Beginner tips & Cattle

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Beginner tips & Cattle

Post by Guest » 29.04.2007, 22:34

I searched a little bit, but didn't find really what I'm looking for.

Ok, so I've a mind to be a Cattle Farmer, but I'm new to the game and don't grasp the entire market system and the Supply and Demand aspects of the game, so could somone take a little bit of their time to fill me in?

-What's the Cattle market like? Flooded? Or empty?
-What a good selling price per head, at the current market conditions?
-What quality level should a marketable head be sold at?

-Any tips for raising cattle?
-Should I get all materials by myself, or use the market?
-Should I obtain my own water?
-My own corn?

And finally if there's any little things that you might find useful for me, I'd love to know 'em.

Thanks ya'll

Guest

Post by Guest » 29.04.2007, 23:04

Well you asked for it. :-) Here's some info I wrote up for someone in IGM (In Game Mail) and now seems like a good time to put it in the forum. It's general though I mention Cattle. Give this a read and I'll hit Cattle specifically in another post:

The Contest Jump-Start
Here's the most important tip I can give you to start well. Are you aware of the contest? They are in the newspaper, run for about two weeks, and one just started yesterday. This is a great way for new players to get money from bigger players.

For example, the last contest was Cotton (q0). Cotton costs about 1.70 to make, and sells for 4-7. But during the contest, it was selling for as high as 70 and never really lower than 25-30. There is a limit to how many buildings a player can have, so bigger players can't just build a new Plantation to make cotton. But a new player has plenty of room to expand, and doesn't really have other businesses to worry about. So they can make whatever new buildings are needed.

Still using Cotton as an example, 1 plantation costs 75,000 and makes 712 per day. If you sold it for 30 profit, that's over 20,000 profit per day. In 4 days you would have gotten all the money back. In fact, you could use that new money to make another plantation, as there would still be 8 more days to the contest.

And then when the contest is over, you now have a bunch of Plantations that have already been paid back. You can use those to make your own business (which will not be as profitable but will be consistent). Or you can sell them all and get back 3/4 of what you paid, take that cash plus what you made, and build buildings for the next contest.

And you can do that over and over until you end up with buildings you want. Now there are a couple things to be careful of with contest products:
1) the market moves a lot since more people start producing. Prices can drop quickly. So always watch the market and put your stuff up for sale a little below the lowest price. Not a not lower or you'll just make the next person drop way below you. But a little lower, then wait and see what happens. Or here's a great way to save that 10% listing fee. Put a few of what you have up, then when someone buys it send them an IGM asking if they want more. You can charge them like 5% less because they're saving you the fee.

2) know the contest product! A lot of people have been caught because they didn't know the product carfully enough. For example, this newest contest is q2 Wool. q1 or q3 won't be worth that big money, so anyone making or buying the wrong quality is missing out.

3) Get to know the bigger players. If you do like I said by selling a little on the market and sending a mail, you can get to know who is reliable and will make a good deal. Some people take a long time to approve the contract. Some will change your mind after you send it. But some are very good and will give you the chance for repeat deals.

And that's contest products. You don't have to do it, and q2 wool is a little tougher to get into (you need higher quality corn and/or wool research) but if you do it's a great way to start. I just started on March 20, barely over a month ago, and I've grown very quickly using mostly that strategy.

The "Real" Market
OK so you know contest products. Maybe you do that for one contest, maybe for several. At some point you're going to need a real business though.

Start with what you know you will need. Power is a great thing that everyone can make. Most products need it, and the market never gets too cheap for it. You want to build that power plant in a Green country. (Doesn't matter which, as long as it's green.) You do get more power per day in Red, but the cost is 3 times as expensive. That means you pay .03 in red or .01 in green. And since there are no other inputs, cost is everything.

OK so a basic power plant at the starter level makes 250,000 per day. Power sells somewhere between .07 and .08 right now. Lets say .07, it sells so fast you can match the lowest price without having to beat it. It costs .01, and lets take off another .01 for market fee. That means .05 * 250,000 = 12,500 caps per day.

So either you sell that power and make 12,500 per day, or you use it yourself and save more than 12,500 per day. Personally I use just about as much as I make, so I have to build another or expand it as I build more things. But either way is good. If the price goes up, you can build another plant and sell some, and don't have to worry about buying. Or if the price goes down to .06, you can buy some extra on the market and postpone building the new plant. What's important is that you are in control of what you buy and sell, not just a victim who hopes.

