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Mar 9, 2011
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  • Cities in Motion
I really dont understand what Im doing wrong, Ive played for many hours and tried the first scenario countless times, but I cant get anywhere.

I have vehicles that are effectively running at 2 capacity. They pick up a full load at the first stop, then ever stop after that, 1 or 2 people get off, and then its filled again. Its no wonder I have stops with over 100 people waiting at them. Putting more vehicles on the line does nothing to help the matter, because again, only a maximum of 2 people actually get off.

Saying that though, all of my vehicles are running at a nice profit, yet my income is still in the red (this is before I've taken out loans and stuff). Something else I really dont understand.

Of course, eventually I run out of money and have to take out loans, which means even more money going out every month, so my 'income' is even more in the red.

The damn news ticker is full of red text "passengers at blahblah are angry....bus broke down.....bus broke down...tram broke down...people are angry....your company sucks" etc.

Things I've tried:
increasing ticket prices to the level just before they turn red
decreasing wages until just before they get angry
putting more vehicles on the line

Something I might try is making loads of lines with 2 stops each, at least then the passengers would HAVE to get off the vehicle, right?

Playing this game for half an hour makes me so frustrated and annoyed, games are meant to be fun aint they? I have enough money problems in real life, I dont want to spend hours playing a debt simulator.

Ive just about had it with this game, Im so annoyed with myself that I spent my game budget on this instead of Dragon Age 2, what an idiot.
 
Cheer up. By the time you get around to buying Dragon Age 2, you may get it at a discount. ;-)

Why don't you try the Berlin scenario the way I approached it. I went straight for a subway. This forced me to start out with a loan. But I could manage it without adjusting ticket prices or salary levels. I just took the cheapest loans, that had to be repaid in two years. I managed to make a tiny profit, but once the two years had passed, and I had repaid the loans, things started to pick up from there.

I made the first subway station at the western train station. (The one with an amusement park next to it.) I then traveled southeast to connect to the southern busline. I connected to it at the hospital. I then moved north to build the third subway station at the eastern train station. The fourth went on to connect to the eastern busline, at which point I got the bonus for connecting the existing lines. I also automatically fulfilled the mission to transport passengers to the amusement park.
The fifth station, went north from the amusement park, and connected to the College. The sixth station went west to connect to the western busline.
At some of the stations, I did a single busline, picking up passengers from the surrounding area, thereby feeding passengers to the subway.
At this stage my subway is at it's capacity. I cannot purchase any more subway trains, and I have to start dealing with the queues. I may decide to push up the price for the subway tickets.

If I recall correctly, I only built the three first stations initially, and later on expanded to four, five and six stations gradually.
 
At least CiM is only 20 bucks and not 50 like DA2. But my advice for you would be to first look through this forum, there are a lot of good tipps on here. Second, I'm gonna tell you what I use to do.

1. Get a loan
2. Find 2 spots for your first metro stations and connect them. The metro is the backbone of every system in CiM.
3. Then go build a network of trams and buses to feed those stations. (Passengers only pay again if they use another mean of transportation)
4. You should be making enough profit to expand from now on. You can even take out more loans, if your monthly profit allows it.
5. Put the prices in the light red
6. Keep your employees happy. Drivers will load faster, controllers will earn you more money for penalties, technicians will get the broke down vehicles moving again faster and the office people boost your reputation.
7. You already mentioned it yourself. Shorter lines are usually better.
 
...oh, and I forgot.

When doing buslines, I found it to be a good idea to NOT place them on the main roads. And I don't place them right after an intersection, but rather right before an intersection. (if possible)
 
Is one of your bus lines a large loop?

I used to do that alot, and realised it was a bad thing to do, When going in a big circle, say you had 4 stops, A B C & D, and each of those was a corner of a square
A B
D C
if you had a passenger get on at A, and wanted to go to D, they hold up your bus for the entirety of the route.
A useful solution would be turn it into 2 lines
A -> B -> C turning around and going to B then A
and A -> D -> C turning around again etc.
People in the central station now only get on the bus in the direction they want to go, and not clogging up the bus going 1 way.

Ok, following my description above will cause possible strains on the 2 terminals at the end. But I found this kind of setup stopped the busses going around constantly and only picking 1-2 people up, because people have more choice of where to go
 
I really don't see why so many people thinks that you can only succeed with the metro... You can move passengers with buses, but it's hard because of their low capacities. Make your bus routes shorter, and add more buses if necessary. Also do what iluvhats above suggested, build another line to go the other way, or design your route so that the line comes back along the same main route servicing passengers both ways. It might also be beneficial to put tramlines in areas with a lot of passengers.
 
Thanks for the replies.

I didn't want to build a metro at first because the mission guy recommends buses, so I thought thats what I should be using. I also looked at the routes that are already there, thinking that they should act as some kind of template, because the game put them there, and theoretically, the game knows what its doing. But I guess not!

I will keep in mind these suggestions when I try again, right now my neighbour has decided he wants to rebuild his house (by the sounds of it) so I need to go out somewhere!
 
Don't listen to that guy. Why do you think he needs your help?^^ But yeah, tram will work too, if you put most of the tracks off-road. But busses are definitely the wrong choice here. I actually kept all of the 3 initial bus lines. They were quite ok if you build a net around it.
 
Fizzgig said:
[..] and theoretically, the game knows what its doing. But I guess not![...]
Click to expand...

