Seeking feedback:new feature "Competing Nation's Population"

[David]

We are seeking feedback on this feature:

Enhanced gameplay for the Survival Mode

If you have enabled the Survival Mode in the City Economic Simulation DLC, the following special settings will be activated:
1) All products are locked, requiring reinvention, except the ones in which you have expertise.
2) The "Competing Nation's Population" will be displayed at the top of the screen, comparing against yours. (The competing nation is an imagined nation whose main purpose is to give the player a stronger sense of competition.)

1) Did you find this new feature increase the sense of competition in the survival mode?
2) How did you fare against the Competing Nation's Population?

[Wehmeyer12]

English:
I therefore have a better incentive to optimize everything and as cost-effectively as possible to build the city. Well, after about 100 years it has managed to reach a population of more than 1 million people and this is the most difficult severity.

At the beginning, however, this was very tough and difficult to catch up with the company itself.

This meant building only houses and switching the automatic rents to 80%. After a few days I was able to win dadruch riesiege win to win my next election campaign.

It also makes much more fun when everything is unexpected at the beginning. Thus one can, so to say, specialize in one area. This also applies to AI.

At the end I would like to apologize, since my English is really bad. I can read English prima but when writing the fun on ^ ^

I wish you a nice evening!


Deutsch:
Ich habe deswegen ein bessern ansporn alles zu optimieren und so kosten günstig wie mögliche die Stadt aufzubauen. Naja habe es nach ca 100 Jahren auf eine Bevölkerung von über 1 Millionen Menschen geschafft und das auf den Schwierigsten Schweregrad.

Dies war aber am Anfang sehr zäh und schwierig um mit dem eigen Unternehmen gewinne einzufahren.

Da hieß es nur Häuser bauen und die Automatische Mietenregler auf 80% einschalten. Nach ein paar tagen konnte ich dadruch riesiege gewinne einfahren um mein nächsten Wahlkampf zu gewinnen.

Es macht auch deutlich mehr Spaß, wenn alles am Anfang unerforscht ist. So kann man sich, so zu sagen auf einen Gebiet spezialisieren. Dies gilt jedoch auch für die AI.

Am ende möchte ich mich noch entschuldigen, da mein English wirklich schlecht ist. Ich kann zwar English prima lesen aber beim schreiben hört der Spaß auf ^^

Ich wünsche euch einen schönen Abend!

[David]

Thanks for your feedback. Glad to know that you like this new feature.

[JohanPB]

I have also tried to play on the highest difficulty level (560%) on the 4.4.04 patch

It is possible, but you have to be lucky, low interest rates at start, or bust.
I am ten years in the simulation and I found it very hard and a bit frustrating around the edge.

Some ideas that comes on top of my mind :

• The competing nation should bear its own competitiveness rating for all industries, like any of our cities. I cannot stress enough how important this is, so that the first city has a growth accelator.
• Everything but one product family locked out at start is very very harsh. One option to lower the difficulty should have both effect
  1) Food and Beverage megaclass must stay open, most of it is low tech.
  2) The open product class should be in fashion or Healthcare and beauty
• The research time for new produtcs is very long. more than 2 years, is a very long time, It should be much shorter, but giving a lower technology level ( 10 ? 1? ) when this starting research succeeds.

This is a more generic list, relative to the City Economics DLC.

• Using government media to be the only big job source at beginning feels bad, on so many counts.
• Commercial buildings should be a better job source.
• AI should calm down on plopping down manors.
• Governement should be able to promote local industry, for a price in land and money, so that the city can prosper in jobs, future corporate taxes and lower the food and goods need, with bad quality products, because of no R&D.

Bugs

• using a landmark to gain two levels on R&D units did not make the R&D unit go up. During this game, I used a previous landamrk to boost farming units, and this one worked properly.
• As my company, I could buy lands that where marked "not for sale". but I could not build anything over it until I sold back those lands to allow governement to rezone it.

[David]

The competing nation should bear its own competitiveness rating for all industries, like any of our cities. I cannot stress enough how important this is, so that the first city has a growth accelator.

