Well that's 10 (actually 11 now, I included that one) of 65, since I'm only talking about end products. All the stuff that goes into them or is used in expansion is also in play.
Still, you could ask why the other 55 are out. And to be clear, if you wanted to do them you certainly can. They're just not as profitable as ones on the list. And yes it's a shame that they don't line up better, but to be fair pre-emptively setting exactly the right values for everything is a lot easier said than done. We have to work with the data that's there.
Beginner tips & Cattle
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Re: Beginner tips & Cattle
I buy lots of cattle in realm 1,SNYDES wrote: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
generally when making anything to sell to the market, try to raise the quality of those goods.
Doesn't really apply to me or cattle cause I'll still buy Q0 cattle but for other goods you will always sell at Q1 against Q0 at the same price.
Some suppliers and buyers have not seemed to figure out that if you are raising the price when you raise the quality the buyer will make the same amount of money on the deal so will probably not bother with your goods if he is smart.
but if you sell at the same price at higher quality you will sell it faster.
No good making goods that nobody buys.
quite frankly I rarely if ever anymore buy any Q0 food unless I really need it for my stores or it is really cheap.
I buy my cattle for making it into leather,
I can buy cattle for 70ish and make two leather out of it and sell each to the market for 150-200.
so I'd suggest making a textile mill to turn your cattle into leather, you'll be pissing money.
both realms are good for textiles.
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The problem I see is that you are doing unit costing at each step. Building costs are fixed costs. Thus the correct approach should be:
1. calculate all the variable costs along the chain (of making cattle), lets say it is X
2. Now what is cattle selling for? Y
3. Profit margin is Y - X = Z, this is for 1 cow
4. NOW, the building's costs, all of them totals at A
5. How many cattle do I need to sell to cover A? B = A / Z
Thus if I sell a total of B cows then I break even (0% net profit)
Thus if I sell B + 1 cows, I make Z * 1 profit
Thus if I sell B + 2 cows, I make Z * 2 profit, etc
But more importantly, what is my throughput? How long did it take from the start (producing seeds) to the sell of the cattle (money in my bank)? Lets say it is C hours. Thus the throughput on net profit is (for this example):
Z / C = D money per hour
Why is this important?
Lets say product P1's net profit margin is 10 per unit and sells 24 per day.
Now product P2's net profit margin is 100 per unit and sells 1.2 per day.
P2 has a bigger profit margin, but which one will generate the most money in a month?
1. calculate all the variable costs along the chain (of making cattle), lets say it is X
2. Now what is cattle selling for? Y
3. Profit margin is Y - X = Z, this is for 1 cow
4. NOW, the building's costs, all of them totals at A
5. How many cattle do I need to sell to cover A? B = A / Z
Thus if I sell a total of B cows then I break even (0% net profit)
Thus if I sell B + 1 cows, I make Z * 1 profit
Thus if I sell B + 2 cows, I make Z * 2 profit, etc
But more importantly, what is my throughput? How long did it take from the start (producing seeds) to the sell of the cattle (money in my bank)? Lets say it is C hours. Thus the throughput on net profit is (for this example):
Z / C = D money per hour
Why is this important?
Lets say product P1's net profit margin is 10 per unit and sells 24 per day.
Now product P2's net profit margin is 100 per unit and sells 1.2 per day.
P2 has a bigger profit margin, but which one will generate the most money in a month?
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I have gone through quite a bit of the forum while playing the game and there are some insightful posts. I have already decided to go with a 30-day NPV approach (which, it just occured to me, for this game is actually the same as Adjusted PV), but with regard to the each-building-paying-for-itself mantra, I'll add my two cents here.TungstenX wrote:but which one will generate the most money in a month?
I agree, of course. The reasoning (by Knolls, unless I'm wrong) is solid. But there is an extra cost that needs to be taken into account. While selling price is the cost that should be factored in, please keep in mind that selling is done at prices lower than buying. Hence, when one chooses insourcing (as opposed to outsourcing), they're actually selling to themselves at prices that are higher than they could find around, while at the same time not penalising their production cost. How much higher? Market comission or contract discount higher. And they save quite some time shopping around -which might prove essential. And they also have demand/supply security.
