I see that in the early years there are about only 3 options: newspapers, billboards, and magazines. Which of these has a greater reach into the consumer base?

I would think Newspapers, then magazines, with little in the way of billboards. In the early years there is not going to be many improved roads and not sure that billboards would really be effective.

I ask because if I want to dedicate a specific budget I want to know where I am getting the most bang for my buck. I don't really see that now... I am just blindly setting sliders to spend marketing money without knowing how effective they are.

So I am looking at a new game I started yesterday and some interesting data/statistics.

This is for New York City. I have been building and selling a rather successful pickup truck at $1800 (rating of 19). I sold 164 units last month. Not too bad. Initially I had priced it around $3800 and had to keep dropping the price and increasing marketing until I found a balance. I am probably going to increase the price though.

Demand was high but now it is only average. There is only one other car maker selling a pickup in the city which is only rated 11, and sells for a whopping $13,225 !!!! They only sold 4 last month.

There are about 8 companies now in New York. I am thinking of building a Touring car, but 6 companies already build them. Here's their stats:

Company 1 - $11,013, sold 4, rating 22
Company 2 - $ 4,889, sold 12, rating 18
Company 3 - $ 4,187, sold 0, rating 9
Company 4 - $ 3,555, sold 10, rating 10
Company 5 - $ 4,917, sold 10, rating 9
Company 6 - $ 1,865, sold 0, rating 12

I'm trying to figure out a strategy based on these figures.

The average price of Touring car is $5,071

The average number sold is merely 6

The average rating is 13.33

I can see that the higher rating would be higher priced and selling less, however the price of Co. #1 is double the average. Company 2 and 5 generated greater revenues, however, they built more cars and likely had higher costs. That data I could not find.

Company #4 made less revenue yet sold the same number of cars as Company #5 with about 28% less revenue. Therefore of #4 and #5 it is likely that #4 had a greater profit margin for same number of sales.

Back to the question: what strategy to use?

It almost seems to me that the AI is rewarding Company #1 with the greatest profit margin with the lease number of cars sold (of the companies that actually sold cars) by simply cranking up the price. That does not seem right.

My crappy pickup truck has a rating of 19 which is not far off in rating... I am sure that I could build a Touring car with a 22 rating or better. But COULD I really sell it for $11k ????

My question is why would the AI build such an expensive car that is significantly higher priced?

On another note... there are only 2 car companies in New York selling Pickup trucks. Mine and one other company. Here are THOSE stats:

MINE - $1,800, sold 164 units, 19 rating
Other Co. - $13,225, sold 4, rating 11


Of course they sold less with THAT price. I wonder what THEIR cost would be and profit margin. I have to sell more than 7x at my price to make up for every car they sell... that takes manpower and other costs. I am not sure which company is more profitable. I am making about $150k or more a month, but it comes at a cost of course. They are merely selling 4 cars but the margin is likely 100x what mine is.

Started a game in v.1.11, New York, built first car was losing money when I realized it was a low demand car, then built a second more profitable car. Decided to discontinue the first car, it is still selling in New York at a low monthly rate and will deplete the inventory in 12-18 months.

Built a second branch in Philadelphia, the first car does not even show up as an option to sell. Why? I still have inventory. I was hoping to deplete the inventory faster.

In other forums I usually get an email notifying of a thread response... did not see it here or maybe missed it. Would be good to have.

I've been playing a game of Gearcity on the 'hard' level for the last couple of weeks. I'm really enjoying it, but I have some concern with the AI. Almost all of the competition is continuously making a loss. I understand (from reading a post elsewhere) that this is probably mimicking reality, but it makes is very difficult for a human player.

My main bone of contention is that these companies that are performing poorly, are under pricing their vehicles. They seem to sell them far too cheaply. This means that when I'm selling vehicles in the same segment and market as the AI, I can't compete.

With the current number of AI competitors, this is manageable. I'm concerned when the game has it's full complement of car companies, that the AI behaviour will make it next to impossible for a human player to compete.

Another question on the stock and business model.

I decided to buy stocks from local companies in my area which had declining stock prices. My thinking on this was that the income stream that the companies made on my stock purchase would allow them to stay afloat, but my better cars, production, etc. would still make me the #1 company in the region. Then when I had enough stock I could buy them outright.... or could I? It seems that I was stuck at buying 75% of all open shares for a company. I am not sure how to buy out a company and take control.... I see the TAKEOVER button but that seems like a cheat to take another company's cash and assets and roll them into yours. I want to do a hostile takeover the good old fashion way...

I also did not see the way to do a merger where two companies decide collectively to become one, whether or not each Marquees is kept or rolled into one... if this is modeled I did not see how to do it. If not, it would be cool to see. A friendly merger could be a cool thing... maybe the controlling company fires you as CEO? That would be a cool end game scenario... just saying.

man I love the game...

I saw this game through Automation many months ago and did not know there was a Beta... anyway saw it again yesterday and thought this would be a great game... I never owned Detroit or the other car games of the 1990's on PC. SO this was really cool idea.

I went to download the 584mb or so file. Excruciatingly slow even on my fast FIOS system it was a 2 hour ordeal. Then as soon as it finished it was deleted by my Norton 360. Ugh. Wish there had been a warning. So I gave up until this morning when I have another 2 hours to kill. This time I turned off Norton 360. The download somehow was faster this morning yet still well over 1 hour.

