Capitalism 2 and Capitalism Lab Forum

Agreed, a bank is a totally different type of firm than any other. Banks must decide the credit worthiness of borrowers and match loan durations with deposit durations. Borrowing short term and then lending long term is a sure way of eventually going insolvent. There are also laws and regulations against banks lending to firms owned by the same parent company, which is why you don't see industrial companies with their own banks. The closest you get are financing companies that lend to borrowers so that they can buy the products of the parent company, like GMAC (which went bust, was bailed out and is now Ally Bank).

I think the main problem with the stock market is that new firms start off too cheaply and so they are almost guaranteed to rise. If stocks at IPO were priced to near market, then that might make it harder to make money initially. I personally like playing the stock market but treat it as a secondary focus, #1 is the business of selling stuff.

If anything, perhaps a way to split the COO job so that the player can fine tune COO behavior across different product lines. This is a stretch and just another suggestion to improve the AI. The developers should just focus most of their time on improving AI which is the most important thing they can do.

azxcvbnm321 wrote:If anything, perhaps a way to split the COO job so that the player can fine tune COO behavior across different product lines. This is a stretch and just another suggestion to improve the AI. The developers should just focus most of their time on improving AI which is the most important thing they can do.

This.

It'd be nice to be able to have additional COO-style execs with different strategies who I can delegate to - so I have 1 exec who's on 'normal' pricing policy, who I let take care of most of my businesses, but since I'm moving into a new product with a mature market I want another exec with an aggressive pricing policy to handle that; or in a new city where my otherwise established, high-quality product has no brand identity. I'd rather see this that an investor exec (given that investment is something I can handily deal with myself, and I tend to be a long-term investor anyway), and I see no purpose for a relations officer.

Oh, and :

Esoteric Rogue wrote: I want to gather resources, manufacture products, and sell them.

That's as maybe, but I'd argue that the game is Capitalism, not Industrialism. ATM, there's too much focus on making and distributing material product, and not enough focus on the other various aspects. The Media game remains simplistic and abstract, IP has been expanded upon some with the new research companies but could be bigger; we still lack service companies. Massive industries like Insurance and Banking are closed to us.

We're just making and selling items, when we should be running airlines, creating legal firms, and lending competitors money at interest rates. Maybe I don't want to expand my core business into City A because it's too competitive a market - but I'm willing to lend money to one of the principal retailers there because he's buying, selling and marketing my wares there, so his loss of market share impacts on MY factory sales back home. Maybe I want to set up an international insurance giant, making my money by betting that other firms aren't going to make big losses. Maybe I just want to play as a hedge fund, focusing purely on the stock market and avoiding all that messy inventory game. Maybe, rather than selling tech, I want to license it out so that I take a % of the profit per unit (which would make tech companies a lot more viable).

We don't necessarily need a player-run banking system that operates on real-life lines, with banks making money out of nothing to lend out at interest, but having things like a bond market etc would add more options for a player to dump surplus cash and earn money at better than the rate of inflation. Industrialism should be one option in the game, rather than the only option.

Naselus wrote:

Esoteric Rogue wrote: I want to gather resources, manufacture products, and sell them.

That's as maybe, but I'd argue that the game is Capitalism, not Industrialism.

That's not the strongest argument. I hope I can defend against that.

Let's stay real. Of course I was not talking about the name of the game. The game is what the game is even separate from the title. The game traditionally has been resource, manufacturing, and sales -- that is as much fact as that the name is, I'll admit, "Capitalism". I'm not going to resort to making my point by stating "The game's name is not High Finance Money Marketing". I think "Industrialism" is probably not as good as "Business". But that would be far to nonspecific for a legitimate product name. If I was interested in all this derivative nonsense, I would suggest that there are certainly political aspects of Capitalism that should not even be referenced by this title. It's not a coincidence that one Capitalism 2 review gives the game a zero rating and states "i like more Commonism, socialis and humanism. CCCP." So, I won't further discuss the irrelevance of the name.

I too am generally unhappy about the media implementation. It's humorous that the current implementation can be viewed as an much need fix to the previous incarnation where media was an easy win, which was rather game-breaking. That is something I would consider to be an example of why we should be careful about expanding to areas outside the original scope of the game.

I am glad to have someone mention services, since that's half of the common phase "products & services" regarding any industry. That's is what I've always regarded as the #1 or #2 direction that the game could naturally expand. (Waiting until much time after release to propose.) As you mentioned airlines, since that ties into my other (#1 or #2) industry: Shipping. Which would starts with land freight. It's probably occurred to all of us when we're paying $1600 to ship a car that we wish we were the ones being paid. To tie this all up, shipping is a service. After we get land freight worked out, we could naturally expand to overseas and air, and also passenger travel, no matter the form of transportation.

Regarding I.P., I'll say I've always noticed that there's no amortization line on my income statement, but it's minor and now that a small portion has been added I'll happily deal with it. But a large part of the I.P. industry are the legal findings of infringement. Since I'm not going to suggest we add infringement to the game, I would have been reluctant to bother with I.P at all.

I'll give a nod to insurance, I think that could be incorporated smoothly (pun not intended): but I'll try to make my point again. Insurance is not outside the scope of the game. High Finance is. I think branch banks are probably fine... approaching the cusp... but I fear *the next step* is the problem. Thus, I do prefer we don't even head there, while we have all these other things closer to the root of the games industrial nature that we can do.

Honestly in my opinion Global Finance might be a fine game, but it's not this one But I don't want to sound unreasonable. I'll reconsider the big picture next year, and the year after. The game may have progress far enough that the meta game has changed by then.

