Overview
Created on 2021-03-01 based on LCV4.1This guide provides you with a basic template for building a successful company on the currently highest preset difficulty level “Insane”.The first few years on a campaign are critical for success, especially on higher difficulties.The idea is to provide a working template on which you can build up upon and learn something about car design and strategies on the way.I will reduce the level of detail as the guide progresses, so while I post individual slider settings and a lot of screenshots at the beginning this will be considerably less later on.Let me know in the comments if you find any errors or have alternative strategies 🙂
Setup
Start on Insane difficulty preset in Hetvesia in 1946.
Hetvesia gives you access to both Gasmea and Fruinia and so a very wide market.
Additionally taxes are low and the worker skills are very high which results in good quality cars.
Wage costs might be high but they are only a small part of our total costs and so don’t matter all that much.
Considerations
We will aim at covering a wide market, in fact we try to cover every market.
This will allow for a high number of sales and profits and additionally we will be diversified so don’t have to worry the competition killing our company with one single superior car.
The single most important thing in the game is choosing the right car body for the task.
You should choose the smallest body and engine you can get away with until at least the mid-game.
This is because smaller bodies are cheaper and lighter and so need smaller engines. Small engines are cheaper and lighter at well. Small engines also can use cheaper carburetors which makes them even cheaper!
Cheap cars can sell more units or provide a higher margin.
Light cars are fuel efficient and can be fun even without much power.
Especially in the early years there are two additional reasons:
– Brakes are really bad, you just cannot provide adequate braking for large and heavy cars until at least the 1960s or even later.
– There is no power steering. If your car weight only 700kg and has a lightweight engine on the steering axis this is not a problem, but if your car is 2000kg and a heavy V8 at the front you need to be Arnold Schwarzenegger to steer the car 😉
1946 Model 1: Our First Car / Premium Trim
We want a body that is small but provides an acceptable interior space (many car bodies are currently broken and provide way to less interior space to be usefull)
The small 1940 2.1m wheelbase “VW Beetle” body is one of the best bodies in the game. It’s small but provides a lot of interior space and has a lot of variants.
It can be used for any kind of market and demographic so that is what we are going with.
Use the 4 door sedan.
This is absolutely critical to success.
It must be Steel and Ladder Frame or it will be too slow and costly to build.
Front engine is required for a good weight balance and to use certain body styles such as the delivery van.
The suspension is where you usually can choose several valid options, but as we want to sell premium cars too, we absolutely need to select double whishbone front and rear.
If you want to make cheap City/Family/Delivery/Utility cars a Inline 3 with 900cc with eco carb is perfect. It would be around 26hp which is just barely enough but is really cheap and gives a very good fuel economy.
But we want to cater to more premium and eventually sports demographics too, so we choose an I6 2000cc for our first car.
Pushrods are cheap, reliable, fast to engineer and somewhat smaller that other types of heads, so we choose these.
Undersquare engines are lighter, cheaper and smaller. Especially as I6 is really long we go way undersquare with 69mm Bore.
We want it cheap, so cast internals.
We want an early and flat torque curve, so advance has to be pretty low, we use 23 (This makes the engine more fuel efficient, too). Compression 7.0.
Single Barrel Eco carb Twin and Standard Intake (because its fuel efficient and cheap) and give it +2 quality
Max RPM 4500 – yeah that’s really not a sports engine (yet)…
Cast Log (cheap and lightweight) and dual buffled muffler for a more quiet engine (provides a better comfort score). Give the exhaust +4 quality to make it even quieter.
Reduce the diameter of the exhaust until the engine gets limited, this provides good fuel economy and a nice toque curve for most demographics other than sports.
There is no point in using many gears in the early years, so we use manual 2 gear with 185 km/h top speed and first gear to 100 km/h (we want no wheelspin)
Actual top speed will be just below 160 km/h which will make the tires much cheaper, about $70 cheaper than if it was even just slightly above 160 km/h.
