Trains clog up at the map border

[sys_64738]

Information​

I have disabled all mods​

Yes

Required​

Summary​

Trains clog up at the map border

Expected Result​

Trains are dealt with at the border quick enough

Actual Result​

Train processing takes too long at the map border

Steps to reproduce​

Have enough freight train stations or equivalent buildings to spawn necessary freight trains

Platform​

Steam

Game Version​

1.17.1-f4

Optional​

Description​

Freight trains take too long to be processed at the map border. This reminds me of a bug back in 1.1 or 1.2

Take a look at my city that worked fine before 1.17 - now, the trains clog up at the city border.

I used no workshop assets or mods, only DLC and CCP stuff.

I tried my best to work around this, but my city will be screwed, if I can't clean up the mess trains now make at the city borders.

Tags​

• AI

Attachments​

View attachment Zugstau.crp

 

[sys_64738]

Some further information:

The eastern train exit is most affected. When I turn the exit into a one way in my city (current save file I've attached), the problem will wear down at this exit. But now, the southern exit will pile up excessively. When I revert my action (setting the rail as a two way again), the eastern end will pile up again. And it'll be a lot quicker than the southern will take to relieve.

Best regards,
sys

 

[MarkJohnson]

You just have too much freight for your city. It says +22,000 exports. and only +4,000 imports.

Most of it is farming.

I went through and bulldozed have the crops and it dropped under 20,000 exports, and trains are clearing up fine.




But everything seems fine. Just pay attention to your trains and the imports/exports, plus passenger trains. They can cripple a city quickly if you don't pay close attention.

It looks like you have been at this city a long time. It is dated at 2809. That's almost 800 years old.

 

[sys_64738]

You just have too much freight for your city. It says +22,000 exports. and only +4,000 imports.

Most of it is farming.

I went through and bulldozed have the crops and it dropped under 20,000 exports, and trains are clearing up fine.

View attachment 999621
View attachment 999622

But everything seems fine. Just pay attention to your trains and the imports/exports, plus passenger trains. They can cripple a city quickly if you don't pay close attention.

It looks like you have been at this city a long time. It is dated at 2809. That's almost 800 years old.

Oh, so we meet again.

Well, as I mentioned in the other thread: This city worked just as fine before the recent updates and exports hitting the 24,000 mark wasn't unusual.

That's the reason why I assumed that something must have changed since the recent update.

Well, maybe I was just below the point where everything collapses the whole time and just a few adjustments was all it took to collapse the whole system.

Once again thank you for your help.

It looks like it is indeed time to start a new city. Maybe the new airports will help me to raise my exports again.

Or I'll just try to weave in a fright harbor after all... Hmm.

Nonetheless, have a nice sunday. I think, this bug can be closed then.

Edit: And yes, this city is really old. I started it when Corona hit us (hence the name ) and wanted to finish it already... But it wasn't perfect yet.

Best regards,
sys

 

[MarkJohnson]

I thought I recognized your name in the previous post. LOL

But yeah, each patch usually brings AI adjustments from added abilities to the city. So it tends to throw traffic out of balance.

But the exporting always seems to cause the most problems. It takes two vehicle to do it. One to export and another for the returning exporting vehicle. Traffic can pile up quickly. I try to make only what my city can use.

With Industries DLC, each building can produce a lot of freight vehicles, while you level up industry. you only get one Unique Factory to create Goods for commerce. So you always end up with tons of excess freight. Like 100 times what you need for the 1 Unique Factory. Then you can add even more freight if you tell your industry to start producing more than 100% Farming materials. You could maybe even move the slider to make less goods from each factory. As long as it doesn't get too low and affect income.

But you don't need to abandon the city if you don't want. If you optimize your industries DLC districts, you can get traffic very, very low again and continue expanding.

The normal 25-tile mod is the one I use, as it is just an unlock mod and doesn't alter the game any, and lets you fill in all 25-tiles. One unlocked, you can unsubscribe the mod.

It is a whole new AI experience, as you now have a gimped AI, since it is designed for only 9-tiles.

