Now that I’m leaving, I thought I’d write down the way I approached tenders. I want to emphasize I’m no expert at them, just a regular folk who happened to be playing them and who wants to share his experience.
I hope I’m not breaking any game rules by revealing anything secretly held game mechanics- but sharing my tactic, the way I played each type of tender, which may not be perfect.
While this is an open post, I hope everyone interested will benefit from it without overpowering anyone specific.
From what I have seen, most newcomers try several times in specific tenders in the professional league and lose enthusiasm because of no win. The same happened to me. At that moment, self-pity overwhelms you, you think the gap is too big between you and big/older players, and you stand no chance against them. But that’s untrue. Some type of well designed tenders are well suited for newcomers also.
The first wake up call for me was the last stage of contest of presidents. My inexperience didn’t serve me well. But I didn’t cared that much. Second time at the first contest of tycoons, I regretted that I couldn’t win 1 damn tender in the professional league in a whole week just to get the contest bonus. So thereafter I was determined to be better prepared for the next such event. The goal was to win just 1 tender in 7 days. But once you start analyzing and playing tenders regularly, inevitably comes the experience. And they say success is a buddy of experience, or some would proclaim “practice makes perfect”. So I started winning them one after another. At the moment I have by far the best tender record on Lien realm(averaging 2wins/day in professional league). Okay, enough of self-congratulatory attitude. Let’s get to business, and reveal some tasty strategies.
GENERAL PREPERATIONS
- A little boost to your product’s quality is a bonus. Open smallest-sized factories, to enable +10% quality booster without paying points for the innovation. Use it sparing only for strategic products that you use regularly in tenders. During my domination times, carpets and game consoles showed best results. In a few months electromobiles should enter that category. The reason for using it sparingly – too many small sized factories without optimized Top1 can hurt your production qualification growth.
- Have an office in every region well prepared to sustain huge marketing expenses that comes along with tenders. Thus don’t overpopulate any of your production regions, and spare some office workload level for any potential tenders.
- Check out which country is currently having the “unique project”. There is additional professional tender in that country every update. It doesn’t change very often, because, well, contest of tycoons doesn’t happen often either. Knowing that, you should prepare this region for all kinds of tenders. For example Vietnam is a current holder. All the city’s citizens are poorly educated. So for example in fitness center/laundry/hairdressing units having well-trained workers will bring you regular virts on a plate. I’m embarrassed how easily this type of tenders are winnable, because I’m not putting any effort in them. So shortly – put all kinds of well-prepared units in all cities of a country holder to have an advantage over your opponents.
- Check out if your regular tender opponent is in the same corporation as you and if he has a high role/status. Presidents/Deputies (and possibly vice-presidents) has an immoral god-forbidden advantage to sneak in to your units and see all the modifications you do(price. etc.) before the update starts. Yes, you heard it. Unfair, right? Thus he can make according adjustments, while you will stay in an unblissful ignorance.
- Strategic tender warehouses in countries with high import tax( 40%+) is a bonus (ex. USA). For example autorepair type of tenders where PFOFITS not revenues are considered, every drop of profit can be critical if your opponent is very good at playing tenders.
SCRIPTS
- Automatic mass-units subdivision creator – I think it’s illegal to post the link to this script, so look out in the nooks of Russian forum for it.
- Virtonomica: заказ всех товаров группы в магазин из выбранного склада – look out the Russian forum. It works in english interface also. It will automatically order all the products from your warehouse to your unit. Believe me, it will save you a lot of time, if you are playing tenders regularly.
- virtonomica office_adv 1 – Same here. Russian forum. Automatic mass advertisement enabler. For now, works only in Russian interface.
And now the tenders:
COMMERCE TYPE OF TENDERS
EFFICIENT TRADE/CONSUMER MAGIC
They can be explained in a pair, because both can be played almost identically, only a small detail being the distinction.
Generally the most suitable products for this kind of tenders are – high priced/low volume products. The obvious ones are – cars and art décor. BUT that’s an easy and predictable choice. AND it can be easily blocked. THUS I always blocked them and won with other products.
