collapse of price of/demand for "hides"

[Lama]

As you can see in the attached, the demand for hides seems to be broken. This publishing house has been around for 8 years, but it has not developed an attraction to hides. Overall, I noticed that the price of hides started low ($7), and even though I had a warehouse set up as a demand sink, and two furniture factories also demanding them, the price was down to $0, on average (in the ledger - goods list) by the mid-1960s, after 8 years of running the game.

[nedfumpkin]

Uh...yeah, that's what TM is all about. Sometimes you have to kick start an industry, and sometimes the price difference just isn't worth it for demand to show up so you have to ship at a loss.

TM requires you to take more control of the cargo and send it to where it is needed even if not profitable.

Publishing houses are good money makers if you keep on top of them. Make sure they have enough paper and glue if necessary as well as textiles, and hides. TM requires more micro-managing.

[Lama]

I think you may have misunderstood my point. As the map is first started, there is demand for hides, albeit a modest demand - one warehouse consuming 1 per year, and minimal (0.2-0.3, each?) demand at two furniture factories. At that point, the price is around $7.

The publishing house shown here appeared in 1956 (not by event, but 'organically'). In the screenshot, it had been around for eight years. Nevertheless, the price for hides at its location never increased. All other industries, when they are spawned, will eventually radiate a green blob of higher demand around them - unless of course demand is glutted. But here, hides produced nearby are not going anywhere near the publishing house, because it never signaled any demand.

[nedfumpkin]

Yes, that will happen with hides. Some cargo is harder to manage than others, and hides is really messed up. You'll also see them collect in a place for not apparent reason.

What you need to do is to ship a few loads of hides and paper to the publishing house so that it can start producing goods. Ship it with a custom consist. Once it begins producing the demand should start to demand it in the future. TM requires you to do this with cargo some times. Do wait for the game to demand cargo, control it yourself.

[Lama]

I see! I was not aware of that aspect. Is this something you did in the engine, then? With most other types of cargo, I had not noticed that behavior had changed in the same fashion.

[nedfumpkin]

It comes more from the way the cargo was redesigned. Some cargo is really hard, and some are overly abundant. Then there are the different buildings that compete for cargo and draw it away from you. If something is particularly difficult, more than likely it is on purpose.

[Lama]

In terms of the overall cargo economy, I get that. With hides, however, there seems to be a behavior very different from every other cargo type on the map, when it comes to the demand curve, and the way it responds to the presence of industries.

All other cargoes, if you add another place demanding it, you will see its average (map-wide) price increase, as the new demand sink will lead the price to spike in that one spot, and radiating outward from there. Usually, any cargo you want to name, plunk down a demand sink for it on a map, and that's how it will behave. Not so in this example.

[nedfumpkin]

In terms of the overall cargo economy, I get that. With hides, however, there seems to be a behavior very different from every other cargo type on the map, when it comes to the demand curve, and the way it responds to the presence of industries.

All other cargoes, if you add another place demanding it, you will see its average (map-wide) price increase, as the new demand sink will lead the price to spike in that one spot, and radiating outward from there. Usually, any cargo you want to name, plunk down a demand sink for it on a map, and that's how it will behave. Not so in this example.

Yes, it is coccrect. I cannot say precisely why, but it is something I noticed aerly on and decided that I like it so I never messed with it again. :)

You'll notice that there are two or three other cargos that behave a little oddly, can't remember them off the top of my head, but they are out there.

[Lama]

Good to know! I'll see what I can do with it, then, design-wise.

[Lama]

I started my Weidenthal map again, and the game spawned a publishing house in its initial, pre-game seeding (built 1952). I followed your advice of delivering hides to the location, where I placed a station within whose catchment area the publishing house was located.

Even as I brought three full loads of hides to the door of the industry, it never used them.

Jan 63 - brought 3 loads to the doorsteps of the publisher

May 63 - they just sit at the station without moving

The publishing house is not using them

I compared the publishing house to the furniture factory, and noticed an oddity - in both, the hides demand shows up in the cargo panel of the industry. But if you switch to the cargo map, the furniture factory has the blue triangle, whereas the publishing house does not. A look at the ledger showed that 5 loads of hides were processed between 1955 and 1977, but none in the publishing house.

The publishing house does not have a blue triangle

... unlike the furniture factory, which does; and which used 5 loads of hides in the course of the game.

Note that the furniture factory affects demand for hides in its vicinity by painting the map green. The publishing house does not.

Since there is an industry with which it interacts normally, the bug cannot pertain to the type of goods, "hides".

I think it is a reasonable conclusion that something is broken about the publishing house.

[nedfumpkin]

Something just occurred to me after thinking about your message....I noticed you are allowing industry to spawn. This is not recommended in TM.

Ideally you would be better off placing your industries on the map as you want it when it starts, and then use events to add new industries as time goes by. It's more tedious, but it's easier to keep a map balanced as far as industries are concerned. At least as far as cities and agri-communities is concerned. Mines and logging camps do okay when spawned.

When placing industries on a map at creation, something to keep in mind is that history will go back three years. So if you place and industry at start -3 years, then when the map loads cargo will have already moved towards it, and it might be making a profit. An industry placed at start will have no cargo moving towards it.

Just something to think about.

[Lama]

Thanks, Ned. I read that part of your intro to TM. And as you can see, the publisher in question pre-spawned in the fashion you described.

I have a follow-up question, however. Is there any reason other than game balance to avoid spawning? I quite like the idea of random spawning, in that it increases replayability of a map. Evidently, you still have to make sure that the minimum number and type of buildings are present so that the player can meet the map's requirements. But as long as that is given, I have never felt that there was a design imperative to prevent randomness; quite the opposite.

[nedfumpkin]

I hesitate to say never spawn industries because really it comes to whatever the map creator is happy with. In some cases spawning is ideal, but I will leave that to others. My style of map making is less random. If I want to randomize something I will do it by event using a random number generator. Other times I will make a condition for addiding an industry in one place or another, and other times it can be based on an overt or covert choice.

So really it comes down to that TM was designed to give mapmakers more control over the map, but it is really up to you how much of that control you want to take.

[Lama]

Thanks, Ned! That gives me a clearer idea. I am having fun playing with it & trying new stuff with the game's capabilities!

[Blackhawk]

I like to place my critical industries by hand, and then maybe allow some to spawn on their own if they aren't that important to the goals of the map. However, one thing to be very careful of with spawning is making sure that you don't end up with several industries in the same area competing for the same resource. Ex. If I have a missile plant, a tool & die, and an electronics plant all appear in neighboring cities, it may be difficult to keep the aluminum in the city with the one industry I really need. So production at the industry I may need may be decreased, and I may have to have a train just running custom consists between the cities bring the aluminum back to the one industry I really want running. This may be desired in a scenario, or it may not be, but it is something to be careful of and cognizant of the possibility of it happening when placing spawned industries.

[nedfumpkin]

Unless of course you want to do everything Blackhawk saind intentionally. :)

Good point that I forgot to make earlier. In TM there is a lot of competition for resources. Not only from industry that can be spawned/built, but from the city buildings that get spawn or placed on maps.