Hello,
I was just wondering if anyone did serious testing as about what happened with a steel factory and a power plant both using coal in the same city. From what I can see it looks like they're both getting the same coal and it's not divided between the two but I'm not 100% mostly because seems to be too good =).
Coal plant and steel factory in the same city
It could be a good money making venture.
I had a town the other day that I was supplying with wood from 3 different sources.
I was then shipping the goods to another city and making a killing.
Unbeknownst to me, a multiplayer rival built a paper mill in the same city, and was getting revenue for doing absolutely nothing.
It didn't seem to hurt my goods route, but turned into a boon when I build a newspaper l in the next city and shipped paper as well.
I'd want to do more testing, but it doesn't look like it hurst at all, so maybe you should always build a power plant where you have a steel mill, and a paper mill where you have a furniture factory
I had a town the other day that I was supplying with wood from 3 different sources.
I was then shipping the goods to another city and making a killing.
Unbeknownst to me, a multiplayer rival built a paper mill in the same city, and was getting revenue for doing absolutely nothing.
It didn't seem to hurt my goods route, but turned into a boon when I build a newspaper l in the next city and shipped paper as well.
I'd want to do more testing, but it doesn't look like it hurst at all, so maybe you should always build a power plant where you have a steel mill, and a paper mill where you have a furniture factory
Ok, testing is done...
I set up 8 instances of 1 resource supplying a city with two industries that can use it. They were:
* Wood to a city with Furniture and Paper (4 instances)
* Oil to a city with Refinery and Power (2)
* Coal to a city with Steel and Power (2)
Clearly, the resource is divided (halved) between them in all cases:
* Each industry received 10% of delivery, not the usual 20%
* Industry grew from Small to Medium as of the 101st carload, not the 51st load. (Oridnarily they need a touch more than 50 to grow to Medium.)
This held true for all three types of resource. Those are the only possible instances of one resource to two industries for standard US scenarios, right? Of course, you can do more with modding, e.g. have Arms AND Autos. But I was keeping it simple.
In actuality, the amount the industry got was sometimes less than 10%. I think this has to do with rounding of such small numbers as resource prices fluctuated. Usually one of the two industries would be fine (straight 10%) and the other would be ~9% (8.3% was lowest seen). This was after 24 years of gameplay; just before the Industries went to Medium size (which might have alleviated the rounding error, since it would then take a bigger fraction of earnings).
Also I now understand something that always puzzled me: When you are delivering to two industries like this, the delivery fee that floats up over your train cars, is shown as two numbers, which are each half of your total. E.G. if Oil is currently worth 10k per car (according to the price shown in the listing over the mini-map), you will have two 5ks float over each car when it's unloaded. And each industry gets 20% of that (which is 10% of the 10k). You can see how rounding problems might creep in, especially if the price falls in the middle of one carload.
Grover, I think you made a sharp decision, and turned lemons into lemonade there. But otherwise I would not recommend having same-resource industries in a city, for several reasons:
For one thing, Power Plants are always a bad choice. They stop a production chain cold, which otherwise could've gone on to make Goods (oil) or even the best of all, Steel then Autos/Arms (coal). Income rises sharply as one moves up the production chain. Otherwise, there is nothing special about the Power Plant that gives it a bonus for being a chain stopper. The economics are pretty simple in this game. The Power Plant serves only to make money as would any "first link" in an oil or coal chain - and otherwise stops the chain cold.
What about wood, then? Well, consider everything involved:
* You have to pay for a second industry now. Probably at full cost ($500k).
* With your wood now divided to two industries, both industries will take twice as long to grow to Large; as investments, they'll return money slower. (A single industry takes 51 cars to grow to Medium, but 244 to grow to Large. Twice that - 488 - is a long time, and it's applying to two industries.) Better to focus on one industry and get payoff earlier.
* Now you also have the complexity and probably added cost of having yet another train to run (unless you can fit the second industry's output onto an existing train). This could even include setting up more track, buying a Newspaper, and/or causing congestion.
