A completely stuck new-ish player

[CorporalRutland]

Hi everyone,

I'm new to the boards and relatively new to the game. I'm having no end of trouble starting out (wait for it) in the first Berlin scenario, and while I've purchased all the DLC scenarios I really want to get this one right first. I love the game's detail and aesthetic and am stoked for the London DLC.

Where on Earth am I going wrong? I quickly end up with a system that's got too many people trying to use it and makes no money (that's realistic I'm sure!)

My strategy is to link major shopping malls and train stations with a metro, then create feeder routes in the blocks around each Metro station with a clockwise and anti-clockwise route with 2-6 buses each. I usually start at the train station outside of the amusement park as it's a central location and good for bagging 'How Amusing!' early on.

Any tips, strategies and suggestions would be most welcome. I love this game but I am rubbish at it.

[giladteller]

Welcome to the forums!

Your strategy is good, you might want to do it slower, so you don't spend too much money on the start.
Try raising the price. It will harm your reputation, but you will still have lots of customers.

[CorporalRutland]

I should have elaborated a little. When I start up I remove the 3 bus routes already built, hike the prices up to the highest white price, lower station and vehicle maintenance to 0% and lower staff wages to one step above sad.

I wonder if it's the size of my bus routes I'm getting wrong. As an example I build my first route to orbit the station plaza (next to the ferris wheel) and then have this loop into the little group of houses in the North West south of the Charlottenburgstrasse University. I'll then usually build a second route that also orbits the main square and goes out to the boulevard to the East, then one further route that also orbits the square and takes in all the space before you get to the boulevard in the South.

Are these routes perhaps the wrong size? I'm finding that I end up with stops quickly holding 20+ passengers and the buses are just too slow and too small to keep up. As a rule I figure any more than 6 buses a route is too much as it causes jams.

[douglasrac]

I should have elaborated a little. When I start up I remove the 3 bus routes already built, hike the prices up to the highest white price, lower station and vehicle maintenance to 0% and lower staff wages to one step above sad.

Highest white price is not enough. You can got highest pink price, one below dark red. For the beginning this is necessary.
I also don't recommend lowering the maintenance. This might save you some cash per month, but in long term will hurt you more. Soon your fleet will be in bad condition, the vehicles will break all the time, hurting your reputation and profit. I usually do the opposite. I raise the maintenance to 85-95% as soon as I have a good flow of cash.
Remember, replacing your fleet with new vehicles is very expensive.

Are these routes perhaps the wrong size? I'm finding that I end up with stops quickly holding 20+ passengers and the buses are just too slow and too small to keep up. As a rule I figure any more than 6 buses a route is too much as it causes jams.

I don't know the specific places you mention, but a bus route should have 4-8 stops. More than that you will need too many buses to keep frequency. The gain won't be enough to compensate the amount of necessary vehicles. See here: http://citiesinmotion.wikispaces.com/Mobility%20Guide

Traffic jams are a real issue in Berlin. And your approach for that is correct. Short routes and few buses each line. To feed a metro I personally prefer trams, and buses for less crowed areas. While making trams, make an effort to make as much tracks offroad as possible. That really help the traffic flow.
In both railstations of Berlin, as I remember, you have a plaza in front of it. Use that plaza to make tram stops offroad and metro stations. This way the traffic around can flow freely.

[Zarine]

As douglasrac said, your planning seem correct but I think you're creating bus line a little bit too long in high population area.
I would advice to go for trams where you have your current bus lines or reduce the length of the line (or both)

[CorporalRutland]

Thanks for the tips everyone. I think I might have been misusing trams as a means to travel between neighbourhoods (e.g. the first line I usually build links the Amusement Park plaza with the College to the North.)

Do people advise demolishing buildings to get those tram lines as off-road as possible where there aren't any boulevards or parks to cut across?

[giladteller]

Thanks for the tips everyone. I think I might have been misusing trams as a means to travel between neighbourhoods (e.g. the first line I usually build links the Amusement Park plaza with the College to the North.)

Do people advise demolishing buildings to get those tram lines as off-road as possible where there aren't any boulevards or parks to cut across?

Only if it's critical.
If there is low traffic on the road, you can go on the road. Only if there is a traffic jam you might want to demolish buildings. But don't over do it. It harms your reputation and cost a lot of money.

[slornie]

I also don't recommend lowering the maintenance. This might save you some cash per month, but in long term will hurt you more.

I agree with this for vehicle maintenance, but i've never understood what effect the stop maintenance has (stops don't break down or wear out and need replacing). Usually if i'm short on cash i'll cut it down to maybe 30%.

Do people advise demolishing buildings to get those tram lines as off-road as possible where there aren't any boulevards or parks to cut across?

Personally, i try to avoid demolishing buildings as much as possible because it's expensive. One of the few places on Berlin that i've regularly demolished a building is at the top of the park by the right-most railway station (i think). Need to demolish one building in order to get my offroad tramline to run straight across the north/south road below the bridge and onto the east-west avenue that runs south of the river. Apologies if that's a bit vague, its been a while since i played Berlin.

