Esoteric Questions on the Economy

[low_grade]

I'm new here, been playing the game for just over a month. I think it's safe to say RT III has become my favorite game of all time, moving the still awesome Master of Orion down to the number two spot after about 15 year on top.

So I've got a few questions about how things work that would affect my gameplay, and I was hoping a few of you veterans would chime in.

1) When to upgrade an industry. I often plop down a lumber mill in the middle of a 0 value field of logging camps, and then wait a couple of years for a gradient to develop towards my mill. The question is, does an upgraded industry build the gradient faster than it would otherwise?

2) Keeping demand high for raw materials by building multiple industries. Let's say I have some cattle in town A and a meat packing industry in town B, with some surplus cattle, but not enough to supply another meat packer fully. But as I ship livestock from A to B, the gradient decreases over time, so that my shipping profit decreases, too. So I wonder, though it doesn't appear worth the investment in itself to build another meat packer in B, would it increase the gradient so that my shipping profits remain high and so pay for itself that way?

3) Dividends and stock value. They say keeping dividends high will increase the stock value, but I wonder if it's enough to cover the dividend when you issue stock. For those games where your Net Worth isn't part of the medal conditions, I'm often tempted to just put the dividend at zero. What do other people set their dividends at?

Thanks!

PS, one gameplay habit I've developed is keeping the 0 viewpoint on the end of the building list. That is, after some time has gone by in the game, I select a random building and then hold down Page Down until I find the end of the list in the current year. Then for the first few years of a game at least I check the end of the list every month by going back to viewpoint 0, selecting the building there, and paging down through the most recent additions, resetting the 0 viewpoint when I get to the new end of the list. I love buying 400K dairy farms! I know this trick doesn't catch all the new buildings, since first the game removes some buildings each month, and then adds the new ones into those empty slots first, but this is so easy and I get enough good industries out of it before they've started producing that I feel like I'm kind of cheating!

[Wolverine@MSU]

I'm new here, been playing the game for just over a month. I think it's safe to say RT III has become my favorite game of all time, moving the still awesome Master of Orion down to the number two spot after about 15 year on top.

Welcome to the community! Hopefully others will chime in with their own opinions to your questions.

1) When to upgrade an industry. I often plop down a lumber mill in the middle of a 0 value field of logging camps, and then wait a couple of years for a gradient to develop towards my mill. The question is, does an upgraded industry build the gradient faster than it would otherwise?

I don't know whether it will build the gradient faster, but it will cause a greater gradient because the demand will be higher at the factory. I usually wait until raw materials start piling up at the industry before I upgrade. If there's only enough raw materials to allow max production of a non-upgraded industry, I won't bother to upgrade

2) Keeping demand high for raw materials by building multiple industries. Let's say I have some cattle in town A and a meat packing industry in town B, with some surplus cattle, but not enough to supply another meat packer fully. But as I ship livestock from A to B, the gradient decreases over time, so that my shipping profit decreases, too. So I wonder, though it doesn't appear worth the investment in itself to build another meat packer in B, would it increase the gradient so that my shipping profits remain high and so pay for itself that way?

Again, because the demand is greater, the profit margin will be greater. I often build multiples of the same industry when raw material really starts to pile up. I try to squeeze them into the same economic cell so they can both use that cell's assets. It's not a good idea to build them very far apart because one may "hog" all the inputs. If inputs are coming from both directions, I'll build a second industry a ways away from the first to intercept those inputs.

3) Dividends and stock value. They say keeping dividends high will increase the stock value, but I wonder if it's enough to cover the dividend when you issue stock. For those games where your Net Worth isn't part of the medal conditions, I'm often tempted to just put the dividend at zero. What do other people set their dividends at?

Where PNW is not a goal, I usually set the dividends to 0 and also issue two rounds of stock every year to increase company cash. Bond rates become lower as CBV increases. I haven't noticed that setting dividends to 0 really hurts, especially with a growing company.

Thanks!

PS, one gameplay habit I've developed is keeping the 0 viewpoint on the end of the building list. That is, after some time has gone by in the game, I select a random building and then hold down Page Down until I find the end of the list in the current year. Then for the first few years of a game at least I check the end of the list every month by going back to viewpoint 0, selecting the building there, and paging down through the most recent additions, resetting the 0 viewpoint when I get to the new end of the list. I love buying 400K dairy farms! I know this trick doesn't catch all the new buildings, since first the game removes some buildings each month, and then adds the new ones into those empty slots first, but this is so easy and I get enough good industries out of it before they've started producing that I feel like I'm kind of cheating!

