Understanding Value 101 - Intro and Index
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Understanding Value 101 - Intro and Index
The goal of this post is providing a practical guide to understanding value in Kapilands. It is intended for players with a few days in, but might serve as a refresher for later players.
Since this is a broad topic, it will be broken down into "classes". I will try and get through the 101 series inside a week.
WARNING: You might enjoy the game less if you read this. Part of any game is the voyage of discovery. Think carefully before you take the time to read any of this. In addition, I was raised by professors. It may bore you a lot. Feel free to skip around, or wait until it gets edited a few times to even bother to read it.
All that aside, I hope this is of some use.
After the mess this was when it was all in one place, I have broken it into a series of smaller posts and provided this index. Follow the links below.
INDEX
UV 101 - Part 1 - What is a product worth?
UV 101 - Part 2 - What is a building worth?
UV 101 - Part 3 - What is research worth?
UV 101 - Part 4 - What is a slot worth?
Since this is a broad topic, it will be broken down into "classes". I will try and get through the 101 series inside a week.
WARNING: You might enjoy the game less if you read this. Part of any game is the voyage of discovery. Think carefully before you take the time to read any of this. In addition, I was raised by professors. It may bore you a lot. Feel free to skip around, or wait until it gets edited a few times to even bother to read it.
All that aside, I hope this is of some use.
After the mess this was when it was all in one place, I have broken it into a series of smaller posts and provided this index. Follow the links below.
INDEX
UV 101 - Part 1 - What is a product worth?
UV 101 - Part 2 - What is a building worth?
UV 101 - Part 3 - What is research worth?
UV 101 - Part 4 - What is a slot worth?
Last edited by Guest on 04.06.2007, 21:52, edited 6 times in total.
Great guide, however there is one thing that I disagree about:
2. Also you can set higher price at your store to be higher than 75. They would sell very long and it would still make an awful ROI but you wouldn't loose money.
Here is what I do to get highest income from a store:
I give the full supply for my store at different prices, change them to minutes and compare:
It gives me much money is your store making in 24 hours. After I do this for few prices I can choose the hghest dialy income and set the price to make best use of my store.
1. If you are selling perfumes you are most lkely making them yourself. If you sell them on marketplace you get 75*0,9=67,5 which is less than you can get from your store.A 20m2 red drugstore costs around 140k. It has a sales rack of 400. 400 perfumes Q0 sells in 24 hours at 71. The cheapest q0 perfumes I see on the market are at 75.
400 * 75 = 30000 total cost
400 * 71 = 28400 total sales
--------
-1600 profit
140000 / -1600 = -87.5 ROI
2. Also you can set higher price at your store to be higher than 75. They would sell very long and it would still make an awful ROI but you wouldn't loose money.
Here is what I do to get highest income from a store:
I give the full supply for my store at different prices, change them to minutes and compare:
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(minutes in a day/minutes to sell all)*(store price-market price)*store size=income from shop in 24h
To keep your books straight, you have to look at ROI for production and retail buildings that you own sperately. It may not look like it, but I did try different values for the perfumes and that was about as good as it got.
Still, as I said, retail is not my thing. If you want to rewrite that example, go ahead: I will gladly replace it with something cleaner.
For that matter, if anyone wants to edit it, like maybe someone who is good with BBC code
.... yeah, I will take any help I can get.
Still, as I said, retail is not my thing. If you want to rewrite that example, go ahead: I will gladly replace it with something cleaner.

For that matter, if anyone wants to edit it, like maybe someone who is good with BBC code

