Making the profit from the start

[unmerged(281045)]

Hi,

I have started CiM campaign in Berlin about 10 times. Each time I'm unable to get a profitable business using starting money. My company gets about 0 profit when all things are going right but when something is wrong (accident, fire, random traffic jam, economical problems) I'm starting to lose money.

I probably could not care about it and start making scenario tasks for good money but I'm not sure is it right. Should my company be profitable from the start or not? If not, when it should start to be profitable?

 

[sobrano]

set manitence to 0%-10%.costs of manitence are not balanced so it is not so usefull

 

[unmerged(169164)]

At start, you have low capacity vehicles, they are slow.

All you have to do to generate a profit is to build lines that allows a social category to move around the map (manual lists the requirements) Two stops lines.

Nothing more. If you design well your lines, they should load/unload vehicles capacity at each stop. If you keep your lines short, money making.

 

[knul]

I also found that setting Metro ticket prices to 10 and tram/bus ticket prices to 5 generates a lot of profit compared to my old strategy of keeping the ticket prices in the white.

Of course, designing a good network is always mandatory to get a profit.

 

[City Builder]

set manitence to 0%-10%.costs of manitence are not balanced so it is not so usefull

Won't that also really slow down the amount of time it takes for the buses that breakdown to getting them fixed? It seems to me that my buses are constantly breaking down, and so having a reasonable maintenance fee gets them back on the road in a reasonable amount of time. Keeping the buses on the road as much as possible obviously means more profits if the price per ticket is appropriate.

 

[unmerged(272700)]

set manitence to 0%-10%.costs of manitence are not balanced so it is not so usefull

Errr, I think this is poor advice from someone that maybe doesn't understand how it works.
Setting that low of maintenance will cause your vehicles to age and degrade much faster. While you might not notice an immediate change in breakdown rates... your vehicles will wear down much more quickly and break down sooner. Choosing to drop your maintenance rates this low will likely hurt your game in the long-run, especially if you don't understand the repercussions of making that decision and have budget in place to replace your vehicles early.

There are other, more sustainable ways, to learn to make a profit early. You have to use the information panel to analyze your citizens. Find out where they want to go. Pick a class... such as blue collar workers or pensioners. Find out where they live and where they want to go... then build some lines. Don't build too many stops. Avoid congestion. If building a tram, try to build your tracks off-road.
Raise prices, don't be afraid of the red color in your prices... this simply means that the price is affecting customer satisfaction. You can do that to a degree and still be successful.

There are many other tips, but maybe those will get you started. Remember, its all about making profitable transportation lines.... and the tasks they give you in the scenarios often times ask you to build a line that is not profitable. You can choose to do them or ignore them. Also, don't be afraid to remove non-profitable stops from a bus or tram line... At some points I even deleted lines in Berlin that the game started me out with.

 

[Gauge]

Errr, I think this is poor advice from someone that maybe doesn't understand how it works.
Setting that low of maintenance will cause your vehicles to age and degrade much faster. While you might not notice an immediate change in breakdown rates... your vehicles will wear down much more quickly and break down sooner. Choosing to drop your maintenance rates this low will likely hurt your game in the long-run, especially if you don't understand the repercussions of making that decision and have budget in place to replace your vehicles early.

There are other, more sustainable ways, to learn to make a profit early. You have to use the information panel to analyze your citizens. Find out where they want to go. Pick a class... such as blue collar workers or pensioners. Find out where they live and where they want to go... then build some lines. Don't build too many stops. Avoid congestion. If building a tram, try to build your tracks off-road.
Raise prices, don't be afraid of the red color in your prices... this simply means that the price is affecting customer satisfaction. You can do that to a degree and still be successful.

There are many other tips, but maybe those will get you started. Remember, its all about making profitable transportation lines.... and the tasks they give you in the scenarios often times ask you to build a line that is not profitable. You can choose to do them or ignore them. Also, don't be afraid to remove non-profitable stops from a bus or tram line... At some points I even deleted lines in Berlin that the game started me out with.