1) What did you mean by "so that the first city has a growth accelator" ? Could you please explain in more detail?

2) Were you able to beat the competing nation's population in your game?

3) Do you think that the competing nation's population growth rate is just right or is too fast/slow?

4) Did the competing nation bar shown at the top of the screen give you a stronger sense of competition, thus making the game more fun?

Everything but one product family locked out at start is very very harsh. One option to lower the difficulty should have both effect
1) Food and Beverage megaclass must stay open, most of it is low tech.

This will be implemented in the new patch v4.4.10.

2) The open product class should be in fashion or Healthcare and beauty

In the next patch, all megaclasses, except Food and Beverage megaclass, will require reinventoin, not just fashion and healthcare.

The research time for new produtcs is very long. more than 2 years, is a very long time, It should be much shorter, but giving a lower technology level ( 10 ? 1? ) when this starting research succeeds.

The research time will be reduced by 30% in the next patch.

Using government media to be the only big job source at beginning feels bad, on so many counts.
Commercial buildings should be a better job source.

The number of job openings created by media firms will be reduced by one-third in the next patch. Please give it a try and see if you think the balance is now right.

And commercial buildings supply office space to local firms that need it. The growth of local firms is driven by GDP growth and increases of competitiveness ratings. So the act of building more commercial buildings actually does not lead to more jobs.

AI should calm down on plopping down manors.

Could you explain this in more detail?

Governement should be able to promote local industry, for a price in land and money, so that the city can prosper in jobs, future corporate taxes and lower the food and goods need, with bad quality products, because of no R&D.

In v4.4.10, the AI will sponsor university research to increase competitiveness ratings of specific industries. This will in turn increase the local industry for those industries.

Bugs

using a landmark to gain two levels on R&D units did not make the R&D unit go up. During this game, I used a previous landamrk to boost farming units, and this one worked properly.

Actually the effect will be applied to new functional units only. The new patch will explicitly state this as shown in the attached image.

As my company, I could buy lands that where marked "not for sale". but I could not build anything over it until I sold back those lands to allow governement to rezone it.

This will fixed in the next patch.

[JohanPB]

1° The problem can be summarized in one screenshot



Note that the single city is highly advanced in Automobile, but as it is the single one, the global means rose almost immediatly, giving me no means to export until I build a second city, which I can not afford yet.

If the competing nation also simulated those ratings in a sensible way, then we may be onto something better.

2° and 3°, I could beat the other nation growth easily as the competitor's growth is very slow compared to mine.

4° the competing nation was a non-factor. Just a slow moving bar on the screen.


About AI manor invasion : the AI just loves putting manors everywhere I did not zone as "not for sale", especially with high services area, with high land values.

[David]

Note that the single city is highly advanced in Automobile, but as it is the single one, the global means rose almost immediatly, giving me no means to export until I build a second city, which I can not afford yet.

The new patch v4.4.11 will fix this issue. The global competitiveness ratings will only increase when there is more than one city in the game.

2° and 3°, I could beat the other nation growth easily as the competitor's growth is very slow compared to mine.

The competitor's population growth will be set to a higher rate in v4.4.11. Please test it and let me know if it is still too slow.

About AI manor invasion : the AI just loves putting manors everywhere I did not zone as "not for sale", especially with high services area, with high land values.

[/quote]

This bug will be fixed in the new patch as well.

[JohanPB]

All in all, the competing nation in the early game is still not nearly as fast it may.

Although the global Competitiveness rating doesn't move before the 2nd city, I still think the competing nation ought to have those simulated too.

Basically, the only factor that is artificially limiting my eraly growth is the 50000 immigration cap. Give an option to remove this cap on the mayor policy screen, and it will make the game much easier, as the basic ventures such as Livestock would be proftable sooner.

[David]

All in all, the competing nation in the early game is still not nearly as fast it may.

We will further increase the competing nation's population growth rate in the next patch v4.4.12. Please test it and see if it is fast enough.