[LHC] - Letara History Challenge - Rd 5 [Results being posted]

Community Challenges & Competitions
1



WELCOME TO LETARA




BACKGROUND

In this challenge series you will take the helm of a car company and try to make sales as you guide it through the history of Letara. Letara is a fictional country with access to both the real world and the Automation universe, so if you have lore in either, or have no lore at all, you are welcome here. Although this challenge is heavily inspired by several predecessors (CoP, SCCR, and ALC of course), here I will attempt to create a more interactive universe using world-building elements with tangible effects, including lobbying and company spending, company owned property (manufacturing and assembly plants), RNG simulated economical ups and downs, natural disasters, and political upheavals. All you have to do is follow the story as it unfolds, submit appropriate cars each round, and don’t forget to lobby and spend!


SO HOW WILL THIS WORK?

BASIC RULES (AKA TL:DR)

  • Put all of your communications to me (e.g. submissions/lobbying/questions etc.) into one DM thread with the topic “LHC - <YourForumName>” please. If you don’t know how to find your previous messages, see the tutorial by @AMuteCrypt in the ALC OP.
  • All mods allowed.
  • I’ll always be on the newest 4.2x opt-in Alpha/Beta/Gamma version of the game.
  • Collabs are allowed, but only one entry per person per category (more on categories later, but in short, if you collab with someone on a consumer car and it’s a joint submission, you can not submit an individual consumer car in the same round; you can still submit a race or government car however).
  • Rounds will be roughly 10 years, but there is some variability. The length of each round will be revealed when the round is announced. If you have a good handle on when things unlock in Automation, you might anticipate to a certain degree…
  • Cars will be reviewed from the perspective of the Letaran car market; the current economic and political climate will have a large influence, as well as what your competition offers.
  • Unless something goes horribly wrong, there will be no “bins” in this series. All cars will be considered based on their strengths and weaknesses. Accordingly, there will be no “winners”, just a mention of more or less successful attempts to dominate a market.
  • Each round you will have the opportunity to submit:
    • A street-legal consumer vehicle model with up to three different trims.
    • A race car.
    • A government commissioned vehicle.
  • Please only cars that are viable in the base game. Meaning: no faux- diesels, jet engines, steam engines, trains, boats, airplanes, trikes, motorcycles, etc. I will not “make believe” stats or functions.
  • No ET/PU limits, but keep an eye on the final price if you want to make a competitive car!
  • Legacy bodies are mostly severely broken, so are banned from the series.
  • All advanced trim options which have the same visual effect as an existing option in engineering should be avoided. All other advanced trim settings are allowed. The banned settings are:
    • Wheel offset
    • Wheel width
    • Wheel diameter
    • Camber
    • Tyre diameter
    • Tread width
    • Ride height more than 2 clicks
    • Body Z offset more than 1 click
    • Chassis track width
    • Front/Rear wheelbase offset more than 2 clicks
    • Any of the engine position sliders
  • Cars should be named LHC - <era number, car category & trim number> - <YourForumName> (e.g. “LHC - 3C1 - cake_ape” means I submitted a car to the third round and it’s the first consumer trim).

ROUND PROGRESSION

Each round will have several stages:

  • Preface: company lobbying and spending (~ 1 week).
    • After a round’s results are posted, I will announce the next round with a preface. The preface will include a summary of the current state of Letara, the duration of the next round, a list of proposed lobby ideas, a list of all eligible companies that can lobby and spend their money, and their power/token allocations.
    • People who participated in the previous round with a consumer vehicle will have an opportunity to lobby the government for/against certain automotive regulations for the upcoming round.
    • People who participated in the previous round with a consumer vechicle` will have an opportunity to spend tokens on corporate and/or state infrastructure/improvements, and/or buying car assembly plants or factories if they want to participate in the upcoming round. More on this later.
  • Prologue: After all lobbying and spending is done, I will summary them and post the results and their effect on Letara. The rules and regulations for the upcoming round are finalized and announced. (~ 1 week)
  • Submission: Waiting for car submissions from everyone. (2-3 weeks).
  • Results: (1-2 weeks).
    • Reveal the economy trends and any other notable events in Letara that affect the round (e.g. political upheavals, natural disasters etc. - yes, just like in real life you won’t know ahead of time when these are).
    • Review all cars and provide write-up with results.

