Possible State Corporation Trade Strategies Glitch

Hello,

I joined the community about 6 days ago, I think. During this time I have had a problem with the trade strategies feature of the game, specifically for corporations owned/run by the state.

I have turned off all automation features except the buying and selling, which follows the trade strategies I should be able to set.

Every time I log in, I find that my trade strategies have been reset to a default of 100% market value with 8% increase/month for buying, and 108% market value with 8%[as I recall] decrease/month for selling. I can change the strategy to best price, and the strategy will default for all state-owned corporations when I log-in again. I've lost two corporations because of this, and growth has stagnated in all other state-owned corporations.

The people in the chat room suggested that this is a glitch, so I am posting it here. For the past couple of days, I've presumed that this was a limitation on state-owned corporations, but it's been driving me crazy, so I decided to ask about it on the chat.

Enough talk, I think this may be enough information to help resolve the problem.

I think until your beginners bonus cash runs out you may be stuck with the auto change.

The game has set automatic support for you account with the best possible setting to ensure your economy is developing.
This will run in the first two weeks.
If you want to change after two weeks, go to the settings page and turn off the automatic support functions.

I had the same problem. I want to buy a membership, but right now I'm waiting to see if my corps start running out of supplies all the time again. It's really annoying to have to manually order them regardless of what the buying strategy is. I've since turned to making my own internal local market and supply most of my needs that way.

420.000 corporations are purchasing automatically.

There is either a sever shortage in some of the raw materials you use or you have changes a setting that made it impossible to purchase.

Wold name, country name and corporation name may help if you want us to take a look.

You looked already, and couldn't see a problem...and in fact there is no problem right now. It seems to have corrected itself.

I have a theory on this...could it be that free players are locked into "best buy" mode and therefore the number offered for the product does not rise each month?

I see there are settings for that, so I assume that the strategies work for paid memberships, but I am not sure if they work for free memberships.

1.
Craigsw, I do not know what you are talking about, but maybe I was not coherent when I typed my last post. I was tired. To start: I have membership, and yes, free members are locked into best price mode, because the other trade strategies are premium only. My question was: Do state corporations have a default trading strategy that is set as a limitation on their growth? No.

2.
I just realized I did not get the default strategy trade settings right. The following is what the setting defaults to when I log-in during the succeeding game month/s after changing or turning off my trade strategies [in a preceding game month].

Selling: 110% -8%/month
Buying: 108% +8%/month

I am trying to be polite, but I do not see how that is optimized for growth in a corporation when:

A) There are extreme shortages in supplies and product, leading to a deficit in spending, which was happening to Yosha Anti Tank Missiles in the Democratic Union of Tara Una (Little Upsilon). [Now, the product is in surplus, but I am losing less?! But that is probably due to another variable I am not considering.]
Current Corp Deficit: ~-1.3B/Month. [Ouch!]
Previous Corp Deficit: ~-1.5B/Month.

The only way to correct this is lowering spending slightly and greatly increasing the sale price, assuming that the shortage will recur. I've already heavily invested in upgrades [for me it's extreme] and raised the target salary significantly. I will close the corps if I am unable set a sale strategy that is approximately 300% higher [bare minimum for sustainability] and sell a higher quality of the product successfully.

Lastly, that state corps was set up automatically, but since it's there, I've kept it due to the value of the product. This corp is 1 of 10 in the anti-tank missile industry on the world market (LU).

B) Most if not all the supplies are in shortages and the product is in extreme surplus. It would be poor business practice to create a corp in that market situation without good market contracts. For the sake of argument, I would have to lower the selling strategy significantly, raise salaries if it increases productivity, and heavily invest in quality upgrades to increase my selling price or to remain competitive at my current price. I could do all except change the trade strategy, which would have a profound impact on the sustainability of that corporation. For whatever reason, I can not even turn it off for more than a game month.

3. Most of my state corps in Tara Una are either barely making a profit or making a deficit hardly worth mentioning at the moment. I acknowledge that part of the game mechanics is to lose big on some corporations due to competition and poor business strategies. It's just the nature of the game! I have also lost two corporations in Sancti Romani Imperi (my leader country; yes, I am an early bird for the war game) due to my inability to effectively set trade strategies for the long-term.

[ASIDE] Since then, I have left the corporation building to CEOs because that is far better for country finances: +4.0B/Month w/out the beginner booster, consistently. That's in contrast to a minute +200.0M/month in the Democratic Union of Tara Una! It does rise to ~+3.0B, then drops again. These are instant ups and downs, alternating each month. I am keeping records of the finance page so I can pinpoint the cause.

