Currently I'm into micromanaging my factories

[kristalshards]

Hey there, after trying almost all the countries and following more or less a historical path, I tend to get bored of the wars and conquering and try a more neat diplomaticand economic control of the world. I understand the basics of the Industry and how it works, but I would like to build factories considering on what's going on in the market. In other words, satisfy my population's needs, my sphered countries and then export to the other countries what's left (if that's how it works). I know I probably won't be able to dictate the world economy as I need to control a lot of medium/minor states for resources, especially rare resources, but it would be nice to create my own brand of goods made by my country, you know?

Anyway, back to my question. How can I read through the info and see what's needed and what's not needed at a certain point (and obviously make profit). Also, consider that we aren't a GP so resources could be in less than expected quantity and we have to use the Resources we produce in our own country.

Let me give you an example. Let's say we play as Sweden. So Sweden as far as I know have some coal. Alright, considering the bonus you can get if you build a factory that uses coal, we should prioritize that. So we've got Cement Factory, Glass Factory among the options. Then we should look at some info to see which goods are needed more and are more profitable. Let's say Glass. So we build Glass factory in one region with Coal.
Ok good, now we look at the info and we see that Wine is demanded by the Swedes, so we don't have Grain (not sure if Sweden do have Grain or not, let's just pretend they don't), but we have Glass needed for the factory bonus. So we'll build a Liquor factory in the same province as Glass factory to get the bonus and we have a chain now. Coal -> Glass -> Liquor.

 

[Shinkuro Yukinari]

Booze Booze Boooooooooze!

 

[ShadeThorn]

I think in a laissez faire economy the capitalists operate like this by default. another thing I consider when building factories is how much of the raw goods is being produced by my country. you don't want to open that glass factory only to find that your country produces only 1/3 of the coal it needs.

 

[Kovax]

I think in a laissez faire economy the capitalists SHOULD operate like this by default.

Fixed if for you.

In the game as it stands now, the capitalists will sometimes build whatever is making a short-term profit, no matter how horrible the long-term returns may be. Other times, they'll build a factory identical to the two or three others that have been losing money constantly for the last several months due to supply drastically exceeding demand. I've seen my Laissez Faire capitalists build 3 new Ammunition factories when there are already 3 of them in the red, and demand is less than 50% of supply. Either it's completely random, or else the mechanism is seriously broken.

Normally, I spend the first couple of years with government control over the economy, if possible, to set up a solid foundation (cement, lumber, glass, cloth) and a few civilian necessities, and put a healthy set of factories into the production queue before switching to a government that supports laissez faire, which then tends to do well for a few years before needing a change of government and manual adjustment again. In my last game, I set everything up, got a healthy economy up and running with everything in the black, and turned it over to the capitalists.....who manage to screw it up and close more than 50% of my factories within a year (first they shut down the lumber mills and glass factories, and then the furniture factories and liquor distilleries couldn't get the needed resources). The result was massive unemployment, financial collapse leading to higher taxes and tarrifs, and a drastic drop in population due to the unemployed workers emigrating to Venezuela and Mexico. Random BS is not my idea of how to run an economy.

 

[kristalshards]

Fixed if for you.

In the game as it stands now, the capitalists will sometimes build whatever is making a short-term profit, no matter how horrible the long-term returns may be. Other times, they'll build a factory identical to the two or three others that have been losing money constantly for the last several months due to supply drastically exceeding demand. I've seen my Laissez Faire capitalists build 3 new Ammunition factories when there are already 3 of them in the red, and demand is less than 50% of supply. Either it's completely random, or else the mechanism is seriously broken.

Normally, I spend the first couple of years with government control over the economy, if possible, to set up a solid foundation (cement, lumber, glass, cloth) and a few civilian necessities, and put a healthy set of factories into the production queue before switching to a government that supports laissez faire, which then tends to do well for a few years before needing a change of government and manual adjustment again. In my last game, I set everything up, got a healthy economy up and running with everything in the black, and turned it over to the capitalists.....who manage to screw it up and close more than 50% of my factories within a year (first they shut down the lumber mills and glass factories, and then the furniture factories and liquor distilleries couldn't get the needed resources). The result was massive unemployment, financial collapse leading to higher taxes and tarrifs, and a drastic drop in population due to the unemployed workers emigrating to Venezuela and Mexico. Random BS is not my idea of how to run an economy.

I could build up a few profitable factories just because I heard some players say they are profitable long-term but I would be missing the point here as I want to know why those factories are profitable and what makes a factory profitable. I want to have a deeper understanding of how Industry works in this game, not just simply follow a few steps to get it kicking. My final goal is to fulfil the needs of my own country with products made by our own factories (I know it's probably unlikely to provide every good unless you control all sorts of raw materials needed) and then provide a good amount of goods for export.

