Have had the review build for about a week now, and as much as I wanted to love this game it has some serious flaws that completely bugger it up.
Primarily, it's that pile-up problem. You set up your routes, add the vehicles, and once your passenger numbers start to increase your vehicles all jam up in a line, leaving a load of angry passengers at the other end of the network. Similarly, if a bus breaks down it clogs the entire network for around a minute. Why can the other buses not go round when it's a multi-lane road?
But what this game really needs is more micromanagement. You need to be able to tell your vehicles to wait a specific amount of time at stops or until they're half full. Without that level of control you're essentially setting up a model railway and watching the trains go round and round. You have absolutely no influence on how the vehicles operate and that's the key flipping point of the entire game - the creation of a transport network under your control.
About the only thing you can do is modify the fare prices and the vehicle used. You can also initiate some PR campaigns to boost sales, but really, the game lacks that satisfaction you got from Transport Tycoon or Sid Meier's Railroads when you finally put together a profitable working network. The game is wonderfully detailed in every aspect, apart from the actual gameplay. And because of these problems it can be brutally difficult on Normal. Hell, you may have problems on the first campaign level because of the crappy old buses and soaring costs.
The PR people say there's a patch due on launch day so hopefully it fixes the above. I know there was some talk on Facebook about stopping the traffic jams, but that's only part of the problem. Also on the list of grievances: buses poking into a second lane at stops, causing massive tailbacks as AI vehicles refuse to go two inches around; vehicles breaking down way too often and always at the next stop; lack of info regarding the effect of wages on your staff; AI incidents blocking routes, with your vehicles again being unable to go around; long routes with multiple stops simply generating hundreds of passengers who all get angry and completely screw your company (seriously, only build short routes with a few stops); and so on and so forth.
The game has a lot of promise and I hope Paradox can 'do a Magicaka' to get it all fixed.
Primarily, it's that pile-up problem. You set up your routes, add the vehicles, and once your passenger numbers start to increase your vehicles all jam up in a line, leaving a load of angry passengers at the other end of the network. Similarly, if a bus breaks down it clogs the entire network for around a minute. Why can the other buses not go round when it's a multi-lane road?
But what this game really needs is more micromanagement. You need to be able to tell your vehicles to wait a specific amount of time at stops or until they're half full. Without that level of control you're essentially setting up a model railway and watching the trains go round and round. You have absolutely no influence on how the vehicles operate and that's the key flipping point of the entire game - the creation of a transport network under your control.
About the only thing you can do is modify the fare prices and the vehicle used. You can also initiate some PR campaigns to boost sales, but really, the game lacks that satisfaction you got from Transport Tycoon or Sid Meier's Railroads when you finally put together a profitable working network. The game is wonderfully detailed in every aspect, apart from the actual gameplay. And because of these problems it can be brutally difficult on Normal. Hell, you may have problems on the first campaign level because of the crappy old buses and soaring costs.
The PR people say there's a patch due on launch day so hopefully it fixes the above. I know there was some talk on Facebook about stopping the traffic jams, but that's only part of the problem. Also on the list of grievances: buses poking into a second lane at stops, causing massive tailbacks as AI vehicles refuse to go two inches around; vehicles breaking down way too often and always at the next stop; lack of info regarding the effect of wages on your staff; AI incidents blocking routes, with your vehicles again being unable to go around; long routes with multiple stops simply generating hundreds of passengers who all get angry and completely screw your company (seriously, only build short routes with a few stops); and so on and so forth.
The game has a lot of promise and I hope Paradox can 'do a Magicaka' to get it all fixed.
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