Sage Advice Sought

With the game news announcing an instructional video on how to acquire 3C's, I'm anticipating more wars - so would like some advice on positioning corps.

Definitely a small rise in weapons and ammo production?

What about these new wars damaging computer run corporations, and the resulting impact on market cycles?

It will be a tutorial, taking you through a war, step by step, attack by attack until you actually win the war.

Not what I was asking, but thanks. I'll see if I can rephrase.

With the new changes coming out, getting players into the war game. Not all players have the good fortune to be adjacent to a C3. Idly speculating that players will eventually be given some military transport planes as part of their initial ToE. How will this impact a good positioning strategy?

Some players will dismantle them. Neglible effect. Some will dump them on the market. And some will hold for use - affecting future orders they would have made. While the effects on the Military Transport manufacturers are obvious, how far down would the ripples extend? Contracted services and products certainly next - slightly smaller demand. Healthy bump for marginally profitable companies that are in competition for those goods?

With an increase in the war - and the concomitant
removal of the targets country consumption goods, what is going to be the effect on companies producing goods for that market? Definitely a decrease in demand. And again, that will ripple through the market, not so?

Same to a lesser extent for the amount of defensive weaponry and ammunition gained from conquests.

Now, I'm new so don't know how quickly the c3 is going to recover from the attack if it is abandoned. As noted elsewhere, it's rough to keep the new country due to the associated administrative costs. (thanks to Crafty, and others). Most of the guides I've seen recommend bombing the capital, then cities and towns etc. This could affect the productivity of companies in the c3. I'm still new, but expect there is a bias, whether built in, or driven by players, that impact on what type of state run corporations are built in c3's. How long for the population to recover, and what is the effect going to be on production, and the resulting ripples through the market?

As noted several times in the documentation, not all players are rational. What if they destroy the factories or severely damage them? This may actually be a factor in taking them over, if time is more favored than costs. Easier to paint with LRD's and constantly shell everything that comes into reach, than to use small squads strictly to pain - maybe not necessarily smarter or more effective, but definitely quicker in real time. And depending on the military transports available, could certainly a kind of sense to airlift what you need once, than trying to do it multiple times.

If these videos are effective, it's going to lead to a lot more warring by new players. I haven't been keeping too close an eye on the number of new countries on my world, preferring to keep an eye on new countries in my area, or starting up where my CEO's corps are located. While the effects of a single war may be negligible, if multiplied enough, it's going to cascade throughout the global economy - and may even impact the other worlds if severe enough. (again speculation, I haven't even begun to look through the space game heavily, but note that it is possible to move goods through one to the other.)

My Enterprise is fairly new, so profit margins are extremely important - slender as they are. Any advice on how to position corporations to take advantage of any or all of the above would be greatly appreciated, both for increasing my personal profit, and world market stability - to keep my individual corporations producing.

Many thanks for your time and consideration,
Marshal Ney

You seem to be asking what corporations to own - and trying to guess future demands and how they will change.

Frankly, the game IS pretty stable. There are large numbers of most types of corporations, and most players have pretty good buffer stocks of product. When something goes into extreme shortage, players do sell from their hoards and do form new corporations in that area. When something goes into extreme overstock, players tend to not sell from their hoards (or even buy), and might even dismantle corporations in that area.

Another game balancing move is in the countries like mine, that have more jobs than people. When a product is in over supply, those are the companies that reduce hiring and production. When a product is in short supply, those companies go to full production.

The effect of wars destroying companies and changing supplies is very very small, at least on Little Upsilon where I am. There just aren't that many wars going on. Possibly the damages caused by earthquakes matches the damage from wars. And that is something you can look at too - but again the impact worldwide isn't that big.

The biggest impacts have been the cross world dumping of product that occasionally happens, and unless you are tipped off by the people doing it, you will have no good way to know that it is coming, or even who is doing it.

The other big impact has been the GM's drive to lower prices, when even items in very short supply will show sizable price drops. Sooner or later that project will end, but in the meantime it is best not to hoard quite as large of stockpiles as you otherwise might, as they are subject to losing value.

I find it best to build corporations that I need to supply my other corporations or my country. Excess stock I let build up until the price spikes up, and then I sell the extra stock. It has been very difficult to make things work by contracting amounts between my companies, as the production levels do vary as hiring varies, and shortages are inevitable. So I contract 100% to my country, and then regularly sell from my country to my corporations, trying to keep everybody above 40 months stock on every product, so they never need to generate their own supply orders.

John Gilbert
The United Kingdom of Misoto
Little Upsilon

Many thanks John. I'm looking into more ways to transfer the profits out of my country (23 bil above beginner income and climbing) - and into my enterprise (1.2 bil profit per month over-all. Start-up and upgrades are killing me).

I was really concerned due to some of the threads concerning prior changes - huge losses over a small time would bury me. Or small losses over a huge time, with my slender margin.

And many thanks for the tip on jobs/producing capacity - makes great business sense.

Now to get into farming seriously so I can assist my sluggish financial situation. (and build up those production stocks).

Marshal Ney
Grand Duchy of Marshall, duc d'Elchingen.
Golden Rainbow