Town growth or lack thereof
Posted: 31 May 2007 20:04
Hello. I've done a lot of searching through this forum on this topic, so please don't tell me to use the search function. I'm obviously missing something critical with this aspect of the game, though.
I only recently started playing TTD when one of my friends opened an OpenTTD server. This particular scenario took place in a desert clime, but I've had problems stimulating towns to grow in other climes, too. This will get a little long because I'm not sure what's important and what isn't.
I decide to set my hat in a network of four towns. All of them are roughly 200 people. Two are coastal. I set up a nice transportation hub at all of them (big airport, 3-line railstation, bus/lorry station on one side) and get my rail network and road network set up, making sure there are no intersections between rail and road to eliminate safety and contention concerns and to direct the town growth. I then realize that a few of my hubs are not central enough, and set up a central bus station in each town. I take care to make sure that the central bus station is always busy by having one intra-town bus (going to the bus station at the air/rail hub), and two inter-town buses (going to another town's central hub); one that leaves immediately after loading, and another that waits for a full load. I set up two Dinger 200s ferrying in food from my processing plant per town, taking care to stagger them so I don't get a ton of planes that all want to land at once. I set up the trains to carry chiefly water, but also some passengers, mail parcels, and diamonds; I started diamond mines in the desert towns and water supplies in the coastal ones.
Just as I'm about to call it a day and quit until later, I notice a Passenger subsidy offered for a pair of desert towns (150 and 93 population) just north of the town network I just finished. I figured "what the hell," and set up a few central bus stations and haphazardly threw cloned buses at the situation. I'm the dominant company in this game, so I wanted to make a few strong towns for my competitors to take so the game would stay interesting. I figure the subsidy would more than compensate my investment and resolve to set up food and water supplies tomorrow.
The next day comes. I log into the server. You'd expect to see my carefully planned and thought out towns flourishing with a minor promise in the subsidized towns, right?
Wrong.
One of the subsidized towns has exploded from 150 to 15,000 people with no food or water supplies, terraforming all the land upward as it goes. The other subsidized town is still at 93 people. Of my four nourished towns, only ONE of the coastal towns has grown--and even then, it has only gone up to 6,000 people. The rest have not gained a single citizen.
I immediately assume that my Dingers must have crashed, but nope; a quick glance at my aircraft line shows that my 60-day maintenance schedule and auto-rebuy old vehicles has prevented even a single plane crash. I check the water route; good. The trains are finding their way across the network just fine, and the water supplies have ~75% ratings. Ditto for the passenger, mail, and diamond ratings for the hubs. Passenger ratings in the central bus stations are all over 90%. I check the local authority--I'm Outstanding with all of them! What? It was my understanding that it never went above Mediocre if the town wasn't growing!
I express my disbelief about this to my friends, and they say "You've set up mass transit too soon. Running trains while a town is still small will kill it." I order all my trains to depot and remove their passenger and mail cars; they are now hauling only water and diamonds. I set up mail trucks to take over the freed up resources, though they do a far worse job. I leave the subsidized towns the way they are and call it a day.
The next day comes, and a similar thing happens. The 15,000 pop town has ballooned to 25,000 and has now totally surrounded its partner town, which is still 93 pop. Again, these two towns are in the MIDDLE OF THE DESERT and have no means of getting food or water. My one growing town has come up to 10,000, and my other 3 towns are still totally static. Again, my Dingers are still zipping along like everything's great. In frustration, I order all my trains to depot and painstakingly make an intricate lock and canal system to allow freighters to deliver water to my desert towns. They're terrible compared to trains, but I wanted to totally eliminate the possibility of trains being the problem. I then intentionally annoy the local authorities of these towns down to Mediocre before calling it a day.
The third day comes. The 25,000 pop town--which, once again, has no food or water--is now 30,000 pop. My one growing town has plateaued at 10,000 people and my other three towns are STILL not growing. I check my ratings--I'm back up to Outstanding. Ratings for the water supplies are around 60 to 65%.
I am at my wit's end with this, and unfortunately my situation is not unique. It's happened to me in Temperate climates more often than I care to count. What am I doing wrong?
