Seeking input: Import Company

[David]

Our plan is to add the Import Company as an extra post-release feature to the Banking and Finance DLC after its official release.

Here is a design draft for Import Companies:

You can build an import company and use it to search for international suppliers.

You choose a product type, and it will return a list of suppliers with different:
• Price
• Quality

Then you select a supplier to start importing the products.

But not all products are available. Their quality and consistency of supply also vary.

The overall rating (price/quality) will be likely be one notch below the average, so that it won't ruin the gameplay balance of factory operations.


What do you think about this design? Any suggestions are welcome.

[saffgee]

Are these real suppliers - ie factories that you can view - or basically just imports from cities you can't see, like ports ?

Btw, I've been toying with a few ideas around the logistics piece and I wanted to ask if the following might be possible:

- Make airports the same as ports in that they have imported goods that can be bought from them. There is only one airport per map, so this would add flavour without unbalancing anything.
- Allow ports and airports to be bought by players; the controlling player can set the prices for the goods and should also be able to change the throughput by expansion and set the products that are available (or at least allow or disallow certain products, retaining some randomness), adding some strategic play for the logistics piece.

Might those two be something to consider as additions in the context of launching an import company ?

[David]

Are these real suppliers - ie factories that you can view - or basically just imports from cities you can't see, like ports ?

Btw, I've been toying with a few ideas around the logistics piece and I wanted to ask if the following might be possible:

- Make airports the same as ports in that they have imported goods that can be bought from them. There is only one airport per map, so this would add flavour without unbalancing anything.
- Allow ports and airports to be bought by players; the controlling player can set the prices for the goods and should also be able to change the throughput by expansion and set the products that are available (or at least allow or disallow certain products, retaining some randomness), adding some strategic play for the logistics piece.

I think they are good ideas. Would you please set up a poll to find out the community's reactions to them?

- Allow ports and airports to be bought by players; the controlling player can set the prices for the goods and should also be able to change the throughput by expansion and set the products that are available (or at least allow or disallow certain products, retaining some randomness), adding some strategic play for the logistics piece.

To what extent can the player set the products that are available and expand to increase the throughput? What will be the limiting factors to keep the player from doing that too easily and gaining an unfair advantage?

When all the existing seaports have been acquired, should companies be allowed to build new seaports to prevent monopoly?

[mrgarrettscott]

Make airports the same as ports in that they have imported goods that can be bought from them. There is only one airport per map, so this would add flavour without unbalancing anything.

The Airport and air travel in general is about cargo and passenger capacity along with the efficiency of that transportation method. Since, airports in game are more about eye candy than anything else, I would just leave them as they are instead of offering a spot to buy imported goods.

"

Allow ports and airports to be bought by players; the controlling player can set the prices for the goods and should also be able to change the throughput by expansion and set the products that are available (or at least allow or disallow certain products, retaining some randomness), adding some strategic play for the logistics piece.

This is called absolute monopoly, i.e., a privately control port of entry. by either the AI or the player. The seaport and airport should always be government controlled. Similar absolute monopolies were possible before game began allowing the AI and the player to build media firms.

I will note that with CES DLC, these ideas are more interesting because you are acting as the government and building a city for the ground up.

[David]

Are these real suppliers - ie factories that you can view - or basically just imports from cities you can't see, like ports ?

They will be just imports, like imports from seaports.

I believe that this feature will work well with your mod. Whenever an AI company tries to make a product, if a semi product or raw material is missing, it can import it via its import company. This will be especially useful for complicated products that require lots of materials that are expensive to supply vertically.

[saffgee]

Make airports the same as ports in that they have imported goods that can be bought from them. There is only one airport per map, so this would add flavour without unbalancing anything.

The Airport and air travel in general is about cargo and passenger capacity along with the efficiency of that transportation method. Since, airports in game are more about eye candy than anything else, I would just leave them as they are instead of offering a spot to buy imported goods.

I disagree, I'd rather have a functional building than just a piece of eye candy blotting the landscape and in any event, ports do not currently in any way shape or form mimic any real world logistics or logic, so adding products to airports is simply a continuation of that. I agree that in a super realistic, real world scenario the function of an airport is different to that of a port, but I don't see that environment currently mimicked.

