Where is the challenge and what is the point

[unmerged(155087)]

Hi all,

Lets start by saying I am not trying to be inflammatory but I do not see the challenge or understand why I would continue to play.

The lack of challenge I speak of is that I am making money hand over fist. I am playing on hard difficulty in 1920 and the Munich map. I am running bus lines and have the servicing of the buses & stops at 95% and the auto wages (and 60 second per day) mod and fair at max and staff happiness at 95% and by June 1920 I have 26k in the bank, reputation is in the green and I have not even needed to advertise and as such I am wondering why I continue to play. I want there to be a reason but it alludes me at this time.

I understand about the challenge of making the bus lines etc work and people to where they need to be but as it is it is more about going through the motions.

Also there appears to be little else to it, I move people but to my understanding I do not have an impact on it, it grows regardless and nothing I do or not will change anything.

So what am I missing?

Thanks.

 

[douglasrac]

You are not missing much. Its true that the challenge is over after you have too much money. I hope some other kind of challenges will be in Cities in Motion 2.

What I suggest is to create your own challenges, such as:

- Steam/Game Achievements
- Reach as much coverage as you can
- Make it harder by decreasing ticket prices. I never manage to have a huge surplus in my saved game (Mobility) because with low ticket prices, there is always a big down in cash after I replace my fleet.
- Increase your ROI (return on investment). A very important financial indicator for any company. Profit / Company Value. Meaning how much money you can generate based on the investment you have.
- Have green faces everywhere (everybody happy).

And if you are a number person you can use the spreadsheet we used for CiM Management Championship to analyse your game and see how many achievements you got and how are your indicators.

 

[unmerged(155087)]

Hi douglasrac,

Thank you for your response and your suggestions.

It is somewhat baffling to me that they would create such a game that did not have a cause & effect or competition. I am often left wondering why classics as Railroad Tycoon and what made them such classics; such had competing companies will take your business if you are not servicing the customer, stock options & possible buyout if over leveraged, having to plan your expansion keeping in mind linking routes and downstream businesses etc are ignored.

What makes it more frustrating is Cities in Motion has been nickle and dimming the community and from what I see not addressing core game play issues such as resting of lines when adjusted and the ridiculous AI that will sit behind a traffic jam instead of using the unblocked lane beside it.

Again, I appreciate you taking the time to reply and being honest and I guess for now I will wait to see if they manage to make a game out of Cities in Motion 2.

 

[Junna]

Hi douglasrac,

Thank you for your response and your suggestions.

It is somewhat baffling to me that they would create such a game that did not have a cause & effect or competition. I am often left wondering why classics as Railroad Tycoon and what made them such classics; such had competing companies will take your business if you are not servicing the customer, stock options & possible buyout if over leveraged, having to plan your expansion keeping in mind linking routes and downstream businesses etc are ignored.

What makes it more frustrating is Cities in Motion has been nickle and dimming the community and from what I see not addressing core game play issues such as resting of lines when adjusted and the ridiculous AI that will sit behind a traffic jam instead of using the unblocked lane beside it.

Again, I appreciate you taking the time to reply and being honest and I guess for now I will wait to see if they manage to make a game out of Cities in Motion 2.

Judging from your concerns, this is not a game of the sort that will appeal to you, I don't think.

 

[unmerged(155087)]

Judging from your concerns, this is not a game of the sort that will appeal to you, I don't think.

That will be a shame as I think the subject matter would be great for the Railway Tycoon style of game play. So for now I will play Hearts of Iron 3 with Hearts of Iron III: Their Finest Hour addon.

 

[TH1]

I played hundreds of hours with transport tycoon and in 90% of the cases, without competition. Simply, because i just wanted to build the best network possible, without disturbance. Same with CiM. It's amazing that you already have a big profit in the first year, but i guess you are not transporting the majority of the population. The challenge here is to make a complete, working network, that people use, make sure that there is no overcrowded station and your budget still has a nice surplus.
From what you wrote above, i agree with Junna, that the game is not for you. However please note, that i'm also not going to the forums of games that i don't like, just to write there "now I will wait to see if they manage to make a game out of Cities in Motion 2." It's IMO quite pointless.

 

[douglasrac]

Hi Teddy Bär,

Actually Colossal Order is one of the companies that I know that most listen to the community. If you take a look, several updates in CiM 1 was based on community feedback. While CiM 2 has several new features, all based on community feedback, including competitive and cooperative games.

I don't see the difference in Railroad Tycoon 2. It suffers from the same problem: too much money, no challenges. The difference is that you have competition and stock market, which gives a little more life to the game. The advantage is that they have a real finance report, and I can focus on ROI on RRT2.

