Several concepts I still don’t understand :/

[ClipClopBoom]

Had some time with Cap and Cap2 over the years, got CL ages ago but only really started it in earnest a few weeks back, all expansions.

Doing…moderately, but there’s still some aspects that either don’t work as expected or I jus plain don’t get, even after reading every help/feature page and the Cap2 manual (not the same I know but a start) any advice would be appreciated.

1) On constant supply do seaports ever add product/remove them if no buyers? I swear I’ve seen the list changing during the early game.

2) is there a list of throughputs and ratios for units anywhere, assuming equal staff experience? From observation inventories are infinite throughput and it looks like purchase:sales can be 1:2, but hard data would be appreciated.

3) Do more people/companies ever populate the lists (including talent for R&D)? Easy to hit a cap with subsidiary c-suite in particular and there’s not often a good fit for expertise.

4) Do the people in game ever skill up?

5) Can we select our skills/specialisation in any way? It looks random to me but due to the sheer number of software techs it’s usually something niche.

6) Is there any way to have subsidiaries count for dominance? A lot of the goals revolve around multiple sectors and it’s a lot less micro to spin out divisions to handle different areas, especially going corporate branding.

7) What exactly do the acquire/sell tech and expand into R&D settings do? Are they purely for gaining and leveraging random techs as intangible assets or are they needed for developing the products the subsidiary handles? For example how would I set up a subsidiary like the Tech AIs and how would I have an arm develop their particular product class?

8) On a related note I think I might be managing subsidiaries wrong; It makes sense that backward integration is vertical integration of the existing supply chain (does the AI ever build warehouses?) but everything else is not working as expected.

Say I have a subsidiary that was my old automobile arm, with two auto retailers selling one seaport import:

A: Just backwards integration: does this build factories and mines?

B: Expand into retail: is the WAI for this to only make new auto stores if that’s the only currently sold product?

What tends to happen is I tick everything (aiming for the company to just sell autos still, with horizontal integration across the product class and vertical integration down the chain, expanding with new auto stores and appropriate R&D. Instead they open discounters selling anything and everything, build all manner of factories and R&D anything before imploding :/

9) With digital age does R&D training do anything other than level up team lead numbers and affect morale?

10) Does R&D my company undertake pass to my subsidiaries or do I have to sell it to them, and is there an menu for this?

11) Do subsidiaries and/or AI get import firms?

12) I saw the experimental DLC page mentions internal advertising, was this removed? Also are there plans to integrate it with the CMO at any point? It seems strange that retail firms are the ones responsible for marketing at the point of sale level :/

13) Is product demand city-wide or per store? I’m getting decent sales in a ~50 footfall firm and wondering if it’s worth just keeping that to keep costs down as I’m still bullying the competition on tech. For things like food it’s probably best not to overlap products on observation unless you want like a dozen stores in one city.

Sorry if it’s a wall of text; really trying to dive into the game further.

Thanks.

[Maelstrom Vortex]

I'm not exactly a subject matter expert, but have been playing the game a few years. I will attempt to answer your questions by bullets as you have provided:

1.) They shouldn't. If you notice this happening you probably want to upload a save game to the devs from just before the change. I would recommend using one of the auto-save scripts available in the scripting section and set it to about a 5-10 minute interval. Should help you catch it, next you notice it, and be able to provide it to the devs for evalulation right at a point before the switch if you spot it happening again.

2.) Manufacturer's guide I believe is the closet you will find in game. It should list the amount of units by weight per production piece. The problem is there appears to be no standardization so trial and error becomes a lot of the game. The use of pre-populated manufacturing layouts is suggested til you get a feel for what needs how much of what.

3.)For R&D, as in the personnel to populate R&D firms in the DLCs, yes.. every city as a pool of talent.

If you're talking CTOs or AI skilled executives. No, the game works from a set list the size of which is either the default, set in your settings, or set by a script you are using. At the top of the main capitalism home page is a useful link for scripting. The key item you are looking for is the number of AI persons. This is set in scripts via the variables mentioned on this page: https://www.capitalismlab.com/scripts/s ... vironment/

It is static once set as far as I have seen. This pool also contains the operators of your competitors, so not every skilled AI will be available to you.