I thought the same. But for CiM you will have to change your idea about what is a campaign. If you are thinking you are going to learn how to play by playing the campaign you are wrong. The campaign in CiM is useless for learning and have nothing more than unreasonable obstacles. Besides some nice touches like the Berlin Wall, be ready to be disappointed.
 
And having played DA2 a little now, I gotta say that the 20 bucks for CiM were WAY better spend then my 50 bucks on DA2. Cause that would really disappoint you, if your're into Bioware's pre-console stuff.

P.S. Best money spend on a game for a while was SpaceChem, little Indie-puzzle game, really addictive. very, very well spend 15 bucks ;) Sorry for the not so hidden advertisement. Hope I won't get banned.
 
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douglasrac said:
I thought the same. But for CiM you will have to change your idea about what is a campaign. If you are thinking you are going to learn how to play by playing the campaign you are wrong. The campaign in CiM is useless for learning and have nothing more than unreasonable obstacles. Besides some nice touches like the Berlin Wall, be ready to be disappointed.
Click to expand...

I agree that the campaign doesn't offer a learning curve. But still, the tasks are fun and realistic. In the first mission you have a weird military deputy who gives you wrong advice. You have to follow his orders, but the trick is to do it in such a way that is reasonable. For me, it's fun.
 
This reminds me how I learned the game. Back in beta I only played sandbox Vienna. Started over like a hundred times, but it was fun. Then in the campain, I already knew what would be best to complete the task. Of course you have other cities, but the priciples remain the same. So maybe go ahead and play sandbox for a while, start over, try different things. Then go ahead and do the campain. I think that helps a lot.
 
BenediktGer said:
[...] But still, the tasks are fun and realistic.
Click to expand...

I really don't think it's fun, and realistic? Completely opposite of realistic. Berlin is not that bad. Was the first one, I didn't know what to expect. But did you already played Helsinki ?

You have to listen to a shallow woman talking about shoes and parties while you're trying to build a network. A huge disappointment when you are expecting something related to history like Berlin Wall. HUGE!
The devs made so much research about history, even clothes of people, and didn't use it for the missions.

And what about her tasks? I want boats, I want buses, wtf. And the other missions that you may or may not accept, is just as horrible. You have to build a line between a village and a rail station and keep that line? You can't complete the mission if the passengers need to commute! In all scenarios you have the same. You need a single line, that goes all over town. It's impossible to be profitable. I guess 90% of people build the line, get the reward and delete. That's not fun.

You know, in other games a campaign is a mode in the game that slowly teaches you how to succeed in the game, not put obstacles in your learning curve. From the campaign I learned that you have to build lines between individual houses and their favorite spot in the city, like everybody deserve a private bus. Very interesting!

If the devs claim that it's important to choose the right vehicle for a route what about making missions to make people see this? Talk about the vehicles, a little history of the vehicle, talk about why this vehicle would be better in this particular route that he wants you to create. Not shoes and parties. The campaign is about solving private problems of citizens and attending the wishes of a shallow woman. Very creative! The other scenarios are not that much better. At least you don't have a shallow woman talking, but the requests are not so reasonable either. Some are challenges, some others not.


Morngwath said:
This reminds me how I learned the game. Back in beta I only played sandbox Vienna. Started over like a hundred times, but it was fun. Then in the campain, I already knew what would be best to complete the task. Of course you have other cities, but the priciples remain the same. So maybe go ahead and play sandbox for a while, start over, try different things. Then go ahead and do the campain. I think that helps a lot.
Click to expand...

I have no problem to finish the campaign. All maps I started and finish only 1 time. It's not hard at all, just annoying. I really wish the campaign would teach us things about the game. This is my first game from Paradox, a very good game indeed, but seems to me they love a puzzle. Things that we are wondering since the release we never got a reply. And the manual doesn't help.
 
Here is how I look at it. The game is a sandbox game. The campaign games are basically sandbox games as well. The difference is that they give you some optional tasks to complete. Don't complete the ones you do not like. These are just little fun scenarios. If you think they're silly, then move on and don't play them.
They are a way to spice up the game a little. To give you goals and things to shoot for. Otherwise its just the same sandbox.
Many of us are creative enough to make little challenges for ourselves. You say to yourself, I want to try to have an income of X by Y year, using no metro. Or, I want to try to build a ring metro system. Or I want to try to build a map using nothing but helicopters. Or this or that. You come up with fun things to try for. The little scenarios they give you are just an extension of that. If you don't like them... then.. well... just move on and make your own. There is a map editor, too, knock yourself out.
 
SackOHammers said:
Here is how I look at it. The game is a sandbox game. The campaign games are basically sandbox games as well. The difference is that they give you some optional tasks to complete. Don't complete the ones you do not like. These are just little fun scenarios. If you think they're silly, then move on and don't play them.
They are a way to spice up the game a little. To give you goals and things to shoot for. Otherwise its just the same sandbox.
Many of us are creative enough to make little challenges for ourselves. You say to yourself, I want to try to have an income of X by Y year, using no metro. Or, I want to try to build a ring metro system. Or I want to try to build a map using nothing but helicopters. Or this or that. You come up with fun things to try for. The little scenarios they give you are just an extension of that. If you don't like them... then.. well... just move on and make your own. There is a map editor, too, knock yourself out.
Click to expand...

Yes. Map editor is the greatest thing. I'm glad they put that.
I do make little missions for myself. I'm trying to make a company where you can travel for free by bus and trams. Pay only for metro, helis and boats.
 
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