Here you can learn from the interaction between experienced businessmen and young entrepreneurs. You are welcome to place your questions related to our business simulation game and get the answers from experienced players
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Below is a compiled list of FAQs that I can think of for starters. In fact, at this time of post, I have only begun playing for about 2 weeks only so most of the questions below were actually raised by myself. Thanks to this helpful community, I got all the answers and additional information accompanied.
The list below will be updated from time to time. Please feel free to raise your questions here. Once they have been answered, I will update the first post with the new Q&A.
For those who are unaware, there is a wikipedia created for Virtonomics and there are many information you can find pertaining to this game. The link can be found at: http://wiki.virtonomics.com/. There are many FAQs in there too.
Wherever possible, please look through the list below before posting your question as there might be duplicates. Thanks!
================== ... FAQs ...
================== ++My First Week of Virtonomics++ Q1) I have just created an account, selected the realm that I want to play in. Now what? A1) You can choose to accept your rich uncle's gift (A basic setup of your business empire), or to build your company from scratch. For those who like the excitement of building things from scratch (And at the same time learn more in the process), I would recommend that you choose the latter and tweak around as things get bigger.
Q2) What do I do after I have built my office? A2) You need to employ staff and get a computer equipment for your staff. Also make sure to tweak the number of employee to hire, their salary and the computer equipment accordingly to ensure that you have full efficiency for your office.
Additional Information (Contributed by VLLord)
Better to start with computers quality 1 and employees qualification = required = 1. Don't put workers' qualification higher than required!
On the foot of the main page of your subdivisions there is a link "Work efficiency". It shows efficiency of this subdivision for tomorrow. This link updates every ~15 minutes
Q3) Why is my office not making money for me? A3) Because it can't. For a start, you might want to branch out towards Commerce field. This is where you construct retail stores, get supplies, and sell them to your customers. Alternatively, you might want to go into Production field and build factories, organise your suppliers, and eventually producing items. These items may then be sold to other players who will then sell these items to the market. If you already have operational retail stores, you may also sell to your retail customers by supplying to your retail stores directly.
Q4) Where is a good place for my store? A4) Frankly, anywhere is a good place to start a store. For a start, you might wish to find a wealthy country, and place a store in city centre and at 500sqm.
Additional Information (Contributed by VLLord. Examples are geared for Mary players)
Don't start your stores in rich countries(Germany, France etc). Workers' required qualification is very high there. Instead of this find a good market in Africa or Turkey. Sometimes markets there are more profitable, than in Europe
Q5) Why hasn't my supply come? A5) There are two things to note here:
1. Supplies do not come immediately! You need to wait for a game-week (or a day in real life) for them to arrive. This is applicable for ALL sort of setup (retail stores, factories, etc).
2. When ordering your supply, look out for the Available column from the supplier. Yes, the supplier might be producing 400,000 products a day (represented by All column), but if the supplier has nothing available, you won't be getting any supplies unless your supplier produces more the next day, or to give you priority when distributing the products. In this case, you might want to drop the supplier a note and network with your supplier for a long-term working relationship.
3. You can choose the "Automatic Purchase" option to let the system make some purchase automatically for you. Unlike your usual way of ordering goods, these orders are delivery immediately. However, I personally do not recommend this mode as the profit margin for these goods are usually not very high. You are better off spending the 100k on other things.
Q6) How do I know what are the good items to sell? And by good I mean profitable A6) What would you do in real life if you wanted to open a retail store? Know if your products are unique, and who your competitors are, and possibly what price rate are they selling for their products, right? Similarly, you would want to do the same in Virtonomics. There are extensive functions available to assist you with your market research. For a start, you can go to Game World -> Reports. Select the country/city that your retail store is located at, then look at the different types of products that you want to sell. Pay attention to two things here:
1. Local Suppliers' information
2. Stores' information
The local suppliers in Virtonomics would mean non-player-controlled companies that are in the market. Stores would mean the ones controlled by players.
