How do Material sites favor Factories?

[jfjohnny5]

I noticed something tonight, and I’m wondering if anyone else has seen this. I had a single coal mine that was part of a Steel production chain for most of my game. It got up to about 120 production. Then I noticed it started shipping some of it’s coal on its own to the nearby town. At first I was confused then I realized it was using a Truck Station in town. I was delivering Steel from a different Steel factory to that town. The Coal Mine, on its own, started sending coal to that Steel Factory. So I plopped down a new truck route. I decided I might as well get in on the action.

Then I noticed that my original route dried up. There was still a ton of demand for Steel from the other factory, but it wasn’t sending coal there anymore. It was sending smaller amounts of Coal to the much closer Truck stop in the nearby town.

I know this is all terribly confusing. So in a nutshell what I saw was that it was favoring a lower demand, but shorter route. That doesn’t seem to make sense to me. Why would it not just try to fill both demands? Anyone else seen this – where a material site (mine, lumber camp, etc) will favor the closer of two options, even if there is a higher demand option that is still within the 20 minute limit?

• This topic was modified 10 years, 7 months ago by jfjohnny5.
• This topic was modified 10 years, 7 months ago by jfjohnny5.

[Morat]

I’ve seen similar behaviour where a line will just dry up when the AI decides it likes another route better, even though it could supply both. If you let the sim run on it does sometimes recover over time, but it’s painfully slow and not always guaranteed to happen.

The biggest issue I’ve had with this is that a line that was profitable suddenly becomes a huge loss maker, crippling my ability to do anything without constant borrowing.

[Yeol]

During the game your road network will change: more roads, more connections, faster roads. Even a newly installed line of your trucks may be used by the AI to ship something completely different in another direction, and beating you with your own truck! This all may result that suddenly another town supplier is faster in delivering it’s good then your intended line, that’s running for years, with the same trucks and same frequency. The demand for your goods stopped suddenly and your routes make huge losses.

It’s a challenge to find out what happened. Why your city is looking elsewhere for goods. Why is the other supplier faster then you? It’s all to do with speed in delivery. You have to be the fastest to keep the job. It’s a part of the fun, I think. Strategy, counter strategy and problem solving. The cargo transport system with the hubbing of freight and passengers is one of the big pluses of this game.

[jfjohnny5]

I don’t see why you need to be the fastest option to “keep the job” – it would make more sense for the Mine to ramp up production and supply BOTH demands. I mean if you were running the Mine, that would just mean more profit…

[bencze]

Yeah, that’s just weird. I usually destroy a block of road to prevent walking resources. Never noticed them rebuilt after several decades.

[Author]

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