Also, it just occurred to me that Paper might be a bad choice in general because, unlike Furniture, one essentially has to pay to use Paper - you have to buy or make a Newspaper. You don't have to do that to deliver Goods and get money. Or maybe it should be viewed the other way - you SHOULD make Newspapers because now you have a chance to take another little chunk of each delivery, that you don't have with Goods? Hmm, let me think...
Paper has a price range of 12k to 24k. Goods have a range of 16k to 32k. In the best case, if Paper goes to a Large Newspaper, you'll get 50% more, which would be 18k to 36k in total... but you will have to eat 1) the cost of purchasing the Newspaper, and 2) the Small (14.4k-28.8k total) and Medium (16.2k-32.4k total) size Newspaper are not helping you recoup costs. I guess that in a very long term game, Newspapers might be a viable choice. * scratches head * Obviously it would help a lot if you can buy both the Paper Mill and Newspaper cheaply.
I suppose one could figure exactly how long it would take; I'll be posting more economic info to the wiki as time goes on. My gut feeling is that it'd be a very long time, though (100 years?). It all depends on the industry purchase costs and any other costs (e.g. if you have to buy new trains that you wouldn't have to, if you made Goods instead).
All in all, I think you were on your toes to make the best of a bad situation. You didn't make that Paper Mill, after all. But overall, I'm thinking that building a second industry for a resource is a bad idea.
Sometimes it may be hard to avoid. Like maybe if you had to send Coal way far to avoid a Power Plant in a nearby city. Or of course if other opponents messed with a city, as in your example.
Your thoughts? - RK
I set up 8 instances of 1 resource supplying a city with two industries that can use it. They were:
* Wood to a city with Furniture and Paper (4 instances)
* Oil to a city with Refinery and Power (2)
* Coal to a city with Steel and Power (2)
Clearly, the resource is divided (halved) between them in all cases:
* Each industry received 10% of delivery, not the usual 20%
* Industry grew from Small to Medium as of the 101st carload, not the 51st load. (Oridnarily they need a touch more than 50 to grow to Medium.)
This held true for all three types of resource. Those are the only possible instances of one resource to two industries for standard US scenarios, right? Of course, you can do more with modding, e.g. have Arms AND Autos. But I was keeping it simple.
In actuality, the amount the industry got was sometimes less than 10%. I think this has to do with rounding of such small numbers as resource prices fluctuated. Usually one of the two industries would be fine (straight 10%) and the other would be ~9% (8.3% was lowest seen). This was after 24 years of gameplay; just before the Industries went to Medium size (which might have alleviated the rounding error, since it would then take a bigger fraction of earnings).
Also I now understand something that always puzzled me: When you are delivering to two industries like this, the delivery fee that floats up over your train cars, is shown as two numbers, which are each half of your total. E.G. if Oil is currently worth 10k per car (according to the price shown in the listing over the mini-map), you will have two 5ks float over each car when it's unloaded. And each industry gets 20% of that (which is 10% of the 10k). You can see how rounding problems might creep in, especially if the price falls in the middle of one carload.
Grover, I think you made a sharp decision, and turned lemons into lemonade there. But otherwise I would not recommend having same-resource industries in a city, for several reasons:
For one thing, Power Plants are always a bad choice. They stop a production chain cold, which otherwise could've gone on to make Goods (oil) or even the best of all, Steel then Autos/Arms (coal). Income rises sharply as one moves up the production chain. Otherwise, there is nothing special about the Power Plant that gives it a bonus for being a chain stopper. The economics are pretty simple in this game. The Power Plant serves only to make money as would any "first link" in an oil or coal chain - and otherwise stops the chain cold.
What about wood, then? Well, consider everything involved:
* You have to pay for a second industry now. Probably at full cost ($500k).