I do this all the time, and I don't consider it cheating. It's a proven strategy that pays off big time when you can grab the newly-spawned assets at "bargain basement' prices. As I page back through the newly-available assets, I will save each one in it's separate view (Shift 1-9) and then go back and review them before purchasing. In a rapidly growing economy, there may be more than 9 "good buys", so when I get to Shift-9, I go back and buy the ones I want from 1-8, re-view 9 and save that as Shift-1, then continue paging through the rest.

[OilCan]

There a number of more experienced players than myself, but my comments are:

1) An upgraded mill does not build the demand gradient faster than a basic mill. The cargo travels overland/over water to the mill at the same speed regardless of the mill's capable output. (If the land is level or there is a water route, cargo moves at about 8 cells per year. If there are hills the cargo moves slower and over mountains it moves at about 4 cells per year.) The advantage of upgrading a mill immediately after it is built or bought is that you can shift your attention to other things.

2) Clustering multiple similar industries into a city will create a higher demand than if the city had a single industry. From your example, building a second meat packing plant in City B will increase the demand (price) for cattle. This has to be done with care. If the game builds its own meat packing plant in City A (where the cows are), then your supply of cattle to City B will decrease and the profit from your plant will decrease - even though your plant still has the same demand for cattle.

3) I have noticed that different players have very different opinions about at what value to set the dividend. You will probably get a rebuttal to my opinion, but this strategy works for me. When PNW is a game goal (or a personal goal) there are two options: A) if no AI players, then set dividend at zero or low at start of game. Increase it slightly as your % ownership of the company increases. Make it fat in latter portion of the game. B) if AI players are in the game, then set dividend at low to moderate level at start of game, keeping it at this level until you reach your target % ownership of the company (i.e. 51%). Then, zero the dividend until much later in the game (after your massive expansion phase is winding down), then set the dividend to a fat amount.

When PNW is not a game goal (nor a personal goal), set your dividend at zero until the company is up and cranking. Do this regardless if AI players are in the game or not. Then set dividend at low amount to trickle in money for you to buy stock with to boost up the price right before you issue company stock.

Here's the thing about dividends...on the plus side they encourage the shareholders of your company to increase your salary quicker (thus giving you more cash to buy stocks), they nudge up the share price of your company, and they add a trickle of cash to your bank account. On the negative side, they use company money which might be better spent elsewhere and they attract AI players to invest in your company (this can be offset if you keep your share price- the green line- well above your CBV share price - the orange line).

Regarding the search for new industries, I wish I was half that disciplined to follow the process you describe. I get so busy on something I tend to forget to search for new farms and industries, then it dawns on me and I scramble a search.

[Gandar]

I'm new here, been playing the game for just over a month. I think it's safe to say RT III has become my favorite game of all time, moving the still awesome Master of Orion down to the number two spot after about 15 year on top.

I think RRT has to come out on top because we are still playing new scenarios here, but I must admit I am considering setting up a win 98 machine just so that I can play MOO2, Running in XP or Dosbox just doesn't seem to work very well for me.
Now there is a thought, I wonder if we can convince nedfumpkin to produce a new MOO after he has finished reinventing RRT, I know for sure he would do a better job than MOO 3, and when you think about it running a railroad is very similar to conquering the galaxy.

[nedfumpkin]

The biggest problem is that I live in a very black and white world.....for example, if it doesn't have sticks and skates, then it isn't a sport; RT3 is the only game that I play, with the exception of RT2, all others are just bloat code. :)

As much as I always think that I am close to finishing TM...I expect that I will still be working on it for a long time....once the initial game is finished I plan on making a gazillion mods 'n maps for it.

Sticks and skates.

[low_grade]

Thanks Wolverine and Oilcan! I didn't know about all the other affects of dividends.

Sometimes when the game builds a competing industry and it will interfere with my shipping gradient, if I catch it quick I just bulldoze it. This is certainly one of the more annoying things the game does to you, and I get a bit of satisfaction from telling the game to stuff it!

And nice to see someone else out there appreciates the similarities of building rail and galactic empires!

Now, what's a cell? Not each and every little square in visible in the track laying view. Perhaps the larger blocks of like 10x10 of the little squares? And each cell has the same value for a commodity and will share among all industries that demand the same resource? Good to know. Let me know if I haven't gotten this straight.

low_grade

[Wolverine@MSU]

Now, what's a cell? Not each and every little square in visible in the track laying view.

Yes, each and every little square is a "cell". They correspond to the little squares you see in the cargo overview. The price for each commodity is calculated for each cell based on supply/demand gradients for that commodity.