Economic and technological aspects

[Automobilist]

Hallo!

I have searched for a long time for a replacement for "Detroit" (here in Germany known as "Rüsselsheim"). Detroit is all in all a very nice game, but it has some problems that you will see when you play it for a while.

1) While the game and the cars progress, the factories cannot be modernised. That means the productivity is 1908 nearly as high as in 2020 when the game ends. I think thats very unrealistic, because investment in production equipment ist important to remain competitive. Furthermore (that is not taken into account
) production must decline if the factories poorly maintained.

2) Production costs does not differ in different areas.

3)There seem to be no fees or import tarriffs.

4)There also seem to be no exclusion criteria for clients. E.g. you can sell in the 21th century a car that makes only 20 miles an hour or has a body like 1908.

5)You can invent things that makes absolutely no sense: e.g. a radio with cassette-recorder in the 1920ies.

6) I have seen in the screenshots that there seem to be only a few regions in this game like in Detroit. That's even may be enough fpr a good game, but political events might be a bit unrealistic, for example the nationalisation in the eastern bloc after the second world war or economic wars with high import tariffs.

7) Thats naer to point 6. Will there be areas where it ist prohibited to build factories or sell cars directly like Soviet-Union or East Germany in the cold war? On the other hand it could also be fun to play a director of a state owned enterprise which has to fulfill his production-plan.

8) In Detroit there is no opportunity for technology-transfer or oppinion to buy parts from other companies, thats a bit unrealistic, also there is not a "state of the art" that refers to a period (It is harder to develop a car with 1950ies technology in 1950 as in 1970.) In the game "Oldtimer" (playing in the late 19th century until the 1920ies) there was for example. (It was from Austrian software-designer, a English version seem to be downloadable there: http://free-game-downloads.mosw.com/aba ... timer.html)

9) The AI of Detroit ist to simple it's possible tho make even better cars as the competetors if you sell only in one market (while ther is no technology transfer at all).


10) It would be interisting if there were a random history, because you know the events if you played them some times.


Thank you and sorry for my English

[Daffyflyer]

Great questions, this kind of stuff really helps us work out what is important to people, and what we need to think about


1) Factory technology will be something you can research, as well as paying to expland to larger facilities.

2) Labor, materials and oil will vary in cost per region and this will change over time.

3) Taxes on cars will be there at least to some extent, unsure in how much detail as yet.

4) If you made a car that bad our buyer system would cause almost no buyers to want it (unless all the competition was just as bad), but one or two strange people might still buy one.

5 & 8) There will be a rate at which tech becomes automatically "Common Knowledge", research will be how far ahead of this you can get, some techs will probably not be unlockable until a paticular year regardless of how hard you research.

6 & 7) There will be approx 33 regions, with similar countries banded together e.g Scandinavia is all one region. (Finland, Sweden, Norway, Iceland), Australia and New Zealand is one region etc.

A few historic events might be a little broken by this, but for example there are no eastern bloc countries rolled into a region with non eastern bloc countries.

You won't be able to sell to USSR etc until 1990 - playing as a state owned car company there could be a possibility, but we'd have to make it fun...

8 (again) You'll be able to trade tech, licence build other companies cars, buy engines from them etc.

There will probably be sort of a free form trade system so you could for example swap Hybrid tech, for the rights to licence build one of your cars.

9) Hopefully our AI and the way the research works will prevent this, but its a good point that we will think on.

10) We are thinking of having a historic mode, and then a mode with randomized events.

P.S- Your english is at least as good as mine!

[RedRiot]

In Detroit there is no opportunity for technology-transfer or oppinion to buy parts from other companies, thats a bit unrealistic

Yes, a technology-market between companies would be an interesting option. What about exchange technologies? For example: I give you turbo-diesel engines if you supply my factory with automatic transmissions.

Would be a handy option if you have strong parts of one kind, but you dropped behind in development of other stuff.

Detroit has another flaw: the AI opponents are "faceless". You can't examine their cars, you can't see what your up against to. Only some primitive diagrams indicate that you're not the only automaker in the world. You should have an opportunity to see your competitors' model line-up in detail.

