What annoys you most about capitalism?

[Sirotilk]

Hello everyone. I think it's time for a topic where we can just lay everything on the table that really gets on our nerves about this game.

Please don't misunderstand what I'm about to say: I've been a fan of Capitalism from the very beginning and, yes, it sounds stupid, but Capitalism 2 is the reason I studied economics at university. If anyone feels offended, well, that's business, baby


1. The idea of achieving goals and earning skill points is quite nice, BUT
- Every time you achieve a goal, you are kicked out of the menu you are currently in. After the 20th attempt to adjust something and getting kicked out, I could throw my PC against the wall (it's just as annoying when the bank needs another cash injection). Why can't I stay in the menu where I am?


2. The (goddamn) Digital Age DLC
- If there's one thing I hate, and I mean hate, it's this DLC.

Has anyone ever managed to buy into a Digital Age corporation? Ever taken over an operating system manufacturer? No? Me neither. Why? Because these DLC companies, these sons of... Anyway, I have no damn influence at the start of the game on whether I want them in or not. They come into the game with an insane amount of money, and if I start myself and the subsidiary companies with little money, they crush you with their ability to expand (as if, but it's still annoying).

Even if you set the AI to total idiots, the Digital Age companies don't care, they go full throttle with expansion -> You want to recruit new players, do you think they're up for playing on easy mode, and “Microsoft” bombs its way to billions within three years? They want to become the goddamn biggest killer empire that ever existed.

Make it possible to leave out the DLC companies, or even better: make it possible to buy them! (But see point three regarding this.)

And besides, why do I feel like I can produce more software than real products? The software section is just as overloaded (relatively speaking!) as the internet sector.


3. Stock market
- It is not uncommon in a run that the AI first buys each other out completely on the stock market. If I want to buy a company, I can first click through everything and everyone and buy out every Tom, Dick, and Harry's shares. Do they have to buy each other out completely every time? An option to slow this down would be nice.


4. AI images and the demise of immersion
- Just as an aside, has anyone ever seen a company logo that looks like the new AI images? If you ever plan to bury the 80-year-old engine and develop Capitalism 3, make sure you can design your own logo. Or at least make sure it's not completely irrelev


5. Dependence on or hiding behind the Real World Mod

- I call it the “paradox paradox.” Anyone who knows their games knows what I mean: With the content added by a popular mod, we don't need to do anything else.

That's fine, as long as the modder is still into it. I can understand that after years, the air has gone out of it, but damn it, guys, just admit it and be done with it.

Real Word Mod even still has the old pictures of the CEO in it. When you play a game, the opposing CEO may have an ancient picture in it (super immersive). The balancing was a disaster for months! It was also nice when I pointed this out and only after someone else asked for a response to my post did something happen. My criticism here is not directed at piermario. Greetings and kisses for wonderful years. But come on, you can tell you're absolutely fed up? I'm just saying hotels.

Why don't the developers come up with some nice new product chains? Surprise us! Maybe even a controversial surprise like an aircraft manufacturer that also builds military aircraft. Or a machine manufacturer without which you can't process metal at all? Maybe things like sabotage, industrial espionage, waves of lawsuits that delay product launches even though it's nonsense (just like Lego does).


6. Last but not least—mergers/acquisitions and start-ups

THAT is one of the best things in real life, and in this game it is absolutely... Anyway:

When I start a new company, why can't I just “simply” transfer buildings and technology to the newly created company? Why?? No, I have to give it a ton of money, then it buys from me (even though it's a 100% subsidiary). That's so annoying.

Likewise, when I take a company off the stock market, I have to swallow it whole instead of keeping it as a 100% subsidiary.

I appreciate that you're trying a lot of things, but my goodness, it's so cumbersome to change something in one building and transfer it to the other 20. And it feels like it's getting worse rather than better.

Oh, and to make it easier for new players to keep track of inventory management, you've decided to do away with the two bars for demand and delivered quantity. Seriously? Have you forgotten what the game is? It's an economic simulation. Don't be like Disney and forget who your fans are. They're crazy economic nerds. Did Paradox gain new fans when they made simpler games? No, they just lost the old ones. Therefore: NEVER remove complexity and visibility of values, just give players the option to make it easier for themselves!


7. Now for some praise: You are the only economic simulation that still deserves this name. Thank you for that.



I would like to ask other Capitalism players: What really gets on your nerves about this game?

P.S. Anyone who feels like writing “Oh, stop complaining, everything's great” ... go and... that won't make anything in life better. I want this game to get better and the developers to be showered with money and develop Capitalism 3 with a team of 2,000 well-paid people.

[David]

2. The (goddamn) Digital Age DLC
Make it possible to leave out the DLC companies, or even better: make it possible to buy them! (But see point three regarding this.)

The post-release beta version 12.0 allows you to set digital companies including OS companies to go public. You could check out this post detailing the new options https://www.capitalism2.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=10467

You can give it a try by downloading version 12.0 from:
https://www.capitalism2.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=10540

3. Stock market
- It is not uncommon in a run that the AI first buys each other out completely on the stock market. If I want to buy a company, I can first click through everything and everyone and buy out every Tom, Dick, and Harry's shares. Do they have to buy each other out completely every time? An option to slow this down would be nice.

What is the difficulty level of your game? Does the AI slow down acquisitions when the difficulty level is lower?

[David]

4. AI images and the demise of immersion
- Just as an aside, has anyone ever seen a company logo that looks like the new AI images?