(Recapping the O.P. subject matter: I'll go for finance exec, but would prefer independent brokerage)

Regarding your suggestions, I think improving and expanding media and real estate would be the most natural and easiest route for the developers to pursue. Media is incredibly important to the game in its current form and fits in already with the scope.

Services, as you said, is a logical extension and future path, but implementing it in the right way would be difficult. Regarding transportation, how would the developers set up meaningful competition, R&D, quality, and investment in that new field? Firms like UPS or FedEx have spent billions on setting up a logistics network and a process that is very efficient. That represents R&D. Their fleets of planes and trucks represent investment along with their offices around the country. That is very hard to model.

The developers should think about which service industries best fit into the framework of the current game. Let's say we have something like hair stylist or gardener. Training would improve the quality of the service offered, media advertising could improve the brand, but how would resource competition and manufacturing be represented? There has to be some sort of pool of available raw talent (people willing to work in those industries) that would be fought over by the player and the AI. Perhaps quality and the number of customers that can be serviced (quantity) should be split? R&D could improve quality of the service (don't have to call it R&D) and training could improve the quantity that can be serviced just like it is currently. But will competitors be able to lure away your talent by offering them higher wages? The entire thing could be a disaster depending upon how its implemented in the game. Like I said in another thread, it's pretty amazing that Capitalism got so many things right and implemented so many features well. Doing it again with services would be a challenge, Trevor Chan should be complemented for his original vision and implementation, does the development team have a similar visionary on board?

Doing it again with services would be a challenge, Trevor Chan should be complemented for his original vision and implementation, does the development team have a similar visionary on board?

Actually Capitalism Lab is also designed by Trevor Chan. We (the staff) do suggest new feature and improvement ideas to him for his considerations. User suggestions are organized and forwarded to him for considerations as well.

Regarding the service industry ideas you guys are discussing here, I think it is an interesting topic and would like to see more discussions!

Esoteric Rogue wrote:That's not the strongest argument. I hope I can defend against that.

The argument's not so much about the naming of the game, as it is the scope that it has because of that name.

Let's be honest, there's hundreds of games out there that let me set up a goods production line. From Tycoon games to PI's Victoria series, to Sid Meier's Railroads! to the Settlers, if all I was looking to do is have an industrial game, Cap Lab only really stands out from the crowd due to the number of products - which is a fairly lame USP. If I want a stock market (and a more advance one at that, with margin trading), I can go play RRT2. If I want product chains, then Victoria 2 or the Settlers can cover that comfortably, and in an easier-to-follow manner.

The thing which attracted me to Capitalism was the other options available. The idea of running a media empire, or having my own transport systems to profit off other people's manufacturing, or just concentrating on running a retail business and making nothing myself. Sure, I want to be able to pick to run an industrial giant sometimes - but I want that to be one option, rather than the only option.

I think Cap Lab's industrial and retail games are basically fine as they are - we could expand them with more products etc, but that's just doing 'more of the same' and doesn't really add anything to gameplay.

I think we could be running with idea about transport - both for goods and for people. Running a public transport company in a city which has no access to cars would be very lucrative - or in a city which has environmental regulations or some such (tho see below for more on that). Owning all the ports, so you can pick the freight charges to a city, or opening up truck depots in smart places to minimize your own freight costs (these could even be a warehouse unit, meaning warehouses become more important than their current status of 'farm surplus storage').

We could be throwing about concepts for bond markets - the governments of cities could be building new apartments and facilities themselves, using budgets earned from taxes, bond sales and their own services. We could be looking at Fast Food outlets, legal service providers (based on skill more than the quality of items sold), mortgage and insurance firms, hell even cleaning and auto repair.


I also think we should be looking at the political side more - but not at all in the way that was proposed.

I don't want to stand for Mayor. I'm a business man; I already HAVE a job, and I'm not looking to retire and go into politics. But politics will effect me and my business just as much as the economy. I shouldn't be calling the shots myself, but I should be throwing money at people who will be calling the shots later; while it shouldn't be me campaigning for mayor, I should be able to make campaign contributions to a candidate who'll be good for my business. A Green mayor who wants to impose congestion charges is going to see a lot of money coming in from bus companies, but the local car manufacturers will be sending cheques to his pro-business rival. Meanwhile, the local Media company is rubbing it's hands at all the money those mayoral candidates are going to be spending on adverts....


TL;DR: Industry is finished, retail is finished. Leave those aspects be and let's look at some of the other ways to make money.

Thanks for the details, Naselus.

Well, we simply completely disagree about the nature of the game. Quite honestly, I've never found a game that I felt was close to Cap at all, including the games you mention. (Excepting the web-based scammers who would best remain nameless).

I was a fan of Cap before there were other options: one way I think of it is that the core is what you would find in "general business" textbooks. Buying Media was new in Cap2, and happened to be one of the breaking features (because of easy and significant profit) that made Cap2 worse than Cap+. The other was "rentals" which was also both a new feature and broken (because of displacing residencies, and scarred earth, leading to ever decreasing population).

Yea, "Supply chain" ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supply_chain_management ) is the term. Ah, the pic there does describe what I see as the nature of Cap. Combined with that were just a few other general concepts of business: training, simple marketing, R&D, shareholders. General Management rather than media ownership, real estate, and finance beyond issuing stocks and receiving loans.

So, I can understand our difference. You want the extra things, and I'm grown from what was the core in Cap+. I had been waiting 10 years for someone to fix Cap 2, and they have. Irregardless, I'm not trying to dwell in the past, and I admit I'm still trying grow into the expanded role we currently have. [edited to reword:] I have failed to explain my point of finance's potential to negatively affect the metagame in this thread, and I'll not re-reiterate.

Service is a rather absent component of the general business overview, so I'm happy to hear that David's interesting in that! Advertising is a service, and I agree with those that think the media implementation is somehow lacking.