Allow ports and airports to be bought by players; the controlling player can set the prices for the goods and should also be able to change the throughput by expansion and set the products that are available (or at least allow or disallow certain products, retaining some randomness), adding some strategic play for the logistics piece.

This is called absolute monopoly, i.e., a privately control port of entry. by either the AI or the player. The seaport and airport should always be government controlled. Similar absolute monopolies were possible before game began allowing the AI and the player to build media firms.

I will note that with CES DLC, these ideas are more interesting because you are acting as the government and building a city for the ground up.

Again I disagree; an absolute monopoly would be if the player uses a port or airport to disallow the AI from delivering any goods to the city and thus shutting them out (which is of course not possible using ports). Changing the mechanics of the ports is not a game breaker at all in my opinion. Under what I propose, AI's are more than welcome to compete and can continue to do so on many fronts and from their own or others factories in any city. The principal idea here is to allow expansion of cheap import goods with a modicum of control over which types of goods (ie semi, retail or other) are allowed to enter that port. This is actually an expansion of the AI's capability to compete in bulk - if the player chooses to price the AI out of a good or stop importing a good, then he may see a very short term gain, but the AI will pivot to find another way to secure supply or will switch to another good. Functionally, buying an expensive port to keep an AI away from some products that he can easily make himself or get elsewhere is a very weird way to compete, but I reckon if someone playing the game set their mind to it they can find many ways to screw over the AI with the existing mechanisms, so I don't consider this functionality an issue by its design.

- If you own the port and put the prices up too high you don't make any money and it will have little effect in any event as the AI is barely inhibited in its gameplay.
- If the prices are too low the owner will incur a loss (a la warehouse mechanics).
- If you restrict all goods, you don't make any money and again the AI is barely affected.
- If you restrict certain goods and favour others; well now we are getting to the heart of the idea which is to encourage more strategic play.

I really don't see much of an issue for the AI here in any of the above scenarios tbh as they can always find other ways to make or buy goods if things are not available or too expensive. My suggestion on pricing would be to allow goods to flow by having the player set tariffs for example, where the owning player can set the individual product groups up with a tariff between 0% and +50%, with the 0% meaning no levies raised against a product group and anything positive meaning a cost to the exporter and a benefit to the owner when a good flows, but which of course serves as a discouragement for that particular product group and pulls the goods price up as well.

eg: Electronics +25%
Food +10%
Semi +0%
With these tariffs set, the amount of electronics products entering the port versus Food or semis is likely to be far less (as in the 4 available slots will most likely be taken by Semis or Food), but if they do, the owner of the port profits handsomely per unit throughput (which also btw gives him an incentive to expand the ports capacity). Semis are more likely to be favoured by the exporters in the above example, but will net the owner nothing in fees. The owner will need to balance his strategy between multiple moving parts, which also include setting throughput to static or variable (erratic supply). if the owner had the above settings and only Semi goods were flowing in his port, then it makes sense for him to set it to variable, in the hope that the next product that arrives will be electronic - or he simply puts the tariffs up on the Semis to match electronic. If he does that though, then the price of the imported semi to customers will also rise (to mimic the fact that low cost sellers won't want to pay tariffs as well as sell low) and the chance that someone buys it at that price is much lower, meaning he now has a port with no actual throughput. Hopefully that illustrates the strategic gameplay possibilities here more clearly.

Ultimately this ties in very closely with David's original suggestion of an import firm, but uses the ports/airports as the area where this is done.

[dark3214]

All trade between cities should go between ports and allow players to set processing fee sort of like media but more customizable by sector example (0.5% of value for food,0.2% of value for cars).Which is realistic because transporting frozen goods is more expensive in real world.ports should have a limited throughput player can invest to upgrade it just like telecoms.Anyone that's importing should have a warehouse or lease warehouse space from the port.Also maybe and add a different type of warehouse for storing food.Also imports should arrive in batches this will encourage building and leasing warehouses from ports.