Poll : give an expertise to a company

[paulwoman]

According to this post, when you put a mod, the companies generated are specialised in random fields.

For more realism, we could have the possibility to assign a speciality to a specific company in a mod
https://www.capitalism2.com/forum/viewt ... 641#p36641

[David]

Someone has reported this issue before. Our investigation found that it was due to the mod file Company_details.txt not having definitions of expertise for every company.

If anyone finds evidence that suggests otherwise, please let us know and we will investigate it further.

[saffgee]

Hi David, this is indeed a persistent problem - I have exhaustively defined every single company for my mod and yet the AI still picks random expertises for each company. To be fair its not 100% always that way, as some do actually come out correctly (as showcased by my screenshots), but in any given game, usually over 70% are completely off. As far as I remember the discussion back then, the primary reason was because the AI needed to plug some gaps based on game settings and balance and that means that we modders can provide as much detail as we want, yet the engine will always go against it in some instances in order to provide enough companies (for example I have defined a large amount of insurance companies, but the game never selects one of those to make into an insurance company).

If you are going to look at changes for this mechanic though, it would be good to look at relatability of products again at the same time - I think it is intended within the engine for certain products to not go well with others, but I still feel like the AI ignores a lot of logic sometimes (like going into electronics when he already has a lot of farms). So while the first problem deals with solving the problem in initial setup, changes to the product grouping mechanics would help to keep the competition somewhat consistent throughout the game.

[David]

Hi Simon,

I ran a test game with the MOD and many of AI companies were assigned with the right expertise. The following screenshots are some examples.

The programmer told me that the reason why some AI companies' fields of expertise in the game divert from the settings in the MOD file is that the game has to cater to the player's preference of the mix of companies that is set in the new game setup and sometimes this is at odds with the MOD file, resulting in AI companies unable to always follow the the MOD file.

[saffgee]

I don't disagree with your findings, sometimes the game does get the companies right; what I'm saying though is that I have provided more than enough "fodder" for the AI to choose from for ANY setup constellation and to get them ALL right, but in some cases it still insists on picking the wrong combos. As I mentioned above, I have defined a great many insurance focused companies, yet the game ignores those and picks a random company (that also has a different defined expertise btw) to make that one into an insurance company instead. Why is it not selecting from the list I have given ?

My only thought is that perhaps there is some trigger or cap that is forcing the AI to make bad choices that could possibly be changed by the programmer. The information in my mod is all there and more than abundant enough to cater for any game setup. Can I ask that he/she maybe has a another look on what's actually happening during this "picking" process ? For example, perhaps it only scans the first 30 companies for matches in the database even though I have defined hundreds more.....

[David]

I don't disagree with your findings, sometimes the game does get the companies right; what I'm saying though is that I have provided more than enough "fodder" for the AI to choose from for ANY setup constellation and to get them ALL right, but in some cases it still insists on picking the wrong combos. As I mentioned above, I have defined a great many insurance focused companies, yet the game ignores those and picks a random company (that also has a different defined expertise btw) to make that one into an insurance company instead. Why is it not selecting from the list I have given ?

My only thought is that perhaps there is some trigger or cap that is forcing the AI to make bad choices that could possibly be changed by the programmer. The information in my mod is all there and more than abundant enough to cater for any game setup. Can I ask that he/she maybe has a another look on what's actually happening during this "picking" process ? For example, perhaps it only scans the first 30 companies for matches in the database even though I have defined hundreds more.....

I've forwarded your comments to the programmer and requested him to do the checking as you suggested.

[David]

I don't disagree with your findings, sometimes the game does get the companies right; what I'm saying though is that I have provided more than enough "fodder" for the AI to choose from for ANY setup constellation and to get them ALL right, but in some cases it still insists on picking the wrong combos. As I mentioned above, I have defined a great many insurance focused companies, yet the game ignores those and picks a random company (that also has a different defined expertise btw) to make that one into an insurance company instead. Why is it not selecting from the list I have given ?

My only thought is that perhaps there is some trigger or cap that is forcing the AI to make bad choices that could possibly be changed by the programmer. The information in my mod is all there and more than abundant enough to cater for any game setup. Can I ask that he/she maybe has a another look on what's actually happening during this "picking" process ? For example, perhaps it only scans the first 30 companies for matches in the database even though I have defined hundreds more.....

Hi Simon,

The programmer concentrated on improving this in the past few days. You could download the resulting version 7.1.09 from https://www.capitalism2.com/forum/viewt ... f=7&t=8514

I've tested it and it did show marked improvements.

[saffgee]

Thanks David, I'll check it out