Calculating shop ROI is a very tricky thing. It changes all the time. It depends on the price you buy your product, it's quality and advertisements.
Different prices of buying a product affect the best price to sell it and make the best use of your store. Basicly the lower you buy the lower you sell but then it sells a lot faster which gives you more money over day.
Right now I have only one gas station and I tried to figure out how exactly it works. I don't think it's possible to know it without having acces to the game code. You can just compare the prices according to the formula I wrote and see which is the best. It might look that you sell to cheap but you sell more. It's all about balance between those two.
Different prices of buying a product affect the best price to sell it and make the best use of your store. Basicly the lower you buy the lower you sell but then it sells a lot faster which gives you more money over day.
Right now I have only one gas station and I tried to figure out how exactly it works. I don't think it's possible to know it without having acces to the game code. You can just compare the prices according to the formula I wrote and see which is the best. It might look that you sell to cheap but you sell more. It's all about balance between those two.
If you haven't read it yet, I have a (rather short) post right here about how to set prices for stores. There's even a pretty graph.
Great post Capi, a good basis of knowledge that everyone should have. I do side with Catch_Or a bit though. Firstly, you never need to have a negative ROI at any store on any product. It may be low, but you can always get a higher price just by waiting.
Secondly, you're quite right to use the market price for stores and market price - 10% for factories. But if you're going to count both, you need to find some price to use for both. Otherwise you're making more money than you think and that 10% isn't being creditied where it's deserved.
For most products where there are standing buy or sell orders you can just use those to pick the price. Otherwise maybe pick 5% below market. But you need to be consistent along the chain and make sure all profits are accounted for.
Great post Capi, a good basis of knowledge that everyone should have. I do side with Catch_Or a bit though. Firstly, you never need to have a negative ROI at any store on any product. It may be low, but you can always get a higher price just by waiting.
Secondly, you're quite right to use the market price for stores and market price - 10% for factories. But if you're going to count both, you need to find some price to use for both. Otherwise you're making more money than you think and that 10% isn't being creditied where it's deserved.
For most products where there are standing buy or sell orders you can just use those to pick the price. Otherwise maybe pick 5% below market. But you need to be consistent along the chain and make sure all profits are accounted for.
I mentioned to Capi recently that I'd like to have one sticky, kind of a "guide to guides", so we don't have to worry about bumping up individual threads.
However, before doing that I'd like to have guides by more than just Capitalis and myself to put in there. So if anyone feels like taking a specific segment of the game and writing up a guide, I'd love to see it. It could be technical like risk analysis, or narrow like a focus on the steel industry, or basic like "how to find good customers." Or anything else.
In the meantime, I think this is good for a sticky but that is my longer-term plan. And as long as I'm editing, I may just shine up those links for you Capi.
However, before doing that I'd like to have guides by more than just Capitalis and myself to put in there. So if anyone feels like taking a specific segment of the game and writing up a guide, I'd love to see it. It could be technical like risk analysis, or narrow like a focus on the steel industry, or basic like "how to find good customers." Or anything else.
In the meantime, I think this is good for a sticky but that is my longer-term plan. And as long as I'm editing, I may just shine up those links for you Capi.
Thanks Knolls
Part V will be the last I do for a while - after it gets done I am going to stop and polish the whole thing up a bit.
I also would like to see more guides produced by more people.
I would like to say that this guide is not even mostly my ideas. When I first started playing, posts by Knolls and others served as valuable help undertstanding the game and a lot of that knowledge is just represented in this post. Past that, I did learn something in all those years of business school.
After addressing expansion issues more carefully, I am not quite sure what else fits the theme. I am also unsure of the demand of more.
If anyone has any ideas, corrections, additions, or thought on the matter, please share them.
- Capi

Part V will be the last I do for a while - after it gets done I am going to stop and polish the whole thing up a bit.
I also would like to see more guides produced by more people.
I would like to say that this guide is not even mostly my ideas. When I first started playing, posts by Knolls and others served as valuable help undertstanding the game and a lot of that knowledge is just represented in this post. Past that, I did learn something in all those years of business school.
After addressing expansion issues more carefully, I am not quite sure what else fits the theme. I am also unsure of the demand of more.
If anyone has any ideas, corrections, additions, or thought on the matter, please share them.
- Capi
Well since you asked

Code: Select all
Instead of writing
Main header
Title 1
Subpoint
Paragraph of interesting useful info
Subpoint
Paragraph of interesting useful info
Title 2
Paragraph of interesting useful info
Title 3
....
Just write:
[b]Title 1[/b]
After the piece is written, it only takes a minute to go back and put [b] and [/b] before and after the titles. And reading them in bold makes them a good bit clearer.
If you want to get fancier, making the full headers larger is as easy as putting [size=18] before and [/size] after. Or [color=red] before and [/color] after.
I myself often skip them when writing but it's not too difficult to add them on afterwards.