Experiment: players contest on a saved game

[David]

Hmm, cleverly, the game will not allow me to take screenshots of the menus.
When I try it, takes screenshots of what is behind the game (Windows explorer, the desktop, Internet explorer, etc)

You may try www.Fraps.com

[David]

When you said without do anything, you weren't kidding!!!
A couple of my mines are exhausted and all my production has stopped! I will take on your challenge!!!

I suppose that you can keep playing the game beyond the goal deadline. Then you may send me your game and I will test it on my side.

[David]

All of you are welcome to join this contest by download this saved game from mwyeoh:

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/23145017/MATH_009.zip

[mwyeoh]

I suppose that you can keep playing the game beyond the goal deadline. Then you may send me your game and I will test it on my side.

VICTORY!! Within the goal deadline too (By the skin of my teeth- 4 months)
It was hard since I only have 5 years to turn the company around and get it "back into the black/green" (depending on which country you are from)

Heres a save game too
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/23145017/MATH_010.zip

The save is about 1 month after the win though because I have it on max speed


I was having a problem with the game though. When I save it, Capitalism "stops responding". However to solve it, I just have to right-click in the game window

So a summary of my game

*The tech AI (I had 5 in this game) again were not successful at all and pretty much had to abandon their R&D centers and turn to something else- However they did research some techs to very high levels. Socks reached 1559 and at one stage canned soup was 1300 (but dropped back down to 715 due to tech disrupution)
*Real Estate AI are holding ground (none are going bust) but are not earning very much money. They seem to build alot of apartments but very few community buildings to supplement them. Also I VERY rarely ever see them build any commercial buildings. So I think they need some inprovement
*There were 2 stock AI, which sat dead in the water. Never brought any stocks and just did nothing. A waste of time. THEY NEED TO BE FIXED!!
*I noticed some AI buying out or building media firms, so that was encouraging
*The retail/all AI were again the best.
The best AI this time was Thundercorp- Their income was all farms and factories- overall, retail lost money for them (They made lots of money from chocolate bars and icecreams)
Globallink was also good and actually made some good money with retail
*The AI needs to focus on more research for their most profitable lines. Eg- Platnium Hammer was making lots of money with desktop computers- but their tech level was only 56!!
(Bluespade did this well with TVs and camcorders though- with both techs around 200).Some of the other AI did so too
*What I really enjoyed this time around though was competition- earlier (Dfficulty level 3-6), the AI had never competed with me. This time around I had 5 competitors for my expertise of airconditioners at one stage. However once my technology and brand developed, I was selling air conditioners for $500-700, whilst Bluespade was selling them for $78 to keep up with me... SERIOUSLY?!?!?! How can he possibly make money selling them for $78!!!
*Its good to see the AI branching out to many sectors and selling lots of good in lots of different areas, but before they do (Or once they do),they NEED to research that area, otherwise their margins are extremely thin (Or negative) even with a good brand (Which suffers once negative loyalty sets in)
*By 20 years, the local's tech level for developed goods was 1. This made them quite easy pushovers

[mwyeoh]

Sounds good, please do post some screenshots.

Hi David
Here are some screenshots of the tropico challenge mode (Maps made by the map editor)
When you launch challenge mode, you start off with 'local' games, but have the option of 'online' games

Tropico4 2012-07-06 11-53-13-46.jpg (436.65 KiB) Viewed 3565 times

When you click on the 'online' mode, it connects to the server and gives you a list of challenges by their rating (Which I believe is the number of people who completed the challenge, but I am not sure how the rating score works).
There is also a description of the challenge (Made by the map author)

Tropico4 2012-07-06 11-53-30-68.jpg (536.89 KiB) Viewed 3565 times

Tropico4 2012-07-06 11-54-10-71.jpg (513.76 KiB) Viewed 3565 times

Also, there is an option to view the high scores for the game, unfortunately due to hacks, many times, the top scores are hacked games
However most players can quickly recognise which are hacked games

