What are difficulty settings in the Openttd.cfg file?

[MarkShot]

I realize that these are not the only ways to impact difficulty. There is AI, NewGRF, and scripts.

However, I wanted to for the moment look at these.

Also, I saw on the WiKi that I could run with different CFG files. But actually, as the CFG is really an INI file, I have software which can zap keys in these files. This makes more sense so that CFGs can change, but I can apply canned difficulty as I like without having to propagate other changes.

So, what options make the game harder or easier?

Thanks.

[eekee]

I think the best idea is probably to go through settings in the GUI, so you can see the notes each one has, then use your tools on the resultant file. Alternatively, maybe there's a file with all the notes and corresponding settings.

As for settings I use:

I like to make things a bit harder by enabling cargodist, AKA "cargo distribution" under Environment in Settings. It means passengers build up at connecting stations; you have to supply enough trains/trams/whatever to get them to their final destination. I say "passengers" because that's what I use it for. If I used it for all cargo, I think I'd go insane! Actually, it wouldn't be too bad because cargo only books to go to existing stations. If you make a route from A to B only, cargo won't be booked to go to C.

(There's one annoying bug in cargodist: routes are determined in advance and are absolutely strict. If you insert station C between stations A and B, passengers booked to go via A to B will get off the vehicles at station A. It's astonishing! The link graph will update in 16 days or whatever it's set to, but those passengers will stay in station A until they devolve into "any destination" cargo, which takes 6 months or more. Sometimes you just have to let it happen.)

There's a category for vehicle physics, including settigns to make slopes much more demanding. Also, if trains can't accelerate quickly, merging busy lines becomes much more challenging.

Disasters and breakdowns, of course. A plane crash is as bad as any other disaster, blocking your airport for a long time, or halving the capacity of the 4-runway airport. (2-runway airports get blocked; they won't repurpose the take-off runway for landing.) Train crashes too, but they're your own fault for messing up the signalling. A plane crash is a random event (mostly). (Road vehicles can only collide with trains. In case of gridlock, they will eventually overlap each other to break the lock.) Any crash will drop the ratings of your stations in that town to 0%, but it starts to get better immediately.
https://wiki.openttd.org/Disasters

Limitations: I change 'when paused' sometimes, mostly keeping it on 'allow non-construction actions', but going to 'all actions' on a few extremely busy games where changing track with trains running just gets too annoying. I put most of the others on maximum/allowed and then restrict myself in gameplay style. For example, allowing disconnected stations but limiting how far apart the pieces may be, and trying to use footbridge/subway tiles.

Accounting settings don't seem to make much difference to me. I guess it would in the presence of other difficulties, such as a very small map with only 1 or 2 towns and no industries, or GRFs with only expensive vehicles. (I started one of those recently; just a GRF test I decided to keep going. It needed *lots* of fast-forwarding.) A high subsidy multiplier can give a bit of a boost, but the subsidy stops after a year, and can leave you with an unprofitable line. Most lines will become profitable eventually, but in some cases vehicle replacement will be more than the profit made in the vehicle's life. Anyway, money only matters for a time at the start of the game. Eventually, income outweighs any conceivable expenditure.

My other favourite difficulty settings involve world generation. Mountainous or "alpinist" terrain makes track planning very challenging, especially early in the game. Snow also makes track or road very expensive. Trees also increase the expense somewhat. (Farmland is the worst, but that's not a setting.) Tropical games are easier because it's cheapest to build on the desert.

I always turn town council attitude up to 'hostile'.

[+] Spoiler

It doesn't make much difference if you make sure to provide a bus service before you build anything else near the town. That way, your rating will recover even if you get it down to 'appalling.' A single bus is cheap enough, and will improve your rating with the council even if it only carries 0.01% of the passengers who want to travel. Council ratings are separate to station ratings.

There are probably other settings which affect difficulty. In fact, I'm sure which affect difficulty will depend who you ask.

[eekee]

I forgot the settings about forbidding trains to make 90 degree turns, and allowing train reversing at stations. Allowing both may be useful, but they can make the game a little trickier by allowing trains to choose unexpected routes. The 90 degree turn one is especially tricky because such turns may appear as an unavoidable part of a junction.

Note careful wording due to the negative sense of one of the options.

Apologies for not knowing the keys of any of these options. Come to think of it, they must be documented somewhere. Grepping the souce would probably work.

[planetmaker]

One of the most overlooked "difficulty setting" is actually the map size. Compare how quickly you make loads of money on a 256 * 256 tile map compared to any bigger one. Then add none, one, two or three of the more capable AIs... and it gets definitely more challanging than on a 1024 * 1024 map you play on alone (which is 16x more space and 4x more distance / revenue for cargo than you had in TTD)