Guiding town expansion

[Julia]

When I started my current game, I linked up a lot of small villages (population 500) with railways. They are now all growing into larger towns. (Good!) However, where initially the couple of buildings were on the same side of the tracks, they are all growing away from the railway stations - so that you have a sprawling town on one side of the line and nothing at all on the other. Not quite realistic!

Is it possible to guide the AI to place some of the new buildings across the tracks - eg. by building a bridge over the railway and the start of a city road on the other side?

[Zeno]

New buildings are always built next to roads. Not sure where new roads get built though. Anyway, try to build a bridge and a small "street" at the other side of the track, and there will be a good chance the city starts growing there too.

[Combuijs]

That, and if necessary (a switch to) the public player can help with building extra houses at the other side of the rail. It makes it easier for Simutrans to build additional buildings there.

[Ters]

In general, houses and city roads are built next to each other. Railroad tracks, and possibly also rivers and canals, form a break that urban growth has trouble crossing. Especially double tracks. Even when I build roads on the other side, it can take forever for houses to appear there as the first one would be too far away from other buildings.

Using the public player to seed the other side might work. Another thing that I think should work is to build a small hill with a tunnel over the railroad. Then lay a road over the hill. Buildings should then be able to "crawl" over the hill to the other side.

[Julia]

Thanks, everyone. As you say, double-track main lines do create a large natural barrier. It's a tricky decision, though, as once you've got the town heavily built up on both sides it's a bit late to go back if you decide you really need four tracks and a goods yard!

[Roads]

You can use the sign to manage city growth.  It is kinda ugly with all those signs.  If you want to use the addon that VS did for me awhile back I can look it up and link the thread.  What is does is simply prevent the game engine from building on the square.


I use it not only to preserve trees I want to keep but also manage city growth, i.e. away from high speed roads leading into and out of the city.