Capitalism Lab Release version 9.1.30 installer now available

[David]

Capitalism Lab Release Version 9.1.30 full version installer has been released.

Please download and run the installer from https://caplab.b-cdn.net/Capitalism_Lab_Installer.exe

Please note that save games older than v9.1.00 are not compatible with this new version.

New Feature: Skill Points
We're excited to announce a new way to customize and empower your character in Capitalism Lab - skill points! Now certain goals will offer skill points as rewards when completed.

You can use skill points to increase your player character’s expertise across key business areas like retail, manufacturing, marketing, and R&D. Boost your talents to get an edge over the competition.




New Goal Set – Entrepreneur Goals
You can now also select the new "Entrepreneur Goals" set when starting a custom game, giving you fresh objective options as you build your business empire.



Movable Goal Window
This version introduces an all-new goal window in Capitalism Lab. This handy window allows you to easily track your goals without opening the Information Center. To open the goal window, simply click the Goal icon on the bottom menu bar.

It will automatically hide when the Information Center or the Firm Detail window are open, so your view remains uncluttered.

The goal window is partially movable – you can drag it around your screen as needed, as long as it doesn't overlap the other key windows.



Multiple Auto Saves (A New Script Command)
Use this new script command to auto-save games at a specific interval.

Until other auto-save features, it will not overwrite old autosave files. Instead, it writes to a new file each time, so you don't have to worry about losing older saves either. You'll have a complete history of save points going back as far as you want. It's perfect for easily jumping back in time to re-explore alternate strategies at key decision points.

Script Syntax:
[SPECIAL RULES]
Multiple Auto Saves Interval Years=<number of years>

Example:
[SPECIAL RULES]
Multiple Auto Saves Interval Years=10
The game will auto-save games every 10 years and each game file will have a unique name.
For example: APLA_001.SAV for year 2000, APLA_002.SAV for year 2010, and so forth.

<number of years> can have decimal places.

For example:
Multiple Auto Saves Interval Years=1.5
It will auto save games every 1.5 years.

A New Tool for Automatically Setting up R&D Units
This new time-saving tool automatically sets up R&D units in your R&D centers - no more tedious manual setup of individual R&D units.



New Product Images
New product images including Milk, Polyester, Sugarcane, Camera, Digital Camera, Timber



New Random Event Images
New images for the random events: Riot and Insect Plague.

New Music Tracks
This version comes with 20 brand new music tracks! These fresh tunes replace the old Capitalism 2 music to completely revamp your tycoon experience. As you build your corporate empire, you'll now be accompanied by these lively, motivational beats.



Speech for News and Events
This version improves the gaming experience by adding speech for certain news and events.

Showing Customer Traffic Overlay When Buying Land Plots
Choosing the ideal location just got easier with our new Customer Traffic Overlay. Now when choosing land plots to purchase, you can enable an overlay showing customer traffic flows on the city map. The traffic overlay visually highlights high and low traffic areas in different colors, giving you valuable insight for expanding your businesses.



AI Improvement
AI will build farm extensions if the feature is enabled.

Interface Improvements
1) The news window will be displayed on the right side of the screen if the screen is wide enough, thus avoiding blocking the view of the firm detail window or the first information center window.

2) The news display options window has now two checkboxes, make it more visually apparent about the availability of the options.

3) Added a new Market Cap sorting option to the Corporation List.

Mayor Can Now Move Mansions
When you are the mayor of a city, you will be able to move mansions to other locations in the city.

New Options in the Options Menu
1) Added new options for displaying logos on the city map, which are available under the new [Display Settings] category. You can select from the following modes for displaying logos:

a) Display logos for all firms
b) Only display logos for your firms
c) Display logos for your firms and your subsidiaries (this is the default setting)
d) Do not display any logos.

You can also use the shortcut key Ctrl-O to change this setting during the game without accessing the Options menu.



2) Added a new toggle for displaying Show Top Information Panel (hotkey: CTRL-P)
When this option is enabled, an information panel will be displayed at the top of the screen during a game with Realistic Money Supply or Survival mode enabled. When this is disabled, the info panel will not be displayed.