LOBBYING AND SPENDING MECHANIC

People who participated in a round by submitting a consumer model may lobby the government and/or spend tokens during the Preface period which will affect the next round. Meaning: if you only submitted a race car and/or government assignment vehicle, then you are not eligible for lobbying and spending. The consumer vehicle is still the meat on the bones of this challenge series!

  • Lobbying:
    • Each company will have a base lobbying power of 10, which you may spend in whole integers on various issues. How you divide your tokens is up to you.
    • There will be per-determined lobbying issues for each round, but you can also propose your own issues.
    • Lobbying power can be increased by owning assembly plants or factories in Letara.
  • Spending:
    • Each company will have 10 tokes to spend.
    • There will be per-determined spending targets for each round mainly targeting various industry or infrastructure projects in Letara, but you can also propose your own projects.
    • You can buy property in Letara:
      • You can buy an Assembly Plant for 6 spending tokens. This means that for the next round you will own an assembly plant for your company. Benefits include lowered import taxes to 10% (all imported cars have 20% import tax!), effectively making your cars cheaper to sell, and a 30% increase in lobbying power (13 points for the next round). Drawback is that you only have 4 spending tokens left in this round. Once you have an assembly plant, in subsequent rounds it only takes 3 tokens to maintain, but you keep the normal benefits.
      • You can buy a Factory for 10 spending tokens. This means that for the next round you will own a full car factory for your company. Benefits include elimination of import taxes, and a 60% increase in lobbying power (16 points for the next round). Drawback is that you don’t have any spending tokens left this round. Once you have a factory, in subsequent rounds it only takes 5 tokens to maintain, but you keep the normal benefits.

Examples:

  • If you participated in round but did not own property, then you can:

    • Not participate in lobbying and spending for the next round (no judgment); or
    • Spend 10 tokens on spending items and 10 power on lobbying items; or
    • Spend 6 tokens on an assembly plant for the next round, 4 tokens on spending items, and 13 power on lobbying items; or
    • Spend 10 tokens on a full factory for the next round, and 16 power on lobbying items.

  • If you owned an assembly plant in the previous round, then for the next round you can either:

    • Not participate in lobbying and spending for the next round (no judgment, but you automatically give up the assembly plant); or
    • Spend 3 tokens to maintain the assembly plant, spend the remaining 7 tokens on spending items, and spend 13 lobbying power; or
    • Spend 7 tokens to upgrade a full factory for the next round, spend the remaining 3 tokens on spending items, and 16 power on lobbying items.

  • If you owned a factory in the previous round, then for the next round you can either:

    • Not participate in lobbying and spending for the next round (no judgment, but you automatically give up the factory); or
    • Spend 5 tokens to maintain the factory, spend the remaining 5 tokens on spending items, and spend 16 lobbying power.

YOUR COMPANY

All you need to participate is create a car company making cars. It’s that simple. You are allowed to have sub-brands within the larger company (similar to GM/GMC/Chevy/Buick/Cadillac…). You can have one (1) main brand/company and up to three (3) subsidiaries. When you submit your first car, you must register your company and sub-brands and indicate where they are from. All of your subsequent submissions will be from this company (or sub-brands), so make sure it’s the company you want to commit to. Note that there are no domestic Letaran companies in this series, so you may not own a domestic brand. All cars will have a 20% import tax slapped on their base price. However, you may purchase assemblies/manufacturies in Letara with their attendant benefits and drawbacks as described above.