Medium Compound 120/120
580 Diameter on 14 inch rims and 50 offset front and rear (looks silly without offset)
Maximum size and 30 Pad Type
Optimize the brake bias so the rear brake force is optimal
No Undertray
4 seat
Premium interior with +3 quality [Luxury would work, too)
Premium entertainment (Luxury would work too, but we don’t want to invest the amount of engineering time)
Give the steering +5 quality, that makes the care more driveable und comfortable until we have researched powersteering
Comfort Preset
It’s possible to optimize this but i don’t bother for now
Screenshots (taken after completing all trims and production setup, so score will differ)
Delivery Trim with Eco engine variant
Clone the trim and choose the delivery van.
Use the morphing to maximum the size of the cargo area
We want maximum efficiency an reliability, so we need to make a variant.
Clone the engine
Reduce Bore to minimum
Compression down to 6.3, Cam profile 0 Eco carb single with RPM Limit 3900 and +4 quality
Max out top speed and first gear again to 100 km/h
This gives us better fuel economy.
Go down to 110 tires and 12 inch Rims.
Pad type 40
Cooling Airflow 100 for maximum reliability and better utility score
Keep Premium Interior but set Quality to 0 (we use Premium because we would have to pay additional engineering time for any other choice, also it helps with our company prestige rating)
No Entertainment
Utility Preset
Remove rear swaybar and add two ticks to front swaybar
Family Car Trim
To compete in even more categories we design a family trim.
Clone the Premium trim.
Use the Eco engine variant
Reduce to 13 inch rims and increase tire diameter to 590
Cooling Airflow 100 to make it more reliable
5 Seats
Keep Premium Interior but set Quality to 0
No Entertainment
Utility Preset
Reduce front swaybars by 2 ticks
Production and Signoff
We cannot use our Small plot as we need a Medium 1 factory as wee need steel presses.
Automation 40
Tooling 60
Buy a Medium plot in Hetvesia and a Medium 1 Factory.
Automation 32
Increase Funding to 69 so we end up with 21 month engineering time which matches the factory build time
We cannot affort a Medium Factory.
Buy a Small plot in Hetvesia and build a Small 3 Factory.
Automation 40
Tooling 60
Wages +52% (so we produce enough engine for the Medium 1 car factory)
We have to seriously save on engineering time as otherwise it will take way too long.
Automation 25
Process 0
Reliability 12
Funding 87
We will improve these values later with a facelift.
Fix the shift count to 3.0 (min/target/max)
Sell the Premium trim for $16k
Sell the Delivery trim for $10.5k
Sell the Family trim for $14k
Make sure to set the Deposit to 100% for each trim, we will need this money to not go bankrupt
Signoff the project with the offered credit.
1947 Model 1 releases / Marketing and Research
In 10/1947 our car releases.
Set Marketing all countries to 2 for every category including reputation and presitge.
No need to optimze this for specific categories, it’s not really that important in the current version of the game.
Set Research funding to +2 for each category.
We could optimize heavily with what we want to research but we don’t bother for now.
1947 Model 1 Mk2 (Facelift)
In 10/1947 we Facelift our car and engine.
No need to change anything on the cars or engine themselfes, we just improve the engineering and production.
Existing factory
Automation 85
Tooling 100
This increases the quality, number of units produced and dramatically reduces the price per unit.
NO Tooling changes
55
40
60
27 month
Existing factory
Automation 90
Tooling 100
Uncheck the old engine variants
58
0
60
27 month
Lock shifts to 3.0
Keep same prices : $16k/$10.5k/$14k
Again set Deposit to 100%
Signoff with the suggested loan
1950 Model 1 Mk2 releases
I usually would immediatly start another facelift improving the production further but this currently bugs out the game when trying to facelift without the premium trim, so we continue production without another facelift.
That’s not gamebraking as we are still competetive and supply limited.
Usually i’m doing 2-4 facelifts before releasing a completely new model.
Market Data from mid 1949:
Dealerships are still low but our main problem is our cars aren’t affordable enough.
We need to increase production so we can lower prices and still keep up with the delivery.
We will do this by effectively removing the Premium trim from this model soon.
1950 New Research targets
Before continuing we increase our research targets:
- Fuel system +5 (we want to get mechanical fuel injection early and it makes engines much more reliable in general)
- Body+5 (we want to get better soft tops for our convertibles early and unlocking new bodies ahead of time is always nice)
- Chassis +5 (we want to get front transverse early)
- Drivetrain +5 (we want to get front transverse early)
1950 Model 2 (GT/Convertible/Premium)
It’s time to widen our market even more by going for the GT and Convertible markets (and a bit to Luxury and Sports).
