automationgame.com

Strait to the point. Would it be possible to have regions as a *.LUA file, so we can create our own regions.

The first thing that pops in my head for custom regions is a forum challenge: "20 years after an apocalypses we want to start a cars company (i'm talking in the future, not a post WW1/WW2 situation, but that is possible as well), but fuel is somewhat restricted it's a lower RON, very bad roads, etc, etc..." or something like that.

Just for the record this a brain storm i'm writing on the fly, so it may or may not make much sense

It would definitively be very nice if we could create our own regions for the sandbox mode.

Regions will be defined by just a simple .csv file so we will probably make it such that you can import / mod your own regions.

Which scale are you thinking?
Individual countries, big groups of countries with similar characteristics or something between that?

A mix of the two. The US for instance needs to be more than one region because it is so different in places. Germany could be one region, maybe lumped together with Austria and Switzerland, although the latter two are very different geographically and might be put together as their own block.

Are we able to study certain type of region/country before entering that market, to see some preferences before building a car? Would that be a feature associated in the game's future micromanagement?

As Automation is a game about making well-informed decisions to lead to success, the region data will be openly available before you enter the region. In the region selector in the final testing tab you'll be able to select regions you don't currently sell in to see how your cars would do there.

As a Swiss I have to take exception to being thrown into the same cathegory as Austria (or Germany for that matter).

No, but seriously:

While geogrphicly Austria is pretty similar, demographicly it's not. Demogrphicly Switzerland is somewhere between Germany and Monaco. There are incredibly many super-rich people in Switzerland, mainly industrialists and brokers but also sports, music and movie stars. That's because Switzerland is a tax-paradise with a tax law, called "Pauschalbesteuerung" meaning you pay a fixed figure independent of your income and wealth (btw. this option is only available for foreigners, so Switzerland ensures it won't lose it's own taxpayers, only the germans, french, americans and all the others).

Short: There are more super-rich people in Switzerland (relatively, as % of population) than there are in Germany or Austria and that's actually visible on the streets of cities like Lausanne or Zug.
I've seen entire convoys of cars in the 6 and 7 figure price range driving through Lausanne.

In my opinion Switzerland belongs into a special "tax-paradise region" or maybe should get its own region (since it doesn't really fit in with Monaco either) or demographical and geographical regions should be handled separately (this is actually no real difference to making own regions for such countries).

For the sake of regulation it would make sense to have Die Schweiz as a separate region, regarding the demographics it doesn't really matter, it would just populate the premium car demographics more in the combined region.

I think that individual countries are the best idea.

I actually think that would be too much and would result in lots of micromanagement.
Currently there are between 189 to 191 countries in the world depending on sources and viewpoints. Managing models for each of those would be a huge chore.
In addition countries have United and broken up over the years which would make keeping track of who what where even harder.
Maybe there could be some significant individual countries that qualify as a region in their own right, but I think logical grouping of areas would give a much better game play experience

individual countries would be a mess

but, for instance - western europe, central europe, eastern europe, northern europe, USA, Canada, South America etc.

There is no correct amount of regions, it is a weighing of micromanagement & realism vs. ease of use and getting the big picture.
I think something like 20-40 regions would be a good amount to aim at.

Another reason against individual countries is that there are some really small countries out there. I see no benefit to having Luxembourg or Rhode Island be their own regions.

Let's imagine Africa. We don't need every little country, but there are also stark differences between different areas, so we don't want to count the entire continent as one region. It's probably better to refer to regions as the natives do, or the United Nations. For example:

By country:
http://www.mapsofworld.com/africa-political-map.htm

By region:
http://www.mapsofworld.com/africa/regions

In terms of car sales, you're mostly going to be looking at the countries of Egypt and South Africa, maybe Kenya. Let's face it, Somalia is not going to be buying any new cars. By region, however, Western Africa looks more interesting. Collectively the nations within it have more buying power. They share a strong French influence. Etc., etc.

That being said, I am for having the names of countries displayed on the map, for passive geography lessons while playing.