I’ve been playing a bit of Motorsport Manager recently, and got to thinking about the rules / voting system!
I thought it would be interesting if you could collect lobbying power in Automation along similar lines to research / tech pool points.
So if I want to veto a change to minimum safety regulations, I should be able to lobby against it and hold it up for a few years or something!
Likewise, a Fruinian company could invest lots of lobbying power into improving the minimum safety / emissions rules in Archana or Gasmea to bring them into line and give them a competitive edge.
At the moment it just seems slightly immersion breaking that you can see decades in advance exactly when certain markets will open up, rules will change etc.
It would be interesting to use lobbying power maybe to open up the markets earlier or later, etc. depending on the interests of your company.
Maybe you could bribe other companies to vote along with you by sharing your tech pool bonus with them for 5 years or something! I’ll share my +3 aspiration with them if they share their +2 safety or something.
I know this would need a totally new set of negotiation AI a bit like Civilisation or something, but I got to thinking it might be cool.
It might also be good to be able to do corporate takeovers of ailing car brands.
You’d buy their plots, factories, and brand standing (reputation and prestige).
It would be useful because it would then mean you could split your models depending on whether you’re aiming for prestige or reputation. In the same way as Volkswagen bought Skoda so that VW could Moe a bit upmarket and still release less prestigious models under the Skoda brand.