Captialism II demo

[Zkribbler]

Originally posted by Jules
What's this, you can't manufacture beer????

(note: not talking about the demo, recently bought the full version)

Nope. Only wine (grapes + glass)

I think it's a mistake building research centers early in the game. They're expensive and lack short-term ROI. The first two years--when you have no brand recognition and sales are slow--are the most dangerous.

I've developed the tactic of using the range-brand stategy. I begin by looking over the industial seaports to see what raw materials are available, building some factories to assemble an entire class of products (such as apparel [leather jackets, jeans and sweaters]), and then building specialty stores to sell them. That way, I get a profit from the manufacturing and another from the retail. A media link in the middle of the store builds up brand recognition. After about two years of conservative play, the red ink turns black, and I'm ready to invest in research.

Oh yeah, stay away from growing crops early. It takes forever for them to grow to maturity, and all the time your paying out salaries and operating costs. If and when I do grow crops, I build seven fields around a centralized inventory square, with one peripheral square used for sales. That seems to be able to extend the availability of the corps until the next cycle.

(I can't compare Cap II to Cap I 'cause I never played Cap I.)

[Eli]

I usualy start with building 2-4 retail stores in every city and selling only stuff imported from seaports. After 2-3 years I get annual profit of 150-300 million dollars, depends on how big the cities you get are(I play with 4 cities and 4 competitors).
Building all this rarely costs more than 50 million $, and I invest almost everything I have left in buying 25-40% of all my competitors while their stock price in 10-20$. In the long range, their stock prices increases to hundreds and even thousands so by year 10-15 the 50 million I invested become 10 billion and more. At this point, if I dont have enough money from profit, I sell stocks worth of 1-2 billion because I want to always have enough hard cash to recover from everything unexpected.

Anyway, after I have large enough annual profit I do what Zkribbler said, and start growing, producing and researching stuff on my own.

[Zkribbler]

By the way, has anybody found a way to make owning apartments and commercial buildings worthwhile?

It seems to take about a year after you build them for them to start turning a profit, and then the profits seems to top out at about 10%.

[Eli]

How do I improve the quality of my livestock? All my Frozen Beefs, Porks, Eggs etc have quality of 30 and it doesnt change, despite the high training those farms have.

And another problem I noticed is that while my quality for these products is much lower than the city average, thanks to brand and price the overall rating is 10-15 higher than the average and despite the fact that there are no other competitors the best market share I can get is 10-15%. The rest is white.
Why is that? My products are better, overall(and this is what really matters) and still almost no one buys them.

[Zkribbler]

Eli, I think I've found the answers to your questions.

"Some products, such as frozen meat, are very difficult to apply a brand to because they lack differentiating features. Consumers generally buy based on quality and price with little concern for the brand name." (User Manual, pg. 111.)

"Livestock products quality is consistent among different farms. The quality does increase, however, as a farm acculmulates experience. A farm with with higher unit levels produces better-quality livestock products." (User Manual, pg. 113.)

Thus, it looks like you have to crank up that little thermomenter thingy on each farm and wait for time to increase your quality.
--Or is that what you meant by "high training"?


Now, all I have to do is figure out how I can put out the best quality car on the market but still wind up with a product loyalty so low that it cancels out my high brand recognition.

[The Rusty Gamer]

Originally posted by Eli
And another problem I noticed is that while my quality for these products is much lower than the city average, thanks to brand and price the overall rating is 10-15 higher than the average and despite the fact that there are no other competitors the best market share I can get is 10-15%. The rest is white.
Why is that? My products are better, overall(and this is what really matters) and still almost no one buys them.

It's not simply a matter of overall rating, sometimes the individual elements are more important. Check and see which are more important for the city. If, for instance, price is very important but you have a high price, it may not matter if you have better quality and brand recognition and an overall better rating, they still won't buy it.

[Eli]

Originally posted by Zkribbler
Thus, it looks like you have to crank up that little thermomenter thingy on each farm and wait for time to increase your quality.
--Or is that what you meant by "high training"?

This is what I meant, but I played for only a year so probably the unit levels never had the time to increase.

Now, all I have to do is figure out how I can put out the best quality car on the market but still wind up with a product loyalty so low that it cancels out my high brand recognition.

I never had luck with cars and motorcycles. Plenty of sales, but still all the shops selling them are in heavy loses.

The Rusty Gamer:

It's not simply a matter of overall rating, sometimes the individual elements are more important. Check and see which are more important for the city. If, for instance, price is very important but you have a high price, it may not matter if you have better quality and brand recognition and an overall better rating, they still won't buy it.

I was sure that overall rating is the "sum" of the 3 other ratings, depending on their importance for each product. At least this is what I understood from the tutorial.
So if the brand, the price and the quality have 33% importance, I can cancel out a low brand with very high quality or very low price.