Now while I'm on the subject, this is very important. When you use your own products, just because you made the power for .01 doesn't mean it's only worth .01. Let me explain with a very common mistake I see from Cattle, Pigs, and Lambs sellers.

So we said you can sell Power for .07, right? Well water also sells for .07. And we'll say Corn sells for 1.50.

Lambs need 20 corn and 350 water. What's their cost if you buy that? 20 x 1.50 + 350 x .07 = 54.50. Plus 4 to actually produce. So the cost of the lambs is 58.50.

OK, quiz: What's the cost of the Lambs if you make the water and corn yourself?

Answer: The same! People make their water for .01, and that way they think corn is really cheap and lambs are really cheap. But they aren't! They could have sold that corn and water instead of feeding it to the lambs. So people who make lambs are losing money, and they don't even know it.

See for yourself. Click over to the market and look up Lambs under "market food." 30 caps is the selling price there. If they had sold the corn and water instead of feeding it to the lambs, they would have made 54.50.

So remember that with all products. It's good to make all your own products (so you can be the boss of your own supply) but don't forget to pay yourself.

Now if I keep that in mind and take a look at the market, there are some products that just don't look very good. Jeans take 3 textiles (plus power and 15 caps). Textiles sell for 100. Jeans sell for 260. Duh.

Diamonds use 1000 power. But people sell them for 40. Tires are awful. Actually anything that uses steel is tough, because everyone needs steel to build and expand and it's very expensive.

Which brings me back to my original point: build what you need. Steel is something you will eventually need. (Right now if you need a jump start you can sell some of what you start with. The faxes show at least 2 players paying 129 per steel, so send them a contract for 1000 and you've got a bunch to play with.)

Steel uses Coal, Iron, and Minerals (which get turned into chemicals). Now if you do the math just like we did for Lambs, you'll see those products should never sell for more than about 13.40. Fortunately right now they don't. But about 2-3 weeks ago they did and if you were smart (like me :wink: ) you would make coal and sell it, then just buy the steel.

But now around 8-9 it's fine. So you can make a mine and a factory. This can also give you Stones which are valuable for expanding. So now you have a power plant, a mine, and a factory. And you can choose to sell or buy power. To sell or buy iron, coal, minerals or steel. You have the power to see what's valuable and what isn't, and do the smartest things. Maybe you want to build a well for this same reason.

And as a benefit you get flexibility that might pay off on another contest. That mine also makes quartz and other things. That factory also makes gas and plastic. You can take advantage of opportunities. And you know you'll never be in trouble as a buyer or a seller, because you can provide yourself.

But finally, you will want a real product. You could have a fine business just with the basic stuff I mentioned (power, coal, iron, minerals/chemicals, steel). But I think it's good to sell to the NPC too. For one thing, if you just sell to other players you're always waiting for contracts to come in and you never know when your money will arrive. Also you're not completely in charge like I like because they could change their needs. But mostly because there's more money to be made at higher quality, and those things are always wanted only at q0. (q0 steel is as good as q10 if you're just building with it.)

So lets consider retail stores and the NPC market. Unfortunately, not every product is worth selling. I actually took several days worth of data readings and made a spreadsheet to look at all the products. I saw what customers would pay, and then I figured out what their cost should be if I pay a real price for water, for power, etc.

A lot of products are really bad. Candy is awful, just awful. Jewelry, both silver and gold, is bad. (Sorry, I saw you're selling gold.) The way you can tell is to put it in the store, use the full cost (like explained), put it on sale at a couple different prices, and see how long it takes to sell. Then you take the profit, divide by time, and get caps / minute.

Now remember, the simple power plant made 12500 caps / day. A simple calculation says that's about 8.7 caps per minute. So the store should make at least that much, right? Well if you pay all the producing buildings what they deserve, that candy only earns about 0.02 caps / minute. That's how bad it is. Wine is about 0.23, better but not good.

