Topic: Let's Play GearCity: Sell cars, use money to make cars, use money on dream cars (Read 7549 times)

EuchreJack · « **on:** February 05, 2019, 02:50:31 pm »

Let's Play GearCity!

Where good ol' EJ makes this game his bitch!

For those who want a sneak peak, read my guide here

I'll probably either start in 1900, as most of the challenge of the game is front-loaded in time, or try out the Random History mode. Knowing when the World Wars are going to break out and dodging them...dunno if that is fair to the AI companies.

There is also an European map for the real Oldtimer / Motor City experience.

For those who don't know, a very brief description of GearCity:
Play Motor City and Detroit. Put them together, add some new stuff, and you got GearCity.

Haven't played them? Go on, I'll wait.

Further Description:
The game simulates the Auto Industry from as early as 1900. The player starts with a wad of cash. On normal difficulty levels with normal options, the player starts with one Factory and one Branch. The Factory makes the cars and the branch sells the cars. Sometimes the player starts with a loan (difficulty level and options). I've mentioned options twice now, because the game has a lot of them to affect the game.

The best part of the game is designing the cars. It has the old "put the parts together to make a car" feature from Motor City (although gearbox is now a part, and the player designs the car itself instead of just designing one body as a part), but they now have to actually fit together, and there are more options for everything. The player can also design the chassis, engine, and gearbox, with options there as well. For those who haven't played Motor City.

The feature that you'll see me use a lot is the Outsourcing screen. The player can purchase blueprints for parts and cars, allow the AI companies to buy same, purchase parts, and purchase cars. I underline the last part because that is the crux of my master strategy to make tons of money, so I can ramp up my industrial capacity to make cars, so I can spend all that cash designing whatever cars I want. After all, what sort of Automaker doesn't create their dream car for the lutz?

EuchreJack · « **Reply #1 on:** February 06, 2019, 05:08:55 pm »

Just in case anyone falls in love with this game, you want to buy it before March, as the price is going up.
https://steamcommunity.com/games/285110/announcements/detail/1735477928467361409

It's currently on sale now.

Just a teaser:

I mentioned that there are a lot of options for starting a game. Well, here they are:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

EuchreJack · « **Reply #2 on:** February 06, 2019, 05:46:04 pm »

So I started a game on Ultra-Violent, global map, random history.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

These are the cities that are recommended as starting cities, with their high populations and GDP (by 1900 standards). That stuff matters more on lower difficulties when the game gives you a starting branch. We don't get that on Ultra-Violent.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

So I started here instead. I'm sure Nantes is also well know for its Auto Industry...

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Look at all the options for AI companies! As you see in the next picture, I chose to trim it down to 100, in order to speed up processing time in later turns.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Our illustrious company, the greatest in history...eventually.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I will leave you guys with a picture of our swanky office. Swanky.

EuchreJack · « **Reply #3 on:** February 06, 2019, 08:02:16 pm »

Checked out the popular car body types, remember that we're in Europe. Adding a poll on which vehicle people want to see first. With my strategy, we won't be designing a car for a little while.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Oh, and I selected Random Body Popularity on starting settings, as I wanted to actually have to check out the Body Popularity section. I've sort of memorized starting popularity historically...

Darkening Kaos · « **Reply #4 on:** February 06, 2019, 08:41:40 pm »

Is it possible to make roadsters or sports cars? Now or in the future? Or even concept cars?

EuchreJack · « **Reply #5 on:** February 07, 2019, 12:56:22 am »

Quote from: Darkening Kaos on February 06, 2019, 08:41:40 pm

Is it possible to make roadsters or sports cars? Now or in the future? Or even concept cars?

Roadsters* and sports cars can be built right now, its just that they're not as popular as the above.
Concept cars are not a type of car, but the basic principles can be applied, as in I can build a car of some type to showcase my new technologies. Its actually suggested to do so by some guides.
Supercars, on the other hand, become available around the late 1960s, I think.

*Actually, both roadsters and roadsters 2+2 are available.

This is the second half of the chart on body types. Not shown between the two pictures is Pickup Trucks, at the absolute bottom of demand.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I added Roadster to the poll above, at its the most popular of those three types. Body demand shows what's most popular.

