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Companies & Production

Founding a company

You need an already-built, empty Industry lot, Commercial unit or Bank that you own or rent, plus (for licensed activities) the matching degree/certificate. A one-time Business Founding Fee may apply (default $0, law-adjustable up to $3,000, paid to the state). The company starts with $0 treasury and a default employee wage of $400/shift, which you can then change.

How production works

1. You (owner) set the wage paid to employees.
2. Employees work shifts and produce goods, which accumulate in the company warehouse.
3. You list goods on the market from the company panel.
4. When someone buys, revenue flows into the company treasury.
5. You withdraw profits (minus a withdrawal tax) or reinvest them.

Company profit = sales revenue − wages paid. Withdrawal tax is 15% default (law-adjustable, 0–50%) for ordinary companies; Private Banks use their own withdrawal tax, also 15% default but bounded 5–50% (it can never be waived entirely).

The tax applies to every way capital leaves a company, not just to ordinary withdrawals: closing a business down, losing it to eviction, or having a nightclub licence revoked all return the remaining treasury at the same rate. Warehouse stock and raw materials are lost on closure and are never refunded. There is no tax-free way to empty a company, so liquidating and refounding gains nothing.

Production chains

Licensed service shops (Restaurant, Medical Clinic, Gym, Beauty Salon, Law Firm, Veterinary Clinic) work differently: the owner picks a quality tier (LQ/Med/Luxury) per shift and produces a fixed batch of that tier's product or service. The Veterinary Clinic is the exception: instead of three tiers it chooses between two different products, 2 Dog Vaccines or 2 Vet Visits per shift. The State never sells either, so vets are the only supply — every vaccine and every visit a family dog needs comes from a player's clinic. Each of these shifts also gives the owner +1 work experience, like any job — so working your own shop is also a way to build up the Productivity 100 that earns the Expert worker star.

Units per shift

An employee's shift makes the chain's base quantity × the worker's Productivity multiplier — the same multiplier that sets their wage. A worker at Productivity 50 is paid 1.5× the posted wage and makes 1.5× the base quantity; at Productivity 100 both double, and that is the cap.

A shift rarely makes a whole number of units, and the part of a unit left over is never lost: it stays in the company and completes a unit in a later shift. The company panel shows it, and so does the shift log — a line reading Next Steel: 50% done means half of the next Steel is already made, and the following shift finishes it (so that shift delivers one unit more than usual). That keeps the cost of each unit the same at any Productivity. For example, a Smelter paying $200 a shift with a worker at Productivity 25:

That is $500 for 5 Steel, $100 each — exactly what a Productivity 0 worker costs ($200 for 2).

The extra unit only comes out if the warehouse has the materials for it and it doesn't lower the shift's stars. If not, the shift makes the usual rounded-down amount and the part already done waits for the next shift. The materials check when a shift starts ignores it, so it never stops anyone from starting work.

Product quality (stars)

Every good carries a quality from ★ to ★★★★★. It sits on top of the tier in the name (LQ, Med, Luxury…): the tier says what kind of product it is, the stars say how well it was made. Stars are stamped when the goods enter the warehouse and never change afterwards — they travel with the goods through warehouses, the market and backpacks. Identical goods with the same stars stack together.

With all four investments a shift reaches ★★★★★ — provided the materials are ★★★★★ too, which means the whole supply chain above you has to be running at the top grade. When a shift needs materials, it automatically uses the lowest-star stock that still reaches the best possible result: premium materials are never burnt on a shift that could not use them, and a shortage of good materials only lowers the result as much as it has to. The company's ⭐ Product Quality card shows how many stars the next shift will make and what is holding it back.

Where goods come from matters too:

• Goods produced by the State (stock added by parliament refills) and goods given by the game (such as the starter food) are ★.
• Everything that already existed when stars were introduced counts as ★★★ — including State stock already on sale at that moment, until it sells out.
• Resellers never change stars: a Supermarket, Car Dealership, Gas Station or Gun Shop sells exactly the stars it bought. Stars are only born where a product is made.
• The construction chain has no stars: Clay, Limestone, Bricks, Cement and Prefab. Those companies don't use machinery, and those materials never cap anything.
• Stars do not change what an item does: food, cars, clothes and vouchers work the same at any grade.

