So called client not actually ordering anything

[jondonnis]

You visit their factory and they appear to be actually making Cola and selling well, yet despite being a "client" for a month or two, they've never actually ordered anything.

Bug?

[David]

It is possible that their inventories are full and they were not ordering in the past couple months.

[jondonnis]

I'm not sure how you'd be able to tell that?

http://ge.tt/5ZuYgZr1/v/0?c

My Pittsburgh mine is the issue.

[David]

When you start new games in the future, I would suggest that you start them with the "Show Competitors Trade Secrets" option enabled. I used a debug key to enable it in your save game and saw the inventories of the clients of your mine. Please see attached - their purchasing units' inventories are about 90% full and therefore they do not need to purchase new ones frequently.

[jondonnis]

Cool, thanks, that explains it then. Would be kind of useful to have a tool tip on the client page maybe for those of us that don't like the "show trade secrets" switch on as feels a bit like cheating . The tool-tip could say "Client factory currently full so at this time, not supplies needed".

However, this does lead to some confusion. So their factory is full and they currently don't need stock, yet they are still a client. As they are still a client does that mean they WILL be purchasing more later or that they are just a client at that moment but no longer needing product because they are full and reserve the right to drop their contract with you at any time and move to another supplier?

[counting]

From many test game with semi-products and upstream materials, I always find AI clients coming in waves unlike customers in retail stores, since semi-products consumed very slowly, AI will remain linking when there's enough supply to sustain their demand when they purchased. And most of time, only 1/3 to 1/4 are active. (A lot of AI clients will stay in-active, when they can not sell their products from said factory)

I do like the proposal of extra information to AI purchase, and not just inventory full information, but also how they come to the decision of purchasing from you instead of other sources. Perhaps a willingness to purchase indicator, or discerning factor when price is too high or too low, like a "rating" relative to other AIs instead of an "absolute rating". It would be even better to add AI friendliness or tendency to stay as clients/sources, so we can have a semi-contract mechanism.

[counting]

Cool, thanks, that explains it then. Would be kind of useful to have a tool tip on the client page maybe for those of us that don't like the "show trade secrets" switch on as feels a bit like cheating . The tool-tip could say "Client factory currently full so at this time, not supplies needed".

However, this does lead to some confusion. So their factory is full and they currently don't need stock, yet they are still a client. As they are still a client does that mean they WILL be purchasing more later or that they are just a client at that moment but no longer needing product because they are full and reserve the right to drop their contract with you at any time and move to another supplier?

If you use the Hijacker Guild strategy as I mentioned in my post, you can actually collect as many clients as possible from all cities, and dominate the aluminum market. Usually it's not about the price and head-on competition, but create shortage and force clients to your "store". (And BTW, the purchasing quantity reset to 0 at the beginning of the month, so the sales number at the end of the month is what you need to concern)

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