Few ideas

[WilliamMGary]

1. Bulk land buying for human player

See Trailer: http://store.steampowered.com/app/291930/

So I was looking for a game to buy, really RollerCoaster Tycoon 3 (learning cover understatement), and I saw the trailer for this game called Industry Empire. I absolutely loved the graphics but then I realized that I would want the Capitalism Lab gameplay and depth and that game doesn't seem to include that. So what is my suggestion?

The they buy land in the game is very cool. I like the ability to select a large block of land as a human player.

2. More Tools for massive corporations (could be an add-on)

So I like to build massive corporations, as I said in my last business update you don't really begin to see the limitations of Capitalism Lab until you have a very large complex corporation at which point a Large Factory, a Large Warehouse doesn't do it. There's no enough tools to Bulk for all retail stores in one city to a specific factory etc. So it takes a lot of extra time to try and make impaction changes in game (as in real life) and I feel that's where Capitalism Lab has a lot of room for growth.

3. Policies / Perks / Company Cultural / Store Hours /

This is more of a way to gameify Capitalism Lab once a company hit say $100 million (inflation adjusted) revenue then new options in the game become available such as offer health insurance to employees, provide employees with discounts, free lunch, close on holidays etc, make farms organic/non-organic. A way to make company operations different and unique.

Just a few things I've thought about in the past.

[counting]

Many have requested more flexible land plots, so we now have 4x4 and 5x5 options (still a long way to go till coordinate land grab). But from what I can tell the new city expansion pack will have some planning tool similar to old simcity style plotting. I was very disappointed by the Industry Empire as well, it doesn't feel like building a corporation, but planning a "collective farm" communism style.

I agree that managing a massive corporation is a nightmare. And I usually end up needing warehouse complex (warehouse to warehouse) to support the infrastructures. And I never trust AI COO to do the dirty work, it's just way too inefficient. I would rather to have a more competent AI first, than more add-on that doesn't necessarily helpful. But some managing tools are welcome (The batch linking is a good one, but not enough)

Customize corporation is a good idea, but the impact to both human corporation and AI corporations might need some check and balance. Also current AIs might not be able to handle the extra perks well. (AIs already over build and behavior strangely, and often hurt their profit badly over time, as if their bonus count nothing. I often see AIs have massive over-producing factories/farms, and hardly I see them sharing corps in same farm, or share products in same factories to save overhead. And they never use warehouses. Not to mention their tendency to under-produce raw materials)

[WilliamMGary]

Many have requested more flexible land plots, so we now have 4x4 and 5x5 options (still a long way to go till coordinate land grab). But from what I can tell the new city expansion pack will have some planning tool similar to old simcity style plotting. I was very disappointed by the Industry Empire as well, it doesn't feel like building a corporation, but planning a "collective farm" communism style.

I only saw the trailer and it just seemed like it was lacking. The graphics are awesome but the game play I could tell wouldn't be anywhere near Capitalism II yet alone Capitalism Lab

I agree that managing a massive corporation is a nightmare. And I usually end up needing warehouse complex (warehouse to warehouse) to support the infrastructures. And I never trust AI COO to do the dirty work, it's just way too inefficient. I would rather to have a more competent AI first, than more add-on that doesn't necessarily helpful. But some managing tools are welcome (The batch linking is a good one, but not enough)

The AI I think needs some serious development focus maybe even a complete redo to move it in the right direction. They don't manage many firms well and then there's some firms they can't even be delegated to.

Customize corporation is a good idea, but the impact to both human corporation and AI corporations might need some check and balance. Also current AIs might not be able to handle the extra perks well. (AIs already over build and behavior strangely, and often hurt their profit badly over time, as if their bonus count nothing. I often see AIs have massive over-producing factories/farms, and hardly I see them sharing corps in same farm, or share products in same factories to save overhead. And they never use warehouses. Not to mention their tendency to under-produce raw materials)

See previous comment on AI but perks/policies I think would just be cool but not necessary but I guess AI improvement would be needed first.

[counting]

Industrial Empire has quite a lot of strange mechanisms, like despite players can use planning tool to grab land in any shape, every building is still the same square shape, and most buildings need extra road to connect to a main street, thus players never know how big to plot without guidelines, and never know if there will be room left for roads. Also the first land plot costs nothing, hence makes the plotting tool kinda pointless, players simply get a much as they can from the beginning and done. Even more strangely, players have to building houses for workers, and manually appoint them to jobs, manually point specific truck to carry certain amount of goods to certain city's market, this makes fingers hurt very quickly. More frustratingly, players are force to be farmers in the beginning, and "unlock" businesses. I'd say not only Industrial Empire can not compared to Capitalism 2, it fails as a business simulation, more like a mini-simcity game mixed-up with OpenTTD-like maps. The only thing that's cool is probably the graphic with many details to see.

AI-ranting aside, it seriously need updates especially for cooperation decision, AIs feel very "robotic" without any "emotion", just pure and simple bots. Unlike AIs in Civilization, where they have different characteristics, and trust or distrust, and relationship that can be formed. This could be the solution to B2B businesses and contracts system as baseline for agreements. And I do like the idea of customizing corporation in cultures or perks. At least it's a flavor to the game that's relatively easy to add (if bonus types are limited). Perhaps it can start as MOD options, that allow some tweaking to base operations, even bad traits like higher expenses in overhead, salaries, etc, and customize starting corporations more analog to real world businesses (or just to human corporation only).