Fail Conditions?

[Eyal]

Are there any fail conditions for the hospitals you run like in Theme Hospital? So far I haven't seen any indications that there are, and I think the game could really use it to add some difficulty.

I pretty much start each hospital with cranking the prices of everything all the way up to generate more cash. Of course this drops my reputation to zero, but I'm still making significantly more money that way. After the Hospital is set up better I lower the prices to get my reputation back.

This sort of strategy would cause you to lose the game in Theme Hospital, not to mention allowing for to many deaths and whatnot. There's really no consequence to poorly running the hospital.

[Jonathan J. O'Neill]

-200k money is the only fail consition, currently.

[Eyal]

I see. Thanks for the info, although I think it takes quite an effort to reach -200k money.

[Ashley]

Originally posted by Eyal:

I see. Thanks for the info, although I think it takes quite an effort to reach -200k money.

You'd be surprised, generally its quite easy to fall into a negative loop. In which you can't afford to fix the problems with your hospital. Only making things worse.

[Osprey]

It does take quite a bit of fail to get to that point, but that's partly because it's usually possible to dig yourself out of a hole, which I think is a good thing. I'd much rather dig myself out than accept defeat and start over, since it ends up being much more rewarding.

Originally posted by ♥OVERKILL_Ashley♥:

You'd be surprised, generally its quite easy to fall into a negative loop. In which you can't afford to fix the problems with your hospital. Only making things worse.

I can't count the number of times that I've paused the game on the last day of the month to spend a couple thousand before I lose it and enter the red and/or sell a previous room just to have that to spend. Once, I even had to gut my hospital by selling off nearly half of my rooms because I was so far into the red. I rebounded and that most embarrassing moment caused the most rewarding moment when I finally 3-starred that hospital.

[Eyal]

I really just can't see how this would happen, unless you take every loan and hire a 100 staff members right off the bat. By building a basic start of a hospital and turning all prices up by a 100%, you'll quickly earn enough money to cover your costs (and then some). The bad rep doesn't matter much, because even 10 people a month is enough to get a decent income.

If you're understaffed, or if people are dying, it simply doesn't matter since it can't fail the game and you'll still earn cash. There's just no urgency. At most I have -20k balance in the early game and that never lasts more than a few days.

Hell, I just did the level where surgery was introduced. My prirces were at max, I had people dying and I had rather long queues, and I STILL had 100% rep and 8 million in the bank. I actually thought the game bugged.

[OldGamer]

Originally posted by Eyal:

I really just can't see how this would happen, unless you take every loan and hire a 100 staff members right off the bat. By building a basic start of a hospital and turning all prices up by a 100%, you'll quickly earn enough money to cover your costs (and then some). The bad rep doesn't matter much, because even 10 people a month is enough to get a decent income.

If you're understaffed, or if people are dying, it simply doesn't matter since it can't fail the game and you'll still earn cash. There's just no urgency. At most I have -20k balance in the early game and that never lasts more than a few days.

Hell, I just did the level where surgery was introduced. My prirces were at max, I had people dying and I had rather long queues, and I STILL had 100% rep and 8 million in the bank. I actually thought the game bugged.

Oh it can happen, if you don't know how to basic finance in the game.

Before I was good at the game, I tried and failed at Melt Downs multiple times on lots of different issues. It was because everytime I had a foothold (aka positive cashflow), there was an immediate disaster that wrecked the machines. So therefore, I would need to use my money to repair, replace or buy new janitors. This quickly spiralled into either stagnant growth (aka I could [not] build anything and only had my running costs covered) or I needed loans to buy anything (upgrades, rooms, staff etc).

Since then, I learnt never to take a loan and never build higher than you can take. Your hospital level is the most important in this game and the most basic advice is to just keep that low until you can deal with the next stage. Level 10 being a turning point, thats when stuff gets crazy.