 

[ShadeThorn]

my capitalists usually build what i want in a laissez faire economy. if they aren't building Building, I check to see if they are getting their luxury needs. if luxury needs aren't bein met, i adjust the tariffs to see if we can get them in the country. if not, I will steer for interventionism.

in an interventionist economy, i will shut down unprofitable factories to create unemployment then change national focus to a particular industry. if they have access to the goods, they should start building a factory of that type within months.


The counter to your capitalists building for short term gain is making sure that state has a variety of factories to begin with. that way people can find jobs while the capitalists transition. do this and the hit to profit and production will be slight.

if you click the production tab you can see how much goods your country is making and how much is being used by your pops. the tooltip should also tell you how much is being produced world wide and how much is being sold. if there are surplus goods then you could build your factory cheaper.

also, if you mouseover the daily profits for your factory, you should see how much money you are spending on input materials.


If i see where I am spending too much on an input material I will check if there is any farm tech I could improve, if not, I will make war for it, if not, check if poor adminisration is impairing collection on an RGO; If I can't do anything about it within a year, I will close the factory.

as long as you are not wasting money buying all your raw material overseas and have a good infrastructure, you will make profit.

Let me give you an example. Let's say we play as Sweden. So Sweden as far as I know have some coal. Alright, considering the bonus you can get if you build a factory that uses coal, we should prioritize that. So we've got Cement Factory, Glass Factory among the options. Then we should look at some info to see which goods are needed more and are more profitable. Let's say Glass. So we build Glass factory in one region with Coal.
Ok good, now we look at the info and we see that Wine is demanded by the Swedes, so we don't have Grain (not sure if Sweden do have Grain or not, let's just pretend they don't), but we have Glass needed for the factory bonus. So we'll build a Liquor factory in the same province as Glass factory to get the bonus and we have a chain now. Coal -> Glass -> Liquor.

another tip is to close a less profitable factory for less profitable one.
say it is 10 years later glass 1, wine 1, and cement 2 factory and all are profitable. glass makes $+2, wine makes +12, cement makes + 1.

In this situation I would expand the wine and close the cement so I can get those 2000 craftsmen making real money.

Another way to predict profitability is just be aware of techs and factories that have a prereq year. if the tech is old, you know the associated good will have more producers; even the most backwater unciv will make some cement and the last of the artisans can make it pretty easily, so cement doesn't retain it's value for long.
but if you got the tech first, e.g Behaviorism in 1900. you'll the be the first guy with radio. in anticipation of this I would have secured rubber for my nation, either by colonization or conquest and by the time I finish my first radio factory others would have just discovered it and are thus in need. If my nation can produce enough radios, it may discourage their capitalists from investing into it entirely or not as much.

you could invade competitors. if done right, you get profitable state and rebels spawning in his country which ruins his production.

 

[kristalshards]

Alright so recently I've got a little bit better understanding of the Victoria 2 economy even though there are several concepts I'm still confused with. Let's take a look at this Trade screenshot (took it from somewhere off the forum, credits to them) and talk try and tackle things down.

Ok so Top 5 producers not so important unless the RGO is rare and you're a GP looking to conquer/sphere the region/country that produces that good. Alternatively we've got the RGO map tool that shows us the provinces that produces a specific type of RGO so you can use that to check what to conquer/sphere. Next pop-up, In high demand/Not in high demand, pretty much explanatory, even though I would like to know how you can increase/decrease the demand for a certain good, not only globally but also on the local markets.

Now, if we click a good icon, it will show us a few details about it like in the right panel, price, needs, stockpile adjustment, etc. Initially I was confused when I looked through this, but I made some correlations. Ok, number 12 (Needs for Gov, Factories & POP) is the same as number 7. Number 13 (Market Activity) are the goods exported/imported by your country (even though I am not sure if these are goods exported to World Market or just to your sphere). Number 14 is Stockpile, I am not sure if we can influence it so I ignore it. Number 15 is Common Market, this are the goods of your country & its sphere altogether but I am not sure what to look for in here when I am building a factory.

What I also noticed is that if we click on Details in the above panel, we'll get this.

B in here is the same as number 8 in the above screenshot, but I thought C should be the same number 7 instead it's a different number. After some research, I understand that these are different because need in number 7 is the total demand but that doesn't mean the good will be bought in the same quantity as some people might not have enough money etc. Is it right or is it because of another reason?

