Increase Terraforming cost?

[leroq]

I can imagine a rule that would double the landscaping cost for every height step.

In the most simple form: cost = (height of tile)^2

So that at ground level, it would still be possible to make flat land for doubletracks or carve out valleys, but mountains would remain off-limits until money has piled up way past year 2000.

A simple linear increase of landscaping costs would effectively slow down expansion.

A cost increase based on height levels would serve to set up effective nature protection zones.

Nevertheless I've voted for a 10x increase

[Darkvater]

I can imagine a rule that would double the landscaping cost for every height step.

In the most simple form: cost = (height of tile)^2

So that at ground level, it would still be possible to make flat land for doubletracks or carve out valleys, but mountains would remain off-limits until money has piled up way past year 2000.

A simple linear increase of landscaping costs would effectively slow down expansion.

A cost increase based on height levels would serve to set up effective nature protection zones.

Nevertheless I've voted for a 10x increase

Ooh, I like that . This way, a mountainious terrain will become even more challenging. If this is to be used, I'd suggest a 5x max multiplier. 10x would be way too expensive.

Normal cost for highest tile would be:
base_cost * 15^2 ~ 112.500 (base cost of ~500)
5x --> 562.500
10x --> 1.125.000. I think 1 million pounds for 1 tile at the top of the map might be a bit expensive

What would be even more fun, and more realistic is an exponential growth base_cost * 2^15 = 16.384.000, and that without any cost modifiers :DDD

[exe]

I can imagine a rule that would double the landscaping cost for every height step.

In the most simple form: cost = (height of tile)^2

So that at ground level, it would still be possible to make flat land for doubletracks or carve out valleys, but mountains would remain off-limits until money has piled up way past year 2000.

A simple linear increase of landscaping costs would effectively slow down expansion.

A cost increase based on height levels would serve to set up effective nature protection zones.

Nevertheless I've voted for a 10x increase

But on winter terrain half of land is very high,and its flat so it should cost not more than at sea level. I think it would be needed co calculate something like relative height(difference between current tile and most different in radius of 10-15 tiles)

EDIT:
maybe relative height would be better counted as height that is most frequent in radius.it will properly guess basic height and single small hole or hill will not change it.

[hovering teacup]

I suggest making one switch where you make game financial reality
dont put many switches or there will be too many of them

many small switches would make network games confusing as the server might use some, but not all. The clients will not always carefully read the settings

like TTD, game could have preset "easy - medium - difficult" setting, and on that basis player should be able to tweak indivisual details that he wants to. and if the network game should only accept preset settings, there would be no problem...i guess.

i personally like in-detail cost settings that the latest TTDAlter offer.

[Moriarty]

Lilman: Hmm, having re-read my post, it seems i forgot to mention the year.
End year was 1946 i believe. So about 10 years of game-play.

DJArcas: Using the temperate climate. Maintenence costs were "high". though my employee's were still working for free (why would i want to pay someone? ).

I think that had i spent 500k on terraforming i would almost certainly have gotton it back. my train routes were highly inefficient (my reference to AI-like tracks wasn't made up ), and even lowering/raising just a couple of squares of land could have saved days off some journeys.

About half of my income was from boats mind (and i do use terraforming for boats usually (by getting rid of peninsulas etc).

I think i'll set up another test game tomorow for a more conclusive and controlled study. One "terraforming" game versus one "un-touched" one.

[lucaspiller]

I think the AI needs an overhaul so they are a lot less interested in doing teraforming. I was playing on a map with a small village in the centre of a valley, with hills about 10 high around the side. Guess what they did? Flatten them! They also went bankrupt a short time after. Strangely though they always seem to do it around the towns.

[edk256]

@Moriarty:

Can you upload a save?

[Villem]

I think the AI needs an overhaul so they are a lot less interested in doing teraforming. I was playing on a map with a small village in the centre of a valley, with hills about 10 high around the side. Guess what they did? Flatten them! They also went bankrupt a short time after. Strangely though they always seem to do it around the towns.

err terraforming costs zero for the AI.

[lucaspiller]

What? Dam cheapscates.

[Moriarty]

Terraforming costs 0 for the ai? Are you sure. But that would explain the low construction bills. Hmmm.

edk: I'll upload a save when i get home and if i remember.

[Korenn]

Ooh, I like that . This way, a mountainious terrain will become even more challenging. If this is to be used, I'd suggest a 5x max multiplier. 10x would be way too expensive.

Normal cost for highest tile would be:
base_cost * 15^2 ~ 112.500 (base cost of ~500)
5x --> 562.500
10x --> 1.125.000. I think 1 million pounds for 1 tile at the top of the map might be a bit expensive

What would be even more fun, and more realistic is an exponential growth base_cost * 2^15 = 16.384.000, and that without any cost modifiers :DDD

keep in mind that to raise one point of land at the top of a mountain that often raises all other levels too...

