Why the cheap builder costs more
(This post is staged — it publishes on 4 October. Edit it or delete it before then.)
Every building firm in the game has two numbers that matter: what they charge, and how often they leave something wrong behind.
The obvious version of this mechanic is a slider. Pay more, get a better house, watch a quality bar fill up. That is legible and completely inert: once a player works out the ratio, there is one correct answer and the decision is over for the rest of the game.
What makes it a decision instead is when you find out.
The cheap firm finishes sooner. That matters, because the money you borrowed to buy the plot is costing you every week the house stands unbuilt. So the cheap firm is genuinely, measurably better — right up until a buyer is standing in the hall looking at cracked render.
Then it is not a quality problem. It is a timing problem. The defect surfaces when someone is already interested, which means fixing it costs you the delay and the buyer, or you drop the price and eat it.
That is the shape I wanted: not “cheap is worse”, but “cheap moves the risk to the worst possible moment”.
It also means the right answer changes with the situation. On a plot you bought cheaply with time in hand, the good firm is an indulgence. On a plot that is bleeding interest in a market that is softening, the cheap firm is the only firm — and you take the chance, because the alternative is worse.
A slider cannot do that.