Howto make the game more difficult (discussion)

[uzurpator]

In the light of what Csaboka said in the rating thread.

The game is already to easy

Generally it is because after some time profits excel spending.

So to level the game abit the spending part needs to be tweaked. My propositions:

- Increase the loan rate % range. Currently it is 2-4%. How about 1-50%?
- Introduce wagon running costs. (grf modifable)
- Instead of the now depreciated difficulty setting of runnining costs low/medium/high introduce a multiplier of the grf data (from 1 to 10000) the absurd top value is for the games which would use the 'Daylength Hack' or the switch with it once it is introduced.
- Expand property maintenence:
-- A piece of track costs: $25/month
-- Landblock: $10/month
-- Road: $20/month
-- Station: $200/month
-- Airport: $1000/month
-- Lorry/Bus bay: $100/month
-- Lock/Canal: $50/month
-- Other: $100/month
- Include other costs
-- Change of livery: $10/vehicle

Discuss/Add your own

BTW - AIs should get $10k stipend each month as a help.

[wallyweb]

In the light of what Csaboka said in the rating thread.

The game is already to easy

Generally it is because after some time profits excel spending.

I'm in general agreement that this can be an issue.
It is far too easy to make a mint-full of cash.

However, care must be taken not to go overboard. An example here is the cost in some sets of pulling buidings. They were totally out of reality to the point that the player was discouraged from pulling buildings at all, resulting in the player not spending any money to do this. Money not spent is money saved. If you want somebody to spend their hard earned cash you have to keep the prices within reason. If you want to challenge the player's profitability, encourage him to spend his money.

As for your point by point suggestions:

- Increase the loan rate % range. Currently it is 2-4%. How about 1-50%?

50% is a bit high. I would cap it at 25.
Can the loan rate be made to scale up with the amount borrowed? As in the more you borrow the more its gonna cost ya! Perhaps setting the rates to increase 1% for every additional 1,000,000 borrowed.

- Introduce wagon running costs. (grf modifable)
- Instead of the now depreciated difficulty setting of runnining costs low/medium/high introduce a multiplier of the grf data (from 1 to 10000) the absurd top value is for the games which would use the 'Daylength Hack' or the switch with it once it is introduced.
- Expand property maintenence:
-- A piece of track costs: $25/month
-- Landblock: $10/month
-- Road: $20/month
-- Station: $200/month
-- Airport: $1000/month
-- Lorry/Bus bay: $100/month
-- Lock/Canal: $50/month
-- Other: $100/month
- Include other costs
-- Change of livery: $10/vehicle

I like these.
The next one I'm not to sure about as I don't play with the AI.

BTW - AIs should get $10k stipend each month as a help.

Oh yes ... the most dreaded two words in capitalism ... Income Tax.
That'll make any budding tycoon think twice about earning a dishonest living.
Perhaps a property tax could be imposed with the player's ratings going up in proportion to the amount of tax spent in a town.

[T-pix]

I think that also prices on Terrain modification (rising & lowerig) should be rised on some customizable multiplier (as in 'autoslope" option).

Another idea is to DISABLE terrain modification at all!
...may be through the difficulty options or TTDPatch switch.
It will force players to handle with default terrain on a map.

[Prebral]

I think that also prices on Terrain modification (rising & lowerig) should be rised on some customizable multiplier (as in 'autoslope" option).

Another idea is to DISABLE terrain modification at all!
...may be through the difficulty options or TTDPatch switch.
It will force players to handle with default terrain on a map.

...or allow towns to ban terrain modifications if company rating is awful. This even gives sense considreing realism, because at this time towns do not allow you do build a station if you are the "bad guy", but you can still level mountains, fill rivers etc.

[Purno]

In the light of what Csaboka said in the rating thread.

The game is already to easy

I'm one of those guys who like the game easy. I just want to build some stuffies and watch my trains driving. So, whatever you do to make it more difficult, should be either optional, or a sandbox-mode could be added. IMO.

[Patchman]

I think that also prices on Terrain modification (rising & lowerig) should be rised on some customizable multiplier

GRF files can already multiply all costs by factors of 2, so this can be done already.

I'm one of those guys who like the game easy. I just want to build some stuffies and watch my trains driving. So, whatever you do to make it more difficult, should be either optional, or a sandbox-mode could be added. IMO.

Unlike certain other projects *cough*, in TTDPatch everything will be optional of course.

[VIPStephan]

I also think the game could be somewhat harder. I remember Sim City 4, how hard it is to run a city there because with rising population the costs are rising too, and you have to build and maintain expensive structures to keep it running.
Also, I like the idea to make terrain modification way more expensive (or disable it if the former one isn't possible - although this could make mountainous terrain games impossibly hard), as this would enhance realism a lot (which I'm a friend of).

When playing OpenTTD (no, I don't wanna start a discussion about that here) in multiplayer mode there are always people that just cut their tracks through huge mountains which wouldn't be possible or incredibly expensive (and time consuming) in real life. Plus I really don't like this way of playing a game. For me that's a little like cheating.

