ZitatIt can happen that you have a shop and have to produce a thing you do not like so much for your shopping value.
Ah, very good point. That's why I didn't want to try toys this round, because I knew some of them would require me to grow cotton early on. I really got sick of cotton last round. lol
What we need is an equation for price determination that takes the amount of over-production into account. That's complicated enough due to the fact that we can't necessarily determine the margin of over-production simply by looking at the SuDe.
The only thing I can think of would be to experiment by buying the same product at different QLs, tweaking the shop price for each until I've found the highest possible selling price for each. Then compare those to try to determine whether adding a modifier to a certain part of the normal equation would work consistently.
But even so, the supply is continuously changing as people drop or take up production of that product. So I think it would take a math genius to figure this one out. My little brain isn't quite up to it.
ZitatI didn't want to move up product levels until I had accumulated decent quality research to justify it.
Keep in mind that researching QL is extremely expensive. A research building costs 1.000.000 to build. And then it costs 500.000 each WU just in standstill, a bit more when a product is being researched. While it's in upgrade, it still costs 125.000 per WU, and each upgrade level raises the maintenance cost as well. So you really need to have a high amount of dependable cash flow coming in, which is easier closer to the end of the round.
RL, on the other hand, requires no special building, and therefore no maintenance costs - just the initial cost to buy that RL.
Bear in mind as well that in order to produce something at a certain QL, you must research the product and all materials it requires to that QL (or buy some of them from someone who can). Otherwise, the product coming out of your factory will only be the average of the materials that went into it, regardless of whatever QL you're capable of producing.
My plan is to concentrate my capital on RL early in the round, and put QL off until later. That will open up more products that aren't already being heavily over-produces, which will in essence give me more to spend on QL at the end. I'll probably use every bit of cash I've saved up - the QL is more important to me than the cash, because it'll help me a great deal in later rounds.
ZitatI have now found an overall total in the same place on the "All" page.
How silly that I saw it on the category pages and not there!
ZitatAnd in a more general sense, any idea on average drops for oversupplied industries like DIY or furniture.
Don't forget that the SuDe can be misleading at times when a product is also used as a material in other things. What may look like it's hugely over-produced may actually be used far more in manufacturing than for sale on its own. Milk is a good example, since it's used in quite a few products that aren't even sold in a grocery store.
ZitatI managed OK by finding someone higher up the quality list of sellers who priced the same as those down below, out of frustration perhaps?
I wasn't so lucky. I bought at a price that I thought would give me a fairly safe cushion for its QL. I'm still tweaking the selling price, but one of the products will only sell at slightly under the price I paid for it. On the bright side, I didn't buy a great deal of either, so I'll just chalk it up as a learning experience.
I haven't found anyplace to see the total number of buildings. But when you click on each building category, the total of that type of building is shown at the top of the list. So it's just a matter of adding those together.
I'll leave the prices question for Dktc or someone else. But at least I can say that I've never had to lower any prices below the norm, even when the product was over 500% on the SuDe.
I did take a chance on the furniture industry, just out of curiosity - it's one I didn't try last round. So far, it looks like I -might- break even or make a tiny amount of profit overall. I'll probably be pulling that one down the minute my supplies are sold. Bleh. 
Zitatat least people except americans (... who wear short-sleeves and slippers, eating an icecream at around 0 degree celcius
Such as my son, who wears nothing but t-shirts in the winter, and longer sleeves in the summer. Go figure.
Well it's a good thing I stopped in at the forum! I decided earlier that I was going to do the very same thing with a furniture shop - I was just building up a bit of capital first. I suspect DIY would very likely be the same way at this point. Last round, I also did textiles. It made good money, but I found it to be rather a pain - all those cotton farms. Maybe I'll just stick to cafes until I have more RL under my belt. Need to do some more thinking.
I had a similar situation with icecream last round. Most of the time, I sold 30 per WU, but now and then the purchases would drop. It didn't seem to last very long, though. Whether that's always the case or not, I couldn't say. But things could pick up again with those products.
Part of the challenge in IT is due to the fact that the market can switch gears so rapidly. The shop sales are at least more predictable. Morgie made an important point there - keeping ourselves flexible allows us to ride with it more easily. Best not to put all our eggs in one basket, I think, when it comes to anything involving purchasing from or selling on the market.
By the way (Morgie's last post) - The terms 'fabrics' and 'materials' are very close and often used interchangeably where textiles are concerned. So I imagine that was just one of those words that translates awkwardly from one language to another.
That's something we could use here - a sticky explaining how the individual scores are figured, a more detailed version than is currently in the manual.
Gee thanks, but... I think I'll pass. 
Here's a question for you - what happens if we have more than the limit of a product in the warehouse? Last round, I was consistently logging on in the morning to see over 512 wheat in my warehouse due to overnight harvesting. I would have thought the excess would be lost in such a case, but it wasn't.