I'll still go with 30-day NPV, but it's a point to consider.
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You're correct that there is a frictional cost in outsourced goods. However, I do think that's accounted for when you calculate the ROI. You select an itermediate price based on the current sales offers, and can tweak that down anywhere from 0 to 10% based on what you perceive the discount to be and which building you apportion it to. Honestly you can usually get a few caps worth of swing anyway so putting more effort into being precise doesn't really make you more accurate.mirni wrote:While selling price is the cost that should be factored in, please keep in mind that selling is done at prices lower than buying. Hence, when one chooses insourcing (as opposed to outsourcing), they're actually selling to themselves at prices that are higher than they could find around, while at the same time not penalising their production cost. How much higher? Market comission or contract discount higher. And they save quite some time shopping around -which might prove essential. And they also have demand/supply security.
Likewise I think you're right in that it's much easier to do JIT sourcing when there's only one person involved, not two or more. If you could run it just right, you let your invested capital stay a lot lower as you avoid keeping it tied up in inventory. For this reason, I won't switch to outsourcing for 4-5% benefit. But I sometimes get 20-30% benefit, or more. And when you consider the money put into research, it just reinforces what the world already knows - division of labor is useful.
Lastly, I think you're right on with demand/supply security. There's a post somewhere where I yammer on about choosing a product line based on flexibility and control. The way one building handles multiple products here is ... interesting. The same factory can do both steel, and the chemicals that it uses. That gives you a chance to be either a supplier or buyer of chemicals based on where the market point is. And you can switch from one to the other instantly and for free. (Although there's no way to refit the factory to make, say, televisions - so it's very flexible in a narrow band.)
You can get a similar flexibility by both producing your own AND outsourcing. It's no longer instant or free, but suppose I have a full gas line: Oil Wells, Factories, Gas Stations.
If the price of Oil goes down, I will stop expanding oil wells. I'll only expand Factories and Gas stations, and buy the rest of what I need. If the price of oil goes way way up, I'll do the opposite - producing more oil than I can use and selling the rest. And I get the same flexibility at the other market point for gas.
In this way, even though I have a full supply line for safety, I'm still able to take advantage of market swings and the overall supply/demand equilibrium.
I should caveat that the other thing I do is store goods from buyers. I tend very much not to be JIT. Part of that is a little laziness, I admit. But the other reason is that if I'm getting enough of a benefit from suppliers price-wise, I want to give them value in return in terms of security. So I often say "I'll buy as much as you can sell me." I know this isn't the most efficient use of capital. But I'm protected from price moves or holidays. And I provide value to them by not only buying, but buying infinitely and not making special demands.
(As an additional bonus, buying everything a supplier has also stops them from looking around to see what someone else is paying.)
This is why I like to pick a product line where everybody can make a good profit (Hooray gas, boo candy), and then focus on the most profitable part of that line for myself. The rules of the game are for the most part static. There are techniques like how to research faster, or getting your ratio right, thta make a difference in a close fight. But for the most part, the best thing you can do is pick the best chuck of the best product line.
there goes my beef enterprise-
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Sorry, for picking this quite old thread up, originally I was only looking for hints where to best place my butcher's. I must admit it convinced me to by a mine instead of the butcher's but it is definately not off the list (newbie and MUCH room to expanddimcorp wrote:Why do we have this big game with alot of products, if there is only 10 we should make?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:
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Then the maker of this game only needed to make the game with 10 produckts.
).Dimcorp,
think about it: this simulation is quite close to "real economics" (at least for me as a standard customer), imagine 75 % of players concentrate on producing the mentioned 10 "profitable" goods. What is quite sure to happen one day? They will flood their own market and ruin their own prices - and bang goes the profit.
I started off in Realm 2 without a clue what to put where best (okay, had a small clue, started once on a german realm and reseted my account there once after I found out I need a well to keep costs low). A well, a plantation and a fruitplantation were my first three buildings. Somehow I made it to recently become a retailer
My two cents...
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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.Knolls wrote:Beef in France returns ~32 caps ATM for ~Q1.
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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.
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