He is right though. At 95% you spend more money on the vehicle during it's lifetime then you would just buying a new one at the end of it on 0%. It's not balanced.

 

[sobrano]

He is right though. At 95% you spend more money on the vehicle during it's lifetime then you would just buying a new one at the end of it on 0%. It's not balanced.

this is what I meant!
i needed not much time to understand that it is cheaper to buy new vehicles than repair them.

 

[unmerged(272700)]

But its not what you said. You advised someone asking for starting tips to lower his maintenance to 0%. That is poor advice.
Had you gone on to explain how it works, and that he would have to keep a closer eye on his vehicles, and be prepared to replace them sooner than if the setting was otherwise. You have to suggest setting aside a vehicle replacement budget because you'll replace them sooner. But to someone new.. you might have to educate them that they need to keep an eye on their fleet roster and replace older vehicles.

For those home owners in the U.S., the closest thing I can think of to compare it to is escrowing for your taxes and your home insurance. You don't have to escrow, you can manage it yourself and pay the lump sump once a year. Or you can pay someone a little money to manage it for you and take out a little each month. Same theory.

And I never re

 

[Gauge]

But its not what you said. You advised someone asking for starting tips to lower his maintenance to 0%. That is poor advice.
Had you gone on to explain how it works, and that he would have to keep a closer eye on his vehicles, and be prepared to replace them sooner than if the setting was otherwise. You have to suggest setting aside a vehicle replacement budget because you'll replace them sooner. But to someone new.. you might have to educate them that they need to keep an eye on their fleet roster and replace older vehicles.

For those home owners in the U.S., the closest thing I can think of to compare it to is escrowing for your taxes and your home insurance. You don't have to escrow, you can manage it yourself and pay the lump sump once a year. Or you can pay someone a little money to manage it for you and take out a little each month. Same theory.

And I never re

The only difference here is, we are talking savings in the thousands in 1920's. You could buy 2-3 vehicles for the price of good maintenance. I love how good maintenance doesn't help your breakdown rate either. Laughable. It just feels like this game wasn't play tested by focus groups. Who played this and said...yeah this works.

Also since you're such an undeniable fanboy (which isn't so bad) can you post a step by step guide to making money in berlin that doesn't involve missions. Something I can follow step by step without fail (since the maps are the same everytime) and make money.

Something stupid mode. Like put a stop here facing this direction and blah blah blah. Because someone who can conquer the world in HOI on the hardest setting can't make money in a sim game on easy.....cause you know...this game is so intuitive.

 

[sobrano]

But its not what you said. You advised someone asking for starting tips to lower his maintenance to 0%. That is poor advice.
Had you gone on to explain how it works, and that he would have to keep a closer eye on his vehicles, and be prepared to replace them sooner than if the setting was otherwise. You have to suggest setting aside a vehicle replacement budget because you'll replace them sooner. But to someone new.. you might have to educate them that they need to keep an eye on their fleet roster and replace older vehicles.

For those home owners in the U.S., the closest thing I can think of to compare it to is escrowing for your taxes and your home insurance. You don't have to escrow, you can manage it yourself and pay the lump sump once a year. Or you can pay someone a little money to manage it for you and take out a little each month. Same theory.

And I never re

i am sorry i am not an expert but i am playing with difficulty hard and if i set manitence 50% i get bankrupt anytime, but when i set manitence 10% i gain many money and i can replace my old veichles easy after about 5 years of services
idk if it is an elegant strategy but seems it work very well.

 

[Gazer75]

Just have to chuckle when reading all the posts about the game being so flawed cause the person cant make a profit...

You will not fail if you go very far in the negative. I was -100k after taking loans to start a metro. Took me 5 years to get a positive balance, but I still made it.
After paying back the 2 year loan I started breaking even so I just had to wait it out.
My company value was barely positive for a long time.