[Villem]

Terraforming costs 0 for the ai? Are you sure. But that would explain the low construction bills. Hmmm.

edk: I'll upload a save when i get home and if i remember.

It is so in TTD, and i bet ludde didn't bother changing this when porting TTD over Normal C. heck, if it would cost for ai it would just estalbish the company and go belly-over right there, they make it go up & down many times even without trains or enything that makes profit yeat.

[pasky]

many small switches would make network games confusing as the server might use some, but not all. The clients will not always carefully read the settings

I don't buy that. OTTD should be fixed to send the configuration along the savegame.

Otherwise however I agree that having too many settings is bad - ideal solution would be to have a tristate choice: normal/realistic/custom, and a button where you can customize them. But that'd need some GUI coding :^).

[lucaspiller]

Sort of like the difficulty thing, yes that would be quite good.

[Moriarty]

Here's that savegame. I sort of forgot for a couple of days.

As you can probably tell with 400k in the bank, i can set up a lot more money making lines with ease (especially as none of that 400k is going to be spent on terraforming! (cept maybe tunnels)). laziness stopped me though.

[Moriarty]

Right, i've conducted a part of my experiment, and come to the following conclusion pertaining to terraforming costs:
(Note: Using mountainous terrain for all tests).

Increased costs wouldn't much effect the early game.
Mid-game they would get in the way.
Late game they wouldn't have much effect.

Reasoning:
Having just played a few short early-game games, it struck me that even when i let myself terraform, i didn't do it much, because it costs a lot compared to your starting 100k. When I start a game i build a lot of small single lines (i.e. coal mine to nearby power station). These lines are usually able to take a few tiles detour around a lake (rather than through it) and not suffer much on the profit front.
Thus early-game won't be much affected by increased costs (as shown from my above save-game (and i have a test game where i'm just 5 years in, and am making 300k per annum from trains (running costs probably 50k or so)).

Mid-game: I'm defining mid-game as the point where you have enough to buy whatever you want, within reason, but you still have to keep an eye on your spending.
At this point terraforming is important (at least to me), because I start building "cash-cows". And cash-cow's usually consist of at least 2 parrallel lines, which can be quite tricky to pull off without terraforming on non-flat landscapes.

Late-game: By this time you are loaded, and the cost of terraforming is pretty much nothing. Even if it was multiplied by 5 it still wouldn't stop me from wiping out that hill that's between point A and point B. It would probably simply prolong the mid-game length and make it take longer to get to the late-game.

I think that i'll play my recent terra-form free game some more though, to see just how much effect the terraforming does have on mid and late game play.

[powelly]

I know this nothing has been posted on this for ages, but I think there's something else worth mentioning about changes to terraforming - it's too quick!

I can wipe out a mountain in a 2 weeks of game time, which you've got to admit is faintly ridiculous.

I'd suggest that every terraforming click should take 1 day to be implemented, even if the click means multiple grid points are changed (essentially the same as clicking on each grid point on the same day).

God knows what it would do to the AI...

[dihedral]

have you noticed with what speed the intercontinental is built?
or how fast you can lay tracks from one side of a 2048^2 map to the other side?
heck, you can even transport livestock for months, without any of those animals dying.
and if you have not noticed yet, servicing trains is very fast too (or planes for that matter)

[Brianetta]

Darkvater, I think there should be the option of enforcing some kind of terraforming buffer. Earth must go somewhere, or come from somewhere. The maths is simple, and can be performed at the same time as the cost is calculated.

Raising a corner decreases your available buffer by one. Lowering a corner increases your buffer by one. A lower and upper limit are provided, and a starting value. These values are a form of difficulty setting. Exceeding a limit in either direction would cause the terraforming operation to fail with a red warning, exactly as it would if you didn't have enough cash.

Having a buffer with a range of 0 to 20, starting with 10, would allow regular terraforming, without allowing people to conjure up (or magically remove) mountains. Hills could be topped to fill valleys, but there would always be the same amount of stuff making up the ground.

[CommanderZ]

Darkvater, I think there should be the option of enforcing some kind of terraforming buffer. Earth must go somewhere, or come from somewhere. The maths is simple, and can be performed at the same time as the cost is calculated.

Raising a corner decreases your available buffer by one. Lowering a corner increases your buffer by one. A lower and upper limit are provided, and a starting value. These values are a form of difficulty setting. Exceeding a limit in either direction would cause the terraforming operation to fail with a red warning, exactly as it would if you didn't have enough cash.

Having a buffer with a range of 0 to 20, starting with 10, would allow regular terraforming, without allowing people to conjure up (or magically remove) mountains. Hills could be topped to fill valleys, but there would always be the same amount of stuff making up the ground.

Sounds great!

The buffer should be enlargeable somehow, because I'm used to do quite massive terraforming once I have enough money to build big junctions and straight tracks. It would be best if you coud define a place to put the mud to/to take from. The cost of the terraforming would depend only on distance and maybe height difference. I guess this would be very realistic (and maybe even not very much annoying)