Curious observations.

I find it a bit odd that companies building universities, elementary and high school all need construction, but hospital building corporations do not.

Equally curious is that none of these building use glass for windows.

Come to think on it, residential and commercial buildings seem to automatically spring up from the ground without any need for a company to build them at all.
We have house values, implying a supply and demand, but the supply seems to spring from nowhere.

Good find and I do agree.
We'll be adding a few more products in the near future. This will be a good time for us to also tweak resources used in existing corporation types to more closely resemble the real world.

Any other suggestions are of course appreciated!

As for your second post.
This feature is not really visible. Countries use construction materials on a monthly basis. The amount of money a country spends on building residential buildings takes into account, among other things, how wealthy your population is.

If you're interested I can ask an engineer, to dig up the formula we use for this specific feature, on monday.

I think this was raised once before but why not have Natural Resources that would be available only in certain countries. For example a mountainous country would easily be able to produce and have coal, iron, minerals etc and therefore mine these products with ease. A corporation that creates steel would have to use iron etc to make that product. Countries that are not mountainous and say by the sea would have abundant fish resources and agriculture. Thus a natural resource would be needed in order for a corporation to produce something. Countries without the natural resource would have import it and may cost them more to do so.

I understand some resources like fishing resources could only available to coastal countries and I think that's a good idea,

but in regards to ground resources there has historically been a lot of mines of all different resources like coal that have been located beside coastal areas. A lot of people have no idea how a wide array of resources can be found in one small area. In my state alone for example in the 19th century there were hundreds of gold mines and probably thousands of coal mines, and I don't know the specifics but I'm sure there were various other resources being mined, many of these mines were located beside the ocean, rivers and bays, and now there are none today, but back in the day they probably hadn't even scratched the surface of available resources in the ground. The average person has no idea how many of all sorts of resources are right in their back yard. A lot of people are perhaps unaware the world is a big pile of various resources. Although its true that not all ground resources are available everywhere, they seem to be in a lot more places than not, although they're just not being extracted is what I'm saying. People all over the place are living right on extensive veins of resources and they have no idea.

Now if Simcounty had climates than highly desert (sand dune) areas should have very low or no wood resource availability for example, because they don't have much more than the occasional palm tree to cut down. In regards to agriculture, deserts can be irrigated however so perhaps they will have a higher startup cost or overhead. As well perhaps highly arctic (very cold) areas would have similar increased overhead for agriculture as desert areas, because they would be more dependent on greenhouses and electric heating. and I'm sure theres other examples, like if offshore oil was a resource than it'd only be available to coastal areas. Offshore oil could be similar to a standard oil operation, but have a different set of overhead than ground drilling. I'm not sure but overhead on offshore sounds to me more expensive, building maintaining and supplying a mechanical island, so I'm not sure the advantage there. A shot in the dark here but perhaps the offshore drilling method allows for greater output rate of oil.

I wouldn't go so far as to restrict iron ore, minerals and other highly abundant resources to only certain regions though. Iron is one of the most common elements in the world. The world is literally comprised of abundant resources such as iron. I don't really know much about minerals, but as far as I know they're all over the place. There's minerals literally in my backyard, that are so abundant they're worthless. because every land had been underwater at some period in time, as well receive rain on some level of consistency, I think that's contributed to minerals being every where.

The larger reason why certain resources are extracted in certain regions is probably moreso currency exchange rates, regulations, taxes and cost of labor, than that these abundant resources are just not available in certain terrains and elevations . . . I think that is more accurate in regards to agricultural resources like fish, wood, bananas, coffee, etc, but until Simcountry has a climate system I can only think of fish as a good example right now of a resource that should be restricted to certain areas. . .

On second thought offshore drilling is perhaps overall lower overhead as logistics of transporting the oil may be much less, because I would think tankers just roll up right beside the platforms and transfer the oil so ground transport is no longer required to export the resource.

Personally I think the entire oil industry is a scam because anybody can make hydrogen by running a small current of power through h2o water and the hydrogen bubbles up through a process called electrolysis, and can be captured and compressed into a propane tank, which can have a line go onto the air intake of any gasoline motor (hydrogen requires spark plugs to combust as far as I know), and then during combustion the hydrogen recombines with oxygen into h2o water and then water goes out exhaust pipe. . . There is some loss of horsepower because the pistons are the length for effecient gasoline combustion, not most effective length for optimal compression of hydrogen, but hydrogen is actually a more potent fuel than gasoline. . .gasoline car engines and generators still work well on hydrogen with some loss of power due to less effecient combustion setup, but most power is retained and no residue is left. You can have hydrogen,and oxygen both in your propane tanks and that's called HHO which has a better balance for losing less power in gasoline motors than just putting a hydrogen line into the air intake. If the motor was designed for hydrogen however it would have more power than a comparable gasoline motor because there is more power density in combusting hydrogen. This process is nothing new by the way, its been around a looong time..