 

[Kovax]

In my opinion, the most useful part of the display is the "In High Demand / Not In High Demand" tooltip, which tells me how much of the product the market demands in comparison to how much is being produced. The difference will affect price. As for your question about how you can influence Demand, that's largely determined by Consciousness, where highly conscious Pops want more goods. You can easily change taxes, tariffs, or other sliders to affect how much they can afford, but demand is harder to affect, and the more they want, the harder it is to keep them happy. As global Consciousness increases steadily throughout the game, consumer demand will rise dramatically, and the desire for more and more goods will require more factories to meet it. Your middle class Pops will demand more goods than the poor, and your wealthy class will want even more, so as those groups grow via promotions, demand for higher volumes of additional products will rise.

Basically, by laying down a foundation of cement, glass, cloth, steel, lumber, and eventually machine parts, you've at least got a secure supply of the intermediate materials that the later end product factories will require. Then you want a few of the end product factories to supply the finished goods to the market, which will boost the need for those intermediate products. Booze may sell better than hotcakes after the first few years, but if you can't get the glass bottles, your liquor factory won't do well. Unless you have access to a steady supply of cut lumber, furniture or paper factories won't be very profitable. There's a method to the madness (as well as some madness to the method). Note that certain military goods may sell extremely well during wars, but fail or require subsidies during peacetime. Note too that subsidizing an industry may keep it from closing, but if it's losing money, the workers and capitalists are paid shares of the profits, and there are no profits, so they're working for free, and NOT happy about it.

 

[SuiciSpai]

B in here is the same as number 8 in the above screenshot, but I thought C should be the same number 7 instead it's a different number. After some research, I understand that these are different because need in number 7 is the total demand but that doesn't mean the good will be bought in the same quantity as some people might not have enough money etc. Is it right or is it because of another reason?

That and because you are not counting artisans (yes, they are on the "may list", but that menu view does not split what is doing every artisan so they all throw on that category, and probably there are some of them using the resource)

 

[luitzen]

Number 14 is Stockpile, I am not sure if we can influence it so I ignore it.

This is actually one of the more important ones. All in all, you will not be able to influence the world economy much as it is largely influenced by the way global demand and supply develop. What is important is what factories you build at which time, how you transfer control of the economy from the state to capitalists and how you make sure that valuable late game technologies are utilized. For this reason it's not so important to micromanage factories, where they are built and which ones you build (though if you want some idea, try to build factories for goods that are still mass produced by artisans).

The stockpile can be controlled by unchecking the "Automate" tick box on an individual goods' panel, deciding whether you want to buy or sell, and deciding what the minimum or maximum stockpile is that you want to maintain. Building a stockpile of some strategic goods can be extremely valuable. Example: you decide to build 300 infantry as the Chinese empire. For each new infantry the required goods will be purchased from the worldmarket (when possible) and construction of the unit starts, all in a sequential order before the goods for the next unit are being purchased. This causes such a delay that it might take several years up to even a decade for all your units to be build. Now if you set a stockpile for the required goods, goods will be taken straight from the stockpile when you build troops while your country tries to keep stockpile levels up (which can be really quick, depending on the good). This way construction of units will start almost immediately (unless they're queued) and construction of all units may complete in as little as 4 months. This is also true for the construction of factories, railroads and provincial buildings. This mechanic is also important when trying to build new military units shortly after they have been unlocked. In the case of, for example, guards, Armor, or Airplanes, the required goods might be quite rare in the beginning.
Building up a stockpile will have several beneficial effects: there will be goods in the stockpile and available when needed, stockpiling dramatically increases demand when set to maximum, increased demand leads to higher prices for these goods such that other countries will produce more goods for you while countries that also need these goods will be unable to afford those goods such that you can buy up a larger share of the world market.

 

[Kovax]

Gradually edging up your stockpile in advance for a commodity that you're going to need prevents the sudden spike in demand which occurs if you raise the maximum too quickly, or if you start producing the units immediately. If you've got a steady supply already, and the materials are being produced in excess, then it's irrelevant.

 

[KevinG]

I could build up a few profitable factories just because I heard some players say they are profitable long-term but I would be missing the point here as I want to know why those factories are profitable and what makes a factory profitable. I want to have a deeper understanding of how Industry works in this game, not just simply follow a few steps to get it kicking. My final goal is to fulfil the needs of my own country with products made by our own factories (I know it's probably unlikely to provide every good unless you control all sorts of raw materials needed) and then provide a good amount of goods for export.

Look at POP needs to see which factories you should be building. The reason why liquor is consistently the most profitable product is because all poor POPs need twice as much booze as any other factory good to satisfy their everyday needs. So POPs will spend twice as much on booze than on clothing for example.

This is also why some industrial goods like steel/lumber go through cycles of profits/bankrupty. POPs don't need lumber/steel and demand by POPs dwarfs demand by government. So steel is only profitable when other countries (usually your own country isn't big enough to influence WM demand unless you're a major) are building railroads/factories and completely worthless when they aren't.