Demand and supply is confusing to me, but also to capitalists?

[Scared Bunny]

Hi,

It's really confusing that demand is the sum of all needs even if the can't afford it. To give an example: luxury furniture is in real high demand as you and the rest of the world start getting more capitalists, but supply stays low and the price goes up. You'd think it would be a good idea to open up a luxury furniture factory, and I guess that's what one of my capitalists thought, too. Only thing is, once the factory was open almost all the luxury furniture it made was lost, since apparently almost no one could afford the furniture.

As I see it, there is no real way of knowing whether a factory will be able to sell its product. High world demand can be easily spotted, the income of the world's upper class not so much, only your own.

 

[Darkrenown]

You should be able to see it on the trade screen, if demand > supply yet the price is static/falling then you know pops can't afford it.

 

[Scared Bunny]

I see. I thought the price was determined by supply and demand alone, not the amount actually consumed? In that case something else must be going wrong with my luxury factory.

 

[Hardcore_gamer]

I am a lot of more annoyed about my capitalists creating factories that make no sense.

Capitalist: It appears the economy is crap, do you know that the people need? A whine factory! People are just bound to spend all of their valuable money on that!

3 months later......

Capitalist: WHYYYYYYYYYYYY?????????

This is made even more annoying since these capitalists also cost people their jobs with their stupidity and thus harm the players efforts. The capitalists really need better AI I think.

 

[Scared Bunny]

Indeed they do. As another example. One of my factories (the cloth factory in American New England) kept being reopened by the local capitalist. Once it had opened it didn't take long for the factory to close again.

When a capitalist decides on building/reopening/expanding a factory he should make the decision based on predicted profits. Something that could perhaps be simulated. Like a "ghost" factory that runs for two weeks and is only actually built if it makes a profit.