I’ve been thinking, in the capitalism word there are a lot of thing happening but if there is one thing that is present in any sector is illegal activities. Being able to choose to not to pay taxes, are even embezzle city money . There could also be a possibility of selling unsafe product and having to pay the officials to avoid lawsuits. There are loads of ways to make this game even more realistic.
I would love that, corporate espionage, steal technology, cook the books, fraud shares, sabotage competitors, use the government to improve, more directly, the business (CES), and etc.
HI , really likes the idea , although i think when you call your game capitalism you might have an ideological biais than incline you not to show the possible bad outcomes of it and hence are less incline to represent them in a game but i read on another post that players could be student, and usually the "illicte activities" are case that are studied a lot , and highlight possibles changes for the future.
Nonetheless , i would appreciate appreciate more dynamism in regulations , like some products / generation of products not only become obsolete ( that is implemented) or unable to compete with better quality ones ( that is implemented too ) you could also see products becoming forbidden in some cities , i'm thinking especially for drugs/medicines , cars , toys , food , in order to have the illicite activities as a side effect of real economy and not the sole purpose of a DLC
Maybie it can be somehow related with the city simulation DLC and you can as the governing party change legislation to your benefit even further as vgmm235 suggest such as legalizing marijuana , forbidding non-electrical cars and non-biological food , enforcing strongly or not the copyright policy but so far winning an election is just pouring as much money as needed , you can not try this community approach trying to shape your population with politicaly motivated laws.
The " illicite " word makes me think of a justice system , since at the moment you can only do things that are allowed , i think the only mention of rules like those from justice are in the stock market when a message prompt " the SEC prevent that " or something.
This means you never do something illegal, for it to happen you need as a player to know when you commit the fraud, and willingly commit it, and this needs be clear so that you don't unintentionnaly go rogue.
This would look like manual micro management with high risk high reward.
Which might sound complicated if it is in the background for every single action/decision you make.
Maybie you could counter the added complexity with an attorney in your HQ which could handle the extra micro management in case you don't want to do illegal stuff long run , so they would look like a way to start of your business quickly early in the game when you have plenty of time for each activity, or a crisis response ? ^^
If not as a full mechanism involving products chains the " illicite " activity could find a way through random events , for instance " a major economic power invoke an embargo in this country " do you withdraw all your assets ? how ? ect , the consequences could be immediate money if you continue business but lose access to some markets later forcing you to use subsidiary or pay fines.
In the game it would translate into city A wants to you stop your activity in city B or you will face fines or maybie further punishment such as assets freeze, stock confisquated , expropriation ...
This as a lighter implementation of the legal side , with a set of rules that are turned on and off , such as , this city prevent the construction of new building for 3 years , you could still do it but it requires 50% more money, and for every building there is a 10% chance of getting a public scandal which would make it 100% higher price to fraud the next time if it occurs , - 10% for every media firm you own.
" because of the sanitary focus in the media following the recent events , you cannot sell cattle meat in this city for 1 year, do you wish to :
A) relabel you cattle as lamb ( the factory and retail continue just as normal but there is x% chance you get caught , which leads to x% of chances for a punishment depending on your attorney skills and money you invest on the case.) ,
B) just follow the rules , and get rid of the infected meat, ( all products are destroyed like when insects eats all the crops :'( + all cattle producing assets are shut down for a year unless you repurpose them)
As for the stealing technologies to other , it could work as a research center that work from 2 up to to 10 times faster depending on how many units you hlink , you 'd call it espionnage center idk , it can only research technologies known by others , with a % of chance the research project failing since you could get caught !, wich could have the effect of not letting you try again for a few years and maybie reduce the training level.
Embezzle city money could work as : you sometimes are prompted with objectives, " the governing party of city A is looking for a private investor to develop corn culture , or to meet the need in housing, or to improve the quality of product above numbers " there would be a time period given, a sum of money allocated , if you accept you receive the money, free to you to use it to achieve the objective, should there be a reward , or just a punishment if you fail the objective. ( I see this as a way too illustrate the idea of different time notion when it comes to business and justice)
this would create " illegal activites " as an effect of failing to follow the rules rather than willingly not following them.
This would also allow for turning on / off the illegal temptation in an easy way.
Most of the game isn't based on random events, unlike most of what i detailled but i don't really see a way to avoid the random when it comes to illegal activities are there is always the "getting caught " thing.
To counter that randomness, those event could be triggered only when conditions are met , like you need to be at least Xrank in this product to try and steal the tech, you need a market cap of at least X for some governemental proposal to appear , it could also require skilled attorney , many attorney ect.
I have more ideas than time to find the words in english for them at the moment but i hope this topic develops
Pietro wrote: ↑Mon Jul 30, 2018 4:08 pm
HI , really likes the idea , although i think when you call your game capitalism you might have an ideological biais than incline you not to show the possible bad outcomes of it and hence are less incline to represent them in a game but i read on another post that players could be student, and usually the "illicte activities" are case that are studied a lot , and highlight possibles changes for the future.
I understand what your saying, and but I think to not take into account the possibilities of people not respecting the legal ways of doing business goes against human nature and realistic capitalism. I am not saying that we need to implement the possibility of embezzling city funds. But like you said afterword, implementing different situations where you can decide to respect regulation and stuff is a must.
I am a accounting university student in Quebec, and one the first thing one my professors ask us in a class if the stressed of performing was the reason why people tend to cheat in real life and school. And the fact that sometimes the risk of cheating is worth the chance of loosing everything. We see this kind of situations every day. Nowadays, CEO’s paycheck is often decided on how well the compagnies stock is doing. So, it makes sense that we see from that to time compagnies making some illegal choices or choices that puts life at risk.
So even if there are students playing, the important thing is that we make sur that there are consequences to the choices people will make in the game. And the development team could put a on or off switch in the settings. So, people can choose if they want this DLC to be active or not.
But I really like your ideas for the implementation of this DLC.