3) Added an option to auto-approve salary raises, under the [Gameplay Options] category
When enabled, requests for salary raises from your executives will be automatically approved without showing a dialog box. This will be useful when you want to let the game run without any user interactions for a certain period of time.

Banking and Finance DLC Improvements

New Customization Option for Global Stocks
Added an option for setting the long-term performance of global stocks.

Since the majority of an insurance company’s incomes are from investment gains in global stocks, the presence of this option allows the user to tailor the profitability of insurance companies.



We have also improved the simulation model - global stock returns will decrease over time, especially when a company’s market cap has grown to a very large size, to reflect the fact that it is increasingly difficult to make profits as markets become saturated.

Realistic Loan Demand for Banks
If this option is enabled, the demand for bank loans is realistically based on the total GDP of the cities. If this is disabled, the loan demand will be substantially higher but still have a limit. (In the previous versions, there is no limit if this option is disabled.)

This adjustment improves gameplay balance because consistently high loan demand can lead to excessively huge bank profits after the game has been running for a very long time.

Note to translators about the help text change
The help text in HELP.TXT for:

GOALACHI
Goal Achievement Progress
It indicates your progress in achieving the goals. Click here to open the #Goal report#. (hotkey: G)

has been changed to:

Goal Achievement Progress
It indicates your progress in achieving the goals. Click here to open the #Goal window#.

[LT3001]

Hi guys,

Long time player/fan of the game.

I have a few comments on recent changes, as well as some general issues with the game which I think will be meaningful improvements.

*Firstly, there is a problem with the modelled returns on global stocks. Even if I select "very high", buy a portfolio of $500m in stocks at the beginning, and run the simulation for 30-40yrs+, I end up with a market value not much higher than a run-up in the first year - I got to about $1bn vs. $650m after the first year. The dividends paid barely grew. During this period CPI has increased 200-300%. This is not "very high" returns - it below inflation. The only way you seem to be able to get any long term sustainable return is through the dividend, which usually ranges from about 1-3%, but the dividend doesn't grow much, no matter how much earnings the company retains & book value grows.

The way it should be modelled (and I say this as an equity fund manager for a living) is you have book value, return on equity, earnings per share (equal book value per share x RoE), and dividends per share (EPS x the "payout ratio"). Earnings should grow over time based on the ROE and the level of earnings retained. So a company with an ROE of 15% that retains 2/3rds of earnings, should grow earnings by 10% a year, and the dividend should therefore grow at 10% a year also on a constaint payout ratio. The share price will be based on a P/E multiple of the earnings. You can model cyclical variations/fluctuations in ROE, and the market P/E multiple for simulated stock volatility, similar to what you already do. The short term share price movements are not the problem. The problem is the long term return profile of the stocks (or lack thereof).

If you're worried about market capitalizations getting "too high" in the long term, there is an easy fix for that - increase the dividend payout ratio over time as market caps get higher. This will reduce the level of earnings growth (and hence stock price growth) over time, but increase the dividend yield. Long term stock returns should average a compounding 7-8% on a base setting. "High" should be 10-15%; "Very high" stock returns should be 15-20%. Currently outcomes are very far from that.

For the interface on the stock market screens, currently you show EPS, book value, P/E and P/BV, and dividend yield. I think you should also show return on equity (EPS/BV).

*Secondly, in the standard game, when you buy back shares in your company, it comes through as a loss item in the P&L. This is a misclassification. It should instead be classified in the same way "dividends paid" is, because buybacks are a return of capital. You could add it to the dividends paid line (call it dividends paid + buybacks), or set up a separate line item similar to dividends paid called "stock bought back".

*Thirdly, there seems to be a long-standing issue where if in the "environment" options for a new custom game, I deselect private companies, and choose say 5 competitors, when I start playing the game there are 5 listed competitors, but private companies also exist from early in the game. I think the player should be able to choose whether they want there to be private competitors. The options menu seems like you wanted players to be able to choose to only have listed competitors, but that is not the outcome in the game. This needs to be fixed IMO.

*In addition, if I select yes to "realistic money supply", I cannot select to have less than 5 VCs. The bar won't slide. I want to be able to enable or disable VCs but you can't do that at the moment.

*I think you should be able to bid a premium to buy back your bonds off private holders in the bond market, similar to the way you can in the stock market.

