This Grand Life 2 News

Previously I talked about setting up the economic policies that govern each city. Today I'd like to expand on how I've fleshed it out since then.

When setting up these policies I try to be as objective as possible while also making sure there's some variety and no two cities are too similar.

First off, we know people like to complain about the traffic in their local city. The question arises, how bad is it really compared to the rest of the world? This is where indices like the TomTom Traffic Index come into play.



From the above screenshot, I look at the average speed in rush hour to determine the offset from a baseline of 35km/h (the approximate average for all cities).

The results can be surprising! For example the average speed in New York is 40km/h while in London it's 26km/h. I would have thought they'd be similar but the data shows a clear difference between traffic speeds in US and UK cities.

Much like the traffic example above, I go through every policy currently in the game, look at the real world data and decide on an offset.



Some are harder to work out than others. Healthcare and education subsidies can be vastly different in each country in how they're administered which can obscure the true cost.

Some cities like San Jose in Silicon Valley are so completely lopsided that taking their true values would greatly distort the game mechanics. In these situations I remind myself that economies go through booms and busts. Instead of looking at things in their current state, we should decide on policy settings based on longer historical trends.



San Jose has been a tech and manufacturing powerhouse for a long time, but the city's current tech boom likely won't last the next hundred years, just as the oil/gold/railway rushes of the past didn't. In any case, TGL2's industry inflation mechanics will cause randomly generated booms and busts as you play the game.

[h3]Sources
[/h3]TomTom Traffic Index https://www.tomtom.com/traffic-index/ranking/

Out-of-pocket expenditure per capita on healthcare https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/out-of-pocket-expenditure-per-capita-on-healthcare

There are a few more challenges to consider once you start adding multiple characters to a household.



When two people are at the same location they have a chance to interact. They'll decide on a semi-random topic and depending on their preferences will improve or reduce their opinion of each other. Some examples would be:

• Person A dislikes and Person B is allergic to hygiene -> Good conversation, they're both averse to hygiene
  
• Person A likes and Person B dislikes the outdoors -> Minor bad conversation, they have opposing feelings
  
• Person A is addicted and Person B is allergic to authority -> Terrible conversation, they are complete opposites
  

"Dull" characters will tend to get along fine, but once you start putting "Unhinged" characters with opposing views together then the chance of getting a dysfunctional household increases.



You can tell two people to avoid each other, but this comes with the side effect of increasing potential anxiety over time.



To counteract the anxiety, your characters can then attend mental therapy sessions at the hospital.



The opposite is also true. A household with members that get along will increase the chances of a stable household which will improve everyone's happiness.

[h3]Other Household Effects[/h3]
As your net worth increases, your characters won't be satisfied living in a shared apartment forever. They will start demanding more floorspace at home.



A person who loves prestige will demand more space, while someone who hates prestige will be fine with less. Larger households will demand more living space sooner. Ignoring their demands will increase the chance of gaining the Wistful status, which lowers happiness.

To end on a positive note, more people in a household means more earnings before needing to pay tax!

Children attend school with the goal of obtaining a high school diploma by the time they near adulthood. Not everyone has the same experience though, and a child's personal success will be impacted by their preferences.



In the early years, they are subjected to a lot of authority and tend to do school activities that require creativity. Children who enjoy these things will be able to spend more time at school without negative consequences.



In the final years, the preferences for schooling are completely flipped. Now thinking and technology are important and a child that hates both of these is going to have a bad time.



Whether your child loves or hates school isn't set in stone at birth. When they reach their teenage years, the mood swings begin.



During adolescence, on every birthday a random preference can change. A child might start out liking something but hate it when they reach adulthood. You can choose to prevent these changes by spending health and happiness points, or let them run their course and accept the person that comes out the other end.

This Grand Life 2 will have a modding system that allows for a variety in gameplay for players, including some built-in mods that I'll talk about today.

[h3]Starting loans[/h3]

Some players might want to only play the trading/investing/business game and not worry about the day-to-day finances of being alive. To accommodate this, you can activate a mod where your parents give you a small loan of $1 million USD with a generously low interest rate.



Alternatively, those looking for more of a challenge can enable a loan from the mafia instead. This comes with an extortionate interest rate but allows you to attempt business activities or stock trading from the beginning, as long as you can keep up with the repayments!



[h3]City mods[/h3]
The new modding system is also used to alter cities based on their local/cultural differences. Some of this is cosmetic, for example in Osaka, Japan the Eat Plain Bread activity would be replaced by Eat Plain Rice.



City-specific mods can be enabled in places they don't belong. For example if you enabled the Canada mod, your fast food options might be slightly different.



This can have gameplay impacts as well. The VAT tax in a Swedish city (or one with the Swedish-specific country mod enabled) would be higher than in a German city, so all your shopping would be more expensive.



[h3]Child Workers[/h3]
This is another gameplay-altering mod where the working age is lowered to 5 years old. It means your children can become income-generators once they reach schooling age. As a consequence, the wages of all workers are also reduced, especially for less skilled jobs.

You can even hire some of these young'uns for your own business!



I've been adding these built-in mods whenever I think of something that sounds interesting (or a little unhinged) so players should have some different setups/scenarios to play out when the game is released.

Exciting news, the game will officially launch into Early Access on 20th June, 2024, marking a significant milestone in its development journey. It will also be participating in the upcoming Next Fest this June, offering players a sneak peek into what's to come.

I've dedicated efforts to integrate Mod support, a highly requested feature from TGL1. The Early Access release will not only feature built-in mods but also support for Steam workshop mods, barring any unforeseen circumstances.

Next on the list is a bit of a game changer. You'll have the ability to quickly toggle auto mode on or off for individual characters, giving the flexibility to manually control certain characters while allowing others to autonomously execute actions based on their settings. It's a perfect blend of real-time and turn-based gameplay styles, offering the best of both worlds!



Finally, I've been tackling issues such as prolonged save times during extended gameplay sessions. While there aren't any interesting screenshots to showcase these improvements, rest assured that work is still progressing. Stay tuned for further updates.