Land acquisitions

[David]

We are thinking about adding a new feature allowing the player to acquire land first, and build a building later. Currently the player must buy a land and build a building at the same time. The new feature will allow for more strategic play with real estate.

Types of land owners:
• Government
• Individuals
• Player or AI competitors

The below table shows multiple ways to acquire land plots.

Do you like this new system? Let me know your thoughts and suggestions.

[Alan Doyle]

I like the idea of buying up land to either reserve space when you expand your empire or to play real estate games with competitors

Observations

Does "individual" mean purely npc or can the human player purchase with their own in-game money, separate to their corporation?

Parks and trees - should "trees" be 'woods' or 'forest' or literally single trees? Also minor typo in the For Sale column under '2 states for individuals" as houses are referred to and not parks or trees.

[David]

I like the idea of buying up land to either reserve space when you expand your empire or to play real estate games with competitors

Observations

Does "individual" mean purely npc or can the human player purchase with their own in-game money, separate to their corporation?

Parks and trees - should "trees" be 'woods' or 'forest' or literally single trees? Also minor typo in the For Sale column under '2 states for individuals" as houses are referred to and not parks or trees.

Individuals mean citizens of the city or foreign investors, invisible on the game map. In Cap 2, currently when you want to buy a piece of land and build a building, you may have to acquire any residential buildings that exist on the land. These residential buildings are said to be owned by individuals.

Parks and trees - as they exist in the game currently. You will see plenty areas with trees and parks.

[Alan Doyle]

Thanks for clearing that up David.

[ajpiper2k]

In the spirit of Capitalism, the only time buying real estate ahead of time makes sense is if the price of real estate fluctuates with the economy. If the economy is in a depression, then I can get land cheap, it motivates me to build. But, generally, I'm too busy building an empire of farms, factories and stores to spend much time messing with this.

As for messing with competitors, real estate has never been much of a factor playing with the AI. It may be more of a factor when I play with someone else who is as much of a land hog as me.

Andy

[Webby64286]

Bad idea and you're getting way off track from the spirit of the game. What your talking about is for another game you can call it Real Estate Mogul or something like that. This game is first and foremost about Manufacturing and Sales what your proposing adds nothing for me. If you want some ideas for how to handle land this is what I would want:
Use the actual metropolitan areas of the cities in the game and use them from game to game, In other words Chicago has one layout based in reality and that layout never changes. Within that realistic metropolitan area layout, certain areas are zoned for farming and certain areas are zoned for factories. The way it stands now, the AI builds a farm or factory in the city center (very unrealistic and I know why they do it, more on that in a second) then goes deep in to debt, demolishes the farm and your left with an urban wasteland. In order for this to work though, you would need to fix both your intracity and intercity freight charges (which is one of the resaons why the AI builds where it does, the other being land value speculation). Currently, if I build a Corn Farm far from the city near the edge of the map (where a farm would be logically) and ship that corn to a factory in an area in the city but not the city center (again where a factory would normally be) and then ship that Canned Corn to a prime location downtown, I've added anywhere from 25-50% to the end cost of the product in freight charges. Now try to ship that Canned Corn to another city and you price yourself out of the market. Lastly, I would do away with apartment buildings and commercial building ownership and mansions altogether (and thus land speculation). In a complex economy (don't even get me started on how much that needs to be fixed, see my comment about intercity freight charges) you don't make any money on those and there's too much micromanagement involved. As for retail stores, you should be able to lease space in a commercial building downtown for your store (that 's a lot more realistic for tax and liabilty purposes).

[ariesas]

Great idea David! i always wanted this feature. I also like your system very much. I think its a great idea that government would sell it's land through auctions. I don't know how this will be implemented but this is a brilliant idea!

Also, David, I would like to ask for few MAJOR things in this add-on. I don't think you need to completely change the graphics. All you need to make it scalable to current resolutions (1280x800), and maybe add some things like product sold spreadsheets instead of the graphs..

1.MORE EXCHANGE MARKETS -Id like to see Commodities exchange incorporated in this game. The prices would , for example, go lower if more mines are discovered, or if there is a cheap import. also include futures and options. (more possibilities - interest rates market(bonds), equity index market, weather product market)


2.BANK INDUSTRY-I also would like to see an ability to buy a bank. This would be really expensive, but it would let you to manually set the loan interest rate. Also please incorporate the fractional reserve banking idea. The reserves needed could change every 20-30 years or so, and would be a economic indicator just as interest rate by fed ( or central bank). Fed interest rates should be added as macro economic variable.

3.MORE INDUSTRIES -Cap2 addon to include some more industries - e.g. transport. for every transportation from farm to factory to supermarket player could choose which company to choose for transportation services, just like advertising! I think this would be easy too incorporate because no more 2d or 3d graphics should be added to the game, just economics engine updates and one or few windows for transportation services.

What about construction industry? This , as transport industry, would also not require any graphical updates just let a player to choose which construction company to choose from.. Later, the player could buy construction companies himself.

Insurance industry would also not require any graphical updates.. The player could choose to insure its farms, oils, or other buildings against loss or theft or fire for a monthly or yearly payment. Later in the game player could buy those firms too!

Utility services is also a possibility(electricity, gas, water, mobile and landine telephone, cable, internet).Player could choose whom to pay all the bills , but later in game player could buy utility companies and also control the utility markets. Also i think this would be a very interesting idea and would not require any 3d graphics updates.

[David]

In the below screen, the red blocks indicate land acquired by the player.

[David]

When the player builds a building in the middle of the land bank, how do we treat the rest of the land bank that is not used, if the rest is too small to build any buildings?

Any suggestions?

Should the player be given the option to sell unused land plots back to the government? The player may want to do this if the unused land plots are too small to be useful for building anything.

[David]

In order for this to work though, you would need to fix both your intracity and intercity freight charges (which is one of the resaons why the AI builds where it does, the other being land value speculation).

Currently, if I build a Corn Farm far from the city near the edge of the map (where a farm would be logically) and ship that corn to a factory in an area in the city but not the city center (again where a factory would normally be) and then ship that Canned Corn to a prime location downtown, I've added anywhere from 25-50% to the end cost of the product in freight charges.

Now try to ship that Canned Corn to another city and you price yourself out of the market.

So you think that the freight is too expensive and you want it reduced? For intracity or intercity freight charges or both?