Consider this my lazy attempt at a review/DAR :)
After i heard about Capitalism Lab, i decided to try Cap2 again, and see why i liked it so much and if a bunch of improvements from CapLab could be worth it.
Rediscovering the game
First thing i should mention is the steep learning curve, but i dont imagine this to be a surprise or even deterrent for most readers :).
Even as a veteran, it took me a while to rediscover the UI, but as i spend more time clicking through the interface things began to come back to me. Like the fact that there are a lot useful shortcuts on most screens, or that right-click always closes whatever menu you have open, or how and where to find all the necessary information, or the fact that gameplay-wise, you can build a corporate HQ to enable more actions. My overall impression after a first session of playing is that the UI is pretty decent for it's time, but as you'll read later on, i have barely scratched the surface in that first session ;)
The resolution appears to be fixed at 800x600, but it looks pretty decent when scaled and stretched on my 1680x1050 monitor. I could disable stretching on my monitor, but it doesn't remember the setting, so i'd end up disabling it for every session. I decided i can live with the stretching. I'd show a screenshot of how it looks, but the screenshots are not stretched, and i can only take screenshots of the main view, not the various dialogs where all the intersting stuff happens.
Setting things up
There are a lot of things one can configure before starting a game. But don't worry, there are also 9 preset difficulty levels if you don't want to spend an hour learning what every option means and then deciding which settings you want.
But if you do take a closer look at the individual settings, you'll see that you can set up different types of games. An example of this is the quality of imports. A high setting will make it more difficult to set up a manufacturing chain, a corporation will have to invest significantly in research to compete with the imported goods, but it will also make it more profitable to sell or even rebrand these imported goods in your own retail stores. It is a setting which can determine your starting strategy.
Other options include the ability to set starting cash for yourself and your competitors and competitor aggressiveness. You can also set the starting year (either 1990 or 2000) which as far as i can see will only influence which products are available.
There are also 4 (!) screens where you can configure the goals of your game...i haven't really delved into these but at first glance it looks very extensive, with things like market dominance per product category or % of stock owned.
I chose to start with 4 competitors, and moderate settings on most other things.
That's it for now. Next up is a small report on my first session, in which i mostly focused on the stock market as an alternative starting strategy, rather that starting with retail or manufacturing.
After i heard about Capitalism Lab, i decided to try Cap2 again, and see why i liked it so much and if a bunch of improvements from CapLab could be worth it.
Rediscovering the game
First thing i should mention is the steep learning curve, but i dont imagine this to be a surprise or even deterrent for most readers :).
Even as a veteran, it took me a while to rediscover the UI, but as i spend more time clicking through the interface things began to come back to me. Like the fact that there are a lot useful shortcuts on most screens, or that right-click always closes whatever menu you have open, or how and where to find all the necessary information, or the fact that gameplay-wise, you can build a corporate HQ to enable more actions. My overall impression after a first session of playing is that the UI is pretty decent for it's time, but as you'll read later on, i have barely scratched the surface in that first session ;)
The resolution appears to be fixed at 800x600, but it looks pretty decent when scaled and stretched on my 1680x1050 monitor. I could disable stretching on my monitor, but it doesn't remember the setting, so i'd end up disabling it for every session. I decided i can live with the stretching. I'd show a screenshot of how it looks, but the screenshots are not stretched, and i can only take screenshots of the main view, not the various dialogs where all the intersting stuff happens.
Setting things up
There are a lot of things one can configure before starting a game. But don't worry, there are also 9 preset difficulty levels if you don't want to spend an hour learning what every option means and then deciding which settings you want.
But if you do take a closer look at the individual settings, you'll see that you can set up different types of games. An example of this is the quality of imports. A high setting will make it more difficult to set up a manufacturing chain, a corporation will have to invest significantly in research to compete with the imported goods, but it will also make it more profitable to sell or even rebrand these imported goods in your own retail stores. It is a setting which can determine your starting strategy.
Other options include the ability to set starting cash for yourself and your competitors and competitor aggressiveness. You can also set the starting year (either 1990 or 2000) which as far as i can see will only influence which products are available.
There are also 4 (!) screens where you can configure the goals of your game...i haven't really delved into these but at first glance it looks very extensive, with things like market dominance per product category or % of stock owned.
I chose to start with 4 competitors, and moderate settings on most other things.
That's it for now. Next up is a small report on my first session, in which i mostly focused on the stock market as an alternative starting strategy, rather that starting with retail or manufacturing.