This Grand Life 2 News

The first versions of Chinese (Simplified) and Japanese translations have been added to the game and uploaded to Localizor.

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil has been added as a new city. It has a relatively large energy industry and an interesting geography to navigate. A high crime rate means going over your floorspace limits is not recommended!



The new Events Management business requires a variety of jobs such as Events Coordinator, Electrician and Digital Artist. This diverse range makes it hard to run as a family business and you'll likely need to hire outside help.



Some quality of life improvements that might be easily missed - switch the order of your characters...



...and add shortcuts for accessing stocks on the character panel



[h3]===Version 0.63.01===[/h3]

• Various changes to accommodate multi-language UI
  
• Add first version of Chinese (Simplified) and Japanese translations
  
• When starting game for first time ever, set game language based on system language
  
• Add Rio de Janeiro city
  
• Add Social Media Manager and Events Director jobs
  
• Add Events Management business
  
• Add arrows for switching positions of people in bottom character display
  
• Add ability to add shortcut to character panel for individual stocks
  
• Add sorting options for Asset List owned and rented real estate
  
• Rearrange home food activities to be closer together in UI
  
• Remove happiness cost for abandoning Marriage and Adoption passions
  
• Job interview success chance is moddable
  
• Fix relation options can be enabled even when greyed out
  

The experimental and main branch are now the same again. In addition to the new Social features discussed in the last announcement, now your characters can gain the Grieving status effect if someone close to them dies. There are different ways they might choose to deal with this grief. If they decide to withdraw from the world, they will feel negatively towards social activities and positively towards sleeping for the duration of the grieving period.



Babies and children now get a bonus to compatibility with others. This effect will decay over time. It should solve the problem where "extreme" parents start hating their babies, but still allow teenagers to become less compatible with their parents.



Finally, I've added in a preliminary German translation to the game and set it up on Localizor for community suggestions on improvements. I'll be taking some time over the next few weeks to add Chinese and Japanese as well.

[h2]v0.62.29[/h2]
[h3]Relationship Changes[/h3]

• Overhaul Socials window and how characters interact with each other
  
• Add biological, legal, romantic and friendship relationships between characters
  
• Add new game character creation UI for setting up relationships
  
• Add gene marker to every character that gets passed on to biological children
  
• Add romantic attraction and functionality for pursuing someone romantically
  
• Add little icons to actions indicating how they affect opinion and romance between characters
  
• Implement functionality for characters on friends list to gain status effects
  
• Characters have a chance to gain different Grieving status effects when someone dies, depending on their relationships to dead character
  
• Split opinions into two - "my opinion of them" and "their opinion of me"
  
• Add Marriage passion and related goals/activities
  
• Add same-sex marriage legality to each city
  
• Allow enabling pregnancy when male selected instead of only when female selected
  
• Open To Meet defaults to turned on for new household members
  
• Add option to disable Open To Meet on popup when someone new is met
  
• Adopted child gets small opinion boost towards adopters
  
• Update help button information for Socials window
  
• Disabled kicking children out of household
  

[h3]Other Changes[/h3]

• Add Thievery passion to TutorialVille map
  
• Add tutorial item for Passions
  
• Add button to change languages on main menu
  
• Add first version of German translation
  
• Change TutorialVille stock market generation to be same as other cities
  
• Change the word "person" to "character" in lots of places for consistency
  
• Limit max characters at new game character creation to 12
  
• Fix some inconsistencies in character creation screen display when deleting people
  
• Fix imported household missing character age display
  
• Fix passion goal action using passion's tooltip hint insted of action's tooltip hint
  
• Fix passion participants completing a goal doesn't reset participants to allow completing another goal in the same month
  
• Fix opinion and attraction values not transferred when importing household from a previous save
  
• Fix on Character Panel status effect tooltip always showing only one plus/minus symbol for needs/points changes regardless of severity of effect
  

The social and relationships overhaul is turning out to be more extensive than anticipated, so once again I've released the update on the experimental branch first.

Every character now has three possible relationship types with every other character - biological, legal and romantic. When starting a new game there is a new setup page for specifying these relationships:



In addition to the existing opinion value, a new "attraction" value has been added. When the relevant interaction choice is activated, potential partners will observe and judge your every move.

If a potential partner loves Spirituality, then sitting on a bench will make you more attractive to them. If they hate Eating, they will be disgusted by excessive food consumption habits.



The attraction system naturally extends to the jobs you might be motivated to pursue - has someone with a Prestige addiction caught your eye? Find work as a Surgeon or Investment Banker and they will fall madly in love.



