"Generic Designs" Checkbox

[JC_Denton]

A question about "Generic Designs", the check box in the mod tools.

According to the documentation, " This checkbox will remove the AI using the behavior weights when selecting a vehicle type. Instead the AI will build many different types of vehicles under their marque. Typically going for what is most popular."

So I thought, if I uncheck it, and I'm using, say, the Truck Company preset, those companies should highly focus on building trucks, if not exclusively then significantly preferentially.

However, the check box doesn't seem to stick when I change it.  I uncheck if, select a different company, and when I go back to the first one it's re-checked.

Thus I haven't been able to figure out if it has the desired effect.

I'm also curious what the XML value is.  It seems to always be -1.0, but I'm guessing that if it were unchecked in the UI, it would have a different value, I'm just not sure what that is.

Definitely a cool intention behind that check box - I really want my truck companies to make trucks - but so far by truck companies are making landaulets and shooting brakes and surprisingly often not many trucks.

(At a higher level I'm also experimenting with the AI tweaking values in general.  Some of them seem to be having the intended effect, the luxury-focused companies seem to be climbing the luxury reputation ladder for example.  Others still need more data to say, or maybe I just need to set them to father-out values)

[Eric.B]

Likely a bug in the mod tools. If you have github, I would be grateful if you report it, else than I should move this to the bugs forum so I don't lose it.

In the XML, set GenericDesigner to 0. After that, you can assign the rest of the Behavior variables. Try to maximize the ratings for trucks like Power, Durability, Cargo, etc. The company will make more trucks, but eventually, it will start making other things too. That breaks the system because all of their other things will use truck attributes. But sadly, I had to make the AI diversify because most of the AI companies in the game are sports car companies. The early games were getting too flooded with sports cars, resulting in monopolies and bankrupted AI.

[JC_Denton]

Added a GitHub report.

Thanks, I'll set it to 0 and see what happens. I'm okay with having some truck-like phaetons. I just want to make sure that pickup companies make some pickups!

[Eric.B]

Let me know how that goes. Tomorrow evening and probably Tuesday, I'll be working on GearCity, so I'll have the code open to check what exactly the game is looking for.

[JC_Denton]

Let's see, my "dependability/power", i.e. truck companies are:

Autocar - 1.0
Clydesdale - 0.85/0.9 (not founded yet)
Studebaker - 0.8/0.35
White - 0.8/1.0
Four Wheel Drive - 0.7/1.0
Ford - 0.7/0.6
Rapid Motor Vehicle - 0.7/0.9
Armleder Motor Trucks - 0.7/1.0

Generic Designer is set to 0.0 for each of them.

For vans, Rapid Motor Vehicle has the 8th and 9th spots in worldwide sales (two trims of the same model). Four Wheel Drive has one entry down around 15th-20th place.

For pickups, only Four Wheel Drive and Armleder have offerings, and both are lower than 10th place. Although Ford has two pickups under its Haynes-Apperson marque, which doesn't have preferences set (all -1.0, other than Generic designer which is 0.0).

But in all-time sales, the top vans are:

1. White
5. Rapid
6. Rapid

For pickups:

2. White

White only has one model for sale right now, but their previous trucks were highly successful; they appear to be in the middle of a refresh.

Ultimately it's a point in time picture for the most part, and early game. And there's always the whims of fate; my top-ranked Peerless luxury brand which sometimes does great already foundered and got bought by Chevrolet. It's a bit hard to tell how much of an impact it is having, the truck companies are selling a lot of non-trucks and non-truck companies are selling a lot of trucks, but assuming they remain going concerns, maybe by 1970 the truck companies will dominate trucks reliably? They have had some success.

Maybe once the game is a bit farther along I'll write some database queries to see if the truck companies sold appreciably more trucks as a percentage of sales than the non-truck companies, and similarly for luxury (I don't have enough sports companies to have enough data there). That would be a better answer, if a luxury company sells 20% luxury cars on average and everyone else sells 8%, that's a noticeable impact.

[JC_Denton]

I now have better statistics on this. Still on my new map, but now running in 2nd Gear. Most importantly, I wrote a query to get the overall sales by type:

select CompanyList.COMPANY_NAME as Marque, CarTypes.CarType, Sum(CarInfo.sold_all_time) as Sold, CompanySoldAllTime.AllTypesSold,
(0.0+Sum(CarInfo.sold_all_time))/CompanySoldAllTime.AllTypesSold as PercentageOfSales
from CarInfo
Inner Join CarTypes on CarInfo.CarType = CarTypes.SelectedableIndex
Inner Join CompanyList on CarInfo.Trim = CompanyList.COMPANY_NAME
Join (Select Company_Name as Marque, Sum(CarInfo.sold_all_time) as AllTypesSold
from CarInfo
Inner Join CompanyList on CarInfo.Trim = CompanyList.COMPANY_NAME
Group By Company_Name) as CompanySoldAllTIme
On CompanyList.Company_Name = CompanySoldAllTime.Marque
Where CarTypes.CarType = 'Van' -- Change to desired type
-- Optionally limit by year
--and CarInfo.YearBuilt >= 1970
--and CarInfo.YearBuilt <= 1980
Group by Company_Name, CarTypes.CarType
order by PercentageOfSales Desc