A new city is always a good thing, especially with CS2 around the corner, 4-months from yesterday (about 120 days).

 

[sys_64738]

I thought I recognized your name in the previous post. LOL

But yeah, each patch usually brings AI adjustments from added abilities to the city. So it tends to throw traffic out of balance.

But the exporting always seems to cause the most problems. It takes two vehicle to do it. One to export and another for the returning exporting vehicle. Traffic can pile up quickly. I try to make only what my city can use.

With Industries DLC, each building can produce a lot of freight vehicles, while you level up industry. you only get one Unique Factory to create Goods for commerce. So you always end up with tons of excess freight. Like 100 times what you need for the 1 Unique Factory. Then you can add even more freight if you tell your industry to start producing more than 100% Farming materials. You could maybe even move the slider to make less goods from each factory. As long as it doesn't get too low and affect income.

But you don't need to abandon the city if you don't want. If you optimize your industries DLC districts, you can get traffic very, very low again and continue expanding.

The normal 25-tile mod is the one I use, as it is just an unlock mod and doesn't alter the game any, and lets you fill in all 25-tiles. One unlocked, you can unsubscribe the mod.

It is a whole new AI experience, as you now have a gimped AI, since it is designed for only 9-tiles.

A new city is always a good thing, especially with CS2 around the corner, 4-months from yesterday (about 120 days).

Sadly, we're not out of the hot water yet.

I built a shiny new frieght harbor with train connection, which I will call my saint and saviour of my city for now.

Things went from south to top, when my exports reached new heights of 27,000. I still had some troubles with trains clogging up at my city borders here and there, but it was manageable.

Then suddenly, the first new issue arrived: my public transport numbers dropped excessively! From about 9,000 transported citizens a week to about 1,500. I couldn't trace the cause. Okay, the tourist numbers raised from about 4,000 to 5,500, so I assumed this would be a new behaviour and started to adjust my public transport.

But next, my industrial buildings started to pile up goods they could not sell. I stated to build large barns, so my crop fields will have a relief.

Well, the barns filled up and are unable to sell anything, no trucks will spawn at all. Whether I set my barns to "balanced" or even "emptying".

My exports dropped to 18,000 and are falling.

Something has been changed, this is for sure! I'm not even against readjusting, but having my city fail because of some faulty readjusting feels unfair, though.

I won't back down off a challenge and I gladly accept new changes, but I need to know why my city is dying right now and why there is nothing I can't do against it.

Best regards,
sys

I've attached my recent save game for further analysis.

Edit: I forgot to mention that I needed to run my city for a few hours to make these new changes I mentioned notable. Beforehand, there was no noticeable trace of them and so, my industrial production wasn't affected. To me, it looks like that the industrial buildings stopped to sell their goods with any outside connections at all.

 

[MarkJohnson]

Sadly, we're not out of the hot water yet.

I built a shiny new frieght harbor with train connection, which I will call my saint and saviour of my city for now.

This will not help, per se. You export/import system is severely overloaded. This is your only problem. Adding the extra cargo station just added more traffic and it is stifling your city. I am sure you have exceeded one or more of the agent limits, as you were nearing both vehicle and citizen limits in the previous saved game..

Things went from south to top, when my exports reached new heights of 27,000. I still had some troubles with trains clogging up at my city borders here and there, but it was manageable.

Then suddenly, the first new issue arrived: my public transport numbers dropped excessively! From about 9,000 transported citizens a week to about 1,500. I couldn't trace the cause. Okay, the tourist numbers raised from about 4,000 to 5,500, so I assumed this would be a new behaviour and started to adjust my public transport.

But next, my industrial buildings started to pile up goods they could not sell. I stated to build large barns, so my crop fields will have a relief.

Well, the barns filled up and are unable to sell anything, no trucks will spawn at all. Whether I set my barns to "balanced" or even "emptying".

My exports dropped to 18,000 and are falling.

Something has been changed, this is for sure! I'm not even against readjusting, but having my city fail because of some faulty readjusting feels unfair, though.

I won't back down off a challenge and I gladly accept new changes, but I need to know why my city is dying right now and why there is nothing I can't do against it.

