Growing the city / Taxes & Goverment AI

[WilliamMGary]

So I played Capitalism lab a lot this weekend working on building my company and expanding to new markets. One thing that I noticed, which never happened in Capitalism II is that I just wanted to sit back and watch the game unfold (I didn't) but there's something cool about seeing a real estate backed company developing out a new residential area. I was initially against the idea of taxes and "city simulation" but if there was a AI called government that collected taxes (each city with it's own tax rate) and the government used money to build/fun some of the civics that the real estate backed companies build in areas where's there's no growth it would add to the game play.

I don't like the idea of a private company building and paying for schools / etc even if they do benefit from them. Collect taxes each city has the amount of money that they raise from taxes the government AI would decide when to raise/decrease taxes, close down civics and build them etc. The government could buy up all the land for the new area and sell select patches at a time and collect a land tax. In the newsfeed you would be notified when a new city government politician was elected and their ideology (conservative - business friendly / lazie far / lower taxes/ less civic development | Moderate - business friendly / focus on improving quality of life / strongly in favor of urban development / is willing to both increase and reduce taxes as needed / liberal - not business friendly / raise taxes / extreme urban development).

Then the Real Estate focus companies could deploy their resources on building where the government API wants to expand the city (if they so desire) and not have to subsidize on their balance sheet the cost of civics unless they want a higher return by building out in the middle of nowhere.

Thoughts?

[azxcvbnm321]

Sounds similar to what I think should happen too. The city government should build civics/sports/rec. by themselves in areas that they want more development. That alone will provide incentive for new apartment buildings to be built in that area. Perhaps your corporation can donate money to help a candidate with the views you want and that will influence his chances of winning the election, but won't guarantee it to any great degree. Otherwise the player and corporation should not be involved in government.

[gravyten577]

What would be cool is if you could bribe politicians and even try to influence elections. For example a candidate for mayor would have policies that would hurt you specifically so you spend money on a smear campaign, spending so much a month to hurt their chances of winning. And you donate to politicians that support your policies.

Just a random example you could support a mayor who would put a heavy tariff on frozen beef, this way you don't have to worry about competition from seaports. Also if you are producing something like laptops in city A and importing them into city B you would be against a mayor who supported high tariffs

[xLogan]

I like all of your ideas. I think the game should definitely include political policy—I imagine most of it would be business related, but the more the merrier! Funding campaigns would be cool, and also being able to just donate to a city government to help build public facilities; whenever you donate to the city, your brand awareness and loyalty could go up as well, since more people will be aware of you and support you if you're doing good things for their community.

If bribing politicians were to be added, I think consequences should too... MAINLY blowback from the public—decreased loyalty, resulting in a lower brand ranking within the city, and maybe even a fine to pay (I mean, if you get caught of bribery, you'll have to pay one way or another...).

It would be a lot of work, but I think it would be amazing! There are so many things that could be added, and in general, this game has so much potential.

[Inarius]

It's fun, actually I was about to post something about politics. I will.