LMC - My first company

[listl89]

I have joined the forums today, after having played GearCity a lot the last couple of days.
Loving the game so far and I think the game is way more developed than I expected when I bought it on steam (early access).

I started my first company in New York which I named LMC (*last name* Motor Company). I started in 1900 and on my first try I went bankrupt in 1927, when all of a sudden I started losing money. The result of which was that I went bankrupt within a year.

I didn't understand what the reason was for losing basically everything in a matter of months. Luckily I saved my game just before this happened. I reloaded my save and I discovered that I spent WAY too much on marketing by accident. Nearly went bankrupt again during WW2, when my factories were closed for about 5 years.

Anyways, my company is now in the year 1995.

Here are some figures:

Cars currently on sale:
LMC Transit (Minivan), selling about 15000 units per month.
LMC Coupe de Ville (2+2 Coupe, sort of resembles the real thing), selling about 11000 per month
LMC Jolt (Hatchback), selling about 6000 units per month.
+ several older models which either still sell good enough or are still in stock/reserve.
The cars sell through branches across the US and Canada.

I currently own 56% of my own company and my broker says the market cap (which I think is the value of the company, but I'm not sure) is $14.846.479.302.656 or 14.8 trillion dollars.

I currently own 34% of a company called 'Seed Cars'. The market cap for this company is 6.1 trillion dollars. I suppose 34% of that is mine. I was lucky to buy a lot of shares from this company early in the game.

That's about it If anyone is interested i'll upload some screenshots.

[Eric.B]

Yea, market cap evaluation is a bit busted right now.
Sounds like a pretty good game though. Specially making it that far on your first game. Most people go bust 10 times before they get the hang of the game.
During war time, you oughta us the contracting feature. It'll keep you from bankrupting if you can score some military contracts.

You're more than welcome to upload some screen shots that you want to show. I'm particularly interested in the market share and profits charts.

[Savoyard]

Yeah, I just did that maxing all forms of marketing on accident thing last night. I got mad until I checked the expenses screen.

[listl89]

I figured the market cap was a bit busted considering the 14.8 trillion while being the second biggest company (way smaller than the second).
It seemed a bit high to me :p Currently it's easy to stay alive and make a profit of about 300 - 500 million each turn, but only since the 80s.

As far as marketing concerns, I only invest a small amount in marketing. I believe investing more might increase sales, but at this point sliding marketing to 25% will cause a loss of 200-300 million per turn. I suppose you will also need to 'resize' every branch manually.

I'll upload some screens soon.

[Eric.B]

Currently it's easy to stay alive and make a profit of about 300 - 500 million each turn, but only since the 80s.

How many AI did you start with? And what was your starting year? I assume easy mode?

As far as marketing concerns, I only invest a small amount in marketing. I believe investing more might increase sales, but at this point sliding marketing to 25% will cause a loss of 200-300 million per turn.

Marketing is really only effective against competition, so if you put them all out of business, or you didn't start against many, then there is not much point in spending that much per turn.

I suppose you will also need to 'resize' every branch manually.

There should be a resize all branches button in the "Auto Tools" section of the Mega Menu.

[listl89]

Currently it's easy to stay alive and make a profit of about 300 - 500 million each turn, but only since the 80s.

How many AI did you start with? And what was your starting year? I assume easy mode?

I think I started out with random 200 AI (Could be random 100 also, I can't remember =/)

As far as marketing concerns, I only invest a small amount in marketing. I believe investing more might increase sales, but at this point sliding marketing to 25% will cause a loss of 200-300 million per turn.

Marketing is really only effective against competition, so if you put them all out of business, or you didn't start against many, then there is not much point in spending that much per turn.

Makes sense

I suppose you will also need to 'resize' every branch manually.

There should be a resize all branches button in the "Auto Tools" section of the Mega Menu.

I've included a screen of the mega menu. I can't seem to find it, but perhaps im looking in the wrong place.
I've also included a few screen with things requested like market share chart and profits.
I think my global market market share is very low, although I'm 'big' in the US.

[Eric.B]

Interesting amount of market share. what are the sales figures of your competition? 0.o

The retool button for branches is all the way on the right hand side, third from the bottom.

[listl89]

Interesting amount of market share. what are the sales figures of your competition? 0.o

The retool button for branches is all the way on the right hand side, third from the bottom.

Retooling isn't the problem. I have auto-retool on so my branches are always 100% efficient.
What i meant was resizing every branch. It would be nice to see a button for that

The attached screen is an overview of every car 'Seed Car' sells globally.
Every model is from 1990 by the way.

[Frankschtaldt]

Interesting amount of market share. what are the sales figures of your competition? 0.o

The retool button for branches is all the way on the right hand side, third from the bottom.

Retooling isn't the problem. I have auto-retool on so my branches are always 100% efficient.
What i meant was resizing every branch. It would be nice to see a button for that

The attached screen is an overview of every car 'Seed Car' sells globally.
Every model is from 1990 by the way.

HI, looks like your company is doing well.
My first suggestion would be to not keep selling old models, at least not much older than 5-6 years. Having older models on sale can hurt your image and negatively effect the sales of your newer (hopefully more profitable) models.
I'd also suggest you need to be careful about how you make a resize all branches button work. You don't want all your branches the same size (Imagine having a branch big enough to keep up with New Your planted in the middle of Auckland, it'd take up most of the city lol). If it were to be introduced it'd have to apply a % increase I think.

[Eric.B]

Whopse, read that wrong, thought you said retool, not resize. Yes, you have resize manually.

[listl89]

Whopse, read that wrong, thought you said retool, not resize. Yes, you have resize manually.

Will there be a button for it eventually?

[Eric.B]

Whopse, read that wrong, thought you said retool, not resize. Yes, you have resize manually.

Will there be a button for it eventually?

As an auto tool button. Probably not. As each factory/branch is specific to the city it's in.

However we are going to have "simpler" maps soon with many less territories. So if you find the micromanaging of 270 cities as too much, these other maps would probably be a better option to play on.

Also in 1.19 we'll have districting/national grouping. Allowing you to control branches/factories as one giant factory/branch. It may be possible to extend bulk resizing to this.