Now, the game doesn't tally up what should have happened since the last WU until we log in. And we know that the game will allow us to buy far over the warehouse limit and then shift some to a different one. So I'm guessing that if I hadn't moved my overflow before the next update hit, I'd have lost it. Is that true?
That all makes sense. When those numbers don't line up, there's generally money being wasted somewhere; even when it's an insignificant difference at a glance, that waste adds up. Right now, my budget is very strict; there's little leeway for varying from the basic plan. But then plot space isn't an issue at this point anyway, so it isn't as though I can't wait for a bit.
Speaking of farms, there is NO milk on the market at all at the moment, darn it. There was tons all of yesterday. If it doesn't change in the next WU, I'll have to start building more cattle farms. Too many of my products rely on it. There are a lot of players on at this time of day, though, so we might see more of it once they begin to trickle out. Some of them may be bulking up on it to last them through the school or work day. It certainly pays to have a flexible plan so we can maneuver as the situation demands.
Now that John's opened the topic of strategy, I'm wondering how soon people start to upgrade their buildings. Last round, I started doing that in my second week, but then I never intended to bother going past RL 6, so that freed my cash for other purposes. Since there are advantages to both, I imagine it differs from one person to another. Perhaps I'm a bit anal about such things, but I'm already itching to start making those production line numbers add up neatly. Of course I'll still hold off for awhile - my money is better spent elsewhere for now.
I'm only beginning to look at those high scores this round myself out of curiosity. So it surprised the heck out of me when I saw that I was high in overall and marketleader. I noticed that Dktc is already high in a few categories - and that did NOT surprise me. lol
In a matter of hours, I dropped from 8 overall to 299. At that time, I shifted production a bit - instead of buying steel, I'm now buying ore and manufacturing that into steel. My Vendor score lowered quite a bit, which was a factor. But since those scores are a measure of comparison against other players, we might see ours drop at times without having made any changes. Some of the other player scores will simply be climbing faster than ours.
As for Marketleader, I had a look at the SuDe and found that I'm producing 100% of one product, so I imagine that's the explanation. I don't expect that to last long - I have my binoculars at hand so I can spot Dktc as he zooms past me on that one. lol
ZitatThanks, both. I must digest that and read the manual very carefully again. It's well written in some ways but has this knack for causing me confusion.
I second both of those thoughts!
ZitatIn fact, you barely need raw material processing either right now. Just factories and shops.
That's exactly right. The bulk of my buildings are factories to utilize materials purchased from the market. The only resource I'm actually producing is milk. Keep in mind, though, that the market can change very quickly. This morning, I was buying steel at much lower a price than I can now, which is why I switched over to buying ore, since that's still an excellent buy. It's much easier to do well in purchasing materials on the market if we can be here periodically throughout the day. We can watch for the best buys and switch production more quickly as the market evolves. And then, being able to buy in smaller chunks means lower storage costs as well.
ZitatBtw, you should probably add your company to your sig so people could figure out who you are. (Kahla too )
Ah, I'm notorious for never bothering with sigs or avatars. I'll fix that here. 
Oh, and John... since you're second-guessing your starting setup, I'll share this with you. Before the new round started, I began setting things up. Due to some distractions, I built something I hadn't intended to. Rather than destroy it and cost myself even more cash, I reset, thinking it wouldn't hurt a thing. Guess what. I lost -all- the QL I'd researched last round. Every bit of it. Dktc pointed out that's mentioned in the FAQ - I must not have absorbed that little tidbit the last time I read it. So don't feel too badly if you think you could have done better - at least you didn't shoot yourself in the foot the way I did! lol
The cafe was the second shop I put in, so I was running it (along with one other shop) for the last three and a half weeks of the round. The harbor never ran out of supplies during that time when I needed to purchase them. And the costs varied only slightly now and then (+ or - 5 was the max, I believe, but I didn't keep records on that). So that pretty much just illustrates what dktc said.
I had three cafes by the end of the second week, I think, and that's the total I kept to the end. I had no trouble stocking enough supplies in the warehouse to keep the shops filled. It became a little trickier when I started making extra of some products to sell on the market - either I had to buy another warehouse to stock more cocoa beans, or lose a little sleep. I chose to lose a little sleep and take a short nap later.
On average, per WU, one cafe sells the following products that use harbor purhases to produce (and this is without upgrading the shop):
14 coffee
14 tea
14 cocoa
15 white coffee
9 chocolate cake
So that's a total of:
29 coffee beans
14 tea bushes
23 cocoa beans
Since I was running 3 cafes, I was able to stock enough harbor goods to produce 5 WUs worth of products without buying another warehouse.
