Number Of Cities

[vek_60]

Hello! Read quite a few posts on here over a long period of time, SUPER stoked on this game getting released, and so I figured I'd start making some posts. I have a million ideas (who doesn't!), but there is one I am going to mention right off. Not sure if it's been talked to death or not, because I haven't read every single post... But nothing came up in the search of the forum so...

I know there will be a lot of new companies to make the stock market more realistic, and other things that will inject, and that is AWESOME! However I was happy you messed with it... But not as happy what you did... The number of cities. I don't think 7 is enough personally.

More Cities is the way to go. Choose the number for a game, possibly choose what specific cities you want in a game. If it's been discussed a lot sorry for the rambling below, but I think this would be the single best thing to do after adding more companies, and some of the other great things you already have listed on the new site.

I think this can add a lot of fun to the game in multiple ways. I for one like to run through creating new games until a set of "cool" cities pops up. It's fun to base your company out of a city like Berlin or LA or somewhere specific that you like. Even if still random something "cool" is more likely to show up each random spin with more cities.

I would say make the number practically unlimited, or whatever the max your back end can take is. Modern computers don't have much trouble running a TON of simple calculations like all the database stuff going on in the background of this game, so I wouldn't think there would be too much trouble with it choking a system. If there is at say "fast" game speed, put a warning that if you have that issue lower the game speed! I have a super fast computer and don't think it would bother my system at all.

Why you ask? Because it will make it more realistic. Having 7 cities is a big step up from 4, but it still doesn't give you the feeling of being in the real world. Now 20 cities would go a looong way towards that. You'd have multiple on every continent. 30 or something would be amazing. You could get really in depth in a super long drawn out game trying to hit a net worth of 500 Billion or something

It would also open up the strategy in several ways. For instance with some semi products, one plant can supply practically the whole world. With more cities that couldn't be the case, and setting up "regional" supply chains would be a necessity... And fun!

Also, it would allow specializing. In order to reach any real level of success you have to make a bajillion products as is. This is somewhat contrary to the real world. Most all companies, at least in the beginning (and often for decades), concentrate on one narrow field. More cities would allow you to become a billionaire leather magnate or electronics titan. This is more real, and pretty cool.

Also one could choose to be more of a regional powerhouse, and still be big. Maybe you make electronics, computers, leather, etc... All in Europe, because there are 7 cities just there. You could become a billionaire that way, while other companies are concentrating on the US, or Asia, or South America.

This would then lead into another "the plot thickens" situation. If you wanted to become the world leather master, it would take years. As it stands now you can setup in all cities pretty quick and dominate a given industry, even with 7 that will more or less be the case. If there were 2 dozen cities, it would take years to save up/borrow the capital required to truly dominate. In the meantime, maybe some company in Australia is doing the same thing... When 2 powerhouses in an industry meet, it could get hairy! You'd have to fight a strong competitor to beat them out of a market.

More cities would also allow a lot more room for new companies to emerge. The fact that it would be harder to globally dominate means more niches would be left open. Maybe North America, Europe, and Asia have their leather needs met, but South America has a few cities where there's no one doing it. Makes it easier for new competitors to get strong, hence be able to fend you off better, hence more fun when you crush them!

I have some other things I'd like to ramble about, but will save those for later in this thread, or another post. They're largely questions about exactly HOW you're going about working some of the features I saw on the site, or what exactly they do. All I ask is that you consider the above, and if you have to limit at 7 at least let me know why!

[azuzelych]

Um, let me point out that the number of cities is not the only limit in the game anyway. Cap2 has been running with a pretty easy scheme of production, missing a whole lot of products (I personally would prefer potatoes over corn, for instance, but then who cares(: ) and outcomes (only plastics out of oil and virtually no use for coal - what a waste of energy potential).
So the question is not only in increasing the number of cities, but changing the whole gameplay, ergo changing the game engine, and I have no idea how much change could be introduced without ruining it. Our forum masters should tell us.