In essence, you want to have a edge-on over the local suppliers. It could be same pricing but better quality in products. Look through the list of suppliers you have access to, and select your products from there.
Another thing you want to take note is the location of store. Customers shopping in City Centers tend to care more on quality than in the pricing, as compared to customers shopping in the suburb. Also, take note of the wealth index of the country. In rich countries, generally, quality is favoured over price.
Q8) Argh, what's all these "Qualifications" and "Work Efficiency"? How do I link them up? Please paint the big picture! A8) Think of Qualifications as your 'level' in this game. To be able to deal with large businesses, you need to be of the appropriate level to come in. Which is why your Work Efficiency has to be tweaked in accordance to your Qualifications.
For example, refer to the charts in the link stated in Q7. At Qualification 1 (Q1 for short) for Commerce, how many staff should I hire to gain 100% work efficiency for a retail store, if the required qualification is 3.00? This can be calculated by: (Quality of Staff needed * ((current staff / left column of the chart) ^ 0.5)). In this case: 3 * (5 / 50) ^ 0.5 = ~Q1. You know that you can hire 5 staff.
So you see, if you hired more than that, you might experience a drop in Work Efficiency. Sometimes though, it could be a good thing. For example, if you were to expand your shop to 1,000sqm and hire say 10 staff. You will experience better sales volume (due to increased crowd) despite having lower work efficiency!
Take note that your work efficiency is also affected by your office efficiency! So make sure you tweak them well
Lastly, you can also do quests to gain more experience in your Qualifications!
Q9) Can you tell me what to do, in a nutshell, if I want to setup a retail store? A9) First of all, DO YOUR MARKET RESEARCH! Then find a country and set up an office. Staff your office with employee/equipment and then set up a retail store in the city center at 500sqm. Find your supplies and try to stick to one department (Same type of product). Set the selling price of your products and watch your sales grow
Additional Information (Contributed by VLLord)
How to make market research: open warehouse and choose specialization that you need. Then go to supplies and press green car. Choose avaliable from 1. After you'll look at avaliable goods and prices - close warehouse.
Q10) Help! I'm stuck! My required qualification for my store is 9.0, but if I set my salary range to accommodate to that, I am not able to get 100% work efficiency! A10) Look up at Q8.
Q13) Eeeeek! My supplier just went missing! My retail store's operation is screwed.... A13) This is one of the common problems everyone faces when we decide to go Commerce. There are a few ways you can do to work around this, and hopefully, mitigate similar threats to come.
1. Build a warehouse, and stock up on supplies. Direct all supplies from your warehouse to your retail stores. This way, you have ample backup supply to fall back on while you go on search for another supplier, and you don't have to do that for all your stores; just a simple point of contact
2. Never depend on one supplier! Look around for similar quality-price ratio and play a bit of mix-and-match.
3. Network with your suppliers. Always request for early notifications so that you can make the necessary arrangements.
++My Second Week of Virtonomics++ Q14) Cool... Some of my Commerce and Management Qualifications have improved, and I'm getting a stable income from my retail stores now.. What should I do next? A14) Glad you didn't give up on this game From here on, you decide where you want to go next. Logically, since your front-end (retail stores) have a steady stream of customers, you need to work on your back-end (production/supply) now.
One thing I learnt in business is that there is only *this* far you can do for your front-end - You can only lower your price to get more customers. But hey, why not work on the back-end instead? Basically, to increase profit, you just need to lower the cost!
I know there are a few people who might have missed this page out, but this is very, very helpful (especially for beginners): http://virtonomics.com/lien/main/common/main_page/game_info/game_map. For those in other servers, amend the server name in the URL to the respective servers that you are on.
