• We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.

diegoami

Colonel
51 Badges
Mar 19, 2011
814
6
  • Europa Universalis III Complete
  • Victoria 2: Heart of Darkness
  • Victoria 2: A House Divided
  • Heir to the Throne
  • Europa Universalis IV: Art of War
  • Divine Wind
  • Stellaris: Digital Anniversary Edition
  • Stellaris: Leviathans Story Pack
  • Cities: Skylines - Natural Disasters
  • Hearts of Iron IV: Together for Victory
  • Europa Universalis 4: Emperor
  • Cities: Skylines - Mass Transit
  • Europa Universalis IV: Mandate of Heaven
  • Knights of Honor
  • Hearts of Iron IV: Death or Dishonor
  • Cities: Skylines - Green Cities
  • Europa Universalis IV: Rights of Man
  • Hearts of Iron IV: Expansion Pass
  • Europa Universalis IV: Rule Britannia
  • Europa Universalis IV: Dharma
  • Europa Universalis IV: Golden Century
  • Hearts of Iron IV: Expansion Pass
  • Prison Architect
  • Hearts of Iron IV: La Resistance
  • Crusader Kings III
  • Crusader Kings III: Royal Edition
  • Battle for Bosporus
  • Europa Universalis IV: Mare Nostrum
  • Europa Universalis IV
  • Europa Universalis IV: Common Sense
  • Europa Universalis IV: El Dorado
  • Europa Universalis III Complete
  • 500k Club
  • Hearts of Iron IV: Cadet
  • Victoria 2
  • Europa Universalis III Complete
  • Europa Universalis IV: Cradle of Civilization
  • Crusader Kings II
  • Europa Universalis IV: Conquest of Paradise
  • Europa Universalis IV: Wealth of Nations
  • Europa Universalis IV: Call to arms event
  • Hearts of Iron III
  • Europa Universalis IV: Res Publica
  • Semper Fi
  • Cities: Skylines
  • Europa Universalis IV: Third Rome
  • Cities: Skylines - After Dark
  • Stellaris - Path to Destruction bundle
  • Europa Universalis IV: Cossacks
  • Cities: Skylines - Snowfall
Please let the game run some days after loading it to get usable statistics !

The Basics


B2.jpg


As requested, the image above magnified.

B4.jpg


So let's start from the basics and let me explain what the numbers in the factory screen are. Here we have a profitable barrel factory. You can show all the barrels factory first "deselecting all" and then picking the barrel icon on the tab on top.
Every factory has several information that can be shown hovering over the balance figure (A), over the finished product icon (B) and over the input goods icons(C, D, E, F). If you hover on the employees you will see how many clerks and craftsmen are employed there (in this factory 21066 clerks and 108934 craftsmen).

First, I was asked what is the number at the bottom of the factory window (0) ? This number is the factory's extimated current day's balance - which will be close (but not the same) to the "Last day's balance" (6) on the following day. It will not be same, since prices, demand and supply change every day. I cannot tell you how it is exactly calculated though.

The most important figure IMHO is the Current Factory Budget (1). It is the total money the factory has. Its maximum value is [Factory Level * 1000] pounds. When it goes below 0 the factory goes bankrupt.

Yesterday this factory produced 59.158 barrels (2) which sold for 8471.377 pounds(3). Which results in a selling price of 143,2. As we learn from the trade screen, barrels market price is 144.846. If the factory hadn't managed to sell some of the goods it is producing it would also write "X of Y barrels didn't get sold yesterday", which luckily is not the case.

Industrial materials cost -2352.60 (4) and wages cost -4589.015 (5). If you subtract these numbers from the income, 8471.377, you will get 1529,762 (6), which is the last day's balance. See here to find out how wages are calculated.

Profitability is 22,034% (7), which means that the income (8471.377) is 122.034 % of the expenditures (6941.615 = 2352.60 + 4589.015). The factory is getting back all the money it is expending and getting 22% more.

A positive balance would be added to the Current Factory Budget, if the budget wasn't maxxed already, or drawn from the budget if it was negative. Upgrading the factory would allow the Factory Budget to grow again. Every factory starts with a budget of 1000 pounds.

There is another way the Factory Budget can be increased, that is through "Investments".
As pointed out by mgoetze, these should be the initial investments in the factory spread out several days.

Subsidizing a factory will NOT increase the Factory Budget.

