Are these Subsidiary AI errors?

[thomasmikel]

Hi Everyone,

I'm sure I'm not the only one who has experienced this, but my AI CEO can't seem to keep it together. A little bit of background about my scenario: I like to niche down with my Subs, so I have a Toy company, Food & Snacks, Automobile, Cosmetic, Drugs (lots of subsidiaries) etc. I have expand into production & retail ticked and full scale on backwards integration. I've tested both expand R&D on and off and I find that if it's off they sometimes do nothing for years, even if they are over 100 tech points higher than the competitor. The CEO's are limited to only their speciality unless I hire a CTO for them with complementary expertise (food & snack).

My issue (or possibly errors) come from what they choose to R&D and how they backwards integrate.

Firstly, as you cannot limit this industry, nearly all of my subsidiaries keep creating livestock farms even though some of them have 0 for expertise. My parent company is the livestock producer, as my COO is the highest farming expertise. Coupled with this many, of them open supermarkets & convenience stores despite not producing those products (automobile for instance). I don't mind that as much because I sometimes set them up with discount megastores when I launch them so that they have an income, but perhaps the ability to limit which retail stores they can open might be a handy option.

Secondly, my automobile company keeps building R&D centres for dyestuff, which I close and sell the land for. Then they repeat this process. They also built a factory for it. Why?

Lastly, I've recently experimented with limiting their R&D capabilities and just having an R&D centre for each end product they're allowed to produce. But as I mentioned, even when they're the only company researching a product and they already have a 100+ tech advantage they simply won't build a factory to start creating the product. I have a theory that it's because I've chosen "Company Branding" and they're scared to release a new product I do see the warning that if I enable expand in production but untick expand in R&D that they might be more conservative, but their tech advantage here is big enough.

As part of that last experiment I hired a CEO with 100 for R&D and used them to research all of the semi-products with the idea that I can simply sell the tech onwards to the relevant other subsidiaries. However, this creates another problem as now that Expand into R&D is not ticked it seems like the CEO's won't build new factories to meet the relevant demand. They also won't chose to buy the semi-product tech from my other subsidiary but if I tick the sell box then it happily gives away the tech advantage to competitors.

Sorry for the long text. Does anyone have any ideas how to play this without having to constantly close down farms.

Thanks

[sofrade]

I also have the same issue. When I create a subsidiary, I expect to have some control over what it'll do, but unfortunately, in my case, they just start creating farms or flower shops, and flower R&D o.O (even though I ticked one area of production); it seems that the "Expand in retail" option needs more explanation by David/CapLab team.

HELP PLEASE !

[David]

We will look into it.

Could you please provide us with your save game file and let us know the following?
1) Which version of Capitalism Lab you are using. You can see the version number on the top-right of the main menu.
2) If your savegame uses a MOD, please let us know the name of the MOD and the MOD's version number.

You can find save game files of Capitalism Lab from the C:\Users\<your user name>\Documents\My Games\Capitalism Lab\SAVE

You may provide us with your save game file by posting it here on the forum as a ZIP file attachment or emailing the save game file to us at info@enlight.com.

If your save game file is too large for attachment, you may check out this post about how to send us large files: https://www.enlight.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=2473

[thomasmikel]

Hi,

Ok, I'm currently using Version 9.0.10 and there are two saved games from that version. However, I only updated a couple of days before I created this post and I only updated because it was happening in my previous version as well and I was looking for solutions. I figured an update might help, but not as yet.

I'm not using any mods.

In "PlayStation - Wrong Farms" (TOMS_008) I have two subsidiaries that are frustrating me. Kodak & Playstation both keep creating farms and for some reason, it's always frozen lamb but just the top line. Kodak also just created a linen factory. Kodak is supposed to only produce photography products and PlayStation is limited to toys.

In "PFIZER Wrong Farm" (TOMS_003) it's obviously Pfizer opening the farms. In fact two in the last game week. Both of which I shut down. In the past in this game my automobile company Opal also setup farms but I transferred them to Dell.

I have a separate query, in my saved games folder the names start at TOMS_11.SAV, and when I updated the game they restarted at 1. What happens when they catch up to 11?

Thanks

Cap Lab Saves.zip

(4.66 MiB) Downloaded 55 times

[mdemircan2]

Hello, I didn't pay attention before, I remember there were cases where I had similar problems.

[David]

In "PlayStation - Wrong Farms" (TOMS_008) I have two subsidiaries that are frustrating me. Kodak & Playstation both keep creating farms and for some reason, it's always frozen lamb but just the top line. Kodak also just created a linen factory. Kodak is supposed to only produce photography products and PlayStation is limited to toys.

In "PFIZER Wrong Farm" (TOMS_003) it's obviously Pfizer opening the farms. In fact two in the last game week. Both of which I shut down. In the past in this game my automobile company Opal also setup farms but I transferred them to Dell.

I loaded your save game.

Both of the farms from Kodak and PlayStation are profitable. They seem to be making sensible business decisions.

And each of them only operates one farm by 1996.

[thomasmikel]

Hey David,

The save file I sent was stopped in 1993, so you've played it through a few years? If you look through the log (pre-1993) you'll notice how many farms they have opened and I've either closed or transferred them to my farming company.

I understand your point about sensible business decisions because the farm is eventually profitable, however, if you're a niche toy company and you're expertise is in toys and you only have a 20 out of 100 score for farming, you wouldn't enter the farming industry. Particularly if there is competition with a head start and better expertise already. Surely that can't be intended gameplay from a subsidiary? It doesn't meet the criteria for backwards integration either. Frozen beef is not required to manufacture stuffed toys/video game console etc.

Perhaps there's a reason Livestock and Semi-products can't be disabled for subsidiaries, but I'm not sure what it is at the moment. If I wanted to give them free rein I wouldn't have limited the industries they're allowed to pursue. For instance, in that game you've loaded "Three Brothers" has had free rein as a subsidiary since the beginning of the scenario (1990) and it's now 1993 and it hasn't achieved anything apart from research.

I love the game and I think the DLC is such a great addition, but my intention is not to have two subsidiaries competing with each other in the same industry/category. Which option would prevent this? Backwards integration or expand in production?

Thanks

[David]

The save file I sent was stopped in 1993, so you've played it through a few years?

I've played it through 1996 as you can see in the screenshot attached in the previous message.

[mdemircan2]

The save file I sent was stopped in 1993, so you've played it through a few years?

I've played it through 1996 as you can see in the screenshot attached in the previous message.

hello @david
I think the problem is that AI is turning to non-specialist jobs.

[thomasmikel]

The save file I sent was stopped in 1993, so you've played it through a few years?

I've played it through 1996 as you can see in the screenshot attached in the previous message.

hello @david
I think the problem is that AI is turning to non-specialist jobs.

Yeah, basically.

I've tested a few methods and the only way to stop the farming is by turning production expansion off. Which is fine, but it just means I have to micro-manage the supply/demand element of the subsidiary factories.

I've also noticed that with the new release "Research Projects" and "Training Budget" have been moved to the Financial tab for CEO's. That means if I hire a COO at the parent company and assign them to an R&D centre they change the R&D project and I have zero control over it.