*A major quality of life issue at the moment is if you want to buy a lot of treasury bonds, the default buying block is like $2m - very small later in the game - and if you want to scale it up to buy large quantities, (1) it dials up slowly, so you have to hold down the up key a long time; and (2) after u buy one block, it resets down to $2m. This makes it a real pain in the a*s to buy say $1bn of bonds later in the game. It takes forever. The easy thing to do is if you scale it up to say a $50m buying block, it stays at $50m, rather than going back to $2m, so you can click buy $50m multiple times quickly. This would be a huge QoL change. Please fix this!

*Banks and insurance companies should have a dividend payout ratio option, where - subject to their being sufficient capital - an automated dividend payout to the parent occurs each year.

*Currently, the traffic overlay for retail sites does not appear for new service company locations like coffee shops.

*For banks, this is a more complex game mechanics aspect, I think you should model two types of deposits - transactional/current account deposits that are non interest bearing (non interest bearing accounts), and interest-rate sensitive time deposit accounts, to better simulate the real dynamics of banking. A good branch network, service quality, and brand, drive a slow addition (and slow attrition) of customers who use the bank for transaction services. These deposits should not be rate sensitive, and grow slowly. Then, if you want to pay high rates, you can quickly attract expensive rate sensitive deposits, but not non-interest bearing deposits, which you have to growth through network, service, and branding (and time). That way, if you're long established with good service levels etc, you don't lose all your deposits rapidly because a competitor offers to pay 0.1-0.2% more in deposit costs. This would make it far more realistic. You can grow low quality deposits (interest rate bearing) quickly, but high quality deposits (non-interest bearing) grow slowly. This is a more complex change but one that could be worth looking into long term.

*For the stock split, it is currently 2-for-1, but the forced consolidation when your stock hits $1 is 1-for-10. This is a small thing, but the asymmetry is sometimes annoying, because if you've been consolidated 1-for-10, i want to split back 10-for-1 to get back to the same no of shares later, but can't. I think you should have an option to split 10-for-1 as well as 2-for-1. Also, some of the arbitrary limits, like you need a minimum of 1m shares and can't buy back stock below 1m, should be removed. Are they really necessary? Especially since you can't split your stock until it gets to $100. One of both of those limitations should be removed, so players can buy back stock whenever they wish, and don't have to split their stock to keep buying back shares. I would also allow players to disable the SEC restrictions you sight preventing certain related party transactions as well. Sometimes it is annoying I can't buy stock in the same company with multiple controlled entities. There is no good reason for including these restrictions IMO and its just a reduction in quality of life/freedom for players.

Just some suggestions. Thanks for your hard work - it's a great game!

[cantdownloadit]

For buying bonds I just use Control Click and it goes to up 1 billion a time, i think shift click does 100m a time. But it would be maybe useful if the buttons to buy those, and stocks etc, stayed at the percentage you set them at.

See https://www.capitalismlab.com/banking-d ... pitalists/ regarding venture capitalists - I presume the AI just wouldn't be able to cope without them having access to the funds.

You may want to use a script to start game if you want to disable the software/operating system type companies, you cant disable telecoms, I presume again as this is exploitable, if nobody builds telecoms then internet stuff doesn't work.

[David]

First of all, thanks for your feedback.

*Secondly, in the standard game, when you buy back shares in your company, it comes through as a loss item in the P&L. This is a misclassification. It should instead be classified in the same way "dividends paid" is, because buybacks are a return of capital. You could add it to the dividends paid line (call it dividends paid + buybacks), or set up a separate line item similar to dividends paid called "stock bought back".

I did a test on this by starting a new game and buying back my company's shares in the beginning. The share buyback actually did not affect the income statement in any way. All accounts in the income statement remains zero.

What it affected the balance sheet may be incorrect - it changed Retained Earnings when the buyback price of the stock price is higher than the initial stock price of $10, which doesn't seem right. It should instead change the Common Stock account, right?

Conversely, when a company buys back its stocks at a price lower than the IPO price (e.g. $8), should the difference [($10-$8) x buyback quantity] be added to the Retained Earnings account?

I have requested the dev team to look into it.