Even more relevant is the average profitability in the last 7 days (8). 22% average profitability is very healthy.

We won't talk about the paychecks here, we'll look at the industrial goods the factory bought (9).
The factory bought 30.808 rubber for 289.975 pounds (at exactly the market price of 9.41), 9.75 cement for 127.502 pounds (at the market price of 13.077), 26,187 Machine Parts for 786.490 pound (at the market price of 30.034), 30.808 electronic parts for 611.037 pounds (at the market price of 19,834) and 9,242 automobiles for 537,686 pounds (at the market price of 58,178). Notice that the input goods are bought exactly at the market price - no matter where they come from. Some of these goods are imported, other come from the internal market.

The factory is producing at maximum efficiency, 59.16 out of 59.16. Base output is 13 (the factory level * the good modifier, which for barrels is just 1). Real output is Base X Throughput X Output, that is 13 X 162.84 X 279.46 = 59,16. Output and Throughput depend on employees, technology and infrastructure. Notice that Output is increased by clerks, while Throughput by craftsmen. For an explanation of the difference see this post.

If maintenance goods were missing (11) the factory would not produce at full efficiency ("Output is reduced to X % since factory is missing maintenance goods"). Maintenance goods are usually cement and machine parts. Since the factory is upgrading the machine parts are listed under (9).

Hovering over each of the input goods will show statistics about that input material. In this case, these windows do not contain anything we cannot find in the other windows. The only additional information we could find here, if the factory could not get all of the inputs it needs, would be the reason why it is the case.
The reason would either be "Factory couldn't afford to buy all its input goods yesterday" (bad) or "There isn't enough X on the market to satisfy factory input needs" (worse). It is much easier to fight the first problem than the second.



For reference, prices from the trade screen.

B3.jpg


More to come.
 
Last edited:
  • 2
Reactions:
You should probably copy some of this stuff over to the wiki.
 
well diegoami...again I feel like you are writting just for me...thanks...
and as usuall i have some questions...
can you start adding into these what to do....ie...factory could not afford....you can do this....or more importantly not enough on market...you can do this.....
Can you try to explain the trade screen and how manually increasing our stockpile helps factories??
thanks so much
slo
 
well diegoami...again I feel like you are writting just for me...thanks...
and as usuall i have some questions...
can you start adding into these what to do....ie...factory could not afford....you can do this....or more importantly not enough on market...you can do this.....
Can you try to explain the trade screen and how manually increasing our stockpile helps factories??
thanks so much
slo

This!
 
This is good as I've been having some trouble working out what is going on with the factories. Thanks diogoami.
 
@Naselus : that's a good idea, though I wanted to get some feedback first :)
@kinad, ValheruKaneda : Thank you!
@airslo, grimkm : yeah, I will go on posting. First I wanted to explain the basics though, so that it is clear what I mean for instance by "Factory Budget".
@White Prophet: Thank you ! I'll see what I can do. But I should be able to see the bigger image if you right click on it and then open it, or just typing CTRL + if you are using Firefox.
 
Early Industries


Regrettably, what you can do to help your factories depends on the circumstances and it is impossible to give advice like "If a factory does that, then do that...".
I would rather go on and tell you "if a factory is do this, you can try this one. If it does not work or makes it worse, try that one." And so on.
But I'd rather take my time and explain how factories work.

My first point is that some factories are just not going to be profitable. Especially at the beginning of the game, when you have few technologies, little infrastructure and few clerks. "Industrializing too early" is a common trap.
But sometimes you may even want to keep an unprofitable factory, if it is producing goods you need, and subsidize it, so that it does not close and will keep producing the good that you need - at a loss.
This page shows that some goods are more profitable than other

I will show you an early artillery factory, that is unlikely to become profitable in the near future, no matter what we do.

C2.jpg


Since I am subsidizing it , the Factory Budget is still fairly high (979/1000). But the profitability in the last 7 days is -13% and the factory is losing money - though very little, 1.5 pounds a day. Therefore subsidizing it costs very little, and if I wanted to keep that factory open to get some more artillery for my stockpile, I could do it.

In fact, artillery is in high demand - but so are the input goods the factory is using. Maybe we should try and get more steel and explosives factories ?

C3.jpg


Otherwise, there is nothing wrong with this factory. It is selling all of its production, it has all the input goods it needs. But the market situation is not favourable. In some years, with more technologies, clerks and infrastructure, even this factory could turn profitable.

