Negative construction in stock (Kebir Blue)

My recently taken slave has a Construction in stock level of minus 468,000,000. This isn't a monthly usage number but an in stock number. Construction is a physical unit. This is like saying you have minus 1000 Tanks. Surely you've either got some or you have zero. Anyway, I believe conquered countries have construction shortages and I did just have an earthquake, which the construction number made very difficult to attend to, but this looks like a bug. Should I just buy the constuction on the market? I'll cost about 140B. I have two corps selling directly to the country, but at a monthly production rate in total of 4.5M units, it'll be a slow process.

Dex.

It just means that's how much you're short.

It's an odd way of labelling it though. So is it important enough to borrow the 140B and at least square the ledger? The country has 5B in cash and 410B in debt and going nowhere. The construction deficit could be the cause of my problems.

Dex.

I believe the negative Construction amount is supposed to indicate the infrastructure damage the country has taken during the war and is a method to monetize the cost of rebuilding the country you just tore up to conquer.

I've done both ways (continually contracting for several game years and buying in lump sums). It's probably going to be significantly cheaper to buy chunks of construction because you can buy it near quality 100 but if you're contracting it from your own corporations, you're probably buying it at a significantly higher quality.

So the question I guess is: is negative construction a limiting enough factor in a country that being thrifty and gradually building up the construction level is counter productive because you're stiffling its viability, as opposed to going into debt (or indead extending a hefty burden), fixing the construction problem and making the country viable and more able to repay the debt? Watching the news, it would seem that most of the worlds leaders are choosing the latter, although ours (Australia) just got knocked on the head.
I'm going to try fixing the price payed by the country for construction contracted to it by a company by altering the sales strategy away from quality indexed pricing. See if that works.

Dex.

Dexter, contracts trade at market price adjusted with quality. You might want to stop contracting to your country, sell on world market with a % mark up of produced quality, and have your country buy 100 quality, immediate purchase if you are in a hurry for it. (This is assuming your construction companies produce rather higher than 100 quality).

The debt/no debt question is a matter of how you want to be. Bear in mind the interest you pay is negligible and 400 odd billion is really small cheese in this game, you'll soon catch that up, so, in my opinion only, go in debt and get yourself growing.

Thank you all. This thread has been most helpful. To conclude my experience in this exercise, I transfered 500B from my Main and borrowed some more and just bought the stuff. Fixed roads and schools to all-but 100 index and so on. The country is up and viable within a day or so (RT). I don't want to advocate spending at all cost and bugger the debt, but it seemed to work in this mechanism. I tried fixing the price of construction by not following quality but it's very hard to note how this went. Purchasing log suggests it did nothing. Still, we are afloat now.

Dex.

depending on what world you are on you should be able to lobby the Security Council for 5T in aid to help develop since you seem to be new judging by your questions.


With Regards,
Dragoon

I was a bit worried I might need the Security Council aid, but I think I'll cope without it now. It's part of the game to come through trying situations with only the friendly advise of fellow Presidents. The aid packages are good for building the community too.

Dex.