You could download the Classic Content Mod which brings back the classic logos: https://www.capitalismlab.com/classic-content-mod/

[Sirotilk]

Dear David,

Thank you for your reply, I really appreciate it.

1.
The IPO amounts to approximately 10-20% of the shares. If you buy these, the owner of the company will constantly pester you and want to buy back the shares.

If you ask him yourself for more shares, you will always get:

I don't want to sell my shares to you.

(My God, I hate that phrase. Come on, tell me your price, and if it's X10 times the market price,)

Anyone who has ever swallowed a digital DLC company beats Chuck Norris at the World Cup in slamming revolving doors.

2.
I don't want old logos from the Windows 3.11 era, but logos that could actually exist. Keyword: realism.
I'm not interested in nostalgia, quite the opposite. More in realism.

[piermario]

Dear sirotik,
I understand, after 15 years and 600+ products with custom images, logos, and updated portraits (yes, even CEOs get old sometimes in real life, who would have thought), maybe you're right, I'm fed up... fed up of seeing a post from a user who has 4 forum posts and criticizes other people's work...
Anyway, thanks for the regards and kisses, I'll put them in a frame next to the photo of the 2016 CEO that traumatizes you so much.
Hugs, and if you have 300 free hours, send me your complete proposal with production chains + balancing + icons + translated texts, so I can fix it in a weekend for free.
Ciao

[David]

Likewise, when I take a company off the stock market, I have to swallow it whole instead of keeping it as a 100% subsidiary.

Actually, you can do that in the game. Please see: https://www.capitalismlab.com/subsidiar ... atization/

1. The idea of achieving goals and earning skill points is quite nice, BUT
- Every time you achieve a goal, you are kicked out of the menu you are currently in. After the 20th attempt to adjust something and getting kicked out, I could throw my PC against the wall (it's just as annoying when the bank needs another cash injection). Why can't I stay in the menu where I am?

There will be a trade‑off, as you may miss important goal information when the instant goal window popup is disabled.

In order for us to better understand how many players want to have an option to turn off the instant popup of the goal window, I suggest that you create a poll for your suggestion to gauge the community's interest in it. There would be a higher chance that the dev team will implement it if the interest level is high.

You could see some examples of the polls in the Suggestions forum at http://www.capitalism2.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=14

Oh, and to make it easier for new players to keep track of inventory management, you've decided to do away with the two bars for demand and delivered quantity. Seriously?

You can still see the supply and demand bars in the supplier info window. I am not aware of any recent changes to the delivered quantity display. Which one were you referring to?

[kakao]

Price agreements making you sell at a loss. I understand the need of this mechanic to simplify things for the AI, but there should be a minimum it can push your retail prices to, like 10% over cost+freight.
As it is, it makes running pure retail infeasible due to micromanagement.

[Paulywauly]

I love the game and have been playing since the early 2000's. What really annoys me is that every AI company becomes a complete conglomerate and does so very quickly. It's unrealistic that every company would be selling every product.

[Capital tourist]

Agree with kakao about price agreements selling at loss, there should be some kind of notification that informs you about negative changes in price agreements, or when a product in a price agreement changes to sale at a loss.

Other icks I have about the game are:

1. Losing control of marketing budgets and which store units advertises what product. This is late game challenge, when you have many products sold in different stores in different cities. There should be some kind of central marketing overview (for example in HQ) that makes it easier for you to adjust or rebrand your products (imagine having a system, then hiring a CMO that makes changes, and then dealing with the chaos in marketing units spread across many stores in several cities.

2. Steps should imo be taken to make AI interactive when it comes to transactions. Ever tried selling a company, store or a building? Even then most valuable assets are not bid. AI's also does not make any transactions between each other. Which makes the option of selling companies pretty much useless, as the only transaction a player can make is to purchase companies from AI.

3. Software products nightmare. I dream of an option to turn off specific product categories and keep the other perks of the Digital Age DLC (like internet and telecom). Do we really need 3-5 products in each software product class? Say your company has 5 software products, which lets be honest is only 10% of all software products. Developing new software tech, then manually dealing with different dev.teams to update it to every operating system (2-4 different systems), then update production facility and than deal with updating the inventories of warehouses/stores. What a nightmare. My hope is that this one day will be simplified, for example new software is updated for all operating platforms, simplification of the dev. process or option to turn off specific product categories within the software category.

4. The link between natural resources and the economy is as of now weak in the game engine.

Natural resources have huge effects of the economies, inflation and consumer spending, and demand and supply side is cyclical and volatile. This could be expressed to better mirror the real world. For ex. local demand from public, private and consumer sector for essential commodities like oil, alumina, coal, iron ore and steel, etc. In the game as it is now, very few products drive demand for these. For example, oil is only used as input in few products and no demand comes from public operations, consumers spending (like driving or energy consumption in homes) or the private sector (building factories, operating logistic firms, etc). If the game included such demands - it would add great depth and importance to natural resources. Demands could be based on city size, economic activity and inflation, and access to basic commodities could directly affect inflation pressure (for example restricted access gives higher commodity prices, high construction costs, which over time would drive up inflation).

5. Option of harsher economic environment. Even playing on difficulty above 600%, the macro-economic scenarios pretty much follow same pattern even if the boom-bust cyclicality is set on strong - two major declines/depressions starting 5-8 years out (with variation in strength and duration), followed by stable macro-conditions. This forces playing long games into similar patterns regardless of style and game play. It is fine that we all win at the end, but at times you want to test your business skills in an Armageddon of storms.