NewGRF suggestions for a 1800+ game
Posted: 16 Nov 2019 13:40
Greetings everyone!
I've been trying to set up a kind of "perfect" game that I imagined and feel a bit overwhelmed with options available. I'd very much appreciate some advice on which NewGRFs I should get and what settings to set for my goals.
My goals are:
- Start in 1850 (or even 1800) and play until I'm bored to death or I hit 2050 (whichever comes first)
- Have slower paced game, so I can focus on building my network and have enough time to use every generation of transport in the XX century
- Use horse carriages extensively in the early game for local transportation
- Use ships and early trains for distant routes
- Transition through all of the technological stages as years go by (horses=>steam=>petrol/diesel=>electric=>maglev/monorail)
- Have a balanced difficulty for making profit (not too boring, but not hard-core) at least for the first decade or so
- See cities grow from small (<500) to huge (>10000) over the years, with faster rate in XX-century, if possible
- Early years should look as close as possible to XIX century while the same should be true when I hit the XXI century
- Have all cities connected with roads and all other means of transport in a giant cargodist network
- Have at least one complete industry chain with high production volumes at the end of the game
- I want to have at least some trains eventually carry huge loads (like 10 squares) over long distances
- Have trains/ships/RVs/aircraft to be balanced against each other in terms of profit
- I'm more gameplay-oriented, so don't want eye-candy objects with no gameplay function
- In terms of graphics I like the original TTD style vehicles (similar size, easier on the eyes, etc.)
Decisions already made:
- I'll play with daylength of 2 (via JGR's patch pack)
- Town growth speed depends on transported cargo: 50-80% (via JGRPP)
- Inflation: off (maybe turn it on after I hit 1950's)
- eGRVTS (no-brainer, the only source of horse carriages)
- FISH (no-brainer as well)
- av8 aircraft (with 1/2 or 1/3 speed)
- BaseCosts (essential for balancing the difficulty)
- I'll try Early Houses
Decisions left:
1. Which combination of new graphics to use to make XIX century look like one? Thinking about:
- OGFX+ Landscape (for gridless terrain and removal of transmitters)
- TTRS
- ARRS (or RattRoads? can't decide, not sure if I want the extra level of micro-management required for manual road types)
- TBRS or ABRS?
- Swedish Houses Set
It's very confusing which sets are compatible with which only by looking at the in-game content manager.
2. Do I need additional road vehicle NewGRFs to complement eGRVTS? (it allows to only use horses, leaving everything else out for other newGRFs to fill)
- Road Hog?
- HEQS?
- Something else?
3. Which trainset to use? I'm currently split between:
- Iron Horse 2 (has clear systemic approach which I like)
- NARS 2 (liked how it looks in different ages more than UKRS)
- Any additional set for monorail/maglev/tuberail worth getting?
4. Which map size to use?
- 256x256 (played it and it's fine for vanilla OpenTTD, may be too small for the long modded game)
- 512x512 (may be a bit too large to be able to connect everything)
- 256x512?
Regarding the industry choice, I'm leaning towards FIRS basic economy. Though I may choose to play with just the OGFX+Industries. I guess this question is outside the scope of XIX century game questions.
Is there a way to have visual representation of amount of cargo waiting at station with the default industries?
Any help will be greatly appreciated!
I've been trying to set up a kind of "perfect" game that I imagined and feel a bit overwhelmed with options available. I'd very much appreciate some advice on which NewGRFs I should get and what settings to set for my goals.
My goals are:
- Start in 1850 (or even 1800) and play until I'm bored to death or I hit 2050 (whichever comes first)
- Have slower paced game, so I can focus on building my network and have enough time to use every generation of transport in the XX century
- Use horse carriages extensively in the early game for local transportation
- Use ships and early trains for distant routes
- Transition through all of the technological stages as years go by (horses=>steam=>petrol/diesel=>electric=>maglev/monorail)
- Have a balanced difficulty for making profit (not too boring, but not hard-core) at least for the first decade or so
- See cities grow from small (<500) to huge (>10000) over the years, with faster rate in XX-century, if possible
- Early years should look as close as possible to XIX century while the same should be true when I hit the XXI century
- Have all cities connected with roads and all other means of transport in a giant cargodist network
- Have at least one complete industry chain with high production volumes at the end of the game
- I want to have at least some trains eventually carry huge loads (like 10 squares) over long distances
- Have trains/ships/RVs/aircraft to be balanced against each other in terms of profit
- I'm more gameplay-oriented, so don't want eye-candy objects with no gameplay function
- In terms of graphics I like the original TTD style vehicles (similar size, easier on the eyes, etc.)
Decisions already made:
- I'll play with daylength of 2 (via JGR's patch pack)
- Town growth speed depends on transported cargo: 50-80% (via JGRPP)
- Inflation: off (maybe turn it on after I hit 1950's)
- eGRVTS (no-brainer, the only source of horse carriages)
- FISH (no-brainer as well)
- av8 aircraft (with 1/2 or 1/3 speed)
- BaseCosts (essential for balancing the difficulty)
- I'll try Early Houses
Decisions left:
1. Which combination of new graphics to use to make XIX century look like one? Thinking about:
- OGFX+ Landscape (for gridless terrain and removal of transmitters)
- TTRS
- ARRS (or RattRoads? can't decide, not sure if I want the extra level of micro-management required for manual road types)
- TBRS or ABRS?
- Swedish Houses Set
It's very confusing which sets are compatible with which only by looking at the in-game content manager.
2. Do I need additional road vehicle NewGRFs to complement eGRVTS? (it allows to only use horses, leaving everything else out for other newGRFs to fill)
- Road Hog?
- HEQS?
- Something else?
3. Which trainset to use? I'm currently split between:
- Iron Horse 2 (has clear systemic approach which I like)
- NARS 2 (liked how it looks in different ages more than UKRS)
- Any additional set for monorail/maglev/tuberail worth getting?
4. Which map size to use?
- 256x256 (played it and it's fine for vanilla OpenTTD, may be too small for the long modded game)
- 512x512 (may be a bit too large to be able to connect everything)
- 256x512?
Regarding the industry choice, I'm leaning towards FIRS basic economy. Though I may choose to play with just the OGFX+Industries. I guess this question is outside the scope of XIX century game questions.
Is there a way to have visual representation of amount of cargo waiting at station with the default industries?
Any help will be greatly appreciated!