Additionally we are designing a Premium trim. It will profit a lot from the monocoque chassis (mainly because of safety) and will free manufactoring capacity on our Model 1 where we will remove the Premium trim.
We need to design a new “sport” variant of our engine:
Compression 7.8
Cam Profile 60
2 Barrel carb Twin
13.2 compression/70 Ignition/5400 RPM
Short Cast/50.8mm/Dual Reverse Flow +4 quality (makes it even more quiet, even the sports categories seem to prefer this despite the “low noise penalty” in Sport Score)
We use the 1946 2.1m wheelbase model as it is small but provides a reasonably larger interior space and has a convertible variant.
Chassis Steel+Monocoque+Front longitudinal+ 2x double whishbone
Automatic Gearbox
221 km/h top speed + first gear to 100
Medium Compound (Sports Compound does not help in score and costs more)
Increase Tire Diameter to 580
Tires 115/115 on 15 Inch Rims
Rim offset 60mm front+rear
Brakes maximum size front+rear
4 Seats
Premium Interior and Luxury entertainment with +3 quality
Suspension: Normal Preset and reduce Front Swaybar from 1800 to 200
Clone this and make a Convertible using the convertible body.
Reduce Brake Pads to 30
Premium Interior and Entertainment to save money
We use the manual top as it provides lots higher scores that the alternative.
Suspension: Comfort Preset and reduce rear swaybars to 0
Now we clone this and make a Premium trim using the other body again.
Reduce Brake Pads to 30
Premium Interior and Entertainment to save money
Supension: Comfort Preset
In production we are going for
– new medium 1 car factory 30/70 Automation/Tooling
– new small 3 engine factory 70/70 Automation/Tooling
We aim for 49 month of design time so it will finish 2/1954.
As we want to reduce the design time of future cars we will set the pressure slider for the car design to 0 (engine pressure slider can stay at 50)
Car: 0/20/40/65
Engine: 60/60/70/56/50
shifts 3.0/3.0/3.0
Price: $20k/$16k/$13.5k
Reduce loan to 50%
1954 New Research targets
All tech that was set to +5 earlier is now at level 4, we don’t need more so reduce the target to +4.
However we want the mechanical fuel injection in 1958 (6 years early) so increse the target for Fuel system to +7
Additionally we set Body to +7 – getting bodies early can be very beneficial and we get better convertible soft tops early
The goal is to have a bunch of new technologies by 1958:
Engine Architecture – V6 engines
Fuel System – Mechanical Fuel Injection
Drivetrain – Front Transverse
Brakes – Solid Disc
Auto Soft Top convertible
1954 Model 1 Mk3 Facelift
After 4 years selling Mk2 we start designing the Mk3.
The main benefit will be it becoming more reliable and fuel efficient (great for budget demographics) and a much needed retool of the factory thats constantly running at 3.0 shifts.
Stop production of Premium trim and set its price to $100k so we don’t get more preorders for it.
Reduce the prices for delivery to $9.5k and Family to $12k
(!) You cannot change the prices once the facelift is started
Facelift the engine and clone the Eco Mk2 and Sport variant.
The Sport can get a bit more compression, +100 RPM and +2 quality in Fuel System
The Eco can get more compression and cam profile 15. Additionally Single Barrel (no Eco) carb, dual Reverse Flow exhaust and +1 increase in exhaust size
This will now be our future premium budget car.
Use the Eco engine.
