Oil economy is broken

[yourFriend]

Hello Devs! Saw you're releasing next month! Fantastic and good luck!

Really enjoyed my first few playthroughs - you've created an amazing game here. Can I however offer that in the playthrough I did, (a couple of months ago now), the oil economy was very broken. We could set up a very simple train to oil rig farm, and then export from there. Needed no other trade commodity at all, to keep a huge amount in profit available. I wonder if that's ever been raised or addressed, yet?

[Gnasty Gnorc]

Play on Realistic mode.

You'll eliminate that problem pretty quick by losing access to train exports right off the bat.

[bballjo]

To build a train network and a refinery setup plus a city large enough to handle that takes 5-10years in game if you play on the intended hard difficulty levels, getting through those years is hard, not what's after that. If you setup something simple right at the start usually means you are playing on easier difficulty and avoid the fun part of the game.

There are much more profitable industries, and making money isn't a real challenge in this game, so if you're playing for money, you haven't played a republic for long enough to know it doesn't matter.

[Elessar_warrior]

Inflation and the changes in eletronics production through the years makes an interesting endgame. I see many people go bankrupt at this point even with oil money.

[Sgt.Ray]

You can flood the market with cheap gas and bitumen, don't pray that petroleum will save your butt in realistic mode long term.

[ryantheskinny]

You need to play with maintenance, fire and the other effects on. You can no longer run a train forever, the buildings will collapse if not maintained and fires and earthquakes are a constant possibility. Then you will need all the infrastructure and population to service that. Making oil not as much of a money printer as it use to be (also could play on a map with no oil for a challenge.)

[Zizo]

This game is not that hard to earn a lot of money if you know how to and you want to as fast as possible:)

When I build first time a oil rig set up, I have no idea how good it is,and how much money it can make, so I make it really big with two refineries.

From there, if I keep export it I would become really rich:) But I don´t need to. This game make gameplay hard with some aspects, but also quite easy.
So, at the end it is only up to you how you decide to play it/use those mechanics to be richs as fast as possible or not.:)

As was mentioned making a lot of money is not the hardest thing in this game:)

[Sgt.Ray]

Honestly I would like to see some historical map making where only RL reasources are on the map. Not everywhere is oil, iron, coal etc. I wouldn't mind a challenge map where there is nothing to be mined and all you have for sale is what you can grow.

[MrKrabs]

I can suggest the map I'm playing on.
It's called "Salmon Valley".
U can find it in the workshop.

[yourFriend]

Originally posted by ryantheskinny:

You need to play with maintenance, fire and the other effects on. You can no longer run a train forever, the buildings will collapse if not maintained and fires and earthquakes are a constant possibility. Then you will need all the infrastructure and population to service that. Making oil not as much of a money printer as it use to be (also could play on a map with no oil for a challenge.)

Originally posted by MrKrabs:

I can suggest the map I'm playing on.
It's called "Salmon Valley".
U can find it in the workshop.

Thanks for the feedback everyone! Will try these suggestions for sure.

[Soldner42]

Originally posted by bballjo:

To build a train network and a refinery setup plus a city large enough to handle that takes 5-10years in game if you play on the intended hard difficulty levels, getting through those years is hard, not what's after that. If you setup something simple right at the start usually means you are playing on easier difficulty and avoid the fun part of the game.

There are much more profitable industries, and making money isn't a real challenge in this game, so if you're playing for money, you haven't played a republic for long enough to know it doesn't matter.

pretty much this.
I never understood the Hype around the Oil Industry. it barely give one 120k Rubles.
Meanwhile Steel can give one quite easiely 600k + Rubles.
Given you dont need the Resources you sell.

The most Profitable Industry is to just produce everything locally and Export only when you need the Money to buy Blueprints for stuff.

[joeball123]

Originally posted by Soldner42:

I never understood the Hype around the Oil Industry. it barely give one 120k Rubles.
Meanwhile Steel can give one quite easiely 600k + Rubles.

