high initial wages?

[Alastar]

i recently tried a new approach for the beginning of the tame, setting wages very high at the start (you have 10k to play with and not a lot of inhabitants so the wages won´t make that large a dent). lots of early immigrants really help to kick-start your economy (and the wages will compensate lack of social facilities or housing for a few years, a clinic however is still useful).
you could also raise wages to the top whenever a freighter arrives, then lower it immediately after if you can deal with the drop in job satisfaction. this approach is beneficial to your terasury but might cause political problems on the harder levels.

[Exs]

I don't think that is a good idea... If you play jojo with wages you make your people unhappy. Also the early 10k are much better spent on other things, they actually do make dents...

As long as you have housing and plenty of open jobs available you should have many immigrants coming.

I usually always try to have plenty of job openings and with skilled workers welcome I get tons of educated people. Then after a while just close your border and 500 people are easy to get.

[Junta_Joe]

As long as the average pay for your island is higher than the carribean average, the immigrants will come.

[Mr.P]

And in addition, the more Dockworkers you have the more ships will come.

This helps in both mederating the flow of immigrants (i.e. Just built that Farm, but no one to work it, and the only ship on the screen is leaving your dock?)

And it also helps ensure that your exports are shipped timely, rather than sitting there for a year whilst you sole Dockworker gets his lazy butt to work - all for like 1 month - and then goes off to catch some zzzzz's!!

[Junta_Joe]

Read my old instruction in the Bridges thread on how to supercharge your docks. That was a good thread for newbie ideas.

Now that PT is fixing the constuction worker problem, only the teamsters are going to be a problem.

The teamster problem can usually be fixed with very careful building layout and prodigious amounts of well placed roads.

I have been experimenting for months on how to fix the T/L/D (that's Teamster/Laborer/Dockworker for you initiates) problem. The only thing that always stumped me was the slow construction speeds. Should any of the newcomers need some guidance, just leave a note for me in one of the threads in this board. I'll find you the answers you need on this subject.

I'm going to find the old Bridges thread and bump it back up. I am not sure if it is in this board or the Bugs & Sugg. board. Look both places for it.

[Egg]

LOL i wouldn't reccoment it though. Its a...waste of initial cash. It should be invested into a cigar factory like what i always do or a ranch and build a cliinc. Initial cash isn't for you to give you tropicans super happiness or something but for you to start your economy. Usally around the 4th year then i build my first tentment. So that should keep them happy. And to increase the BHQ, beautify the surrounding area.

[Alastar]

imo a quick jump to industry is overrated - it often takes a while to make a profit, has a high initial cost, needs plenty of hs grads, needs upgrades to be really more profitable than yet another farm/ranch... for appeasing the capitalists early on, a little bit of touristm (medium hotel, beach site, viewpoint) is enough.
of course you will feel some budget constraints if you follow this route, but if you build lots of cheap, highly profitable buildings (ranches come to mind) and skip on the luxuries early on, this can work out better than the usual low-wage star with regular regular pay raises (especially if you started with a low population).
i agree though, it´s probably not something you want to do in every game.

[Junta_Joe]

My iniatial funds generally go into jump starting my economy with resource gathering industries, setting up extra food production, and setting up a second construction office.

After that I focus on two aspects of the game to build my overall power base through the sixties. The first aspect is my dock town: Dock (or two); Teamster office; Bar; Clinic; Market; Church; Apartment. I cluster them right on top of each other. I drop a large fountain in the middle of them. I then pave the entire area, including under the buildings. This allows any industry plans to flourish. The dock workers have everything they need to stay put. Nothing languishes on the docks. Ships get in and out fast, which also gets the immigrant coming in faster too. I have also found that paving under the buildings shortens their visits to those institutions! Just make sure that you only allow the dock workers to have the apartments.

The second aspect is getting more people in and settled. Ever notice that the initial shack town is on prime real estate? A few tenements or apartments and it clears right out to make room for your downtown area. Place an immigration office in the first newly cleared space there. Hire two beauracrats immediately.

By the late sixties, you now have money coming in. You have the basic social services up (Raul now shuts up!). You have a steady stream of skilled immigrants arriving. You have a lovely chuck of prime real estate cleared for downtown. You have made the communists happy (thus more foriegn aid money). Life is good. You are now ready to embark on any career path you desire. I have used this model even for tourist mecca games. I'm sure that a case can be made for avoiding this plan, but it has served me well so far. I routinely play at the hard levels and generally score over ten grand over seventy years.

[Morticcia]

personally, i have never seen a correlation between paying the carribean wage and immigration.  those suckers seem to come regardless of how poorly the tropican wage is in comparison to the carribean average.  

does it mainly effect educated workers? also, i was always under the impression you received no educated workers unless you set (and staff) your immigration office to skilled workers.  does anyone know if this is or isn't true?

[Alastar]

i don´t know how income disparity works for immigration, but if you pay someone little for their education bracket, they are quite likely to emigrate (usually only a problem with college grads if you want a socialist island or you´re a cheapskate).
i believe for immigration only the average wage is relevant because indeed you only get educated workers with the appropriate setting... and then their proportion depends on the skill of your bureaucrats rather than the relative wages.