Well I came up with the Knolls List of 10 products where the store can earn more than 10 caps per hour. (There's an 11th that's very close.) Here are some of those in no particular order:
  • Gas. This is very popular with a lot of people for exactly this reason. And it's easy to make, it uses a factory which, like I said, you'd want for Steel anyway. The only catch is it's so popular that A) quality has gone up a bit, and B) there's a risk someday of having so much the supply outpaces demand. (If that happens, selling time will crash and it's bad for all sellers.)
  • Wardrobes. This one stands out because it uses steel. Steel like I said is expensive, and often it's better to sell it for building than use it in contstruction. But in this case, there's a good amount of profit to make so it might be worthwhile. Especially if you make higher quality wood and steel.
  • Monitors. I think when he plays that the forum mod Tycoon makes these. There are a couple steps needed to make these but they mostly use the same factories and the price at the end is pretty decent.
  • Leather Jackets. Sometimes you can make extra profit because like I explained, people sell cattle below cost. But even if they don't, using leather and cotton/textiles to make jackets is pretty profitable.
And the other products I can't tell you. Sorry, I need to keep some secrets. 8) If you're really curious you can figure them out by experimenting though. Or by making intelligent guesses you can pick something decent.

But whatever you make, start getting quality up. Not immediately, as you want some cash rolling in. But soon, make the research center for the final product you want and research the final product. The sooner you start, the sooner it will get up. After you get up to 3-5, whatever you need to guarantee q1 output, then you can start thinking about raising the quality of inputs and how easiest to get to q2 and beyond.

And there's your profits!

Guest

Re: Cattle

Post by Guest » 29.04.2007, 23:27

OK, read all that? Seriously? If so then you've earned some direct answers, some of which you may have figured out already.
SNYDES wrote:-What's the Cattle market like? Flooded? Or empty?
Well it's fairly busy, which is more than I can say for some products. Not a leader though. I can't give you volume per day because the data isn't available, but that's a whole other thread.
The reason it's busy enough is that cattle are used in a few different products. So if you enter in on the cattle using or cattle buying market you probably won't move the market much, at least at first while you're small.
-What a good selling price per head, at the current market conditions?
Well since I first wrote that big piece above, cattle have moved up a bit. (Actually I'm partly responsible for this - they were around 47 a week ago then I bought about 10,000 off the market due to contest-related shifts, pushing the price up to 65-70 and it hasn't come back down since.) And Corn has come down since then as well - also a result of shifts from the last contest to this one.

So supposing Corn is 1 cap, water is .07. Cattle use 30 corn, 350 water, and 2.25 caps to produce. That's 30 * 1 + 350 * .07 + 2.25 = 56.75

By no means should you sell cattle for less than 56.75. How high you can go depends on where the market is. Right now about 65 I believe. In Green, your starting Cattle-Breeding plant can make 712 cattle per day. If you could somehow get 65 for them (and don't forget there's a 10% market fee) that's 712 * (65-56.75) = 5874

Guest

Post by Guest » 30.04.2007, 01:07

Alright, that WAS very informative.

Basically I can't make much of a profit off Cattle ATM. And your advice was to invest in making Leather Jackets.

So I've decided to either...
1.)Use my remaining funds to set up my own supply lines for producing leather jackets.

OR

2.)Find a contractor and breed cattle the same, wihtout the 10% fee on using the Market.

I find option 2 preferable, but my question is...Will it work? I would think so, but hey I ain't sure.

My goal is to become a player in the Cattle Industry too...

Thanks for all the info by the way

Guest

Post by Guest » 30.04.2007, 06:44

To be honest, cattle used to be a emerging market. When i started, leather was 200cr a piece, making cattle, starting at corn, a very big buisness. But now, corn, cattle, and leather are all going down.

Guest

Post by Guest » 28.05.2007, 04:33

I've got a question... Will cattle (or rather the cattle-breeding plantation) be involved in the kapitimes contest in the near future?

If cattle are required for the contest you might make a huge amount, if not, wells, mines and power would be better products.

France likes Beef. Butcher shops produce beef from cattle. Low quality required. Sell Beef at your grocery store/s in France. :wink:

Guest

Post by Guest » 28.05.2007, 05:48

If only we knew ahead of time. But you can guess. Here's what has been:

Fruit Plantation (lemons, q0)
Mine (quartz, q0)
Plantation (cotton, q0)
Cattle-Breeding (wool, q2)
Factory (chemicals, q1)
Fruit Plantation (apples, q1)

Will they come back around to cattle-breeding? Maybe. Also note that a Butcher Shop product would cause more business for cattle-breeding as well. Like the beef you mentioned.

But I wouldn't go predicting. I wish I could tell you there's great profit in the building but at the moment there just isn't. Cattle, Lambs, and Pigs frequently sell for less than the value of the water and corn they eat (as discussed above). Eggs, milk, and chickens don't have a very big market - by which I mean that although the people of France are very hungry, they aren't willing to pay very much.

