Help me get a positive balance

[Ms O'Horné]

Went trough the tutorial, and some campaigning, so far I've spent 6h in the game, yet I still have to develop a stable positive balance. I'm always in the minus, even after watching a youtubers socalled "perfect start".
the more profit buildings i build, the more my expenses go up aswell. Am I missing something here? I take the good trade deals, build in the green zones, etc. Can't figure it out.

[Kunovega]

You may be over building too quickly

If you do not have enough workers to support the buildings you make, you are just spending money on upkeep for an empty building

If you build better jobs and your workers move to that, but you lack population to fill the lesser jobs, your economy stops because nothing is producing

And with only 6 hours of play time, I don't know that your judgement over what is a good trade deal is valid. Early game there are often bad trade deals available, and the taking some that you either can not supply quickly or that cost you a buy in before getting a return, may not fit your overall economy

Not sure what you are doing wrong, the game actually isn't that complex. You need to read the buildings and see how they work, they are either resource producers or manufacturing. Manufacture requires input. Input requires raw resource and so on. It all just ties into each other

You need enough teamsters to move everything around and enough docks to support your volume of exports, but the only typical mistake is building too fast before your population can support your work space without tons of vacancy

Beyond that, if you set it up correctly it really doesn't matter if you go negative for a bit. It cost money to make money, you just need to be sure your investments into buildings pay off in the long run. And to do that you need enough peopel moving everything around and getting it exported

You won't make profits until frieghters move your goods offshore, unless you have a heavy tourist industry (but that can be expensive to get up and running)

[Ms O'Horné]

Ive gotten into the world war era now, I guess its just weird to me to not have a balance stating my permanent profit or loss at the time. I'm not sure how it works, but I guess for example all the construction work is taken into expenses aswell and it will stay like that for a month? so the actual balance is negative even tho when ships come in I'll get enough money. very very weird system in this game. for a new player its very hard to tell if you have got enough stuff going for ya.

thanks for the replies tho

[Kunovega]

Originally posted by Xili:

Ive gotten into the world war era now, I guess its just weird to me to not have a balance stating my permanent profit or loss at the time. I'm not sure how it works, but I guess for example all the construction work is taken into expenses aswell and it will stay like that for a month? so the actual balance is negative even tho when ships come in I'll get enough money. very very weird system in this game. for a new player its very hard to tell if you have got enough stuff going for ya.

thanks for the replies tho

If you have a positive balance overall it's in your almanac under balance. On the main screen it's showing current cash on hand, which will be negative (from loans and accounts payable in trade deal buys) until you sell enough to bounce back. The game won't let you spend money on buildings below -$10,000 as that's your official credit limit for personal spending. Your losses below that are accounts payable either as trade deals you buy into or expenses on buildings waiting to be paid their monthly upkeep

It's not going to show you a positive cash flow until you actually make the money, it's not going to guess what your future profits will be and display estimated earnings (at least not on the main screen, you can see what each dock is holding in estimated earnings, per dock by clicking on the docks themselves ~ but you don't earn that until a frieghter takes it, and the price you actually get can fluctuate based on current priceing from whatever settings and events or trade deal variations)

If the goods haven't even been moved to a dock you can see output storage on each production/resource building, it needs to get moved (teamsters), and then it sits at the dock (estimated earning) and then a certain amount sells to each frieghter that comes in (and if a dock is not fast enough to load it all in the time that the frighter is there, due to lack of workers or being overloaded then you either need more workers and/or more docks to spread out your exports)

You also need to account for import deals and have not only enough teamsters to move product between raw and manufacuter and the docks, but also off the docks into production buildings (unless you have it ear marked for an outgoing trade deal, then it can sit at the dock)

For incoming money you are playing a balancing act against frieghter exports (and what little money you may get from the crown or foriegn aid)

There's not even a benefit to keeping a positive balance until your economy has actual banks, at which point you can start to make money on interest (or slush some out to your personal slush fund for your family)

[Ms O'Horné]

thanks for all the help fellas, think im jumpstarted for future games now :) made it to modern times with 2.5mil positive balance, medium difficulty.

1 more question tho:

* Sometimes my factories have an icon that says skipping production cycles. even tho it has plenty input left to work with, the roads are also clear of traffic. So how do I prevent this? whats causing it?

[Kunovega]

Originally posted by Xili:

thanks for all the help fellas, think im jumpstarted for future games now :) made it to modern times with 2.5mil positive balance, medium difficulty.

1 more question tho:

* Sometimes my factories have an icon that says skipping production cycles. even tho it has plenty input left to work with, the roads are also clear of traffic. So how do I prevent this? whats causing it?

If it's skipping some production cycles, look closer. Having plenty of input doesn't mean it has ALL inputs. For example a cannery fully upgraded can take: fish, pineapple, coffee AND meat. If there's a 0 in any of those 4 inputs, then that cycle is not producing

If there actually is enough input product for all cycles to run: then you probably don't have enough workers at the factory. If you only have 2 guys, they can't run every production line simultaneously. People also need time off to go do other things, if you don't have a full staff that means production shuts down while there's no one else to rotate shifts with

Even with a full staff if you force your people to go super far away for food, entertainment, housing, then they take forever to get back to work and production shuts down

If you have empty inputs your island is either not producing enough (or not importing enough) to meet the factories needs, or you don't have enough teamsters to move product into the factory

If the factory has EVERY input filled, then you don't have enough workers to run all production cycles, either because you didn't hire enough or they arent at work because they had to travel too far

Work also shuts down if output storage is full, in which case you need more teamsters to move output to the docks, and if the dock is full... you need more docks... and so on...

[Ms O'Horné]

Thanks Kunovega, its most likely the traveling then, since everything else is in order. But I didn't even think of that, so tyvm :) i'll have to plan my cities better.

[Kunovega]

Originally posted by jeffkiwi5:

Regarding Kenovega's second paragraph - don't import goods for the cannery, make them yourself. There's a guide on this Steam community which explains the different industry buildings. Textile mill is one of the best and it's worth importing the resources for it. Same with the steel mill - if you import, then you get 1,000 resources per ship - but the iron mine only gives you 350 iron per month - not enough for the steel mill. I learned this through experience :/

this really depends on population levels, how many docks you have and so on

typically i have enough docks to go both ways. I build the infrastructure to self supply ALL factories AND I import the same goods through the docks. Every factory ends up having a double supply so that no matter how far I ramp up production efficiency (presidential bonuses, mentor bonuses, constitution, etc) they never run out of stock on inputs

And besides, with a staffed customs office any extra goods end up as profits anyway

But I guess I'm just used to running with 50 to 100 ships and taking nearly every profitable trade offer in or out (plus when you factor in the free stolen goods from smugglers docks, even importing food is a useful boost)