Thoughts on the Difficulty in 1.14?

[Arakash]

After playing my first game in 1.14 (been busy since its release), i was wondering what other players thought of the difficulty in the recent version.

Personally, i found one of my old standby strategies isnt working as well as it once did.
It was a mass market strategy that required me to sell about 600ish vehicles per month in London.
The AI is now able to leech enough vehicles off my sales in 1900-1903 that i didn't reach that volume.
One AI specifically, was selling vehicles at 1k vs my 700, with similar overall values. This managed to steal about 1/3 of my sales for most of its life.

Good stuff.
I think i should be able to refine my strategy down and use it again successfully but who knows.

[Eric.B]

Still too easy... On easy, the game should make grown men cry...

Kidding aside, start game is always hard, late game is always easy. I need to work on that.

If you want to use your old strategy, reduce the number of AI you're playing against.

[Arakash]

Still too easy... On easy, the game should make grown men cry...

Kidding aside, start game is always hard, late game is always easy. I need to work on that.

If you want to use your old strategy, reduce the number of AI you're playing against.

I think i can still use it. Its only one game after all, and not one i played perfectly, so its too early to make a huge judgement.

Something i can definitely fine tune in the factory i made. I set it to around 1k-1.1k cars per month, but i would save a lot of money by going for the more realistic number of 600.
I will also be more carefully and precisely designing the vehicle/components next time.

[Remaggib]

I've found it harder now also. The reduced number of AI helps emormously with end turn times later in game, if you can get there!

I have been having the same problem, AI selling less equipped cars with worse numbers for more money, leeching my sales. I tried a new marketing scheme along with placement of HQ, still nothing. The transportation expenses killed me on that one.

[Tridon]

I bought it yesterday when I saw it on Steam, so I'm quite the beginner at this. I found it hellishly hard on easy in 1900. Perhaps it's worth mentioning that I, as any sane person would, started in Ethiopia. Tried a little save/loading magic, but without any marketing I'm not able to sell cars while making a profit at all. The moneyz are just pooring out. Going to try some more in Ehtiopia today and see how it goes with the marketing budget at max.

[Eric.B]

I bought it yesterday when I saw it on Steam, so I'm quite the beginner at this. I found it hellishly hard on easy in 1900. Perhaps it's worth mentioning that I, as any sane person would, started in Ethiopia. Tried a little save/loading magic, but without any marketing I'm not able to sell cars while making a profit at all. The moneyz are just pooring out. Going to try some more in Ehtiopia today and see how it goes with the marketing budget at max.

You might want to avoid Ethiopia.
Consumers work off per-capita. In 1900, Ethiopia's wealthiest 2% are only making about $180 a year. This will make it nearly impossible to sell anything more than say $200 there.

That means you'll have to ship vehicles to Europe. But then, you've got transportation costs. Which could run in the thousands of dollars per vehicle...

Also factor in things like worker skills, resources, infrastructure, etc and you have a recipe for an insanely hard game, even on easy.

There is a reason Ethiopia has never had a real car company.

The economics of the game are designed to be fairly realistic. Where are most car companies founded in 1900? Northern North America, Central, and Western Europe. Try one of those cities and it'll get a little easier.

[Tridon]

After maxing out the marketing budget I managed to sell one single pickup truck after 6-7 months. It's also hard to sell poor quality (I guess) since I couldn't make them any better due to the cost of the units. So yeah. Ethiopia will have to wait until my überskillz are far better.

Not saying this is good or bad, but as a beginner I observe that changing history by creating an Ethiopian car company is not easily done. So it seems it works as it should.

It might sound like a clichè, but this game seems to have so much potential. Excited to see how it evolves through the next patches

[Arakash]

After maxing out the marketing budget I managed to sell one single pickup truck after 6-7 months. It's also hard to sell poor quality (I guess) since I couldn't make them any better due to the cost of the units. So yeah. Ethiopia will have to wait until my überskillz are far better.

Not saying this is good or bad, but as a beginner I observe that changing history by creating an Ethiopian car company is not easily done. So it seems it works as it should.

It might sound like a clichè, but this game seems to have so much potential. Excited to see how it evolves through the next patches

If you want a more reasonable low tech city in the 1900 start, try Japan.
Its percapita is still a lot lower than Europe and the US, but its high enough that you can actually run a car company there. Ive certainly done so before.
For any new players watching though, id highly recommend London or New York, until you really get familiar with the complex game mechanics.

[Remaggib]

I noticed when I started a new game, that on easy I started with 40 million rather than 4 million. Is this right? Might make it too easy to skate through with that much dough.

[Eric.B]

I noticed when I started a new game, that on easy I started with 40 million rather than 4 million. Is this right? Might make it too easy to skate through with that much dough.

That happened to you as well? Can you tell me what you did, because I have someone on steam that, that is happening to.