[LT3001]

I just checked again, for some reason at the very beginning & first year, buybacks seem to operate normally, but from the second year on they started to come through in the "stock return" line of the P&L. Buybacks are showing up here as a loss item and even give rise to a tax deduction. There must be some logic change/jump for buybacks post the first year.

If you wanted the correct classification that is similar to how they are accounted for in real life, they should be deducted from retained earnings (in real life they have a separate common equity line - along with issued capital and retained earnings - called "treasury shares"); however, in substance buybacks are considered a return of capital alternative to dividends and deducting from retained earnings makes the most sense for simplicity's stake. Alternatively, you could create a new line item in shareholders equity called buyback reserve or something, that would show up as a negative equal to the cumulative value of stock repurchased.

Cheers,

[David]

I just checked again, for some reason at the very beginning & first year, buybacks seem to operate normally, but from the second year on they started to come through in the "stock return" line of the P&L. Buybacks are showing up here as a loss item and even give rise to a tax deduction. There must be some logic change/jump for buybacks post the first year.

If you wanted the correct classification that is similar to how they are accounted for in real life, they should be deducted from retained earnings (in real life they have a separate common equity line - along with issued capital and retained earnings - called "treasury shares"); however, in substance buybacks are considered a return of capital alternative to dividends and deducting from retained earnings makes the most sense for simplicity's stake. Alternatively, you could create a new line item in shareholders equity called buyback reserve or something, that would show up as a negative equal to the cumulative value of stock repurchased.

I tested it by buying back shares after the first year and you're right that it did register a loss. I then realized that when I bought shares from public shareholders, it didn't have this issue. But when I offered to buy shares from existing shareholders at a higher price, it produced the error. I will request the programmer to fix it.

On a related note, do you have any comments on the following:

What it affected the balance sheet may be incorrect - it changed Retained Earnings when the buyback price of the stock price is higher than the initial stock price of $10, which doesn't seem right. It should instead change the Common Stock account, right?

Conversely, when a company buys back its stocks at a price lower than the IPO price (e.g. $8), should the difference [($10-$8) x buyback quantity] be added to the Retained Earnings account?

Thanks

[David]

*A major quality of life issue at the moment is if you want to buy a lot of treasury bonds, the default buying block is like $2m - very small later in the game - and if you want to scale it up to buy large quantities, (1) it dials up slowly, so you have to hold down the up key a long time; and (2) after u buy one block, it resets down to $2m. This makes it a real pain in the a*s to buy say $1bn of bonds later in the game. It takes forever. The easy thing to do is if you scale it up to say a $50m buying block, it stays at $50m, rather than going back to $2m, so you can click buy $50m multiple times quickly. This would be a huge QoL change. Please fix this!

*Currently, the traffic overlay for retail sites does not appear for new service company locations like coffee shops.

We have improved the above issues with the newly released patch v9.1.23. Please download it from https://www.capitalism2.com/forum/viewt ... f=7&t=9210

When buying back stocks, the change in the balance sheet will only affect Common Stock account and will no longer affect the Retained Earnings account.

On the Bond Market screen, when using the [+] and [-] buttons to set the bond purchase quantity and sale quantity, each increment will be 0.01% of the total bond quantity or a minimum of 10,000 units of bond. This makes purchasing bonds with a large total size more efficient.

[mdemircan2]

Hi guys,

Long time player/fan of the game.

I have a few comments on recent changes, as well as some general issues with the game which I think will be meaningful improvements.

*Firstly, there is a problem with the modelled returns on global stocks. Even if I select "very high", buy a portfolio of $500m in stocks at the beginning, and run the simulation for 30-40yrs+, I end up with a market value not much higher than a run-up in the first year - I got to about $1bn vs. $650m after the first year. The dividends paid barely grew. During this period CPI has increased 200-300%. This is not "very high" returns - it below inflation. The only way you seem to be able to get any long term sustainable return is through the dividend, which usually ranges from about 1-3%, but the dividend doesn't grow much, no matter how much earnings the company retains & book value grows.