One can say its not your type of game, but I disagree. Of course there are motivations into keep growing even when you have a lot of money, but there are several things the devs can make to keep the motivation always, such as:

- The game makes you worry about your financial effectiveness (a person can appear to tell you that you aren't going well).
- Passengers reacts to ticket prices with protests not only having red faces (as when the game is boring players tend to jeopardize the company to see what happens)
- Employees reacts to wages (low or high)
- With competition, players could be able to choose being good or bad. Like in Pizza Connection 2. For example, pay the Mafia to blow a competition station.
- Advertising can be local (with flyers or with outdoors in the city). With competitive games its possible to make advertising in places that the competition passengers mostly go.
- Spend money in development of hybrid, hydrogen vehicles.

And several other things. The key is simple. To keep player motivation it must exist several tools to spend the player's money. As at the beginning I'm not able to buy advertising or a metro I have motivation to keep growing. But in 1/2 years I already have money to do anything in the game. Adding more stuff, such as research that could cost millions, the player has motivation to grow and grow and access more advanced and expensive tools that the game offer.

P.S.: As in RRT2 you are able to buy the competition that gives motivation because the other company usually costs millions. So you need to be big to buyout. Plus after the purchase its necessary to restructure everything.

 

[co_martsu]

Hi Teddy Bär, thanks for your feedback, we appreciate it. I hope Cities in Motion 2 can offer the challenge that was lacking in CIM1 for you

 

[unmerged(424960)]

I agree that when you learn how to proper build your lines, the game become easy. But maybe it's a fact for every game. What brings me to the game ever and ever - sometimes I play something else obviously - is the challenge of building a nice and working transport system, even if this is frustrated by the performance drop when you reach the "end-game area".

 

[giladteller]

He has a point here...
Unlike other games, there is no rising difficulty in the game. Once you choose your difficulty level, it will remain the same until the end of the campaign. Most games, even management simulators have increasing difficulty throughout the campaign.
You can make the game harder with mods or by giving yourself certain rules.

 

[unmerged(424960)]

Probably this will be addressed by CiM2. As you said, other game give much more pain on endgame sessions, think about cities xl and such. This happen because the city grow in size and the citizen's demain grow too. On CiM1 this won't happen because the city won't rise (and won't change) that much, maybe on CiM2 with dynamic this will be different.

 

[unmerged(155087)]

I played hundreds of hours with transport tycoon and in 90% of the cases, without competition. Simply, because i just wanted to build the best network possible, without disturbance. Same with CiM. It's amazing that you already have a big profit in the first year, but i guess you are not transporting the majority of the population. The challenge here is to make a complete, working network, that people use, make sure that there is no overcrowded station and your budget still has a nice surplus.
From what you wrote above, i agree with Junna, that the game is not for you. However please note, that i'm also not going to the forums of games that i don't like, just to write there "now I will wait to see if they manage to make a game out of Cities in Motion 2." It's IMO quite pointless.

I appreciate that you enjoy the challenge as it is and as a long time gamer I can respect that. However for me that is not enough.

I however do not respect your last paragraph. I started and continued a discussion that was on topic, non abusive and relative to the game and my experience with it. It obviously is not to your liking and I am sorry to say but that is allowed and it does not reflect well on you do make such comments.

I would also add that you also do the Cities in Motion devs a disservice by trying to push people away who have a different take on this game that you obviously feel is above reproach. You do not have to agree with people but pushing people away will result in missed future sales. However as noted above I will keep my eye out for Cities in Motion 2 and hopefully for me it will be a game that will play.

 

[unmerged(155087)]

Hi Teddy Bär, thanks for your feedback, we appreciate it. I hope Cities in Motion 2 can offer the challenge that was lacking in CIM1 for you

That makes two of us. Coincidentally it was CIM2 videos on Youtube that caught my attention and was the reason I bought CIM1. I must say that this style of game is very dear to me and I do appreciate what was created but as noted above it did not work for me.

Thanks.

 

[unmerged(155087)]

I am pleased to hear that Colossal do listen and respond.

I do not believe I played RR2, I definitely played Railroad Tycoon and Railroad Tycoon 3 and speak of my experiences with the latter which was also probably had too much money. I did find the randomness of the maps and the dynamics of the economy a joy though recongnising the economy was far from perfect.

There are a lot of good points made and hopefully and I presume that the essence of these are in CIM2. While not always possible hopefully these will be options even if I would most likely pick them all.

 

[douglasrac]

I do not believe I played RR2, I definitely played Railroad Tycoon and Railroad Tycoon 3 and speak of my experiences with the latter which was also probably had too much money. [...]

Just to make my point even more clear, I believe the problem is not too much money, but the lack of options to use this money.
If the game is hard in a way that is hard to get money (as CiM already is at the beginning) it is frustrating for new players. And if the game is too easy, is also frustrating.

