Auto Link supplier?

[City Builder]

Hi folks, (main question is in bold red below if you don't want to read my wordyness)

I am trying out a simple game in my current Cap Lab game, something different for me where I'm buying all of my products from seaports or the AI instead of manufacturing or growing all of it myself. Well, this obviously leaves me at the mercy of the suppliers to keep supplying me with their products to sell.

I don't mind having a turnover of products in my super market stores, (maybe it's even good for business?), however between the Seaports and the AI, they are constantly running out of different products. One moment my shelves are fully stocked and the next I'm out of cold tablets, or detergent, or frozen chicken or whatever it was that I had been stocking.

So... I clicked the paperclip A that says "Auto Link Supplier", however it never does anything towards getting me another supplier. Hell, I wouldn't even mind if it didn't get me the same exact product, if cold tabs run out at the sea port and now they have deep fried twinkies, that's okay by me, go ahead and link up the supplier, feel free to get anything at all in it's place, just so that my store shelf is not sitting there empty.

Okay, so my question is now here...
I'm going to guess that either that function is broken, or I'm simply not using it correctly, should or should not the paperclip A, "auto link supplier" feature find me a new supplier of the item that I was selling from anyplace in the game world, i.e., from any game map, and if there are no more available, then it should substitute and link my store up with some other "end" product?

In all my wordness, I guess what I need to know is... Will the Auto Link supplier feature only look for the exact same item that just ran out of stock, and will it look only in the city where my store is located or will it look in any city to get the same product that just ran out?

I seem to remember back in the days when I used to play Capitalism 2 for many many hours every single day, that this feature was very handy at keeping my store shelves stocked for me, but maybe my store shelves were actually sitting empty for a while until the same exact product finally came back to the city where my store was located and I simply never realized it, or I've simply forgotten how it actually worked.

[City Builder]

42 reads and nobody knows?

Is there a wiki where this answer might be found, I don't mind doing a little reading of a wiki if I have to.

[Dordanov]

Was about to post a thread about it myself, but might as well reply to your thread.

I'm pretty sure the Auto Link Supplier is broken at the moment. It never works for me. I have the "Auto link supplier" option set to enabled in the options screen, and I ensure the paperclip/chain A button in my retail stores/factories is always enabled.

However, I never get linked a new supply in Cap Lab, where it did work in Cap II (played that as well last week). The message just shows "Your supply of X has stopped".
And I know for sure a new supply is available, as when I manually check for the product it is there. Sometimes from one of my own companies, sometimes from a competitor, and ranging from current city to other cities, it doesn't matter, it doesn't re-link.

What tends to happen for me if that I start off with a small factory to reduce cost to service a single product in a city. Then when the supply is high enough and the small factory can't cope with the demand, I build a second (larger) factory for that product. I wait until it has produced enough of the product so the sales unit is supplied, and the product is actually available in that factory. At that point I destroy the old factory, and *poof* "Your supply has stopped". No relinking was done, and I have to manually relink the new factory. It's pretty annoying actually!

Although I must confess I have not yet played the latest (1.970) release, but it wasn't mentioned in the release notes either, so I'm assuming nothing has changed to regard of auto link supply.

[mwyeoh]

For me, it sometimes works and sometimes does not.

Its a hit & miss, which is why I hadnt replied as I havent worked it out

[David]

Was about to post a thread about it myself, but might as well reply to your thread.

I'm pretty sure the Auto Link Supplier is broken at the moment. It never works for me. I have the "Auto link supplier" option set to enabled in the options screen, and I ensure the paperclip/chain A button in my retail stores/factories is always enabled.

However, I never get linked a new supply in Cap Lab, where it did work in Cap II (played that as well last week). The message just shows "Your supply of X has stopped".
And I know for sure a new supply is available, as when I manually check for the product it is there. Sometimes from one of my own companies, sometimes from a competitor, and ranging from current city to other cities, it doesn't matter, it doesn't re-link.

What tends to happen for me if that I start off with a small factory to reduce cost to service a single product in a city. Then when the supply is high enough and the small factory can't cope with the demand, I build a second (larger) factory for that product. I wait until it has produced enough of the product so the sales unit is supplied, and the product is actually available in that factory. At that point I destroy the old factory, and *poof* "Your supply has stopped". No relinking was done, and I have to manually relink the new factory. It's pretty annoying actually!

Although I must confess I have not yet played the latest (1.970) release, but it wasn't mentioned in the release notes either, so I'm assuming nothing has changed to regard of auto link supply.

You may try v1.971 and see if auto link supplier is working properly with the latest version. If not, you may post here and we will look into it.

[Dordanov]

You may try v1.971 and see if auto link supplier is working properly with the latest version. If not, you may post here and we will look into it.

I played some of Challenge 8b during the weekend, but the auto link supplier still doesn't work for me in 1.971...

[City Builder]

You may try v1.971 and see if auto link supplier is working properly with the latest version. If not, you may post here and we will look into it.

I played some of Challenge 8b during the weekend, but the auto link supplier still doesn't work for me in 1.971...

Same here, still not working as far as I can tell with 1.971

[David]

Could you provide a save game and pinpoint the exact problem ? And I will ask our programmers to look into it.

[Dordanov]

Well, it's not really conditional I think, as it just NEVER auto links for me, but I suppose I could set up a simple game for it. I'll try to remember to do so when i'm at home later today, if I don't forget that is

[Dordanov]

As a save game you can use the same save game I posted as the end game for challenge 8B: http://www.team-maledict.nl/upload/cap/CHAL_8B_END.zip

Just destroy any of the warehouses in Warsaw. They are linked to several farms, so the auto link supplier should just be able to select a farm as the new supplier.
When I destroy a warehouse however, the supply just stops, as seen in the attached screenshot: