• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

A-Train: City Simulator |OT| The Money Jungle of stations, lines, and overgrowth

I am sad to see the thread sort of die off in less than a month, but I am also overjoyed that I experienced the series for the first time and had a small, dedicated group to talk to about it. If A-Train 9's bigger maps, more to scale cities and overall higher level of complexity is true, then I might hop in at 4.0 aswell if the localization team don't annoy the community again.

.

I think the tax time and paying outside loans in campaign has burned me of the game. Like, the game is too slow for failing the scenario and having to repat it 3 times becuase some stupid decission you did or something you forgot to take into account. I wouldnt have a problem if it was a little more fast, but its one thing or the other. Make it difficult as nails as it is and really fast when you want (the wait times are repetitive) or make if a little bit softer with some of the things and keep it with this speed.
 

MouldyK

Member
I think the tax time and paying outside loans in campaign has burned me of the game. Like, the game is too slow for failing the scenario and having to repat it 3 times becuase some stupid decission you did or something you forgot to take into account. I wouldnt have a problem if it was a little more fast, but its one thing or the other. Make it difficult as nails as it is and really fast when you want (the wait times are repetitive) or make if a little bit softer with some of the things and keep it with this speed.

Oh, yeah! I forgot to mention how the game is too slow! Like the 3DS can't seem to handle the game fast enough, so 50% (like 1 hour) of the year is spent doing nothing as you can't look around while it is fast-forwarding or else it comes out of fast-forward.


EDIT: This video just makes me want to play A-Train 9 as just the scale and the complexity of the tracks seem so cool!
 
Limitation of the hardware, clearly...unless it's like that on other games.

Streetcars suck in this game, but I feel like it's a hardware limitation as I do most of the quirks with the game.

Maybe, but these seem like weird things to be hardware limitations. You have to manually set up routes for vehicles you control, after all, and the AI can handle left turns for ground vehicles just fine at other intersections. The streetcar thing is even more baffling.

Overall, I think the game is the best Transport Simulator game I have played since TTD, which is surprising since I thought CiM2 would be before it's release, but was let down by it ALOT.

Cities in Motion 1 was a fine game, but it was held back by it's limited visuals (no weather or day and night etc.), small maps and not having much say in the world apart from laying down underground tracks and bus stops.

Cities in Motion 2 was a game that seemed to be built with the community in mind, but also tried doing EVERYTHING at once. The additional features such as bigger land, better camera and day and night made the game feel more alive...but the fact that roads seemed a bit too pricey to build and were the only way to expand the city made it feel like starting with a blank-slate map was not very viable or fun.

I also felt like the timetable aspect as well as the length of days and overall speed of the game felt a bit off. For example, buses which are just going like 2 blocks down are said to take like 30 minutes to get there, which, at the time I played it, felt odd to me.

Also, I didn't like the depot system whereby each route had to come out a depot to start it's day and sometimes routes didn't have enough buses to run it because you have another 2 lines using the depot buses and at certain times in the day you need too much buses for the depot to handle.

I never did finish Cities in Motion 2; I got to a point in the first campaign where I clearly had a problem trying to meet a ridership objective, but had no obvious means of improving my system except to grind for money until I could finish the metro. CIM2 was a mixed bag for me too. I loved, for example, that the game looked so much better and managed to keep a decent framerate, while CIM1 would regularly drop into single-digit framerates. But there was a simplicity to CIM1 that was lacking somewhat in CIM2, and while I actually really liked the timetable system and the concept of depots, the way depots were implemented was too abstract. It's been a while since I've played, though, and I keep meaning to go back.

I am sad to see the thread sort of die off in less than a month, but I am also overjoyed that I experienced the series for the first time and had a small, dedicated group to talk to about it. If A-Train 9's bigger maps, more to scale cities and overall higher level of complexity is true, then I might hop in at 4.0 aswell if the localization team don't annoy the community again.


If I find out details about 4.0, i'll post them here to keep people informed of the game and to also semi-bump to let people see this amazing game.

We'll always have perky stockbroker lady, animal-loving foreman and old geezer CFO!

FCdkoWh.jpg
 

MouldyK

Member
I don't get the complaint that not having enough rolling stock makes the game automatically that much worse. A-Train 9 V3.0 offers plenty of solutions to maps even with just a few trains; of course it'd play better with a full selection. The 3DS game's strengths over its big brother have to do with accessibility, unique scenarios, and a better soundtrack, whereas the PC games have limited mod support, tons of UI enhancements, a scalable 3D engine, and nearly if as much complexity (allocated differently, of course). Degica has failed to support and so much as communicate with its audience for more than a few months. By going for licensed trains over and over again, they fail to listen to customers saying it's an unlikely deal and not worth the trouble (for Degica and for Artdink). Some users are so fucking bitter and bored enough to complain about this in every single post they make on the forums, though. Costarring gets on my nerves...it's as if he lives for this and this only, instead of educating himself about the series's history and why Artdink's done what it does. All this game is, to some people, is an excuse to politic about consumer rights, which is fine in other venues but not for on a game's sub-forum, in every thread imaginable.

Okay, after playing some of A-Train 9 V1.0 for a bit, I honestly think that the community having a go at Degica ruined the reputation ALOT.
I mean, while I spent 3-5 hours just toying around, only to go bankrupt due to not thinking right, I honestly adore the game.

It may not be as simple as A-Train 3DS to get into...and lack features such as:

- No Route-Map on the Road to easily see where faults lie in trails.
- No way to upgrade trains you have bought with more carriages (that I know of).

EDIT: I found a way to see how busy trains are and realised how the Height Tool works, so those problems are solved.

But it makes up for it with the bigger maps, more free-form road placements and other neat features. I am divided on the Factory Materials not being able to be used to build buildings though and them needing to be in a warehouse first. I might get used to that, but it means less buildings around factories unless I find a way.


Might be tempted to make a thread somewhere when 4.0 is released to show more pictures to the world. :D


EDIT: A-Train 9 V3 is 66% off on Steam until the 29th!!!
 
Very torn whether to get now and just hope for a 50% off the next one for owners of this one or waiting.

Well, the way I look at it, if they don't discount v4.0, I wouldn't buy it at launch anyways. So it's either pay $25 now and enjoy v3.0, and then in a few months (October/November?) maybe get a 50% discount on v4.0; or pay nothing now and wait for v4.0 to go on sale, since it'll probably end up being $60 again. Either way, I'll end up spending no more than $60, but in one scenario I get v3.0 as well, and potentially v4.0 sooner.

I'm probably just gonna do it. Geeeeeeeeez, A-Train.
 

MouldyK

Member
Well, the way I look at it, if they don't discount v4.0, I wouldn't buy it at launch anyways. So it's either pay $25 now and enjoy v3.0, and then in a few months (October/November?) maybe get a 50% discount on v4.0; or pay nothing now and wait for v4.0 to go on sale, since it'll probably end up being $60 again. Either way, I'll end up spending no more than $60, but in one scenario I get v3.0 as well, and potentially v4.0 sooner.

I'm probably just gonna do it. Geeeeeeeeez, A-Train.

I caved...but felt bad about it after as I fear for 4.0 and might not even play A-Train for a while. But ah well, atleast it's there.
 

Toma

Let me show you through these halls, my friend, where treasures of indie gaming await...
This game is on sale for $10 until the 30th. Figured the thread ought to be bumped with this info.

Grab it guys. This game is an absolute gem. It was easily worth more money for me.
 

Toma

Let me show you through these halls, my friend, where treasures of indie gaming await...
Yep, the game is amazing guys. 10 dollars is a steal.
But remember, you are going to spend hundreds of hours on it if you like it.

Its basically a time machine teleporting you a few hundred hours into the future, while giving you fond memories of extraordinary building and economic feats.
 

Toma

Let me show you through these halls, my friend, where treasures of indie gaming await...
Only 20% off for me :(

Down to 10$ is crazy, but I bought it full price and it was worth it. Very much so. This is a type of simulation game that I considered extinct and its FAR more intriguing and complex than I would have expected on a handheld.
 

Pandy

Member
Another voice of recommentdation for those that can get a deal on this.

I've actually still only done the first few scenarios, because I'm starting to see how complex and awesome it is, and have been saving it for a drought period when I can really get completely into it. (Likely the months before the NX launch)
 

eschiver

Member
I like the game but I must say, the UI is really a downer for me. Managing bus lines is a nightmare, and I could never get trains to run like I want them to.
 

eschiver

Member
I just mastered the train departure schedules. Getting back into the fun. Bus lines are still a nightmare if you got tons of intersections.
 

rdaneel72

Member
A tremendous value at $30. An absolute steal at $10.

My advice for bus routes: check regular and deadhead movement instructions at each intersection. My buses would always take a wrong turn during deadhead hours and end up lost by morning.
 

Toma

Let me show you through these halls, my friend, where treasures of indie gaming await...
Just started digging into the third/fourth mission. Holy Moly, this game is getting deep.

Thinking about this game makes me warm and fuzzy inside.
Such a great experience and I still didnt finish all missions.
 

eschiver

Member
One thing I don't get is why they don't include a departure condition where the train waits for the train in the next station to leave before moving forward. Or am I missing something here?
 

hygraed

Member
Picked this up on sale and it seems really neat, but I'm not even done with the first tutorial scenario and I'm already lost. I don't understand how to effectively move materials around at all. No matter how I configure my loading and unloading, my freight locomotive is losing money like crazy, and now the tutorial lady is telling me to build some more material depots like I'm supposed to have the slightest clue what would be a good place. I wish there was a guide for this game somewhere online, because the tutorial's explanation of freight mechanics makes my head spin.
 

eschiver

Member
Picked this up on sale and it seems really neat, but I'm not even done with the first tutorial scenario and I'm already lost. I don't understand how to effectively move materials around at all. No matter how I configure my loading and unloading, my freight locomotive is losing money like crazy, and now the tutorial lady is telling me to build some more material depots like I'm supposed to have the slightest clue what would be a good place. I wish there was a guide for this game somewhere online, because the tutorial's explanation of freight mechanics makes my head spin.

Ya, I had trouble at first. If you're confused, you should restart the mission. The tutorial explanation has to be read carefully.

If you click the material depot and click on the expansion button that appears, you will see the area the material can be sent to in green. Yellow means that area is not covered by a material depot.

If you need to move material from one place to another, you have to place material depots near material factories. The way you tell the depot is near the factory is by making sure the material depot is built in a blue zone. However, be sure the train station is near enough to the depot to pick it up (that should be in a green zone - so both blue and green must be covered).

Make sure your freight trains are configured correctly under freight handling. It should load mats from depots that are getting mats from factories and unloading them at stations without factories.
 

cesartron

Member
One thing I don't get is why they don't include a departure condition where the train waits for the train in the next station to leave before moving forward. Or am I missing something here?
In order to do that, you may have to set specific schedule departure times to each train and each station. It's little complicated at the begining synchronice every train, but once you acomplished it's very useful to keep your trains doing what you want when and where you want.
 

eschiver

Member
In order to do that, you may have to set specific schedule departure times to each train and each station. It's little complicated at the begining synchronice every train, but once you acomplished it's very useful to keep your trains doing what you want when and where you want.

This is what I did but it's very time consuming because you have to set one train down and then time the routes to see how long it takes. Once you done that, you can start predicting and setting the time departures. And then, you have to time the deadhead hours to make sure each train arrives at the right station or shed so they don't crash into each other. And you'd have to make sure they are scheduled to depart at the right station each morning. This is a lot of work though compared to the efficiency of just making sure you don't catch up to trains ahead.
 

hygraed

Member
Ya, I had trouble at first. If you're confused, you should restart the mission. The tutorial explanation has to be read carefully.

If you click the material depot and click on the expansion button that appears, you will see the area the material can be sent to in green. Yellow means that area is not covered by a material depot.

If you need to move material from one place to another, you have to place material depots near material factories. The way you tell the depot is near the factory is by making sure the material depot is built in a blue zone. However, be sure the train station is near enough to the depot to pick it up (that should be in a green zone - so both blue and green must be covered).

Make sure your freight trains are configured correctly under freight handling. It should load mats from depots that are getting mats from factories and unloading them at stations without factories.

Thanks!! The factory thing is what was tripping me up. I don't remember her explaining that at all, at least not at the point where I am in the tutorial; she told me about the station zones but I had no idea how to determine which material depots were producing goods. This should help a lot.
 

eschiver

Member
Thanks!! The factory thing is what was tripping me up. I don't remember her explaining that at all, at least not at the point where I am in the tutorial; she told me about the station zones but I had no idea how to determine which material depots were producing goods. This should help a lot.

Ya, the tutorial is very dense. I usually start the mission and go through it and then restart to improve myself once I get a hold of all the concepts.
 

kramer

Member
Could some of you help me? I've had the game since launch and kept up with this thread as it went and have re-read through it a couple of times over the months.

However, I cannot work out train timetables.

If I have a loop and spread them out, soon enough they all bunch up. How do I stop this? How do I keep them evenly spread out or stop the bunching?

If I use the 'Depart when....' parts of the timetabling, the trains never move. Should I be using signal stations? How do they work?

Sorry, I have played this for hours, done the three tutorials (months ago) but can't work out this, rather important, part.

Thanks for your help.
 

eschiver

Member
Could some of you help me? I've had the game since launch and kept up with this thread as it went and have re-read through it a couple of times over the months.

However, I cannot work out train timetables.

If I have a loop and spread them out, soon enough they all bunch up. How do I stop this? How do I keep them evenly spread out or stop the bunching?

If I use the 'Depart when....' parts of the timetabling, the trains never move. Should I be using signal stations? How do they work?

Sorry, I have played this for hours, done the three tutorials (months ago) but can't work out this, rather important, part.

Thanks for your help.

Train timetables are very difficult in this game.

The best way is using actual time tables instead of the wait for/depart when.. but this takes a lot of work. You have to check and count how long each train takes to go through each station and approximate when the first train will return to the first station and then think about how many rounds you want it to go. There's a button that shows what time a train will get to the next station that can be used as a guide. So you can use that to calculate and create the time table. And you need to set deadhead hours so that when the clock strikes 2 or 3 AM, you can make it go to a shed or an empty station that it can use to restart its journey correctly the next day.

Now what you're talking about with the depart when..., that's best used in multiple rail tracks situation with signal stations. But it can get funky. So you'd have to manually experiment and tweak and figure out why things are getting stuck.
 

cesartron

Member
A-TRAIN 3D NEO COMING TO 3DS

- coming to Japan on December 1st
- regular package at 4,860 yen
- “Beginner’s Pack” that comes with an official guidebook priced at 5,378 yen
- eight extra scenarios that were offered as paid DLC will be included
- compatibility with data from the basic version is planned as well

Source: http://gonintendo.com/stories/264103-a-train-3d-neo-coming-to-3ds

I love A-Train 3D: City Simulator and I hope this version will be available for outside Japan.
 

Espiox

Member
More info from the official website:

- primarily focused on improvements to performance on a New 3DS, particularly save/load times, camera rotation and the 3D veiw mode
- Map functions of the extra buttons on New 3DS (C-stick/ZL/ZR)
- Will be offered as a free update to the original release, but without the DLC scenarios included

I'd really love for this patch to make it to the West, these performance improvements sound great. I tweeted at Natsume to see if they have any interest in bringing it. It doesn't sound like there's much/any real localisation work to do here - there's no actual new content to translate.
 

Buzzi

Member
Well, it was bumped anyway so I guess it's ok to ask a little something :^)

I just started to play and completed the first mission, but I felt the second half of my game was simply wrong. I wasn't able to tell the trains where to stop at night (I built a shed but the routing options didn't list it even in the deadend timeline) so I couldn't keep some of them (freight trains) running 24/7 because they'd just bump into each other. Tried the options of waiting/arrival for a certain track but that didn't make sense too.
And what are signal station supposed to do? The trains stopped there to do nothing, are they used in the sense I intended to use sheds?

This whole confusion lead me to just skip time until I reached the 10k inhabitants, after all I had four full trains and a circular railway so as "macro" choices there wasn't anything major to do. But I wanted to learn micro management since it's a peculiar aspect of the game and missions will surely feel shallower without all those aspects...
 

eschiver

Member
Well, it was bumped anyway so I guess it's ok to ask a little something :^)

I just started to play and completed the first mission, but I felt the second half of my game was simply wrong. I wasn't able to tell the trains where to stop at night (I built a shed but the routing options didn't list it even in the deadend timeline) so I couldn't keep some of them (freight trains) running 24/7 because they'd just bump into each other. Tried the options of waiting/arrival for a certain track but that didn't make sense too.
And what are signal station supposed to do? The trains stopped there to do nothing, are they used in the sense I intended to use sheds?

This whole confusion lead me to just skip time until I reached the 10k inhabitants, after all I had four full trains and a circular railway so as "macro" choices there wasn't anything major to do. But I wanted to learn micro management since it's a peculiar aspect of the game and missions will surely feel shallower without all those aspects...


I had the same feeling. However, don't worry about micromanagement until after all the tutorial missions. The micromanagement part of the game is really intense.... because the only way I found to accurately keep trains on a time table was to time them throughout the day to see how long they stop at each station in the loop and then calculate their deadend travel time to see where to build sheds for them. Signals are best built on two tracks next to each other. They help keep trains from colliding into each other and also act to help lead them to the right paths. The easiest way to do micromanaging is to practice it on short routes first. The longer routes are harder to do.
 

kramer

Member
This has been one of my fave games since release, but I struggled to understand timetabling and getting trains to run how I wanted.

Recently, completed a number of the scenarios, after it finally clicked how to get trains running properly.

Great game and I hope they do a Switch port.
 

Toma

Let me show you through these halls, my friend, where treasures of indie gaming await...
Restarted the game on PC and went for the hard missions. Failed mission 4 on my first try, but aced it on hard within 2 years on my second try, yessssssss.

 

Buzzi

Member
This game is making my year :O
Currently on scenario 4 and I have some questions about aspects of the game I still seem to not grasp. Wall of text, I know...

With about one a half year remaining before the deadline (playing on normal difficulty), I have yet to reach 40k population, being at 32.5k...but the housing demand has peaked at 100% and suddenly no more house buildings are spawning (while the prior period saw 2k inhabitants earned in just two months). On top of that, some "residential demand is getting lower" warnings are popping up, which I fail to understand how to interpret: is it something ADDITIONAL to the lack of demand or it is just a reminder of the situation?

What I tried to do was mostly placing public buildings near the cities as they are suggested in the description of housing complexes, but that doesn't seem to have improved the situation after two game months.

I also planned for a mega loan to use the bullet train to improve the economy (stagnant this fourth year) but there seems to be literally no spot in the map near cities where I can place it, and being a station wouldn't it be useless to be placed in the middle of nowhere?

All towns are reached by some railways and have a good (?) amount of passengers, access to materials and a bus system in place, placing stations outside cities seems stupid given that the AI doesn't build if there's no housing to begin with.

tl;dr: what do I have to do to combat the lack of housing demand? Or do I have to build houses myself all the way through 40k and someone will inhabit them?

One more small related question would be: how do I interpret the colors in the depot subsystem? Red obviously means not buildable zones, yellow should mean zones with no resource available, but what about blue, green (with...varying shades? I'm colorblind so I'm not sure) and no color at all? They are probably guiding in the development of the city but without understanding them it's all useless.

Thanks in advance to whoever helps me, as Gaf is probably the only place where I could ask that, even the Steam discussions seem kind of empty for this :(
And to anyone who loves simulators and still didn't consider this: BUY IT NOW, on 3DS or Steam doesn't matter, a real gem.
 

Toma

Let me show you through these halls, my friend, where treasures of indie gaming await...
This game is making my year :O
Currently on scenario 4 and I have some questions about aspects of the game I still seem to not grasp. Wall of text, I know...

With about one a half year remaining before the deadline (playing on normal difficulty), I have yet to reach 40k population, being at 32.5k...but the housing demand has peaked at 100% and suddenly no more house buildings are spawning (while the prior period saw 2k inhabitants earned in just two months). On top of that, some "residential demand is getting lower" warnings are popping up, which I fail to understand how to interpret: is it something ADDITIONAL to the lack of demand or it is just a reminder of the situation?

What I tried to do was mostly placing public buildings near the cities as they are suggested in the description of housing complexes, but that doesn't seem to have improved the situation after two game months.

I also planned for a mega loan to use the bullet train to improve the economy (stagnant this fourth year) but there seems to be literally no spot in the map near cities where I can place it, and being a station wouldn't it be useless to be placed in the middle of nowhere?

All towns are reached by some railways and have a good (?) amount of passengers, access to materials and a bus system in place, placing stations outside cities seems stupid given that the AI doesn't build if there's no housing to begin with.

tl;dr: what do I have to do to combat the lack of housing demand? Or do I have to build houses myself all the way through 40k and someone will inhabit them?

One more small related question would be: how do I interpret the colors in the depot subsystem? Red obviously means not buildable zones, yellow should mean zones with no resource available, but what about blue, green (with...varying shades? I'm colorblind so I'm not sure) and no color at all? They are probably guiding in the development of the city but without understanding them it's all useless.

Thanks in advance to whoever helps me, as Gaf is probably the only place where I could ask that, even the Steam discussions seem kind of empty for this :(
And to anyone who loves simulators and still didn't consider this: BUY IT NOW, on 3DS or Steam doesn't matter, a real gem.

