Regional differences

[David]

Here is a recap of various ideas about regional differences discussed in the forum in the past:

The idea is to increase the effects of regional differences to have bigger impacts on the gameplay.

With the elevated effect, there will be greater challenge for the player to optimize the logistics and the whole operation.

Regional differences for:
-Crops. You can grow certain types of crops in each city, but not all. And the quality of crops will vary.

-Natural resources. Each city will have availability of some types of natural resources, but not all.

-Tax rate – if City Economic Simulation (CES) DLC is enabled.

-Wage level – affects the manufacturing cost. You will want to produce them in country of low labor costs and export them. The cities in the game, though randomly generated, should have more different wage rates (e.g. now in the game, it is possible to have all cities having 70-80 wage rates.)

-City Competitiveness - if CES is enabled. It affects R&D efficiency.

-Local competitors – each city will have very strong local competitors in some product classes. (this option can be toggled)

[chaotrach]

sounds interesting. now we should chevk which city is the best for each rescource

[saffgee]

I was actually thinking about this just the other day.
Some thoughts:
Crops: Crops could be set and allowed by climate type (1, 2 or 3), with 1 = Cold Climate, 2= Moderate Climate and 3 = Warm Climate; obviously all the crops would need to be defined properly in the XML data files, but this would be easy if its just a case of putting a number between 1-3 in the appropriate field. Cities would also get a climate column. This would simplify things for modders as well.

Natural resources: I reckon this should incorporate quality too. Considering the real world, there are many examples - highest quality oil comes from US and North Sea or good quality rare earth minerals from China for example. Ultimately the bigger issue I find with my mod and resources is that prices become ridiculously high too quickly as the AI buys up everything very quickly. Maybe a more elegant solution to this problem would be to keep the price of the mine steady (I mean realistically why should it cost more ?), but to apply a quality drop relative to the amount that is mined - in other words rather than making the price go up, the quality of the nodes goes down (progressively), so as more is mined the lower the quality of the next source found. Cities can have quality bonuses or penalties depending on their location as well.

Tax rates: This is a good idea and whilst on this topic, how about looking into trade tariffs and the like, given where Trump is heading this could be topical.

Wage levels: As you look into this, maybe there is scope to look into workforce expertise as well. So in other words, whilst some cities may have low wages they may very well have low manufacturing capability too, or alternatively a city may well have high wages, but it may also have a well trained group of high tech workers. Potentially this could factor into the quality of the product (those of an older persuasion will remember the negative connotations of "Made in Taiwan", etc). This would add further dimensionality to the game if it were possible to implement.

Local competitors: This makes a lot of sense. It would be good to allow greater flexibility around this though, rather than just a toggle "on" or "off".

I will also add:
Local laws: Some regions may disallow certain business types (eg polluting ones) or require a permit of some sort.

Additional settings for factories/farms/warehouses: Why not allow a toggle for players to decide whether a certain business allows exports or not. This could also tie in well with subsidiaries, where it may make sense for companies to look at prohibiting exports in order to not undermine their own group in another city by selling to its competitors. This would add some further flexibility and doesn't seem a huge ask to implement.

Seasonality/fads: Not strictly regional, but for example sales of certain clothing or footwear could be affected by the season. For fads, items may suddenly find new growth potential (eg. Football shirts before and after a world cup, etc) - some of these could just be random events that get added, but others could be tied to other things like R&D announcements (mobile phones, etc) or sales numbers over a period (the product has "caught on").

[colonel_truman]

I think adding variety will always be welcome.

I esp. liked Saffgee´s proposal for a low skilled labor in some cities and high skilled labor in others, depending on wages. That makes a lot of sense.
By the way, increasing tariffs might result in a de facto ban, so maybe there´s no need to forbid anything...

[David]

I esp. liked Saffgee´s proposal for a low skilled labor in some cities and high skilled labor in others, depending on wages. That makes a lot of sense.
By the way, increasing tariffs might result in a de facto ban, so maybe there´s no need to forbid anything...

The city competitiveness rating in the CES DLC already simulates this.

[David]

Here is a link to an old discussion thread about regional differences:
viewtopic.php?f=16&t=1151&start=20&hilit=farming

[colonel_truman]

I esp. liked Saffgee´s proposal for a low skilled labor in some cities and high skilled labor in others, depending on wages. That makes a lot of sense.
By the way, increasing tariffs might result in a de facto ban, so maybe there´s no need to forbid anything...

The city competitiveness rating in the CES DLC already simulates this.

City competitiveness adds to "regional differences".
But to my knowledge it´s not related to wages: You always have the "cheapest" city attracting lots of industries while the others where pay is higher still have zero ratings.

[David]

City competitiveness adds to "regional differences".
But to my knowledge it´s not related to wages: You always have the "cheapest" city attracting lots of industries while the others where pay is higher still have zero ratings.

This is a good point.

But it seems to me that it is more realistic the current way in the CES DLC. Cheaper labor does not necessarily equal to lower production quality. To my knowledge, in the real world, it all depends on whether the workers are well trained in the industry.

[saffgee]

Well that was kind of my point - wages and skill are often related, but not always. The idea was to add labour force skill as a component of production, thus allowing for labour to be a more decisive factor in where to produce something. For example, clothes made in Shanghai may be better quality than those made in London - the two wage levels though may or may not even be close (as in why would you produce clothes in London if labour is not cheaper?).
If this is already simulated though, then that's great....have to be honest I haven't spent too much time with CES.

[David]

If this is already simulated though, then that's great....have to be honest I haven't spent too much time with CES.

From my understanding, the CES DLC does simulate it and produces an effect similar to what you described.