However there are a few questions that I haven't seen answered or asked yet, so here we go

1) Education- To raise the education index (currently its at an 80% approx) do I add more schools even though it says I have what it is needed? For example my current elementary is at a 1707 and what is needed is 1619. So if I continue building more schools across the board that should raise the overall education index?

2) Corporations/Unemployment- I'm getting kinda of nervous because my unemployment rate is at a 53%. To avoid seeing my population outside my palace with torches and pitch forks How do I raise employment? Currently I have 4 state run corps and 7 CEO corps but only one shows the production at a 100% and hiring at 100%. I have tried to build new corps but the unemployment doesn't go down.

3) Federations- If I wanted to pick a federation to join should I look for ones that are close to my country? Currently I'm putting the war side of the game on hold till I get a handle on my economy. However I don't mind joining one earlier. If I do find a federation and they are at war do I lose my war protection?

4) Common Market- If common markets are more hassle than what they are worth why join one?

5) Goverment salaries- What should I set my salaries at? Currently I have them auto set at 200.

whew I think thats it for now. I am on Kebir Blue and I have lifted all privacy settings so if someone wants to gander or see what I am doing feel free.

1. The Education Index, IE, is based on then lowest of the three school types. you want to increase them evenly. and yes, the more you build, the higher the index will go. the number needed, tells you what you need for an EI of 100... so, the more you build over that, the higher the EI will go

2. if you are short 1 worker type, the others wount go to work, until all the catagories are filled. meaning if you are short HTX, the LLW will wait until you get enough HTX. most new players keep building corps to put the llw to work. this ends up being counter productive, because with out the professions that are in higher demand, those corps will not higher the available workers...

3. as far as feds go. currently, in sc, their are only 2 feds that actively war. and a third one that is good at defending itself. all the rest are really social networks. more based on adding stats together to look scary... if your not interested in war, on KB, you will be pretty safe playing solo. so really, their is no dramatic need to join a fed, but finding the right fed to tutor you, might be a thought.

4. exactly

5. new player, light military sal settings, 226 gov sals, 300 corp sals. heavy military sals, 91 gov, 120 corp. econ (light, or no military) 451 gov sals, 600 corp sals. gov sals should be 75% of corp sals to avoid deactivations. lower sals reduce cost and profit, (heavy military cost out weigh profit,) higher sals, means higher costs, and higher profits. (zero or light military has very little cost...)

Hey thanks for the quick reply and answers. And this is in regards to this response.

"2. if you are short 1 worker type, the others wount go to work, until all the catagories are filled. meaning if you are short HTX, the LLW will wait until you get enough HTX. most new players keep building corps to put the llw to work. this ends up being counter productive, because with out the professions that are in higher demand, those corps will not higher the available workers..."

How do I correct this? More of waiting till I get enough workers trained? I have the education priorities set on automation (for now I think thats a good wat to go for a newbie) I have noticed that the priorities have changed does the auto feature take what the corps need and adjust accordingly?

i'm not sure, i haven't used that feature.

as far as fixing worker shortages. their are several ways. when you go to education priorities, the total of the priorities should add to 120. increasing the priority of the high demand professions, and lowering it for the others... ofcourse if your interested in building your health and education, those should be higher as well.

usually for the top 6, (teachers through llm,) i'll set them all to 4-6 priority, depending on my education index. running 150+ EI, means that 4-5 will maintain those professions, (usually,) and 5-6 will gradually increase them. but early on, 7-12 for both educators, when your EI is below 150.

for the mlm, if i've got a skeleton or basic defense, the 10-15, 15 usually for maintaining my MLM (officers,) 15-20 for increasing my military size. HLM and down, can all have difficulties. i adjust them as neccessary, but usually they are in the 15-21 range, if i'm hurting on one, i might go as high as 30, and take the others down to 10-12.

regular execs, only need 7-9, most the time.

teachers, and LLM are good for throwing into the HLW pit. what i mean by that... later on, you'll notice that you are ALWAYS short on HLW... teachers and LLM are trained fairly easily, and can be demoted into HLM, so running teachers and/or LLM a couple points higher, for that reason, is a good idea.

also note, the higher you education index, the more of your workers will trained into the higher level professions. so if you want to run lots of fully upgraded techie corps, a high EI is vital.

other ways to fix workers. advertise on the forum for worker exchanges, (or to your fed,) if you are low on HTX, you can offer something you have allot of.

also, if you figure out how to conquer C3s, you can raid them, and while looting them, you can trade out their techies, for your LLW, and LLM. If you take this approach, bumping up you MLM priorites... MLM rock when trading them out. (demoting teachers in HLW actually increases their exchange value...) also, this is a good way to quickly amass educators, and health personel. Right after taking over the country, close some of the schools, and hospitals, the fired workers will become avaible in the next update, (usually a game month, 4-6 hours.)

hope that wasn't to much info

i'm sorry, an after thought, something i shoulda made more clear

if your EI is lower than 100, you will need to have your education priorities higher, like 10+, to build those up. maybe even 20 for each, depending on how aggressively you want to build your education system.

and when building schools, and unis, i ignore worker shortages such as HTX, if i'm short HTX for unis, i go ahead and build them anyway.

Hey guys thanks for the tips. I have been raising my EI and soon will have that over a 100. Conversely my unemployment have been slowly declining and it seems that all of the corps are getting closer to 100% production and hiring.

Oh got a couple new questions for you guys.

1) When setting up the selling strategies for corps in general of course, if I have product quality @ 100 what should the selling price be if I tie the price to quality?

2) Country assets- My country assets continue to fluctuate but on the average it goes down. Should I be concern about it or will it eventually level out or increase? What happens when assest go into the negative?

1. you'll hear a different answer about sales strat, from each person. a good setting to start out at with, would be +20/-5

2. i wouldn't worry about your assets, just make sure your corps are making money, and your country is making money