Tools to hlp making decision

[dancognac]

Business its all about return on investement. But often i dont know if I should open a new factory or use one from another city. I m missing critical information like cost of transportation and other infos needed to make the best decision. Maybe we should have a advisor that will provide us with such of informations. We give him the product, place where we want the factory and the city where product will be transport to be sell and he will give us the cost of transportation (approx.). Also he should be abble to give us other info such of the expected cost of manufacturing such product by providing him other info.

[Camio]

The freight costs for setting factories in other cities from where you want to sell the products at makes it a not very good investment long term. Its best to build a smaller factory (for a small city for example) in the city you need than import the end products from another city.

You can test this easily by starting a new game, saving, and then do 2 things: 1 where you build a store + a factory in a city. In the other, you build the store in the same exact spot but build the factory in the cheapest city you can find (wages).

You'll see the results speak for themselves. The little money you save on training/overhead and wages (due to the cheapest wages city) are nothing compared to the extra freight cost your retail store will have to pay for the products.

[counting]

You'll see the results speak for themselves. The little money you save on training/overhead and wages (due to the cheapest wages city) are nothing compared to the extra freight cost your retail store will have to pay for the products.

It's not that simple, and sometimes it does cost less to produce in low wage city for some high profit margin products, especially electronic related product that is light weight, with negligible freight cost. And don't forget the setup cost in high weight city is a lot expensive as well, not just running cost. You could end up spending way more than you need to, and take a long time to earn back the capital invested. (this is more important at high difficulty when starting capital is very limited)

Here are some experiments result. You can see if two cities are close enough and with enough wage difference (Tianjin & Shenyang), the annual profit margin is roughly the same. If two cities are further apart with even higher difference in wages (Barcelona & Shenyang), the profit margin is lower when you ship product oversea, but since the initial investment is huge in high wage city, the cash you end up with in the same period of time is a lot less (94m vs 79m).

There are just too many variables to draw simple conclusions. The current economic status affects profit margin a lot more than freight cost, not to mention upstream sources could end-up all over the worlds. Even more importantly is the utilization rate of your factories. Like 2 local factories in 2 cities operate at less than 50% utilization, is usually less ideal than 1 factories at near 100% utilization shipping goods to 2 cities.

[dancognac]

There are just too many variables to draw simple conclusions. The current economic status affects profit margin a lot more than freight cost, not to mention upstream sources could end-up all over the worlds. Even more importantly is the utilization rate of your factories.

Thats why tool in a kind of adviser would be nice. There is formula that exist that can calculate return on investment. The Ai already know most of the variable such economic status, the player can indicate other info like expected utilization rate. With the combination of AI information and player you can get a return of investment at a specific time period.

[counting]

Thats why tool in a kind of adviser would be nice. There is formula that exist that can calculate return on investment. The Ai already know most of the variable such economic status, the player can indicate other info like expected utilization rate. With the combination of AI information and player you can get a return of investment at a specific time period.

A while back, there's a suggestion to implement secretary/assistant system that can give players financial forecasting/planning and alert for potential opportunities. But quite a lot of factors still need to be given, before it can generate useful predictions (essentially an automatic Business Plan Generator). Right now, the easiest way to do that is with save/load and do experiments yourself. Reload saved game if the outcome isn't ideal.

[tosh]

What counting said - too many var's.

and now think what will happen when will have cities tax system! SHAZAM!