Newbie Questions

Discussion about Production and Resources

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Lightbringer
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Post by Lightbringer »

Hmmm... The exports figures are for all commodities and not just the one item? Check the price that "autoprice" has set for those commodities. Sometimes a specific order like "export surplus" (Edit: usually, your minister will export surplus stock without a direct order) will confuse the AI into selling at a loss. So you may have sold $1 million dollars of coal (or whatever), except it cost you $1.1 million to produce it. The way the budgeted daily trade is slowly creeping up looks like it is set on annual. On that setting, the computer averages what it thinks you will end up with over a one year period at current rates.

More importantly, pay attention to your actual "cash in hand" over what the budget says is going on. If your actual cash went up by $29 million on turn five, then the $3.93 million shortfall is erroneous. The budget functions have always been a bit screwy, they seem to add in data that we as players can't pin down. They are not useless, just remember to trust what you can see over what you can't. :P

-Light

P.S. Perhaps Tkobo will chime in. He is much more intense on econ play than I am. I am really solid on the basics, but only so I can afford to crush my enemies, see them driven before me, and to hear the lamentation of the women. ;)
"Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.” -Winston Churchill
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tkobo
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Post by tkobo »

plugger wrote:Goodaye,

Seeing as you don't mind questions and you're all being extremely helpful, I'll throw another one out.

I can't figure out the trade balance calculations. I've read the dev's post on it above but it doesn't translate to what I'm seeing onscreen. I ran a simple test by putting everything to manual control at the start. I then set four different commodities that where producing a surplus to sell on the export market (ticked 'autoprice' and 'export surplus'. Set surplus to sell to 100% in all cases).

This is what happened.

Image

I'm slowly and surely going broke because the Budgeted Daily Trade (which I assume is some kind of estimate based on past results) is translating directly into an ever increasing Trade Deficit. This is despite the fact that I'm actually making a lot of money exporting (the sales are erratic but they add up to a lot).

My postiive terms of trade aren't translating to the bottom line and instead the airy fairy budgeted daily trade figure is coming straight out of my treasury.

What's going on?

Cheers,
Plugger
You wont lose money based on info you show in your report thru trade.The reason for this is that the three catagories your looking at dont affect the balance sheet at all.
They are simply projections.

Budgeted daily trade is a projection that the computer makes based on set principles many of which often dont apply.
For instance IF you are having a shortage of some item, the budgeted daily trade figure will include your purchase of said item EVEN IF YOU DONT BUY IT .
Thereby showing an expense that doesnt actually exist.

In short the budgeted daily trade figure is about as accurate as a politicains campaign, an Enron balance sheet from the year 2000,etc...

Now to compound things , the two other catagories your looking at trade surplus and trade deficit are just breakdowns for the budgeted daily trade
and as such are worthless also.

Now, the one figure on that list that means anything,in fact everything, is the Last Days trade figure, which is the sum of the last days imports and last days export.
This is a TRUE figure that defines ACTUAL revenue due to trade.

Now as to whether or not you made a profit on what you sell, or a loss, thats not really covered any single spot.
BUT thats a whole different issue.

By selling things ,exporting, you make income.-Last days exports
By importing things you make expense.- last days imports

By exporting things above their cost, you make profit -not shown as such anywhere
By exporting things below their cost you make loss- again not shown as such anywhere -AND very important,its shown as income becuase it is.Notice i didnt say profit.I said income.

By importing things you create expense- shown in last days imports AND in last days trade.
By importing things at a cost below your own cost to produce them, you make an expense that saves you money.- again shown no where.

etc....

Its easy to confuse one of those action groups with others, but it will add much confusion if you do.

To put it simply ,ignore the budgeted daily trade figure and the two figures that are the breakdown for it (Trade surplus and trade deficit).
They have NO effect on your actual financial status.
This post approved by Tkobo:Official Rabble Rouser of the United Yahoos
Chuckle TM
plugger
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Post by plugger »

Goodaye,

O.K, I've run some more tests and have confirmed what you've both told me. Budgeted Daily trade, Trade surplus and Trade Deficit are all pretty hooky. The actual trade balance does impact on my bottom line as you've stated. I think I've finally got it all sorted now.

I'd have to say that while I really enjoy the depth and design of the game, it's not easy to get to grips with how it all works. I'm scratching my head over why it's been made that difficult. Stuff like your ongoing trade balance should simply show up as actual numbers in your Trade Surplus and Deficit rather than a bunch of funny estimates masquerading as real results.

I've only been playing around with the demo as I'm reluctant to buy the old version when the new one is so close. I get the distinct impression that with SR2010 it's heavily orientated to a stomp or be stomped military focus and that - from what I've read - the new version is designed to allow more flexibility in your approach. Is this a fair comment?

Cheers, (and thanks again)
Plugger
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Lightbringer
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Post by Lightbringer »

Plugger-

Yes, I would probably call that a fair comment. 2010 had some built in impetus towards war. Belli was programmed to be slanted towards the human player, meaning you were likely to get declared upon sooner or later. In the Goat's defense, you can set the AI so that it is much less aggressive, and, with restraint on your military growth, play the other game aspects much more freely. I have always gotten the feeling that they were not able to squeeze all they wanted along the diplomatic lines in, and felt that they had better ensure that the game stressed it's military side.

Be sure that reading these forums will give you an in depth comparison of the two games as 2020 gets explored. :)

-Light
"Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.” -Winston Churchill
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