Moan: Competitors

stuii · Post by **stuii** » 23 Jan 2006 14:48

The *worst* thing about this game is the competitors. It's not that I have a problem with competition, I don't, and I can usually easily beat them with a little or no problem. But what I hate about competitors is that they're so damned untidy!

They'll just build anywhere, using arse about face track layouts, along the shortest distance between A and B, with little regard for how their tracks look, or even how well they work. The AI in Locomotion is rubbish.

You get ugly as hell stone bridges across bodies of water which don't even go in a straight line, they're made up of a series of curves, which not only looks awful but will simply never allow their trains to make best use of the route.

Once you've got a few competitors building in the same area it ends up looking an ugly mess as their lines cross each other and cross back, ducking and diving. They build stations on top of my stations, ruining my hard work and the terraforming on which I spent a fortune in order to make it work and look nice.

My layouts look like a printed circuit board when you view them on the map. Nice, straight, parallel lines. May not be the shortest routes from A to B, but they're most probably faster and look damned nicer!

Darned competition!

stuii · Post by **stuii** » 23 Jan 2006 21:20

Here, this is what I mean (I'm blue):

stuii · Post by **stuii** » 23 Jan 2006 21:22

And a couple more:

Illegal_Alien · Post by **Illegal_Alien** » 23 Jan 2006 22:03

We already know that... No need to say this again...

stuii · Post by **stuii** » 24 Jan 2006 10:27

I'm not allowed an opinion just because it's been expressed already? Show me your charter on this :)

Transport Typhoon · Post by **Transport Typhoon** » 24 Jan 2006 12:42

Still, if you put it against the smart routes they made in Transport Tycoon.
They must have gone from Neanderthal to Einstein

stuii · Post by **stuii** » 24 Jan 2006 13:00

This is true, although the limitations of the engine in TT also applied to competitors, so while their routs were stupid, there was a limit to how much visual mess they could make.

metalangel · Post by **metalangel** » 24 Jan 2006 13:20

The solution is simple - switch off competitors. The whole idea of trying to compete against another company on maps as small as this is ridiculous.

Also, you called our bluff:

1. Forum Rules

b. Before posting about a problem with Transport Tycoon, Transport Tycoon Deluxe, TTDPatch, OpenTTD or Locomotion, please use the Search facility to see if your question has been answered before.

But really, switch off the competitors using the map editor, and enjoy the real fun of the game (building big, complicated layouts!)

stuii · Post by **stuii** » 24 Jan 2006 13:35

b. Before posting about a problem with Transport Tycoon, Transport Tycoon Deluxe, TTDPatch, OpenTTD or Locomotion, please use the Search facility to see if your question has been answered before.

With humility, I call it again. Show me where I asked a question :)

But yes, agreed, switch off competitors. It feels a bit like cheating when you edit the game's standard maps, but hey.

randknu · Post by **randknu** » 24 Jan 2006 20:56

why don't we make this a page to show off the most stupid layouts you have seen the AI build...

Ihave got a few good ones, I made a map with as many competitors as possible max aggression max build-speed and all that, when i started the map i built a few trams in a city just so i wouldn't go bankrupt.

The results are below:

randknu · Post by **randknu** » 24 Jan 2006 21:00

As you can see it's armageddon, end of the world. they have sprayed the map full of stations railroads and roads, The roads are the worst since they don't remove them after they abandon the line.

Illegal_Alien · Post by **Illegal_Alien** » 24 Jan 2006 22:49

Cant see why you opened a topic of something we already know...

metalangel · Post by **metalangel** » 24 Jan 2006 23:05

stuii wrote:
b. Before posting about a problem with Transport Tycoon, Transport Tycoon Deluxe, TTDPatch, OpenTTD or Locomotion, please use the Search facility to see if your question has been answered before.

With humility, I call it again. Show me where I asked a question

But yes, agreed, switch off competitors. It feels a bit like cheating when you edit the game's standard maps, but hey.

