House rules...

General talk about Transport Tycoon that isn't specific to TTD, TTDPatch or OpenTTD.
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Axlrose
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House rules...

Post by Axlrose »

I was not sure which section to put this thread, so I decided here would probably be the best place.

Over the years of playing Transport Tycoon, I created a set of "house rules" that I use to extend and toughen my games. At first, my list was small, but grew as I created different rules as I came across new situations. Sometimes my own rules can aggravate me, but in the long run, they make the game a much more enjoyable experience, at least for me. And taking a page from real life, many of my rules seem to mimic reality.

I constantly revolve through my list of cities / towns without locking onto a few at best. Each one has a total of five actions done towards it in any combination before moving onward to the next one on the list: building any single block of station, removing a construction site, laying half a section of road, laying a section of railroad track, or lowering / raising land one depth / height.

Since road construction seems to be a multiple month affair here in the States, I mimic reality by building in sections. For example, each square holds two half sections of road. Thus during the building phase of a long stretch, I lay down the first half, then return later, building and skipping sections. Attempting to ~draw~:

road-space-road-space-road-space-road-space-road-space-road... (then later)

road-road-road-space-road-road-road-space-road-road-road... (then later)

road-road-road-road-road-road-road-space-road-road-road... (then later)

road-road-road-road-road-road-road-road-road-road-road...

Trees are a thorn in my side, since I assume the gaming world is full of tree-hugging druids that frown upon me cutting them down. Thus what I do is note how many trees are per tile I would want to cut down and remove then role six-sided dice. Yep - rolling dice with the following rule: any roll of one saves a tree (and potentially a whole square), a roll of three or five is voided, and a roll of even numbers mean the tree can fall. Thus using my example above:

road-two trees-road-one tree-road-space-road-three trees-road-space-road...

And I was to attempt to remove the trees for road...

(rolls two dice for the two trees) - four and four = trees are chopped down.
(rolls one die for the one tree) - one = the solo tree lives again.
(rolls three dice for the three trees) - two and three (reroll) into a six and a one = the whole square lives.

All my building is done during pause actions, so any sets of five actions let time roll by until the red cost numbers disappear. Then back into pause mode for the next city or town building actions. Yet bridges and tunnels take a special rule. The total number of squares used in the construction (including entrances) are ticked off the unpaused days, letting the game roll by. That is, while reality takes months to years to build them, I do not have instant builds.

I have saved games if by chance people are curious just what I am babbling about here...

Well, does anyone use any special house rules of their own or am I the only oddball case? :P

Thanks for reading!
Last edited by Raichase on 06 Sep 2007 08:18, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Moved to "General TTD"
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Dave
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Re: House rules...

Post by Dave »

You're certainly not. I'll post my own in a notepad later in the thread if it gets a few additions.

Love your ideas too; might incorporate them myself.

Although, I have to ask - what's this doing in suggestions? :P
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athanasios
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Re: House rules...

Post by athanasios »

Dave Worley it seems you 've got a new brother now! :lol:

I don't use such rules, but to be honest, setting aside the above joke, I 'd like some delay to be implemented in construction like in some other games (e.g. Giant games). So it is good you brought this issue.
Last edited by athanasios on 03 Sep 2007 22:32, edited 1 time in total.
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m3henry
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Re: House rules...

Post by m3henry »

nice Ideas, altough I would have put them in the general TT section
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Axlrose
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Re: House rules...

Post by Axlrose »

My apologies... if a moderator would like to relocate this thread, then by all means, go ahead.

But it does make a nice suggestion if there was a delay in building instead of being instant creations. A section of road or a railroad track I can see being built in one game day. But alteration of the lands or destruction of a construction site (buildings) should be a few days interval. And bridges and tunnels should be an extended amount of delayed time. Of course, if it was possible, there would be two pricing options. First would be the normal cost at x amount of time until completion versus the second at possibly four times the normal cost (paying for overtime) at x/2 amount of time until completion. Either option would still be a good chunk of gaming time to accomplish with perhaps a ghost image of the bridge or tunnel as markers during the wait.

Thanks for reading.
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Re: House rules...

Post by wallyweb »

Axlrose wrote:My apologies... if a moderator would like to relocate this thread, then by all means, go ahead.

But it does make a nice suggestion if there was a delay in building ...
That's it! This thread is now officially a suggestion and should not be moved. :wink:

I like that idea ... time based construction intervals based upon the number of tiles used in the construction. It should be interesting to see how the patch devs react to this.
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Re: House rules...

Post by Ameecher »

The problem I can see with that is that you could get a town or the AI companies building across where your (for example) bridge would be built after you've started construction which could cause problems. You could rectify that I suppose though by just making the build square by square graphical, so that as far as the train is concerned the bridge is there, just it doesn't look it.

Ok, I'll stop rambling now.
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wallyweb
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Re: House rules...

Post by wallyweb »

Ameecher wrote:The problem I can see with that is that you could get a town or the AI companies building across where your (for example) bridge would be built after you've started ...

Ok, I'll stop rambling now.
That's not a ramble. That's a valid consideration. :wink:
So you do the reality thing and, using the land own tool, buy up the tiles where competitors might place a bridge footing or tunnel entrance that would interfere with your best laid plans. :)
Keep in mind that you only have to block them from one end.
Expensive? That's reality for you. :D

The other option, if this suggestion is viable, is that when you lay out your route, you purchase the land rights such that even though your road is not yet completed, the routing belong to you. 8)
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Re: House rules...

Post by Stevie D »

wallyweb wrote:The other option, if this suggestion is viable, is that when you lay out your route, you purchase the land rights such that even though your road is not yet completed, the routing belong to you. 8)
I think that's how it should work. When you build a route, it reserves the land for you (like buying the land) and builds, eg, one tile of road/railway per day. You can only build one tile per day, so any further building you do before that is complete will be added to the "build queue".

Stations, bridges and tunnels would be interesting - what would be great is if the whole structure was "under construction" for the appropriate number of days (eg a 4×2 station would take 8 days to build).

Fantastic would be if we could have graphics for track, stations and bridges under construction - but I'll leave that for someone more skilled than me!

Whether removing roads and tracks should be instant or added to the queue (a different queue or the same one), I'll leave open for discussion.
If they are queued as well, I would suggest that removing any unbuilt track simply deletes that track from the build queue, rather than requiring it to be built and then immediately bulldozed.
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