W3C - Country Failure & Bankruptcies explained

Failure of Countries and Bankruptcies

It is quite easy to make countries in the game, profitable.
Even with little care for education, health etc. the economy can do moderately good and be profitable. When the player takes very good care of the economy, the country can be very profitable and provide a lot of cash for expansion, including the possibility of a large army.

Although hard to fail, it is also possible to let the country deteriorate and fall into very bad shape.
Countries that fail are declared bankrupt and the president loses them.
Having countries can bring you success in the game but you have a responsibility to keep them afloat.
If you do not, they will bankrupt.

Countries that fail see two stages of failure. When a country is considered close to bankruptcy, control is in fact taken over by an automatic procedure and it makes an effort to fix the finances.

When even that fails, the country will bankrupt.

Simcountry allows countries to flourish and develop into very powerful entities. It does not allow countries to continue when they are bankrupt.

Country "Close to bankruptcy"

When a country has negative cash it should fix it quickly. when cash is going under -1T, it is considered close to bankruptcy. At that stage an automatic procedure will try to save the country.

How to get out of this condition: Transfer money from the account to the country and make it cash positive. The money can originate from another country in the account.
OR
Take a loan for the country. The loan can be taken elsewhere and the money can be moved to the failed entity.

A country is also considered close to bankruptcy if the value of its materials is negative.
Negative value of materials means that the country has severe shortages of all kinds of materials including materials the population needs to survive.
Such shortages cause MANY people to leave the country and the population will diminish.

What causes such severe shortages: The player can stop automatic orders to cut the spending. Also cash shortages (cash under -4T) will stop all orders by the country and materials will go short. If cash is very low, a country cannot place orders.

How to fix this: Take loans, and let the country place orders to resolve the shortages.
OR
Move money into the country and make it cash positive. It will immediately start placing orders for the materials it needs and you may need to move more money into it to continue the ordering until all shortages are resolved. Migration from the country will decline quickly.

What happens if the automatic procedure take over?

If the country is nearly bankrupt, an automatic procedure will start fixing what can be fixed.
Salaries will decline, reducing the cost for government and corporations.
The education will be tuned and workers and professionals will become available in numbers that will allow more hiring. If there are enough workers, new and profitable corporations will be set up to reduce unemployment and increase production.
Education health and transportation will be fixed slowly (if needed).
The army will quickly go into the reserves, reducing cost and freeing workers for the economy.

As a result, costs will decline, income will increase and the country will become profitable. the procedure will take some time.
In all cases, we have seen great results. When in very bad shape, the procedure will be very long and you can shorten it by moving cash into the country.

We have seen statements saying that the procedure fails. All such statements are baseless and come from players who proved unable to maintain their countries in the first place.
The procedure will continue as long as the country is close to bankruptcy.

How can you stop the automatic repair and regain control?

The procedure can be stopped by fixing the "Close to bankruptcy" conditions as described before.

Countries in very large empires may be harder to fix because government cost remains relatively high although government costs too will decline rapidly with the decline of salaries.

Bankruptcy

If all failed, and the country assets remain negative for a period of more than two weeks, the country will bankrupt.

What happens at bankruptcy of a country in an empire?

The country is gone and out of your control. It is not coming back.
The amount of negative assets is inherited by the main country in the empire.
Your empire can continue with the other countries but will have to take care of the inherited debt.

What happens at bankruptcy if the country if the last one you have in the entire account?

The country is just gone.
you can immediately start fresh with another country. The debt is gone.

What happens if the country is the last of the empire but the are other empires in the account?

The country is gone but the debt is remembered.
It is not inherited by any of your other empires.
The debt will be back if you start an empire on the same world instead of the one that was bankrupt.
(This is part of Simcountry for many years. It is needed to prevent many ways of fraud when players moved resources between empires and have allowed one empire to bankrupt, get rid of the debt and started a new one to repeat the process.)
Warnings about "close to bankruptcy" and Bankruptcy conditions.

The notification system has specific warning for such conditions. You can set up such notifications and you will receive messages that will allow you to login and fix the failing country.

There are notifications for both "Close to Bankruptcy" conditions and for "Approaching Bankruptcy" showing you that the 14 days period before bankruptcy have begun.

In the automated procedures you described, I did not see you mention it raises taxes. Has this changed, or does it still raise taxes?

You are right.
We did not change that.
I assume it does, up to 60%.

For whatever reason, i transferred money to save a country and it automatically purchases several trillion in materials.
It keeps doing this every time I get it out of the negative, it plummets down into bankruptcy again. I have everything set to automation, but it keeps buying things.
Can someone please help?

I recently started in a new world, without the benefit of the beginner bonus cash.

I found it very helpful to decommission 90% of the military, especially offense.

This saves a vast amount of cash for a new country.

Sell the ammo and equipment as well, if they are in demand.

Build corps that produce relatively low tech goods which are always in demand. Usually you cant go wrong with an oil corp or a chemicals corp, if you don't have 3 or more already, but check the demand in your world first.