This spews out the companies that went most all-in on certain types. And it's interesting; for vans, these were, marking my "power/cargo" companies with an asterisk:

Top 10 Van Manufacturers (n=84)
Company | Type | Sold | Sold (All Types) | Percent of This Type

Kaiser-Frazer Van 102861 562276 0.18293684951874
Imperial Van 2089592 14842634 0.14078309820211
*Diamond T Van 1668123 13871558 0.12025491296652
AM General Van 193272 1625213 0.11892102758223
Duesenberg Van 1245763 11683843 0.10662270966839
*Four Wheel Drive Van 3431207 33455273 0.10256102229385
*Armleder Motor Trucks Van 2353747 23325724 0.10090777889681
*Autocar Van 1554445 15445837 0.10063844387326
Excalibur Van 747011 7640787 0.09776623795428
Willys-Knight Van 1041033 10745218 0.09688337640055
--
(34)Rapid Motor Vehicle Van 721286 13977964 0.05160164956785
(48)Clydesdale Van 39558 1142486 0.03462449430453
(57)White Van 73791 2757130 0.02676369993435

So, there seems to be a correlation. 4 of the top 10 are in my 7 van companies, and one other one is above-average.

For pickups:

Top 10 Pickup Manufacturers (n=91)

AM General Pickup Truck 353623 1625213 0.21758563339082
Baker Motor Vehicle Pickup Truck 3615684 19459644 0.18580422128997
Auburn Pickup Truck 335306 1860297 0.18024326223178
Ford Pickup Truck 1443207 9681397 0.14907011870291
Jeep Pickup Truck 563963 3995208 0.1411598595117
*Armleder Motor Trucks Pickup Truck 3011277 23325724 0.12909682889157
Oakland Pickup Truck 399395 3202837 0.12470038281686
Pierce-Racine Pickup Truck 1385930 11316641 0.12246831900031
Columbus Buggy Co Pickup Truck 2975462 24369234 0.12209911891363
*Diamond T Pickup Truck 1656768 13871558 0.11943633152094
--
(19)Rapid Motor Vehicle Pickup Truck 1440054 13977964 0.1030231584514
(25)White Pickup Truck 235910 2757130 0.08556361143653
(32)Four Wheel Drive Pickup Truck 2465013 33455273 0.07368085144605
(40)Clydesdale Pickup Truck 73824 1142486 0.06461698436567
(47)Autocar Pickup Truck 863849 15445837 0.05592762632417

A less strong correlation, but all but one were in the upper half, and two were in the top 10.

For luxury sedans, vis-a-vis my luxury manufacturers:

Top 10 Luxury Sedan Manufacturers (n=105)

Rambler Luxury Sedan 182105 1029639 0.17686295876516
Dodge Luxury Sedan 57166 329766 0.17335322622708
Chandler Luxury Sedan 1036091 7744990 0.13377564076906
Penn Luxury Sedan 181140 1454381 0.12454783168922
Elcar Luxury Sedan 1254802 10784296 0.11635455851731
Chrysler Luxury Sedan 1729009 15286482 0.11310705759507
Reading Steamer Luxury Sedan 159655 1414178 0.11289597207707
Jordan Luxury Sedan 850430 8004050 0.10624996095727
Oakland Luxury Sedan 326417 3202837 0.10191495851959
Columbus Buggy Co Luxury Sedan 2329436 24369234 0.09558921712517
--
(16)Du Pont Motors Luxury Sedan 48339 540717 0.08939796603399
(22)Peerless Luxury Sedan 776794 9094522 0.08541339500856
(29)Franklin Luxury Sedan 995237 13275212 0.07496957487383
(32)Stutz Luxury Sedan 258047 3821710 0.06752134515701
(37)Marmon Luxury Sedan 669033 10429835 0.06414607709518
(38)Payne-Modern Luxury Sedan 1993473 31333108 0.06362193625988
(46)Packard Luxury Sedan 1156624 19484732 0.05936052905424
(72)Lincoln Luxury Sedan 47797 1100519 0.04343132649232
(77)Cadillac Luxury Sedan 516640 12255897 0.04215440126496
(78)Pierce-Arrow Luxury Sedan 598717 14526377 0.04121585168828
(94)Duesenberg Luxury Sedan 294622 11683843 0.0252161895705
(96)Cord Luxury Sedan 347125 15151638 0.0229100642452

A much less strong correlation, and perhaps a lack of one. It's worth noting that only Peerless had a 1.0 luxury behavior rating; the others had 0.9. Whereas for trucks, all but Rapid had a 1.0 rating, and Rapid had a 0.9 rating.