LETARA

Currently not much is known about Letara. All we know is that it is located on a peninsula, and we have a name and flag. Other parameters, such as its climate, political and economic status, level of development and urbanization are all unknown. In lieu of lobbying and spending, these parameters and others will be determined by community vote in the Preface of Round 1 (everyone can participate!). As a teaser I will reveal though that after starting with a blank slate, I will be building the country in the game Soviet Republic as our collective journey through the rounds progresses, so you will get a real visual effect of how your decisions shape the evolution of the country throughout its history from 1946 to 2020.


An index of important posts will be compiled here:


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With ALC on hold for now, LHC could yet fill the void until the actual ALC gets going again - but it would be great to see both of them running in parallel at once.

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YES FINALLY, YOU DID IT

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I might give this a try.

Not sure what company would be my choice for this, but I’ll come up with something. Could be Kasivah. Could be Bricksley. Could be something else entirely.

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5

Interesting premise, and possibly the perfect opportunity utilize my new brand, Mayland LGTC.

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The factory and assembly thing is really complicated I don’t understand it

7

It’s an investment system that is almost entirely optional.

If you invest 6 points, you get 10% cheaper cars, and can throw around more lobbying weight. This comes at the cost of 4 development tokens for the country in subsequent eras.

If you invest 10 points, you get 20% cheaper cars, and can throw around even more lobbying weight. This comes at the cost of 6 development tokens for the country in subsequent eras.

It’s an optional thing to get cheaper cars, and more influence in the rules, but at the cost of being able to develop the country.

If you don’t get it, you don’t need to engage with it, basically.

3 Likes
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Oh I was confused about the purchasing thing. If I spend 6 tokens to maintain my factory it closes down? That’s an interesting mechanic

9

Not quite. So this only applies for people who participated in the immediate previous round with a consumer vehicle and are in the Preface phase of the next round.

If you do not own an assembly or factory, and don’t want to purchase one for the upcoming round, then you have 10 spending tokens and 10 lobby power to allocate. Your cars will import with 20% tax added.

If you do not own an assembly or factory, and want to purchase one, then you can do so during the Preface. An assembly costs 6 spending tokens (leaving you with 4 to spend on other things in this Preface), and a factory costs 10 tokens (leaving you with nothing). If you buy an assembly, you will immediately have increased your lobby power to 13 and reduced your import costs to 10%; and if you buy a factory then to you increase your lobby power to 16 and reduce your import costs to 0%. But of course you won’t be able to participate or push for major industry or infrastructure projects (e.g. highways, steel mills, oil refineries etc). You can imagine what perks each of these megaprojects bring in the long run…

If you already own an assembly or factory from the previous round, but do not with to maintain it for the next round, then you go back to default 10 spending tokens and 10 lobby power. You will have to purchase the assembly or factory in a future round at full price.

If you already own an assembly or factory from the previous round, you can maintain them (i.e. keep them for the upcoming round). To maintain an assembly costs 4 tokens (leaving you with 6 to spend on other things this round), and to maintain a factory costs 6 tokens (leaving you with 4). The lobby power remains 13 for assembly ownership and 16 for factory ownership. So in the long run it pays to maintain your facilities (this is the only persistent aspect from round to round and acts as an incentive to keep coming back).

Don’t worry too much about the nuances, this is entirely optional. You can always just stick to the basic 10/10 scheme. Also I will keep track as time goes on and in each Prologue I will outline exactly who owns what and the various options for purchasing tokens and lobbying power, so it’ll become very clear.

Last but not least, this is really mean to add some nuance to how you want to run your company. Do you want to have maximum influence on the government to pass environmental or safety regulations? It makes sense to invest in an assembly or factory and lobby hard with your increased lobbying power. Do you not care much about what regulations are passed, but would rather help build a nice interstate system or a new steel mill? Better not spend on assemblies or factories but rather spend those tokens on getting the megaproject done.

