Time controls

[Esoteric Rogue]

I have a few suggestions. Or, truth be told, I have a lot of suggestions, but moderation is key.

• I would prefer that all new games and all loaded games begin paused. (I can't be the only one that starts a new game, checks out the cities, particularly industrial imports, and then realize it's already March or April so I curse and restart another new game, while pounding the zero key so I don't let time slip by again)
• We should have a pause indicator. I might suggest slowly alternating "Paused" and then the date, where the current date is.
• For the way I usually play the game, I would like controls to "Run to the first of the month", which would run at speed 5 until the new month, at which point it would pause (or even return to the speed at which it was when RunTo was pressed). Also "Run to the first of the year". Might as well throw in "first of the quarter" and "run for 7 days" also.
• For the way I usually don't play the game, I'd like to be able to set an option for a new game where I cannot change the game speed or pause the game. That is, an option to fix the game at a given speed. I must admit whenever I try play at a fixed speed I can't help myself and end up "cheating".
• I would like to be-able to customize the key-bindings.
• Finally, I would like something of a new game mode. Like, "Time Advanced". I would like to start a new game, but have the game run itself for n years before my company is founded. The point here is to give the competitors a chance to become established. The successful CEO would have to investigate which is the best industry to crack into. I feel this will create a sort of scenario-like feel. [e.g., Your competitors are busy cranking out the cars and laptops, but nobody has wheat yet!] The already established businesses would make the challenge feel more real to me. It's a sad truth that in the real world, if you want to start a new corporate empire, everybody else already has a head start! [n.b., I'm not actually interested in advancing the start-year, but I do mean, for-instance, start the AI at 1980, let them run to 1990, and then I'll start playing.]

Thanks

[David]

I have a few suggestions. Or, truth be told, I have a lot of suggestions, but moderation is key.

• I would prefer that all new games and all loaded games begin paused. (I can't be the only one that starts a new game, checks out the cities, particularly industrial imports, and then realize it's already March or April so I curse and restart another new game, while pounding the zero key so I don't let time slip by again)
• We should have a pause indicator. I might suggest slowly alternating "Paused" and then the date, where the current date is.
• For the way I usually play the game, I would like controls to "Run to the first of the month", which would run at speed 5 until the new month, at which point it would pause (or even return to the speed at which it was when RunTo was pressed). Also "Run to the first of the year". Might as well throw in "first of the quarter" and "run for 7 days" also.
• For the way I usually don't play the game, I'd like to be able to set an option for a new game where I cannot change the game speed or pause the game. That is, an option to fix the game at a given speed. I must admit whenever I try play at a fixed speed I can't help myself and end up "cheating".
• Finally, I would like something of a new game mode. Like, "Time Advanced". I would like to start a new game, but have the game run itself for n years before my company is founded. The point here is to give the competitors a chance to become established. The successful CEO would have to investigate which is the best industry to crack into. I feel this will create a sort of scenario-like feel. [e.g., Your competitors are busy cranking out the cars and laptops, but nobody has wheat yet!] The already established businesses would make the challenge feel more real to me. It's a sad truth that in the real world, if you want to start a new corporate empire, everybody else already has a head start! [n.b., I'm not actually interested in advancing the start-year, but I do mean, for-instance, start the AI at 1980, let them run to 1990, and then I'll start playing.]

Thanks

Good suggestions. I would suggest that you set up a poll for each of the above suggestions.

[Esoteric Rogue]

I would suggest that you set up a poll for each of the above suggestions.

Meh.

[Hyronymus]

I would suggest that you set up a poll for each of the above suggestions.

Meh.

If you do you'll get my votes, make sure people can vote on more than one option though.

[Esoteric Rogue]

If you do you'll get my votes, make sure people can vote on more than one option though.

Thanks for your pre-votes, Hyronymus; the keybindings poll is up. I think I should be able to each as simple yes or no.

I simply believe majority rule is a sure-fire way to run a creative project into mediocrity, however, so I'm reluctant to play along with this, eh, "meta-game".