Played (or rather clicked away) one game. Didn't get too far. Started another game, started getting the hang of it. Decided to delete the games and start a fresh new one... there is no delete option though I have already read that is in the works for 1.11 - YAH. But I could not even find the save file in my hard drive which was really strange.

Okay I know it's BETA. I've actually beta tested lots and lots of games... no biggie.

A comment on crashes. They seem to be so random that there would be no way for me to recreate it or really tell you where it happens. It seems to me though that the game was crashing more during the first turns then later. I did learn fairly quickly to Save, Save, Save. Wish I could be more helpful on crash issues.

Viewing car designs by cities, I saw that some cities are just numbered... like Portland was 194 or 195. Weird.

The data on cars built and sold seems odd to me.

It lists Reserves - Produced - Sold.

It would make more sense if it read Produced - Sold - Reserves so that it is a simple A-B=C sort of thing. Anyway, that's how my mind works.

I saw the map suddenly change around the year 1911 0r 1912... cool.

I have a third game going and was down to around $600k in cash... I mean I kept losing money. Then I raised the prices of the cars. Drastically. I went into the black again. I have 4 car designs and the first one still out sells everything... that seems strange after over 10 years that little 1 cylinder buggy still outsells everything.

Placing wheels in the design is really hard. Really really hard.

I wish there was a way to change distribution throughout all the cities with one click. Maybe there is and I haven't found it. I had to go to each city one at a time and go to distribution. I wish there was a better way to know what the target range for pricing the car would be... maybe a way to tell what consumers are willing to spend. As it is I priced the first car at like $600... eventually raising the price by 1910 to something like $2500 for that buggy and it was selling great.

I am going to start game #4 to see if I can do better sooner in the game as far as money goes. I have a new idea... I will post results...

After i created another thread trying to create sales records, i thought it might make sense to share the very cheap vehicles from that, as they are extreme in their own right.

I started making the cheapest vehicle possible when i was playing a game in japan. Their per capita is so low your really forced to make very very cheap vehicles in the start. I decided to start a new game and try to sell a similar design philosophy to the much richer English, just to see what would happen.

The designs were fairly simple.
In order to reduce cost, i made things as simple as possible, with the majority of sliders to the left to reduce cost.
So i had a 1 cylinder engine and a 1 gear gearbox, as well as a tiny chassis frame size.

I only made compromises in a few areas which i thought would keep it relevant and popular for a long time in the middle class:
Some reliability in most components (though the engine is naturally reliable as its a one cylinder)
A large single cylinder engine size
Material Quality, engine performance sliders and general weight sliders, to reduce weight and make the whole vehicle far more efficient.

The final design cost around $160-200 to produce, though i don't remember the exact number. This let me set the Selling Price around the 500-600 mark, which compared to most vehicles on sale is very very cheap.
Later on i had it around 450, but that's about as low as i could get it while still covering my costs(mostly transportation) and turning a mild profit.

I don't have screenshots for the original vehicle, but i do have ones for how it looks in 1909 here.
(The later save shows a $50-100 lower production cost compared to the starting vehicle, due to the numbers of them i produced.)





I made successor designs in 1908, which are improved in almost all categories, but their production cost is 2-3x the original. Considering the per capital of London, my main place of sale(under 500), they really aren't priced for the middle class anymore.
That combined with their unsurprisingly slow sales makes me think they are failures, but here is the screenshots of the designs anyway.

I thought id start a thread where people can post the most widely sold vehicles they've ever made before 1910 (the starting decade for now that all players have seen)

You can post records for total sales of all models, and specific model sales.
Limitations:
You have to keep at least marginally profitable, but you may be forced to do that anyway just to build enough factories/marketing etc.
You also have to play on Normal Difficulty.

Edit:
This report/save is from 1.10, rather than 1.11 the current build of the game.

Ill start by posting a 1909 save, but one i suspect will be easily beaten for a bunch or reasons, including the fact ive spread my sales into a few vehicle types out rather than just making one and forcing people to buy it or nothing. (which actually seems to work)

For one specific model before 1910:

Yearly Sales of Compact 1(my creativity is amazing i know), highest is:
195,963 units in 1907


Monthly sales of Compact 1, highest is:
20,375 units in September 1907


For all Models combined before 1910, ive added all the yearly numbers under the showroom. Best yearly is:
462,805 units from 5 models in 1907 in both Europe and to a lesser scale the US.
Rather than posting 5-6 showroom screenshots to prove it, here js a "yearly all charts" screenshot.


There is no easy way to check your highest combined monthly sales beyond your current year, so i doubt ill post one unless i spot it during play.

Finally here is a profits chart to show im not going bankrupt by setting the prices to almost nothing.


Anyone done any better or seen any better?

Does anyone have any tips for how to have your team winning the racing tournaments in Gearcity?

When i started the game i thought it was just a matter of producing a highly tuned roadster and throwing money at the tournament, but that only seems to work for the one which only takes money.

I had some early success with the vehicle one, until more corporations joined up. So i built a purpose built roadster which costs a fortune to produce(cost is 14xcapita) and was supposed to be a great racing car but it seems to be close to the bottom of the ladder most of this year. (but with decent points)

Does anyone know whats involved in calculating the winners of the tournaments?
Or does anyone have general tips for building the racecar or its engine?