EuchreJack · « **Reply #6 on:** February 07, 2019, 01:23:38 am »

On this difficulty, building and buying cars immediately for profit is suicide, although that is how one would play on Normal and Easy difficulties.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Lets go and visit R&D. We'll be with these people a lot during the game.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

As you can see, on this difficulty, our design teams are garbage. And without something for them to work on, they're getting worse.
There are three ways to get parts for our parts designers to study, in order to get better.
1) Designing our own parts
2) Purchasing licenses for parts
3) Purchasing parts directly from the other companies

Since no licenses are available, I will buy one part of each type so they have something to study. Research teams get better if the average of all the new parts acquired in the above three ways within the last 5 years that is better than than your research team in overall rating. They get worse if that average is lower than their skill. Since their skill is 1 on a scale from 1 to 100, pretty much anything will make them better for the first few years. They get 0.25 in skill per quarter, more if money is invested into them.

These tricks don't work with vehicle design skill: That only goes up with we're designing a car, best as I understand. Dunno if designs acquired through other means counts, as the game doesn't indicate directly whether or not that skill is going up or down.

EuchreJack · « **Reply #7 on:** February 07, 2019, 01:26:07 am »

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Our finances. On this difficulty, half the funds were loaned to us. Like I said, we can't afford to jump right into the auto manufacturing business. We have to be a dealer network for a little while. Note that I took out a line of credit. Its best to do so whenever a higher limit is available. Its like a credit card in that we don't pay anything as long as we're not using it (except those credit cards that charge you for that, screw them).

EuchreJack · « **Reply #8 on:** February 07, 2019, 01:49:26 am »

Now, to showcase my strategy to make all the money. Its hardest when starting in 1900, since most people aren't interested in cars at this time. After all, for the next ten years or so, we're directly competing with horse-drawn carriages!

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

We start by agreeing to purchase 12 of all the vehicles that the other companies wish to sell us, to determine what people are willing to buy. Why 12? Because each order is for vehicles to be delivered over the next 12 months, so if we don't order 12, maybe they won't send it till next year? So all our ordering will be taking into account that we need enough for monthly demand times 12, to get our monthly allotment. Sounds complicated? Most great ways to make money are, unfortunately.

Anyways....

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

We build branches in London, Berlin, Paris, and Vienna, because they all have populations in excess of 1 million. I use the clone branch feature after building my first branch in London and setting up London's marketing. Clone branch copies all the details from the branch and adjusts it to the city. So the same percentage of everything is carried over. Why 4 branches? Because we only had 4 types of cars to sell! Sigh, I hate 1900...

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Lets see how people like those designs we're purchasing and reselling. Ah, some are quite popular, so lets buy more of them!

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Gah, we bought too many! So now we'll have to alternate between terminating the contract (asking them not to deliver any more) and restarting the contract (just ordering 0 more will restart delivery). I really hate 1900!

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Thankfully, more cars are available for purchase. The more types we offer, the more money we can potentially make! I do the same as above, but this time limiting myself to more popular models (Sedans and Coupe 2+2s).

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

This is why we sell vehicles from other manufacturers! $99,000 profit in one month! Remember, we started with $900,000!
Now for a brief explanation as to why this strategy works:
The AI companies have greater auto manufacturing capacity than we do (on this difficulty, that would be zero, ha ha).
The more models available for sale, the more that people buy. While competition is a factor, a greater variety means its more likely that a potential buyer will find something they like, leading to a sale.
We're not paying to design the vehicles, the parts, or for a factory to sit while we figure this all out.
So, by buying cars from the AI, slapping our logo on them, and selling them to the unsuspecting public, we can make more money than God!

EuchreJack · « **Reply #9 on:** February 07, 2019, 02:25:07 am »

Just a depressing look at our starting company on this Ultraviolent difficulty:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Our skills (or lack thereof) as an Auto Company, from the previous month.
"Hey boss, we just started this year, so we have no skills!"
But, now that we have money coming in, we can start to fix that. The more we do something, the better we get.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Our image. Thankfully, most of those values will go up just by what we're doing now. We sell more cars, we become know for selling cars, then people trust us more and we can sell more cars. Except Performance/Racing, for which we need to create a Racing team and optionally a car for them to use. Maybe a Roadster, Sport, or Roadster 2+2? We'll see...

