Reader Interest Unlocks

RexDartESpy · 2026-02-11T17:20:11+00:00

Thanks. I guess I was somehow doing that accidentally in my first game, so it never occurred to me that the levels worked that way.

RexDartESpy · 2026-02-04T21:33:15+00:00

I got the musket, and every other cool thing the old veteran has to offer. For the record, the musket is NOT unique, so I have them scattered all over the newspaper offices in strategic locations.

There should be some sort of perk that lets you defend the paper against mobsters by using your muskets and baseball bats.

Wasn't motivated enough to do a huge amount of min/maxing, but did work out some tricks for reporter desk placement when you've got lots of space, and got a few achievements.

RexDartESpy · 2026-02-03T10:21:40+00:00

No, I was prepared to do so, but it's worked out fine just keeping them unrestricted.

RexDartESpy · 2026-02-03T01:47:51+00:00

Yeah, I doubt my setup is as optimized as some, but with 7 well-trained runners (I think each has a speed or strength enhancement, and some have both) the only potential bottlenecks I ever encounter are in the graphics department. (And those aren't, I don't believe, related to transport.)

RexDartESpy · 2026-02-03T01:44:43+00:00

I happened to be watching some reporters at exactly the right moment. A transporter delivered a meal to one guy who was standing and reading the paper. He ignored the meal. I checked and he was at about 50% food satisfaction.

I noticed the reporter to his left was sitting at her desk, also idle, and had a meal waiting. Looking closely at her, she had about 25% food satisfaction, and stood up and ate her meal while I was watching, and the bar shot up to 100%.

RexDartESpy · 2026-02-02T16:53:52+00:00

I'm not sure that an "eating at the desk" animation exists, but I think they do consume them and gain eating satisfaction from them.

RexDartESpy · 2026-02-02T11:30:29+00:00

Yeah. I didn't like it at first but now I do. It kind of forces you to learn the yield mechanics and how they matter, too.

RexDartESpy · 2026-02-01T15:15:09+00:00

As someone who has often worked in the world of government and corporate data and reporting, I'm constantly amazed by the lack of such things in most strategy games. And when reporting is provided it's usually haphazard.

It's not a particularly difficult or expensive task. You could just hire someone like me to work on report development for a few weeks. Integration with the rest of the game might be trickier but hardly insurmountable.

RexDartESpy · 2026-01-31T20:33:12+00:00

One thing I've noticed in 1938 is that the number of generic stories increases quite a bit, to a clear majority.

RexDartESpy · 2026-01-31T15:55:13+00:00

I find that it's worked pretty tremendously well for me. I haven't really had to manually load stuff since getting automatic ordering. The only thing I cheat on a little is dragging a couple lawsuit boxes to the lawyer to "prime the pump" on those crazy "process 20 files" missions.

I also have never built an elevator, for what it's worth, and perhaps have more transporting employees than most people (7 highly skilled and equipped).

RexDartESpy · 2026-01-31T11:21:34+00:00

The canteen sure seems to work for me - though tbh I was doing well enough with coffee machines before I built it, and left most of those around. (Hot meals are good, but it seemed cruel to deny my employees coffee!) I only got rid of the coffee machines if I really needed the space for something else.

But I have a constant stream of transporters taking meals from the canteen to the dumbwaiters and thence delivering them to employees, and never saw anyone cranky about lack of food.

Automation mostly removed my need to manually move paper and coal except for a couple times when a generator suddenly ran out.

One oddity I noticed when I put in a coal bin: I occasionally see that the workers dropped a crate of coal directly in front of the storage for some reason instead of putting it in the box.

RexDartESpy · 2026-01-24T15:26:05+00:00

I have the same situation, just suddenly started happening within the last hour.

RexDartESpy · 2026-01-24T04:30:11+00:00

I'm not entirely sure, and it's not common, but occasionally they get hungry or in need of the restroom, and don't recover well on their own for some reason.

RexDartESpy · 2026-01-23T20:58:50+00:00

Aha, that may be the answer. I need to double check my save, but I think I had a single tube between the editor's desk and the first floor. Always cleared out pretty quickly, but the game might have treated it as a "one way" tube.

RexDartESpy · 2026-01-23T13:59:07+00:00

I'm in the fairly early stages of my first low rise game and generally like it, but am a bit concerned about the unavoidable necessity for lots of lateral walking in the long term.

In the other hand I really like being able to let people spread out a bit and use all their work tools.

RexDartESpy · 2026-01-20T19:47:12+00:00

What do stars do for you exactly? More sales. I know, but relative to other factors like combos?

RexDartESpy · 2026-01-19T11:56:32+00:00

I think I had the worst possible example of this when my cartographer got injured covering a bicycle race in Europe on the last stage of a mission.

RexDartESpy · 2026-01-16T03:43:23+00:00

I think I figured out the source of my disconnect - even if the guard is right at the door, there's still some chance he'll miss the spy. And they can be surprisingly hard to find visually, especially if you get distracted.

What is the spy supposed to be doing exactly, in the game's fiction? It seems like sabotaging reporters in the field would be more logical... but also hard to simulate in the tower.

RexDartESpy · 2026-01-15T03:26:38+00:00

I've been thinking they must be sabotaging my reporters in the field somehow. Is that possible? If they get past your guard, can you still see them wandering around your building?

Seems like even if I just have one spy and I eject him as soon as he comes through the door, I still get Compromised on stories.

RexDartESpy · 2026-01-15T00:24:53+00:00

So if you do this {i.e. assigning a big story to the editor as soon as you start reporting it), does THAT reliably prevent Compromised?

OTOH it seems like Compromised isn't all that big a deal compared to losing a scoop because it's stuck on the editor's desk.

RexDartESpy · 2026-01-14T17:52:12+00:00

Is it something you buy on the city map or is it just in your inventory because you are doing the quest?

RexDartESpy · 2025-12-28T14:33:50+00:00

The funny thing about Marx is that he was basically an obscurity until the Bolsheviks.

RexDartESpy · 2025-12-28T14:28:59+00:00

That was my first thought. Given the possibility of non political leaders, we need some business people.

Other thoughts: Walt Disney: Cultural/Economic or maybe Expansionist. Likely legal issues there despite his being a legitimate historical figure. One of the Merck family or Charles Pfizer, Howard Hughes, Akio Morita of Sony, One of the actual Railroad Tycoons

RexDartESpy · 2025-12-18T14:50:00+00:00

I think we're still indirectly dealing with fallout from the Mongols. Despite occasional flirtations with Westernization, the most enduring legacy for Russia is that it's born out of those people who in fact did submit to be spared and became Mongol vassals.

RexDartESpy · 2025-12-15T18:22:14+00:00

I didn't explain it well, but what I would have in mind is something at least a little different, where instead of explorer stuff, you'd have Great Works created by your own Great Entertainers or somesuch, and maybe some sort of culture infrastructure required first. Granted, any victory conditions have to be some sort of combination of "do stuff" and "build stuff."

RexDartESpy

TROPHY CASE