And wool, well not to be self-serving but I buy wool and like to think I pay decently - yet I can't promise returns like what you'd get elsewhere. I think in my next life, if I had to produce livestock for food I would be the world's best Chicken maker.

Guest

Post by Guest » 28.05.2007, 10:13

True. I'm trying to cover as many contest products as I can, so I have a few of everything (well almost).

Beef in France returns ~32 caps ATM for ~Q1. I need cattle to produce leather for my Jackets.

But to balance my production and expansion I don't need all that much leather.

Our friend SNYDES seems pretty keen on cattle and I just thought that 320 caps per cow (less cost) was the best return for cattle around ATM.

Maybe I should shut my trap :oops: cause I will cut my own throat if I'm not careful.

I BAGS BEEF IN FRANCE. :P :lol:

You won't make a huge amount on cattle compared to other investments but,,, for new players you can get on top of the quality fairly easily.

All the big companies rule the quality on most of the more profitable products. Can we lesser players have some fun as well??? :cry:

Guest

Post by Guest » 28.05.2007, 19:51

Beef in France returns ~32 caps ATM for ~Q1.
...
Our friend SNYDES seems pretty keen on cattle and I just thought that 320 caps per cow (less cost) was the best return for cattle around ATM.
You bring up something interesting. In theme with the rest of this thread, I'm going to address it in detail in the hope that it is helpful. It's very similar to what I said above, but approached from a different angle.

Each Building Deserves to get Paid
Let's talk beef. And suppose, like many people do, that we're going to make everything ourselves.

Step 1: Making water
Let's start with basic water - from a well built in Yellow where all wells should be. It uses a little bit of power, which we can buy, and costs 0.02

Guest

Post by Guest » 28.05.2007, 20:01

*Claps*

Knolls, you deserve a medal. And a job as a technical writer. That was excellent. As a next act, explain ROI.

Second row of teeth my ...

- Capi

Guest

Post by Guest » 28.05.2007, 20:05

I knew you were going to say that! 8)

I will, or you can, in a bit. I don't want to overwhelm the math-phobic. Lets at least make sure people are earning profit, then we can worry about how much profit is enough.

Guest

Post by Guest » 04.06.2007, 04:29

We should start a petition to have the term opportunity cost in economic textbooks changed to "paying your buildings back." I'll throw it in my dissertation and see what kind of look my adviser gives me :lol:

Guest

Post by Guest » 04.06.2007, 05:25

ROFL.

Well I'll tell you where the approach comes from. When people are starting a new business, they are so anxious to get it off the ground they will work 12 hours a day, 7 days a week to save on an employee and make sure everything goes right.

At the end of the month, they look at the P&L statement and say "hey, we made $2000! The business is profitable!

But the only reason the business shows a profit is because the owner worked 350 hours for free, cheating him or herself out of wages. So common advice for entrepreneurs is "don't forget to pay yourself!" (Which is also good for tax purposes.)

I think that's catchy so I just expanded it.

Guest

Post by Guest » 15.07.2007, 19:03

Well I came up with the Knolls List of 10 products where the store can earn more than 10 caps per hour. (There's an 11th that's very close.) Here are some of those in no particular order:

Gas. This is very popular with a lot of people for exactly this reason. And it's easy to make, it uses a factory which, like I said, you'd want for Steel anyway. The only catch is it's so popular that A) quality has gone up a bit, and B) there's a risk someday of having so much the supply outpaces demand. (If that happens, selling time will crash and it's bad for all sellers.)

Wardrobes. This one stands out because it uses steel. Steel like I said is expensive, and often it's better to sell it for building than use it in contstruction. But in this case, there's a good amount of profit to make so it might be worthwhile. Especially if you make higher quality wood and steel.

Monitors. I think when he plays that the forum mod Tycoon makes these. There are a couple steps needed to make these but they mostly use the same factories and the price at the end is pretty decent.

Leather Jackets. Sometimes you can make extra profit because like I explained, people sell cattle below cost. But even if they don't, using leather and cotton/textiles to make jackets is pretty profitable.

And the other products I can't tell you. Sorry, I need to keep some secrets. If you're really curious you can figure them out by experimenting though. Or by making intelligent guesses you can pick something decent.
Why do we have this big game with alot of products, if there is only 10 we should make?
Then the maker of this game only needed to make the game with 10 produckts.

Guest

Post by Guest » 15.07.2007, 19:30

then how boring of a game would this be

only 10 products to make

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