Lay out plans

General discussions and Technical Support for Capitalism II.
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AkwaticDudeCity
Posts: 1
Joined: Tue Oct 20, 2015 10:31 am

Lay out plans

Post by AkwaticDudeCity »

I've recently started playing Capitalism 2 again and because I have played a few different games since the last time I played Capitalism 2, I look upon the game differently. I used to make a tidy profit even under high difficulty levels, but could never quite grasp the lay out mechanics. Since I've (re)played some old games like Caesar 3, Zeus and the Guild, I've come up with flawless strategies that maximise my profits in those games. However, for Capitalism 2 I have no such strategy.
I've done the tutorial missions again and I can easily reach the objectives. The last time I played Capitalism 2, a few years ago, I went for a strategy focusing on computer stores with my edge being high quality CPU's and that worked just fine. So yesterday I have started again and this time I studied the numbers more in depth like I would for the other aforementioned games and I am no longer satisfied with my old way of doing things. I don't think the generic lay outs are the most efficient possible set ups. I've let the game run for a while on highest speed and I've noticed some weird fluctuations in my factories and in my stores.
It turns out the purchasing units in the factories aren't utilised at 100% most of the time, while the manufacturing units stay at 100% and the sales are also lower than 100%.
In my stores, the purchasing unit is also not 100% utilised while the sales is 100%. So I did some testing. I had one purchasing unit linked to my factory for canned corn. The other eight were all sales. The purchasing unit was now being utilised more but still not at 100% while the sales all are 100%. Is this the most efficient store lay out then?
I have tested it some more and tinkered with the lay out in the factory. It seems the purchasing units can always supply more than the manufacturing unit can handle. So I did one purchasing unit buying corn and three manufacturing with two sales and one advertising like this:
EPE
/l\
MMM
l/l\l
SAS

E=empty
P=Purchasing
M=Manufacturing
S=Sales
A=Advertising

Seems to be working fine and in the old days it would have been fine enough, but now I am not so sure. I can see the sales units are not at 100% utilisation. Whaat!?
They stay below 100% while at the store purchasing is below 100% as well. So you'd think the canned corn isn't selling fast enough? Wrong! The sales units in the store are at 100% and regularly have 0 stock. What is going on? Do the idiots in purchasing only purchase when there is nothing in the store? Should I maybe do some testing with an Inventory unit?
But how does that work with my lay outs? Now I have to invent new lay outs. Yes it's fun to try new things, but very frustrating when after hours of trying things something new pops up. Does anyone have lay outs figured out? Like with Caesar 3 and Zeus, I have designed housing blocks that get the most out of everything. I can't make similar lay outs for Capitalism 2 because I don't have all the numbers:
- How often will a purchasing unit get new stock and how much?
- How long does a manufacturing unit take to produce x goods?
- What is the storage capacity of all units?
- Where will a manufacturing unit direct its goods if it is linked to more than one sales unit?
- From which factory sales unit will a store purchase?
- How many animals are bred per breeding unit per year?
- How many can a processing unit handle per year?
- How many products can processing units get from one animal?
- Will one sheep produce wool, leather and frozen lamb or will it produce just one?
- For example, will a farm with only one level 1 livestock raising unit yield as much of all three goods as a farm with three livestock raising units?
this:
E R E
pLpWpF
S S S
or this:
R R R
pL pW pF
S S S
(all other variables remainig the same)
- more questions like that....
I need some database where I can find all this information. Like for Caesar 3 I have been using a website all these years and it has all the data listed. I have searched and couldn't find anything even remotely as comprehensive.
This onehttp://sirian.warpcore.org/cap2/intern.html looked promising but the author gave up.
This http://sirian.warpcore.org/cap2/intern.html was nice too, but I need more.
I've found some others but none have all the numbers even if I would combine them all.
Please, someone tell me I haven't searched well enough and give me a link.
Thank you

edit: I put this here because it's about Capitalism 2 and not about CapitalismLab
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