I'm no slouch to gaming but....

[Gauge]

How do you succeed in this game?

I've tried on three separate occasions on normal difficulty to just have 1 route with a balanced expense. I'm convinced the only way to win in this game to do only the missions and that is it. You cannot make money off the system itself, you just can't.

I've maxed ticket sales, made them mid, and made them low. I've tried every combination of that with the same in employee wages.

I think possibly it might be possible if my vehicles (that are only 10% breakdown, yeah right) didn't breakdown that I might be able to turn a profit monthly.

How do you do this, I need to know. Also, don't come to me saying missions are the answer, cause if they are, I'm moving on and waiting for the next transport tycoon. The missions are fun, and a good addition to any game, but what is a transport game where you can't proliferate your game by transporting things.

As is right now you might as well say, hey build a connection here, or you lose. No point in even having money associated with it, as you lose if you don't do them anyways.

I don't know, maybe I'm missing something, but I am seriously hardcore about gaming, and can succeed in all paradox published games, including Eu3 and HOI3, notoriously hard games. I'm not slouch, so I ask you guru's how it's done. Because I have literally tried everything in game. Every combination of routes, wages, ticket prices....everything.

And before someone says, three is hardly trying everything. I tried many may starts with more than one route. I just tried the three with one route to see if it could even be done with one.

 

[douglasrac]

Missions are definitely not the answer. And if you find them fun, tell me how.

Each map have a way to start. Not fixed way. What I'm trying to say is that you need to analyse the city and see where is the best place to start. I can't say start connecting rail station to airport because they might be so far that is not worth it, even with metro. Or get hotel to airport. Or factories to tenements. It depends on the city. If the city is a huge gridlock, and you have an avenue with a free space in between, a single tram line will already be used by citizens, doesn't matter what they connect.

The main problem I can see is that you said: just have 1 route with a balance expense. There is your problem. You can't expect to have a profitable single route. You are not transporting cargo. People don't go from A to B everyday for the rest of their lifes. Sure you can see where a person lives and where he/she works. But that doesn't mean this person goes to work often enough to give you profit. It's all about your network. People go to different spot and if your route takes people to one isolated spot, it will have few passengers. If people get frustrated with not getting anywhere with your network, they will give up and use cars.

Forget where people go. Build a network to make people go wherever they want. They go to several different places. You can't predict where they want to go. Grow slowly connecting people to your network. Don't connect people to rail station, hotels, etc, connected people to your network. People need to reach your lines and that's it. Bigger your network, bigger the demand.

Citizens in CiM commute unlimited times. So, if someone needs to get 10 lines to go to work he will, as soon as its faster than cars. And with the traffic jams they will choose your transport.

 

[Disadvantage]

The key to success is linking transport routes. Have two bus routes covering opposite areas and have a common stop between them; it instantly increases your passenger count.

Also, it is pretty hard (But not impossible) to turn a profit without a metro. My usual strat for a new map is to scope out the best route for a metro, get one or two loans and build the metro (With 3-4 stops) Then build bus lines that cover the area around each stop (Usually with about 6-8 stops), making sure one stop on the route is as close to the station as possible. (On the same side of the road as an underground stop always helps) This will help you maximise profits from your metro which can help you pay off your bank debt. Once that is cleared up you should be free to build a couple more bus routes, or perhaps a tram route connecting to the metro on a busy line, or whatever.

I've recently been experimenting with above ground rail which is cheaper, so that might be something to look at too.

Hope this helps!

PS: I ignore most missions unless it seems like a profitable bus/tram route.

 

[douglasrac]

Also interesting to add that money being hard to get in this game is a very good thing. Transport games (OpenTTD, Locomotion, RRT2, etc) you get some lines and money is already jumping inside your account. Then you never have to worry about it. That's kind of boring. Here I see myself looking at the economy situations to get a loan. That's good.

 

[Damascus]

You can cheat on the missions. For example, if you are supposed to connect an outlying house with an existing route (never a moneymaker), you can build a stop, create a line, buy a bus, and get the cash. Then you move the bus to the depot to be used for the same purpose later or put it on an existing line, delete the route, and bulldoze the stop. There is no time regulation. I know it's cheating, but what effect do the missions have? Some do not offer cash or other incentives, so why do them? But they are there for a reason, correct?