Now, if you study this road-map, you'll realise that I am actually moving from "Trade" to "Production and Research" track. Of course there're other ways to help you earn more money, but I chose this path because you get to get exposed to more things (and learn more things)
For example: Your retail store is currently purchasing 1500 meat at a price of $45 and you're selling at the price of $120. Why not construct a farm, with an initial capital of around 350k (including staffing and livestock/supply) and start producing 1200 meat at a prime cost of $15? You work the math; usually it's very good ROI.
ok thanks.
I realized there is also the switching raw materials supply strategy, for example for clothes fabrics-> fabrics +leather which gives a Q bonus.
In a general way, is it also possible to contact players directly to get good raw materials, or is this useless?
ok thanks.
I realized there is also the switching raw materials supply strategy, for example for clothes fabrics-> fabrics +leather which gives a Q bonus.
In a general way, is it also possible to contact players directly to get good raw materials, or is this useless?
As I see you need wool. Then study the production report. You may contact the 5 biggest producers, guees one of them will help you.
Thanks VLLord and erevion, your efforts have made virtonomics easier to understand and more fun to play.
regarding high quality goods, especially from livestock, is there a way besides using higher and higher technology ?? In lien, there is only Q1 grain available in open market and if i use livestock Q >2 then my livestock start to die. However, i see that in lien many people are producing real high Q meat and other related animal produce. Should i open my own farm for breeding high Q animals and keep on replacing dead animals in other farm with it?
p.s : currently i have farms of Max size (50 building).
Thanks VLLord and erevion, your efforts have made virtonomics easier to understand and more fun to play.
regarding high quality goods, especially from livestock, is there a way besides using higher and higher technology ?? In lien, there is only Q1 grain available in open market and if i use livestock Q >2 then my livestock start to die. However, i see that in lien many people are producing real high Q meat and other related animal produce. Should i open my own farm for breeding high Q animals and keep on replacing dead animals in other farm with it?
p.s : currently i have farms of Max size (50 building).
There is no other way. Guess all these guys have there own agri farms. So if you want to produce as high-quality meat as they are, then you should buy an agri farm too.
@VLLord : If i have
1. forage of Q=1
2. animals of Q>2 say 5
3. tech level say 8
it is certain that my animals will get sick. Can i keep the levels of production by replacing them on daily basis?
Guess you can, but it will take a lot of your time to do this every day + to replace animals every day is quite expensive.
As I don't use animal farms myself, I suggest you to wait for another opinion.
But will it help me if i have a farm producing animals just for that purpose( replacing sick animals). I see from production tab that farms are not active the whole season and produce is for a limited period only and it seems highly unlikely that the people who are in production of high quality, mass production of agri-goods (meat, eggs, wool etc.) would be able to manage for the whole cycle.....
And I also have some questions about Lesson 7. First of all, it was mentioned on russian forum, that the amount of scientists affects not only 3d stage, but the second stage too.
How big will be the difference if i will study 5 technology with 1000 scientists?
Maybe you can write another lesson about selling technologies? Or just mention about how money are divided between the technology sellers.
And I also have some questions about Lesson 7. First of all, it was mentioned on russian forum, that the amount of scientists affects not only 3d stage, but the second stage too.
And on the same forum I read the opposite. In addition I haven't mentioned any difference in the 2nd stage duration with the different # of employees.
antabr
How big will be the difference if i will study 5 technology with 1000 scientists?
Maybe you can write another lesson about selling technologies? Or just mention about how money are divided between the technology sellers.
I can write a lot about required qualifcation and the best pricing in commerce, but I'm not a good scientist. I'll ask Noglues to answer these questions (and the previous one too).
According to my observations it's not affected by number of scientists. The length of that stage is affected by the hypothesis you choose and the efficiency of your laboratory. If the efficiency is lower than 100% then researching the hypothesis will take longer than it should.
According to my observations it's not affected by number of scientists. The length of that stage is affected by the hypothesis you choose and the efficiency of your laboratory. If the efficiency is lower than 100% then researching the hypothesis will take longer than it should.