But there'd be no big oil industry if we did that? Anybody with a well or perhaps even an air conditioner would not have to trade currency for fuel . . . ? How do you market something that's free? Wouldn't we all have generators rather than a electric grid?

Sorry I've gone tooo far again the people who work for oil and electrix companies will get upset. . .

And by the way Henry Ford used plastic processed from hemp farms rather than petroleum industry for use in his model T cars. . . . The petroleum industry has been a scam the entire 20th century, not too dissimilar as to how global warming is also a scam, sorry to burst any bubbels

IMO.
A small amount of glass should be used in the production of not just buildings, but also cars, trucks, and fighter planes, helicopters, military bases, govt. facilities, computers, and perhaps building materials too.
Its seems glass had gotten short-changed in the game.

About glass. It is essential to make a product called household products which is used for many things in the game. I think the product glass in the game is not considered a finished product until it is formed by a household product corp.

Also, if you look at glass, it must use selenium to be produced. This product can only be produced on a few worlds. You would have to be careful, for this reason, in increasing any demand for glass.

Jonni: About formulas. I emailed some time ago and considered resending the email and will again and post here:

"In game news, the update on February 19, 2014 titled "Quality will matter for more products - starting today" seems to be confusing to players. In practice, it is difficult to see if purchasing army maintenance products, such as airforce maintenance and defensive weapon maintenance, and weapon and ammo quality upgrades at a higher quality is functioning properly to reduce the number of units of these items needed to maintain and upgrade a deployed army. Are these working properly in a way that there is value in purchasing these items at a higher quality, 330qua, (ie. less monthly costs for maintenance and less cost to upgrade) over purchasing the same items at minimum quality, 120qua?"

I have been wondering the same in regards to weapon maintenance and upgrades and would like to know the answer to that as well.

I like the Idea about some countries producing certain produces or maybe just larger amount of certain commodities. This could spur more of a p v p wars over the countries with the greatest natural resources. Like real life Saudi Arabia. Also I think it would increase interaction in the game because of negotiations for the produces increasing trade interest.

I agree 100% with an smoke's

I don't wholly agree with these calls to create new products and product chains, or to 'fix' the old ones, on account of realism or trying to mirror the real world.

We are playing a game which features interplanetary commerce, amphibious mega fleets, and a world market that fulfills product orders regardless of century-long shortages. Are we really going to lose sleep worrying whether house windows are mullioned or simply glazed?

Perhaps the devs could be brave and focus on more sweeping changes that inject something fresh, rather than treading water with these kinds of mundane niggles that we players bring up all too often?

*edit* Resource zones might just be that ^

I agree with Dub that product changes don't seem to add to the playing experience. On natural resources/zones/whatever lets choose a single place to discuss. Perhaps here:

https://www.simcountry.com/discus/messages/8/25184.html?1447874172

Thanks Aries, and good idea :-)

Its not product changes just for the fact of changing. If only certain countries could produce oil then those countries become valuable. Then everyone wants those countries even if it takes war to get them. I am sure most here have played Realm of Empires. There are certain cities that produce more commodities making them have a higher value. Most wars center on those countries I once had to fend off several attacks at once because everyone wants what i had. There would be more pvp wars if there was something to be gained. I used to fight more wars on fb because of all the swag you can get at the end of a victorious campaign. Right now its almost impossible to have any gains at the end of a war because it cost more than it gives back. until there is some sort of gain with a victory than why???? go to war.

Smokes: I think you are confusing the product change discussion with the natural resource one. It appears you want to comment on the link I posted just two posts above yours.

Quick Question: I'm new and the current president of the empire of Honshu on wg and my military disappears periodically every time I build a unit it vanishes after a few game days. The weapons are not deactivated either as they don't show up in my stockpiles. Why would this be?

Quick Question: I'm new and the current president of the empire of Honshu on wg and my military disappears periodically every time I build a unit it vanishes after a few game days. The weapons are not deactivated either as they don't show up in my stockpiles. Why would this be?

Hey Bennentt,

The same problem was happening to me after I just finished waging a war. From what I understand is your military units are your standing forces, and the forces and ammunition on the offensive/defensive index is just your "reserve's". So when you create a new unit what ever arms and ammo needed to make that unit are taken from that reserve, so your really not losing it. And after your done waging a war you have to buy the ammo and arms to replace what you used in the war, which once again is taken from the reserves and given to your unit to replace the loses of war. Hope that answers your question, if you have any more just message me and I'll be happy to answer any questions you have.

It just seems odd that we have all these buildings that do not use glass for windows.
But I never considered the window to be a household product. I was thinking more in terms of appliances, tools, and furniture, as well as consumables like toothpaste and toiletries - you know; the classic definition of a household product.

Windows should be considered a building material, rather than a household product - as is insulation. But building material companies do not use glass either.