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That means owning a factory is a lot more efficiency than an assembly. Maintaining an asssembly leaves you with 6 tokens and gives 13 power, for a total of 19 tokens and power. Meanwhile maintaining a factory leaves you with 4 tokens and gives 16 power for a total of 20 tokens and power.

Is there any more detail available on what effects does the lobbying and token spending does and when is the start date?

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It is not quite as simple as that when it comes to tokens and lobbying. Just like in the real world the vagaries of the government will have a large influence on what actually gets implemented or not, and sometimes projects fail despite best efforts. So you can’t directly translate the number of tokens or power to outcomes as if it were just a simple spreadsheet calculation.

Lobbying topics and spending items will vary round to round and their effects will be explained in the Preface for the given round.

12

This sounds fun, count me in!

13

Fascinating. I could get down with this.

14

I wanted to participate in ALC, but seeing as that is not actively running at the moment I can try my hand at this I suppose. I’m going to have to read and re read the rules like its an exam question to figure out how it works and what I want to do.

Looks good though, and nice that we will have a visual representation.

15

Sorry for potentially clogging up the thread, but I was curious how research and the tech pool was going to be handled. Would those come out of our cash points or would it be something else? Or would we just not worry about that?

16

If you mean actual tech pool, that won’t come until 4.3 (Killrob on Discord said on 06/24/2022: Yes, that is coming back. In fact the backend for that has been implemented already, you’re currently building cars for the Sandbox company. Along with that we’re introducing sandbox company tech pool. This is something I think will come with LCV4.3). So we won’t worry about that for this series. I might have to re-run the challenge in 4.3 though whenever that drops to take advantage, because it’d add a fun new dimension to the experience!

If you mean using the tech pool unleased tool, then no, that would overly complicate things in an already fairly complex series, so it won’t be used in this series.

I will however implement a soft tech pool simulation for this series. For example if research into electronics is pushed by companies by spending on higher education, then I might allow more modern fixtures than IRL examples (think LEDs in the early 90s or something similar).

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If you wanted, you could also allow for use of technologies that would otherwise be banned for a certain round. Such as: a round set in the 1960’s could possibly mandate carburetors in your rules, but if enough people invested in education then people would be allowed to use mechanical fuel injection. Or certain things would unlock more transmission gears, stuff like that. Just a thought.

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Maybe we can just invest in different tech types like in the game!

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Rd. 1 PREFACE: WORLD BUILDING




INTRODUCTION

In lieu of lobbying and company spending, the Preface of the first round will consist of some world building. Everyone can participate! Here you will be able to shape the initial conditions of Letara including the natural environment, politics, economy, and level of development. All of these will have a tangible effect on the starting conditions of the series, and also have longer-term effects that might reverberate through all the eras - so choose carefully!

But first, let me introduce you to the landmass of Letara. The country occupies most of a peninsula. It has some flat low-lying areas in the central and northern regions, some hills and small mountains in the west and center, scenic fjords and bays, and a large volcano in the middle of the peninsula. The continental side of the country borders Somunds in the south-east; the relationship to this country will be determined by a poll. The tip of the peninsula is occupied by a military enclave of a far-off country called Montelin, and separated from Letara by a DMZ; although the relationship with Montelin is a bit icy at the moment, the nature of this border and the relationship with Montelin will evolve through the rounds.

Rnd 0 - Montelin
Rnd 0 - Montelin1920Ă—810 235 KB

View of Letara from Montelin base and DMZ

In terms of natural resources, there are deposits of iron and coal with potential for steel and energy production, bauxite for aluminium production, oil for fuel and energy production, uranium for energy production, and potential for agriculture and forestry in various parts of the country. The coasts and mountains have potential to develop a thriving tourism industry. Which of these industries gets developed will depend on company spending through the rounds; each development will result in tangible effects on the car industry.

Without further ado, let’s do some polling to see what the country looks like in 1946, the start of our joint journey, shall we?