EuchreJack · « **Reply #10 on:** February 07, 2019, 02:30:29 am »

Ah, the stock market!

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

We issue an IPO, because we can't brag about our stock price without stock, and we can't screw over our shareholders without shareholders, and we can't exploit the market for our stock without selling our stock on the market. I love stock manipulation, but I messed up royally on a previous game, so I'm probably just going to dilute the cr@p out of our stock. We'll have the option of issuing more stock and pissing off our shareholders in 5 years.

EuchreJack · « **Reply #11 on:** February 07, 2019, 02:39:56 am »

Lets look at 1901!

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I fast forwarded a bit.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Using that sweet sweet cash, I bought back some stock. I know we're going to be successful, so why not exploit that~

EuchreJack · « **Reply #12 on:** February 07, 2019, 03:16:22 am »

The astute may have noticed that we actually lost money last year (we started with 900,000, we issued an IPO for over 200,000, but we ended the year just over 1,000,000).

But now that an year has gone by, time to fix that!

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

First, I restart our Crocus and Dredger purchases. I'll lower their prices as well, so maybe we can sell all that we're buying. I also buy more of those models with unmet demand.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I guess there is still some unmet demand! I'll get on that.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The Crocus is doing well, I guess lowing the price helped! I'll buy some more.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The memo screen. I don't come here very often, but its interesting. Guess I'm as bad at checking my mail in this game as I am in real life.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Great, new technologies! Unfortunately, we can't build a 6 cylinder until we learn how to build a engine with more than one cylinder...

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

For those curious how long that might be. We should be able to design a Straight engine by the end of the year.

EuchreJack · « **Reply #13 on:** February 07, 2019, 03:51:35 am »

I don't know much about cars, but my understanding is that a Straight engine lays out the cylinders in a line, with no space savings whatsoever. So I'll probably go for a smaller number of cylinders on our first engine design. But I can't see how many cylinders we can design until we're able to design the Straight engine, so I'll play it by ear.

The idea is that small dinky engine can be put in anything including trucks and vans, but a monstrous engine doesn't make sense in a microcar, for example.

Rilder · « **Reply #14 on:** February 10, 2019, 05:00:04 pm »

Well this is an interesting read, I've been a fan of GearCity for awhile now. Kinda fell out of it since changes since my initial playthroughs have kind of derailed my usual early strategy (as someone who also does 1900 starts) Your strategy here is definitely something for me to remember the next time I play.

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Author Topic: Let's Play GearCity: Sell cars, use money to make cars, use money on dream cars (Read 7549 times)

EuchreJack

Let's Play GearCity: Sell cars, use money to make cars, use money on dream cars

EuchreJack

Re: Let's Play GearCity: Sell cars, use money to make cars, use money on dream cars

EuchreJack

Re: Let's Play GearCity: Sell cars, use money to make cars, use money on dream cars

EuchreJack

Re: Let's Play GearCity: Sell cars, use money to make cars, use money on dream cars

Darkening Kaos

Re: Let's Play GearCity: Sell cars, use money to make cars, use money on dream cars

EuchreJack

Re: Let's Play GearCity: Sell cars, use money to make cars, use money on dream cars

EuchreJack

Re: Let's Play GearCity: Sell cars, use money to make cars, use money on dream cars

EuchreJack

Re: Let's Play GearCity: Sell cars, use money to make cars, use money on dream cars

EuchreJack

Re: Let's Play GearCity: Sell cars, use money to make cars, use money on dream cars

EuchreJack

Re: Let's Play GearCity: Sell cars, use money to make cars, use money on dream cars

EuchreJack

Re: Let's Play GearCity: Sell cars, use money to make cars, use money on dream cars

EuchreJack

Re: Let's Play GearCity: Sell cars, use money to make cars, use money on dream cars

EuchreJack

Re: Let's Play GearCity: Sell cars, use money to make cars, use money on dream cars

EuchreJack

Re: Let's Play GearCity: Sell cars, use money to make cars, use money on dream cars

Rilder

Re: Let's Play GearCity: Sell cars, use money to make cars, use money on dream cars