(01-31-2014, 01:40 PM)Eric.B Wrote: I assume you're talking about dealerships and growth of dealers...
Dealerships themselves are not controlled by your company. They're contracted out to third parties which your branch deals with. The amount of resources you dump into the dealerships the more these companies will expand with your marques.
The sales resources slider is mainly incentives and brand devotion to dealerships. Think of it as free training, or free display models. Any resource that helps the dealers sell more vehicles.
Branch Employees do not sell cars. They connect dealerships with factories, getting the dealers the vehicles they need. They also handle contracts for these vehicles, and with new dealerships, parts supplies, warranties, training, etc. They're the middlemen between Retail (Dealerships) and Production (Factories)
Most economic data in a city should start out the same. In the future I will tweak this where I have data (US is a great example because the south should be much poorer than the North East) However as the game plays, depending on your production (and the AI's production) some cities will grow faster than others.
This is all interesting an useful information, i didn't realize the branch expenditure was as indirect as you described. (with my lack of direct knowledge i assumed that the company were employing salespeople in dealerships)
I think ill add some of it to the FAQ if you dont mind, it seems like a common question people might ask.