Recommended settings for a longterm game + two other questions

[Steve84]

I've wondered what map size and map settings most people play on? I'm looking to start in the 1930s or 40s and then play a couple of decades. Should I just put the map size to something big like 2048*2048? And then what is the recommended amount of cities and industries for that? That's really what I'm struggling a bit with. Too few and there isn't much to do in the long run. Too many and everything is clustered too much together.

Also, does new industry appear later on as the time passes? Or is the public player the only way to get new stuff? I'm asking because starting a game in the 1930s for example, the types of industry that is generated seems a bit limited compared to what is available in the map legend.

Lastly, I dabbled in Simutrans a couple of years ago and remember that when I hovered over a factory on the map, white lines would appear showing its connection to other factories. In the newest version that doesn't happen anymore. Is this a setting somewhere?

[Roads]

No doubt someone will come by and give you better answers but if you are waiting for a reply this will get you started.

I think many players like a rectangular map but whatever size your computer can handle is good - for me, it is better to have too much than too little.  However, if memory serves you can enlarge the map later on with the Public Player tools.

Unless there has been a recent change, new industries appear after a city reaches 2,000 pop, although it may be 5,000.  I can't remember for sure as I always add industries with the Public Player.

Those white lines showing the connection to other industries are a function of the mini-map.  Just play around with the buttons to see which one does it.

[prissi]

Personally I found maps difficult that are much larger than the pixels of my screen, i.e. lead to much scrolling on the minimap. This puts limits at 1024x1024 and shoudl provide you with lots of challenge.

New industries will appear when cities grow. For a not to long long term play (i.e. if you want to see the whole vehicle timeline during exploration of such a map) I would sets the bits_per_month setting to 19.

The map connections still appear if you selected factories. You may need to click on the factories for that though.

[sdog]

Steve, what pak-set are you using? Paks have slightly different behaviour with regards to city growth. It also depends a bit on the ratio ocean/land and how hilly it is.

For large maps it is often sensible to have a low median population and a large number of cities. In a pak128 game i'd start with about 100 cities for a 2048^2 map, then increasing it in several iterations until i like it.

In a simutrans experimental game with pak-britain i'd use something closer to 250 cities for such a map, with a large number of rivers and relatively rough terrain to curb urban sprawl.

For a pak64 game this would be completely different, as passenger factors are in general much higher, and you'll need a lot of space for transport infrastructure just to cope with the very large number of trains.

For large-scale games played for a long time it is often sensible to reduce city growth, you can do it in the pak-sets simuconf.tab file.

Here's a snippet from pak128 configuration file (pak128/config/simconf.tab)

Code Select Expand


# town growth multiplier factors (electricity is not used at the moment)
# A higher factor value means faster growth
mail_multiplier = 20
goods_multiplier = 20
electricity_multiplier = 0
#passenger_multiplier = 40

# Town growth is size dependent. There are three different sizes (<1000, 1000-10000, >10000)
# The idea is that area increases by square, but growth is linear.
growthfactor_villages = 400
growthfactor_cities = 200
growthfactor_capitals = 100

# Passenger generation (default is 16)
# Smaller value means less passengers.
passenger_factor=16


I'd set all factors to 2/3 except passenger factor, i'd set it to 10 for games with more than 250 cities. This will require the player to have a large network to get sufficient passengers, and makes the start very difficult. (Compensating this with more starting capital is prudent in such a situation.)

[AP]

If you want a different kind of challenge, I like a very long very thin map e.g. 4096x128  This often results in interesting mountains to climb or oceans to cross. It also leads to a high traffic density in the centre of the map so lots to manage.

A high industry proliferation setting also works well in this context.

[Steve84]

I'm using pak128. I kinda like the pak64 mechanics with it being easier to earn money, but I can't really stand the graphics.

Found the industry connection thing. Thanks

I also found a factory_spacing setting in the tab file. That should be useful. Earlier, I generated a few maps and even on large maps a lot of industry was too close together. Like one steel mill and half a dozen means in a circle right around it. It sucks when they're on the other side of the map too, but if they're too close trains don't give a lot of profit and the map seems somewhat empty.