Automatic 2 speed gearbox
Top Speed 212 with spacing 85
Radial tires 130/130mm 585mm diameter (often a small increase in diameter can make the tires much cheaper such as in this case)
2LS Drum brakes 250mm in the front and reduce the pad type to 20
Aerodynamics Cooling Airflow 100
Upgrade to Progressive Springs, Comfort Preset, reduce rear camber until driveability is 100.0%
Automatic 2 speed gearbox, spacing to 100
Radial Tires
Front 2LS Drum 160mm, Rear 200mm
Progressive Springs, Normal Preset, increase height to 333mm and Front Swaybar from 1200 to 1400
Camber Front -0.1, Rear -0.5 (total absolute should be max 0.6 for lowest tyre service cost multiplier)
Automatic 2 speed gearbox
Radial Tires 130mm on 14 inch rims
Front 2LS Drum 205mm, Rear 220mm
Basic AM Radio
Progressive Springs, Normal Preset, Reduce rear camber to -0.1
Clone Family trim
Pickup body
Automatic 2 speed gearbox with Manual locker
Radial Tires Chunky Offrad 150mm on 12 inch rims and 50mm rim offset front+rear
Brakes 220 2LS/185 with pad type 40
Offroad Skidtray
Progressive Springs, Offroad Preset, reduce rear swaybar to 0 and increase front to 2800
New Medium 1 Car Factory 75/80
New Medium 1 Engine Factory 80/80
Car Engineering 55/40/70/55 48 month
Engine Engineering 60/60/85/53 48 month
3.0 shifts
$12k/$9k/$10k/$10k
1954 Model 2 releases / Facelift Mk2
In 2/1954 Model 2 releases and in 3/1954 Hyraulic Steering is researched so we start designing a facelift one month later.
We had to cut a lot of corners in engineering (automation/tooling/dependability) on the initial Model 2 and will fix that.
GT Trim
Use the new Engine Facelift
Radial Tires 135/135mm 620mm Diameter
2LS Drums 260mm/300mm Pad type 35
Hydraulic Steering (not good for Sportiness but the increased Driveability and Comfort more than make up for it)
Progressive Springs, Normal preset and remove front swaybar
Similar changes
As our Model 1 has a Premium Budget car we aim this now more up-market towards luxury
Similar changes but switch Premium AM Radio to Luxury AM Radio
Car Facoty Automation/Tooling: 70/100
Car Engineering 30/40/60/60
2.0 shifts
Prices $20k/$15k/$15k
47 month
1958 New Research Targets and Marketing
New Research Targets:
Fuel System and Model from +7 to +6 (we reached level 6 and can save some money)
Exhaust from +2 to +6 (increases reliability and reduces noise)
Brakes from +2 to +4 (we need better brakes if we want to use larger bodies)
Suspension from +2 to +5 (new better suspension coming up that we want to research early)
We want to get some technologies ready in 1962 for our next generation of car models:
2 piston brakes
Hydropneumatic suspension
Gas Monotube dampers
These will help us using larger bodies for building more up-market luxury cars.
Increase Company Marketing for all countries from +2 to +4 (reputations and prestige)
1958 New Engines considerations
Our I6 was perfect for the start but is really long and won’t fit all bodies and we are seriously limited in RPM. Additionally maximum power is limited while car bodies are getting considerably heavier due to in part the safety and better interiors but we will also want to use larger bodies in the future of course.
We have just researched V6 and Mechanical fuel injection ahead of time and are going to use them.
V6 are very compact and light and relatively smooth at small sizes.
At the same time the are reasonably easy and cheap to produce compared to Boxer 6 or V8 engines.
Mechanical fuel injection is very reliable, has very good throttle response, high max power and good distribution (so can use high compression). Additionally you gain the ability to set a speed limiter for your car (lower tire cost and brake fade).
It’s easily one of the best fuel systems in the game only superseeded much later by Multipoint Fuel Injection and finally Direct Injection in the endgame.
It has better reliability and fuel economy than eco carbs while simultaniously having a much higher power limit and throttle response, in other words they are perfect for both budget and sport demographics!
It’s main drawback is engineering time and to an extend cost if compared to very small engines with a single barrel carb like a I3-1000cc for example.
- V6 60 degree OHC-3 1600cc mechanical fuel injection
This will be the go to engine for most small cars - V8 90 degree OHC-3 2400cc mechanical fuel injection
For when wee need more power - V8 90 degree Pushrod 4000cc mechanical fuel injection
For Muscle and some Premium Cars - V12 60 degree Pushrod 6000cc mechanical fuel injection
For Luxury Cars and GT
We design these as prototypes in 24 month by reducing the engineering sliders down to 0 if necessary. This means we cannot the engines right away but have to do a facelift of them.
We also want to learn a lot especially in mechanical fuel injection so we set the Pressure slider to 0.
It’s all about what kind of engine you want to build.