Machinery & the Machinery Factory

Machinery is made only by players, in a Machinery Factory (Automotive chain, industry lot, employees only): 1 Steel + 1 Microchip + 1 Plastic per machine, 2 machines per shift (4 with an expert). The State never sells Machinery and never refills it. It is sold on the Wholesale market, where any company that makes goods with stars can buy it — industries outside construction, studios, the Restaurant and the Boutique.

• Activate a machine from the company's ⭐ Product Quality card, choosing which one (by stars). It runs for 2 game years — a ★★★★★ machine for 3. Only one machine runs per company, and it can't be swapped before it expires.
• When it expires, the best Machinery in the warehouse installs itself at the next shift — but only if its star would really count on that shift. It stays in the warehouse if it is too weak, or if the materials would cut that star anyway (for example ★★ Iron Ore in a Smelter that already makes ★★), so a machine is never burnt for nothing.
• Machinery has stars like every other good. A machine must be at least as good as the product is without it: an expert worker and a consultant make ★★★, so a ★★★ machine or better lifts that to ★★★★, while a ★★ machine does nothing.
• For a ★★★★★ product you need an expert worker, a consultant, a marketing specialist and a machine of at least ★★★★ — plus ★★★★★ materials. A ★★★★★ machine gives the same star as a ★★★★ one; its edge is that it lasts a year longer.
• The top grade can be built up from nothing: with those three people, ★★★★ materials and no machine, a Machinery Factory makes ★★★★ machines; running one of them, the whole chain can reach ★★★★★.

Elderly consultants

A company that makes goods with stars (industries outside construction, studios, the Restaurant and the Boutique) can open a Consultant post from its ⭐ Product Quality card, with a fixed wage per shift. The post appears on the 📣 Consulting & Marketing tab of the Job Market.

Closing the post stops new consultant shifts (a shift already running finishes and is paid). The card shows how long the consultant star has left, who holds the post and when the next shift can start. If the company closes, its consultants lose the post and a running shift's wage goes back to the company.

Marketing specialists

The second specialist post works exactly like the consultant one — same card, same star, same 24/48 hour clock — but it is aimed at the other end of a life: it needs a Degree in Marketing and closes at 70. A company can run both at once, and each gives its own star.

The Degree in Marketing opens no company of its own: it is a qualification that exists to be hired. Between the two posts, an expert worker and a good machine, a company can finally reach ★★★★★.

Keeping track of your specialists

• Ongoing Shifts in the company panel lists a running consultant or marketing shift next to the production ones, labelled with its role: who is working, when the shift ends and how long the star will run once it does. A specialist never uses your production slot — if nobody is producing, the panel says so.
• After every completed specialist shift you get a report: who worked, how long the star now runs, the wage paid and when the next shift can start. It arrives even when the specialist is you.
• The ⭐ Product Quality card and every offer on the Job Market show when the next shift can start.

How the timing works, with standard 3-hour shifts and no star to begin with: the first shift ends with 24 hours of star, and a second one can start straight away — it ends with about 45 hours banked. A third shift would push past the 48-hour cap, so it has to wait about 18 hours, until the star is down to 27 hours. After that, one shift a day keeps the star lit. A car makes the shift shorter, so the wait gets a little longer.

Minimum worker Productivity

In Job Management an industry owner can require a minimum Productivity for production shifts: none, 25, 50, 75 or 100. Players below it can't apply, and can't start a new shift either — so raising it also applies to people already on your payroll (a shift already running still finishes and is paid normally). At 100 every shift is worked by an expert and earns the extra star, but far fewer players qualify, so expect to raise the wage. The requirement is shown on the job offer.

Antitrust Tax

To discourage one player from monopolising a supply chain, every company beyond your first in the same production chain (filiera) costs an extra annual Antitrust Tax — default $0/year, law-adjustable up to $2,000/year per extra company. (A separate, similarly-named anti-monopoly surcharge also applies to oversized political parties and religions — see Politics and Religion.)

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