That said, it is impossible to avoid that the player have "too much money". If the game is endless, money will stop being a problem eventually. The key is to provide way to spend this money.

In CiM that can be done by adding what I suggested above: http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum...-the-point&p=14666089&viewfull=1#post14666089

 

[Gogomaester]

LOLOLOLOL ROFL

You have 60 seconds per day??? This is the fail! If you had normal 4s per day (or whatever it is default) You would see how hard it is to play on hard! Dont use mods, and you will see the challenge. Thanks

If you want even more challenge, change your day lenght to lower number.

Description:
The vehicles and everything have maintenance per month. For example I will have two buses, 500$ per month. But income is based on time. (Because the longer the month is - the less the maintenance will be applied - Try it and you will trust me) Your two buses will make 2$ per second. Now count with me: 2 (income per second) * 60 (seconds per day) * 30 (average days in a month number) = 3600 - 500 (maintenance) = 3100 per month. BUT if you have had only 4 seconds per day it would be: 2 * 4 * 30 = 240$ - 500$ = -260$ etc....

I dont want to be a scumbag, but every game has no challenge and no point when cheating.

 

[Num1hendrickfan]

Hi douglasrac,

Thank you for your response and your suggestions.

It is somewhat baffling to me that they would create such a game that did not have a cause & effect or competition. I am often left wondering why classics as Railroad Tycoon and what made them such classics; such had competing companies will take your business if you are not servicing the customer, stock options & possible buyout if over leveraged, having to plan your expansion keeping in mind linking routes and downstream businesses etc are ignored.

What makes it more frustrating is Cities in Motion has been nickle and dimming the community and from what I see not addressing core game play issues such as resting of lines when adjusted and the ridiculous AI that will sit behind a traffic jam instead of using the unblocked lane beside it.

Again, I appreciate you taking the time to reply and being honest and I guess for now I will wait to see if they manage to make a game out of Cities in Motion 2.

Most simulation games, especially business and transportation simulations have no clear objective, other than to build a successful company. Even the venerable Railroad Tycoon series had little in the realm of objectives outside of some campaigns, and every time one played the outcome was different. Don't want to connect Seattle, go for San Francisco instead, want to focus on freight and not passengers you could do that to. These games are venerable and classic because they let the player build the world, as compared to a prebuilt world that the player is thrust into. That's what makes a game like Cities in Motion fun, you might call it Nickle and Diming people, but we're willing customers who like the content and what it provides.

The competition isn't clearly set in stone either, in Railroad Tycoon there were other companies but more often than not they connected different routes than your own. Hardly competitive in that respect, the only competition was in the stock market. In cities in motion the competition is the private automobile ( a much difficult beast to defeat ).

 

[TH1]

I however do not respect your last paragraph. I started and continued a discussion that was on topic, non abusive and relative to the game and my experience with it. It obviously is not to your liking and I am sorry to say but that is allowed and it does not reflect well on you do make such comments.

I would also add that you also do the Cities in Motion devs a disservice by trying to push people away who have a different take on this game that you obviously feel is above reproach. You do not have to agree with people but pushing people away will result in missed future sales.

A bit late reply, but I just wanted to clarify that i just stated my opinion on your attitude in this thread. And as much as you are allowed to write your opinion, i do hope that i'm also allowed to do the same. A sentence such as "for now I will wait to see if they manage to make a game out of Cities in Motion 2" is quite insulting both for the developers and also to those people who already consider CiM 1 to be a really great game. This way it's an encoded message. On the top layer it might read as "I'm looking forward for CiM 2", but the other message is that CiM 1 sucks - and as an objective fact, not as a subjective opinion. I hope i managed to explain my problem with such attitude.

On the second note, i'm not trying to push you away from the game, but neither am i here to protect the interests of CO or Paradox, right? And I don't think that one comment from me here would push people away from buying their products.

 

[Rizzmond]

CIM2 would benefit greatly from having a sandbox mode separate from a campaign mode. The sandbox mode can be pretty much like CIM1 is now, except with the removal of the main mission line (in other words only side missions). On the other hand, the campaign mode can be a sequential series of progressively harder missions with defined objectives which you can fail. Example objective might be obtain % of coverage by a certain date or achieve of company worth of 100k by a certain date. In addition, there could be medals for different levels of completion. For example, a mission starting in 1910 could get bronze for 100k company worth by 1930, silver for 140k by 1930, gold for 200k by 1928.

 

[TH1]

For example, a mission starting in 1910 could get bronze for 100k company worth by 1930, silver for 140k by 1930, gold for 200k by 1928.

CiM2 won't have such long timeline as far as i know...