Fabric not getting sold yet I'm importing it???

[cetvrtak]

I have a Fabric factory in Varna that has a 5 units output, of which 4 are not being sold. In Istanbul I have a Clothes factory that requires 26 units of fabric.

I don't understand, how come the Varna fabric isn't sold to this factory in Istanbul? Instead, I see in Market Activity a negative number next to Fabric, indicating that I'm importing it.

 

[Mohreb]

Do you have negative tariffs, aka subventions (so it's cheaper to buy from world market then from inside)?
It would be strange still but it could explain...

 

[LlamasUnite]

The way that markets in Viccy work, your factories and pops will always buy from your internal market first before importing things, no matter what your tariffs are. HOWEVER, your internal market is a little complex, and doesn't mean just your country. As a Great Power, nations in your sphere also have parts of their market linked with yours, so if you're playing the Ottomans for example and you have Egypt in your sphere, goods (like Fabric) produced in Egypt will be sold on your internal markets and may out-compete your factories.
This is usually only a major problem early in the game when your factories have low efficiency and high production costs and artisans in non-westernised countries are still competitive.

Might not be the cause in this case but hopefully it helps!

 

[cetvrtak]

The way that markets in Viccy work, your factories and pops will always buy from your internal market first before importing things, no matter what your tariffs are. HOWEVER, your internal market is a little complex, and doesn't mean just your country. As a Great Power, nations in your sphere also have parts of their market linked with yours, so if you're playing the Ottomans for example and you have Egypt in your sphere, goods (like Fabric) produced in Egypt will be sold on your internal markets and may out-compete your factories.
This is usually only a major problem early in the game when your factories have low efficiency and high production costs and artisans in non-westernised countries are still competitive.

Might not be the cause in this case but hopefully it helps!

Would it show up in Market Activity as imports if I'm importing from a sphereling? If I understood it correctly, spherelings belong to the Common Market.

 

[Kovax]

Would it show up in Market Activity as imports if I'm importing from a sphereling? If I understood it correctly, spherelings belong to the Common Market.

Yes, anything purchased from outside your own national borders will be considered "importing", regardless of whether the source is in your sphere or not. Basically, you're competing within your own sphere first, and somebody within your sphere is undercutting your own producers. Whatever excess supply or demand isn't satisfied by your sphere's internal market will then go to the Global Market, and have to compete against literally everyone.

 

[cetvrtak]

Yes, anything purchased from outside your own national borders will be considered "importing", regardless of whether the source is in your sphere or not. Basically, you're competing within your own sphere first, and somebody within your sphere is undercutting your own producers. Whatever excess supply or demand isn't satisfied by your sphere's internal market will then go to the Global Market, and have to compete against literally everyone.

Here's another puzzle for everyone.

So, pops need 14.05, but can get only 8.666, making it a -5.384 shortage.

Meanwhile, the factory is losing money because it produces an excess of 3.216 units that it can't sell.

A lose-lose situation.

If there is any logic behind this, it would help a lot in understanding how the industry works.

 

[WeissRaben]

Here's another puzzle for everyone.

View attachment 521788 View attachment 521789 View attachment 521791

So, pops need 14.05, but can get only 8.666, making it a -5.384 shortage.

Meanwhile, the factory is losing money because it produces an excess of 3.216 units that it can't sell.

A lose-lose situation.

If there is any logic behind this, it would help a lot in understanding how the industry works.

The first thing that comes to mind is "they can't afford them".

 

[cetvrtak]

The first thing that comes to mind is "they can't afford them".

Yes, it occurred to me too. So, I ran a test. I edited the save file to max the railroads (from 36% to 96%) to boost the factory throughput, and they were able to buy 13.666. I'm betting they would have been able to buy all the 14.05 they needed, if I added some more boosters to the factory output.

 

[Kovax]

The system definitely gets wonky, and temporary shortages can wreck your economy. At this point in my current campaign, I've got ALL of my fabric factories producing zero output because they haven't been able to buy cotton for over a month, but I'm the #2 GP, so only the UK has priority over me, and I even own a piece of Egypt that produces cotton. Meanwhile, my clothing producers and single clipper factory can't get cloth, so zero output from them as well, and the Luxury clothing company requires clothing that my common clothing companies aren't making (and there's not enough silk on the market either). I've got provinces producing timber, but my lumber company is also getting zero input, and producing no output. If I were using Laissez-faire, half of my country's economy would shut down.

 

[cetvrtak]

The system definitely gets wonky, and temporary shortages can wreck your economy. At this point in my current campaign, I've got ALL of my fabric factories producing zero output because they haven't been able to buy cotton for over a month, but I'm the #2 GP, so only the UK has priority over me, and I even own a piece of Egypt that produces cotton. Meanwhile, my clothing producers and single clipper factory can't get cloth, so zero output from them as well, and the Luxury clothing company requires clothing that my common clothing companies aren't making (and there's not enough silk on the market either). I've got provinces producing timber, but my lumber company is also getting zero input, and producing no output. If I were using Laissez-faire, half of my country's economy would shut down.