The way it should be modelled (and I say this as an equity fund manager for a living) is you have book value, return on equity, earnings per share (equal book value per share x RoE), and dividends per share (EPS x the "payout ratio"). Earnings should grow over time based on the ROE and the level of earnings retained. So a company with an ROE of 15% that retains 2/3rds of earnings, should grow earnings by 10% a year, and the dividend should therefore grow at 10% a year also on a constaint payout ratio. The share price will be based on a P/E multiple of the earnings. You can model cyclical variations/fluctuations in ROE, and the market P/E multiple for simulated stock volatility, similar to what you already do. The short term share price movements are not the problem. The problem is the long term return profile of the stocks (or lack thereof).

If you're worried about market capitalizations getting "too high" in the long term, there is an easy fix for that - increase the dividend payout ratio over time as market caps get higher. This will reduce the level of earnings growth (and hence stock price growth) over time, but increase the dividend yield. Long term stock returns should average a compounding 7-8% on a base setting. "High" should be 10-15%; "Very high" stock returns should be 15-20%. Currently outcomes are very far from that.

For the interface on the stock market screens, currently you show EPS, book value, P/E and P/BV, and dividend yield. I think you should also show return on equity (EPS/BV).

*Secondly, in the standard game, when you buy back shares in your company, it comes through as a loss item in the P&L. This is a misclassification. It should instead be classified in the same way "dividends paid" is, because buybacks are a return of capital. You could add it to the dividends paid line (call it dividends paid + buybacks), or set up a separate line item similar to dividends paid called "stock bought back".

*Thirdly, there seems to be a long-standing issue where if in the "environment" options for a new custom game, I deselect private companies, and choose say 5 competitors, when I start playing the game there are 5 listed competitors, but private companies also exist from early in the game. I think the player should be able to choose whether they want there to be private competitors. The options menu seems like you wanted players to be able to choose to only have listed competitors, but that is not the outcome in the game. This needs to be fixed IMO.

*In addition, if I select yes to "realistic money supply", I cannot select to have less than 5 VCs. The bar won't slide. I want to be able to enable or disable VCs but you can't do that at the moment.

*I think you should be able to bid a premium to buy back your bonds off private holders in the bond market, similar to the way you can in the stock market.

*A major quality of life issue at the moment is if you want to buy a lot of treasury bonds, the default buying block is like $2m - very small later in the game - and if you want to scale it up to buy large quantities, (1) it dials up slowly, so you have to hold down the up key a long time; and (2) after u buy one block, it resets down to $2m. This makes it a real pain in the a*s to buy say $1bn of bonds later in the game. It takes forever. The easy thing to do is if you scale it up to say a $50m buying block, it stays at $50m, rather than going back to $2m, so you can click buy $50m multiple times quickly. This would be a huge QoL change. Please fix this!

*Banks and insurance companies should have a dividend payout ratio option, where - subject to their being sufficient capital - an automated dividend payout to the parent occurs each year.

*Currently, the traffic overlay for retail sites does not appear for new service company locations like coffee shops.

*For banks, this is a more complex game mechanics aspect, I think you should model two types of deposits - transactional/current account deposits that are non interest bearing (non interest bearing accounts), and interest-rate sensitive time deposit accounts, to better simulate the real dynamics of banking. A good branch network, service quality, and brand, drive a slow addition (and slow attrition) of customers who use the bank for transaction services. These deposits should not be rate sensitive, and grow slowly. Then, if you want to pay high rates, you can quickly attract expensive rate sensitive deposits, but not non-interest bearing deposits, which you have to growth through network, service, and branding (and time). That way, if you're long established with good service levels etc, you don't lose all your deposits rapidly because a competitor offers to pay 0.1-0.2% more in deposit costs. This would make it far more realistic. You can grow low quality deposits (interest rate bearing) quickly, but high quality deposits (non-interest bearing) grow slowly. This is a more complex change but one that could be worth looking into long term.

*For the stock split, it is currently 2-for-1, but the forced consolidation when your stock hits $1 is 1-for-10. This is a small thing, but the asymmetry is sometimes annoying, because if you've been consolidated 1-for-10, i want to split back 10-for-1 to get back to the same no of shares later, but can't. I think you should have an option to split 10-for-1 as well as 2-for-1. Also, some of the arbitrary limits, like you need a minimum of 1m shares and can't buy back stock below 1m, should be removed. Are they really necessary? Especially since you can't split your stock until it gets to $100. One of both of those limitations should be removed, so players can buy back stock whenever they wish, and don't have to split their stock to keep buying back shares. I would also allow players to disable the SEC restrictions you sight preventing certain related party transactions as well. Sometimes it is annoying I can't buy stock in the same company with multiple controlled entities. There is no good reason for including these restrictions IMO and its just a reduction in quality of life/freedom for players.