During the day, I'm generally able to log in every couple hours or so for a few minutes, so I purchased enough harbor goods for 2-4 WUs at a time. That way, I saved some storage costs. At night or when I was going out, I bought 5 WUs worth. If I'd needed (or wanted) to, I could have stretched that longer by buying another warehouse.
I haven't done the math to be able to say with any confidence whether it's a good choice for those who can only log in once or twice a day. Certainly the storage costs would be more of a factor. And of course for someone who can't predict when they'll be able to log in next, they'd need to store more at a time in order to ensure they don't run out. But it worked well for me, even when I was too busy to log in often. Agriculture is similar in that produce that is only harvested once a year makes storage fees and extra warehouses more of a factor.
Well it's a good thing I brought the harbor up, because I'd have been astounded if I logged in to find those at triple the cost! I'm glad it's shortlived. lol
AussieInc, believe me when I say that people don't need to be economics gurus in order to play IT. I have absolutely no education in that field, and I'm enjoying the game very much. The manual is altogether too concise, in my opinion, and could also be improved if there were some other topics covered. You're not alone there. Reading the walkthrough, FAQ, and old posts here help a bit. But it's hard to absorb a massive amount of information at one time anyway, so I tend to go back and re-read them later, to see if anything new pops out at me when I do.
I decided to skip agriculture in the beginning, just because it seemed more complicated, and I thought I'd be better off sticking to the very basics until I had a good handle on things. Farms are cheap to build, but it takes quite a few to make enough product to fill a shop for 12 game months.
You may have picked this bit up from the manual, but the RL that dktc is referring to is the Research Level. One good way to see what research level you'll need before you can produce something is by going to the Portal and clicking on Research on the left pane. It'll show you every product and building that's introduced with each level. I've been finding it very handy.
The term "research" is used a great deal here, and it can be a bit confusing at first, because a person might be referring to RL (research level, which gives you more options in products and buildings) or researching QL (quality level, which allows you to sell a particular product at a higher price). And then there are Research Buildings, which allow you to research product QL.
Anyway, I'm very glad to hear that you're making a profit now! It takes awhile to catch on, mainly because the instructions aren't terribly clear. And some of this is just easier to comprehend with use rather than by reading about it. In case I didn't mention it, I'm new here as well. And I still have a LOT to figure out.
You know, John, I think you could be right. I've only raised steel to QL 6 so far, but I just had a look on the portal, and there are quite a few products made from it. Well, there's still time before this round ends... lol
Regarding the prices, I read somewhere that harbor goods cost more at the beginning as well. It didn't say how much higher, but I got the impression that we can probably see a substantial increase there.
dktc - thanks for explaining those terms. I thought they'd be way over my head anyway, but they weren't. lol
ZitatWe do recommend new players to have a variety though, so they can change their mind about what they make.
I'll second that. The shop I started out with seemed like a good idea at the time, but I soon realized that I could do better by ditching it and doing something else. I didn't know that until I'd experimented with some other products. Since we haven't played long enough to try many product lines, there's a lot of gaps in our knowledge. And that means there's a certain amount of guesswork when choosing what to make. Take the production limits, for instance. There's no way to see how many units of X a building will produce until we build one (unless we ask someone, of course). That's only one thing that could cause us to change our plans in midstream. So until we know more, I think it's better to keep our options open.
ZitatIf the above is the case, it might explain why there are almost no high quality items further on. They would be reached too late in the round for the quality to matter, yes?
Another thing is that the really REALLY high QL products limit you as far as buying and selling on the market. If I've researched milk all the way to QL 100 but very few others can use it to manufacture their goods, then I can use it in my own production lines, but I'll find it difficult to sell it to other players. And if I want to buy a material to manufacture my uber-high QL product, that could be anywhere from difficult to impossible.
The QL of a product is the average of the QLs of the materials used to make it. So if I research chocolate cake to QL 100, then I also need to research cocoa beans, milk, and wheat to QL 100. Or I'll have to buy those from someone else. Resarching QL is quite an investment of both time and cash, which is one reason why players would need to be selective in choosing which ones to raise.
ZitatThey won't be there long. They have an unfair (or fair... depending on your own seniority ) advantage on ql. And frankly, most experienced player already have their plans drafted out for the next round, so the relatively new players are the ones that struggle to get their acts together .
I don't consider it unfair, really. On the contrary, it means -I- get to keep some of the progress I've made each round, rather than losing it all every reset, and that's a very good thing! But then, I seem have toddled off into the ether when they were handing out the competitive gene. I couldn't care less how my score looks compared to others - my goal is to keep doing better than before. I'm much more into learning all the ins and outs of a game so I -can- do well, than in actually "winning" it.
