Suggestion - subsidiaries/sub-companies

[Kristo]

Hi, I'm Chris and i'm a big fan of Cap2 since... well, since it came out... i'm still playing it (4 hours today) and i got some ideas i wanna share:

First - the so-called "subsidiaries" (or either Groups or subdivisions)
1/ In your corporation you can choose which firms can be selected to form a subsidiary (f.x. all your supermarkets or all your farms, factories and stores in given bussiness - like food-industry)

2/ When you form a subsidiary, you can hire someone to manage it, but you can always give him/her some set of instructuions (like "don't sell any of MY buldings", "don't change the suppliers" or "be more agressive")

3/ You can sell the subsidiary as a whole bunch of firms - like you're selling part of your corporation (like your media-companies or your oil-production-related firms). And you can buy subsidiaries from the parent company

4/ You can choose how much money you'll invest annually in the subsidiary and get the profits, without managing every single store, mine, oil well, bulding one by one

5/ You can buy your competitors' subsidiaries - and choose to dissolve them, add them to one of yours or keep them like that

6/ There'll be several forms of firms, that can be owned ONLY like a subsidiary (which means - you CAN'T manage it personally, except for some instructions, AI will manage it for you)

6.1/ A bank - you'll have to invest $30,000,000 and get a license. Also, you'll set the interests' rate. If the competition want a loan from this bank, you can negotiate the clauses. You can have more than 1 bank company, but every single one must be independent subsidiary, you can't merge them.
6.2/ A film studio - you can choose the genres, amount of money you'll invest annually and amount of movies made annually. Its production will be affected by the city, the country you're playng in and the mood of the people in them.
6.3/ a music label - the same as the film studio, but about music-albums - more options and easier profits.
6.4/ A holding company - its only purpose will be buying and selling shares of other companies, you can control its strategies, but to some extent
6.5/ a transport company - you have to choose your investment, type(s) of transportation and probably number of transport routes, can affect the transportation fees in the area.
6.6/ A power plant - with some limitations 'cause of the city you're playing in - like demanded energy, infrastructure and so on.
6.7/ a sports team - the sports will be the most popular in their respective city (baseball in US, soccer in UK, volleyball in Italy and so on). Also - you can have only 1 team per sport, but have 2 or more teams in 1 city (like NY Soccer and NY Basketball)
6.8/ An arms company - you'll need a license and good relations with The State. Also - you can sell ONLY to the State, with exception guns and knifes - for generals population. Also - can be affected by your R&D military programs.
6.9/ a construction company - there's always someone in the city, who'll hire this company to build something.
6.10/ a resort - a coplex with up to 6 buildings, built outside the city for tourism. You can choouse the type of the resort, the buildings and overall strategy
6.11/ a book publishing firm - well... you can sell books, part of the "entertaiment group"
6.12/ an insurance company - like the bank, but selling insurance policies

and some player-formed types of subsidiary, you can create so you'll stop manage them directly:
- a real estate (include only mansions and land)
- an entartaiment company (film studio, music label, book publisher, newspaper publisher, probably some media - tv, internet and a concert hall, cinema)
- a media group (tv, radio, internet and publishing industries you own)

7/ New types of firms, you can build and manage:

7.1/ A hospital
7.2/ An university
7.3/ Hotels, restourants, bars, night clubs, cinema, concert hall
7.4/ a software studio - it will produce video games, programs or operating systems.
7.5/ an internet media - along with tv, radio and newspaper, you can now form a REAL media empire.
7.6/ which lead to - you should be able to build tv station, radio station and publishing firms, satelite tv option for TV, cabel tv option for tv and event pay-per-view tv...
7.7/ a gamgling establishment
7.8/ an amusement park