I haven't bothered to start with buses or trams yet as I figured it would take to long to make money. Plan to try that though

 

[unmerged(272700)]

Take a look at the beginning in 1920 when your fleet is small. Lowering your maintenance rate from 50% to 10% only saves you a small amount.

You mentioned "I love how good maintenance doesn't help your breakdown rate either." Others have done trials in game and disagree with your statement. It lowers the rate that your vehicles depreciate. When your vehicles depreciate, they have a higher chance of breaking down. The relationship is not a "direct" relationship, but it is there.
In the world of real life fleet maintenance, we call this PM or "Preventative Maintenance". On average it prolongs the life of the vehicles. It does add an extra expense to perform the regular (usually montly) PMs, but overall it is a good idea to do it. If you work for pretty much any government agency in the US, and you manage a vehicle, you will be familiar with PMs.

I'm not overly interested in doing a play by play of how to succeed in Berlin. I did it for Amsterdam and all I received was criticism that I didn't provide enough detail. I have posted some youtube videos of a well-developed map in Berlin. It showed many trams and buses successfully running downtown with no gridlock. Even though I saw some posts earlier today claiming that it was impossible. It is, of course, critical that you relax the traffic in that area to be successful. If I ever have a bus line or a tram line caught up in Gridlock then I do something to resolve that situation. If I cannot resolve the traffic, then I reroute the line until I can fix the traffic.

EDIT: For a play by play of Berlin you can catch "iluvhats" post here:
http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?525559-I-Get-It-Now

Or maybe keep an eye on this guy's AAR to see how it develops:
http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum...rical-traffic-and-politics-AAR-(sandbox-mode)

 

[Gauge]

Yes so I'm shelfing this one. Guess it's not not for me. It's sickeningly addictive. But I just can't do it. The breakdowns are just BS. I wish I knew how to turn them off or scale them back drastically. I have found that I can make money some months while lose in others, the game seems to flow in directions. It's a nice game, I just find it too difficult to have any fun with. Later guys, and for the 10 people that "get it" enjoy your game.

Something I can say about this game that does suck. There is only one right way to do it. Statistics would dictate that, given the number of attempts I have tried, I would have found a way (if there are multiple ones) to succeed. So that is another draw away from the game. You either do it THE way, or you lose.

I enjoy playing openTTD more.

 

[Mortomes]

Don't be afraid to charge absolutely outrageous prices to your customers at the start, you won't be able to handle the volume of passengers initially anyways

 

[Gauge]

So I get it now. Finally. It's stupid but I get it.

First, let me say that the game designers are douches for making what I'm about to say true. you can't make money in berlin on the tram or the bus unless you charge outrageous prices, even by todays standards. They simply don't carry enough passengers per load.

So with the ticket price the same as the metro and the maint. cost on the metro MUCH higher (i went underground) I was still making WAY more money on the metro. The answer is simple. You can move more passengers. I think the idea in the game is to move passengers to the main hub ares you define, then metro them together. Put your city into squares. Buses make short routes, trams connect them (within the square). Then metro connects the trams. Now that I get it the game actually offers very little. And my above post was right. There is one way to do it, and that's it. There is no variety in play, which means no replay value.

In short, even though I get it now, it has no reply value and it's not "sim" like. This game is basically a puzzle. One you figure it out the puzzle is solved and presents no challenge for you. This is def not on par with transport tycoon. Harder to learn at first, for sure, but once you learn it you just apply the same algorithm to every map.

 

[unmerged(169164)]

If vehicles unload/load their maximum capacity at each stop, price can be set low to turn out a profit.

It is not so much an issue of developpers'choices rather than players'choices.

On the very contrary, I've got the feeling that devs've already tuned down the requirements on making a profit if buses/tram lines work at half their capacity.

Charging high prices is not a requirement to make a profit.

Vehicles at start are slow and have a low capacity. They can not serve many stops optimally because of that.

As (imo) devs buffed down the requirement on lines working in overcapacity, the only danger is working in undercapacity. Prices are useful to regulate the inflow of customers as pricing high excludes some social categories. Pricing too high antagonizes customers though, a balance to be found.

There is variety in deploying lines.

 

[unmerged(281045)]

I would like to gratefully thank you for many replies, much of them with very promising advices.

As I see, the main thing I could improve is focus on particular classes. So far I had built lines from living districts to the center hoping people will just want to go by them by any reason.

On the other hand I had no problem with quantity of passengers. Some stops were more popular, some less. But maybe it wasn't right at all.

The second thing are ticket prices. I just set them slightly below red level scared of the red color. Now I will try to make them much higher and to bring more passengers to trams using several additional bus lines.

If you don't mind, after the while, I will post on the forum again with the results of applying these advices.

 

[Comrade Suhov]

I'd like to see more detailed display of where are people going. Just like in SimCity 4: Rush Hour - I click on office building and I can easyly detect from what region of city people are coming. Same way, clicking on living apartment should show there are people going. And most important, is an ability to multi-select several citizens (or entire stops) to get an idea where they are going so players will get an idea there all of that 250 pedestrians on my tram station want to go and why the use only that line.

Currently I have to build several lines around to find out what is profitable and what is not and then remove unpopular lines. I see no point to click on each citizen because that is ridiculous and barely help you improve the line.

Other problem that make each of my scenario is a pain in butt is clueless traffic. Even if we put down the fact that buses won't leave their lane to unload\load passengers (i.e. creating traffic jam) I've see some fun situations in Amsterdam: there is traffic jam only in 1 line while one-two other lines are clear. I mean if there is broken down buss why not drivers change their lane to bypass that road obstacle? Surely, recent patch made traffic much less annoying on "normal" difficulty (even way too much less) but instead devs might just change AI driver behavior and crossroads.

Anyway, I've spent 20 hours in CiM and currently I'm in Scenario 3 and I always have big financial problems (expect Scenario 2) then there are metro system in the place. To build a metro line I always have to take a loan and then negative profits came. Next 2-5 in-game years I fight with my balance to make it profitable but in the end I have -5 mil and +300k profit means another few years without construction. I've suspended unprofitable lines, cut stops maintenance to zero and vehicle maintenance to 35-50%, cut salaries to make my employees barely neutral, keep the ticket price in light red/white zone but that's not working out well most of time. Surely I do something wrong but this quite frustrating.

 

[unmerged(169164)]

The destination of people are all known. Passengers are distributed over them. A route query tool is unnecessary. The goal is to build a network that allows a citizen to move around the town in a satisfactory way. It is not about profits.

Lines must serve a location in a way that satisfy customers.

Since beta, I've been trying to build a network specifically for one social class. I tried at first white collar workers. I failed for reasons I understood later when I succeeded in building a satisfactory network for pensioners.

I picked pensioners because I conceived (maybe wrongly) that their income is independent of economic cycles which meant that the network was indexed on a rather steady flow of passengers, rather than highly fluctuating passenger pools. Unchecked so far.
Another cause was that they lived (Vienna map) in averagely densed areas. Which suited more the capacity of vehicles in 1920.

After that, I connected buses lines with two stops only most of the times. Pensioners do not like to walk and apparently like when the connection stops are close one to another (contrary to other classes who walk over a distance)

So I started with one residential area (one stop only to pick up passengers) and allowed pensioners from that area to move around the map to the locations they want to go (churches, market places, department stores etc) When it was done, I added another line from another pensioner residential area to the existing network and so on.
All the way, money was flowing. Pensioners were the large majority using the network.
Only buses at this point.

After that, I added tourists to the mix. Later, white collar people. And finally, blue collar workers.

When doing this, it appears that the game is about satisfying the customer as it delineates the issues: managing the load put on the network.