The game is exceptionally well-made, capturing historical military procurement and technical progression through to the 2000s with impressive detail. However, the current rival AI system lacks strategic teeth, leaving the competitive aspect feeling largely passive after the initial early-game setup.
but lowkey as it stands, rival companies operate mostly in the background. Because it is easy to ignore them and still make a ton of money so people stop caring as much about them cus after the early game they usualy become secondary or almost unimportant not really making a need to look at their companies and tanks.
Assign distinct manufacturing philosophies or market niches to competitor companies ( cheap mass production, high quality, or tank type specialities like one is great at making light tanks etc). This gives each competitor a advantage and preference making them actualy compete in their respective roles cus youve already added countries needed specifications that are higly specific.
i also think Expanding the tech tree and adding branches to research into things like dedicated tank chassis ( like light tank hulls and heavy tank hulls and variants ) and size based desgin alongside weapons, turrets, and armor. Constraining designs by size, weight, and volume forces deliberate tradeoffs preventing players from simply building the best design without doing anything but research and a bit of tweaking of designs.
i think expanding the works tab to Introduce factory size limits and tooling constraints would be good too. the Factories should be tied to specific size classes (e.g., light, medium, heavy chassis) and require retooling the years or upgrades to switch production,change the max tank size for a design , or improve tons of tank produced per year like early game, like in a the production is slow but as it goes on you can research and build dedicated tank production improvemenets and general improvements too.
i do have more things to say but i think your already on them anyway and these are the most major gamplay affect things i think could be added. beyond that though the game is honestly really good and one of the best made tank making company sims ever and thus i really wanna see it succeed. you could prob release ts on steam and make money