Country Resources Used

Last I played, Country Resources Used were between 36% to 40% of a private corporations' income. Now it seems to be 19% for fully upgraded corporations.

I searched the documentation and game news for information on this, but none was found. Could someone please confirm the above?

At first thought, this makes countries with 0% tax and fully private corporations a much less attractive option than in the past. I'm indifferent to play-styles, but it must be noted that pursuing the "low tax, private corps" required cooperation among players to work. In this aspect it should be promoted by the game by offering a non-insignificant advantage to the player to pursue it.

Seems like the best thing to do now would be to lower taxes to around 20%, and hope that the lower taxes are higher welfare index is enough to pursued CEOs to come, without underperforming on the all state corp alternative.

Can I hear your thoughts and experience on this?

I've never been a fan of CEOs, as someone who remembers a time when they didn't exist. I never embraced them beyond the fun of taking pot shots at their corps with missiles. I just don't see how two players can get more from one corp than a single player gets from one corp. Seems to violate some rule of finance. But it has always given great pleasure to some.

But having said that the situation for CEOs is worse than ever, as evidenced by the lack of CEOs (~20 not counting GMs, well on KB anyway).

I think one problem is the unbalanced corps. CEOs generally pay higher salaries. This is because they compete for employees and because it's supposed to make corps profitable.

But, higher salaries now are a losing proposition. Increasing them, increases welfare, which increases the production numbers of the corp. This is how it works, and to a point should increase profit. However, these days the cost of corporate supplies increases more than what you get from increasing turnover. That's broken across the board from years of tinkering with the prices and volumes with little consideration for how it interacts with supplies used, and employment costs. Thankfully, I've noticed the GM has listened and recently started taking this into consideration.

When having to pay higher salaries costs you more that you get in return, it nullifies one of the ways CEOs stay afloat.

Regarding the higher welfare index that benefits CEOs, the salary problem also limits this because the corp salary levels effect country salaries.

One real benefit for CEOs is of course for free players who really benefit from CEOs because they cannot build hardly any corps that make money. And, any ceo corp pays several billion to the host. This amount exceeds or equals the state corp options that they have.

Just my thoughts, that everyone will disagree with.

The key difference is that private corporations can be upgraded to 225.

The narrow question for a President would be:

Is 19% of the income + taxes from a private corporation more than the profit of a state corp?

The narrow question for a CEO would be:

Will my corp generate higher profits here or in a C3?

If they both answer yes, perfect.


There are other technical considerations, like the housewives, disabled, game levels, cashflow volatility, etc. needed to formulate the full question.

In terms of management, running an "open economy" lets others keep your country near full-employment, as CEOs are always on the look for tax havens; they also become invested in the stability and success of your country; salary levels become aligned if you are building a military country; etc.


My main concern is in building an environment that fosters cooperation, so this is less of a single player MMO... But for now I'll keep this one on hold and focus elsewhere.

To your point on cooperation. I think CEOs can help here.

Those most likely to benefit from a CEO is newbies and free players. And these are the players we need, because time has proven the older players are reticent to socialize. So if your wanting to foster cooperation this is a good way. So, from your perspective, Laguna, it's probably worthwhile. The issues will get fixed, or a skilled player will workaround.

I've thought about but can't quite commit the GCs just yet.

Laguna,

Compared to past years, corporations are much larger and their profitability is much higher than before.
Turnover too is 2 to 5 times what it used to be, the are many more workers in each corporation.

The reason is that countries now have much higher population numbers and the number of corporations had to increase and with it the complexity of managing hundreds of them.

Also, there were complaints about profitability in general and especially in enterprises.
we have gradually (during many years), increased the profitability of corporations.
some can make 3B profits each game month while in the past their turnover was less than 2B per game month and profitability around 300M.

The payment percentage for resources to the countries declined gradually.
with the growth of the corporations and their turnover, the amounts were increasing.

By reducing the percentage, we improved the profitability of enterprise corporations.

when you look at enterprises, they are generally very profitable, provided they are taken care of.

some are very large and make huge profits, in a stable way each and every month earning trillions.

Complaints never stop but looking at the real numbers reveals the numbers.

You can make 1T in profits, from payments to the countries and total profits of all the corporations each game month.

Thanks for giving some context, Andy. Yes, I agree with all of that. I've been looking into several countries, enterprises and corporations and it checks out.

I took note of the much higher turnover, and that's why I checked the rate of the country resources used fee, and noticed it was approaching 19% instead of 40% as in the past.

This made me note that nobody these days is making an effort to promote CEOs into building corps in their countries. This makes me think this strategy isn't as competitive as it was before. Hence I asked for other players input on this, even if to little avail (thanks, hymy).

To return to my main concern here: while this is not my preference, I want to encourage this play-style again. We must admit it made the game more lively and it was a conduit for relationships to develop among players. And these flourished because they were a win-win for both the President and the CEO.

Once I get a second country in KB, I'll dedicate it as a tax haven, reach out to all the CEOs and see how it goes. If it gets in the top ranks of finance, it will be easier for me to advise this and convince others to follow the same approach. If it fails, I'll revisit this.


