New Gameplay Mechanism

[klasanov]

oh, city in question is powdersville

[klasanov]

this is also under version 4.205. I started a new party, and with very low capital, simply waited. Election time comes and I borrow as much as I can and donate as much as I can, and run for mayor in two cities. In one, the liberal party runs against itself (why???), in the other, the democratic and republican party all run out of campaign funds. I *ALMOST* win both elections from around a 50m starting pot. From doing nothing.

If I had more capital, managed my funds better, or had invested to begin with it would be very easy to win two cities, at the get go. If I had funds to do anything, it would be very easy to start grabbing real estate and then make boats of cash (which i like doing. I honestly have a tentative world domination in plan that involves systematically buying up real estate and offering goods and services culmunating with a corporation privately owning an entire city, and this game lets me live that fantasy).

But it just seems too easy, under current implementations. I do think a political tab for options would be nice. Have things like

1) number of political parties
2) starting political party capital
3) number of executives

also, i think it would be neat if citizens were members of parties, and would donate funds themselves. You could have members fundraise and their effectiveness would be tied to their political expertise.

[David]

I saw that you were playing a game with the survival mode disabled.

Perhaps you could try a survival mode game and set the "Public Expense Index" to a high value.
For details, please see: http://www.capitalismlab.com/survival-m ... tings.html

The "Public Expense Index" setting is only available on the new game setting menu when the Survival mode is enabled.

[eleaza]

this is also under version 4.205. I started a new party, and with very low capital, simply waited. Election time comes and I borrow as much as I can and donate as much as I can, and run for mayor in two cities. In one, the liberal party runs against itself (why???), in the other, the democratic and republican party all run out of campaign funds. I *ALMOST* win both elections from around a 50m starting pot. From doing nothing.

If I had more capital, managed my funds better, or had invested to begin with it would be very easy to win two cities, at the get go. If I had funds to do anything, it would be very easy to start grabbing real estate and then make boats of cash (which i like doing. I honestly have a tentative world domination in plan that involves systematically buying up real estate and offering goods and services culmunating with a corporation privately owning an entire city, and this game lets me live that fantasy).

But it just seems too easy, under current implementations. I do think a political tab for options would be nice. Have things like

1) number of political parties
2) starting political party capital
3) number of executives

also, i think it would be neat if citizens were members of parties, and would donate funds themselves. You could have members fundraise and their effectiveness would be tied to their political expertise.

I don't think it's too easy, if you use all the initial capital to run for mayors, than even if you get elected, you wouldn't have the capital to transfer real estate from city to your corporation anyway. You would get much more market value and more income from the get go investing in real estates. But probably wouldn't have the capital to "invest" in running all the mayors for the first election (probably just for one). New DLC just provide a new path to grow a "capitalist political machine", other than the pure multi-corporations, it's not meant to be "more difficult", if you have a 50m start in the core game (especially with similar discount in building like in CES DLC), it would be as easy to run a "normal" businesses, I would even say easier than running both cities and corporations (since don't need to constantly donate at least 20m to 100m for running elections every four years).

Although I do like the idea of more options for political parties and more mechanisms for gathering campaign funds. Even system like gathering "favor" if donating to existing parties. Sort of like buying "shares" into the existing parties, and even like "merger" option, with enough favor and control of the "candidates", take over existing parties. This probably would need some sort of mechanism for lobbyists I imagine.

[eleaza]

BTW, the relocate candidates to new city option will be overwritten to "running for mayor", once enter the "view election" screen, even if not running for mayors (end up only have the option for two candidates to run for the same city). Is this intentional? Once the election is held, relocation no longer allowed?

[klasanov]

this is also under version 4.205. I started a new party, and with very low capital, simply waited. Election time comes and I borrow as much as I can and donate as much as I can, and run for mayor in two cities. In one, the liberal party runs against itself (why???), in the other, the democratic and republican party all run out of campaign funds. I *ALMOST* win both elections from around a 50m starting pot. From doing nothing.

If I had more capital, managed my funds better, or had invested to begin with it would be very easy to win two cities, at the get go. If I had funds to do anything, it would be very easy to start grabbing real estate and then make boats of cash (which i like doing. I honestly have a tentative world domination in plan that involves systematically buying up real estate and offering goods and services culmunating with a corporation privately owning an entire city, and this game lets me live that fantasy).

But it just seems too easy, under current implementations. I do think a political tab for options would be nice. Have things like

1) number of political parties
2) starting political party capital
3) number of executives

also, i think it would be neat if citizens were members of parties, and would donate funds themselves. You could have members fundraise and their effectiveness would be tied to their political expertise.

I don't think it's too easy, if you use all the initial capital to run for mayors, than even if you get elected, you wouldn't have the capital to transfer real estate from city to your corporation anyway. You would get much more market value and more income from the get go investing in real estates. But probably wouldn't have the capital to "invest" in running all the mayors for the first election (probably just for one). New DLC just provide a new path to grow a "capitalist political machine", other than the pure multi-corporations, it's not meant to be "more difficult", if you have a 50m start in the core game (especially with similar discount in building like in CES DLC), it would be as easy to run a "normal" businesses, I would even say easier than running both cities and corporations (since don't need to constantly donate at least 20m to 100m for running elections every four years).

Although I do like the idea of more options for political parties and more mechanisms for gathering campaign funds. Even system like gathering "favor" if donating to existing parties. Sort of like buying "shares" into the existing parties, and even like "merger" option, with enough favor and control of the "candidates", take over existing parties. This probably would need some sort of mechanism for lobbyists I imagine.

