We will investigate the bug.

I'm not sure how uneven prices within a city effects things, but I wanted to experiment with it and see and that's how I discovered this bug. I didn't do much experimenting though. I just ended up managing all of my retail stores in Paris (to stop the automatic changing of prices) and engaged them all in a price war. The AI was selling blazers for $10 and jeans for $4.75, so I just matched their prices. This got me my needed market share for the subgoal. After accomplishing that, I called off the price war by putting my COO back in charge of those stores and had no problem maintaining my market share lead. Strangely, the next and final goal in this scenario (dominate leather goods) ended up being extremely easy and I was able to accomplish it within minutes. There was practically no competition there for some reason. I was even playing on the "tremendously harder" difficulty.

I just wish there was a better way to manage how the COO prices things. You can't tell them to start a price war or anything like that and they seem to only price things reasonably in retail stores. For factories and farms, I have to set them all to Internal Sale Only, check the box for COOs to sell Internal Sale Only products at cost, and push the products to warehouses where I can manage the prices there. I want the COOs added expertise in factories and farms, but if I let them manage prices there, they set the price so high that no one will buy the products. It's as if they don't want the retail stores to make a reasonable profit from your goods. The slider bar you set for them (maximize profit vs maximize market share) seems to have very little, if any, effect.

[quote="ceomoses"]The reason I was wanting a different price in one of my stores in each city is because even though all of my stores are profitable with the COO, I'm having trouble getting the market share I need to complete the scenario. The lead competitor has half the stores I do, but he's selling his products at a loss to keep his lead.

My plan is to have one store in each city have 1 purchasing unit and 2 sales units for each product that I need to dominate in able to complete the scenario. In this store, I would sell my products at cost to the retail store, which puts my rating well above average in that store and would draw enough demand and customers in it for me to take the lead. I would be taking a small loss in that particular store, but the profits from the other stores would make up for it, in addition to completing the scenario much more quickly.[/quote]

I wonder how effective this uneven price tactic actually is, the effectiveness should depend on how many customers you draw from both AIs and your own stores to your cheapest store. You would lose some profit and gain some market share (initially), but for AI's situation it's hard to tell.

High aggressiveness AI would try to match your highest rating store, thus the market share you gain overall initially might go back to AI's control again after the price war starts again. But this process would take a while, so unless you could do this to all your products that fall behind in market share a bit, and try to nudge the market share a bit higher from other AIs, otherwise after a couple of months, your overall market share might fall back again, if you don't match your higher price store to the cheapest price.

IMO, this is a short burst tactic as a slightly more complicated form of price war. Personally in this situation, I would try to hold on to a basic market share with the highest profit margin possible, and try to buy one of your competitor out with merger, by undercut certain product and force them into losing profit thus lowering their stock price. I would say it could be done for about a years or so with loans.

I have duplicated the bug in 2.6.14 and have attached a save file.

On this save file, I'm at a point in the game where I have several apparel stores in all cities, but am behind in market share in blazers, jeans, and leather jackets. I need to be the leader in apparel to complete the goal. Mary T Petal is my COO and is managing all of my retail stores, except for one in Paris, right by the bank and radio station, which I wish to manage myself.

In this one store, I have 3 purchasing units which are each tied to 2 sales units. I wish to sell blazers, jeans, and leather jackets just above cost for the retail store. This puts my current rating for these products significantly above the city average at this store, which I hope will drive up demand and sales and increase my market share.

I have set products in this store at these prices:
Blazer - $57.63
Jeans - $13.58
Leather Jacket - $48.69

The date on the save file is September 27, 2008. On October 2 (it doesn't matter what game speed), prices in this store begin to change by themselves. Jeans change to $18.73 and leather jacket changes to $82.43. On October 12, blazer changes to $96.99.

From my testing, it appears this bug is related to the COO. Here's what I found:

*If I am managing all of my retail stores, prices do not change.
*If I am managing all of the retail stores in the city and the COO is managing all retail stores in the other cities, prices do not change.
*If the COO is managing at least 1 retail store in the same city, the price changes.

I started a game and tested it. When the AI is removed from a firm's manager position, the AI no longer changed the prices.

The reason I was wanting a different price in one of my stores in each city is because even though all of my stores are profitable with the COO, I'm having trouble getting the market share I need to complete the scenario. The lead competitor has half the stores I do, but he's selling his products at a loss to keep his lead.

My plan is to have one store in each city have 1 purchasing unit and 2 sales units for each product that I need to dominate in able to complete the scenario. In this store, I would sell my products at cost to the retail store, which puts my rating well above average in that store and would draw enough demand and customers in it for me to take the lead. I would be taking a small loss in that particular store, but the profits from the other stores would make up for it, in addition to completing the scenario much more quickly.

Why you need a different price in a city ?

I was playing the Fashion Venture scenario on 2.6.12 and encountered a bug.

I had hired a COO and had many apparel stores. I set my COO to run all of my retail stores. After a while, I set myself to personally manage 3 of them as I wanted to set low prices for those particular stores to drive up my sales and complete the scenario. I found shortly after I set my prices, they automatically reverted back to pricing that was on par with the rest of my stores. I believe that the COO is still changing prices in those 3 stores even though I set myself to manage them.

I didn't do a whole lot of testing and just updated to version 2.6.14 to see if the problem persisted there. I found that after upgrading, my save files no longer worked. :(

I haven't tried duplicating the issue in 2.6.14 yet.