New patch on the way

[City Builder]

It's not just steam it's all the digital distributors. I have more games in my collection than I really wish to admit (or that I do admit to my wife) and I can assure you that all 3 of the big boy digital distributors have their slowdowns, I remember when GamersGate was the worst of the worst to get patches out in a timely manner.

Just takes time for their staff to get the patch fixed up for their distribution system.

[pdguru]

I have found as long as you direct the install to the steam folder you can get the new patch by installing the non-steam version.

[Unhostile]

Yayyyyy, can't wait for the feature where you can add as many private cars you want to be driving around, heheheh.

[eurypterus]

I have to echo the sentiments about digital distributors dropping the ball on patches. I wish that they would just sell us the game directly and not force us to deal with these incompetent third parties.

[Poro-]

For majority of gamers, distributor is only way to get them to install patches. For those, who have been playing PC games for long time, they know how to check and install patches.

[co_martsu]

The problem may not be the volume of cars, or how fast they disappear. It's second lane usage and intersection blocking that seem to be the biggest issue. Are these impossible to fix?

The second lane usage is unfortunately impossible to fix, so we'll just have to do what we can. I hope the game is still enjoyable for you.

[co_martsu]

I have found as long as you direct the install to the steam folder you can get the new patch by installing the non-steam version.

We highly recommend waiting for the Steam patch.

[ChrillSwe]

I am mightily impressed by how hard you guys work to improve this already great game. You people at Colossal are a great group of people, I am genuinely proud to be the owner of this game

One thing I would really like to see: If nobody is getting on or off at a tram/bus stop, can it be so that the vehicle will not stop there?

[sibobb]

Hi everyone,

I wanted to let you know that we have been working hard on a new patch for Cities in Motion. The dev team wants to thank you again for the feedback and the support that you have given us!

So more about things we have been working on:

- Traffic jams
This has been the most addressed issue in Cities in Motion. In the new patch the amount of private cars depends on the difficulty, making the easy level less likely to have so many traffic jams. The jammed cars also disappear more quickly. And in the sandbox you can even customize the amount of the private cars to your liking.

- Economy
We realized that the fluctuating economy is a bit too sudden, so we slowed the fluctuation down a bit.

- Press "U"
We added a shortcut to get to the underground view (nobody admits forgetting it in the first place..)

In addition to these we worked on the bugs we had left. I hope this resolves the issues you have been having with Cities in Motion. Please let us know if you agree!

The patch 1.1.12 is available soon

agreed!

[Unhostile]

The second lane usage is unfortunately impossible to fix, so we'll just have to do what we can. I hope the game is still enjoyable for you.

If possible, are you able to explain why it's ''impossible'' to fix?

[ravensuominen]

I suggest that you try to take into account the historical amount of cars in cities. For example: In the 1920's there were about 400 cars in Helsinki. If the public transportation sucked, people walked.

If you simulate (even very roughly) the increase of car ownership through the decades, the player starting from 1920's has a more realistic chance to build up the public transportation system before the congestions begin to appear. First with trams and buses, as historical.

When the historical amount of cars is taken into account, the people in CiM make the modal choice, the likelihood of taking a car should be about 500 times lower in 1920's than it is in 2000's.

I hope CO will listen to my professional views and fix the gravest weaknesses in the simulation model. I agree there should be signalized intersections and second lanes, but i also understand those are far more difficult to fix. The interface and graphics are excellent, so there's great potential.

[co_martsu]

If possible, are you able to explain why it's ''impossible'' to fix?

It would unfortunately take too much time and effort to program this feature into the game. We just don't have the resources to add a feature this big into the game in a reasonable time. We understand it's a lack in the design and hope that you can still enjoy the game without this feature.

[Todge]

It would unfortunately take too much time and effort to program this feature into the game. We just don't have the resources to add a feature this big into the game in a reasonable time. We understand it's a lack in the design and hope that you can still enjoy the game without this feature.

I wonder if you and your team would be open to doing an interview kind of thing which questions from the community? There are lots of people with lots of questions and if you and the team sat down for 20 minutes together you could probably answer them all.

[Vincitore]

I am mightily impressed by how hard you guys work to improve this already great game. You people at Colossal are a great group of people, I am genuinely proud to be the owner of this game

One thing I would really like to see: If nobody is getting on or off at a tram/bus stop, can it be so that the vehicle will not stop there?

