First: When I did get to play, the game is beautiful. Errors? sure. Issues? You bet. But I'll be darned, it's beautiful.
My Point: I am getting pretty far along, and have multiple cities now. I have noticed no option to purposely send/share resources (Like Alloy, Plastic, Coal, etc) on a consistant basis to another city besides Gifting, which seems often broken and tedious.
Example 1: City A is a coal mining specialized city and has a large stock pile of coal, Trade Depots with the 'Use Locally" option checked, Trade Ports with the "Use Locally" option checked, Delivery Trucks and is connected via Highway, Rail and Sea. City B has a Coal Plant.
Issue: City A cannot send/sell/provide coal to City B's coal plant. City B MUST purchase off of the Global Market, despite a LARGE reservior of Coal near by.
Example 2: City A is Electric Specalized, has three processor plants and requires a constant stream of resources. City B is Oil Specialized and City C is Metal Specialized. Both Cities B and C have large stockpiles of their respective needed resources. (Plastic and Alloy) Both Cities B and C have Trade Depots, Trade Ports, Delivery Trucks and are connected via Highway, Rail and Sea.
Issue: City A must still get it's Plastic and Alloy from either a 'rapidly over run' Recycling plant or import from the Global Market despite nearby available "LOCAL" resources with the "Use Locally" option checked. City A requires resouces on an hourly basis, Gifting is not a viable option.
Now I understand that 'trade' is possibly disabled at the moment, but I've been playing before it was disabled AND in both Betas and have not seen resources being, at the very least, sold between cities much less actually traded.
(http://answers.ea.com/t5/Miscellaneous-Issues/UPDATE-Server-Update-and-Deploy/m-p/626036/highlight/true#M10993)
Has anyone actually seen resources being shared between cities in the same region besides Gifting? Did I just miss it happening before the lock out? Does anyone have actual proof of it happening, or a developer blog, FAQ, SOMEWHERE where they've mentioned that this is possible?
***IF NOT... It is ridiculous that it isn't currently in the game. If and when this community gets up and playing, I'd raise hell if I were you to get this one in.
The first day before servers went down it worked fine. It is bugged or turned off atm which isolates your cities. Each city is on its own with no reasource sharing, gifting, volunteering or department sharing.
@zigguratei wrote:My Point: I am getting pretty far along, and have multiple cities now. I have noticed no option to purposely send/share resources (Like Alloy, Plastic, Coal, etc) on a consistant basis to another city besides Gifting, which seems often broken and tedious.
I agree with this. However, 'Local' is the city level as far as I can tell.
What we need is a third option: Local, REGIONAL, Global
Using coal as an example, Global price runs around $4,400. There should be a REGIONAL price of around $3,300 or $2,200.. (75% or 50%, depending on dev's thoughts), that gives a cheaper price locally. Maybe a combination--Buyer pays $2200, but seller gets $3300, say in customs price breaks.
Either that, or the global Buy price should be higher than the Sell price.. so that 'Global Transport Fees' are taken out. If that were done, Regional Buy/Sell would be the same, as the Global Fees wouldn't apply.
Still needs an option (and an incentive) to sell some product regional vs Global