4. Due to the fact that this reset of the trade strategy occurs for my state corporations [my enterprise is doing well and I can permanently set trade strategies for those corps], I will not be able to successfully reach a finance that will enable me to effectively defend Tara Una.

[ASIDE] I have spent 80B in ordering military units and fortifications, but for whatever reason, the units were never delivered and none of the unit orders are in pending deliveries. There are pending deliveries for the corresponding ammunition [these orders were automated], which is a sign that possibly means I have those units somewhere. All that I know is that I was planning to use those units for a small supply unit. I am guessing something had a better use for them. I am assuming that the military ordering thing has something to do with my lack of experience/understanding, and nothing to do with the game. I can see that my fortifications were delivered.

5. I really do not know why I cannot change or turn off my trade strategies. I do not know if it's a glitch or part of the beginners automation. If it is part of the beginners automation, then there are no settings available to me that would enable me to resolve the problem. Based on that judgement and the fact that this occurs during the game months that I am not logged in, it seems that something in the game month processing resets the trade strategies to the default [above] for state corporations of players with beginners automation. If so, then I should not be the only one with this specific problem. I have noticed, by looking at the state corporations of other player's countries, that some have trade strategies that happen to be what my state corporations reset to.

Four of Many Such Countries in LU Are:
i.The Independent State of Balikan
President: natilie.mguigan
ii.The Empire of Mindai
President: carinduff
iii.The Grand State of Bella marsalla
President:niallkennedy
iv.The Kingdom of Hella Anno
President:ackerman_2

These four countries happen to be ranked just above Sancti Romani Imperi and have state corporations with the same trade strategies. Some deviate slightly, which may be due to quality, etc.

Something I would like to point out is that none of these names, including mine, are aliases, they're personal names. When I registered, I intended for the my alias, as in the name that would show up as the President on the my country page, to be Sir Lazarus, with/without the space. My account name is Sir_Lazarus, not my alias. The two were switched. I assumed that I just incorrectly filled out the form, but these four people have real world names for their president too. This leads me to suggest that the registration forms are either incorrectly labelled for username and alias or that the forms are not well understood by the majority of new players who fill them out. I am just putting that out there for something to look into improving.

Lastly, I like the automation system. I want it to buy and sell the products for me, among other things. It works extremely well for my enterprise. It works for my state corps too, but my trade strategies keep defaulting, which is extremely problematic for some of my corporations. I have already gone as far as trying to turn off auto-selling/buying. It just reactivates on it's own.

I know that state corporations do not have a default trading strategy that is set as a limitation on their growth, because there are experienced players running state corporations with different trading strategies.

Possible Answers:
1. These default trading strategies are set for the state corps of beginners during game month processing, overwriting any trade strategies that were previously set.
2. There is some variable that affects members with beginning automatic support, causing the reset for state corporations.
3. A Mind-Boggling Answer.

[This problem may pertain only to premium members since free members only have one option: best price. Maybe I am wrong about that, but I did read that on the trade strategies page, so I assume this judgement is correct.]

I will assume the first answer. Do note that the reset selling strategy accounts for product quality, which is one good thing.

As I wrote this, Nov passed to Dec 8 and my state corps trade strategies were reset again, to the default. It does account for quality of the product to be sold. It also happened while I was logged in and during or near game-month processing.

World: Little Upsilon
Nation: The Democratic Union of Tara Una
President: jhgrant

The above is an eyeful and it's tempting to skim over, but I do appreciate that this entire post will be read, despite the fact that it's quite boring.

Three Things to Look Into:
1. the automatic system in regards to trade strategies for state corps
2. registering name/alias
3. military delivery [but that is more likely me]

Craigsw, I have the same theory about free players being locked into best price.

jhgrant, for the first 14 days of account, trade strategies will automatically reset, premium or no. It's annoying but should go away after 14 days. If it has been longer than 14 days and they are going back to "default", complain louder. Additionally, you can change your name by going to the portal and then from the top menu:
Settings >> Edit Public Profile

The Nickname is your name in chat and First Name/Last Name make your "president name" and forum name.

For corporations, I have a related post that's for enterprises (so some minor differences in suggestions), but should have some helpful info on picking corps.

Yep, jhgrant, the gamemaster, Andy, did answer you and tell you about the 14 day (2 week) thing several posts ago.

As for your anti-tank missile corp, the only way you will sell them is by using the automatic strategy or even lower, eg -10%, you will never sell at 300% and find the corp will build up massive stocks, not making any money, and then auto sell to your country if the stock is big enough. Honestly you are probably better off closing it and building something else, most military corps are really poor at the moment.

