Capitalism 2 and Capitalism Lab Forum

Since oil is such a valuable and economy-moving resource it should have more uses in the game.

What about implementing refineries, gas stations? That would increase demand enormously and make the game more realistic. Oil prices should have a big effect on the economy.

Interesting that you have brought up these topics that we have considered a long time ago but did not get realized because of various issues and concerns.

If these posts generate renewed interest and user discussions reveal potential solutions to the issues, we will consider these game ideas again.

I may start by posting what concerned us in the past about expanding the gameplay on oil: oil refineries and gas stations just do not seem to be very fun to play with and they do not seem to improve the game's strategy gameplay. For instance, if I were the player, I would just keep adding gas stations and then get bored, as it doesn't offer the level of challenge and variety in strategy as existing components of CapLab do.

Any suggestions on addressing the above concerns?

Well, it would just create another product line. A refinery is a factory that makes petrol from oil and a gas station is a specialized "retail store" that sells petrol and perhaps snacks and beverages.
I think it's just the same fun as starting with a bed factory and adding furniture stores everywhere.

But the player can't do much to improve the quality and brand of petrol and its gameplay may be a bit dry.

Then what about import fuel/oil from abroad on lower price?
This will make you consider if you're really gonna make a fortune in that industry.

David wrote:But the player can't do much to improve the quality and brand of petrol and its gameplay may be a bit dry.

Well, what about quality and brand of the final product - fuel?

Kristo wrote:Well, what about quality and brand of the final product - fuel?

This; oil simply isn't a viable product atm, and oil wells struggle to turn a profit given their insanely inflated land prices. If I have to spend 600 million dollars buying land, then it can take years and years of operation for an oil well to actually make money. Given that oil is such a vital part of the real world capitalist economy, it's a damp squib in-game. We need 2-3 normal product lines for oil products - airports should want Kerosene, joe public ought to want more and more fuel the higher his local quality of life, and if we can have powerplants etc then at least one type should really be looking to snap up petrol too.

Naselus wrote:

Kristo wrote:Well, what about quality and brand of the final product - fuel?

This; oil simply isn't a viable product atm, and oil wells struggle to turn a profit given their insanely inflated land prices. If I have to spend 600 million dollars buying land, then it can take years and years of operation for an oil well to actually make money.

It used to be that players could make tons of money easily with oil wells in Cap2, adversely affecting the balance game.

I had a few games where my oil wells were profitable. I think it dependents on various factors and profitability of oil well vary from game to game.

Naselus wrote:Given that oil is such a vital part of the real world capitalist economy, it's a damp squib in-game. We need 2-3 normal product lines for oil products - airports should want Kerosene, joe public ought to want more and more fuel the higher his local quality of life, and if we can have powerplants etc then at least one type should really be looking to snap up petrol too.

There were lots of demand for oils in my game as plastics are made from oil. What you suggesyted above sounds interesting but it seems that further increasing the demand for oil will make the economy too oil dependent and affect the gameplay balance. Any feedback? Maybe you could create a poll about the current demand for oil in game and see if other players thought the demand is sufficient already.

The balance could be somewhere between the original and the way it is now.
I also find it difficult to make oil well profitable because there is almost no demand. That shouldn't be the case after 1990.

Another way to solve it would be to adjust the land value of resources based on how much demand there is (maybe worldwide, ie. taking into account all cities in the current game). It seems unreasonable that one oil spot increases in value from 150M to 800M when there is basicly no demand for oil.

robinh wrote:The balance could be somewhere between the original and the way it is now.
I also find it difficult to make oil well profitable because there is almost no demand. That shouldn't be the case after 1990.

Another way to solve it would be to adjust the land value of resources based on how much demand there is (maybe worldwide, ie. taking into account all cities in the current game). It seems unreasonable that one oil spot increases in value from 150M to 800M when there is basicly no demand for oil.

I have played games where oil wells are profitable. Maybe you can play more games to see how each game vary on this.

You may also set up a poll asking other users whether they were able to operate profitable oil business in their games.