There are other people in this 1841 Prussia who are producing artillery. These artisans are. But they are very pissed off, because they are making very little money, and maybe they will switch to another product soon - like canned food. To find them, just go to the Pop screen, deselect all, select artisans and sort the pops by "type".

C4.jpg


What should we do with this factory - or rather, what should we try ? In the same province there is an ammunition factory, who is making a profit and we will give priority to it. Subsidizing it may be not worth it, but would not be a wrong move since we do need artillery.

I would let it run its course and if it goes bankrupt, it may reopen in a few years when we have better technology and infrastucture and then, make a profit together with the explosives factory.

C5.jpg
 
Last edited:
  • 1
Reactions:
wow..i was able to follow along without too many questions this time!!! whowho....
anyway...i understand that I will not bebale to make every factory profitable...if the demand dies off or in this case the supply gets too expensive..i get that, so yes i was able to follow this one...
However...would or stockpile beable to help here at all? I really do not understand how the stockpile works, i often manually buy things my country needs most, but i have no idea if that is helping or not..
also at the end you said that you would increase the factories prority....i have heard two different meanings for those boxes, can you clearify...in the tutoral it says that those boxes make it a proirity for goods, but in the game if you hold the cursor over it, it says makes it a priority for hireing....which one is it?
thanks
slo
 
Thanks for this. These are great.

Coupla questions...

What is the number in the balance line.... you know... the one that is preceded either by a green up arrow or a green down arrow. Crunched a ton of numbers and I'll be damned if I can figure it out.

Next... why is there a differential between Market Price and the Sold For / Produced number? It's usually close, but never right on like the purchase of inputs (Inputs x Market Cost)

And another... when Capis make investments into the factory does it come out of their cash reserve? I noticed in one of my factories I was receiving an investment from a time but when I checked my Cap pop screen I didn't really notice that it was coming out of their cash reserve.... so I was curious where it might be coming from. (And another confusing note... on the pop screen there's a line for cash, income, and expense. Expense exceeded cash consistenly but I noticed their cash on hand never seemed to drop. In fact, sometimes it increased.)

So frustrating getting my head back into what all these numbers mean. Seems like the tool tip information could be made much more intuitive... argh.

O yea... and one more question...

I had a factory consistently not selling all of what it produced... by a long shot... often like 40-50% of it's product just went to waste. Yet, when I checked global supply it seemed that at worst supply matched demand. In some cases demand exceeded supply. Is it possible that just because demand exceeds supply that the POPs or Governments demanding the product don't have the cash to buy it anyway? Or is something else contributing to not selling goods...
 
wow..i was able to follow along without too many questions this time!!! whowho....
anyway...i understand that I will not bebale to make every factory profitable...if the demand dies off or in this case the supply gets too expensive..i get that, so yes i was able to follow this one...
However...would or stockpile beable to help here at all? I really do not understand how the stockpile works, i often manually buy things my country needs most, but i have no idea if that is helping or not..
also at the end you said that you would increase the factories prority....i have heard two different meanings for those boxes, can you clearify...in the tutoral it says that those boxes make it a proirity for goods, but in the game if you hold the cursor over it, it says makes it a priority for hireing....which one is it?
thanks
slo
I will talk about it in more detail. As already answered in another thread, the stockpile is NOT meant to be used to buy input goods for your factories. Government and factories have different stockpiles and factories will always buy their input goods at the market price.

The strategies to help factories who have not enough money to buy input goods include (but are not limited to) :
  • Getting access to the input goods (obviously) through sphering, conquest, colonization
  • Increase production of the input good, if you are producing it.
  • If the factory budget is low, consider closing and reopening that factory, to inject fresh money into it. It will come back to the factory over several days - that is the "From investments" you see.
  • If the factory is overproducing, consider buying the OUTPUT goods for your stockpile.
  • Encourage capitalists, through national focus and lower taxes. They may open more factories and then you can choose which ones you want to keep.
  • Negative tariffs (in a small economy) so that factories have to spend less to buy input goods. IMHO this should not be done for a long time, only as a measure to boost the Factory Budgets. Though personally I found out this actually seldom helps.
  • Subsidizing works as a preventive measure when Factory Budget is still decent - it is harder for a subsidized factory to end up in this situation in the first place - or in the recovery phase - for instance after a negative tariffs binge. Subsidizing alone won't turn an unprofitable factory into a profitable one, but will prevent it from going bankrupt - but then you are subsidizing an unprofitable factory when you could have profitable ones.
    If the factory is already nearly bankrupt, it is better to close and reopen it, if you have the money.
  • Close the most unprofitable factories which are using that input good (in a big economy) to free it up for more profitable ones.
  • If nothing else works, just let the factory go bankrupt or close it. You may always reopen it later when the input good is available.