8/ THE STATE - will exist in the given city like a neutral AI-controled player
- it can own buildings and some firm, it can sell them (in auctions), but never buy them
- it decide the tax rates (yeah, tax must exist and be different for any given industry)
- can ban some sort of bussiness from the city (like gambling or nuclear reactor)
- can give you loans and save you in some cases
- you can have bad, normal or good relatioships with the State, which will affect its actions about you - loans, tax credits, license-giving and so on
- it can indirectly help/destroy your plans (like motivation people to settle in other towns, when you need work force, or nationalise some industries like oil-related, or giving tax-credits for building apartment buildings with low tax-rates for residents)
- it can prevent you and others from creating a monopoly in any industry, this will include stoping you from purchaising firms, subsidiaries, corporations, state-owned companies, shares, merging with controled companies and so on.
- state-owned companies - tv, radio, power plant, stadium, occasionally concert hall, hospital or university.
- the political status of the state will affect the economy - it can be either communism, socialism, democrasy, dictatorship, teocracy and so on. Which means - if you play in 5 different cities, you can have 5 different type of state, you'll be dealing with...
- you can improve the relationship with the state - building some building, you can't control at all (like a museum or library), also - the opposite - if you raise the prizes of the common goods, lay off many workers or try to manipulate stock-investments, or just stop paying taxes - the state will stare to hate you...
- it can issue bonds, for you and your competitors to buy and sell (like if you buy 100,000 bonds for $5 each, six years later you can sell them for $8 each, gaining the profits)

9/ The people -
- they'll have mood, which can affect... everything

and some more:

10/ The AI-controled corporations:
- you can have bad, neutral or good relationship with them, their management.
- you can form a cartel with them to get more money (like if Corp1 owns 50% of food production and Corp2 owns other 50%, the two corps can negotiate a prize-pact and simultaneosly rise the prizes and use their monopoly) - this can happen with more than just 2 corp. It will always be illegal.
- if they had limited capital at the begining of the game, they'll try to specialize in only one industry (like entertaiment or food or drugs) - and then attack the other industries
- can fill a lawsuit against you.

11/ Your corporation's and your new abilities:
- You can hire a spy (to find out your competitions prizes, tactics, secrets), a saboteur(to sabotage the factories) and a thief (to steal the technology) - any of this will be illegal
- your corporations starts with you owning the 100% of the shares and you can decide to either go public, or keep private for yourself, or make it a partnership with limited number of persons (like up to 6 parnters or just 2)
- a Mortgage loan option
- you can buy a valuable items that don't generate income - like cars, works of art, gold, silver, private jets...
- your R&D centers can upgrade not only products, but methods and servises (like hotel servise or music production level in the music label)
- you can form a foundation for a single purpose of giving money for charity, this rising people's wellfare and improving corp-state relationship.
- you can go to jail, if you broke the law(and the State caught you an sue you
- you can name any single firm of your corporation and hire a specialist to run any given one of them - he'll have limited abilities (training emploees, adjusting the prizes, adjusting the payments for the workers and report to you for everything)

well, i think that's for now...
See ya...

[Morgan]

There are a lot of good ideas there, and some I'm not sure about...

But, subsidiary firms is one I've been wanting, too... whether as a way for a focused type company to branch out (Say, if Samsung wanted to do food products, for instance) or as a way to help corner a market - like having a luxury line and a discount line.

[mrbcap]

8/ THE STATE - will exist in the given city like a neutral AI-controled player
- it can own buildings and some firm, it can sell them (in auctions), but never buy them
- it decide the tax rates (yeah, tax must exist and be different for any given industry)
- can ban some sort of bussiness from the city (like gambling or nuclear reactor)
- can give you loans and save you in some cases
- you can have bad, normal or good relatioships with the State, which will affect its actions about you - loans, tax credits, license-giving and so on
- it can indirectly help/destroy your plans (like motivation people to settle in other towns, when you need work force, or nationalise some industries like oil-related, or giving tax-credits for building apartment buildings with low tax-rates for residents)
- it can prevent you and others from creating a monopoly in any industry, this will include stoping you from purchaising firms, subsidiaries, corporations, state-owned companies, shares, merging with controled companies and so on.
- state-owned companies - tv, radio, power plant, stadium, occasionally concert hall, hospital or university.
- the political status of the state will affect the economy - it can be either communism, socialism, democrasy, dictatorship, teocracy and so on. Which means - if you play in 5 different cities, you can have 5 different type of state, you'll be dealing with...
- you can improve the relationship with the state - building some building, you can't control at all (like a museum or library), also - the opposite - if you raise the prizes of the common goods, lay off many workers or try to manipulate stock-investments, or just stop paying taxes - the state will stare to hate you...
- it can issue bonds, for you and your competitors to buy and sell (like if you buy 100,000 bonds for $5 each, six years later you can sell them for $8 each, gaining the profits)

Above is such a good idea Chris. But this a whole new game on itself.