* With your wood now divided to two industries, both industries will take twice as long to grow to Large; as investments, they'll return money slower. (A single industry takes 51 cars to grow to Medium, but 244 to grow to Large. Twice that - 488 - is a long time, and it's applying to two industries.) Better to focus on one industry and get payoff earlier.
* Now you also have the complexity and probably added cost of having yet another train to run (unless you can fit the second industry's output onto an existing train). This could even include setting up more track, buying a Newspaper, and/or causing congestion.
Also, it just occurred to me that Paper might be a bad choice in general because, unlike Furniture, one essentially has to pay to use Paper - you have to buy or make a Newspaper. You don't have to do that to deliver Goods and get money. Or maybe it should be viewed the other way - you SHOULD make Newspapers because now you have a chance to take another little chunk of each delivery, that you don't have with Goods? Hmm, let me think...
Paper has a price range of 12k to 24k. Goods have a range of 16k to 32k. In the best case, if Paper goes to a Large Newspaper, you'll get 50% more, which would be 18k to 36k in total... but you will have to eat 1) the cost of purchasing the Newspaper, and 2) the Small (14.4k-28.8k total) and Medium (16.2k-32.4k total) size Newspaper are not helping you recoup costs. I guess that in a very long term game, Newspapers might be a viable choice. * scratches head * Obviously it would help a lot if you can buy both the Paper Mill and Newspaper cheaply.
I suppose one could figure exactly how long it would take; I'll be posting more economic info to the wiki as time goes on. My gut feeling is that it'd be a very long time, though (100 years?). It all depends on the industry purchase costs and any other costs (e.g. if you have to buy new trains that you wouldn't have to, if you made Goods instead).
All in all, I think you were on your toes to make the best of a bad situation. You didn't make that Paper Mill, after all. But overall, I'm thinking that building a second industry for a resource is a bad idea.
Sometimes it may be hard to avoid. Like maybe if you had to send Coal way far to avoid a Power Plant in a nearby city. Or of course if other opponents messed with a city, as in your example.
Your thoughts? - RK
Thanks for the info Redknight. It is good to know.
Given a choice between furniture and paper. I think I will always choose furniture, becuase eventually furniture can be delivered to multiple cities. With 2 or 3 trains picking up from the furniture store, I minimize the goods that can be stolen by other people. Also in the beginning of the game where there are no metropolis'. Manufactured goods are the next best thing.
Given a choice between furniture and paper. I think I will always choose furniture, becuase eventually furniture can be delivered to multiple cities. With 2 or 3 trains picking up from the furniture store, I minimize the goods that can be stolen by other people. Also in the beginning of the game where there are no metropolis'. Manufactured goods are the next best thing.
AKA: CrashDummy__1.1
I'm working on that. I'd say "it might depend". The game has a bit of demand and supply built into it. It's complicated. Paper and Newspaper prices might stay high, if nobody is working on them. Or maybe, they won't.
Working on it.
Keep an eye on Recent Changes in the wiki to keep up with my recent work (and others' as well), if you like.
One thing I have to say is, I'm not dealing with multiplayer at all, at this point. Not even AIs. One step at a time, when I don't see other hard numbers / substantiated approaches to post. I'm not keeping up with the forums - I get into research - but I'd like to think I've posted new info, which has aided a few players in their approach. Of course I could always have missed big stuff in the forums.
Question: Why have multiple trains picking up e.g. furniture? Why not have one on Wait?
Nobody answered... who saw the "Power Plant Short Circuit" way to hurt opponents, before I did?
Working on it.
Keep an eye on Recent Changes in the wiki to keep up with my recent work (and others' as well), if you like.
One thing I have to say is, I'm not dealing with multiplayer at all, at this point. Not even AIs. One step at a time, when I don't see other hard numbers / substantiated approaches to post. I'm not keeping up with the forums - I get into research - but I'd like to think I've posted new info, which has aided a few players in their approach. Of course I could always have missed big stuff in the forums.
Question: Why have multiple trains picking up e.g. furniture? Why not have one on Wait?