[eis_os]

CIM uses this formula:

$stop.attractiveness = $stop.getModel().$attractiveness * (1.167 - 0.2 / (MAIN.$gameData.$maintenanceLevel2[$stop.type] * 0.01 + 0.2));

Will recalculated every month, so you need at least wait for the next month to see the effect.


Personally I played with lowered stop maintenance.
(If you do a good maintenance, more people will wait on your stop, so if your stops are overcrowded it may be actually better to lower them so less people will use your stop and generally are more happy because reduced wait time)

[CorporalRutland]

I've tried everything peeps... she's still not happening.

The closest I've come is a tram setup that relies largely on running along the major boulevards and through the major parks and squares with as little use of the smaller roads as possible. This is then fed into with bus routes of 4-6 stops each with up to 4 buses per route. Each route is planned in a clockwise and anti-clockwise variant for both trams and buses. I also started putting in metro stations that took in as many bus/tram stops as possible and ran a shuttle service. I cut all my workers' wages to 1 above the red and raised all the fares to one below dark red before dropping all maintenance to 0%.

I'm still finding it difficult to stay in profit and some of the busier stops (such as outside stations and shopping centres) are clogging up with over 100 passengers. I'm also getting mad traffic jams, one road flagging up at 110% traffic.

I has quite the sad now ...

[douglasrac]

Is it really necessary to make clockwise and anti clockwise? Maybe you are wasting resources there.

Don't cut your workers wage. They should be all green happy face always. One above yellow, first green face. See here how wages affect employees: http://citiesinmotion.wikispaces.com/FAQ

Also you don't need to choose main areas, or make shuttle service at the beginning. When I play I avoid areas where the traffic will be high, because since you don't have money you won't be able to serve that area well.
2 times I played Berlin I started at right top corner. Just make lines taking people and transporting them to the small industrial area at the top and to the train station. Don't think big at the beginning. Just grow slowly increasing the size of your network. But this is my way to play, it's very slow. Might be successful in other way, like getting a huge loan to make a metro.
Don't be sad, Berlin is a hard map. The campaign shouldn't throw players to Berlin at first.

You can also post your saved game, so we can download and actually see where are your problems.

P.S.: You might also learn a bit here: http://citiesinmotion.wikispaces.com/Hints

[zippy69]

I concentrated on building Metro to start with, until I'd got over 80% coverage with Metro alone. By the time the system was this big, the money was rolling in fast enough to allow me to build tram and bus to connect in to Metro without having to worry about losing money if buses or trams got stuck in traffic, because Metro was compensating for whatever the other modes were losing. Mainly I used Buses to connect the villages on the edge of the city to the Metro, and trams linking between some of the Metro lines through the centre of the city.

Not saying the above is the best way, but it worked pretty well for me

[Zarine]

Well, to start with metro, you need to have tons of starting cash or use some mods otherwise you wouldn't cover enough ground to attract enough passenger to make real money.

[CorporalRutland]

Thanks for the tips everybody! I stopped using message boards for ages given how people usually treat somebody who doesn't know how to do something, so it's been lovely to have all your useful feedback.

I hadn't considered starting in a quieter area of the map. I also should have realised that paying the drivers less money would have an impact on the performance at stops - d'oh!

I'm going to go and try again!

[Zarine]

To tell the truth about the driver, I didn't pay attention to the fact that their mood impact at loading passengers...
And thinking about it makes me think that it's best to have them in red. If, as said in this FAQ, the drivers won't wait for all passenger to board, this is a great thing.
When you have station were the flow make a passenger arrive just before the last one embarked making this one embark but just before he's in there is another one making the vehicule waiting at the stops for 10 times a normal stop. This slow down your network so badly sometimes...

[co_martsu]

Thanks for the tips everybody! I stopped using message boards for ages given how people usually treat somebody who doesn't know how to do something, so it's been lovely to have all your useful feedback.

I hadn't considered starting in a quieter area of the map. I also should have realised that paying the drivers less money would have an impact on the performance at stops - d'oh!

I'm going to go and try again!

We're all friends here And welcome to the forums on behalf of the dev team too. I hope you enjoy Cities in Motion!

[CorporalRutland]

Finished it! Here's the funny thing - I didn't build a single bus or tram line save the tram line to satisfy the 'New Tram Line' objective and the one about connecting the ends of the metro. The rest was entirely metro based through some clever tinkering with the fares, taking loans at a good time and expanding aggressively. Having the Metro Stations DLC probably helped a little...

It turns out my major failing (apart from over-using buses and trams) was in only buying what I could afford rather than taking out loans and making those loans pay for themselves with well-placed metro stations. Onwards to Amsterdam!

[mrochester]

The very first thing I do in every scenario is set ticket prices to 7, 8, 9, 10 and 20 respectively. You can easily get away with these prices. Then I take out the max loan with the smallest interest rate, build a metro line, and build a number of feeder lines, and then press go.