I'll get back to you on this a bit more in depth, but you are likely missing infrastructure, as you really need a ton for that mission, which also increases the demand to live in that area. I finished that mission on hard in under 2 years or something. How many trains/ train stops/busses/bus stops do you have?
 

Buzzi

Member
I'll get back to you on this a bit more in depth, but you are likely missing infrastructure, as you really need a ton for that mission, which also increases the demand to live in that area. I finished that mission on hard in under 2 years or something. How many trains/ train stops/busses/bus stops do you have?

Uhm, the exact number for each of those is difficult to remember, but it's like 15 stations (not counting freight exclusive), a dozen (long) trains, maybe 20 buses since every town has 2-3 of them, with 6-10 stops for each town. It doesn't seem a lacking infrastructure to me honestly, but if you confirm that more trains/passengers raises the housing cap and not only the demand I'll try to do that, although it may be too late (13 months to go now, 34k population). Just to know, I can freely take a giant loan in the last years as long as the due date falls further the deadline, right? If no one builds houses but demand recovers I could force the things by myself that way...
 

Toma

Let me show you through these halls, my friend, where treasures of indie gaming await...
Uhm, the exact number for each of those is difficult to remember, but it's like 15 stations (not counting freight exclusive), a dozen (long) trains, maybe 20 buses since every town has 2-3 of them, with 6-10 stops for each town. It doesn't seem a lacking infrastructure to me honestly, but if you confirm that more trains/passengers raises the housing cap and not only the demand I'll try to do that, although it may be too late (13 months to go now, 34k population). Just to know, I can freely take a giant loan in the last years as long as the due date falls further the deadline, right? If no one builds houses but demand recovers I could force the things by myself that way...
Yeah, you can go all out with the loans, 6k might be possible if you plop big buildings nonstop. Oh and did you provide building materials all around the cities, not only around The stations?
 

Toma

Let me show you through these halls, my friend, where treasures of indie gaming await...
Some of your other questions:
On top of that, some "residential demand is getting lower" warnings are popping up, which I fail to understand how to interpret: is it something ADDITIONAL to the lack of demand or it is just a reminder of the situation?
Yes, its sort of like an ingame event that is now active with overall lower demand.

One more small related question would be: how do I interpret the colors in the depot subsystem? Red obviously means not buildable zones, yellow should mean zones with no resource available, but what about blue, green (with...varying shades? I'm colorblind so I'm not sure) and no color at all? They are probably guiding in the development of the city but without understanding them it's all useless.

Blue areas are production areas, green areas are the consumption areas, where buildings need that good, white are train stations and yellow areas are unrelated to that type of good. It gives a good overview of the area without needing to click every single building, but usually once you know a layout of the map, you wont need this colorcoded viewing option.
 

Toma

Let me show you through these halls, my friend, where treasures of indie gaming await...
Uhm, the exact number for each of those is difficult to remember, but it's like 15 stations (not counting freight exclusive), a dozen (long) trains, maybe 20 buses since every town has 2-3 of them, with 6-10 stops for each town. It doesn't seem a lacking infrastructure to me honestly, but if you confirm that more trains/passengers raises the housing cap and not only the demand I'll try to do that, although it may be too late (13 months to go now, 34k population). Just to know, I can freely take a giant loan in the last years as long as the due date falls further the deadline, right? If no one builds houses but demand recovers I could force the things by myself that way...

I have about 1/4th more of everything, but that shouldnt be the biggest difference. My current guess is on the setup for providing materials. This is my setup for Culpepper for example:
 

Buzzi

Member
I have about 1/4th more of everything, but that shouldnt be the biggest difference. My current guess is on the setup for providing materials. This is my setup for Culpepper for example:

It's not exactly what I did, initially I used to have big depots around stations and think that would be enough, but when I realized even with drastic progress buildings didn't pop fast enough I started spreading depots some more and it helped a bit but nothing extraordinary.
The main difference I can see in the pic is the two lane railway (and double the stations, I have two in this zone, with more developed surroundings but given the time difference that's understandable), I'm running one ways and that way passengers for each station reach 7-11k per day, maybe with 15k or so housing demand would be higher but that's something difficult to implement now (although clarifying it would help in future missions)...if neither public buildings nor something other than infrastructures helps the demand I'll have to try to force my way to 40k, and if it doesn't work there's a save two years before the deadline which can be useful enough.
 

