Need Help in Understanding the Quality Upgrades Shell Game

Well I thought I was doing good in my enterprise. Turned out the enterprise was doing good by screwing over all my corporations.

What do quality upgrades do for my corporation?

Now a country has consumption. And if the product quality is high, it affects the welfare of the country, bringing good things for the President. Benefit to the CEO - nil (unless of course all his products are delivered via direct contracts or a variety thereof to the countries in which the corporations he runs are located. Then he would benefit at one remove.)

If the end products of all country consumption articles were separated out of the production process for all other corporations - that might actually be an attractive option. But they aren't. Even bread factors into another corporation (albeit one that also is only used by a country). And Military services and supplies are serviced and contracted to by other corporations.

Now weapons benefit from quality. So a President benefits again. Benefit to the CEO - again nil. Since those weapons are not needed to protect his corporations. One could argue that he benefits at one remove, since those weapons can be used to take over countries, and replace the regime with one more friendly (ie. less tax and better corporate welfare) to the corporation. (Hello, United Fruit!)

Many players bid/build/relocate corps to their own countries first - but that is not a mandatory feature. Adam Smith's vile principle only holds true if all other factors are equal.

Efficiency upgrades provide a tangible benefit to the CEO - less workers needed so less in salaries being paid - minus the increased need for FMU's.

Are there any advantages to it at all, besides getting up feeder corps to 190Q? For example, does it tie into corporate welfare - increasing productivity? (Many companies do offer employee discounts of some kind to their workers - making a happier workforce.)

Now from the game -

The quality upgrades result in a corporation that produces higher quality products. These products compete very well in the market and are easier to sell even when they are more expensive.

Evidently not, from all the threads I'm seeing. Once end product quality goes beyond a certain point, you're left with completely useless and unsaleable goods. With no means to scale down the quality of production, and the very slow disintegration of the upgrades, going to take a wiser head then me to figure out all the market cycles, and time each one for quality upgrade placement.

Sorry for all the rant. But any advice appreciated.

Many thanks for your time and consideration,
Marshal Ney, Ducal Enterprises CEO (until my investors find some one better.) Golden Rainbow.

No, you should think of it in game terms.

Quality upgrades increase the corporation quality, which increases the sale price of products the corporation sells. So these are good for CEOs.

Buy low quality goods from the market and sell high quality goods to the market. I think the GMs been walking around telling people 170 Q supply quality, which under the old formula (not sure if its changed), yields final product Q of maybe 135... whereas if you had 225 Q for the corp from Q upgrades would be about 300 Q final product Q... it's actually less than a (300/135) factor increase in revenue, but even so, that's at least doubling revenue. I mean the numbers might've changed, but the purpose of Q upgrades is to increase the Q and thus corp revenue.

Also, don't treat it as a real market. It's not. Quality in converted, shortages are filled, and surpluses are purchased by game mechanics to keep everything in check. This is to prevent people like me from manipulating the market. Though I have caused some key product shortages from time to time. Along with some market surpluses that people blamed on the GMs.

Also, product quality is a small factor in country welfare, the net economic benefit is likely lower than the cost for buying more than the minimum Q for your country.

Effectivity upgrades change the worker balance so you use fewer more educated workers, but salaries are about the same, benefit to CEOs is low.

Many thanks Lady. I continue to sing your praises in FED mail.

The quality conversion - that's what I was missing in the main.

Product quality in country welfare. Working on increasing that in revenue neutral ways. Hoping to break 120 welfare index soon. Seems like I can run a country much better than an Enterprise.

Hopefully I can get up to a decent war level soon, and use the proceeds in direct transfer to shore up my enterprise.