Transport Tycoon Forums

After playing TTD for a few years in and out, I always tend to quit after 2 or three games. In my opinion the game is just too easy after you master the game mechanics. I find myself taking advantage of the game mechanics more than use my wit to solve problems in order to make a profit. For this reason i really think Open TTD should have a lot more micromanaging instead of aiming towards the transport power-monger it was initially designed as.

Here are some reasonable suggestions that would make the game more challenging and fun to play.

Research:

- Instead of just having new vehicles by default on a given date, one should have to grind for them. Wouldn't it be more fun if you had to allocate funds to a research department in order to get vehicles, improved wagons, better commodities for passengers, new traffic lights, longer tunnels and better bridges, longer stations and new station amenities for passengers? In my opinion you should be able to choose where and how much money to invest in a given area of research in order to specialise in a particular cargo and transport method.

- The ability to hire engineers with different stats and capabilities or even the actual engineer that build some of the vehicles.

- This would really consume some of the huge profits that a player tend to gather during the game that take some of the fun away.

- The ability to enhance the performance of your publicity campaigns instead of just choosing small, medium or large.

- Pushing the envelope a little further would be having the ability to conduct industrial espionage and trying to steal blueprints or hire engineers from rival companies.

History:
- Not being really a game mechanic it would be fun to know some history behind the vehicles we use during the game. The inventor, history and some fun facts about the vehicles. In my opinion this would capture the attention of some of us that for some unexplainable reason love to see those old choo choo trains going around.

- This could be implemented my clicking a button on the vehicle screen or in the newspaper whenever a vehicle was launched.

- I imagine something like old black and white photos of the machine and the real inventor or even black and white videos along with the text, stats, and fun trivia supplied from the forum community that dont know how to code but would like to contribute somehow.

- Just google for "LMS Jubilee Class 5552" and you immediately know what i'm talking about.

Politics:

- In order to do some major landscaping in a given town or even build an huge airport or train station you should sometimes be "compelled to donate" for the new city stadium or the local pinnacle building and in this way give a little boost to the city growth.

- The ability to support the mayor by subsidizing his campaign in order to have better city acceptance toward your company and better building privileges.

Licenses:

- The need to have a license to transport a given cargo. This would be another small money consumer and would lead a player to specialize in a particular type of cargo instead of laying tracks to everywhere all over the place. This would also create some niches of competition inside the game.

- This would also lead the player to invest in a given research to increase the performance of the service. Better, lighter and bigger coal carriages or trucks. Faster loading/unloading coal mechanisms in the stations etc etc.

AI:

- Better train Ai.
- Having Ai's that for each company are going to specialize in a given cargo before stepping to the next kind of cargo.
- Having an AI that tries to monopolize and improve itself on some cities would be fun in the single game. It would create a little local competition between human VS ai instead of having AI's that always aim at the big picture.
- Have some conditions in the AI competitions going on on the forum in order to make them seam more human. It's fun to see an AI that sells the trucks at the end of the route just to buy a new one, but... Would you like to play against it in a single game?
- Having some conditions in the competitions like: max road vehicles or airplanes IMO would create the need to build AI's that tries to improve itself instead of just building a new route somewhere else.

Economics:

- More industries, not just replace the existing ones. Really create more complex production chains and new kinds of cargo.
- Introduce real market fluctuations based on historic events or game events. Whatever happens, coal and valuables are always the most profitable cargo to run. It shouldn't be this way. In the global market if there are too many units of coal being transported the transportation price should go down. But during the years of the first industrial revolution they should go up again.

Conclusion:
- More micromanaging will make players cherish and improve the routes they have instead of power-monger the way to the end of the game.
- More difficulties and money drains will make players always on their toes instead of getting bored for having so much money.
- Better and more competitive ai's on local situations instead of AI's all over the place.
- New game features like research, licenses or history instead of more game mechanics like transfer stations or warehouses.

Thanks for the great work you've been doing so far keep going.

"In my opinion the game is just too easy after you master the game mechanics" - so you can try to micromanagement (AKA multiplayer), building nice looking railways, building hiperefficient constructions (openttdcoop) or try write a good AI.

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Correct me If I am wrong - PM me if my English is bad
AIAI - AI for OpenTTD

As Kogut said, OpenTTD does become like a sandbox game and people play in different styles, where the goal is different to making as much money as possible. You also have to consider that in any game where you run a company, once you have become successful it gets quite easy as you have lots of money (as per real life). To make it more challenging you don't need to add more features - just use a base cost newGRF to make everything ridiculously expensive. You may also want to check out the infrastructure maintenance stuff.

You also mention more micromanaging. Whilst you may want to micromanage more, others might not want to have to go into such detail and would find the game less enjoyable and more arduous.

Have you checked out newGRFs - industry ones implement some of the things you mention and make the game more challenging.

Better AIs are always being written. If you want them to be even better, the best thing to do would be to help out developing AIs.

You also seem to have made the mistake that you buy/sell cargo in OpenTTD. This is not true, you are only paid for transporting the cargo - if you want more of a challenge try using YACD or cargodist.

In short OpenTTD has more than you seem to realize. NewGRFs and patches can really transform it.

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Screenshots

Formerly Class 165

CluelessPlus have a setting "Build new connections nearby existing ones (simple growing boundary box)", that you can enable. With it enabled, new connections will only start or end within a rectangle that is formed so that all existing connections fit within this rectangle. As it adds more connections, the rectangle grows, but it will not build new connections in a completely independent part of the map.

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My OpenTTD contributions (AIs, Game Scripts, patches, OpenTTD Auto Updater, and some sprites)
Junctioneer (a traffic intersection simulator)

After your suggestions i went on and got out of my comfort bubble and gave those newgrf's a try.

I started playing FIRS with very low number of industries and very low number of cities with high constrution and running costs. I cannot explain how much fun i'm having. Thanks guys.

Firs really brings the game to another level. Another thing that completly blew me off was the AI performance. Especially Terron and Nocab, i'm having serious difficulties keeping up with them and they d quite well with these new cargos.

Reading back my post I almost fell like I should edit or remove it completely if it wasn't for that history part. It feels like it is within reach. Research would bring that Sid Meyers feel to the game, but for the time being it seams a little far fetched.

Thanks again guys for those comments and for developing this fantastic game.