Noticed something weird in the list of cities:
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/8644666/Miscellaneous/newmouth.png)
I don't think I've done anything particularly groundbreaking there in the last month. Could this have something to do with the fact that it's gradually merging with a much bigger city? That's been happening for a lot longer than a month, though...
Did you upgrade Simutrans?
Not that I noticed. I'm playing the version that the package manager/updater on Ubuntu is aware of; synaptic says it is version 111.3.1-1. I don't recall seeing it in a software update recently.
I get these randomly too. Probably just some random event or building something there?
It is cause by any of the following...
- Town Hall Upgrade
- Placement of a company Headquarters in the town
- Addition of an attraction to the town
Growth is a measurement of population delta. So anything which adds equivalently a lot of population will also cause a growth spike.
I guess it must have been a town hall upgrade... I looked at the messages log and there were a couple of those in there. Why do they usually happen in quick succession (like multiple times in the same month)? I've noticed it with other towns, too, but I guess I just never looked at the city growths.
(Also, if growth is just population delta, then how is it not a whole number? Shouldn't population always be a whole number, and always increase by a whole number?)
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Why do they usually happen in quick succession (like multiple times in the same month)? I've noticed it with other towns, too, but I guess I just never looked at the city growths.
It happens due to the Town Hall construction animation. This is because the building process of Town Halls was implemented in quite a hacky way.
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(Also, if growth is just population delta, then how is it not a whole number? Shouldn't population always be a whole number, and always increase by a whole number?)
Growth is a whole number... Look at the graph.
Actual internal growth is done with fixed point fractions which eventually accumulate into practical amounts over many ticks. Eventually these cause building changes which represent a certain number of people.
City growth is based on transport satisfaction. If you are using 120.1.1 (latest release) then city growth and the transport metrics shown should be much more accurate.
Growth is a whole number on the graphs, but there is a different number on the list of cities that is not a whole number, but which is "growth" according to the rank ordering. That's what I meant.
The list has a growth rate, which is probably a percentage (such as growth divided by population) or the average growth over some time interval, or even both.