Sulphur seemingly appearing out of thin air ... what's going on?

[meriton]

The trade screen says that I produce 23 sulphur a day, and use 61, while trading 0:



That would seem to indicate I am short of sulphur, but according to the factory view I have enough:

And some laborers in my sulphur mine even go unemployed:


What is happening here? Where is that sulphur coming from?

In case you want to take a further look, my save is attached.

 

[EUnderhill]

There is an error that displays the consumption of closed factories, like the one in Kansai.

 

[meriton]

Good catch - but there must be more to it, since that only accounts for 9 sulphur?

 

[Fitzgerald93]

Cant check it right now as i am not home, but is there actually a surplus of sulphur on the world market? Rgos tend to fire people when they cannot sell their surplus goods.


Update: From the Combination of the trade tab and the production i have concluded that you are mostly buying your sulphur from the world market, thats where your artisans get all their ressources from that they need in order to produce their goods.

 

[Guedes]

Dont trust the trade screen.

 

[Fitzgerald93]

Dont trust the trade screen.

The most reliable information from the market is supply and demand for goods on the world market, i suggest ignoring all other information on there. A combination of the production screen and the world market situation gives you the best overview on the economic situation for a certain good and your situation.

 

[meriton]

Ok ... but even if I ignore the trade screen, there still seems to be a contradiction between the production screen and the population screen? The production screen implies I am importing sulphur, but my RGO still has unemployment - and the manual says:

Whenever a POP, Factory or Government has a need, it will first try to satisfy that need in that country’s Internal Market. If there is no way to meet the Demand on the Internal Market, then they will try to buy from the World Market instead

Doesn't that mean that my factories and artisans should buy the entire production of my sulphur mine before looking to the world market? And I thought RGO unemployment means part of the production not getting sold ...? Or is RGO unemployment actually caused by something else?

Cant check it right now as i am not home, but is there actually a surplus of sulphur on the world market?

According to the tooltip in the production screen, the world market is closely balanced, with demand slightly exceeding supply:

(since the data comes from the trade screen, I am not even going to ask how "actual bought" can exceed "supply", or why all my sulphur is "exported" rather than "sold domestically")

 

[EUnderhill]

Your RGOs will not automatically ramp up supply to meet a domestic demand if the WM is saturated. Even with unmet demand, the RGOs have a limit to how many workers will be added per day.

 

[Fitzgerald93]

Ok ... but even if I ignore the trade screen, there still seems to be a contradiction between the production screen and the population screen? The production screen implies I am importing sulphur, but my RGO still has unemployment - and the manual says:

Doesn't that mean that my factories and artisans should buy the entire production of my sulphur mine before looking to the world market? And I thought RGO unemployment means part of the production not getting sold ...? Or is RGO unemployment actually caused by something else?

Sadly much of the information on the manual and wiki is outdated. From the slightly higher demand i would derive that you are ranked high enough to get all of the sulphur.

And as EUnderhill has said, Rgos only employ a certain amount of people per day and if theres a shift in demand for sulphur being in surplus for a day or two some people will get fired again.

 

[Thrake]

And I thought RGO unemployment means part of the production not getting sold ...? Or is RGO unemployment actually caused by something else?

My understanding is that most of the time there is excess production and unsold goods. It does not really matter. What matters is if the fraction that is sold is enough to make a profit or not. Researching productivity RGO tech will simply increase output, and therefore increase the amount of unsold goods on the world market. However it will decrease unemployement in RGO most of the time because your pops will produce more goods, thus you will have a greater share of the world production and a greater share of sold goods (and more unsold too but it has no fabrication cost anyway).

 

[EUnderhill]

There is usually excess supply of factory-produced goods due to subsidized factories - at least there was until I made some changes in the files to forbid all but planned economy countries from doing it. With RGO goods it is not the same, and supply will tend towards matching demand. When you have goods that can be produced in both, the (subsidized) factories can devastate RGO employment.