Export company

[radovan]

I strongly support this idea, as resented in the Export company draft. It will surely add another interesting dimension to the game, and would complement CES DLC in particular. I hope this feature will be implemented.

[David]

Do you have any comments to the different aspects of the design in the document?

[David]

I've created a poll for this old post. Let's resume discussion on this topic if this is of interest to you.

[MrNeko]

great idea about export,in real world some companys live exporting goods.
but as i understand it must be more or less endgame content ( only very good quality,very cheap product can be exported )

[avengerbg]

To add my 2 cents ... There might be 2 types of export companies. Local that gonna serve imports/export between cities, implementing depos or something that will in one hand limit the amounts that can be exported to another sity and the freight cost for exporting them ( that will be the profit for them). This can make it more lucrative for corporations to setup their own farms or factories, or buy from local to the city suplier, then everyone buying from factory/farm offering best product and leave others that produce same product without any sales, as it often happans in game in my opinion. This can be inplemented similiar to current telecoms, but when infrasturcture is upgraded it should also increase the running overhead (ie expenses for fuell, running costs of trucks).

And the export companies that will actualy server exports overseas, can work in similiar way as e-commerce. with the need of city mayor to build airports/seaports and increase their quality of service (upgrade infrastructure) to increase tha maximum possible expors, with this, even if city have very high competitiveness rating, the volume of exports will still be limited from the capabilities of airports/seaports, and they can also bring income for the city for charging for freight for exports.

The other countries can exist as virtual cities (that dont exist on map), with not too complicated economy models (just simulated GDP components as they are curryntly in game), but enough to make flactuations in demand for exports and exported goods. Currently exports are pretty static and depend only on competitiveness rating, but dont account for recessions etc in the "importing entities."

P.S. Its good indeed to have different currencies, currency market and a lot other things, but the more complicated implementation gets, the more bugs and bad side effects there will be.

[saffgee]

I've always liked the idea of more hoops to jump through for getting a product form A to B, but I think this is an opportunity to make warehouses more functional. Simply prohibiting trade directly between a factory and a retail unit in different regions unless its gone via a warehouse or export/customs building or something like this would add some interesting game elements as long as those elements are not static. If we could have random events (btw are these moddable David ?) and/or a different setup for tariffs/taxes for each game we play, that would be awesome. Maybe have a settings button for "existing world" and "random" to randomise which cities charge what for exports or imports. For this to work thought we'd need to introduce different region pricings for buildings. Maybe a discount/premium setting for each city, so for example Hong Kong could have building cost 70%, whereas London would have building cost 125% and so on.

I know we've discussed transportation at length in other threads, but for what its worth, I think a focus on import/export is the simplest way to reflect long distance travel. Another proposal I've made in the past which I hope will be considered was to not only waive transport cost entirely for immediately adjacent factories (ie "touching"), but to improve efficiency for each by a specific percentage. Like this I felt it would be possible to build factory parks that would reduce manufacturing costs. Against a backdrop of import/export fees this adjacency bonus could be a huge differentiator.

[colonel_truman]

I know we've discussed transportation at length in other threads, but for what its worth, I think a focus on import/export is the simplest way to reflect long distance travel. Another proposal I've made in the past which I hope will be considered was to not only waive transport cost entirely for immediately adjacent factories (ie "touching"), but to improve efficiency for each by a specific percentage. Like this I felt it would be possible to build factory parks that would reduce manufacturing costs. Against a backdrop of import/export fees this adjacency bonus could be a huge differentiator.

That´s a good idea and that would give some cohesion to the industrial side of the game. My own idea linked to this (that I posted somewhere in the distant past) was to be able to "attach" "touching" factories, so they can use the thread between units, between factories.

[avengerbg]

"touching" factories will complicated too much things, when factories are so close, transport cost is negletable in my opinion, and "touching"
factories will need to upgrade and maintain infrastructure between them for transportation of the goods. it can even be more expensive then trucks

[wright123]

Do all this but don't make it a DLC please

[GnoSiS]

I saw this linked from the upcoming banking DLC and I wanted to provide my 2 cents on some potential pitfals and concerns regarding any implementation of imports and exports:

let me know what you think:

1. The foreign markets must be properly simulated as nations. This means: 1) No infinite product demand - a bounded market size, 2) They must have their own business cycle, 3) local and oversees competitors.

2. Not sure if they should exist when playing survival. Perhaps it should be an option in the menu. When you start a city, competitiveness is near zero, so you wouldn't be an atractive export which means no jobs - but this also means you can't have a pre-existing market to sell to. However if exports are sucessful with zero competitiveness, the game is too easy and you can grow cities out of nothing very fast. This is quite tricky. Historically cities grew because they were exporting to the nation or into the global economy.

3. Shipping costs need to be reworked, along with perhaps storing product oversees, without selling it instantly. This invites some form of logictis to be implemented. You can't sell cars in Asia at the end of the month that they were produced. You need at least 4 -5 months if you are to transport them there economically from the US/EU.

4. free market, as in the controllers of retail in the local cities control who the supplier will be. Imports should compete with player run industry, otherwise it's too simple of a feature and will be ignored. This means the game needs NPC AIs for importing and selling goods localy, along with simulation of the oversees industry, in terms of R&D, capacity growth and etc.The player will ignore imports in his retail if he plans to sell his own produce, so importers must have access into the local market somehow. In reality, most business is only horizontal, which means retailers are independent in choosing suppliers, however most players in capitalism lab create vertical chains.

That's all for now...