[OTTD] Central European Towns - Release Thread

[Argus]

What if I start the game later than 1920? Will some historic buildings still be preserved?

[super_dan]

No, 1920 is the limit for old town and historistic ring protection. Compared to later eras (which still are not implemented to a large part, so far), the buildings built around 1930, for example, still have an old style look. However, they will not be preserved. The idea behind this is that, if you start a game around 1850 to 1900, towns that will grow larger only in the late game are distinctively "new towns" (as in the real world). This increases diversity in the look of towns on your map.

However, I'm not yet decided completely, whether we should enable old town generation also for dates later than 1920 by parameter. It depends how many people ask for it.

[Argus]

I'm more of a fan of early starts, and rarely start after 1900, so unless I want to change a set of buildings in a game scenario, it should be fine. Another thing is the influence of other town sets (ITL Houses, Auz town commercial set for example) My usual start is 1850.

[Argus]

By the way, what if the village becomes a city later in the game? After that, there would probably be a reconstruction, if the village did not become an open-air museum in the middle of a big city. Yes, that happens sometimes too. But it's not very common.

[super_dan]

Another thing is the influence of other town sets (ITL Houses, Auz town commercial set for example) My usual start is 1850.

I only playtested the set so far with TTRS 3, as I wanted to see what happens to our idea of the town types. Of course, others NewGRF sets don't have the same logic built-in, so TTRS's skyscrapers can theoretically appear in your litte 500-inhabitant farm village. However, I found that the combination works quite well (which is, of course, acoording to my own taste). ITL Houses has some of the same concepts (old towns, bussiness districts depending on rail infrastructure). Not having tested the two together, I think, they may combine pretty well, too. However, in terms of city growth simulation, ITL houses rather creates North-American-style towns. CET, once it is finished, is aimed at recreating European Cities with multiple core districts (Old Town, CBD, Shopping district and so on) set apart from each other. I'm curious what your experiences will be with these other sets. Please feel free to post some screen shots, if you like.

there would probably be a reconstruction, if the village did not become an open-air museum in the middle of a big city

Almost all the rural houses I created for the set are actually preserved old houses today standing in one of the seven open air museums for rural culture in southwest Germany. They were perfect as templates as their building dates and pictures were readily available online. Maybe we can implement such an "Open Air Museum" as a (fun) part of the set.

[Argus]

According to preliminary experience, it looks nice with Swedish or English houses, I will try the screenshots, but I don't have a new game made with these combinations yet. Correct functionality would not be guaranteed for a modified game.

[Argus]

TTRS3 barely appears before 1900, even versions with earlier buildings. Swedish houses are better at this.
I accidentally added a set to the game with Hothut. But it could be colonies. There are often mixtures of different styles.
There is only one building from TTRS in the picture and that is the placed object.
Also vanilla houses, ITL and AUZ commercial set town . Nothing from TTRS anywhere. In no city.

[Argus]

I did a little research on the parameters, TTRS has the oldest buildings from 1920. So, even though there are older buildings in appearance, it's probably due to the fact that the game start before 1900 is still not counted...
I've noticed this omission of an earlier start in other graphics as well - cars, ships, trains - and honor to the exceptions. However, sometimes it is the age of the given graphics, when it was not possible to start earlier. Which would be true for the original TTRS3.
As for the disruption of historic centers by occasional skyscrapers, this happened routinely in communist states
However, mixing different building sets is still problematic as long as the in-game building limit applies. It is possible that something did not appear for this reason.

[super_dan]

However, sometimes it is the age of the given graphics, when it was not possible to start earlier.

This is the reason I put in the parameter for later start dates in CET in the first place. There are so many NewGRFs with 1920-ish onset. No wonder when you consider that the original game had a default game start in 1930 whereas TTD, I think, even postponed it to 1950. There is an early mod for TTRS, which makes the first era of houses appear in 1900.

However, mixing different building sets is still problematic as long as the in-game building limit applies. It is possible that something did not appear for this reason.

This problem should technically only appear to a limited amount with CET. While having hundreds of individual spritesets, the set uses the animation feature to attribute these to the items (that take up one of the available 256 IDs) for different eras. This means that, atm 89 house IDs are used for CET. While this is certainly not nothing, it allows for other sets to use the remaining IDs. What I found out (also with the combination of sets other than CET) is that the order of the NewGRFs matters. There used to be the Canadian Houses set, which, when put lower in the NewGRF list than other houses sets, would make the houses from these other sets appear way less.

[Argus]

Since I have a CE set in multiple games, I gave it a shot. I often mix different building sets, and I had the older version combined with more or less all European building sets.
It looks quite good with Polish and English buildings, the combination with TTRS will only show up later, as well as with Polish houses that start only in 1920. But it looks best probably with Swedish and TTRS. I will try new games gradually when I have more time.

[Argus]

I have a question, could the historical center accept tourists? It would be useful for ECS, for example.

[Mrsunman]

Just discovered this set! Really like the diagonal buildings . You guys should make an accompanying object set too. cheers

[super_dan]

I have a question, could the historical center accept tourists? It would be useful for ECS, for example.

