How does the AI earn so much?????????[Updated Observation]

moshelinho · Post by **moshelinho** » Fri Dec 01, 2006 5:57 pm

ok i was playing a british scenario with 3 ai players, i played as i normally did, and even won the scenario by completing all objectives. then i kept on playing it and noticed that i had 46 trains in the fleet, while the ai players had 2, 4 and 4 trains in their fleet...............

i concentrated on the player with 2 trains, and counted that there were actually 2 only............but that player was earning a profit of 2 mil every year, while me with 46 trains was getting the same profit????

this is wat i noticed

one train was taking cattle from ranch to a city, and another train was going from that city to another city,

the first train i noticed that in one round it was taking like 4 cattle carraiges, and in the second it was taking 6 carraiges.......

while the second train was going from city to city and it was taking different carraiges everytime, i think it was 2 different sets of carraiges.....for eg
city A -> city B -> pass,pass,mail,meat
City B -> City A-> Pass,pass,mail again continuously
city A -> City B-> Pass,mail, mail, meat, mail, meat
city b -> City A-> A different consist again.

well not sure abt the sequence of the cars but i think there were 2 sets like above(maybe 3)...........

and this train was making like 492k in profits!!!!!!!!!!

dont understand how to get this, this ai was not very high on the list but had quite a good net worth. this was after playing it for abt 115 game years.

anybody has any explanation for this?
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in continuation to the above list i found more observations which are here:

when i took over the above mention AI, i merged his company with mine, then i went to see that train and the train was still changing the cars the same way it was doing it when ai was controlling it.........and i was earning alot of cash..........

here is the limit!!!! a train was taking coal frm coal mine to a station, now at one juncture there was no coal in the coal mine, so the train made a trip without any cars!!!!!!!!

this is not really nice to see AI making so easy money with just 2 or 3 trains and we have to connect all over the map to complete scenarios and earn money......................isnt this cheating by AI?

boomer ang · Post by **boomer ang** » Fri Dec 01, 2006 7:57 pm

I think the AI on higher levels simply change its train sets on real time depending on what the city outputs in a precise moment.

I played games where I was able to make 1/2/3 milions per year with very few trains ( 5/6 ) only, but they were well optimized and constantly adapted to needings almost in real time..IMO this is a good aspect of the game because an human race brain can't manage simoultaneously and efficiently too many trains.

Boomer

snoopy55 · Post by **snoopy55** » Fri Dec 01, 2006 9:57 pm

More train equal more maintenance costs. A possible reason. I've seen a competitor I took over had 16 cars on one train! How can they do that if we can't??

boomer ang · Post by **boomer ang** » Sun Dec 03, 2006 1:09 pm

snoopy55 wrote:More train equal more maintenance costs. A possible reason. I've seen a competitor I took over had 16 cars on one train! How can they do that if we can't??

Whaaat ???

Never happened to me,there are three explanations for this :

1 ) It was a game fault

2 ) maybe you saw few trains one over each other and the optical effect tricked you

3 ) you had a beer jam session the night before,it happens also to me

...........I'm joking....

Cheers

Boomer

d53642 · Post by **d53642** » Sun Dec 03, 2006 2:57 pm

boomer ang wrote:
snoopy55 wrote:More train equal more maintenance costs. A possible reason. I've seen a competitor I took over had 16 cars on one train! How can they do that if we can't??
Whaaat ???

Never happened to me,there are three explanations for this :

1 ) It was a game fault

2 ) maybe you saw few trains one over each other and the optical effect tricked you

3 ) you had a beer jam session the night before,it happens also to me ...........I'm joking....

Cheers

Boomer

I like number 3, sometimes when I have those I think I am a martian but I am only green from the hangover

CaptainPatch · Post by **CaptainPatch** » Sun Dec 03, 2006 5:28 pm

boomer ang wrote:
snoopy55 wrote:More train equal more maintenance costs. A possible reason. I've seen a competitor I took over had 16 cars on one train! How can they do that if we can't??
Whaaat ???

Never happened to me,there are three explanations for this :

1 ) It was a game fault

2 ) maybe you saw few trains one over each other and the optical effect tricked you

3 ) you had a beer jam session the night before,it happens also to me ...........I'm joking....

Cheers

Boomer

It is a quirk; not a glitch. The AI is indeed allowed to have extremely long trains. I've noticed this when I've merged with other companies and I then checked the consists and routes of the trains I had just acquired. The AI routinely piles on cars so it can take absolutely everything available on a pickup. And at the delivery it retains those cars and returns for another load instead of switching to the converted good to continue on the route. The AI apparently believes in specialization: Finished goods shall be carried by a dedicated train instead of having one train follow a load all the way from resource to final market.

As for how wildly profitable the AI companies are, I'm not sure if they even have to pay maintenace costs at all. And I wouldn't be surprised if they get their engine upgrades for free.

d53642 · Post by **d53642** » Sun Dec 03, 2006 5:39 pm

The computer doesn't act the same way a player does. How many times have you seen the computer connect to an industry that it cannot even use or take mail and passegers to an industry. In the early days of Railroads the cpu wasted so much money they never had a chance to buy you out, they went through a lot of tweaking for the last patch to make them more competitive. Myself I don't mind losing to the computer, makes it a challenge. Beating the cpu ALL the time is no fun to me, you might as well play with 0 cpus if thats the case.

snoopy55 · Post by **snoopy55** » Sun Dec 03, 2006 8:42 pm

In showing my nephew the game I barreled thru a mountain just for the thrill of it(whoooopppiii) and there was an AI with its starting town connected to 2 grape orchards, with NO trains running! And this was 10 minutes into the game. It had its stock sitting there and enough money to buy 5 or more engines. Needless to say I put a crossing over it and went into its town and as soon as I could, I bought him out and got that train running.

If I come across that 'more than 8 cars' again, I'll post a screenshot.

Hey, maybe we need a section on this forum just for uploading odd and interesting screenshots......

Harlock · Post by **Harlock** » Sun Dec 03, 2006 8:46 pm

I'd like to see a screenshot of a train with more than 8 cars. I would think that the game's authors would now allow that to happen as a matter of fairness...unless it was documented as a feature, and I don't recall that being mentioned in the docs. Maybe it is a bonafide bug?

Also, as far as $$$, see my other thread about the behavior with three AIs.

snoopy55 · Post by **snoopy55** » Wed Dec 06, 2006 12:45 am

I just had an AI that was really out of his CPU. I took him over and was checking out his routes. I was following one train which filled up 8 cars and proceeded on it's way. It pulls up to an oil well _and_dumps_the_cars_!!! It loads up 4 oil cars and chuggs on its merry way. It was the last AI I took over, so it makes me wonder how much $ it lost.

levy · Post by **levy** » Thu Dec 21, 2006 6:27 am

i have also seen the AI change carriages every time around.
blatant cheating! imho.
not that i havent used kazillions of ways to cheat on the AI in the past, but still AARGH i feel used.

snoopy55 · Post by **snoopy55** » Thu Dec 21, 2006 7:05 am

I had an AI that was make loads of money. I finally got a station over by it and started making goods. I checked it out and it only had 1 train going between 2 cities! Watching it, I see it changing the trains make-up each depot. If there was 1 furniture, it added 1 car for it. if none, no cars. If only 2 passenger loads, 2 cars, changing each stop. No way I could do that with 27 trains running......