Just some suggestions. Thanks for your hard work - it's a great game!

******

Hi, I agree with you about your suggestions. Here's some suggestions you may find interesting:


I played Capitalizm Lab Banking DLC ​​with 5 bank managers. They liked the Banking DLC, but saw some shortcomings; I wrote below:
A- The types of loans to be given by the bank should be diversified;
for example: 1-home loan, 2-commercial building loan, 3-educational loan,
4-Credit to companies: The bank should be able to adjust the percentage loan that is given to sectors.
For example 15% for Home accessories, 20% for textile, and 65% of the total deposit for the automotive sector.

B-There must be Sectoral Concentration:
The bank should distribute the loans to be given according to a certain percentage according to the loan types.
For example, 10% of the loans to be given by the bank as housing loans, 5% as education loans, 25% as commercial building loans,
It should be able to plan to give 5% of the loan to companies in the automotive sector.

C- The income sources of the bank should be diversified.
Currently, the bank only has income from interest.
example of income of the bank: interest income, income from banking transactions: EFT, account management fee etc...

D-Following the equivalence of the maturity of the deposits collected by the bank and the maturity of the loans to be given as a performance indicator.
For example,Does the bank use the deposit that has been collected with 1-year maturity to give a 1-year matured loan?
Or does it uses the deposit that has been collected with 1-year maturity to give a 3-year matured loan?
That's a significant issue.

[VelTraher]

Please add Warehouse Capacity Modifier - After all, warehouses are practically useless when playing with mods, so even with an increase in the capacity of factories, there is no point in them at all. Also, could you publish a script for excel reports so that they can be combined into one file for viewing? But it would be ideal if I could watch all the reports inside the game. You used to post the script on Facebook, but I don't have access to Facebook right now. Also, to be honest, it pisses me off that AI is not given the opportunity to deposit money. And insurance companies don't make any sense in this game. After all, they could primitively add insurance companies in case of an accident. In the same way, the state could insure its institutions. It's the same with banks, and it's always easier to issue shares or take out bonds than to borrow from a bank. Even when it is profitable at low interest rates.

I also repeatedly came across the fact that in the late stage of the game, my brand rating dropped from 100 to average values, and huge injections into advertising and price reduction did not help in any way to restore the rating. It's a shame after spending a dozen hours. To end the game on such a note. It was with me and with the rating service.

A telecom company always has huge profits and it always has no competitor. Even if AI starts building telecom companies, they do it all in one city. But most of all, I do not understand that a telecom company never invests, does not buy shares, rarely invests in bonds, and deposits are always closed. And by the late stage of the game, the company has billions of dollars in cash. And that's why such a company is needed? Even after the shares are published, it pays very low dividends. And it's not expanding anywhere. The telecom business is very simple. And very profitable.

Also, you still do not have a fixed scale of expenses for media companies. It is constantly lagging behind inflation. And I have to click through 100 of my media companies every few years to increase infrastructure costs by up to 100%. It's exhausting. Also, why can't you set the same price in all cities at once for the cost of advertising?

I haven't been able to figure it out for a very long time. Micromanagement at a late stage is exhausting, hiring an operating director only destroys the well-established process of supply chains and prices. Why is it impossible to set the price linked to the overall rating. For example, I want the products "tomatoes" to have their price tied not to my specified value, but to the overall rating, for example, I specify that the price always corresponds to the rating "90". And after that, I turn a blind eye to it and never control it, the price is not important to me, it is important to me that it is available. I don't want to set a price for hundreds of products, and after improving technology, monitor the overall rating to see if I'm selling very cheaply.

It would make life easier for many. And I could continue to build supply chains and develop other areas. It would even be cool if you made it necessary to hire an operating director for this feature, but only with the ability to disable all other powers for him. Or there is a separate department at headquarters that would take a small percentage of sales for monitoring this system.