How complicated should it become? I'd opt for more complexity....but not too much anyway. Otherwise I'd also opt for more government action, like different "gameplay rules" for different region (like in cities in Eastern Europe and Russia you'd be prone to actions of different government agencies (fire dept.,sanitary control, police dept.) trying to pull a bribe out of you, in the US you would be pressed hard by lawsuits of whining clients that didn't know hot surfaces could be hot, in the EU your nightmare would be eco requirements, nationalizations in South America states etc etc.)

Now THAT would be an ultimate hardcore simulator...can Enlight serve us one?;)

[vek_60]

Um, let me point out that the number of cities is not the only limit in the game anyway. Cap2 has been running with a pretty easy scheme of production, missing a whole lot of products (I personally would prefer potatoes over corn, for instance, but then who cares(: ) and outcomes (only plastics out of oil and virtually no use for coal - what a waste of energy potential).
So the question is not only in increasing the number of cities, but changing the whole gameplay, ergo changing the game engine, and I have no idea how much change could be introduced without ruining it. Our forum masters should tell us.

How complicated should it become? I'd opt for more complexity....but not too much anyway. Otherwise I'd also opt for more government action, like different "gameplay rules" for different region (like in cities in Eastern Europe and Russia you'd be prone to actions of different government agencies (fire dept.,sanitary control, police dept.) trying to pull a bribe out of you, in the US you would be pressed hard by lawsuits of whining clients that didn't know hot surfaces could be hot, in the EU your nightmare would be eco requirements, nationalizations in South America states etc etc.)

Now THAT would be an ultimate hardcore simulator...can Enlight serve us one?;)

I totally agree there are lots of ways a game like this could go, and have more features, things to do etc. So could any game in any genre. The factor here is that they're not designing a game from scratch, so I'm trying to work within that framework. I'm not a programmer, but have done some programming, and understand to a degree how things need to be written/structured within software.

The cities thing is something that could literally require them changing a value in one place with no other changes required, yet would add tremendously to game play IMHO. They clearly have already looked at it and realize it needs more, hence the change from 4 to 7... I just think even more would be better. If there's a technical reason that can't be done because it's running on the legacy back end, that sucks, but I suppose I could deal with it.

To your other easy proposal, I would totally be for more products. They have to generate art for any new products, which can certainly take more time than you'd think... But I think that would be one of the other best things they could possibly do.

Perhaps instead of shooting for 4 products per specialty store/product type, there could be 8. This could effectively double the number of products, and stores, one would need. It would make it harder for any company to dominate an industry because of capitol issues, and allow more room for small/new/niche companies. An aside that may be hard to program, or not, would be to allow users to add products. Then they only have to create a mechanism for user creation, not come up with each item themselves.

If this were to happen the number of stores required would go up, which would likely require a larger game map... Which I would also be in favor of anyway. It sounds like people playing the beta right now would like that anyway because of the increase in the number of companies alone.

As to other things, sure it would be great if oil and coal played an energy role. Something like a gas station (perhaps to replace convenience store) would be AWESOME. I think a gas station could actually be super easy to create as it could just be a consumer product, being a "luxury good", so that sales would be higher in high wage cities (ones with more cars).

Having power plants or something to that effect that used oil or coal would be cool, but I'd have to think on how one could implement in the current framework. Perhaps a one off special government owned non playable thing that buys coal/oil in varying degrees based on city population, average wage, and economic conditions. They would of course buy from the best producer (cheapest usually) just for the sake of it. In theory one could tie energy availability to the economic health, perhaps even dinging the economy if they were importing all their coal/oil. As a playable business, I expect it could get complicated to come up with a realistic way.

Anyway, back to the main point... More cities seems like an easy thing to implement, and I think it would be awesome. I think we need to think about the ease they can do things more than anything. Some complex idea that MIGHT be kinda cool is fine and well to think about, but many of them aren't practical. I might have to post something about gas though since it's now crossed my mind...

[Anonymous01]

Not to hijack vek's thread, but if you haven't already, please do make some of those cities African. Cairo and Johannesburg are not the only international cities in African states. Metropolises like Lagos, Accra, Addis Ababa, and Nairobi, to name a few, have larger markets and are more strategically important than many of the throw-away cities I'm seeing in some CapLabs screenshots.