One more question. I have more than one research building. The first one is at a standstill; the second is currently researching. If I were to go ahead and assign new research to the first one, is that going to lose the progress the second one has already made? I would think that as long as I only touch the one, it should be alright, but the warning I get when attempting to do so is rather dire.
--
Edit: Never mind. I decided to go ahead and try it. Nothing terrible happened.
I've never taken an economics class, so some of what's been said went straight over my head. Demand-pull inflation and cost-push inflation? Whosy-whatsis? Don't worry, I won't ask for an explanation, dktc - save yourself the headache! My point is that what I'm about to post may be repeating some of it in different words, for all I know. Like you, John, this is my first round and I started it late. So I'm learning the ropes as well. I have no doubt things will look quite a bit different at the beginning of the next one.
Regarding the norm selling price, I don't think there is anything that I sell anywhere near that low, either in shop or market. That surprised me as well. The only exception is milk, which I don't normally sell at all; when I do have to get rid of some, I generally have to price at norm or below in order to move it on the market. As dktc pointed out, the SuDe can be misleading in regard to determining the best shop price - some of those items are also used in the production of other things, which skews the supply side. I read somewhere that the norm price is static - only the high and low prices change, which explains why sometimes the low price is higher than the listed norm.
I've seen posts saying that buying from the market is an important part of the game. But for any product or material that I could use, the prices have been far too high to make it worthwhile. I have to assume, as you do, that it's partly because we came in late. I also suspect that there are more reasonably priced items moving through the market too quickly for you and I to see them. My own batches often sell within minutes of landing on the market. I had three of them sell out yesterday in the time it took me to refresh a page. I kid you not.
Some people, of course, buy with the intention of reselling. Others have dumped buildings producing lower-level things in favor of high-profit items, and buy to to pad their shops in order to keep that shopping value high (dktc also pointed that one out the other day). I've also read that sometimes players use the market as temporary storage of a product, and they'll price it sky-high in order to keep it from selling, which explains a bit of the market oddity we sometimes see.
On a different note, take a look at cotton. The SuDe shows that supply = demand. From that, I would expect to get a decent price for it. But the price I get when I do manage to have extra is astoundingly high, considering how little it costs to produce. But products made from it sell for quite a lot. Couple that with the fact that farms don't produce a great deal of it even at top upgrade level, and I imagine that's why people are willing to pay that much more for it.
I think the 100 building limit, coupled with upgrade limits, gives the game an interesting dynamic. Personally, I didn't expect to reach that ceiling anywhere near as quickly as I did. Once we reach a certain stage, it becomes a real challenge to keep increasing our profits.
How others play the game affects our own game very strongly. I think that learning what to expect at various stages in the round will be an important key. It has to be somewhat predictable; people develop methods that work best for them and tend to stick to those until they discover a way to improve upon them.
You don't need to purchase any warehouses - one of each is supplied to you right at the start. Click on "Warehouse" on the left pane in the game and that will take you to see your Raw Materials Warehouse and your Export Warehouse. You can click on the link for Product Warehouse there. Everything you produce will end up in one of them automatically, according to the option you chose for each building.
The only time you need to purchase more would be farther into the game when you're producing (or buying) more than you can store in your original ones. So save yourself that money - don't buy them until you get to a point where you actually need more.
I had a rough start myself and had to reset a time or two due to silly mistakes, so don't feel too badly. Once you've gotten a handle on the basics, I think you'll really enjoy this game.
There's only a few days left in this round, and then the game will begin a new one. So just use this time to get a feel for how things work. That will help when you begin the next one! 
John, I am so glad to see someone other than myself asking questions here - sometimes I wonder if I'm the only English-speaking newbie on the game. lol
I think John is probably talking about the sort that gleans and records information from the game (which I believe would be legal), rather than something that would perform actions on the game (such as automatic purchasing which is obviously illegal). If my spreadsheet program had that capability, you can bet I'd want to write some - assuming I'm right and that sort of thing IS considered legal.
It would be very useful for things such as recognizing patterns in price changes in the market. For instance, not all seasonal products are as obvious as summer and winter clothing to those who've never ventured into those lines. Being able to recognize those would help to determine the best time to sell materials required for them. If I know that milk sells better in the summer and meat sells better in the winter, then I might decide to switch what my cattle farms are producing accordingly, in order to profit best from selling the various materials on the market. (I have no idea whether those are actually seasonal or not - just pulling a couple out of the air for purposes of example.) I'm sure there are other ways (and better ones, I'm sure) in which such a program would be useful, but I haven't syphoned quite enough coffee into myself yet this morning to come up with any.
John, as dktc said, the info in the Researching QL thread might be helpful - some pricing irregularity is discussed there. I encourage you to ask here on the forum if it still leaves you wondering about some things. I'm learning a great deal that way myself. =)
Oh! Alright, thanks.