Finally, the new Marriage passion gives you options for starting and ending a government-recognized union between two people.

The default branch has been updated and is now the same as the experimental one. I have also added a new branch "v0.59.09" in case you want to play existing saves without the new endgame changes.

In addition to the changes mentioned in the two previous posts (Post 1, Post 2), this update replaces the Tourism industry with the Government industry. Many industry tags have been adjusted to suit. If you are loading an existing save you will see slight discrepancies, for example the "Hotels and Resorts" stock market companies being affected by the Government instead of Entertainment industry.

You can also embrace the new Mass Protest passion. Take up the Lead Protest goal to generate Influence points for a more grassroots method of influencing government policies.



Now that the endgame has been fleshed out, I'll be turning my attention to the not-so-financial aspects of life such as a proper family tree and "romantic attraction" system.


[h2]v0.61.01[/h2]
[h3]Rivals, Influence And Policies[/h3]

• Overhaul Rivals, Influence and Policies window
  
• Add rivals and rankings
  
• Add business and real estate competition from rivals and public
  
• Competition affects business awareness costs and real estate rental prices
  
• Rivals support or oppose proposed policies
  
• Rivals buy / sell stocks, real estate and businesses depending on economic conditions and competition
  
• Influence points generated from player business influence operations
  
• Influence points generated from stock ownership shareholder activism
  
• Influence points generated from some jobs and activities
  

[h3]Stock Market[/h3]

• Change stock market generation to have more evenly distributed and lower market caps at game start
  
• Increase maximum ownership of stock in one company from 20% to 25%
  
• Add sorting stocks by market cap
  
• Buying / selling stocks immediately changes market price caused by player's trading
  
• Prevent player from buying more stock than they can afford, taking into account market price change and trading fees
  
• Fix dividends not being removed from the market price of stocks the player doesn't own
  

[h3]New Content[/h3]

• Add DEGREE:Communications education
  
• Add jobs Radio Host, Journalist, Accounts Manager, Music Director, Public Relations Specialist, Private Investigator
  
• Add business Online Radio Station and Investigation Services
  
• Add Speaking Made Easy course to Town Hall
  
• Add Mass Protest passion and related goals/activities
  

[h3]Content Changes[/h3]

• Replace Tourism industry with Government industry and change a bunch of industry tags for jobs to match
  
• Add Energy industry impact to Plumbing and Electrical related jobs and business
  
• Add industries related to each job and business in City Explorer
  
• Add industry tags to Sales Legends! and Influencing People 101 courses
  
• Rename Executive Assistant job to Office Manager
  
• Rename Supply Government Buildings contract to Supply Government
  
• Removed Join Protest from normal activities and added it to Mass Protest passion
  
• Player business work hours multiplier at 0% Brand Awareness lowered from 20% to 5%
  
• Player business increase max work hours for Mortgage Brokerage, Financial Planner, Medical Clinic, Music School, Cafe and Hair Salon
  

[h3]Other Changes[/h3]

• Game force pauses when rename business popup appears
  
• Alert indicator added if player business has work hours remaining but no work activity for over 160 hours
  
• Improve site highlighting animations
  
• Birthday preference choices algorithm adjusted to avoid repeating the same preference change in two different choices
  
• Birthday status choices decreased by 1 and preference choices increased by 1
  
• Lowered interest rate on Certificate Of Deposit
  
• Fix happiness/health change arrows from character panel animating on top of other windows
  
• Fix Recording Equipment asset not consuming Electricity
  
• Fix tooltip sometimes becoming semi-transparent when sites on map being highlighted
  

The Rivals, Influence and Policies overhaul is now available on the Experimental Branch and the relevant Discord channel is open again.

I have added a temporary mod "Instant Millionaire" which can be enabled if you want to skip to the new stuff on a fresh game. Note your old saves are still compatible, but the stock market will go through an adjustment period.



In addition to the mechanics mentioned previously, there are some other notable changes.

Some jobs and activities can generate influence points. This simulates things like a Religious Preacher telling their congregation to support a policy proposal, or a University Professor debating the merits of a policy with their class.



Each business and real estate type has a Competition Index representing the strength of competitors in the city. Higher competition makes business brand awareness more expensive and harder to maintain. It also lowers real estate rents.



To complement the new mechanics, the Online Radio Station is a new player business with exceptional influence point generation capabilities, especially if your household members perform the work of Radio Host and Journalist themselves!