[ChristianHA]

6 & 7) There will be approx 33 regions, with similar countries banded together e.g Scandinavia is all one region. (Finland, Sweden, Norway, Iceland), Australia and New Zealand is one region etc.

Just a small detail, but Scandinavia includes Norway, Denmark and Sweden. But the nordic countries, are Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Iceland and Finland (and Faroe Islands, Åland and Greenland).

[Daffyflyer]

@RedRiot - Yep thats exactly what we are thinking tech transfer wise, also perhaps at an extreme swapping a factory/facility for some tech or parts


Regarding seeing what your competitors do - this is broadly my thoughts on this (subject to change, its not something we have finalized at all)

You'll be able to tell all the information that customers see about the car, you'll be able to look at it from every angle in a 3d view etc.

I think if you want to know more, for example detailed technical specs, or how good quality each part is etc, you'd need to pay for a bit of research.

You might even get a boost to your research by reverse engineering a competitors tech.





@ChristianHA - Good call, all though they are more bundled as good sized groups of similar markets, with hopefully similar tastes etc.

We really aren't quite sure about the country groupings yet, so I might actually post a thread for people to suggest how we might want to group them.

[Automobilist]

Thanks for responding my questions, it seems to become a well-thougt-out game.

4) If you made a car that bad our buyer system would cause almost no buyers to want it (unless all the competition was just as bad), but one or two strange people might still buy one.

Ist there also an aesthetic view on the cars beside technological aspects?

By the way: An interesting point might be (maybe to complicated for a game), that often a car-design which is produced for a long time like the "Volkswagen", the Saab 90-types or the british cabs, is well accepted although the design is actually long outdated/oldfashioned.

6 & 7) There will be approx 33 regions, with similar countries banded together e.g Scandinavia is all one region. (Finland, Sweden, Norway, Iceland), Australia and New Zealand is one region etc.

Maybe it would be (I don't know how complex it would be to implement that) a good idea to change the borders of regions during the game. There are on the one hand many countries that were similar in the 1950s but very different today or contrary. On the other hand there are things like European Community or North American Free Trade Agreement. But I see, it causes probably more problems than benefit.

What speaks actually against single countries (at least the mayor ones) instead regions?

You won't be able to sell to USSR etc until 1990 - playing as a state owned car company there could be a possibility, but we'd have to make it fun...

It could be at least an opportunity for an addon or so. Probably it must be a little bit more role-playing. Mainly the problem in such an economy isn't to make profit but to get materials, find cooperation-partners that produce and develop parts and so on. A goal could be for example to produce enough cars or achieve a pre-defined quality, or even make hard currency on a capitalist market. Maybe if you think your goal is near, a foolish comrade in the political bureau advises you to develop military projects or prohibites cooparation with western companies.


When I think again on point 10 and researching, it might be worth to think about implement positions in the company so that you can set personality of leading scientists and economists. It must be a big advantage to have a man like Henry Ford or Ferdinand Porsche in your company. Maybe it could be interesting to think about how small companies sometimes are able to competete during a longer time with their much larger competetors. Is it enthusasm or more flexibility or just randomness?

[Deus ex Machina]

well with volkswagen i assume you mean the "Käfer" (beetle), because since then VW redesigned every car once a decade (eg.: golf 1 74-82 golf 2 82-91 and so on)

why do small companies survive? personally i think that one is like the chicken and the egg, or is the churchs definition of god the true one, or maybe that of the jews.

an enthusiast WILL go to the end, unless someone shuts him down, while a big design dept. has the pencilpushers and the beancounters looming over them.

also a small company with one or two guys making up the executive board and being also, lets say, the head designer (does the design/research) and the head economist (financial/production/buying and selling) can react much faster than for example VW, where everything has to go up a couple of levels and then down again. (and most of the time the one who suggested something doesnt even recognise has idea when it comes back, but thats another topic^^)



@ historical mode: i agree that replaying might be a bit boring if the same events happened every time and in the same place and at the same time, but who says that everything happens each time? or at the same time/place?
meaning a bit randomness, maybe with a checkbox to get the "real" thing