For companies it is different and they are handled separately from the number of AI persons. There is a maximum number of competitors you may set.. and after you buy out, consolidate, or destroy adversary companies if there's not a certain number of them still competing you will notice new companies are spawned and the available AI talent pool is tapped to constitute their leadership. So there's a limit on AI persons and operators, but not on the number of competitors you might face as you eliminate and consolidate them.

4.) Not that I have seen, the only exemptions are R&D personnel on a training budget in firms, but executives do not.

5.) Yes, you may select your starting skills using user defined scripts.. that bit is here:
https://www.capitalismlab.com/scripts/s ... expertise/

Under the aptly named.. player-expertise section.

6.) Only if you integrate them, then their production and sales will be added to yours. However, be careful with that, there may be an impact on branding as all their products will suddenly have your branding.

7.) They basically give the AI permission to do R&D and to buy/sell it as necessary for its subsidiaries, this is an event which rarely happens between the AI as most are unwilling to sell their competitive advantage. However.. if you hijack a company that has tech you want to rip out of it and then re-sell the company, you have to have this set to allowed so that you may buy out their tech before re-selling the stock. I call it a "tech raid." You may find yourself doing it routinely to keep competitors in check until you can out produce them on research and sustain advantage.

8.) Plausible. To my understanding AIs do not buy warehouses, but if you set your factories to group sell and their factories to group sell manually, they should at least trade amongst each other and you can force them to ware house in a way by setting your own warehouse to buy the entire stock they produce and putting it on group sale and telling their officers to prefer warehouses for purchases.

Backwards integration works as you imagine so long as a product class is not blacklisted. This is why it's almost never a good idea to blacklist semi-products category if you're considering having a subsidiary fully automate itself.

Expand into retail is completely unguided save for what you tell the operating officer is banned/not banned product categories. Keep in mind, you cannot forbid an officer from operating in a field they have specific skills in so be picky about who you hire. If you want them to PURELY operate autos.. blacklist everything but the autos and the semi-product categories as their authorized product domains.

9.) Leveling up team leaders and sustaining morale keeps your team from being stolen by competitors who are head hunting and also increases the amount of tech gain per completed research-cycle for the same period of time. IE: 1 year at 10.. becomes 1 year at 15 after some training. This is an example, the conversion is not anywhere near that exact.

10.) Yes, your subsidiaries should have their own corporate HQS. They will need tech officers.. but I think you should be able to use that interface to swap tech between companies. I know for certain you can use it to buy tech out from subsidiaries as this is standard procedure for me. You should just be able to switch which company you are controlling via the interface at the bottom left, selecting your logo, then selecting them from the list.. then open their hq and try to buy from yourself. I haven't tested this in game yet. Not a method i tend to use. I just let my subsidiaries guide themselves once I set their product categories and objectives.

11.) Not that I've seen. I've not played with that experimental yet, I intend to soon. So this is one I just do not know. I would suspect yes, but I've seen gaps in how the AI has handled some of the DLC.. like it's not fully informed of what it can do.

12.) Not removed, redone, it has a new interface. From what I see as i've not yet upgraded pending information about how CMO's handle advertising in the new patch and I'm amid a major playthrough... but from the posts they have an interface that looks like a megaphone you can pick for each product in a retail store.. and determine an advertising firm and rate from that menu without it occupying a tile in the layout.

13.) Product demand is both. Your store has a set demand based on its location based on its rating. So foot traffic impacts its immediate local demand to its geographic location within the city. But the city has a total net demand which may not be filled with a single location depending on the size and attractiveness of the businesses' location and advertising. Basically if you are at max brand, out pricing your competitors.. and still selling out your store and not reaching market cap, you either need more tiles allocated to that particular product in the same store.. or you need another store. If you add tiles and you don't gain market share while being able to adequately supply those tiles which are not selling all their goods, that's the sign you've exhausted sales potential at that specific location in town. Your options are to either increase the attractiveness of the location, put in more population nearby, but those will just add to the market, not consume it. If you want to consume it you will need to open another location at that point... but the prior solutions will at least let you move more of the same product where you are, if you must.

I've usually capped out a city in one.. at most two stores, especially if they're bulk stores like discount centers. I prefer the smaller ones though as I sort o my products based on the greatest specialization per outlet. It helps sustain a sense of neatness and orderliness. I use discount stores to sell products that don't neatly fit well in the specialist locations.

I see your wall and raise you a bigger one. I hope it helps

[ClipClopBoom]

Thank you, that clarifies an awful lot :3