POLLS

Climate (Will affect environmental damage and degradation of cars, cooling needs, and car type preferences. Note that Soviet Republic only has green ground textures and temperate/sub-polar trees, so the other climate zones won’t be represented visually, but will be taken into account for the judging)
  • Warm and arid desert-like (west-central Australia, middle east, parts of Africa, Arizona etc.)
  • Warm and wet tropical (south-east Asia, central Africa and America etc.)
  • Temperate Mediterranean (California, Mediterranean coast etc.)
  • Temperate wet (north-east USA, New Zealand, most of west and central Europe etc.)
  • Sub-polar (northern Canada, Siberia, northern Scandinavia, etc.)

0 voters


Political structure (Will affect just about everything: economic stability, development trajectory, your influence in lobbying and spending etc etc…)
  • Democracy (most stable government unlikely to result in unrest; high lobbying and spending influence so with clever investment you can influence development quite a bit) – probably the most predictable and stable play-through
  • Communism (moderately stable government that might collapse if things don’t go well; low lobbying influence because it’s hard to influence the government and its “5 year plans”) – the government might push a few unwise decisions through regardless of public opinion, but they will be mostly rational and predictable
  • Dictatorship (least stable that might result in regular upheavals or replacement with a different government type if thins really go south; moderate lobbying influence; you can easily bribe the dear leader, but they still might make capricious decisions from time to time!) – the dictator can be bribed and influenced to some degree, but they will throw a few interesting (?) curve-balls your way

0 voters


Road infrastructure development (Will affect ease of movement for goods and people, and preference for car types)
  • Low (paved roads in major cities and a few paved regional roads connecting major cities, otherwise gravel and dirt roads)
  • Medium (paved roads in cities and most connecting regional roads, otherwise gravel roads with few dirt roads in least travelled rural areas)
  • High (good quality paved roads in cities and towns, fledgling highway system and most regional roads paved, good quality gravel roads in rural areas)

0 voters


Initial industry (One raw material production will be slightly more developed at the beginning - your choice is which one; each will have a tangible benefit for the series)
  • Coal (used for power generation and a precursor for steel making)
  • Iron (good for export; precursor for steel making)
  • Bauxite (precursor for aluminium making)
  • Oil (precursor for bitumen and fuel production)
  • Agriculture (food production)
  • Forestry (forestry products)

0 voters


Level of urbanization (Where do people live and work?)
  • Low (mostly rural countryside with small towns and villages dotted over the landscape, few scattered cities clustered around industry)
  • Medium (capital city with dense downtown core, few larger cities around industry, but still fair amount of rural areas)
  • High (a number of larger and denser cities with a relatively low density rural countryside)

0 voters


Level of other infrastructure (Rail/ship/train - affects overall effectiveness of movement of goods and people into, out, and within the country)
  • Minimal (no rail, no airport, one small harbour)
  • Low (one rail line connecting main industry and harbour, one small regional airport, one medium harbour)
  • Medium (rail connecting major industries and harbour, one small international airport, one medium harbour)
  • High (rail connecting major industries and cities and harbour, one medium international airport, one medium harbour)

0 voters


Polls close September 24, so get your votes in! Make sure you pick what you want and don't get buyer's remorse. I will keep the results hidden until the polls close to keep some suspense and mistery. I'll finish building Letara after the polls close and when finished post the Prologue for Round 1.

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Preface Addendum because I'm forgetful


I forgot to add the poll for the relationship with Somunds. Here it is:

Relationship with Somunds (Will affect how people and good can move between Letara and Somunds, the only land border)
  • Allied (open borders, open trade)
  • Friendly (open borders with passport check, minor tariffs on luxury goods)
  • Neutral (travel permit required and can be obtained border, some trade tariffs)
  • Cool (need pre-approved visa to travel, higher tariffs and restrictions on certain goods)
  • Rival (only official travel allowed with visa, essential goods only)
  • Hostile (travel and trade forbidden beyond what is deemed absolutely necessary by the highest levels of government)

0 voters


12 Likes