After spending two days thinking about those poor craftsmen who can't sell their goods and wood chopping labourers who can't satisfy their everyday needs, I decided to let the whole thing go! Obviously, there are too many factors in play, most of which are not under player's control (especially when playing a 23-ranked country).

If I was as young as I was when I started playing EU3, I'd probably continue trying to crack this one like I managed to crack the EU. Since I'm not, I'll leave it to the invisible hand of market to mold the country's destiny.

 

[deanwebb]

Beverages? What mod are you using? I usually have "Liquor" by that image.

 

[LlamasUnite]

Yes, it occurred to me too. So, I ran a test. I edited the save file to max the railroads (from 36% to 96%) to boost the factory throughput, and they were able to buy 13.666. I'm betting they would have been able to buy all the 14.05 they needed, if I added some more boosters to the factory output.

The only problem with boosting factory output through railroads is that railroads also boost RGO production, so apart from making far more raw resources available all of your farmers and labourers should have had a slight income boost as well, so that might explain part of the increased demand.

If you want to do a cleaner test you could try boosting Factory Throughput, since that wouldn't affect most of your pops, but even that will still have ripple effects.

I'll leave it to the invisible hand of market to mold the country's destiny.

That might be a good idea, and it's the way I play But if you really want to get into the nitty gritty of how markets work (or sometimes don't) you might find this interesting.

 

[Ruck]

Victoria II´s economy works like it is designed. The here described problem (like already said in the thread) is that your pops can simply not afford your goods. The UI will only show you that they need for example 14t of liquer (beverages in your mod), but the UI will not show you that your pops can only afford f.e. 7t. of liquer. Most of the "I dont understand Victorias economy" problems are that the UI is doing an very suboptimal work in showing us what is really happening.

You could try to lower the taxes on your poor pops and also activate social reforms like minimum wages to improve the money your poor pops have. Also you should have at least some capitalists in every state where you have factories ( support up to 0.2%, that is enough for the start, they will raise their number then from alone). Capitalists gets uneblievable rich from owning factories and this provides a good chunk of healthy demand in your own country and boosts your economy. I call it "healthy demand" because capitalists can actually afford to buy nearly all the things they demand (which your poor pops most of the time can not, and capitalists, even when on lower numbers demand a lot more goods "per 1 pop". Also you will indirectly loose money (possible tax and capitalists invest money) if the state has absolute no capitalists, because only they can get the sureplus money a factory is making (workers only get a fixed % as wage, and every sureplus money is either lost or goes to the capitalists pocket.

A huge design problem in Victoria IIs economy is that there´s only one world market which means only one price world wide for the products. This can and will lead to situations where your economy is providing f.e. 50t of liquer, your pops need 80t of liquer, but they can afford only 20t of liquer, because every other country on the world is producing too less liquer, so that the price on liquer is raising since years and your own pops can not afford the liquer produced in your own country, although you have tons of it.

If we ever get Victoria III it must have a local market price, where if you produce a lot of something, the price of this good is going down in your own country, although the price could be raising on the world market, because the other countries are not producing enough. Also an option to simply dictate a price in your own country would be nice, even more nice for communist countries, but also capitalist countries did this from time to time.

Even better would be to have the prices be calculated per factory instead of per market or country. Then we could have f.e. a factory in Silesia producing steal a lot cheaper then a factory in Hanover, because theres no iron rgo in Hanover, which mean higher transportation costs for the factory in Hanover. This could lead to realistic economy situations where factories will be build from capitalists exactly where the capitalists can make the most money out of it.

 

[Guedes]

A huge design problem in Victoria IIs economy is that there´s only one world market which means only one price world wide for the products. This can and will lead to situations where your economy is providing f.e. 50t of liquer, your pops need 80t of liquer, but they can afford only 20t of liquer, because every other country on the world is producing too less liquer, so that the price on liquer is raising since years and your own pops can not afford the liquer produced in your own country, although you have tons of it.

If we ever get Victoria III it must have a local market price, where if you produce a lot of something, the price of this good is going down in your own country, although the price could be raising on the world market, because the other countries are not producing enough. Also an option to simply dictate a price in your own country would be nice, even more nice for communist countries, but also capitalist countries did this from time to time.

What?! The prices being decided on world market is spot on at vicky economy.

