Commerce Headquarters

Now that you know everything you need about company headquarters, it's time to put that Distributed Direction research to use and delegate the management of specific areas of your company by building the smaller headquarters. The first area will be commerce and for that you will need to build your commerce headquarters. This building handles the management and research for all aspects of commerce. The other smaller headquarters handle those same items for the other business areas that you might want to pursue.

The first step will be moving the map back to where you built your company headquarters because you can save yourself some time if you build your headquarters in the same area on the map. There are two ways to quickly move the map to one of your buildings. The fastest way is by using the quick links menu, covered when you built your company headquarters. The quick links menu enables you to quickly access some of your primary buildings. You would want to keep it to a minimum amount of links for it to be most effective. To use the quick links menu, simply click on the orange arrow above the mini map, then double click on the arrow next to the link that you want to jump to.

Another method for finding your buildings is to use the spider. Each time you build any building, it's added to your building list on the spider. You will use this to find a building that is not on your quick links list.

Click on the Spider Icon.

This will load the spider menu. If the menu does not load to the main page where the You icon is, click on the Home button at the top of the spider menu. This will return you to the main menu.

Click on the You Icon, this will load a screen that displays some information about your company.
Click the text link Companies. This will now load a list of all the companies that you have created.
4. Click on the text link of the company (with the Mariko Seal) you have created for the tutorial.

This loads another set of links for the different areas that your company can go into: Headquarters will list all your headquarter buildings, Public will list your public facilities, Industries will list all your factories, Residential will list your housing, and Services will list all your stores. Each small headquarters that you build adds a section to this menu. For example the commerce headquarters will be added to the services section.

Click on Headquarters.

This loads the menu for all the headquarters you have built with this company. You will see an icon of the building, the map location of the building, and a Show in Map text link. By clicking on the icon for the building you will get additional information about that building. By clicking on the Show in map link, the map will jump to that building.

Click on the Company Headquarters icon.

This will take you to a screen that lists some information about the building: net profit, construction costs and the ROI. That screen also has a Show in Map and Mail text link; the latter enables you to send mail to the building owner. Since you can also use the spider to view other people's buildings (you would use the People icon instead of the You icon,) this gives you a shortcut to send the owner of the building a message.

3. Click on the Show in Map text link to "jump" the map to your company headquarters.
4. Click on the Home button above the spider Menu.
Click the Spider Icon to Close the Spider.

Now you know how to use the spider to find buildings on the map; you can use it to view your own buildings or to get information about your competitors.

Now it's time to build your commerce headquarters building. The reason you moved the map back to where you built your company headquarters is that by building the same type of buildings close to each other, you can save yourself some time. Moreover, it makes the quick links more useful, now the link for your Mariko headquarters will take you to the area where all your Mariko headquarters are.

Click on the Build button.
If the build menu is not on the main build menu Click the Home button, then click on the Headquarters icon.
Click on the Commerce Headquarters text.

This will display the same information about the building that was displayed when you built the Company Headquarters.

Click the Build now button.

The system will download the building zones for the area that you are in, and if the land has been zoned you will see it change color. You should be right over the place you want to build so just wait for the zones to load. Now move your mouse over the screen and you will see the building move around the screen too. It will turn green if it's in a valid build location, otherwise it will be red.

5. Place the mouse over the area where you want to place the building.

When the building turns green click on the mouse, you have now placed your commerce headquarters. You will soon see its construction start on the screen.

Click the Home button on the build menu.
Click the Build button to close the build menu.
Click on the building so that is selected. If you click on a building while it is under construction you will see the progress displayed above the building.
Remove the Commerce Headquarters from your Quick Links menu.

After your commerce headquarters has been built, it will automatically begin researching commerce basics; a required research item in building basic commerce facilities. When construction ends and research starts you can review some of the settings for the commerce headquarters, most of which are analogous with those at the company headquarters.

Right click on your Commerce headquarters.

This will open the inspection window. You can also get to the inspection window by left clicking on a building and then clicking on the Inspect button. The inspect window is where you will find out a lot of information about the selected building.

The inspect window defaults to this tab when you first open it. On this page you can rename a building by typing a new name in the name box. You can close and demolish the building. Do not close down any of your headquarters though, if you close do, all your buildings will stop working (your headquarters supports them). You will also see the type of building, who built it, and the ROI. The ROI is the return of investment. Your headquarter buildings' ROI will be "Never"; since they do not generate any direct profits, but they do help your overall company make a profit.

Click on the Researches tab.

This is where you research more advanced commerce items. The research items that are available to you have a green circle beside them. Items that are unavailable will have a gray circle. This is also where you can see what you are currently researching and also what you have already developed.

Click on the Jobs tab.

This is where you can set your employee wages and see what employment rates are. If the town has set a minimum wage you will see that in red on the wage bar. Lowering wages is one of those catch 22 situations. Sometimes you need to lower wages to make a profit, but by lowering wages, your workers will have less disposable income to spend on the products you are trying to sell. So you will need to decide where you want wages at based on your personal preference. A general guideline would be to not set salaries 100% over the minimum wage (unless you have problems retaining workers) and not less than the town's minimum wage.Pay careful attention to the town's minimum wage (set by the mayor--see the red indicator on the wage bar). If you set your wages below the minimum wage, not only will your employees receive the minimum wage anyway, but they will know you tried to pay them less. This could impact retention, especially if you have low unemployment rates. Furthermore, you will have a hard time trying to hire any new workers, due to the low pay offered. Generally it is a good idea to be right at the minimum wage rate or slightly higher.

Click on the Management tab.

This page is used to upgrade and downgrade your buildings and to copy the settings of one building to several others with one click of the mouse. You will primarily use these functions on your stores and factories.

Click on the History tab.

At the one year mark this tab will provide you with a profit and loss chart for a building.

That gives you the basics on all the information tabs at the commerce headquarters. As you can see, most of the tabs have the same information as the company headquarters' tabs. The main difference being that the information displayed relates to the commerce headquarters. If you want to adjust wages at your commerce buildings, it would be a good thing to do now.

Click the Inspect Button to close the Inspection Window.

That covers all the basic steps to building your commerce headquarters. Notice that most of the basic steps are the same for every building. Some basic points to remember are listed below. The next section will cover building your first store.

You need to build on a commercial, light-blue-zoned land if the land is zoned.
This building is required before you can build any commerce buildings.
All Headquarters buildings are service centers and not direct profit centers. All headquarters buildings will show negative profit. This is normal; do not shut them down.
You can research advanced commerce facilities at the Commerce Headquarters.
It will be easier to find your Commerce Headquarters if you build close to your Company Headquarters.
Each headquarters building cost money to run. Build them only when you need to.