Don't be afraid to retool or close money loosing corps in your country. I have found the auto-build of corps in game is not that bad, if you let the corps get a little seasoned and demand remains high(Keep input quality low and on par with the quality you want as you upgrade, and you may find that manually upgrading will allow you to better control your expenses).

Oh, and don't let the unemployed feast on caviar.

Hope this can help with some problems of cash flows.

Hi tech corps tend to do better in the long run. Oil and chemicals do, sometimes go into big surplus. Keep in mind that you are giving advice to people who've been playing for years.

I don't pretend to give advice to long-term, experienced players. Just my views to fellow newer players perspective.

We should try to limit advice to things which are true so that we don't damage new players.

I'm getting this message for the first time.

"Close to bankruptcy


The country has sever shortages of all kinds of materials. Such shortages cause many people to leave the country.
Move money into the country or take loans and let the country place orders to resolve the shortages"

This country has 6T in cash and the only supply shortage is -4B construction. Close to bankruptcy? Yeah right.

I told you this could be manipulated Andy. There's an attempt to bankrupt me underway right now. Hydra have team upped and put massive orders in for construction. There's currently a 42B demand for construction. Whilst 1 player does damage the others put orders in trying to drive me to bankruptcy.

Nice try boys. I'm watching this carefully.

Not to worry.
as long as your country assets are >0 the country will not bankrupt.

this is a warning and there are more warnings before anything really happens.

please check the game news (also on the forum) it explains.

also the game documentation is very clear about the exact conditions.

In future wars, construction damage will continue but the numbers are declining to further reduce the cost of war.

I don't understand why I'm getting that message in the first place. My country has 13T total assets. Cash 6T, an FI of 167 but the game is intervening. I don't get it?

The corp salaries in that country have dropped from 300 to 15. Which has tanked my welfare index. Everyone knows that you need high welfare to make good profits so how can this be helping my country?

Andy if your interested in seeing how this develops the countries are Army Group south I, Army Group South II and Army group south III on FB. The country I'm getting the bankruptcy messages is Told Ya on FB

I know how it works.
please read the game news and the reason for the message.

I have read it, several times. I still fail to see why that country is getting the close to bankruptcy message. I meet all the criteria by some margin. I only have neg construction but the other assets should cover that? Where can I find the doc info? What heading is it under?

Just to add the bankruptcy message is very misleading. It says that I have severe shortages of many different products. When I seen that I panicked. After checking there is only 1 product short, Construction. The rest I have ample supply

Andy these warnings are getting very annoying. My country is nowhere near bankrupt and I'm still getting the messages. Pls take a look? My country is called Alba on FB.

Does the Business and trade index effect this? I ask because it's the only bad index I have. Education is 200, Health 140, transport 200 and the FI is 170 and rising.

You say don't worry, well I am. If there's nothing to worry about why the messages and the big red box across the top of my country?

The value of your materials is showing on the assets tab under finance.

there is a line with the value of materials in the country.

if that number is negative, you get this message.
if your cash is under -1T you get it too.

Is that very complex?

I don't remember the text mentioning any index in connection with bankruptcy.
please read the text at the top of this page.
it is very clear.

That country is short on construction and the assets tab shows value of materials negative.
not much, under 1T.
so if you purchase some construction, or even other materials, and the value of materials goes above zero, the condition will disappear.

Assets are at 12T+ so there is no problem.
for bankruptcy, the total assets must be negative and even then, you have 14 days to fix it.

No andy not complex but negative stock throws the country into chaos. The auto feature triggers the gov't salaries and state corp salaries to very low salaries. The welfare index goes down lowering profits. Your army goes into reserves. Taxes made from the country also goes down cuz people make way less money then before. You destroy someones progress in the game over negative stocks. What if you have to wait several game years for an item? You start getting negative stock cuz of the situation of the market. Your country is at war? you lose it cuz of some negative stock?

I've had the country for 8 days. I have gotten these message since I took it. I've sold weapons and ammo. The cash is positive but there is negative stock in the country. I'm stripping it so I don't really mind. Gorilla on fb if you wanna check.

Not chaos. Hunger. people start leaving in large numbers.

Total value of materials negative is very serious.
You always have some materials so you must have severe shortages to have a negative total.

move some money into the country and orders will resume immediately increasing the value of materials.

if you wait long for a specific product, use the immediate orders and you will have it directly.

The measures you describe, result in profitability of the country.

when there is no food and basic product, and people are fleeing the country, very strong measures are needed to reduce cost and bring back profitability.

There is no other solution.

Thanks for looking Andy. I knew the construction was already a problem but as you've seen the country has 12T assets. That's why I don't understand the bankruptcy warnings and the interventions when I have 12T assets? The game is intervening when apart from a slight construction issue the country is in very good shape. 6T cash, great index's apart from the B&T. Calling a country like this close to bankruptcy is a bit of a stretch. Plus the interventions dropping my sals and in turn dropping my welfare doesn't help at all.

Stripping it and then letting it go is a solution.
Just make sure it does not have negative assets total when you let it go because such negative assets are inherited by the main country in the empire.
This is how it works in the last 5 real years (or longer).

Close to bankruptcy because it has a situation that cannot last.
negative value of materials.
Simcountry does not allow negative value of materials.