I live in Brazil. Here we have people dying of hunger on the streets. Yet, Brazil is the biggest food supplier of the world, also the biggest exporter.... the producers here prefer to sell for the chinese for triple the price instead to the poor locals. Can you blame them? Capitalism works that way; you wont sell for half the price just because the buyer lives on your neighbohood if you can sell for double to the guy that lives in the next city.

Also, there already exists factory eficiency on vic, even if indirectly through rgo's bonus, tech and more clerks due to higher literacy. It could be better, yes, but it is there.

I agree that transportation costs should exist though.

 

[Kovax]

What?! The prices being decided on world market is spot on at vicky economy.

I live in Brazil. Here we have people dying of hunger on the streets. Yet, Brazil is the biggest food supplier of the world, also the biggest exporter.... the producers here prefer to sell for the chinese for triple the price instead to the poor locals. Can you blame them? Capitalism works that way; you wont sell for half the price just because the buyer lives on your neighbohood if you can sell for double to the guy that lives in the next city.

That may be realistic for raw material prices, but the factories selling intermediate or finished goods to those same foreign customers CAN afford to buy the input goods at the higher prices, because their higher output earnings will more than cover it. Victoria 2 doesn't allow that to happen, however.

 

[Guedes]

That may be realistic for raw material prices, but the factories selling intermediate or finished goods to those same foreign customers CAN afford to buy the input goods at the higher prices, because their higher output earnings will more than cover it. Victoria 2 doesn't allow that to happen, however.

It doesnt allow it only if theres nothing left at the buying order ,in which case the good is in high demmand and prices will rise. You can prevent factories importing inputs through high tariffs too.

Buying order works the same as selling; first internal market/sphere than world market. If you cant sell all your goods internally because people cant afford it, you sell it abroad.

Vicky economic model regarding supply ,demmand and prices is basic, simple ,yet spot on. Its almost like a basic economy class.

The main problems are regarding things like shortage of money and raw material supply late game which are more associated with the way the AI (cant)handle their economy than the model de facto, although it could be way better (it always can).

 

[Ruck]

What?! The prices being decided on world market is spot on at vicky economy.

I live in Brazil. Here we have people dying of hunger on the streets. Yet, Brazil is the biggest food supplier of the world, also the biggest exporter.... the producers here prefer to sell for the chinese for triple the price instead to the poor locals. Can you blame them? Capitalism works that way; you wont sell for half the price just because the buyer lives on your neighbohood if you can sell for double to the guy that lives in the next city.

Also, there already exists factory eficiency on vic, even if indirectly through rgo's bonus, tech and more clerks due to higher literacy. It could be better, yes, but it is there.

I agree that transportation costs should exist though.

Your example only works because there´s a buyer (Modern China) on the world market who can afford to buy that brasilian food for that higher price. If there´s no one who can afford the price, than your brasilian food companies would sell locally for the lower price instead of not selling at all, but of course only as long as this is still making a profit, if not the company would need to shrink.

This would be pretty simple to make in Victoria III, where the companies will always sell on the market where the price is higher, but only as long as there is someone who can pay it, if no one can pay the world market price then it should be sold on the local market for the lower price. Or sell what is sellable on the market with the higher price and the rest on the market with the lower price as long as it makes profit. This would be close to what a lot of companies nowadays are doing, selling the same product for two different price classes under different names.

Also in Victorias timeline nearly all major power had extreme high tarrifs to protect their own economy, as they tried to be as autark as only possible. In your example an Victoria (civilized) China food company could not buy brasilian grain and still be profitable, because of the high tarrifs. And of course the transportations costs were immense higher in Victorian times than nowadays.

Cheap global transportation costs are an major player in modern global economy (and also an major C02 producer....)

 

[Guedes]

Your example only works because there´s a buyer (Modern China) on the world market who can afford to buy that brasilian food for that higher price. If there´s no one who can afford the price, than your brasilian food companies would sell locally for the lower price instead of not selling at all, but of course only as long as this is still making a profit, if not the company would need to shrink.

This would be pretty simple to make in Victoria III, where the companies will always sell on the market where the price is higher, but only as long as there is someone who can pay it, if no one can pay the world market price then it should be sold on the local market for the lower price. Or sell what is sellable on the market with the higher price and the rest on the market with the lower price as long as it makes profit. This would be close to what a lot of companies nowadays are doing, selling the same product for two different price classes under different names.

If nobody is willing to buy it on the world market that means that there is no/low demmand for that product at that price level. Than prices would go down until someone is willing to pay (and afford) for it. And that somene can be local or not. Nothing changed.

And thats what happens ingame, so my example stand and what ylu are suggesting for vicky 3 actually already happens on vicky 2.

Yes tariffs do mess with it, as i mentioned, but the general dinamic is the same.

And again, transportation costs should be a thing.

 

[cetvrtak]

Beverages? What mod are you using? I usually have "Liquor" by that image.

HPM