How exactly are you calculating this? The steel mill's nominal output is only 43 tonnes per workday while the oil refinery's nominal output is 125 tonnes of fuel and 75 tonnes of bitumen, and at game-start prices steel's worth ~290 rubles per tonne, fuel's worth ~116 rubles per tonne, and bitumen is worth ~194 rubles per tonne, which gives the Oil Refinery roughly two and a half times the gross revenue of the Steel Mill (~29,000 rubles per workday versus ~12,500 rubles per workday). The oil refinery requires 250 tonnes of oil per workday at full production, which costs about 11,300 rubles at game-start prices, while the steel mill requires 375 tonnes of coal and 200 tonnes of iron, which costs about 9,100 rubles at game-start prices; oil, fuel, and bitumen can all be transported in the same vehicles while transporting steel usually requires a different vehicle type than transporting coal and iron; and the steel mill still requires as many workers as the oil refinery even if you ignore the fact that domestic oil production doesn't directly require any workers whereas domestic coal and iron production require a significant number.

Unless relative prices in your game have deviated significantly from the relative prices at game-start, there's no way that the vanilla steel mill is five times more profitable than the vanilla oil refinery.

[John Moridin]

Originally posted by Soldner42:

Originally posted by bballjo:

To build a train network and a refinery setup plus a city large enough to handle that takes 5-10years in game if you play on the intended hard difficulty levels, getting through those years is hard, not what's after that. If you setup something simple right at the start usually means you are playing on easier difficulty and avoid the fun part of the game.

There are much more profitable industries, and making money isn't a real challenge in this game, so if you're playing for money, you haven't played a republic for long enough to know it doesn't matter.

pretty much this.
I never understood the Hype around the Oil Industry. it barely give one 120k Rubles.
Meanwhile Steel can give one quite easiely 600k + Rubles.
Given you dont need the Resources you sell.

The most Profitable Industry is to just produce everything locally and Export only when you need the Money to buy Blueprints for stuff.

Steel requires workers, a huge upfront investment and (I think) research.

The OP is talking about the start of the game, same as those who promote oil.

[whisper]

Originally posted by joeball123:

Originally posted by Soldner42:

I never understood the Hype around the Oil Industry. it barely give one 120k Rubles.
Meanwhile Steel can give one quite easiely 600k + Rubles.

How exactly are you calculating this? The steel mill's nominal output is only 43 tonnes per workday while the oil refinery's nominal output is 125 tonnes of fuel and 75 tonnes of bitumen, and at game-start prices steel's worth ~290 rubles per tonne, fuel's worth ~116 rubles per tonne, and bitumen is worth ~194 rubles per tonne, which gives the Oil Refinery roughly two and a half times the gross revenue of the Steel Mill (~29,000 rubles per workday versus ~12,500 rubles per workday). The oil refinery requires 250 tonnes of oil per workday at full production, which costs about 11,300 rubles at game-start prices, while the steel mill requires 375 tonnes of coal and 200 tonnes of iron, which costs about 9,100 rubles at game-start prices; oil, fuel, and bitumen can all be transported in the same vehicles while transporting steel usually requires a different vehicle type than transporting coal and iron; and the steel mill still requires as many workers as the oil refinery even if you ignore the fact that domestic oil production doesn't directly require any workers whereas domestic coal and iron production require a significant number.

Unless relative prices in your game have deviated significantly from the relative prices at game-start, there's no way that the vanilla steel mill is five times more profitable than the vanilla oil refinery.

The great thing about the steel mill isn't even selling the steel, its the fact that you stop importing steel, which is generally your biggest expense up until the point you build the steel mill.

[yourFriend]

Originally posted by John Moridin:

Originally posted by Soldner42:

pretty much this.
I never understood the Hype around the Oil Industry. it barely give one 120k Rubles.
Meanwhile Steel can give one quite easiely 600k + Rubles.
Given you dont need the Resources you sell.

The most Profitable Industry is to just produce everything locally and Export only when you need the Money to buy Blueprints for stuff.

Steel requires workers, a huge upfront investment and (I think) research.

The OP is talking about the start of the game, same as those who promote oil.

Correct I'm talking about the start. Effectively (in my experience) with oil you can just steamroll your start and then practically do whatever you want.

[Delle(DK)]

a little trick for early game on realistic mode.
In this game mode you have research to get access to see where the oil is and build a refinery. But in the very early game just hold one oil pump in your hand and then move the mouse over the terrain.. if you find oil you can export it with trucks and the income from this can really help you get started on the hardest difficulty.
Technical speaking you can start the game without big loans and so to speak have an okay economy from the start and faster advance that way.