Questions (Little Upsilon)

I've had a couple of questions I've been meaning to ask regarding a few different aspects of the game:

Firstly, regarding the private investments made by countries' citizens: is there any way I could feasibly increase the profitability of these investments? I know that the automated system works pretty well, but I noticed that you could still mess around with selling and buying shares without deactivating it. So I was wondering if there were any strategies regarding this aspect of the game, and if so what they are.

Secondly, about corporation buying/selling strategies and how they relate to "product quality": I guess the big question I'm wondering with this is how the quality of the products my corporations use during their production process affect the quality of the final product. Is there any point in instructing your corps to purchase higher quality products?

Lastly, about worker salaries. What is a good target salary index to set for workers, and does it differ between government workers, state corp workers, and enterprise corp workers?

Thanks!

Private Investments:

I have my Private Investments switched off from automation.

You can buy shares shares cheaply and then sell them once they've risen, or you can look for good yields to increase the dividends. It is quite easy to increase profits for the investment fund but involves a lot of transactions.

Quality of input does affect the quality of output. Broadly, you need an average of 160 quality input to achieve a top quality output. This will increase to about 190 for input when you have a fully upgraded public corp.

I opt for contracting my top quality products to myself anf then by the remainder at 100 from the international market.

The gamemasters advise that the ideal range is 300-500 but will very much depend on whether you're a large public spender or not. This will need to fit in with your strategy for the country in question.

There can be a difference (I guess 20%) of government workers salaries being lower but I keep mine the same to maintain stable employment levels across the board and support the welfare index.

Thanks! Okay that answers pretty much everything except I have one more question about the quality of products: does that mean I should alter my corps' trade strategies so that they initially offer over 100% of the market price? I think the default starts at 108% and then increases 8% every month the corp doesn't obtain the product. I guess my question is if I want my corps to produce high quality products, is raising the initial asking price for products they use mean that they're obtaining higher quality products, or does it just mean that they're just paying more?

Razzo, the balance between your corporate and government salaries works like this:

If your corporate salaries are higher than your government salaries, and you are short of workers, they will naturally migrate to the highest-salary employer. So if your corps pay more, you will have 100% employment in your corps, but your army may be short and have to deactivate weapons. The other way around, your corps will suffer but your army will remain intact.

A simple 5 or 10 points higher will affect this, so decide which is more important, and adjust the relative salaries accordingly.

Also remember that you do not have control over the level of salaries paid by CEOs who have corps in your country, so if your army is more important, check out the salaries they are paying and pitch your government salaries above the average. If some of the corps are owned by your own CEO, that makes the balancing easier.

Hugs and respect

Jo

The higher the price you offer, you will be more likely to achieve what you have asked for in terms of quality and in a quicker period.

I suggest you look at a few players corps and see what settings they have chosen. You'll find your own way on that.

I change my strategies from time to time but I'm currently offering 110% or 120% and increasing by 5% each month unfulfilled.

Personally I offer 95% of market price, the cumulative quality of all your supplies will achieve the quality you have set for the corp supplies. I also increase by 8% a month. I rarely get shortages of corp supplies. The price you are offering for supplies wont affect the quality you get, just how long it takes to get them. Immediate orders are different, you'll get high quality at a high price, but if you are desperate for the stuff...
Another good thing to do is build up some reserves in your countrys stock so if there is a severe shortage you can feed your own corps.

Oh, I have one more question regarding private investments: is the profitability of your citizens' investments reliant upon the income from dividens and interest on the shares or from the overall amount of money in the fund?

Crafty, so if the offered price doesn't effect the quality of the products you receive, how do you instruct your corps to purchase higher quality products?

about the private investments, you could review the IPO Basics Guide in the beginners forum. By slicing your corps, and selling part to your investment funds. you'll ensure that a % of the profits is payed in dividends to the owning investment fund.

what was mentioned above about turning of the auto buy/sell in the automatic system is important. otherwise your country will auto-sell shares you manually buy.

be advised, that it takes a long time, and a bit of effort to increase your investment funds to a significant level. how ever, do not let my last statement discourage you. IFs are one of my favorite parts of the game. i have 3 countries with over 100T in their investment funds, and a forth that receives over 50B in dividends each game month. it can be done, and its worth it.

investment funds loan money, that is the total cash level. that interest, is payed back to the population, like an extra paycheck. its a way to increase your pop's income, with out increases costs that are assosiated with them. the higher you countries salaries, the higher the income tax, and higher the investments into the IF

There is a corp setting for what quality of products to request. There are two places to set this.
First, under settings tab up top go to Automation and then to automatic systems. You can select what quality supplies that all new corps you build will use form that point forward. (There are several auto systems you can set there for new corps.)

Second, go to My Corps on the side. Select Supplies. You can set each corp to its own quality supplies (if you don't want them all the same). You can also scroll down and set them all to the same.