Hexagon-based network operator tycoon – Freeware game idea

The game 

HexMesh is a multi-player strategy game, played on hexagon board. 

The purpose is to 

• build (or buy piece at a time) a Winning Communications empire 
• protect the corporation’s tangible, non-human assets like cables and right-of-way
• choose the right technology for cables
• network structure (planning) done in a economic and future-proof way 
• make daily operations in a fashion that makes people smile
• keep the best of the breed staff, entertain, reward and keep them engaged
• avoid financial pitfalls
• buy best people from other wagons to your company
• keep a top revenue-gathering strategy
• balance between speed of building areas vs. costs

Game Mechanics essentials in less than 20 lines

Phasing of operations

Marketing costs

Advice customers on gear to be bought after they buy fiber, OR

make a Turn-key solution with contracts to Gear suppliers

Core length

Repeater strategy and movements

Excavate for debugging broken fibers

When exceeding 7 units of Powerline, you need to build a PowerHouse (type of Station).

Connect the new Powerline to the existing “open plug” of PowerHouse.

PowerHouse has 2 plugs. They may be Open or Connected.

You may Purge a plug: Then a Connected plug becomes Open plug.

Buy reports

• reports show you “behind the curtains” data from competitors
• comprehensive
• strategically important
• 2 benefits: CEC (customer experience charts), and CAC (acquisition costs) 
• marketing improvements are based on buying reports and analytics
• reports help you guide your whole business, while analytics let you tackle burning issues

Buy analytics

• like reports, but the timestamp is much more fresh
• cheaper than reports
• continuous on 1 month granularity
• costs
• you will benefit more from analytics, when your business is in a situation where fast changes to tactics are needed
• reports, on the other hand, suit much better to strategy point of view

How AI angels evaluate your company

• evaluation depends on a binary Goal for Angel
• goal #1: hostile takeover
• goal #2: consistent development of your company to be sold in future
• your current financial numbers
• your future outlook in terms of money, customers, and land leases
• market capture potential
• KPI 
• patent portfolio
• minus any negative issues your company has (brand-wise) 

Investments are done into 

infrastructure improvement

right-of-way ownership (land and routes)

buying assets from rivals and Government; negotiating lease contracts (in and out). 

Sometimes you’re going to have to face environmental protection agencies and whatnot. 

Personnel pressures

Key people are your most important asset, but can you make your company both profitable enough and in good reputation enough to keep these talents in your team?

When crises hit the company, your personnel goes through a compression process. 

Compression means that the BP allocation changes. See BrainPower game mechanics. Essentially the BP fragments affect your staff performance. When a compression process happens, the existing fragments get scaled down by 0.85 and the released space is filled with Obfuscation Vapor. 

• some might quit
• of those who consider quitting, there are ways to mitigate
• mitigations::absense (period of paid leave)
• mitigations::rhetoric (a fierce pitch by CEO)
• mitigations::raise (get more nickel)
• mitigations::dilute (give a equity based bonus)
  

You may face litigation (or threat of it) from many sides: from military to foreign nations and their companies. 

The European Union, or its many lobbyists may be challenge your point of view of how the world should transport bits. 

Heck, even Anonymous might be your next talking-to buddy.

Can you make your case strong in politics to persuade and fend off the litigations? 

If you’re going up to the court, can you prove that you have not played dirty games? Whose portfolio of telecommunications patents is the most valuable one? And hey, remember…

everything has a price tag. Everything. 

Gamer roles: 3 possibilities (Investor, CEO, team lead)

– originally ‘angel investor’ was thought to be one role – now it is a computer (AI-NPC)

– major banker

– private funds angel 

– operational fiber corporation CEO

– team lead (operational)

The player starts from humble beginnings with a little bit of installed ame of slippery strategy. 

Expansion

Profitability
Financial viability – negotiating with investors (2 types: AI and human players)

Bargain acquisitions: Buy with cash, or other assets

Poison pills in corporate structure – can you make a good one?

Avoid typical operational pitfalls

Understand reaching multiple goals simultaneously

Stay on cutting edge! and be r-e-l-e-v-a-n-t

Be cost-efficient!

Take risks!

Understand how the board sees you!

MGE engine

MGE – the game engine! It’s a simple thermodynamic pajazzo, kind of

• mge means that certain changes in customer acquisitions, retention, and such are directly attributed by core metrics
• mge is thte game’s “financial engine”
• mge is “like neural net, but simpler”
• stuff starts from up, goes down -> settlement, minimum energy
• to get stuff up, you need to expend energy
• jumping means overcoming the barrier
• jump right is “higher evolution” in customers & technology
• jump left is worse for your company – you are going backwards
• asymmetric slot shapes (the ‘edges’) think pajazzo 

The simple skeleton version of game – how simple can it be?

– a hex map of 12 x 12 x 12

– three properties per hex: traffic, profit, tech

– the player can merge hex pieces that are compatible in ‘tech’

– clients’ traffic flows are modeled like water: bottlenecks start to irritate clients, and also their web/Internet using behaviour changes overall. 

You start with basically a piece of land – empty, no fiber, no trenches. It’s just terrain.. 

Your terrain provides the limitations but also possibilities for limitless richess for the witty strategist. Understanding human psychology and human needs is key to winning in the game. 

People strive to live their own lives in as successful method as possible. But understanding that there’s certain, shall we say, variation of view between individuals as to “what” constitutes success and happiness is vital.   

Scenarios

– the game contains special scenarios (perks)

– completion of a perk gives both fame and also boosts the Marketing campaigns ongoing for a certain period of time

Basics of gameplay and graphics

– hexagonal area in the map

– each hex (=area) is defined by control points (CPs)

– all segments between control points are linear (straight lines)

– the hexes can be connected

Cgen : city generation

– Places cities within regions

– Init the cities with 2 variables: statistics Pop, city cell use penetration cpen 

– Pop is a long integer telling the population of the city

– cpen is a long integer which tells the number of mobile phone using individuals

Extra fun(ctionality)

– Live Roaming: see people use mobiles, inside cities, within country, globally. Make the roaming contracts so that you can keep customers happy, using the service, yet balance your own costs.

– Roamer is dependant on the “city generation” (cgen) module. Cgen makes cities appear within boundaries of a vectorized area, ie. a region like a country. 

– Live roamer has different levels. The individual tracking level (zoom 0) means that player gets to see one incident of actual phone usage as it happens; live tracking. A client might be happy, talking with a good connection, or he might experience intermittant breaks (disconnects) or other glitches in the connection quality. 

What keeps the player hooked?

• no single “winning strategy”, you can take a new game with new players
• cunningness can gain a competitive advantage
• the secret deals
• understanding law and applying your own game strategy in accordance
• understanding technology by playing (learning!)