Sim Subterfuge

Sim Subterfuge is an economic simulator heavily based on the economic model from Victoria 2, made for https://itch.io/jam/dogpit-sim-jam. Theme was "A Matter of Degree" - I chose to interpret that as "degrees of separation", so the main objective is about forming a chain of introductions to reach a particular person. This is still more of a sandbox toy than a proper "game", so feel free to ignore the objective and just do what you like - it is deliberately set up so you can never lose. You will always have a tiny trickle of income even if you own nothing.

The game has no sound, so don't worry if you can't hear anything.

Instructions

The goal of the game is to build a network of contacts until you can eventually recruit the mayor. The more wealthy people are, the more they cost to recruit. You cannot recruit someone unless you have been introduced, which requires having already recruited someone they know.

Interface

The camera can be moved around using WASD or the arrow keys. It can be rotated using Q and E, and zoomed in and out using the mousewheel.

In the top left corner are three buttons; the leftmost button is the market view. This will open up a display of all the goods in the game and their current values, as well as the supply and demand from the last 24 hours. Clicking on the goods will open a more detailed price history graph showing the change in price over the last 48 hours, as well as the demand from businesses vs. the demand from citizens.

The middle button is the citizen view. Opening this will display a list of all citizens in the town, as well as a list of regions. Clicking any of the regions will narrow down the citizen display to just the citizens living in that region. Clicking on a citizen will open a display with more detail on the citizen's needs. Needs highlighted in red have not been fulfilled, and mousing over will give you an explanation of why they were not able to fill those needs.

The rightmost button is the network view. This will display a web of everyone you have met. People you have recruited will be highlighted in red. The Mayor is always known and will be highlighted in yellow, but you cannot recruit them until you have been introduced by recruiting someone who knows them. Recruiting someone will reveal more connections on the web based on everyone they know. Click and drag this view to move around, and use the mouse wheel to zoom in or out.

The top right buttons are the speed controls - clicking these will affect how quickly time passes.

Clicking on any building or farm will bring up the business view. This will allow you to see what goods the business requires as input and produces as output, as well as who is working there. You can also choose to buy the business. If you own the business, you can manually adjust the operational percentage - lowering this will cause the business to both consume and produce fewer goods. You can also choose to change what type of business this building is at no cost (only small businesses can be changed - larger 2 and 4 tile businesses are locked in).

Press escape to close any open windows. If you press escape with no windows open, you will bring up the option to quit the game.

The Economy

The economy is driven by a very basic supply and demand model. Every hour, goods will be produced from farms and factories and put on the market. Citizens and factories will then buy those goods from the market to use as input for the next round of production, or to satisfy their personal needs. If supply exceeds demand, prices will go down. If demand exceeds supply, prices will go up. The change in price is not always immediate, though. The key to making money is to observe economic trends and to purchase businesses that will turn a profit. Purchasing a pre-existing business will cost more based on its last day profits as well as how large it is, so you may find that highly profitable businesses are out of your price range. Vacant lots will always have a fixed cost of $100 and can be converted to other businesses after purchase. If you run out of money, you will start to lose control of unprofitable businesses. You will have to buy these back again later.

Citizens

Citizens are the main drivers of the economy, both working at factories and farms to produce goods, and consuming them to fulfill their needs. They will grow naturally over time, and shift between jobs and social classes as their personal situations wax and wane. Citizens will try to fulfill their needs from the bottom up, meaning that they will try to fulfill their life needs before their regular needs, and regular before luxury needs. This means that if they are lacking in basic necessities they will not even bother trying to fulfill higher needs, which may impact the market demand for luxury items. Recruiting individual citizens is done through the network view and the cost to do so will depend on how wealthy that citizen is. They will also draw a regular hourly cost as long as they are in your employ. Recruited citizens will siphon a small amount of money back to you from their workplace, but this may not always cover their cost, so be wary not to recruit more than you can afford. If you cannot afford to maintain an agent's salary, they will leave your employ and you will have to pay the up front cost to recruit them again. Your initial two agents are free and forever loyal, so you can never fully lose your network.