Im not saying it should be overly difficult. Im juat saying that we shouldnt be having this extra $20m fall out of nowhere when forming a political party and that the AI should be smarter and not run 2-3 candidates onlly to run out of funds and have no chance.

I onlly ran the two elections as an example and a test. If i can almost win both, i could easily win one. Getting capital for real estate hasnt been an issue afterwards even if you wait a year and then slowly start acquisition (they quickly pay themselves back and easily pay for their loans now)

[eleaza]

Im not saying it should be overly difficult. Im juat saying that we shouldnt be having this extra $20m fall out of nowhere when forming a political party and that the AI should be smarter and not run 2-3 candidates onlly to run out of funds and have no chance.

This I agree that initial political party campaign funds should come from the corporation account. And AI candidates relocation should be smarter. Unless we added some rules where a person can only run for mayor of the same city for limited terms, then there will be a reason to setup successor candidates in the same city.

I onlly ran the two elections as an example and a test. If i can almost win both, i could easily win one. Getting capital for real estate hasnt been an issue afterwards even if you wait a year and then slowly start acquisition (they quickly pay themselves back and easily pay for their loans now)

That's my point, DLC added options for you to choose, 1) invest all initial capital in elections with high risk, and end up with little capital for anything else, but can mainly focused on running a city than corporation 2) invest in 1 or 2 elections with less risk, reserve the rest of the capital for easy acquisition of real estates, at the same time running both the city and the corporation 3) without election, no risk, and no waiting for election, get all the initial capital for a lot more real estate a slow but steady start, and of course 4) other option of traditional manufacturing, or media, or any other businesses. The opportunity cost of holding up and using capital for elections isn't cheap, where I can run a very successful businesses for the first 4 years without invest in elections at all, 20m to 100m taken out of the initial expansion phase is quite a huge investment, but it's an investment worthwhile if later return can be good. It the reward is poor, or very difficult to get into the political game, what's the point of this DLC?

Or are you arguing that the reword of the political game far outweigh the normal game play by a mile, where a traditional running real estate corporation will never be able to catch up, and the elections if winning gives unfair advantage to great and the gameplay too boring? We should add more risks of failing as mayors or losing the elections in the future (whether due to stronger AI candidates, more funds, or just better city management, etc), Like the higher the election result rating, must be met by higher quality of life, otherwise the citizens will be very angry and hurt the successful re-election starting position next time.

[klasanov]

Im just saying that in its current implementation, its very easy to make a small investment and become mayor, and then buy up the apartments, and fuel that noney into easy elections because the AI ran against itself and/or ran in three cities with no investment capital, and that the real estate game very quickly pays for itself and allows for funneling of more elections.

Im not saying these are bad, or that its boring, juat that the ai should be improved. As it stands, its like the opposing political parties just dont have any intent to win and grow their influence. So what happens is i dominate a few industries and become richest guy by far of anyone

I would love to see a political game where my party controls 3 cities and has to fight for the other 4 or something.

I think the rewards for privatizing real estate are ok. Since it also means i dont magically get to do everything (and the re company does donate its funds once every 4 years)

[eleaza]

Im just saying that in its current implementation, its very easy to make a small investment and become mayor, and then buy up the apartments, and fuel that noney into easy elections because the AI ran against itself and/or ran in three cities with no investment capital, and that the real estate game very quickly pays for itself and allows for funneling of more elections.

Im not saying these are bad, or that its boring, juat that the ai should be improved. As it stands, its like the opposing political parties just dont have any intent to win and grow their influence. So what happens is i dominate a few industries and become richest guy by far of anyone

I would love to see a political game where my party controls 3 cities and has to fight for the other 4 or something.

I think the rewards for privatizing real estate are ok. Since it also means i dont magically get to do everything (and the re company does donate its funds once every 4 years)

So is it the snowball effect of a political winning will easily translate into unstoppable monopoly in dominating political game you are worried abou? I agree that current CES DLC beta political party AI is quite weak, and there's no scaling up or down with different difficulties. "Buying votes" are buying votes, and it's fine with a capitalist context, and the competitor of political game should have more capital, on a higher difficulty.

I don't agree on a progressive difficulty in the game though, like artificially make each election in a new city more difficult. It's against Capitalism spirit so to speak, economy of scale thrive at mass scale, so political influence should grow with increasing influence. But in effect, the easy positive feedback should make competition more severe, since if the player can do it, so should AI competitor. And in the process make the game more interesting that way, a real challenge, not by design but by positive reinforcement.

BTW, do you also notice that when setting the initial start-up capital for competitors higher, doesn't seem to proportionally increase their donation to political parties? I found AI corporations still hoard a lot of their cash and do nothing even with high or very high starting capital. I feel that AI corporations only start to play the political game after they have successful running businesses and enough profit. With low total population in the CES DLC, a lot of AIs don't make money at all, thus limit their participation in politics. Perhaps we need some "political focused" corporation or personality, something to make AI taking risk in the political game early on (like human players might do). And merge the excessive persons being mayors only, but as duel roles mayor/business owner.

[klasanov]

Im not saying there is an issue with the snowball effect, just that its way too easy to get going.


Im not saying that political campaigns should automatically be more expensive, just that by the time my party has a few cities that there is another party (or 2) that has control of a city and very much desires to keep it that way.

Unless i can secure a clear tech advantage in a product, the ai will compete in it. I think politics should be similar