That's a great idea! Not only will the traffic be better but also public transport, cause the flow of busses/trams are higher!

Also when you buy a new bus for example, the bus never picks up passengers who are waiting at the first stop of the line. The bus could be filled with waiting passengers, but is now driving around the city empty to the next stop

I also want to say is that the devs are doing a great job! I like transport games and this is one good game! Graphics and gameplay are nice!

[crossmr]

The second lane usage is unfortunately impossible to fix, so we'll just have to do what we can. I hope the game is still enjoyable for you.

Does that mean it is possible to fix intersection blocking? Is that on the list of fixes coming? How about telling cars not to stop on tram tracks or advance on to them if the area after them is not clear?

[EarlHaz]

I suggest that you try to take into account the historical amount of cars in cities. For example: In the 1920's there were about 400 cars in Helsinki. If the public transportation sucked, people walked.

If you simulate (even very roughly) the increase of car ownership through the decades, the player starting from 1920's has a more realistic chance to build up the public transportation system before the congestions begin to appear. First with trams and buses, as historical.

When the historical amount of cars is taken into account, the people in CiM make the modal choice, the likelihood of taking a car should be about 500 times lower in 1920's than it is in 2000's.

I hope CO will listen to my professional views and fix the gravest weaknesses in the simulation model. I agree there should be signalized intersections and second lanes, but i also understand those are far more difficult to fix. The interface and graphics are excellent, so there's great potential.

Ok, I've been lurking and not posting since before release but this seems to be a very good point and something that doesn't sound massively difficult to add (though I might be wrong).

[simdude]

Very complex AI and pathfinding system, as far as I can tell. That should make it very hard to modify.
The game lacked testing, anybody that would've bothered to try and play through the first campaign missions could've noticed the problems everybody is complaining about now.

Also very unrealistic, in the 1920's everybody owns a car. Plus, what happened to walking?
And if I have a 5 stops route and each stop has 70 passengers waiting, I need 35 buses/trams on that route alone, as only 10 passengers will fit in one. There's no way anyone can make a profit with gas prices, maintenence costs and salaries.

I know there are ways to try and go around the unique problems the game creates, but those aren't realistic either and they suck the fun out of the game. It's no fun creating 20 short, 2-3 stops routes, with 2 buses serving each one.
That's why I stopped playing the game, it's not fun like this. I hope the patch will make it more enjoyable.

I like the concept very much and the tutorial mission was great, but once you start the 20's Berlin campaign, the game loses all it's appeal.

I hope the patch comes out soon!

[co_martsu]

The patch 1.0.12 is coming and now we're focusing all our efforts on the crashing while saving issue, that some have been experiencing.

[stevebone]

@co_martsu I saw there are lots of buildings/objects unfinished/left out from the game. They are missing the textures. Do you guys plan to include them in a later patch or DLC?

[ChienAboyeur]

I suggest that you try to take into account the historical amount of cars in cities. For example: In the 1920's there were about 400 cars in Helsinki. If the public transportation sucked, people walked.

If you simulate (even very roughly) the increase of car ownership through the decades, the player starting from 1920's has a more realistic chance to build up the public transportation system before the congestions begin to appear. First with trams and buses, as historical.

When the historical amount of cars is taken into account, the people in CiM make the modal choice, the likelihood of taking a car should be about 500 times lower in 1920's than it is in 2000's.

I hope CO will listen to my professional views and fix the gravest weaknesses in the simulation model. I agree there should be signalized intersections and second lanes, but i also understand those are far more difficult to fix. The interface and graphics are excellent, so there's great potential.

This would demand a massive amount of perspective to balance the process over 100 years.
Currently, the biggest flaw in the game is that, as some suggested during the beta, metro potentially supercedes any other means of transportation. I had another view that infrastructure inertia could change the deal but in this regard, I was wrong: there is no penalty due to infrastructure inertia when it comes to metro: a metro line remains profitable if it started profitable.

Now if you add different mixes in terms of usage of transportation, it endangers to imbalance the game even more. Due to the metro flaw, the game fails to provide a decent challenge. Now, if you want to go through a process of differentiation of habits by potential users accross eras, you have to rebalance the difficulty in all sides. Traffic is one of the few challenges to overcome. Now if you remove it, you have to shift the challenge elsewhere.