Blocking method:
By saying “block” -I mean the blocking method, where an additional store is opened with a specific assignment to bombard the market with those specific products and prevent your opponents having any sort of sales. I don’t remember when the last time this method didn’t worked. Actually this type of tenders was my bread and butter. I was kind of guaranteed to win them. And even when an experienced opponent started to use the same method against me, he failed. Because it’s harder overwhelm the market for high volume products but super easy for low volume ones, even if your store service level is very low/ product has uncompetitive quality/ it doesn’t have branding advantage.
If you using blocking method, you are taking conscious risk of high expenses that comes with blocking method. In my case for every such tender, the fixed expenses would vary from 0,5 to 3 bln.$. But I was guaranteed with virt prize, which is valued at 100-110bln. in today’s virt-stock market.
Choice of district:
Generally the best-suited district is trendy neighborhood (snobtown – now and after). It has less attendance (good for this type of tender). You can charge a little more for the same product then in other districts. Also it has added value of branding power. But beware, not to lag too much in quality wise for your products. Because it can affect your sales harder in snobtown.
Advertisement:
Here it becomes apparent the distinction between the ef. tr./co. ma.
In consumer magic never use marketing for your store (clarification – use it for branding your products).
It will only worsen your results(My experience). It can only be effective when you are selling low volume products, thus marketing power will draw more attendance which is critical to sell those kind of products. I never used it, cause… yeah you are right, I always blocked them.
In efficient trade I don’t use store adv. also. I only use it when the store size is 10,000. and rarely in 100,000. In this case, firstly you can monopolize all the sales, and secondly it will bring better ratio of store seller/profits earned.
The number of products:
Well, I usually have 1 major product and several complimentary ones to boost sales. Sales of one kind of product helps to sell the buddy lying in the next store-shelf. But again, they are only complimentary. The major product will yield the most profit. In my time it was carpets for household department and game consoles for electronics department. Beware not to add too high volume/low priced products as complimentary. They will draw attendance without having an added value, thus decreasing the ratio of seller/buyer/profit.
Number of departments:
No strict rules here. Act liberally. But beware that every additional department decreases the number of sales for every product. But once again, this is neutral waters, any strategy can be victorious.
The limit of store-shelf occupancy:
It will depend on your store sellers qualification - how much you can shove in all your depressingly compressed products to your store shelfs. The higher the qualification of sellers, the more impudent you can become without having service level penalty. For ex. when my store seller have qual. at 10 I can occupy 250% of store shelf while keeping an elite level.
When for extended period of time no serious opponent were challenging me in these tenders, I usually prepared them the easy way. Open up the store. Order the right products in good quantity.Brand them. Click the “bargain sale price” on store unit’s main page. See the results. Clear the remaining products and order now accordingly to sales number of each product. This will optimize the ratio of seller/buyer/profits. Beware, this won’t work if you are having a serious opponent who is challenging with same products.
And finally make sure to have an ELITE service level at all times. My granny told me so.
BEST STORE
Firstly system evaluates the store service level. If elite – it will be shown as 5 points on tender results.
Secondly, if several stores has an elite level (well, most likely) the revenues rule the party. I usually had one department for store sizes less than 100,000. And two departments for the max store size. Shove in to max occupancy you can afford yourself based on store seller quals. as explained in previous tender hints. Have as many products as possibly, so they can compliment each other’s sales. But concentrate on major ones.
From my experience, if I have only one department, I can have up to 450,000 visitors without losing the elite status for 100,000 sized store.
10,000 store – 19,000 visitors.
1000 store – 1800 v.
500 s. – 350 v.
100 – 14/17 v. depending on what kind of department.
If there is two departments for 100,000 store no more than 240,000 visitors.
I could be wrong, but qual.s of sellers possibly affects your limits. Don’t know, make your own tests.
Snobtown rules.
Rarely when tender takes place in a very uneducated city, it can be impossible raise the qual.s of sellers on time for the tender day. In those cases the suburb shows a middle finger to snobtown.