As a note, I haven't done the all the calculations on this topic, because... It was a lot of work to build even a partial database for 53 corps. Once the game docs are updated, I'll be able to calculate all of this.

Game doc update?

do you mean that the problem is that there are corporations that are not documented in details yet?

Oh no, that's a separate issue. I just wanted to calculate if a President's and CEO's interests were aligned.

I would love to hear your conclusion and see the numbers.
we are, as you know, open for corrections if the numbers show the way.
Many many improvements are the result of players comments.

I am again, inviting criticism that comes in a constructive way with
the aim of improving Simcountry.

I am definitely interested in a quantitative analysis of CEO/president synergy. I don't think it's been done.

I've never been sure how to tackle it.

My suspicion so far is that it can be highly lucrative to run a country with all private corps. But I'm not sure, however, because I really need to model all the corps to sense how this plays out in practice. But I placed that endeavour on hold because it was too time consuming, and I still need to crack the progression on Robotics and Factory Maintenance.


Anyway, the problem needs to framed as such:

1. CEOs will focus on building the most profitable corps for them. So first I need to figure out what those are.

2. Then I need to figure out what are the most profitable corps a President can build.

My educated guess is that it's going to be natural resources for both. But let's assume those go to the President, and after that, he opens the country to Enterprises.

3. Afterwards, it's a matter of comparing the most profitable corps for CEOs, calculate the country resources used (CRU) for those and compare that fee against the profit of the top state corps. If the CRU is higher or near the profit of the state corps, we're golden.
3.a If not, we need to see if there's a tax rate between 0 and 30% that levels the field.


With that said, I'm placing this topic on hold on my end. There's plenty of other features and mechanics to review.

The most profitable corps are a mining, and the level 4 - 5 High Tech sector. Production plant recently joined the high profit ranks. Just skimming my corp list. Others that are not awful: Chocolate, Interceptors, DMB, Books and newspapers, Shows, Nuke defense batts and missiles, medical materials, Boats (sometimes). That should give you a place to start.

I already cracked the connection between salary level and corp production volume. So if you need that at any point just holler. I have a sheet that can calculate the rough profit of any corp, that utilizes that bit reverse engineering. But much like your problem it's very time consuming, and I've basically just been building the above mentioned corps. I use the sheet if I have time just to try and optimize my corps. But generally I always find that 220 quality and the lowest reasonable salary are all that can be done there.

My recollection is that the robotics and factory maint thing should be straightforward? I take it's not? I hadn't had any reason before now to look and see how it might have changed.

Consider also that inexperienced players and free players are locked out building many of the best corps because of levels and limits. CEOs can build these needed corps for them. And one thing that I had considered that might work, is one where a CEO offers to build these corps for those players and once they are fully upgraded and under some negotiated terms, the player buys the corp from the CEO.

We never made that analysis in this way.
I am interested in the results.

I dont have much to speak to in regards to the numbers and raw data, but I will share my opinion on gameplay as someone who has played with both enterprises and countries on multiple planets for many years.

To me, it just feels like duplicating the gameplay of a president, while ripping out the country management aspects of it. The core functionalities of a CEO in this game are building corps, maintaining those corps so they're profitable, and adjusting your portfolio of corps as the world economy changes. If you chose to, you can participate in the stock market, stockpile resources, and take a much more hands on approach to managing your corps. You more or less decide what level of micromanaging you want to do.


All of those tasks, (and more) are also required of presidents to do. In fact, one could say the president has a tougher job since there are many more things to manage that can create many more costs to worry about (defense, healthcare, etc). However at the higher levels, when automation stops, you end up doing a lot of the micromanaging that is optional to an CEO, but is often required for a president (if they wish to maintain their game level and/or current state of their country).


As such, I dont feel like the core gameplay loop of a CEO is that satisfying, at least to me. I get the same experience, and more by managing my countries as a president.


My current use for my enterprise is to just use it as a central warehouse and bank or sorts. If I need to move resources or cash between countries or planets. A shell corporation, of sorts.


On an enterprise level, it would be cool if CEO's could manage all corps across an empire (this would require the enterprise to be part of the empire, i am not sure if the game currently functions like this). I know there are limits of corps per country to prevent abuse, and that will always be an issue.


But at some level, my "perfect world" wish would be for the CEO role to be more integrated into the functions of an empire, rather than being entirely separate from the role of a president. (The player should be able to play both, without having to back out to the main menu and selecting an entirely different entity to play as for that session).


I know nothing is ever as easy as "just fixing" it and I realize I just suggested something that would probably take a lot of implement on the back end, but just my thoughts.


I am curious if my views align with others around the role of a CEO in the enterprise, or am I wildly off base?

cheers.

I understand what you mean, Nathan, and it is on my mind. In truth I trust most that have dedicated some time to playing the CEO game just see it as a cash cow and a weapon depot. And that's understandable.

In a broader way, people need to see a reason to log-in everyday. A reason to spend some time, put in some effort and see results. That is on my mind.


By the way, the reason I don't give a greater insight into my data or results can be summarized by this video: https://youtube.com/shorts/0OnBERx0Bzw?si=ntEgusBF7aquer2j

Well there's plenty of meta to this game, for those will to dig around.