Development direction change for this expansion pack

[David]

After a series of experimental gameplay implementation and testing, we concluded that this expansion pack requires a change in development direction, discarding those design elements that have proven not working and incorporating new ones that might work.

The intention of this post is to give you guys a heads-up about the development direction change and I will post the details of the changes later after we have got them all sorted out.

Thanks,
David

[Arcnor]

Any update on this?

[David]

Here is an update about the latest development direction:

New features that did not pan out well in their actual execution in the game. Their development have discontinued:
-the energy sector, power plants
-a banking system
-customizing the roads (instead of roads of a new city will be automatically laid out in standard-size grids.)

New features are the focus of the DLC's development:
-the ability to form a political party
-a simple simulation for mayoral elections
-the mayor will have the ability to set policies for a city.
-taxation: sales tax, profit tax and salary tax
-the ability to run a corporation while at the same sponsoring a political party to run the mayor's office.
-the ability to set up a city from the ground up
-the ability to influence the nation's power by building new cities and growing existing cities.
-a detailed simulation of the city's economy, including more in-depth simulation of GDP and population growth.
-the player's achievement is gauged by both the player's commercial success as a businessman and the player's influence on the nation.

[tonnyz]

how about hospital n government buildings as previewed in some threads below, are they still on your focus ?

[David]

how about hospital n government buildings as previewed in some threads below, are they still on your focus ?

Yes, they have been implemented and they seem to work fine from the gameplay standpoint.

[David]

Here is a sneak peek of the work-in-progress version of the nation map.

Cities are indicated by the orange markers on the map.

Other icons on the map are natural resources.

You will be able to build a new city on the nation map under certain conditions.

[tonnyz]

1. Will a player have a chance for being a government executive (like mayor)? or only having influence for political decision?

Yes, the player will become the mayor if he/she wins the mayoral election.

2. Since this game is mainly about business, i think i'll prefer player's not allowed to be any executive. Even in some countries it's prohibited to be an executive in government and company in a same time.

So the game is now designed in such a way that the player can form a political party and let a party member run for the mayor's office and the player can remain as a CEO of a company.

3. What's the policies to be set by a governing party in this game ?

A mayor can make decisions on increasing or decreasing the expenditures of public facilities, change tax rates, change unemployment benefit policies and set an annual limit on immigration.

[tonnyz]

1. Will a player have a chance for being a government executive (like mayor)? or only having influence for political decision?

Yes, the player will become the mayor if he/she wins the mayoral election.

2. Since this game is mainly about business, i think i'll prefer player's not allowed to be any executive. Even in some countries it's prohibited to be an executive in government and company in a same time.

So the game is now designed in such a way that the player can form a political party and let a party member run for the mayor's office and the player can remain as a CEO of a company.

3. What's the policies to be set by a governing party in this game ?

A mayor can make decisions on increasing or decreasing the expenditures of public facilities, change tax rates, change unemployment benefit policies and set an annual limit on immigration.

i'm talking to myself

faint out


-----------------------------

thx for ur explanation, just realized that some of my questions are irrelevant based on the direction of the development,

but now i've got where it's going to

[Arcnor]

Well the future development is interesting though I must admit I'm a little disappointed in what is being discontinued.

I was really looking forward to the banking and power plant features. I especially wanted to see how it would be like to run a bank.

[David]

Unfortunately, the banking and power plants, while looking interesting on design docs, did not translate into good gameplay.

After all, what counts is still good gameplay.

The programming code is still there. Perhaps in the future, if we can come up with better ideas to improve their effects on gameplay, their revival could be a possibility.