I only recently started playing TTD when one of my friends opened an OpenTTD server. This particular scenario took place in a desert clime, but I've had problems stimulating towns to grow in other climes, too. This will get a little long because I'm not sure what's important and what isn't.
I decide to set my hat in a network of four towns. All of them are roughly 200 people. Two are coastal. I set up a nice transportation hub at all of them (big airport, 3-line railstation, bus/lorry station on one side) and get my rail network and road network set up, making sure there are no intersections between rail and road to eliminate safety and contention concerns and to direct the town growth. I then realize that a few of my hubs are not central enough, and set up a central bus station in each town. I take care to make sure that the central bus station is always busy by having one intra-town bus (going to the bus station at the air/rail hub), and two inter-town buses (going to another town's central hub); one that leaves immediately after loading, and another that waits for a full load. I set up two Dinger 200s ferrying in food from my processing plant per town, taking care to stagger them so I don't get a ton of planes that all want to land at once. I set up the trains to carry chiefly water, but also some passengers, mail parcels, and diamonds; I started diamond mines in the desert towns and water supplies in the coastal ones.
Just as I'm about to call it a day and quit until later, I notice a Passenger subsidy offered for a pair of desert towns (150 and 93 population) just north of the town network I just finished. I figured "what the hell," and set up a few central bus stations and haphazardly threw cloned buses at the situation. I'm the dominant company in this game, so I wanted to make a few strong towns for my competitors to take so the game would stay interesting. I figure the subsidy would more than compensate my investment and resolve to set up food and water supplies tomorrow.
The next day comes. I log into the server. You'd expect to see my carefully planned and thought out towns flourishing with a minor promise in the subsidized towns, right?
Wrong.
One of the subsidized towns has exploded from 150 to 15,000 people with no food or water supplies, terraforming all the land upward as it goes. The other subsidized town is still at 93 people. Of my four nourished towns, only ONE of the coastal towns has grown--and even then, it has only gone up to 6,000 people. The rest have not gained a single citizen.
I immediately assume that my Dingers must have crashed, but nope; a quick glance at my aircraft line shows that my 60-day maintenance schedule and auto-rebuy old vehicles has prevented even a single plane crash. I check the water route; good. The trains are finding their way across the network just fine, and the water supplies have ~75% ratings. Ditto for the passenger, mail, and diamond ratings for the hubs. Passenger ratings in the central bus stations are all over 90%. I check the local authority--I'm Outstanding with all of them! What? It was my understanding that it never went above Mediocre if the town wasn't growing!
I express my disbelief about this to my friends, and they say "You've set up mass transit too soon. Running trains while a town is still small will kill it." I order all my trains to depot and remove their passenger and mail cars; they are now hauling only water and diamonds. I set up mail trucks to take over the freed up resources, though they do a far worse job. I leave the subsidized towns the way they are and call it a day.
The next day comes, and a similar thing happens. The 15,000 pop town has ballooned to 25,000 and has now totally surrounded its partner town, which is still 93 pop. Again, these two towns are in the MIDDLE OF THE DESERT and have no means of getting food or water. My one growing town has come up to 10,000, and my other 3 towns are still totally static. Again, my Dingers are still zipping along like everything's great. In frustration, I order all my trains to depot and painstakingly make an intricate lock and canal system to allow freighters to deliver water to my desert towns. They're terrible compared to trains, but I wanted to totally eliminate the possibility of trains being the problem. I then intentionally annoy the local authorities of these towns down to Mediocre before calling it a day.
The third day comes. The 25,000 pop town--which, once again, has no food or water--is now 30,000 pop. My one growing town has plateaued at 10,000 people and my other three towns are STILL not growing. I check my ratings--I'm back up to Outstanding. Ratings for the water supplies are around 60 to 65%.
I am at my wit's end with this, and unfortunately my situation is not unique. It's happened to me in Temperate climates more often than I care to count. What am I doing wrong?
![:]](./images/smilies/pleased.gif "Pleased"){kind=small}
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