I'm playing a game in which I have a significant presence in both North America and Europe. I'm selling some models that are present in both markets. I'm also manufacturing these models in both markets. At the moment, I'm finding it very difficult to balance the production levels in North America and Europe, to meet the local demand. This is leading to cars being imported into North America to cover the demand that my factories there are not meeting. Unsurprisingly, I'm being hit with huge transportation costs. As the game stands, I can think of only two ways to address this problem.
1st: Intentionally over produce cars in both North America and Europe to ensure that spikes in demand don't end up forcing car inventories to be imported from one continent to the other. This is an expensive option I want to avoid.
2nd: Create different model trims for each continent and make sure branches on each continent only sell their model trim. This way, if local factories don't meet local demand, the expensive import of inventory won't occur. I don't like this idea either, because I like checking the statistics on how many yearly sales I've made on a particular model. Having two cars that are essentially the same except for creating a different trim to avoid transportation costs, won't register as the same model on the showroom statistics page!
My request is this. Would it be possible to have an option to prevent the computer from automatically shifting my inventory around the world? If I don't have the stock in one continent to meet demand, I'd prefer to lose the sale instead of making a loss from the transportation expense.
I'm not sure if I've made myself clear. Has/Is anyone else had/having this problem?
I like the idea, however, how do you propose implementing it with the gui? Any ideas?
I have a few thoughts, but I'd like to see your ideas first.
Hmmm...
been thinking about it. I guess from my perspective (as a player... not sure if the following is feasible programming wise...) it would work for me by selecting a factory on the world map screen and being able to draw/highlight a radius for the maximum distance I'd allow vehicles from that factory to be transported. It would need to be flexible enough for me to do this on each model being produced in that factory. Other options I thought about would be more tedious or lack the level of depth to make the whole venture worthwhile.
Anyway... just my opinion.
...just one other thought...
This idea would probably fit better in keeping with the user interface theme already established. Instead of a drawn or highlighted radius that appears on the map, the thing can be done with a slider. One end of the scale is 'local', the other end is 'worldwide'. Moving the slider then highlights the cities on the map (in a different colour) that would be included in the radius the user is prepared to allow their inventory to be transported.
Actually creating two different trims is likely what you would have to do if the implementation of certain things are put into effect, such as emission control, gearbox demands and a plethora of other things that car companies real world deal with, ford sells different cars in Australia than they do in the U.S, Many german companies VW etc sell different cars in different areas to meet a certain demand of that populace, you also have a GREAT example, the Nissan Silvia, and the Nissan 240sx..... same car different types of implementations on the markets to make it legal in each of them. So in theory, it would be illegal later on to " transport " a car from the U.S market, to Europe unless modified to their standards first, because even if you PROVE real world, that the car is 100000% the same, they make stupid claims like " the shifter is 2.1 millimeters unaligned, not roadworthy." As would places in Europe be dicks about things like that.
So back to the idea, I don't agree with the slider. I like the idea as well, I think it should be more a " limit " of where cars are sold, like U.S ONLY, or EUROPE ONLY, selections that work even if you make a factory in the U.S, that factories reserves will only go to the continent specified.. which would make sense in my opinion. Or a further extreme, put a budget to transporting, and if it goes over the budget you can't transport the vehicles there.... that could be another avenue to take.
RE: Limiting transportation of inventory
Actually creating two different trims is likely what you would have to do if the implementation of certain things are put into effect, such as emission control, gearbox demands and a plethora of other things that car companies real world deal with, ford sells different cars in Australia than they do in the U.S, Many german companies VW etc sell different cars in different areas to meet a certain demand of that populace, you also have a GREAT example, the Nissan Silvia, and the Nissan 240sx..... same car different types of implementations on the markets to make it legal in each of them. So in theory, it would be illegal later on to " transport " a car from the U.S market, to Europe unless modified to their standards first, because even if you PROVE real world, that the car is 100000% the same, they make stupid claims like " the shifter is 2.1 millimeters unaligned, not roadworthy." As would places in Europe be dicks about things like that.
So back to the idea, I don't agree with the slider. I like the idea as well, I think it should be more a " limit " of where cars are sold, like U.S ONLY, or EUROPE ONLY, selections that work even if you make a factory in the U.S, that factories reserves will only go to the continent specified.. which would make sense in my opinion. Or a further extreme, put a budget to transporting, and if it goes over the budget you can't transport the vehicles there.... that could be another avenue to take.
Endders.
Valid points and I agree with everything you're saying, although I thought about the slider for the following reason. A factory may straddle the boundary of two continents. So for example it would be cheaper to transport cars from southern Europe into north Africa, than from south Africa to north.
With my current game, I'm now making different trims for different continents. Bigger uneconomical engines for North America and fuel efficient ones for Europe. (Fun, even if the game mechanics don't really work in that way). I just wish it wasn't so expensive and time consuming (in game turns) to create a new trim on a car. I also wish a model with that comes in different trims could be counted as the same car when it comes to ranking the best selling models in the world.
I went with the slider idea. I prefer the per country idea, but it would be much more cumbersome to implement. And for the fact that a factory in eastern Russia would be cheaper to ship to Japan than shipping all the way to Moscow...
Little known fact, GearCity 0.1 was actually country based. I modeled the world map for every single country... Problems occurred as boarders changed. So I snagged the MotorCity (Oldtimer) idea of using dots as cities.
Anyhoo this has been implemented. So marking as fixed.