Tropico4 2012-07-06 11-54-15-59.jpg (494.49 KiB) Viewed 3565 times

On the other end of things, as mentioned, there is a map editor which allows the author to create the map however they want, set goals, and there is also a trigger editing system which gives you quests or sets off events or disasters. The maps can be edited and saved locally, but are submitted online to the server for other players to play

[David]

*The tech AI (I had 5 in this game) again were not successful at all and pretty much had to abandon their R&D centers and turn to something else- However they did research some techs to very high levels. Socks reached 1559 and at one stage canned soup was 1300 (but dropped back down to 715 due to tech disrupution)

We have run many games and also seen the AI purely focusing on research failed in most cases, just like the real world. The AI has been programmed to switch their strategy from pure R&D to "All" when they think it is the right time. Perhaps they just didn't do so in your game or they might do so if you continue to play your game.

Also, your game happened to 5 tech focused AI (by chance), which make them more difficult to survive, as too many pure tech companies competing for limited tech purchases from other companies. When you have a game with fewer tech AI, they might do better.

*Real Estate AI are holding ground (none are going bust) but are not earning very much money. They seem to build alot of apartments but very few community buildings to supplement them. Also I VERY rarely ever see them build any commercial buildings. So I think they need some inprovement

Will look into this.

*There were 2 stock AI, which sat dead in the water. Never brought any stocks and just did nothing. A waste of time. THEY NEED TO BE FIXED!!

This has been fixed. Will be available in the next patch.

[David]

On the other end of things, as mentioned, there is a map editor which allows the author to create the map however they want, set goals, and there is also a trigger editing system which gives you quests or sets off events or disasters. The maps can be edited and saved locally, but are submitted online to the server for other players to play

It's an interesting system. Do you play the challenge games in Tropico 4 often? Did you find it more enjoyable than the normal scenario games?

[David]

*The AI needs to focus on more research for their most profitable lines. Eg- Platnium Hammer was making lots of money with desktop computers- but their tech level was only 56!!
(Bluespade did this well with TVs and camcorders though- with both techs around 200).Some of the other AI did so too

This will be improved in the next patch.

*What I really enjoyed this time around though was competition- earlier (Dfficulty level 3-6), the AI had never competed with me. This time around I had 5 competitors for my expertise of airconditioners at one stage. However once my technology and brand developed, I was selling air conditioners for $500-700, whilst Bluespade was selling them for $78 to keep up with me... SERIOUSLY?!?!?! How can he possibly make money selling them for $78!!!

This will be improved in the next patch.

*Its good to see the AI branching out to many sectors and selling lots of good in lots of different areas, but before they do (Or once they do),they NEED to research that area, otherwise their margins are extremely thin (Or negative) even with a good brand (Which suffers once negative loyalty sets in)

This will be improved in the next patch.

*By 20 years, the local's tech level for developed goods was 1. This made them quite easy pushovers

Local competitors will catch up on production quality better, especially when the local competitiveness is set to high.


You may evaluate the next patch for all the above and let me know if the improvements are working properly or not.

[mwyeoh]

It's an interesting system. Do you play the challenge games in Tropico 4 often? Did you find it more enjoyable than the normal scenario games?

Hi David

Firstly, tropico is a very different game to capitalism, so they cant be directly compared.

I do play tropico, but at the moment, Im not playing it. I've been busy at work and time I've had, Ive been using to play Capitalism (And Empire:Total War)


The challenge games are definitely an essential part of tropico as the game does not have any randomly generated maps.
Once you finish the campaign, playing challenge games are the only alternative to replaying old maps
However some of the challenge games are really good- due to the trigger system (An essential part of tropico)

The campaign/scenario games though are very well done. They are also fully voiced, and well thought out. There are some flaws to the game though (particularly pathfinding issues), and some stages reuse old maps (They start you in a different location on the same island)

[mwyeoh]

You may evaluate the next patch for all the above and let me know if the improvements are working properly or not.

Hi David

Glad to hear that improvements are being made!
Cant wait until the next patch! I will have to work hard to get my work done so I have some time to play (Work has been picking up quite a bit and will probably be quite busy for the next 4-6 weeks)