"Before posting a problem..." should be enough to discourage you, ya smartass

I don't feel in the least bit like a cheater, given how flagrantly the AI cheats.

stuii · Post by **stuii** » 25 Jan 2006 10:15

"Before posting a problem..." should be enough to discourage you, ya smartass

Well yes, but it was more of a rant to get it off my chest rather than a "problem" per se, but I won't split hairs on that any more :) I concede.

That said, the ethics of any charter that discourages the expression of opinion, whether expressed already or not, are questionable :)

It also infuriates me that the AI doesn't go bust more often, despite its blatant stupidity. I've only had one competitor go bust, when they attempted to transport grapes halfway across the map on a £25k loan with a locomotive that could only do 40mph, but other than that even the most dimwitted competitor has thrived and it seems there's nothing I can do to put them out of business, no matter how rich I am and how hard I try.

The options in TTD to purchase shares in one's competitors were great, and I really miss them. It was so easy just to buy up the competition and rip up their networks. Later on in the game, it was worth the £200k hit just to instantly buy up competitors as soon as they started up just to prevent them from mucking things up. Sorely missed.

metalangel · Post by **metalangel** » 25 Jan 2006 13:52

Yeah, the competitors I thought were just there to add a bit of colour to the proceedings, but as they start building uncrossably convoluted tracks right where my mainline was planned to go or reduced a town to three buildings and a mass of roads (in TTD) I realized they had to be switched off.

I tried a few games in Lomo with them on, but after watching the AI build two airports side by side, each served by a single Concorde, I switched them off again.

Because CS is so into the whole joy of building something and watching it run, the actual construction aspect is too complex for an AI to handle. Contrast this with Railroad Tycoon 2, where all you have to do is paint the straightest, most level track between to points, plonk down a station, and that's your job done. The AI as a result is extremely competitive and a worthy challenge (it also helps that you don't need complex track layouts, and that you can link up your networks and run over their tracks for a small fee!)

stuii · Post by **stuii** » 25 Jan 2006 14:36

1905 Swiss Alps will be the last game with competitors that I'm playing. It's only got one, which isn't so bad relatively speaking. I've done Desert Delirium despite several utterly stupid competitors, but I'm going to redo Oil Oasis (where my screenshots came from) with competitors switched off because that was just ridiculous. I failed it anyway ;)

Karl Townsend · Post by **Karl Townsend** » 26 Jan 2006 14:31

yes we all know how s*** the ai play building train tacksbut it does get kinda annoying just being on your own tho

Severous · Post by **Severous** » 26 Jan 2006 19:41

The majority of the standard scenarios can be completed very quickly in game time...before the AI becomes too well established.

The expert level UK 100 year scenario is perhaps the worst looking standard scenario by the time most players have completed the objective. 40 years in and UK map is almost lost under the weight of AI rails.

Scenario designers need to be careful about including AI or not. But done thoughtfully they could provide an added dimension to a scenario.

For instance design a scenario like this. Move steel via lorry only (block out all other forms of wagon etc that can move steel). Only way to make goods is via Steel (remove other goods making industries). Allow AI to use lorries only. You cant use lorries. To win you have to make the steel but then you have to rely on AI to move the Steel. Only then can you move resulting goods to achieve an objective like 1000 goods.

Transport Typhoon · Post by **Transport Typhoon** » 26 Jan 2006 21:53

Hmm, sounds not bad to me.
Although i can see the AI lorrie-drivers thinking.

"Was it left or right to Dead Gulge Steel Mill ?"

.

Maybe they should create a truck that can deliver grain and iron ore at the same time.
First bring the grain to the mill to make flower then bring it to a bakery to make bread and then the smart part use bread crumbs to let them know where they've been to get the iron

.

Matloughe · Post by **Matloughe** » 29 Jan 2006 11:56

can we make a 'Dr Beeching' event for Lomo, where suddenly all the AI lines are mysteriously closed without warning... lol.

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