Be informed, that there is 20%+- random for visitor number exists for stores. So don’t put visitor number too close to the limit.
SALE/TRADING IN CITIES/QUANTITYxQUALITY
Those tenders designed to please top players and give them a false sense of godly status over peasant-newcomers.
Marketing and commerce qual.s decides everything. The rest is straightforward. For SALE/QUAN.xQUAL. 2 stores opens up. Insane marketing for your store and brainwashing super heavy branding for your product. Now all set for marching towards victory. A little grin in your face, a sense of superiority inflating your self-esteem – is an added bonus.
Same manipulation for TRAD. IN CITIES. but this time open up only one store.
City district: Always city center. Don’t ask me why. Ask my granny.
IN SPITE OF COMPETITION
Well suited for cooperative play. You decide with our partner in crime which products to assault. None of you occupy more than 50% of product sales, while ensuring local sellers are kicked in the ass. Get high tender results. Laugh at your opponents who are playing individually.
PSEUDO-SHAGREEN
Make sure to dip your toe and see how is your products are selling before the start of 3days of tender. Try to make sure all your product are evenly distributed for 3 days. This a best simulator that brings up a true old-school seller in you. Enjoy and be grateful to developers for a well designed tender.
Marketing of the store to the limit of your capabilities.
ELITE status is a must. Branding is a sizeable bonus. Snobtown is a seductively attractive district.
SERVICE SECTOR-TYPE TENDERS
As a general rule the best results brings the specializations with an added expenses. SNOBTOWN rules in most cases.
FITNESS CENTERS
The district plays a role. In other words uniqueness. In 90% of time “professional sports” specialization brought me wins.
LAUNDRY
In my experience the service level matters only in snobtown. And snobtown rules. 2nd unit with same specialization in a same city hurts your sales in both of them. Uniqueness is a bonus.
HAIRDRESSING
Look into laundry. Don’t underestimate my diminishing interest to make this whole post. Granny to the rescue.
COUNTRY’S PRIDE
A fungi type ravenous expansion of your bazillion units can make a difference.
RESTAURANT-TYPE OF TENDERS
First, it should be noted that, the combination of equipment quality/employee qual.s/the quality of your worst supply product will determine your service level.
Even if your worst product is quite low, you should aim to raise the quality of the rest of suppliers if possible, as it will make it possible to raise the pricetag.
The uniqueness in choosing the district is a bonus. City center is the worst choice in most of the times.
The specializations with rare suppliers (read – from state enterprises) perform better.
In wealthy and big markets you won’t stand a chance against older experienced players.
In tiny markets, high volume specializations can get you a win.(for ex. teahouse, tearoom).
Franchised products bring a super sweet bonus of 60%+ in attendance. Recently beer pub with trademarked sausages has been performing great for me. You should note, if someone else uses the same franchised product in a city - the bonus will be divided based on the worst quality of your suppliers between competitors.
Have a warehouse ready with restaurant suppliers, as in all restaurant tenders, profits are calculated. You should sell yourself the suppliers at 0.01$ price from your warehouse.
BEWARE on Lien realm there is a very persistent player who will sneak into your company, put 2-3 additional units in the same district as yours just to decrease your unit’s uniqueness level. But that will start happening if you are winning them regularly.
Some suggest to repair your equipment daily in 3-days tender, citing it can affect the visitors number. Well, I’m doubtful. Make your own decision.
AUTOREPAIR
I’m getting bored. Please excuse me.
MEDICAL
Currently center of cosmetology will get you by far the best results. Boring.
TECHNOMANIA
The least clear tender for the newcomer. The least dependent on your qualification. The least chances you will start winning your first tenders on those.
The next is only my opinion.
The average pricetag for the technology is determined by all existing pricetags of players. The farthest pricetags(in %, you have to figure it out yourself) from the average then dropped and isn’t considered when calculating the average pricetag. The closest to 88/90% of the average pricetag gets the most profit. When several players knows this, you have to adjust accordingly your pricetag.
Well, my batteries are running low and I don’t want to write anymore. Thanks for your attention. And yes, that granny was only imaginary.
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