Cheap and reliable with not much power? => go pushrod
Getting the most power for a sports engin? => go DOHC
and so on
As we want to cover a wide market we need a good compromise of reliablility, fuel efficiency and performance and OHC is perfect for that. It is debatable if OHC-2/3/4 is better, i think OHC-3 is the best compromise so we are going with that.
Pushrods (OHV) don’t like to rev but reliable and compact, that’s bad for sport engines but good for budget demographics or where space is at a premium
Direct Acting OHC has bad fuel economy, that’s bad for budget oriented demographics (including delivery which is a huge market)
DOHC is complex (long engineering time), costly, relatively unreliable, heavy and bulky. The only upside is revability.
DOHC is also fuel efficient but that is often negated by it’s weight. It’s pricetag and low reliablility also means it’s not good for demographics that care about cost which are exaclty those that want good fuel economy!
Additionally the size of the engine and the targeted torque curve plays a role:
A large engine doesn’t rev anyway, so usually no harm in using pushrods.
Using low cam profile (i.e. for luxury or utility cars)? Then probably pushrods are also a good choice as you don’t use the higher RPMs anyway.
1958 Designing the new engines
All 48 month
Pressure to 0 (learning!) + funding to about 50-90% + all sliders in engineering down to 0 if necessary
Premium Variant:
Bore 65 Stroke 80.3
All Cast components
Cam 30
Fuel Mixture 15.0 (we get more than good enough throttle response anyway)
Mechanical Fuel Injection + max RPM 5900 @ Quality -4
Exhaust 31.8mm + 2x Reverse Flow @ Quality +4
Eco Variant:
Minimal Bore (so about 1300cc)
Cam 15
15.0 Fuel Mixture + 50 Ignition Timing + max. RPM 5000
Cast Log + 19mm Exhaust + Second Muffler only (Baffled) @ Quality +4
Sport Variant:
Cam 50
12.9 Fuel Mixture + 62 Ignition Timing + max. RPM 6300
38mm Exhaust + Second Muffler only (Baffled) @ Quality +4
Premium Variant:
Bore 69 Stroke 80.2
All Cast components
Cam 30
Fuel Mixture 15.0 (we get more than good enough throttle response anyway)
Mechanical Fuel Injection + max RPM 5800 @ Quality -4
Exhaust 44.4mm @ Quality +4
Sport Variant:
Cam 50
12.9 Fuel Mixture + 54 Ignition Timing + max. RPM 6300
50.8mm Exhaust + Second Muffler only (Baffled) @ Quality +4
Bore 78.2 / Stroke 104.2
All Cast components
Cam 30
12.9 Fuel Mixture + 50 Ignition Timing + max. RPM 4800
57.1mm Exhaust + Second Muffler only (Baffled) @ Quality +4
Bore 78.2 / Stroke 104.2
All Cast components
Cam 30
12.9 Fuel Mixture + 50 Ignition Timing + max. RPM 4800
82.5mm Exhaust + 2x Reverse Flow @ Quality +4
1958 Model 1 Mk3 and Model 2 Mk2 released
In 2/1958 these to facelifts are released.
Model 1 will be replaced by Model 3 and not much to improve on Model 2, so no immediate facelift needed there.
1958 Model 3 (Delivery/Family/Offroad-Utility/Light Sport)
It’s time to replace our Model 1.
We use the 45 2.0m “Mini” body as it’s small and so can be build very cheap and still provides good interior space
We use a facelift of the I6-2000 engine Eco variant for most trims, only the Light Sport will get a facelift of the Sport variant. I’m now using the year in the name of the facelift.