Nobody answered... who saw the "Power Plant Short Circuit" way to hurt opponents, before I did?
Hmm. I wonder if I can charge royalties.
I was thinking of making a section on the wiki, a financial challenge, where winners would make the most money by year X, for a given (fixed) savegame at year 0 there.
I was thinking of making a section on the wiki, a financial challenge, where winners would make the most money by year X, for a given (fixed) savegame at year 0 there.
Last edited by RedKnight on Sun Feb 11, 2007 3:13 pm, edited 1 time in total.
I like to use routes going A to B, A to C, A to D ect. That way all the goods and passengers are picked up, and no need to have train in wait.
The powerplant idea has been in use for a while now. Sorry RedKnight, no royalty check for you. I used to think it's a good idea. But now I just use that 500k to buy tracks and get over to that city and 'help out' with the shipping. It's a much bigger return for the 500k spent.
The powerplant idea has been in use for a while now. Sorry RedKnight, no royalty check for you. I used to think it's a good idea. But now I just use that 500k to buy tracks and get over to that city and 'help out' with the shipping. It's a much bigger return for the 500k spent.
AKA: CrashDummy__1.1
Ah, cool. Oh well... it's still fun that I find it for myself. $500k is a big chunk of cash in a tight game, like you say.
For freight, I usually use whatever engine that has the lowest operating cost to get the job done (be pretty loaded but still able to pick up all the resources; not on Wait). One train per good, unless you can pack in more from a city. I guess your approach is sort of a variant of that, if the train is just enough for the job. Express trains benefit from speed though, especially later in the game. I hope to generate more numbers on just how much speed matters.
For freight, I usually use whatever engine that has the lowest operating cost to get the job done (be pretty loaded but still able to pick up all the resources; not on Wait). One train per good, unless you can pack in more from a city. I guess your approach is sort of a variant of that, if the train is just enough for the job. Express trains benefit from speed though, especially later in the game. I hope to generate more numbers on just how much speed matters.
I'm beginning to appreciate how good the express train is. Today I managed to get all 3 cities at the bottom right of the Island Hopping map. With all 3 cities at metropolis, the express train had a profit of about 1.3 mil. So I'm interested to see what numbers you would come up with. 
AKA: CrashDummy__1.1
Do it on the forums. This game is ideal for online challenges.RedKnight wrote:
I was thinking of making a section on the wiki, a financial challenge, where winners would make the most money by year X, for a given (fixed) savegame at year 0 there.
Eg. set up a save and players try to get the most net worth by 1900 for example.
Or more interesting, set up a save and players vie to get the earliest large industry in town X.
The highest profit from medicine
The largest cities
the highest profit single line by year X
things like that. I'll do it myself when I learn the game a bit more
Kro, I know that you can double your passenger revenue, with a GP-S over a long distance. This is versus a GP-S over a short distance; all towns were metros, and I let the game run for X years. Note that it actually takes a train a while to build up speed; the speed bonus is the average speed over the whole distance. I'd like to test in more depth, if I stay with it.
Lagoon, you're right, the forum is the best place for a contest... although the map can be linked to on the wiki's map page, of course.
One thing that's been bothering me about a "financial contest" is that the appearance of Patents is random, AFAIK... and some of them can have a big impact, considering it's a financial challenge. I guess they could be fairly readily disabled, shrug... hey, it's supposed to be a challenge.
Lagoon, you're right, the forum is the best place for a contest... although the map can be linked to on the wiki's map page, of course.
One thing that's been bothering me about a "financial contest" is that the appearance of Patents is random, AFAIK... and some of them can have a big impact, considering it's a financial challenge. I guess they could be fairly readily disabled, shrug... hey, it's supposed to be a challenge.
That's a good tip RedKnight. I have never made that connection between the distance and train max speed. I will try to route Express trains to as far away as I can from now on. With enough speed and distance, maybe passengers and mail can be just as profitable as cars, or at least furnitures.
AKA: CrashDummy__1.1