Not yet planned, but as you asked now, it might happen

Just discovered this set! Really like the diagonal buildings . You guys should make an accompanying object set too. cheers

Thank you very much
Such an object set is indeed planned. It is in the making already. Atm we fill the many missing slots with sprites, so this work goes hand-in-hand.

[Argus]

Well, the theme of the set directly encourages the historical center to receive tourists. If there is no ECS, then the goods (considered to be souvenirs)
It's sad that the other sets of houses are full of monuments, and strangely none of them receive tourists. And ECS houses always make a small amount of those buildings., and they are often hard to tell - the hotels look like one of the TTRS houses...
Fortunately, Garry also has several buildings in the Auz town Commercial set. But the historic center and churches directly encourage it.
But it's really the music of the future, first you need to tune the set, that's clear.

[Mrsunman]

Well, the theme of the set directly encourages the historical center to receive tourists. If there is no ECS, then the goods (considered to be souvenirs)
It's sad that the other sets of houses are full of monuments, and strangely none of them receive tourists. And ECS houses always make a small amount of those buildings., and they are often hard to tell - the hotels look like one of the TTRS houses...
Fortunately, Garry also has several buildings in the Auz town Commercial set. But the historic center and churches directly encourage it.
But it's really the music of the future, first you need to tune the set, that's clear.

May I suggest something you could add? As it is central European towns, maybe some skyscrapers in the style of those found in Frankfurt, Warsaw and Paris? Always good to see some more skyscraper assets Though I don't blame you if you might skip on this idea, after all, it is central European Town set, not so much a central European cities set.

[Argus]

I think that even in Prague you would already find nice pieces.
https://cs.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seznam_ne ... e_2018.jpg
Although the picture is in Czech, the skyscrapers are named in English.
Personally, I think some of them are already there, they'll just take longer to appear.
As for objects, I would be in favor of some generally known monuments that would beautify the landscape. Whether it's a castle or a transmitter on Ještěd, or a similar monument. Versailles maybe? A generic castle is enough for a city as a building.

[super_dan]

As Frankfurt (or, Mainhattan, as it is sometimes called ) holds a special place in my heart, in part because of its majestic skyline, this will indeed be a part of the set. And I also had La Defense in mind when planning town creation with multiple centres.

This, for example, is one of the future additions for the house type "tall office building".

commerzbanktower.png (2.71 KiB) Viewed 3720 times

However, these buildings will only appear in the later eras of a game (most likely from 1950 onwards), as this was mostly the case for real life cities in Europe. And they will be concentrated in specific areas of the innermost townzone only (not necessarily at dead centre, though). I invented the whole idea of the town types for the set mainly because I didn't like that with other sets or the base game houses you have skyscrapers appear in towns with ten houses and 300 population at the edge of town. The two house types "tall office building" and "large office building", which are already included in the current version, appear after 1980 and need at least three station tiles in a radius of three tiles around their building location. Subsequent houses of these types are built more likely near this "Central Business District". Like this, every town can have a historic town centre and such a district seperate from another.

[Argus]

I haven't seen them yet. I'll probably try to create a very early game so that the cities develop properly. When changing existing games, the other sets interfere with it. It's hard to recognize. But the City Hall has already been built.

[Mrsunman]

As Frankfurt (or, Mainhattan, as it is sometimes called ) holds a special place in my heart, in part because of its majestic skyline, this will indeed be a part of the set. And I also had La Defense in mind when planning town creation with multiple centres.

This, for example, is one of the future additions for the house type "tall office building".

commerzbanktower.png


However, these buildings will only appear in the later eras of a game (most likely from 1950 onwards), as this was mostly the case for real life cities in Europe. And they will be concentrated in specific areas of the innermost townzone only (not necessarily at dead centre, though). I invented the whole idea of the town types for the set mainly because I didn't like that with other sets or the base game houses you have skyscrapers appear in towns with ten houses and 300 population at the edge of town. The two house types "tall office building" and "large office building", which are already included in the current version, appear after 1980 and need at least three station tiles in a radius of three tiles around their building location. Subsequent houses of these types are built more likely near this "Central Business District". Like this, every town can have a historic town centre and such a district seperate from another.

Looks good! A unique "TTD style" twist on the iconic german building, for sure . IF you want, I can give a few polish skyscrapers if you fancy. They're in MMS form though, so they may need to be edited down for townset use. Cheers

[luxtram]

As Frankfurt (or, Mainhattan, as it is sometimes called ) holds a special place in my heart, in part because of its majestic skyline, this will indeed be a part of the set. And I also had La Defense in mind when planning town creation with multiple centres.

This, for example, is one of the future additions for the house type "tall office building".

commerzbanktower.png


However, these buildings will only appear in the later eras of a game (most likely from 1950 onwards), as this was mostly the case for real life cities in Europe. And they will be concentrated in specific areas of the innermost townzone only (not necessarily at dead centre, though). I invented the whole idea of the town types for the set mainly because I didn't like that with other sets or the base game houses you have skyscrapers appear in towns with ten houses and 300 population at the edge of town. The two house types "tall office building" and "large office building", which are already included in the current version, appear after 1980 and need at least three station tiles in a radius of three tiles around their building location. Subsequent houses of these types are built more likely near this "Central Business District". Like this, every town can have a historic town centre and such a district seperate from another.

Don't be afraid to make it larger, much larger. It's a big and beautiful building.