There was another thread on hotels as well:
https://www.capitalism2.com/forum/viewt ... =10#p32595
To summarise from that thread though:
In my opinion there are a couple of factors to consider here; and core to that is what does the simulation look like without the player interaction and what does it look like with (ie what can the player effect him/herself) ?
Firstly, lets consider hospitality itself. "Put simply, the hospitality industry refers to a variety of businesses and services linked to leisure and customer satisfaction. A defining aspect of the hospitality industry is also the fact that it focuses on ideas of luxury, pleasure, enjoyment and experiences, as opposed to catering for necessities and essentials. Hospitality is an industry that includes restaurants, hotels, casinos, amusement parks, events, cruises, entertainment, and other tourism-related services." Therefore the first aspect that needs tackling is to identify both the triggers for demand and then what that demand constitutes. Mosiercan did a good job of mocking it up, so mostly his ideas are fairly easily translatable into game logic.
Set hospitality triggers by type:
- Value of land in a X block radius (this value could be a variable setting for the player); this sets the scale for a slider between say Basic to Luxury. Easily done as very similar to existing CES concepts. To increase this you need to invest in the typical way you would to increase land value in CES.
- Next is tourism value; this could be something that triggers higher based on landmarks, proximity to old city centre (this area will need to be coded I guess), proximity to water (rivers will have to do for now unless we change the map logic) and a tourism desirability number (again the effect of this number could be variable for the player to change on settings)
- Next is business value; this triggers higher based on proximity to CBD; number of industries in an X-block radius (customisable), proximity to port or airport and a preset business desirability factor (variable).
- We could also add Travel value; this triggers higher on proximity to CBD (but the inverse, ie the further away the higher it goes), proximity to the interstate (we'd need to code this or just define where it is), proximity to river, proximity to airport and port. The idea for this one is that it covers off single night accommodation like motels and B&B's in the middle of nowhere or at key locations. A place for people just travelling from A to B by car or on a weekend break. Eventually if environment becomes a thing we can add that into each of these categories very easily to simulate country retreats.
- Finally we have proximity to other hospitality buildings; this is to reduce spamming and to ensure that each hotel when added reduces the demand around its immediate area according to what it provides (still using a slightly reworked CES logic).
Advertising & desiarbility:
I think advertising should be straight forward and function the same way as it does for internet businesses, however we don't yet have a trigger for what effect this has. I think adding a desirability index would be good - this will neatly combine with the other presets and scale sliders to determine demand for rooms. Essentially, a hotel in the sweet spot location wise does not need much advertising, whereas a hotel in heavy competition and in a less than ideal location does....this could be a summary index of all the hotels various slider values, its service levels and a factor that comes from its advertising.
We'll also need a simple index to help the AI make investment decisions and to force a hotel heavy game world; this index is simply a division of the total population in a city by the number of available beds. Basically this should be the key variable for the player to set the scene for his game. If he sets a high target, then demand for hotels will be high in his game world, conversely he could leave it alone or even set it lower to force hotels to become a less important part of the game. If the desirability of a "naked site" (ie where there is no hotel, a simple location x hotel index calculation) is higher than say 100, then it is likely the AI will eventually address this by building or planning a hotel there
Essentially: Location ((Land Value + Tourism + Business + Travel - Proximity) +/- Amenities) + Service level + Advertising = Desirability
So an example might be a decent City hotel (Location average value of 70) with decent amenities (adding 10 points) + service and advertising = desirability 100. The naked demand for a game set at 50% (ie less hotels) = desirability 35 (so 70x0.5), whereas a game setup to be 200% would make it 140 points (70 x 2), meaning the AI will look to plug that market gap.
Hotel setup:
When setting up his hotel, the player must choose between the different types available (each with different graphics):
- Motel
- Business Hotel
- City Hotel
- Resort Hotel
- Luxury Hotel
Size:
Small (20 - 50 Rooms)
Medium (51 - 150 Rooms)
Large (151 - 350 Rooms)
Grand (351 - 750 Rooms)
Huge (751 - 2,500 Rooms)
Gargantuan (2,501 - 10,000 Rooms) - Only Resort & City Hotels
Room types:
To force some real world dynamics onto the player, I recommend that we set the hotel type as the trigger for the types of room available and their minimum configurations; this can be tweaked by the player, but the stated minimums & maximums cannot be breached.
- Standard Room
- Double Room
- Executive Room
- Junior Suite
- Luxury Suite
Motel (Max 0% Executive, 0% Junior Suite & 0% Luxury Suite)
Business Hotel (Min 80% Executive, Max 0% Luxury Suite)
City Hotel (Max 10% Luxury Suite, Max 30% Junior Suite, Max 30% Executive)
Resort Hotel (Max 20% Luxury Suite, Max 20% Junior Suite, Min 70% Double Room)
Luxury Hotel (Min 20% Luxury Suite, Max 0% Standard Room, Max 0% Double Room, Max 0% Executive Room)
With this choice come also a few variable settings that can tweak what the specific hotel looks like & its service level & cost:
- 24hr Concierge
- Maid service
- Room service
- Laundry
- Car rental
- Valet parking
- Transfer
- Luggage storage
- Free internet
- Pay per View Media
Finally, a player can save a configuration for use as a hotel chain; hotels belonging to the same chain benefit from an immediate uplift to service (this is a starting bonus, but service will still develop, deteriorate over time based on overall slider settings) and there is a bonus of a reduction of 15% on actual overall service costs. However, the hotel configuration MUST be the same for each hotel in the chain and these settings are only customisable for the group. Amenities (see below) can however be added or removed to each individual chained hotel in the same way as for any other hotel.
The service level of the hotel is a combination of its type and the service items added. Adding a maid service is good for any hotel, whereas adding Valet parking to a motel has little to no effect. Lower level hotels benefit more from simple services. Employee training (steered by a slider) is the other factor that plays into services.
Hotel amenity customisation:
This brings us to the individualisation or customisation of the hotels themselves by amenities; not so much game settings as in-game tweaks and personalisation. I think food & drink establishments can just be money making add-ons, dependent largely on the occupation factor of the hotel. eg: Fast food restaurant, catering (like weddings, funerals), michelin starred restaurants, bars, nightclubs, shopping etc. These will make more money based on location of hotel, the type of hotel and its occupancy and type of guest and can be freely added or removed at a once off and ongoing cost.
We can also consider add-ons that change the slider scale profile of the hotel (and cost money to add):
- Marina adds to tourism & reduces travel value
- Gym & Sports centre adds to business value & reduces proximity value
- Spa adds to tourism & reduces proximity value
- Casino adds to tourism value but reduces land value
- Large car park which adds to travel value and reduces land value
and so on. This can be used to good effect for customisation.
Goods:
Lastly, much like my idea with goods for factories and farms, a hotel building should consume goods based on its type, setup, settings and location. In other words a big, service heavy city hotel will consume more goods than a service light Motel. We can define a product called hotel supplies that consists of things like bed linens, food, cleaning items, fittings, etc and this can be consumed by the hotel up to its required amount. if the hotel does not receive enough of the good, then its desirability will take a large hit. This will lead to competition for hotel supplies if there are many hotels, maybe the need for warehouses to manage the supply chain and a cost consideration if the owner of the hotel supplies in a region also operates his own hotels. Chain hotels could reduce the amount of goods needed by say 10% at each chained hotel in the group. This idea might require the addition of a few new goods to the product mix, but its a concept that all the mods have already embraced when they simulate the hotel business in their mods, so it would be very easy to formalise.
