Capitalism 2 and Capitalism Lab Forum

jondonnis wrote:As in a resource like Oil appears. Sits there for ages with everyone really wanting Oil but the AI doesn't bother to place a well on it. Eventually they might but most often not, I'll beat them to it.

I agree with this, when playing through scenarios, it is too easy to achieve financial goals by monopolizing resources and charging the maximum price. I also think the game in general just needs more products. Most natural resources are used for one, or maybe two industrial goods. For example, oil is only used for the production of plastic.. Very unrealistic! I love the gasoline idea, very easy to implement. What about bio fuel? Perhaps it can give grain/corn producers another end product.

David,

Great thinking on quality of natural resources. I have an additional suggestion with regard to mining and logging:

Currently, it is easy for a player with high cash reserves to buy all mines of a popular mineral in a region, and then engage in monopolistic pricing. This is an unrealistic situation and makes the game very simple after a point.

Would it be possible to impose anti-monopolistic restrictions on mining activities?

Best,
Anshuk

First of all, fix the AI and this is a better discussion. That being said, I'm not sure you or anyone at Enlight understands the math behind the raw materials. If all 76 end products are sold in every city at full market share, The Iron and Coal mines needed to make Steel for all of the products containing Steel will last about 40-50 years. Why have those those raw materials in every city? Conversely, the Chemical Minerals mines needed for all of the products that directly or indirectly use Chemical Minerals (assuming each city has its own mine), will last about 3-5 years (for EACH MINE!) Later in the game there is never enough of this material and you often get a huge bottleneck trying to supply 4 cities with 2 mines. Gold also depletes too quickly (about 5-7 years) but silver does not, yet you can sell more than 3 times as many silver necklaces (plus the silver needed for Camera Film) than gold rings and silver will last about 5 times longer. Oil also depletes too quickly. When all of the products that use Plastic, Polyester or Dyestuffs are sold at full capacity the Oil Well will last about 5-10 years. Once you have to close an Oil Well and have to start shipping oil to your Plastic, Dyestuff and Polyester factories which were situated right next to your old Oil Well you can kiss your profits goodbye because it costs an arm and a leg to ship oil. Which is why I always go for reserve when it comes to oil at the beginning of the game. I would actually like it so that you have natural resources come from their realistic place of origin anyplace in the world. Saudi Arabia or Texas for Oil without needing 1 of your 4 cities to be located there. You could buy that Oil field at some point (from the Government or something like that) but it would cost a boatload of money maybe a billion or two but you would have that monopoly forever. Figure out the math problems though, don't worry about commoditizing yet.

YES YES Commodities market!

adj_boy wrote:In my opinion, all natural resrouce commodities should be available on a commodity market. This will take away the need for small scale manufacturers to set up a whole mining operation by themselves, or hope the AI would do so, or wait to get lucky at the industrial docks. It makes much more sense, and it removes the a lot of chore for starting manufacturers.

Likewise, when you invest in a mining endeavour, you should be able to sell off the surplus on the global market. Of course, the increased supply should (depending on the increase and existing demand) adjust the price level of the commodity. This will make the prospect of becoming a resource producer much more attractive.

Here is what we intend to implement:
Supply of Commodities
Supplies of commodities are always available.

The player will not have to purchase the raw materials from a specific mine.

On the Purchasing Unit interface, there will be a new button called [Purchase from Commodity Exchange].

Clicking on the button will bring up a window listing all the commodities. The player just has to select a commodity to purchase.

Selling Commodities

There are always demands to the Sale Unit selling commodities (for example, the Sale Unit of a mine). So the selling speed is always equal to the production speed.

In other words, the player only has to focus on maximizing the production efficiency and closely monitor the movement of the commodity prices, and never have to worry about the demands.

If the commodity prices are too low, which may be lower than the production cost, the player may want to suspend some the production units to decrease the demand, which may help lift the commodity prices.


Gameplay Implication of the changes

• Mines will be much more costly to set up

• The profit margins may be lower

• The sale volumes will be much higher as there is always demand

• It depends more on timing than operational competence to succeed. The player should buy raw resource sites at a low cost and sell commodities at a high price.


Any feedback is welcome.

jeeaar wrote:I agree with this, when playing through scenarios, it is too easy to achieve financial goals by monopolizing resources and charging the maximum price.

The new design should fix this. If you have other thoughts, please let us know.

anshuk wrote:David,

Currently, it is easy for a player with high cash reserves to buy all mines of a popular mineral in a region, and then engage in monopolistic pricing. This is an unrealistic situation and makes the game very simple after a point.

Would it be possible to impose anti-monopolistic restrictions on mining activities?

