AAR - Zap

[Arakash]

Thanks for sharing. The electric engines was an interesting choice.

Expansion wise I decided to stay in Europe throughout the game. This was mostly a lazyness thing HAHA. I did have a go at expanding into New York in 1912 but pulled out in just over a year. Basically, the cost of freight meant I was losing money off every sale and if I bumped my prices up my sales would drop and I'd lose even more! I figure the only way to make cross ocean trade profitable are either to have a very high margin product that can absorb the cost or to open up a factory in the target continent and have it make specific vehicles for that market. The former I didn't have (though, I probably could have if I tried again in 1925) and that latter I just couldn't be bothered doing.

Ive heard from several people on this, most including myself just use a different trim for different regions of the world.
So you can manufacture and sell that specific trim(basically the same vehicle with a different aesthetic) in that specific area and avoid accidental shipping expenses.
Balancing and refine this has been the subject of several different suggestions on the forum.

That's what I do too!
And that's what this was referring to with this

open up a factory in the target continent and have it make specific vehicles for that market

as well as this

that latter I just couldn't be bothered doing.

lol. Just too hard for that I wanted for this game!
Some of those refinements we've been discussing are really necessary before it's really within my patience to do for 360 turns with 60+ branches, 5+ factories, and 2-3 different trims of 10+ vehicles.


Oh yeah, also I only ever did broad base advertising for Zap. I never advertised any of their vehicles specifically and I don't believe I suffered for it.

On the first thing, i assumed when you said you made vehicles specifically for that market, you were referring to designing entirely new vehicles, my mistake there, sorry.

On the marketing, as i mentioned in another thread, consider the cheap cost of newspapers and its listed high marketing effectiveness, i really have no idea why you wouldn't use it as much as possible.
There was a debate in another thread about whether broad base or specific is more effective, but i don't think anyone has demonstrated that specific is somehow useless or ineffective

In most of my games so far, unless im selling tiny volumes, i max newspapers in pretty much every city before 1920. As its a very low cost, that will rarely get the marketing cost per unit sold beyond 20-50(or much lower in large cities).
If im short on money i take money first out of the least effective marketing places(like magazine/sporting), from both broad base and specific, before even thinking about reducing newspapers.

So yeah, im really baffled by the decision, unless you were just trying to limit your micromanagement or something other practical concern.
Or perhaps your pursuing a specific marketing strategy where your consumer base doesnt read or use newspapers?
Or were you really focused on getting your image as high as possible through marketing alone?
(Just a bunch of wild guesses)