Factories priority make it a priority both for goods and for hiring AFAIK.
 
Last edited:
Thanks for this. These are great.

Coupla questions...

What is the number in the balance line.... you know... the one that is preceded either by a green up arrow or a green down arrow. Crunched a ton of numbers and I'll be damned if I can figure it out.

Next... why is there a differential between Market Price and the Sold For / Produced number? It's usually close, but never right on like the purchase of inputs (Inputs x Market Cost)

And another... when Capis make investments into the factory does it come out of their cash reserve? I noticed in one of my factories I was receiving an investment from a time but when I checked my Cap pop screen I didn't really notice that it was coming out of their cash reserve.... so I was curious where it might be coming from. (And another confusing note... on the pop screen there's a line for cash, income, and expense. Expense exceeded cash consistenly but I noticed their cash on hand never seemed to drop. In fact, sometimes it increased.)

So frustrating getting my head back into what all these numbers mean. Seems like the tool tip information could be made much more intuitive... argh.

O yea... and one more question...

I had a factory consistently not selling all of what it produced... by a long shot... often like 40-50% of it's product just went to waste. Yet, when I checked global supply it seemed that at worst supply matched demand. In some cases demand exceeded supply. Is it possible that just because demand exceeds supply that the POPs or Governments demanding the product don't have the cash to buy it anyway? Or is something else contributing to not selling goods...

You are welcome :)

  • I think the number in the balance line is the current day's balance. If you write down that number and wait a day you should see that number become "Last Day's balance". I have to verify that yet though.
    VERIFIED : NOT CORRECT. SEE BELOW.
  • Why is there a differential between Market Price and the Sold For / Produced number? I thought that's because the goods were sold at yesterday's price, while in the trade screen you see today's price, but that does not seem to be the case. Honestly, I don't know. Some kind of undocumented bribe / waste / theft haggling built into the game ?
  • When Capis make investments into the factory does it come out of their cash reserve? As pointed out by mgoetze, these should be the initial investments in the factory spread out several days.
  • Expense exceeded cash consistenly but I noticed their cash on hand never seemed to drop ? Never seen that actually, I'd need more information, maybe a save file and what pop is doing that. I will analyze POPs next probably.
  • Global Demand is not what is actually bought. There is a third line in the trade screen tooltip, "Actually bought", don't know how reliable that statistics is though. At the beginning of the game you can drive demand for some products sky high just by setting your stockpile level to 2000 for that good but if your government doesn't have to money to buy it, well, it won't buy it :)

The number shown at the bottom of the factory is probably the ESTIMATED current day's balance, which will be close the the number "Last Day's balance" on the following date. It probably takes into account estimated production, estimated quantity of product solds, estimated input goods expenditure. It probably uses the prices of the current day, but by the next day prices, availability of goods, demand, the amount of workers in factory will have changed and the actual balance will be somewhat different. It is probably impossible to calculate precisely using the information shown in the game.
 
Last edited:
Do you have any idea how workers paychecks are decided, how much craftsmen, clerks and capitalists get?

I suspect the question is infinitely simpler than the answer is going to be :p , and I suspect you may be already planning to give an answer in what is already a very enlightening thread :)
 
I can answer that, it is actually pretty simple, ;) . In Victoria 2, there is NO fixed income. Earnings depend on the factory's daily balance.

Let's take Saxony, starting year 1861. Saxony has an effective taxation of 11,5%, which means net earnings = gross earnings * 0.885.

B1.jpg


There is a single fabric factory, which is fairly profitable. On this day, its income was 95.339 and its spending was 71.976. Therefore the balance before paying wages is 95.339 - 71.976 = 23.363.

B2.jpg


75% of this balance is used to pay paychecks and 25% is added to the Factory Budget. 75% of 23.363 is 17.522, which will be given to the capitalists and workers.
These are the capitalists, craftsmen and clerks in Saxony. Since there is a single factory in a single state, they are all working there, but for a few unemployed who aren't getting any subsidies and don't muddle the statistics.

