Thank you for all the positive feedback on last week’s word! It’s great to hear you like the format so we’ll stick to it for the time being. While the tech team is hard at work implementing the code modding support, we can focus on the economy in Cities: Skylines II in today's WoW. At release, the economy did not meet the quality standard we strive for and I apologize for the frustration this has caused. In the post-release patches, we have included fixes for issues present in the economy implementation, but some still remain, and we’re working on resolving those thanks to your reports. The fixes will focus on the underlying system as well as how the information is presented in the game to achieve more clarity that helps you understand the economy better. We’ve received many questions about what parts of the game’s economy are working as designed and what we’re working to change, so let’s dive in!
What is the impact of the specialized industries on the local economy?
Providing raw materials locally means companies using them do not have to import them as much from outside connections (or at all), which leads to those industries being more prosperous. Importing from outside connections is a more expensive choice than local availability, so local resources benefit companies’ bottom line. The design team will look into how to make it more clear which companies are importing or exporting, and how you can affect that.
Why are some services free to import while others have a fee?
One part of the Budget panel’s Expenses is the cost of service trade. Only part of the services are charged when traded, and these are electricity, water and sewage. Other services do not cost you anything to import. But why? The cost of these traded services comes in the form of time, as it will take a long time for them to arrive at their destination. This increases the negative effects on the city. For example, a citizen waiting for an ambulance for a long time increases their probability of dying when their health is low for a long time. Additionally, when a citizen is waiting for treatment, they can’t go to work, giving the company a penalty to its Efficiency.
How is “profitability” determined?
In the game, the company's profitability is calculated from the company's revenue and expenses, which include employee salary, resource buying, tax-paying, and daily production. The profitability indicates the possibility for a positive income, and it varies between 0 and 255. When there is no income for the company, and it still needs to pay a lot of expenses, the profitability can become 0. But it doesn't mean the company currently doesn't have any money, but rather predicts the value of revenue or loss of money. Issues like the lack of employees and the lack of input or output resources can cause profitability to fluctuate. When it comes to the profitability of the company, the calculations may change after we evaluate the complexity of the entire economy based on the feedback we’ve received.
What does the monthly balance show?
The game’s user interface includes tools for you to observe and control the overall economy of the city. The monthly balance in the City Economy panel’s Budget tab counts the current Revenues and Expenses together. It shows what is currently the estimated amount of money the city will gain or lose in the current month. Note that one day cycle in the game equals one month! The City Economy has been affected by bugs that caused the expected income (or loss) to not match the actual monthly income of the city, and we’re working to resolve the remaining issues with industrial tax reaching high values for no apparent reason.
What does “9% interest” on a loan mean? How is it calculated?
It will add a Loan Interest to the Budget panel, which is a monthly fee that will apply to your city’s money. It is calculated by the formula LoanRemainAmount * InterestRate every month, and as the remaining loan amount decreases each month, so will the amount your city pays.
We have also received questions about Land Value, so I want to share a quick update about the current state of both the Land Value and Demand systems, as both will have changes and fixes included in the next patch to the game. The Land Value system has been worked on for a while now, with the first improvements available in patch 1.0.19f1, and the demand system will be improved to make it easier to understand. Fixing major systems like the land value takes a bit more time than the usual bug fixes because these elements are connected to the other parts of the game’s economy system. Our goal with these changes is to make the systems more user-friendly to work with so, for example, it’s easier to understand what causes the high rents and how you can affect it. We’ll go over the land value and demand system improvements after all the changes are in, so stay tuned for that.
That’s it for this week. Have a lovely one until next time!
Sincerely,
Mariina