Min Bore, Max Stroke
Cam 22
single 2 barrel carb + 5000 RPM @ Quality +7
Exhaust 31.8mm @ Quality +5
replace twin 2-barrel carb with single 4 barrel carb
second muffler only (Baffled)
Steel + Monocoque + Steel + Front Transverse + 2x Double Wishbone
Automatic 2 speed + top speed 214 km/h @ Quality -4 (in the current version of automation prices for tech pool are calculated wrongly for drivettrain and are way too high)
Radial Tires + Hard Longlife + 150/150mm + 470 Diameter on 11 inch rims
Brakes Solid Disc 195mm+ Drum 195mm + Pad Type 25 + Bias all the way to the front
Aerodynamics 100 Cooling Airflow
5 Seats (foldable bench in the back, makes it cheaper)
Premium Interior + Luxury AM Radio (Luxury AM Radio has gotten very cheap and Premium interior is affordable, too. About +$800 compared to Standard interior /Basic AM but as it will help increase our company reputation)
Hydraulic Power Steering
Standard 50s Safety
Progressive Springs + Normal preset + Increase ride hight until it no longer bottoms out
Choose the Van variant of the body and maximize the size by morphing
Manual Locker
Radial Hard longlfe tires 130/130mm 500mm Diameter on 11 inch rims
Brakes Solid Disc 185+165mm + Pad Type 35
Offroad Skidtray
Suspension: Utility preset
Manual Locker
Offroad Tires
Offroad Skid Plate
Offroad Suspension + Offroad preset and remove front swaybars
Manual 3 speed @ Quality -4
Radial Medium compount + 145/145mm + 480mm diameter on 12 inch rims
Solid Disc 20mm + Drum 160mm + Pad Type 25
2 seats + 2 foldable seats in the back
Suspension: Sports preset
Medium 1 Car Factory from Model 1 85/100 for Family + Offroad-Utility
Medium 1 Car Factory from Model 1 + 85/100 for Delivery + Light Sport
New Medium 1 Engine Factory + Staff Facilities + 100/100
71 month
3.0 shifts
Sell each trim for $11.5k
No loan
1960 Market Analysis and growth potential
Comparison 1950 vs 1960
We did a good job in covering most markets.
The Light Sports trim of Model 3 will help us in several Sport demographics soon.
Luxury however will have to wait until we have the new engines and build new cars using them.
Note the maximum achievable market share in any given demographic is depending on the dealership level:
1 1.1%
2 1.65%
3 2.46%
4 3.71%
5 5.57%
6 8.35%
7 12.53%
8 18.79%
9 28.19%
10 42.29%
It will take at least 4 years to gain one level of dealership, so at least 40 years from 0 to 10.
(It’s from one of killrobs videos)
As not only the dealership grows but additionall the number of customer do, in 10 years we expect to sell about 3 times as many cars in each demographic.
1962 New Engines ready
Our 4 new engines are ready which gives us the opportunity to build lots of new cars!
The V8 4000cc can be used for a dedicated Muscle car and may also fit the bill for a pony car. It can also be used for particullary large cars like Heavy Utility or Heavy Delivery.
The V8 2400cc can be used for a dedicated Sports car (Sport, Light Sport, Track, Pony,…) or the next Premium car that could have variants for Family Premium, Family Sport,…
The V6 1600cc will be our basic engine for family cars, light delivery, city,…
In general we will have to specialize our cars more as the competition increases.
Instead of having 2 car models at a time we will have 5 or so.
As our dealerships are now at a reasonable level the sales will increase dramatically so there should be no problem filling at least one medium 1 factory per car model so we can use Monocoque chassis in every car and have decently low manufacturing costs.
Due to designing that many engines with pressure slider set to 0 we have good familiarity in almost everything so we can design new engines reasonably quickly when needed.
1962 Model 4 GT/Luxury/Convertible Premium
Model 4 is a large car, about 2.8 meter wheelbase and uses our V12 which will replace our Model 2
“GT” trim coveres GT, GT Premium, Super and Muscle Premium demographics
“Luxury” trim will cover Luxury and Luxury Premium
“Convertible Premium” trim covers Convertible Premium and Convertible Super demographics
I found Luxury Interior/Luxury AM Entertainment luxurious enough when adding some quality (+5), this allows for much higher production than Hand Made / Phonograph
48 month
1962 Model 5 Light Sport
This will cover Light Sport/Track/Sport demographics.
Chosse the 1965 2.5m 2 seater coupe
60 month
1964 Model 3 released / Faclift Mk2
In 1964 we will immediatly facelift the Model 3, use the new V6 1600cc and add 3-4 additional Medium 3 factories.
24 month.
1966 Model 3 Mk2 and Model 4 ready / Facelift Mk2
36 month
1967 Model 5 ready / Facelift Mk2
1970 Market Overview
The game is now basically “won”.
I’m spending more than $50M per month on research alone and am still making about $150M per month in profits.
It’s now only a matter of facelifting and every few years designing a new car so I will not continue this guide, have fun! 🙂