[Egg]

 Well i do not know about paving roads underneath buildings but i do know a reason why you should save the wages. During an election, raise EVERYONES pay by $1 or $2. If you do not have cash, then use this. If not use this + Tax Cut. That will really win the election. But i still think that using the initial cash to jump start the economy by building a cigar factory is useful. By the time you have 2 constuction offices and build finish a cigar factory, the first batch of tabacoo should be ready.

[Antilles]

No, no no!  Bad idea!  Start low and increase, that way you can raise the fees for entertainment and housing appropriately as you go and the Tropicans won't be that upset about it.

[Slamin Sammy]

No way, at the start of the game raise everyone's pay about 1-2 and raise palace guards from 10-15.  After a few years your farms and whatever cash making things you have should start making money and then is when you raise the average worker pay to about 8-10 (or thats what I do anyway) and change the guards pay to about 20 (this satisfies the military).

[Mr.P]

From experience I agree that immigration has a direct link to wages.

So long as your base pay is within $2 of the Caribbean wage for unskilled workers you will, with an immigration Office and free job slots, receive 12 immigrants. This only tends to apply after the mid 60's, once your economy is bounding along.

Playing Che's recent competition and attempting to secure the highest number of immigrants possible has supported this long-held opinion by other board members.

[Egg]

  High initial wages--> not good, you should save the raises when it comes to an election

[rob the slob]

 High initial wages--> not good, you should save the raises when it comes to an election

i agree.  the only time i raise wages is for an election or when i want to fill job positions at a certain site.

when the announcement that says,"presidente, i believe your people will be calling for an election next year." i raise wages one dollar because that is almost always an election issue.
then a year later when someone runs against me i see the candidate support tally.  if i am down in the polls, i raise the wages another dollar.

raising wages for a job is a great way to get people to work there.  for example, it seems that nobody wants to be a priest and i just hate to pay for hired help.  so when my church is built, i raise the wages to $18 at the church.  soon afterward the high school is filled with men who eventually become priests.

[Egg]

  They're lousy priests who go to carberts and pubs... i have the evidence to prove it...

[Peckering]

My Tropicans are abnormal.  I was playing the Spring Break tourist scenario and was trying to staff (and keep staffed) 4 new cheap hotels I had.  I raised the wage at each to $5 over the basic unemployed wage (that everyone else gets----socialist) and looked at the job list and saw 5 unemployed peeps.
It took 7 months to get the unemployed into the hotel jobs.  Should i have cut social security to make them work.  Or are they all just lazy good for nothing ****?
P

[Mr.P]

I'm not sure what stage you are at in the scenario Peckering, however having an Immigration Office (fully staffed) and the wages of unskilled labour in the hotels at $2 above Caribbean Average will help attract new workers to your island.

Providing housing and other facilites for workers also helps keep them in their jobs.

[Peckering]

Ahhhhh.
Now see until now i always keep a small group of unemployed peeps, cos i hate building an building in an emergency and then havin no-one 2 work there.  If it kills immigration then i'd better not do that.
P

[Mr.P]

Yup Peckering, having open job slots is a key part of immigration, as well as the level of pay.

I have tested several saved games and found that you will have a larger number of immigrants if you have good pay and open job slots, but poorer numbers if only one of the above criteria are met.

[Peckering]

Yeah, since i learned this, i tried a couple of sandbox games as testers and it seems you are right.
Thanx for the input.
P

[Egg]

  I played a sandbox game. When i had apartments and enough food for my pop, i was ready for a high-class tourist mecca. Guess what, the hotels and attractions took up TOO many jobs and i had a SURGE in immigrants... I had food, housing, pollution and health problems

[Mr.P]

Egg Posted on: Today at 02:13:19pm

Guess what, the hotels and attractions took up TOO many jobs and i had a SURGE in immigrants... I had food, housing, pollution and health problems

LOL Egg, I have had this happen too. You open the doors and a mass of eager immigrants floods you island paradise, to fill your already bulging apartments, eat the food, become unemployed etc.

Managing immigration can prove a tricky balancing act for a while.

[Junta_Joe]

Tourist meccas have this problem a lot. I have found it to be wise to build into it. Dropping most of the hotels when I have set up the housing and social services needed. What helps to have a small side industry set up first to give you the pesos to build this way.

Try this tactic:

Get a few tobacco farms going and one cigar factory. There is about six HS or college graduates to man this.

Set up a dock town

When you are turning a profit start building apartments for hundred people along with one extra clinic and church.

Build a bunch of contruction offices and let them get filled.

Start saving your money. Not building the hotels and recreation saves on maintenance costs.

When you have enough money and construction workers to build the pyramids at Giza, go nuts and build all the hotels and tourists traps at once along with a secondary dock for your first tourists. Once the hotels are largely done, destroy construction offices to fill job slots in the tourist areas. When you are almost done build the airport and then close the last of the extra construction offices

Money should start rolling in now and you can return to keeping up with basic needs.