Good idea ! Thanks David !

[quote] After 40 years of gaming, the game becomes quite slow (1 day = 1 second at full speed) but after 60 years it isn't worse so it's quite ok.[/quote]

If you want the game time just to pass quickly, you can look at the manufacturer guide without doing anything. The game runs the faster when it is displaying something with minimum data updates (e.g. the manufacturer guide)

The following has been improved in the next version and it will make the AI more challenging:

The local competitors will get more market shares with a more difficult the local competitiveness setting.

Improved AI on retailing – will source products more proactively if existing products’ supply fails to meet the consumer demand

[quote]Tech AI still are not successful and this is solely because selling techs is still too cheap and not a viable income stream. Running R&D Centers is a very expensive excercise and tech AI can barely pay for them.[/quote]

In the last patch, we have increased the tech acquisition costs, please test it and let us know if you still think the costs are too low.

On the other hand, if the costs are too high, other companies may not be able to afford to acquire the tech and the tech companies may not generate enough revenue either.

In fact, tech companies on their own are supposed to be harder to survive, just like the real world. Actually, one of the game design intentions for creating the tech focused AI is to let new AI companies buy existing tech and thus be able to compete with established companies.

[quote]The other problem with both tech AI and other AI is lack of diversified research. There have been improvements in that usually a few AI will research their main product lines and start to make a good profit, but when they start to diversify, they do not set up new R&D centers to research those lines too, and those are not successful.[/quote]

Will look into this.

[quote]They cant buy the new techs from Tech AI either, as usually by this stage, Tech AI have already nearly gone bankrupt since they earn so little money[/quote]

You may play more games and let us know if it is always the case. Since the competition is dynamic and different in each game, it is possible that in some games, the Tech AI can survive longer (we have seen games like that in our testing).

Hi David

The AI may be getting better, but I still think the tech AI, and AI's handling of technology in general need to be addessed further.
Tech AI still are not successful and this is solely because selling techs is still too cheap and not a viable income stream. Running R&D Centers is a very expensive excercise and tech AI can barely pay for them.
The other problem with both tech AI and other AI is lack of diversified research. There have been improvements in that usually a few AI will research their main product lines and start to make a good profit, but when they start to diversify, they do not set up new R&D centers to research those lines too, and those are not successful.
They cant buy the new techs from Tech AI either, as usually by this stage, Tech AI have already nearly gone bankrupt since they earn so little money

Good !
Don't forget the thing I have written in my "a few things" note about issues on merger and enhancements possible about manufacturing.

Glad that you guys like the latest version.

As the game has got more stable and the AI is now fairly competitive, we can safely say that the game has now got closer to release.

We will release a new patch this week and open up the beta to more people.

[quote="Inarius"]I gave myself the limit to not sell directly to customers but I wanted to test the possibility to play as a productor (food, raw material, semi conductor, etc.). It Works ![/quote]

Hi Inarius

Thats a good idea. In the future, if modding for scenarios becomes available, it would be good if certain buildings could be restricted to the human player (Eg- Human player cant build retail firms). This would force them to be just a producer

I can also give my feedback. I am playing a one-century game, max difficulty.
I gave myself the limit to not sell directly to customers but I wanted to test the possibility to play as a productor (food, raw material, semi conductor, etc.). It Works !

- The beginning is tricky, but as the game is super-fast, you don't see nearly that you are loosing 10 years. (10 years = more or less 5 minutes)

- After a long game, when the growth is >3%, there are more or less 10 people with more than 2B (local billionaires). The game is not finished, yet, I'm in 2050 (60 years).
Two of them are very wealthy, and reached 5-10B during the last boom. They managed to get 100% of their stocks, even if i managed to get 1,5% of one of them (which they always ask to buy it back). The other billionaires are NPC stock investors.

- I also had an acquisition

- I found that on 30 AI, there are 5 who are quite limited, 5 who are powerful, and the other are medium, which is fine for me.

- After 40 years of gaming, the game becomes quite slow (1 day = 1 second at full speed) but after 60 years it isn't worse so it's quite ok.

- I'm about to become the richest of the game. I currently have 2,5B while the richest has 3,2B (and I'm growing much faster than him). But we are in a big crisis, So i Hope to reach 5 or 7B during the next boom.

- I noticed that the game is interesting during a[u]ll the phases of the game[/u]. I noticed also that the game is quite balanced and the AI is competitive, intelligent and reactive. It's quite a change with Cap 2 where it was quite easy to fool the AI.

- I built a media firm to test it, and it works fine (you have to wait several years before it's actually making money)

- The last changes are really appreciable.


Big thanks to you, David ! I think that, apart from what i said (which you can considerate as not important or not as a priority) about rating agencies, debt and banks, the game is really good and most flaws are fixed.

Hi David

Here is my completed game. My goal was 2 billion in profits in 40 years. I managed to pull it off in 34.
Difficulty level 8

Heres the saved game
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/23145017/MAT__003.zip

* Early game is quite challenging. The AI typically has lots of money to spend and the Local Producers have a good tech level. Further into the game, the local producers lose quite alot of ther edge and have a very low tech level at the end, which made expanding into new areas quite a bit easier. This is understandable when the highest tech is 1400 or it is a product which needs to be researched.

* I had 6 good retail players this time. However they very quickly and early on reached their peak level of profits in 10-12 years and then stagnated after that. Their core products remained very profitable, but the AI failed to properly expand into other areas. I believe the cause of this is the AI's lack of R&D centers. [b]SO MY RECOMMENDATION: [/b] Once they have a good amount of profits, the AI need to build more R&D centers. Eg- Mankind (One of the best AI) had 4 R&D centers at the end of the game. I had 12 which allowed me to get good techs with a number of products

* There was an aquisition! Rising Sun (One of the best retail AI) was taken over by Green Stylists (Originally stock AI). So that was good. Its a pity that there was only 1. Overall though the Stock AI are increasing their networth by quite a bit through investments.

* 5 AI were on the verge of bankruptcy. Superforce, Platinum Hammer, IQ Company, Zeta Group and Thunder Corp. All five started as Tech AI. Therefore, tech AI still are not making much money. Again this is because aquiring technology is still much too cheap (I aquired desktop tech for 8 million, and within 1 year, was already making 50 million in profits from it).

* On average, the Real Estate AI made 1 Billion through the game (lifetime) which was a respectable effort. The 6 Retail AI were making around 6 Billion though

* To take advantage of new features, I would still like to see AI try to set up chains for their most profitable lines (Those earning more than 80 million a month)

* AI are still not selling their most profitable lines in all cities which is a HUGE missed opportunity.

* By the end of the game, the real wage rates for all cities was nearly exactly 80 (See screenshot)... Which means wages doubled in some cities, but stayed practically the same in the cities which at the beginning were most affluent. This however was not reflected in the "Concerns" values or the average prices by local producers. The cities which were initially cheap stayed that way and the expensive ones stayed expensive despite the wages equilizing [b]This may be a bug[/b]

*About half way through the game, I was severely hammered in brand loyalty in Tianjin (See screenshot). I have no idea what caused it, and at the end I pulled all my advertising in that city. The negative loyalty continued to get worse though and I have no idea how to fix it!! Tianjin was the city which produced all my goods