Make it locally or buy off the market?

[unmerged(94581)]

I've had a factory for a while, which runs at a loss, but I didn't close it, since I was consuming its outputs myself. I figured it was better for the budget to keep around a factory that loses $10 on each load of small arms than to switch these workers to other factories where they'd make $10 and then have to pay $30+ from my budget. Since I obviously wouldn't be seeing $30 extra in my budget had I put my workers to another factory.

But what this amounts to is making my POPs share the cost of small arms with me, while at the same time not running the most efficient economy money-wise. The POPs only get money when I sell things, so by making my own arms I save the budget money, but don't give as much to my POPs with the possible consequence that they can't afford to buy and invest as much. So my make-it-ourselves scheme is not without a cost to the country, which makes for an interesting tradeoff situation.

What are people's thoughts - is it better to try to make things your government consumes in-house, benefiting the budget, or to import them, benefiting the population?

 

[RELee]

While I have always thought it best to produce goods needed, I never run a factory that is losing money unless it produces a critical good that keep the pops happy, such as glass.

 

[unmerged(77251)]

While I have always thought it best to produce goods needed, I never run a factory that is losing money unless it produces a critical good that keep the pops happy, such as glass.

+1

Buying from the WM drives prices up, which means you will pay more for a given good (like small_arms) than its home produced value - even at low production efficiencies. Try importing explosives for your artillery factory in early game, and watch your income turning negative ...

 

[unmerged(94581)]

Since we've established that making locally is the way to go, a follow up question. How do you guys go about getting your capitalist to build a steamer factory?

I've got one state left that isn't overbuilt with countless liquor and other factories that will never get used. There I christened a new capitalist and waited for his reserves to get to around 1300. I then went to the trade screen and ordered a purchase of 1000 steamer convoys, which are not available right now, driving the price as high as it goes.

Out of four tries, the capitalist built an explosives factory once and his money quietly disappeared three times, probably for rail construction or is this a bug?

So, how do you geat a real, high-tech industry, which does not involve turning coal into glass?

Aside from having a communist/fascist government, that is.

 

[RELee]

Since we've established that making locally is the way to go, a follow up question. How do you guys go about getting your capitalist to build a steamer factory?

I've got one state left that isn't overbuilt with countless liquor and other factories that will never get used. There I christened a new capitalist and waited for his reserves to get to around 1300. I then went to the trade screen and ordered a purchase of 1000 steamer convoys, which are not available right now, driving the price as high as it goes.

Out of four tries, the capitalist built an explosives factory once and his money quietly disappeared three times, probably for rail construction or is this a bug?

So, how do you geat a real, high-tech industry, which does not involve turning coal into glass?

Aside from having a communist/fascist government, that is.

There are some who claim that by setting your trades to import 1,000, you influence your capitalists to build that item, as you yourself tried. I think that's a rather dicey expectation. I've tried it and sometimes it seems to work while other times I go for years and years without getting a build. If you think that you absolutely, positively gotta have it there over-night, then get the gov you need so you can build it yourself, otherwise learn to cross your legs and chant "om mani padme hum".

In other news, capitalists spending money without you seeing any benefit, such as a new factory or railroad built, means those guys are having to spend more money on goods, typically new luxury goods such as shiny new cars and planes, that have become available due to technological updates. Either way, once this begins you will have a dry spell of sorts until the new goods production catches up with demand and prices drop or you manage to increase your capitalists' income through increased exports or by researching techs that make them more profitable. Again, this often simply calls for patience.

Patience is a required attribute for this game, in case you haven't figured that out yet.