[michael blunck]

- Expand property maintenence:
-- A piece of track costs: $25/month

Unfortunately, the idea of "track maintenance" never got implemented, though it´s a very old one (which speaks for itself):

At 03:21 AM 05/06/03, Josef Drexler wrote:

>Marcin Grzegorczyk wrote:
>>Michael Blunck wrote:

>>>>[mb] [...] I could gather it all and make a proposal for building and railway maintenance cost.

>>[mg] Remember, tracks currently have no actual maintenance costs at all. Whether this will get changed before the release is a different matter. I think we'll need a reasonable proposal with regard to these costs, too.

[jd] I think that would be good. We'd have to change the existing running
costs, too. Maybe take half their current value, and distribute the other
half roughly to the track maintenance cost. I'd make the maintenance cost
depend on how much in use these tracks are. For example, every time a
train enters a new square, it incurs some additional running cost that is
related to track maintenance. [...]

(Emphasis by me)

Unfortunately, I don´t remember if there ever had been such a "reasonable proposal", however, Josef´s idea of track maintenance depending on track usage seems to be still a reasonable and interesting one.

regards
Michael

[mtwist]

[quote="Patchman"]GRF files can already multiply all costs by factors of 2, so this can be done already.[quote]

So what about a grf with an option to add a multiplier for the first attempt?

[michael blunck]

> So what about a grf with an option to add a multiplier for [costs]

The DBXL already increases cost for railway-dependant stuff like track, signals and rolling stock. However, I was unsure to what degree non-railway stuff should be addressed by a railway vehicle set - a question which still stands.

regards
Michael

[MeusH]

After a few years of game most players have millions or milliards of dollars on their account. Then one has enough money to do literally anything, which surely doesn't represent real world at all.

Taxing may be a good way to encourage people to invest money in creating new routes, buying new vehicles or even funding new buildings in a town.
Assuming tax is accounted into the construction cost and vehicle prices, there is one more tax to consider: income tax. At the end of the year pretty big amount of money would be taken from the player, depending on his income.
However, if player has a losses, they may receive part of their construction cost + running cost + new vehicles cost back.

I know this is only a temporary way to make beginning of the game nicer. Having almost unlimited money would be true, faster or later.

Small buggers like more disasters may be good, but things like town authorities refusing more actions would be also nice

[lifeblood]

Would it be possible to make it so that the only new industries that get built have to be financed by the player? That usually eats up a few million dollars each time.

Also, a quarterly tax of 10% on acrewed capital, if not profits would suffice as well.

[DaleStan]

Indeed. Industry property 18 and/or callback 22.

[DanMacK]

Remembering Patchman's "Nightmare" game, the base costs (land raising, tunnels, etc) were greatly increased. Is it possible to add that feature to the patch in the form of a parameter or grf file??

[Patchman]

As I said before in this very thread, yes.

[White Rabbit]

- Expand property maintenence:
-- A piece of track costs: $25/month
-- Landblock: $10/month
-- Road: $20/month
-- Station: $200/month
-- Airport: $1000/month
-- Lorry/Bus bay: $100/month
-- Lock/Canal: $50/month
-- Other: $100/month
- Include other costs
-- Change of livery: $10/vehicle

I don't think the maintenance cost for a station is fair, because unlike all other stations, train stations can be of different sizes (this reminds me...a small airport should of course have a smaller maintenance cost). The station cost should be lowered to something like $20/month per station tile.

[PikkaBird]

Greater operating costs I think are the way to go, though, rather than making building more expensive. Ongoing costs for roads, rail, rolling stock and stations would make things much more interesting.

[DanMacK]

Josef, didn't see that, and I know I looked before posting, gotta pay more attention next time.

Pikka, Operating costs are a good start, but if a 4 square tunnel costs you $100,000 to build instead of $5,000, you're going to look at lowering the terrain or doing other things. It'll add a more strategic way of building networks and such.

You'll seriously have to think if that $1,000,000 tunnel is worth it or do you triple-head your locos (costing $150,000/yr to run combined) to get your trains over the mountains. It can be turned off of course, but I'd like a nice hard game now and then.

[PikkaBird]

Pikka, Operating costs are a good start, but if a 4 square tunnel costs you $100,000 to build instead of $5,000, you're going to look at lowering the terrain or doing other things. It'll add a more strategic way of building networks and such.

Sure, early on. But increased network operating costs will help decrease the rate at which you can earn silly amounts of money. I think both things need to be looked at. The building costs have the advantage in that they can be changed currently, whereas network operating costs will require patchwork.

[krtaylor]

I absolutely believe that there needs to be maintenance costs on all railway infrastructure. Charging more for heavily-used track makes sense too, but there should be a minimum cost even for track that's almost never used. Right now, once you've built it, you keep it for free, and that's silly.

I would like to see base costs for all infrastructure, and then additional charges assessed
- Per train using it
- Per that train's speed - faster trains require more upkeep to keep the track good enough
- Per that train's weight - heavy coal drags wear out the rails faster

This would be highly realistic, and add a significant complexity to thinking through efficient operations. And, it woudl solve the mega-millions problem very nicely.