[vek_60]

Exactly one of the reasons I think more cities would be awesome.

As I said I like to play games with cities I'm interested in. If you have 7 cities and you include a lot of "throw away" cities, as you put it, that's kind of boring to me. However if you have 20 cities you're going to be able to get a lot of the worlds real major cities pop up in there, and you also get the off the wall cities too!

Off the wall cities are of interest to some people. As I said I live in Seattle, Washington. Not the most exciting city in the world to most, but since I live here it's of some interest TO ME. With lots of cities you could provide more "mid level" cities which are interesting to some people.

David, could you please comment on the general idea of more cities? I'm sure you've at least taken a peek at this thread? I really would like to know if this is feasible for you guys, or if it's a no go because of the back end, processor requirements etc.

[chrishaas61]

Vek,

Love the post man. I completely agree that just adding more cities to Cap II and releasing it would be amazing. Seems simple enough to execute and would be a real game changer. While making a fortune in say, Leather Wallets, is possible in Cap II in just 4 cities, its not practical. More cities would mean one could truly become a niche tycoon by taking the world by storm with their one - albeit highly researched and marketed, product. More cities, or unlimited cities would make this game that is already great - Legendary.

Chris

[David]

The 7 cities in Cap Lab already allows for companies to generate great revenues with a few products.

The downside of having too many cities is that it will weaken the intensity of competition and the player may find it boring and having too much micromangement.

Having said that, it doesn't mean that we will never increase the # of cities beyond 7. You may try Cap Lab when it becomes available first, and further discuss this.

[mwyeoh]

The 7 cities in Cap Lab already allows for companies to generate great revenues with a few products.

The downside of having too many cities is that it will weaken the intensity of competition and the player may find it boring and having too much micromangement.

Having said that, it doesn't mean that we will never increase the # of cities beyond 7. You may try Cap Lab when it becomes available first, and further discuss this.

I agree with David on this one.
Already at the moment, with 7 cities, a player can often find a product line which is completely unserviced and corner the market.
The game becomes most competitive when the AI can start competing with you.

If the number of cities ever increases, the maximum number of AI would also need to increase

[vek_60]

Thanks for the response David!

I'm glad you didn't say there are any technical issues

Yes, one could say there could be less competition... In the beginning. But only in the beginning. And it's always easy to pick products in the beginning that no one is making. I'm a "long game" sort of guy, and in the long haul you'd have MORE competition because it would allow nearly every company to find a niche, work it, make a lot of money, and become strong in their given geographical market for whatever products they found that worked. Trying to unseat dozens of well entrenched companies is not easy.

As for micromanagement... I love it personally.

I will certainly give Lab in its current configuration a spin, and I'm sure it will be awesome. I still think the reasons I laid out in the original post have validity though. I think the complexity added by needing regional supply chains, stiffer competition in the long term, etc etc would be great. But THE BEST argument for allowing more cities is... If people don't like more cities they don't have to choose to have more cities! It's such an easy thing to implement, and clearly some people would prefer it. If someone doesn't then they can choose 4 or 5 or 10 or whatever they want in the game setup. Then it would be there for those of us who do want it, with nothing lost for anyone else.

[vek_60]

I agree with David on this one.
Already at the moment, with 7 cities, a player can often find a product line which is completely unserviced and corner the market.
The game becomes most competitive when the AI can start competing with you.

If the number of cities ever increases, the maximum number of AI would also need to increase

First off, that's the whole point of it. Early in a game you can always do that anyway. And generally in CapII you could usually hunt out things later on. That's realistic. As I said in the long haul, you will actually end up with more competition because of there being so many markets.

Also, as far as there needing to be more companies... I'm all for that. As I said above to David, it's a simple option that can exists that allows people to custom tailor the game to how they want it. This isn't the kind of game a lot of idiots play "just because". It's a game for people who are into complex sims. More choices=better. That said, from some things I was reading in the beta forum, there is a problem after a length of time in the game where all land has been developed and there's not room to build anything with the current number. More cities would alleviate that, and make it more realistic.

My whole line of thinking is this: there's nothing to lose. If people don't like more cities or more companies than they can not pick a high number when making a game.