Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
@Pasi Thank you for your insight
@Blokker You may be right, but I probably have forgotten the most important element. Regardless whether fares are calculated based on either euclidean distance or transported distance (if someone has some information on that please tell me), then it is better to have straight lines to transport passengers farther. If I have cities A,B,C with 10 km distance between each, in a circular line I only transport passengers for 10 km regardless where they want to go, If I have cities A-10km-B-10km-C passengers wanting to go from A-C or C-A travel 20km. On average (including A-B and B-C 10 km) that makes 15 km. That should earn on average 50% more revenue. Maybe circular lines are able to reduce travel time and are able to attract more passengers, but I’m not sure it will compensate the loss on revenue. Am I missing something ?
Note: if fares are calculated by euclidean distance (as I suspect but am not sure) then the position of the cities need also to be different… on a straight line as opposed as on a circle.
@Blokker
You are only partly right as they created a mod that removes the main connection “feature”.
I never experienced your second point, but this would be really annoying. Probably just as annoying as the electrification of lines (when I electrify lines I often find too late that some of my trains is stuck – maybe just because a little piece of track is not electrified – and then even lose about all the passengers which takes several years to get up to normal again)
You can also add to the annoying points that road over rail passings (impossible to do, impossible to update roads etc.).
In the end I still find the game enjoyable, but after having played it 2-3 times it rapidly loses interest (all maps are kind of the same). I shall try to install some mods…
I never tried it, but I think it may actually be better than point to point routes for two reasons:
1) shortens time to each city (you always get q city distance A-B B-C A-C and not two cities distance A-B-C). This should maximise occupation and, if the cities are connected to other cities, you might even end up transporting passengers farther.
2) trains should never wait for each other at signals or stations (I often use full double tracks to avoid this).
However, there may a few disadvantaged I can think of:
1) you will probably need to lay more track (this can be a problem in the beginning where you have limited amounts of cash, afterwards it is no problem as track costs little comparing to running costs)
2) you may need to use more trains (since tracks are longer and maybe because of the two directions) and therefore higher running costs.
It would be interesting if someone makes an experiment.
I don’t think depots have any impact on maintenance costs, which appears to only depends on time.
I do not think this would be a useful feature and developers already have more important stuff to improve (if they are willing to) like balancing (e.g. capacities, running costs, infrastructure costs…), vehicles reversals when changing roads/rails, x crossings, street over rail crossings etc.
To me it is worth. The game runs fine and is well done. There is not a proper tutorial or screen tips, but there are plenty of guides out there and many aspects are intuitive.
If you are serving the same cities, then the bus line certainly negate the need for train lines (or viceversa) depending on frequency, speed and distance to destination.
I commonly put cargo stops near the industries, but in reality what matters is to remain under the 20 minutes rule, which includes “walking” time. If you are under the 20 minutes including walking you get no additional benefits to relocate your stations. However for longer distances it may change: putting stations near industries may allow you to reach farther places within the 20 minutes lines (and longer lines are generally more profitable).
It is indeed a strange behaviour. Have you a “wait for full load” policy ? If yes frequencies may vary and arrive at a certain point above the 20 minutes line or another coal mill becomes more interesting.
Finally year 2000, but I could not manage to break 1 billion. I stopped at little less than 900 millions.
I did not do much in the last 50 years apart updating my vehicles and tweaking some intra-city lines and redesigned some train lines (more straight with some tunnels to benefit from added speed… I wish I had done it from the beginning but at that time I had little cash). Finally with the 25 passenger bus, even intra city lines start to become profitable. However, I do get only about 80% usage (it goes up withmore busses, but this would generate additionan losses) and start to see a bunch of private traffic.
Do you also get the impression than once lines are laid, the game is pretty limited to update vehicles or do you change line configurations with the passing of time ? If the latter, what changes you bring in your network ?
I am now at 1950, 250 millions and an annual income of 10 millions.