You have the right idea (ish) in salaries meaning more production but there is a trade off point where the increased cost of salary outweighs the extra bit of profit. This is not a very high salary for most simply run normal state corps, maybe 300 tops for most corps. (As you get more experience, there are ways through investment funds and IPOing where higher salaries can benefit).

So wait out the 14 days and go from there, good luck.

The 14 day part about being able to turn off beginners protection did not work for me. I tried everysingle day, two or three times a day to turn mine off when I was a new player and it NEVER EVER turned off. So I would recommend double checking to see if this is fixed or you WILL have to wait out your noob bonus. I had to wait. This was one of the issues I emailed the gm's about and they never bothered to reply.

Mine never turned off no matter how many times I tried or switched it off, so simply telling players that it can be turned off after 14 days is doing no good if it is broken. If you can not turn it off then it is STILL broken. Email the gms every single day until they reply to you about this issue because you may simply just be spam to them.

QB

Keyword here? Nuisance.

QB, if your country is not doing well, on the way to going bankrupt even, then the automation will still kick in to prevent this. This happens up to game level 3 I believe. It's designed to help you we are told.

Unfortunately it seems to do more harm in most peoples views, indeed a 'nuisance'.

I got told off for bringing this up before, I didn't even know what I was talking about apparently. I would suggest you start a vote to have the GM review this system, it probably wont help you now you are more experienced but it could help future new players beginnings.

Speaking in my case, my country has always done well. From Day 1, I made allot of money. So the fact that it would not turn off had nothing to do with me doing poorly. It simply did not turn off. Red tried to turn it off and it did not turn off. I emailed the gm about it like we were told to do.

Plus. I do not think that red ever got his turned off when he started either. Although he would have to verify this. In some cases I would imagine it is possible that it will not turn off if you are doing poorly, but that would have to confirmed by the Devs.

Authentication ErrorYou can only post messages if you are logged on as player of simcountry.
You must also have a country in one of the worlds.
New members can join the forum about 48 hours after registration.

1. If you login with email address and password at https://www.simcountry.com, you will post under your registered First- and Lastname.
2. If you login as President or CEO in a simcountry world, the name of the world will be displayed with every Message that you post
   or New Conversation that you start.
   This is preferred if you want to discus 'world' related subjects as Trade, Federations and Common Markets.

Authentication ErrorYou can only post messages if you are logged on as player of simcountry.
You must also have a country in one of the worlds.
New members can join the forum about 48 hours after registration.

1. If you login with email address and password at https://www.simcountry.com, you will post under your registered First- and Lastname.
2. If you login as President or CEO in a simcountry world, the name of the world will be displayed with every Message that you post
   or New Conversation that you start.
   This is preferred if you want to discus 'world' related subjects as Trade, Federations and Common Markets.

A glitch in a glitch thread... Wicked.

Authentication ErrorYou can only post messages if you are logged on as player of simcountry.
You must also have a country in one of the worlds.
New members can join the forum about 48 hours after registration.

1. If you login with email address and password at https://www.simcountry.com, you will post under your registered First- and Lastname.
2. If you login as President or CEO in a simcountry world, the name of the world will be displayed with every Message that you post
   or New Conversation that you start.
   This is preferred if you want to discus 'world' related subjects as Trade, Federations and Common Markets.

so im not allowed to have profitable corporations for 14 days to ever?

The auto settings are designed to make you profitable. You could do better without them but not in the first week or two of playing for sure. Trust me, I have been here years.

Take the 2 weeks to read, read, and ask and understand and check out what the others do.

There are still lots of things to play with that aren't automated.

Authentication ErrorYou can only post messages if you are logged on as player of simcountry.
You must also have a country in one of the worlds.
New members can join the forum about 48 hours after registration.

1. If you login with email address and password at https://www.simcountry.com, you will post under your registered First- and Lastname.
2. If you login as President or CEO in a simcountry world, the name of the world will be displayed with every Message that you post
   or New Conversation that you start.
   This is preferred if you want to discus 'world' related subjects as Trade, Federations and Common Markets.

Ok, I keep running into the same issue, it has been more than 2 weeks for me now, I'm a paying member and I have adjusted it in the settings also. I don't get it anymore....

Did you check your PMs Khome?

noob question, what are pms?

PMS? I'm glad you don't know what that is. But you really are missing out on something here.

Laguna, you might have noticed I chose the word "are" not "is", that might help settle your misunderstanding.

Otherwise, what am I missing out on