The new design should fix this. If you have other thoughts, please let us know.

Dear David,

As an edcational software, it should teach the method of commodities market analysis to player.

I suggest to provide 'commodities futures exchange' to reduce the risk of purchase and for investment; 'Chicago Board of Trading' to show the necessary information.

'Board of Trading' (BoT) is an interface like 'Share Market' to show 1) The products price trend diagram, 2) The products sell volume trend diagram, 3) The most important information 'Product Stock Report'.

To analyse commodities market, Product Stock Report is a general view of the product's necessary information. It contain the figuare of 1) Present year supply (Su), 2) Last year stock carryin (LSk), 3) Present year consumption (Cs), 4) Ending Stock (ESk), 5) Stock-to-consumption ratio (%SCV), 6) Planting or Producing Intention Report / Future Production (FP); 7) Expected Supply ratio in coming year (%ESu).

The equation are 1) Su + LSk -Cs = ESk; 2) (ESk / Cs) x 100% = %SCV; 3) [(ESk + FP) / Cs] x 100% = %ESu

For example, 2011 Wheat Stock Report
Present year supply (Su) = 10,000,000 Bushel
Last year stock carryin (LSk) = 2,000,000 Bushel
Present year consumption (Cs) = 8,000,000 Bushel
Ending Stock (ESk) = 4,000,000 Bushel
Stock-to-consumption ratio (%SCV) = 50%
Planting or Producing Intention Report (FP) = 9,000,000 Bushel
Expected Supply ratio in coming year (%ESu) = 162.5%

'50% Stock-to-consumption ratio' mean half demand in coming year is being fullfilled, it is too safety and the result will be price decreasing; '162.5% Expected Supply ratio' in coming year mean it will be 62.5% more supply than demand, it is no doubt to has a dramatic drop in wheat price. When Stock-to-consumption ratio in low level and Expected Supply ratio below 100%, the price of product will rise again.

I hope that the commodities price are not a random value nor only adjusted by CPI. To do this, it is need a climate factor to planter ranged between 80% to 120%. This climate factor is change in every year, it will affect the actual prduction supply. With this factor, the farming will become more realistic; the warehouse will become necessary.

To reduce the damage from commodities price fluctuation, we need 'commodities futures exchange' to buy the future contract.

To make Investment in commodity Futures become funny, it should provide more types of commodity.

I suppose the following classification of commodities.

1) Crop market - Wheat, Corn
Wheat - it is the basic food of human. It has been planting on whole world, and the quality different is very small, so that I suggest to add this commodity.

Corn - the main consumption of corn is to feed animal, produce Corn Syrup and Bio-fuel.
I suggest to change the method to grow livestock, that adds a purchase unit to buy corn. In original game setting, the cost of livestock growth is very stable, however, it is not realistic as a know. I found this in china, the pork unit price had risen 200% in year 2011, the main reason of it is the price rise of corn making the profit of selling pork become lower than the other investment, the end result is the undesirable rise of the pork price but with reducing supply.

2) Soft commodities market - Cocoa, Coffee bean, Sugar and Cotton
The quality of commodities can be set as 50, it can encourage to farm these products.

3) Precious Metal & Diamond market - Platinum, Gold, Silver, Diamond
When currency value reduce, the precious metal and Diamond will be used to control currency risk. The price rise of these commodities will be higher than CPI.
And Platinum & Diamond are import only.

4) Construction Material Market - Cement, Structural Steel, Copper
Cement = Silicon + Product Tech.
Structural Steel = Steel + Product Tech.
Copper = Copper ore + Product Tech.
The Product Price changing will affect the constuction cost of building.

For example, the constuction cost of apartment = 100ton (unit) Cement + 100ton Structural Steel + 20ton Copper + 10,000 labour hours + overhead.
It can be calculated a ratio of constuction cost.

5) Energy Market - Oil, Gasoline, LPG(Towngas); Coal, Electricity

6) Recycle Market - Iron, Copper, Aluminium, plastic and glass debris

Yes, while gold and silver etc do not have quality differences, the mine will have various concentrations of the commodity making it more or less costly the obtain the commodity.

For example, when the price of gold goes very high, the number of new mines opening also increases, since high prices make it possible to go after gold deposits which would otherwise be too expensive.

The same applies for oil. When oil prices were very low in the 1990s, some very big companies started shutting down operations since the cost to collect the oil exceeded the price for selling it.

It would be very interesting for commodity purposes if you incoporated the "quality" of the mining site itself by having different costs at different mines. When the price for a commodity goes up, people are tempted to open difficult locations. When the price drops, people would either reduce or cease operations.