Metro absurdly cheap to build?

[Gregorovitch]

The cost of a bus in CiM appears to be roughly the same as IRL - about 0.5m euros, say. But the cost of building an underground metro appears ridiculously cheap by comparison to real life. The actual cost of inner city underground rapid transit varies widely as I understand it, but rough ball park figures would be about 100m euros per station and 100m euros/Km for twin bore tunnels. This would appear to be roughly 30 times as much as they cost in CiM, which would explain why metros in this game are incredibly profitable.

Why so cheap, and is not the simplest strategy to borrow all you can, build metro, wait for money to roll in, build more metro, amuse yourself playing with a few buses and trams along the way?

 

[giladteller]

If metro would cost as much as it costs in real life, you would never be able to build it.

 

[douglasrac]

Because it takes years to build metro and years of investment and goverment money etc, to make a metro.

And now, in CiM 2, with day / night cycle you don't play in days/months/years like CiM 1 but in hours. If you want metro with real life costs you would need to let the computer running the game for 15 years before you could establish the first metro line.

 

[Gregorovitch]

yeah, in reality there's probably as many different complicated public/private funding packages for rapid transit projects as there are metro railways in the world. But to the extent that they are subsidized from general taxation the quid pro quo would be downward pressure on ticket prices, and to the extent they are funded via the financial markets then a big slice of the ticket price will go towards servicing long term bonds etc.

I'm not disputing the difficulty, or even the desirability, of simulating this in the game - my point is that since these costs are not realistically simulated but the ticket prices are, the profitability of metros in the game is much greater than it should be in comparison to buses for example and is only kept in some sort of balance by the somewhat artificial mechanism of restricting access to loans.

 

[OzWally]

Because it takes years to build metro and years of investment and goverment money etc, to make a metro.

And now, in CiM 2, with day / night cycle you don't play in days/months/years like CiM 1 but in hours. If you want metro with real life costs you would need to let the computer running the game for 15 years before you could establish the first metro line.

By 15th year CiM 8 should be out by then :blush:

 

[douglasrac]

By 15th year CiM 8 should be out by then :blush:

Yes and CIM 8 will include:

- Possibility to render any city you load on Google Maps;
- Download the schedules and routes of any real life company and improve it and upload back to see it working in real life;
- Cities can be as big as the earth;
- Cims are powered by IBM Watson. They are as smart and as dumb as real people. The entire world use CiM to plan any route in advance and see how real people would make trip choices.

 

[giladteller]

Yes and CIM 8 will include:

- Possibility to render any city you load on Google Maps;
- Download the schedules and routes of any real life company and improve it and upload back to see it working in real life;
- Cities can be as big as the earth;
- Cims are powered by IBM Watson. They are as smart and as dumb as real people. The entire world use CiM to plan any route in advance and see how real people would make trip choices.

- The option to control real-world bus schedules and lines.

 

[OzWally]

- The option to control real-world bus schedules and lines.

^ This

From CiM Facebook.

 

[Num1hendrickfan]

The cost of a bus in CiM appears to be roughly the same as IRL - about 0.5m euros, say. But the cost of building an underground metro appears ridiculously cheap by comparison to real life. The actual cost of inner city underground rapid transit varies widely as I understand it, but rough ball park figures would be about 100m euros per station and 100m euros/Km for twin bore tunnels. This would appear to be roughly 30 times as much as they cost in CiM, which would explain why metros in this game are incredibly profitable.

Why so cheap, and is not the simplest strategy to borrow all you can, build metro, wait for money to roll in, build more metro, amuse yourself playing with a few buses and trams along the way?

Indeed maxing out on borrowed funds and building a metro first is one strategy that can be employed in CIM. However you're neglecting to take into account interest on the borrowed funds and the time it takes to pay off the massive debts accrued, which would put the cost of a metro pretty close to what it costs in real life. I'd say Metro is probably the second most expensive transportation choice ( construction is extremely expensive ) in the game next to helicopters, it's however the easiest of the lot to recoup that investment.