As to the original poster, I had a comment on another question that may be helpful and is similar to the previous answers. Here's the short version: Click on some people who are waiting around, especially at your busy stops and see where they came from, where they are going and where they work. See if your network provides them an easy way to get about. You know when you click on a vehicle there's a picture of it on the bottom right and you can click on the picture of the clipboard to get some statistics? Do that with the people. It showed me one of my bus stops needed to be on a different street because the entrance to a building was there; I had never considered that before. It also shows people transferring between lines; maybe a new, more direct line would be better. People who transfer don't pay a second fare, they just take up valuable space.

 

[Gauge]

It's funny, none of the above mentioned tactics were even hinted at in the tutorial. Nor do you get the impression that it is the way to success by playing the game. You really get the feel of start small end big. So far this game is, nice idea, poorly implemented. To say you can't make a profit on a single route is defiant to the sim game genre. I should be able to make as large a route or small a route as I want.

I should have no delusions that, if one route can't make me money, that multiple routes can.

What I'm saying is that, on a single route, with a single bus or anything else, FULL TO THE BRIM of passengers for the entire month, I still don't make money. WTF is the point of having a transport system in which you can't make money on the best case scenario. And yes I have had this scenario, full tot he brim at every stop, maxed ticket prices and super low employee wages. I STILL could not turn a profit. Boggles the mind. Transportation systems today would fall over weeping if they could fill their buses/trams.

 

[douglasrac]

It's funny, none of the above mentioned tactics were even hinted at in the tutorial. Nor do you get the impression that it is the way to success by playing the game. You really get the feel of start small end big. So far this game is, nice idea, poorly implemented. To say you can't make a profit on a single route is defiant to the sim game genre. I should be able to make as large a route or small a route as I want.

I should have no delusions that, if one route can't make me money, that multiple routes can.

What I'm saying is that, on a single route, with a single bus or anything else, FULL TO THE BRIM of passengers for the entire month, I still don't make money. WTF is the point of having a transport system in which you can't make money on the best case scenario. And yes I have had this scenario, full tot he brim at every stop, maxed ticket prices and super low employee wages. I STILL could not turn a profit. Boggles the mind. Transportation systems today would fall over weeping if they could fill their buses/trams.

Running the risk of starting a theoretical discussion that has no importance to the game, do you think a transport company can make profit with 1 route?
There are several costs involved in having a company. Not all costs are only based on the vehicle.

But I really not gonna start arguing about that. If you want to classify the game as unplayable just because you can't make profit with 1 route, then it's really over for you.

Your question "How do you succeed in this game?" was answered.

 

[unmerged(266137)]

Money is easy to make in this game. Take loans, build a metro system with connecting lines. Put stations near landmarks/important places. Each line with no more than 3-4 stations. Raise prices into the red. Make sure your vehicles are making more than they cost.

With that as a basis, you can do whatever you want.

 

[unmerged(169164)]

How do you succeed in this game?

You cannot make money off the system itself, you just can't.

Your approach is wrong. The game is not about profits, it is about quality of delivered service. It changes the perspective.

The game thema is original and slightly different from the usual kind.

The matter lies with convincing people into giving up their personal transport (taxi, car) to adopt collective transportation.

Usually, it is all about extracting as much as possible from customers for a given level of service (service can be poor, it does not matter as long as you make a profit|captive customers| That is the approach you took and that is the wrong one.

Here, it is all about providing the best level of service with the money you collect.
It means that the customers will go away to rely on their personal means if they are not satisfied with the service. You cant rely on trapped customers to make money.
Usually, the main goal is profit. Here, it is the satisfaction of the customer. This is the primary indicator. Every new line shall be assessed under this criterion, how it will degrade (or not) the quality of service. New lines, new unlocked sectors might add an additional pressure to the existing network and worsens the quality of service for all customers. The larger the network, the more dangerous it becomes since, as the quality of service tumbles, so is the frequentation and therefore the money collected.


The whole goal of the game is to build a network of collective transportation that pleases the population. It is not about profit.