Toma

Let me show you through these halls, my friend, where treasures of indie gaming await...
It's not exactly what I did, initially I used to have big depots around stations and think that would be enough, but when I realized even with drastic progress buildings didn't pop fast enough I started spreading depots some more and it helped a bit but nothing extraordinary.
The main difference I can see in the pic is the two lane railway (and double the stations, I have two in this zone, with more developed surroundings but given the time difference that's understandable), I'm running one ways and that way passengers for each station reach 7-11k per day, maybe with 15k or so housing demand would be higher but that's something difficult to implement now (although clarifying it would help in future missions)...if neither public buildings nor something other than infrastructures helps the demand I'll have to try to force my way to 40k, and if it doesn't work there's a save two years before the deadline which can be useful enough.

Did you spread them out a bit next to the stations or delivered them inside the city to other areas via truck? Also streets help a good bit with development, as it increases the value of the land, making it more attractive for investors. In that run, I reached 40k within 1,5 years after starting the game on hard with basically almost only that above mentioned setup for depots, streets and the two way rail.
 

Buzzi

Member
Did you spread them out a bit next to the stations or delivered them inside the city to other areas via truck? Also streets help a good bit with development, as it increases the value of the land, making it more attractive for investors. In that run, I reached 40k within 1,5 years after starting the game on hard with basically almost only that above mentioned setup for depots, streets and the two way rail.

As I said, not exactly every spot of each town is covered by depots, but the most of them is, for example I didn't want to set up some truck line in a town and I simply moved the freight range of the station in order to cover some depot in a different spot from the big one.
Although I surely didn't plan as good as you (*takes notes for the next mission*), the core ideas are there, the only thing preventing me from "easily" achieve the 40k goal before the deadline is the housing demand, for which:
1) Don't really know a way to improve that, as better transport helps development but doesn't increase demand as far as I can tell
2) Those "lower demand" events (which you didn't live beacuse they happen only in the last years, granted they aren't random) made it all more painful since development produces other types of buildings instead

I'm quite sure it works similarly to every city builder, where satisfying commercial or industrial demand (maybe public demand) increases housing demand too, but the game never explicitly said that, your evidence doesn't help in this sense and the tests I've made didn't convince me of anything. Maybe I should have experimented more during the tutorials :/

Anyway I guess it's time to go all in with a couple of local improvements in line with what you did (thanks for your continuous help btw!), a big loan to finance more material factories and a lot of houses crossing my fingers that it's enough...
 

Toma

Let me show you through these halls, my friend, where treasures of indie gaming await...
As I said, not exactly every spot of each town is covered by depots, but the most of them is, for example I didn't want to set up some truck line in a town and I simply moved the freight range of the station in order to cover some depot in a different spot from the big one.
Although I surely didn't plan as good as you (*takes notes for the next mission*), the core ideas are there, the only thing preventing me from "easily" achieve the 40k goal before the deadline is the housing demand, for which:
1) Don't really know a way to improve that, as better transport helps development but doesn't increase demand as far as I can tell
2) Those "lower demand" events (which you didn't live beacuse they happen only in the last years, granted they aren't random) made it all more painful since development produces other types of buildings instead

I'm quite sure it works similarly to every city builder, where satisfying commercial or industrial demand (maybe public demand) increases housing demand too, but the game never explicitly said that, your evidence doesn't help in this sense and the tests I've made didn't convince me of anything. Maybe I should have experimented more during the tutorials :/

Anyway I guess it's time to go all in with a couple of local improvements in line with what you did (thanks for your continuous help btw!), a big loan to finance more material factories and a lot of houses crossing my fingers that it's enough...

If you still have 1-2 years, it should be enough. The big thing to underestimate is how much more population increases if you actually spread it out everywhere and not only in 4-5 spots in the city. From what I can gather, the demand increases the more supply you created. So not only is the building progress increased in the land border areas of the town if you place depots everywhere, but that also in turn increases the value of the valuable land surrounding the stations, especially if the areas are connected via streets and busses.

Also, I dont think satisfying industrial demand increases housing though. Thats more the opposite, as more industry means, the land close to it gets devalued for housing.
 

Toma

Let me show you through these halls, my friend, where treasures of indie gaming await...
Mission 5 "New Life" was a lot easier on hard than Mission 4. Took me 6 hours or so, but it was a really enjoyable mission with some tricky difficulties at the beginning. ONnce you got enough money, it basically played itself though, I fast forwarded the last year until the end of the mission.

Such a stupidly fun game.
 
Top Bottom