This page will cover the New Game Settings in slightly more detail than the in-game help buttons. Please refer to the in-game help buttons for simpler explanations of the settings.

Starting game difficulty affects many different variables in the game. These range from direct effects on formulas such as sales and costs to the likelihood of random events. These settings also preset other New Game settings.

General Manager mode (easy) sets the following settings:

• Disable player Race Contracts

• Enable Benefits System
• Can be fired (Game Over)
• Start with a bank loan
• No Starting factory or branch
• Component/Vehicle Inflation
• Establish AI
• Import Tax
• Dynamic Wages
• Acquisition Cool Down Time
• Monopoly Lawsuits
• Increased Branch Costs
• Limit New Branches

• All Image Ratings: 20% Slider Position
• All Skill Ratings: 20% Slider Position
• Customer Base: 75% Slider Position
• Purchasing Power: 75% Slider Position
• AI Starting Funds: 25% Slider Position
• RnD Estimation Gap: 0% Slider Position
• Contract Unit Price: 75% Slider Position

Chief Financial Officer mode (normal) sets the following settings:

• Dynamic Wages
• Acquisition Cool Down Time
• Monopoly Lawsuits
• Increased Branch Costs
• Establish AI

• Enable Benefits System
• Can be fired (Game Over)
• Start with a bank loan
• No Starting factory or branch
• Component/Vehicle Inflation
• Disable player Race Contracts
• Import Tax
• Limit New Branches

• All Image Ratings: 10% Slider Position
• All Skill Ratings: 10% Slider Position
• Customer Base: 52% Slider Position
• Purchasing Power: 52% Slider Position
• AI Starting Funds: 50% Slider Position
• RnD Estimation Gap: 0% Slider Position
• Contract Unit Price: 25% Slider Position

Chief Executive Officer mode (hard) sets the following settings:

• Enable Benefits System
• Can be fired (Game Over)
• Dynamic Wages
• Import Tax
• Acquisition Cool Down Time
• Monopoly Lawsuits
• Increased Branch Costs
• Establish AI
• Limit New Branches

• Start with a bank loan
• No Starting factory or branch
• Component/Vehicle Inflation
• Disable player Race Contracts

• All Image Ratings: 5% Slider Position
• All Skill Ratings: 5% Slider Position
• Customer Base: 44% Slider Position
• Purchasing Power: 44% Slider Position
• AI Starting Funds: 75% Slider Position
• RnD Estimation Gap: 22% Slider Position
• Contract Unit Price: 0% Slider Position

The name Ultra-Violent Nightmare! is a homage to the hardest difficulty level in the original DOOM. Internally this setting is the same as CEO (Hard), with the only differences being these starting game options.

• Start with a bank loan
• No Starting factory or branch
• Enable Benefits System
• Can be fired (Game Over)
• Component/Vehicle Inflation
• Dynamic Wages
• Import Tax
• Acquisition Cool Down Time
• Monopoly Lawsuits
• Increased Branch Costs
• Establish AI
• Limit New Branches

• Disable player Race Contracts

• All Image Ratings: 0% Slider Position
• All Skill Ratings: 0% Slider Position
• Customer Base: 38% Slider Position
• Purchasing Power: 38% Slider Position
• AI Starting Funds: 100% Slider Position
• RnD Estimation Gap: 100% Slider Position
• Contract Unit Price: 0% Slider Position

When enabled, this setting will disable your starting branch and factory. This setting considerably increases the initial game difficulty.

This setting disables wars and limited conflicts. It works on both historical and random history modes. This setting will reduce the number of military contracts that would otherwise appear during conflicts. It also disables the munitions system.

This setting disables major economic fluctuations to the stock and purchasing system. It disables depressions and major recessions in the game. When enabled, growth should be fairly stable. It does not eliminate all economic fluctuations. Small changes economic changes are still apparent when enabled.

When enabled, you will start the game with a bank loan equal to your company's starting funds in addition to your starting funds. This will lock the player out of the financing systems at the start of the game.

When your company goes public, you are no longer the sole owner. You become an employee of the shareholders. If the shareholders control over 50% of the company, they can fire you for poor job performance. This setting enables that feature. You can keep board morale high by constantly growing the company's revenues and EPS.

This setting enables the pension and direct benefits systems. Underfunded pensions can cause expensive headaches for your company down the line.

To define the amount of money you start with in the game, enter the value and enable this setting. Any changes to the starting funds' amount will disable all difficulty-based achievements.

When this setting is enabled, the player will not have to produce units for their racing teams via the contracting system. This setting does not disable Racing NPC or Racing Series contracts.

In GearCity, a Monopoly is a car company with more than 75% global market share. The game can sue you even if you do not commit anti-competitive behavior.

Monopoly Lawsuits is a random events with a 0.3% chance of happening each turn. When a Monopoly event occurs, the game checks to see if a company has greater than 75% global market share. If they do, the game initiates a monopoly lawsuit against them. This lawsuit can break apart the company or heavily fine them.

With this setting, the game will limit the number of branches you can build per year. The limit resets the first month of each year. We determine the yearly limit by using the total number of cities or territories on the map time 0.03 plus 1.

The Increased Branch Costs setting adjusts the number of employees at a branch based on the number of vehicles sold there. The adjustment rate is twice as large than when this setting is disabled.

This slider adjusts the population looking to buy vehicles. It directly effects the number of potential customers in the buyer calculations formulas.

The purchasing power slider directly adjusts household purchasing power which the game uses to determine the maximum and minimum amount of money a customer is willing to spend on a vehicle.

Turn times slow based on the number of vehicles made in the game. This slider adjusts the number of models the AI makes. Allowing the AI to create many designs increases the game's difficulty and realism.

This slider amplifies AI starting funds. The more money an AI company has, the longer it'll remain in business, and the more models will be available for customers in the game. This increases the difficulty of the game.