Enhancing the Export Company System – From Static Sales to Strategic Expansion

[stockrpg]

I’d like to propose a deeper improvement to the Export Company content in Capitalism Lab. While the existing system introduces a valuable mechanic—allowing international sales between countries—it currently feels like an unfinished feature with a lot of untapped potential.

Current Limitations of the Export Company Right now, export companies function in a very basic manner:

You designate up to 4 products to export.

Sales results are shown only in daily quantity and monthly revenue, with no detailed market feedback or interactive depth.

There's no visualization of who you’re selling to, nor any way to understand how your brand performs in different countries.

This reduces what could be a global strategic layer into a simple number generator.

Proposed Improvements: Make Export Strategic and Dynamic Here’s a direction I believe would significantly increase the fun, realism, and replayability of
the export company system:


1. Introduce an Export Network Investment System Allow players to invest capital into expanding their export network.

As investment increases, new international buyers (B2B or market channels) are unlocked over time.

This creates a scalable, upward sales curve, rewarding long-term strategy and reinvestment.

2. Show a List of Buyer Countries or Trade Partners Create a visual breakdown of which countries you’re selling to, how much, and what market share you hold.

Example:

USA – 12,000 TVs/month – 8% Market Share
Brazil – 5,000 Packaged Food/month – Market Entry: Low

This provides feedback and helps target expansion decisions.

3. Add a “Competitive Index” by Product and Country For each exported product, show how competitive it is per destination country, compared to rival exporters.

This score can be influenced by:

Brand recognition

Marketing budget

Product quality

Example:

Smartphone – India Competitiveness Score: 73/100 (vs. Competitor: 81)

4. Reconsider the 4-Product Limit The current cap of 4 export products per company is extremely restrictive.

Allow more flexibility—perhaps by category, or per region—so global businesses can behave more like multinational firms.

Summary
In its current form, the Export Company system introduces the idea of global business, but lacks the mechanics of strategy that Capitalism Lab is known for.

By turning the system into a network expansion mechanic, where players invest to open new markets, optimize competitiveness, and analyze feedback from each country, the export business can become a rich and rewarding layer of gameplay.

[mdemircan2]

good idea!
a remarkable suggestion

[Rusty Gamer]

If we are listing countries to export to, perhaps some of them (eg USA) from time to time put tariffs on our goods.

[foran]

Nice one, support your idea, make this post can be vote.

[stockrpg]

Nice one, support your idea, make this post can be vote.

Thank you for letting me know.

[stockrpg]

If we are listing countries to export to, perhaps some of them (eg USA) from time to time put tariffs on our goods.

It's a good idea for an unspecified event.

[Stylesjl]

I do like these ideas, being able to sell to other countries and compete against other companies for exports is I think a good way to improve the export system.

The countries could be listed as export clients and you could see what price/quality they are looking for and over time perhaps the demands for exports could change.

You could even integrate this into the import system, importing goods from certain countries at a certain price/quality level and compete with other companies for scarce imports (which might raise their price, and persistent demand might even cause the import volume to expand over time).

One particular shortcoming of the current import/export system is the lack of responsiveness to supply and demand. Imports should raise their prices and grow the volume over time to respond to demand and exports should lower their prices and reduce their demand over time in response to market saturation.