Food & Beverage Scenario Help
Posted: Thu Sep 24, 2020 6:43 pm
Hey folks,
I'm semi-new to Capitalism Lab. I've completed the first few scenarios and now I'm onto Food & Beverage and could use guidance - I'm struggling with this one.
I noticed my CEO starts this scenario with expertise in 'Snacks' so my starting strategy is to build a bunch of Convenience Stores due to their low cost and utilizing Snack products from Seaports (preferring my starting city but importing others where necessary). I might build and max out one R&D center to research something like Ice Cream and begin distribution, scaling up as necessary to handle demand and eventually reaching other cities.
I feel like I'm taking a long time to expand into other cities and my product line; the scenario asks you to reach brand dominance in Snacks, Beverages, and Food with a $300M market cap. It seems I lose my dominance and market cap quickly, even if I have the highest quality Snacks. I do think part of my problem is struggling to keep up with demand; even if I start raising prices, eventually a competitor enters the market and cuts their prices to where I have to lower mine and my profit margins suffer. I think foods are generally a low margin but high-volume business to begin with.
Part of my problem is with Farming. Many of the snacks require Strawberries and I struggle to supply a sufficient number through the entire year. I've tried compensating with larger farms and warehousing those to keep supply when the farms exhaust their inventory for the season. Spinning up a new Farm appears to be very costly until they begin selling product. Still, I've tried to maximize training because the major tip I've seen for this scenario is to start farms early and max training to improve quality faster.
I also try to hire a strong CMO early in the game to get more brand quality points. This seems to work in the early stages of the scenario but later has a lower impact due to the competition.
One thought I'm going to try in my next New Game on this scenario is to spread production across multiple cities rather than consolidating in one place; ideally this would reduce freight costs. I'm not sure if with food products it's smarter to produce each product in each city or if there's some way to reduce freight costs.
Any other useful tips for finishing this scenario? In general my companies seem to grow at a much slower pace than the AI. Again, I'm learning so maybe I'll figure that out with more time and patience. In most cases I start with a bunch of Department Stores to get cashflow before going into my target market. I generally use the Range Brand strategy.
Thanks in advance!
I'm semi-new to Capitalism Lab. I've completed the first few scenarios and now I'm onto Food & Beverage and could use guidance - I'm struggling with this one.
I noticed my CEO starts this scenario with expertise in 'Snacks' so my starting strategy is to build a bunch of Convenience Stores due to their low cost and utilizing Snack products from Seaports (preferring my starting city but importing others where necessary). I might build and max out one R&D center to research something like Ice Cream and begin distribution, scaling up as necessary to handle demand and eventually reaching other cities.
I feel like I'm taking a long time to expand into other cities and my product line; the scenario asks you to reach brand dominance in Snacks, Beverages, and Food with a $300M market cap. It seems I lose my dominance and market cap quickly, even if I have the highest quality Snacks. I do think part of my problem is struggling to keep up with demand; even if I start raising prices, eventually a competitor enters the market and cuts their prices to where I have to lower mine and my profit margins suffer. I think foods are generally a low margin but high-volume business to begin with.
Part of my problem is with Farming. Many of the snacks require Strawberries and I struggle to supply a sufficient number through the entire year. I've tried compensating with larger farms and warehousing those to keep supply when the farms exhaust their inventory for the season. Spinning up a new Farm appears to be very costly until they begin selling product. Still, I've tried to maximize training because the major tip I've seen for this scenario is to start farms early and max training to improve quality faster.
I also try to hire a strong CMO early in the game to get more brand quality points. This seems to work in the early stages of the scenario but later has a lower impact due to the competition.
One thought I'm going to try in my next New Game on this scenario is to spread production across multiple cities rather than consolidating in one place; ideally this would reduce freight costs. I'm not sure if with food products it's smarter to produce each product in each city or if there's some way to reduce freight costs.
Any other useful tips for finishing this scenario? In general my companies seem to grow at a much slower pace than the AI. Again, I'm learning so maybe I'll figure that out with more time and patience. In most cases I start with a bunch of Department Stores to get cashflow before going into my target market. I generally use the Range Brand strategy.
Thanks in advance!