I basically update all cargo routes with new trucks (and sold the surplus trucks) and connected all cities with train lines. I basically have 5 main rail lines, each one connecting 3-4 cities with 2-3 trains and a frequency of 5 minutes. They are generating from 0.5 to 1.5 million profits. One is in the middle (Barricella-Giglio), the I have thre lines on the west (Pazzirrino-Poppiti, Giglio-Pitigliano, Giglio Bulzi), one in the east and two in the south.
All cities have intra-city busses, all operating around 60-90s frequency and most generate a 30-50K loss.
Cargo lines are by truck and all in the positive with two generating 1.5M each.
City growth has been mostly linear: I now have 5 cities above 500 with Pazzirrino at 700 being the largest city. The only city that is now growing fast is Giglio which is connected to 3 rail lines. I wonder if it is beneficial to have a more intricate network (e.g. allowing each city to be connected directy to all its neighbors).
@moriety I just want to make clear that I am simply a player and I’m not related to Urban Games in any way.
I also think that this game has several weaknesses and expressed them in other posts (no competition, lack of information tools, balancing, difficulties in crossing roads and rails). I also agree that developers often seem not listening to players (to be fair, they implemented some of the asked features) and they would give a much better image if they would inform us if they are planning to address some of the shortcomings in the future.
However, that is not a reason to be that disrespectful ! That was the main point of my previous post.
I also confirm that making money with trains at hard level is not that difficult. I constantly have train lines in the 1-4 million profit range and almost never have them lose money (apart from the first 1-2 years that is required to attract passengers). I even think that train lines could be more profitable than bus lines if you connect more cities on the same line (allowing passengers to go farther to subsequent cities and therefore pay more).
@morierty Your comments are usually annoying at best, but this starts to become completely unacceptable. I agree that there are some problems (I would call them minor glitches) for upgrading roads and relocating vehicles, but you cannot go as far as labelling developers as people ripping of funders and spending all of the crowdfunders money in the Pub. I think freedom of speech is paramount, but here you are going into defamation which is simply unacceptable.
I commonly play on hard and find it is really tooeasy to make money – even with trains I usually make lines that usually display profits o 1-3 millions that connect several cities and have several trains on them – to the point that my only challenge is trying to reach 1 billion before year 2000.
I usually start with cargo lines and inter-city busses for the first 10-20 years. Then I am usually switching to trains because I like them most even though I am not sure if they are economically better. Of course you have to feed your railways lines correctly with intra-city busses (which usually have a slight loss in the order of 0-50K).
Yes, the game would benefit from some balancing between busses/trams and trains: busses are usually cheaper in total cost per passenger and km (considerng also depreciation, loading capacities and speed), especially in the beginning. Trains also require a costlier infrastrucutre.
On the other hand, train usually have a higher speed and therefore allow passengers to travel farther in the 20 minutes line (providing you give them the possibility to do so) and thus you can increase the fares they pay (which, I guess, only depends on distance). Considering that, I am not sure that inter-city busses would be economically superior than trains, provided you connect more than one city and allow passengers to travel farther.
All considered, I think the game is fairly well made given its complexity and I am certainly glad I bought it.
@moriety You’re right in that capacities are too small ( even for small villages in Switzerland 🙂 ) but I think it was only for a matter of having a manageable number of people to simulate. For that matter, towns are also too small ( they are even smaller than most small villages in Switzerland … well maybe not 🙂 ). Is there a way to multiply the displayed number of passengers and citizens by 5 or 10 ?
I arrived at 1900 with little more than 50 millions and an annual income of around 3 millions.
I started by setting up cargo lines connecting some industries with more than one city (I now have three industries around 100 production near Pizzirrino, Poppiti and Ostiano) and they constitute the bulk of my income.
I then started to connect cities with busses and later replaced those lines with railways. I now have three lines with 3-4 cities each (Giglio-Barricella, Barricella-Ronzone, Pizzirrino-Poppiti) and will connect more cities later. I could have connected more if I run time slower. These lines generate an healty amount of profit (up to 500K each).
I also created 1-2 bus intra-city lines. They run at small losses, but they feed my train network well.
My most popolous cities are Pizzirrino and Tinnura with 450 people.