B3.jpg


Half of the paychecks go to the capitalists, which is 17.522 / 2 = 8.761 earnings before taxes, 7.753 after taxes (8.761 * 0.885) , which is also the combined salary of the single capitalist POP in Saxony.
The other half goes to the clerks and craftsmen, which will get also 7.753 earnings after taxes. In fact the sum of the other pops salaries (3.3+4.3+0.08+0.08) is 7.76 - there is some rounding here. As far as I can tell, clerks and craftsmen are paid the same rate, since 7.6 / 9219 (earning of craftsmen / amount of craftsmen) is roughly the same than 0.16 / 186 (earning of clerks / amount of clerks), which happens to be 0.001 .

When there are more provinces and factories, all gets more complicated, since pops don't have to live in the same province they work, and in the same pop there can be workers from different factories. It is probably not very useful to try and keep track of all this.

As pointed out by mgoetze, the investments, "30.000" invested by capitalists" should be the initial investments in the factory spread out several days.
 
Last edited:
Case study : Switzerland 1861

Enough theory, not it is time for some praxis. This is Switzerland in AHD 2.31, 1861 start. A very good nation to practise industrializing, as it has access to some basic resources and it seldom gets attacked.

G1.jpg


When I let the game run, without taking any action to improve the industries and picking random technologies, this was the production after 12 years ( in 25 July 1873 ).

G3.jpg


Then I started another game, this time doing something actively to help my industries. This was the situation in my game, on the same date. No conquest, no colonizing.

G2.jpg


IMHO the best way to see how healthy your industries are is to compare the Total Factory Budgets, or the Factory Levels if you are lazy. In my game compared to the Laissez Faire one, Total Factory Budget is 9410 vs 673, Total Factory Levels are 12 vs 6. It is interesting to note that industry score is 20 in both games.
What about RGOs ? Well, in the laissez faire game the total income is 242, while in my game it is 334,2.

G4.jpg


G6.jpg


So what you do actually does make a difference. And in a capitalist economy, there are actually few, but powerful tools to influence the economy, apart from sphering, colonization and conquest. But you have to do the right things.
Anyway, these are the tools I used.

  • Budget Sliders
  • National Focuses
  • Technologies
  • Subsidize, Open, Close, Upgrade, Destroy Factories.
  • Factory Priority Sliders

What about you ? Can you do better than that ? I'd like to hear about that. In some days I will post what I did to boost industrialization.
 
Thanks for posting answering my question :)

75% of this balance is used to pay paychecks and 25% is added to the Factory Budget. 75% of 23.363 is 17.522, which will be given to the capitalists and workers.
These are the capitalists, craftsmen and clerks in Saxony. Since there is a single factory in a single state, they are all working there, but for a few unemployed who aren't getting any subsidies and don't muddle the statistics.

What happens to the leftover money if the factory budget is full?


Also, I've noticed that factories don't pay pop's if they don't get all the inputs they desire, even if they are making a profit.
 
On the other hand, I cannot say for sure where the "30.000 investments" into the factory come from - have to research that.

When you build a factory you pay some money for "inputs". This should be the same amount of money you need to pay to reopen the factory if it was closed. Whenever the factory gets (re)opened, this "input" money is invested into the factory budget, not all at once but spread out over the first x days (not sure of the exact number). I suspect your fabric factory counts as newly built at the beginning of the game.
 
Thanks for posting answering my question :)



What happens to the leftover money if the factory budget is full?


Also, I've noticed that factories don't pay pop's if they don't get all the inputs they desire, even if they are making a profit.

You are welcome !

I think that if the factory budget is full the money just disappears, therefore it is a good idea to expand profitable factories.
I've noticed too that factories sometimes don't pay pops even if they are making a profit, but I am not sure that is the reason. I have seen factories pay even if they don't have all of their input good. I'll research.
 
When you build a factory you pay some money for "inputs". This should be the same amount of money you need to pay to reopen the factory if it was closed. Whenever the factory gets (re)opened, this "input" money is invested into the factory budget, not all at once but spread out over the first x days (not sure of the exact number). I suspect your fabric factory counts as newly built at the beginning of the game.

Thank you a lot for this information, it actually makes sense. That will deserve a detailed post.
I updated my posts as well.
 
Last edited: