Electricity company, day/night cycle, new products, giants

[David]

Which of the following approaches do you guys prefer?

Approach #1
Residential customers - mansions, houses, apartments
Non-residential customers - government buildings, commercial buildings, all types of firms.

Approach #2
Residential customers - mansions, houses, apartments
Business customers - commercial buildings, all types of firms.
Government - - government buildings

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Since electricity is a necessity (every household has to consume electricity), there should be an upper limit for the price that the player is allowed to set. Otherwise, if there is only one electricity company, it could charge an absurdly high price for its electricity and people will have no choice but to pay for it anyway.

The average cost per KWH in the US is $0.1. We are inclined to setting the upper limit to $0.2 per KWH in the game.

Any comments on this?

[counting]

Which of the following approaches do you guys prefer?

Approach #1
Residential customers - mansions, houses, apartments
Non-residential customers - government buildings, commercial buildings, all types of firms.

Approach #2
Residential customers - mansions, houses, apartments
Business customers - commercial buildings, all types of firms.
Government - - government buildings

-------------------------------------

Since electricity is a necessity (every household has to consume electricity), there should be an upper limit for the price that the player is allowed to set. Otherwise, if there is only one electricity company, it could charge an absurdly high price for its electricity and people will have no choice but to pay for it anyway.

The average cost per KWH in the US is $0.1. We are inclined to setting the upper limit to $0.2 per KWH in the game.

Any comments on this?

Electricity is also a product, the more you charge, definitely will drop the total usage. A ridiculously high price will hamper any businesses or buildings to function (just like how you set a product price to very high will drop the demand to nothing). Or just provide a "local default provider" who can supply a reasonably priced default market.

[Arcnor]

Which of the following approaches do you guys prefer?

Approach #1
Residential customers - mansions, houses, apartments
Non-residential customers - government buildings, commercial buildings, all types of firms.

Approach #2
Residential customers - mansions, houses, apartments
Business customers - commercial buildings, all types of firms.
Government - - government buildings

-------------------------------------

Since electricity is a necessity (every household has to consume electricity), there should be an upper limit for the price that the player is allowed to set. Otherwise, if there is only one electricity company, it could charge an absurdly high price for its electricity and people will have no choice but to pay for it anyway.

The average cost per KWH in the US is $0.1. We are inclined to setting the upper limit to $0.2 per KWH in the game.

Any comments on this?

Electricity is also a product, the more you charge, definitely will drop the total usage. A ridiculously high price will hamper any businesses or buildings to function (just like how you set a product price to very high will drop the demand to nothing). Or just provide a "local default provider" who can supply a reasonably priced default market.

I agree

[David]

From the gameplay point of view, if a player is allowed to dramatically change the electricity prices in a very short time frame (which rarely happens in the real world), the AI who have built the firms in the city may have a hard time responding to it - should they simply close all the firms and quit doing business in the city? If this is a likely consequence, the company who owns the electricity company can exploit this to drive the profits of another company down.

A default local electricity provider may not be a good option either here, as the challenge for the mayor is to build a good electricity infrastructure in the city via government funded operations or via private investments, and having a default local provider will undermine the purpose of the challenge.

So we are looking for a solution that will minimize potential exploitation loopholes while allowing electricity companies to adjust their prices within a reasonable range (e.g. 50% to 200% of the "standard price").

[Arcnor]

What if the pricing function worked similar to how Advertising works now, with the price fixed for a period of time. Then perhaps for electricity have this expand from one month to say 3 months. Allowing the player to change prices simply 4 times a year.

[counting]

From the gameplay point of view, if a player is allowed to dramatically change the electricity prices in a very short time frame (which rarely happens in the real world), the AI who have built the firms in the city may have a hard time responding to it - should they simply close all the firms and quit doing business in the city? If this is a likely consequence, the company who owns the electricity company can exploit this to drive the profits of another company down.

A default local electricity provider may not be a good option either here, as the challenge for the mayor is to build a good electricity infrastructure in the city via government funded operations or via private investments, and having a default local provider will undermine the purpose of the challenge.

So we are looking for a solution that will minimize potential exploitation loopholes while allowing electricity companies to adjust their prices within a reasonable range (e.g. 50% to 200% of the "standard price").

In the real world, those who do this kind of stunt will drove their own power companies to the ground and their reputation ruined, since no customers would buy their power in the future, high price can not sustain. This kind of scandal did happen in the past in the real world done by the infamous ENRON in 2000, and causing the California Electricity Crisis. Politics eventually kicked in to investigate the reason (since during the crisis, it's not for sure it's malicious or accidental).

Although, from game play point of view, since there's no reputation mechanism, or politics mechanics to tune existing "regulations", default game options and boundaries do seem like an easy way of solving this dilemma. As media firm mechanism forbid CPM over 10.0, perhaps power companies really should be "regulated" in similar fashion. And I do think some sort of national default power supply should exist, like "importing power" from neighboring cities' power grid, so a city can function at a minimum. Energy infrastructures don't get built over night, since if we are starting a game from 1990, it's not realistic to have no power at all with real world city names. (unless you are aiming for Capitalism to be like Simcity copy)

[David]

Here is the electricity price range that is going to be implemented in the game:

Standard electricity unit price: $0.2 kWh

Allowed price range: $0.1 to $0.5 kWh

Reference: electricity prices by country
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_pricing

We will probably make them moddable in the future.

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And there will be default government owned power plants in developed or developing cites, in a similar fashion as government owned media firms.

[David]

What if the pricing function worked similar to how Advertising works now, with the price fixed for a period of time. Then perhaps for electricity have this expand from one month to say 3 months. Allowing the player to change prices simply 4 times a year.

This is a good suggestion. I have forwarded your idea to the dev team for their consideration.

[Nazka231]

I was also thinking about a fix percentage to change the price. Like +3% per month. Or an UI like the rent for buildings. I will like to see a live price for electricity but I guess it will increase a lot the complexity to know more or less the fixed costs.

All in all a too high price for the electricity will mean that everybody see it as a luxury resource, so less people watching TV during the night, lights, industries working the night etc.. And at some point it will be a no go for new investment because you won't even be able to have fixed costs higher than the gross revenue. Or in a fixed map like CapitalismLab you will see companies creating their own power plant...