There might be a slightly stronger correlation in the Town Car category, where Marmon was 4th and Lincoln was 5th.

-----

On the one hand, I'd kind of like to see more correlation; I'm not sure luxury companies realized luxury sedans were something they'd probably be good at.

On the other hand, there isn't a 1-1 mapping between behaviors and car types, and maybe if I zeroed out the non-luxury behaviors of my luxury manufacturers, the correlation would be stronger (IIRC I used the Luxury Manufacturer preset from the mod tools; notably they also have a 0.6 Safety rating). And these are overall stats, which are subject to the popularity of various types and when the companies were in business (although I didn't see any stronger correlations among vans/pickups/luxuries when I zoomed in on the 1970s).

On the third hand, when I look at various types, there _are_ companies that focus on certain types. For some inexplicable reason, 68% of all Jeeps are Compact Cars (their preferences were not set... so they must have been randomly assigned full fuel economy?). American Austin, appropriately, is in second place there with 34% Compact, and the one company I set to focus heavily (0.8) on fuel, Midget Motors, is in 6th for Compact. So that category looks compelling. Sedans range from 1.7% to 51% depending on the company. White, supposedly a truck company, instead led the world in Phaetons. Really powerful phaetons with impractically large cargo areas? I hope so.

I might add a report showing this to my Executive Secretary utility; I'm not sure how actionable it is, but it's an interesting high-level market snapshot. And maybe it could lead to a nice newspaper entry; "Jeep leads compact car sales for 26th year in a row, and 41 of the last 45."

Edit: Actually, Jeep probably hasn't lead compact car sales that often. It's 68% of their sales, not so much because they dominate that market, as because they can't sell anything else. Other companies have higher cumulative Compact sales. Although about 30% of their models are Compact Cars, so they do have an affinity for them.

[kurmolke]

I now have better statistics on this. Still on my new map, but now running in 2nd Gear. Most importantly, I wrote a query to get the overall sales by type:

(...)

On the one hand, I'd kind of like to see more correlation; I'm not sure luxury companies realized luxury sedans were something they'd probably be good at.

On the other hand, there isn't a 1-1 mapping between behaviors and car types, and maybe if I zeroed out the non-luxury behaviors of my luxury manufacturers, the correlation would be stronger (IIRC I used the Luxury Manufacturer preset from the mod tools; notably they also have a 0.6 Safety rating). And these are overall stats, which are subject to the popularity of various types and when the companies were in business (although I didn't see any stronger correlations among vans/pickups/luxuries when I zoomed in on the 1970s).

On the third hand, when I look at various types, there _are_ companies that focus on certain types. For some inexplicable reason, 68% of all Jeeps are Compact Cars (their preferences were not set... so they must have been randomly assigned full fuel economy?). American Austin, appropriately, is in second place there with 34% Compact, and the one company I set to focus heavily (0.8) on fuel, Midget Motors, is in 6th for Compact. So that category looks compelling. Sedans range from 1.7% to 51% depending on the company. White, supposedly a truck company, instead led the world in Phaetons. Really powerful phaetons with impractically large cargo areas? I hope so.

I might add a report showing this to my Executive Secretary utility; I'm not sure how actionable it is, but it's an interesting high-level market snapshot. And maybe it could lead to a nice newspaper entry; "Jeep leads compact car sales for 26th year in a row, and 41 of the last 45."

Edit: Actually, Jeep probably hasn't lead compact car sales that often. It's 68% of their sales, not so much because they dominate that market, as because they can't sell anything else. Other companies have higher cumulative Compact sales. Although about 30% of their models are Compact Cars, so they do have an affinity for them.

I´m not sure why nobody has replied to your posts. Highly interesting findings. I have made similar observations, yet never took the time to write it down. Thank you for sharing, JC! I agree with you on some newspaper entries - that would give the newspaper some relevance.

[Eric.B]

I´m not sure why nobody has replied to your posts. Highly interesting findings. I have made similar observations, yet never took the time to write it down. Thank you for sharing, JC! I agree with you on some newspaper entries - that would give the newspaper some relevance.

I've made note of it, I just have limited time to work on GC now, but when I get around to a bounty that touches on this subject I will reference it.

There used to be strong correlation in the game, and that is why there was major gaps in the market. (Think GC 2013-2015.) I couldn't fill the game with 1200+ AI, so I made the correlations less strong and then eventually just randomized all the AI in the game anyway.