It does not matter if you move 100 people or 1000 people as long as they are satisfied with the service. Money will come.

I've maxed ticket sales, made them mid, and made them low. I've tried every combination of that with the same in employee wages.

Under the wrong discriminatory criterion though. It is not about profit. It is all about customer satisfaction. This must guide any decision made over the prices of tickets, wages, maintenance and all.

Networks can work on overcapacity/undercapacity. Overcapacity has certainly been buffed by devs as a network hauling half its capacity is still profitable.

Undercapacity is another story: boom times usually sends more customers. At this point, hiking up prices is not decided to make profits. It is decided to keep the level of satisfaction high as the network might turn overcrowded. Depending on how your network is built, you might be led to want to reduce the number of people taking buses as too many people are using them, feeding too much your metro lines that get jammed.
So increasing the prices of tickets allows to keep the satisfaction of customers high by diminishing the number of passengers attracted to the network.

I think possibly it might be possible if my vehicles (that are only 10% breakdown, yeah right) didn't breakdown that I might be able to turn a profit monthly.

If you are that sensitive to breakdowns, that's because you are looking for profits. When you look for customers'satisfaction, you come to size the capacities of vehicles against the desire/want/need of customers and figuring what vehicle to use can be done under the right criterion.
There is an all out set of decisions coming with vehicles, when to deploy, when to put in the depôt, associated to maintenance cost. Very interesting.

How do you do this, I need to know. Also, don't come to me saying missions are the answer, cause if they are, I'm moving on and waiting for the next transport tycoon. The missions are fun, and a good addition to any game, but what is a transport game where you can't proliferate your game by transporting things.

Missions are certainly not the answer. On the contrary. The moment to carry out a mission is determined by the influence the completion of the mission has on the network and the satisfaction of the customer.
For example, linking to a railway station might demand much more money than the reward brought by the mission as railwaystations are a large source of passengers that possibly imbalance the whole network. So accomodating the network to be ready to receive that added inflow of passengers without degrading the level of satisfaction must be accomplished before any link to the railway station.

But no, in this game, you dont proliferate by transporting things. This approach leads to bloated stops, oversensitivity on breakdowns, parades and all.
The company proliferates by provide a high quality level of service. If you dont do that, then the company crashes.

As is right now you might as well say, hey build a connection here, or you lose. No point in even having money associated with it, as you lose if you don't do them anyways.

The opposite. Connections must be assessed against their potential to imbalance the network. Adding a connection that leads to an inflow the network can not handle kills a network. The larger the network, the faster it comes to its knees.

I I'm not slouch, so I ask you guru's how it's done. Because I have literally tried everything in game. Every combination of routes, wages, ticket prices....everything.

Under the wrong decision criterion. The game is not about profit. It is about satisfying the customer. Customers are not captive, they have their own means of transportation.

 

[unmerged(169164)]

Money is easy to make in this game. Take loans, build a metro system with connecting lines. Put stations near landmarks/important places. Each line with no more than 3-4 stations. Raise prices into the red. Make sure your vehicles are making more than they cost.

With that as a basis, you can do whatever you want.

Yes, but infrastructure inertia exists. As the city expands, the metro lines efficiency to satisfy customers changes. It is not so much that profits potential changes but the addition of new sectors change the weights around the map and potentially the quality of service brought to customers.

A metro line that is perfectly fluid in 1925 can turn less fluid in 1935 by city growth only and if you start to connect the new pool of passengers, undercapacity is showing and the network is done, with heavy losses.

Inertia of infrastructure shows as the game unfolds, not on profits (lines can remain profitable) but on customers satisfaction. At times, you wish you build your metro lines otherwise. The game perfectly works for that point.

 

[unmerged(266137)]

You'll be rolling in so much cash after ten years you will be able to make any of the changes you need.

 

[unmerged(169164)]

A two stop underground metro line is ten millions. Plus the cost of changing metros. It is not a given.

 

[Gauge]

This post was too long.

TLDR, breakdowns need fixed so you can actually plan things. A breakdown on a metro means a loss for the month, actually that's true for any service.

 

[unmerged(169164)]

Metro lines are the back bone of the network, disturbances on them being punishing is a required.