Advertising budget
Posted: Thu May 02, 2019 12:01 am
I gave another tried to the Subsidiary DLC will the freshest v5.7.10 of Capitalism Lab.
Starting a new game, I decided to test how the AI behaved. I chose a CEO having 80 on Retail/Marketing, on top of 80 in its Product Class (20 eveywhere else).
Having allowed the subsidiary to expand in specific product classes (5-6), avoiding dangerous options like generating stock options or selling technology, but allowing it to expand in anything (from retail to media), I then saved & let the clock running. The AI would not builg any single building for a year. Competitors AI did plenty of stuff meanwhile. Why is the subsidiary AI behaving differently ?
I decided to reload to the savepoint, built a couple retail stores selling re-labeled Seaports products in order to build my own Range Brand for products to be later crafted in-house.
The AI had full control over Training & Advertisement budgets.
I immediately noted the AI went crazy on advertising, spending more in it than it had... revenues! The cursor profit margin <-> market share was untouched in its original middle position. How can anyone, anything decide to spend more on something it has revenues? The bank credit line was dry.
Heck, at some point, with merely 3 retail firms generating $8M revenue annually, loss were $10M over the same period. Crazy. It shows intent, as mere mistake cannot lead to such a dreadful situation.
I then did a test: stripping AI from control over the Advertisement budget, I put it to 0 in the 3 firms and I moved the aforementioned cursor on 100% profit margin. Instant profitable business. Thus there was a solution, and the optimum one probably in-between.
This AI going full-steam on advertisement to build brand awareness without taking into account the money line (cash + profit + credit line) available to it looked like I put a no-brainer as CEO of my subsidiary.
What is the point of that expensive DLC if I have to micromanage such basic things myself?
Starting a new game, I decided to test how the AI behaved. I chose a CEO having 80 on Retail/Marketing, on top of 80 in its Product Class (20 eveywhere else).
Having allowed the subsidiary to expand in specific product classes (5-6), avoiding dangerous options like generating stock options or selling technology, but allowing it to expand in anything (from retail to media), I then saved & let the clock running. The AI would not builg any single building for a year. Competitors AI did plenty of stuff meanwhile. Why is the subsidiary AI behaving differently ?
I decided to reload to the savepoint, built a couple retail stores selling re-labeled Seaports products in order to build my own Range Brand for products to be later crafted in-house.
The AI had full control over Training & Advertisement budgets.
I immediately noted the AI went crazy on advertising, spending more in it than it had... revenues! The cursor profit margin <-> market share was untouched in its original middle position. How can anyone, anything decide to spend more on something it has revenues? The bank credit line was dry.
Heck, at some point, with merely 3 retail firms generating $8M revenue annually, loss were $10M over the same period. Crazy. It shows intent, as mere mistake cannot lead to such a dreadful situation.
I then did a test: stripping AI from control over the Advertisement budget, I put it to 0 in the 3 firms and I moved the aforementioned cursor on 100% profit margin. Instant profitable business. Thus there was a solution, and the optimum one probably in-between.
This AI going full-steam on advertisement to build brand awareness without taking into account the money line (cash + profit + credit line) available to it looked like I put a no-brainer as CEO of my subsidiary.
What is the point of that expensive DLC if I have to micromanage such basic things myself?