Best regards,
sys

These are symptoms of exceeding the game limits.

I've attached my recent save game for further analysis.

Edit: I forgot to mention that I needed to run my city for a few hours to make these new changes I mentioned notable. Beforehand, there was no noticeable trace of them and so, my industrial production wasn't affected. To me, it looks like that the industrial buildings stopped to sell their goods with any outside connections at all.

This is the vehicle limit being reached. Too many trucks are on the road and it can't spawn trucks fast enough to export/import anything by trucks. one load - one truck.

Ships and trains can send multiple loads per train/ship (one boat or train = 1 vehicle), IIRC, one bicycle counts as one vehicle, so if you encourage bicycles, it may add to the vehicle limits as well.

I'll load up the saved game and double check. But I'm sure this will be the case as the symptoms point in that direction.

EDIT:

Yes, your vehicle limit (16k) has been exceeded and not letting you spawn vehicles on time.

Your Citizen agents are lower and are about half empty (30k out of 64k)

 

[sys_64738]

This will not help, per se. You export/import system is severely overloaded. This is your only problem. Adding the extra cargo station just added more traffic and it is stifling your city. I am sure you have exceeded one or more of the agent limits, as you were nearing both vehicle and citizen limits in the previous saved game..



These are symptoms of exceeding the game limits.



This is the vehicle limit being reached. Too many trucks are on the road and it can't spawn trucks fast enough to export/import anything by trucks. one load - one truck.

Ships and trains can send multiple loads per train/ship (one boat or train = 1 vehicle), IIRC, one bicycle counts as one vehicle, so if you encourage bicycles, it may add to the vehicle limits as well.

I'll load up the saved game and double check. But I'm sure this will be the case as the symptoms point in that direction.

EDIT:

Yes, your vehicle limit (16k) has been exceeded and not letting you spawn vehicles on time.

Your Citizen agents are lower and are about half empty (30k out of 64k)

Hi Mark,

sorry for my late reply, the last few days were a bit busy for me.

The weird thing about the exceeded agent count is that this almost never happened before the patch.

The only incident I've ever had in this city was when the warehouses had the import bug.

I usually had about 9.500 citizens and 4,000 tourists per week in my public transport. During the import bug, these numbers could decline to about 7,000 citizens and 2,500 tourists per week. Never before nor after this bug it went this bad.

This is the reason why this seemingly hits me from nowhere: Maybe my city had always been slightly beneath the threshold of a train lock - this might be possible. But I've never hit the agent cap this hard.

The city's size as well as import/export values haven't been changed for months. Most of the time, I've been busy with optimizing public transport and interchanges. So I can't really understand why this is happening now.

Maybe some rebalancing has taken place in the last update? It's hard to say, but the city worked before the update and it worked well for months in this size and shape.

EDIT: If this is indeed the result of a rebalancing, so be it. As I said before: I wanted to start a new city anyways, as I hadn't enough free space left for custom made airports and even newer stuff. anyways. And this time, I'll try to make the city less dependent on exports.

EDIT2: Hmm, I've just read something about an estimated export maximum of 15k per city in another thread. It looks like I somehow exploited the game for months without even realizing it. Now, I'm starting to wonder why this city has worked such a long time at all...

Best regards,
sys

 

[MarkJohnson]

The agent limits are a floating limit. They will bounce around as different demands in your city are met.

You have surely been having this issue for a very long time. To see the effects of the limits means you would have had this going on for a long time.

you have literally over 16,000 vehicle agents on the map. You could likely lose 20% (guesstimate) or more of these agents before any ill affects. The AI is smart enough to send helper vehicles when things are late, so now you get two chances of a delivery making it on time and not cause issues.

You can continue expanding your city if you reduce the redundancy of needlessly export/import freight in your city. Same with tourists. Reduce attractions to reduce cims in your city and you can expand even further.

My suggestion is to balance your city enough to have it flow smoothly and not have jams. Then make a final save and keep it as a backup. Then continue the saved game (With a new name so you don't overwrite the old saved game and lose it by mistake) and try to optimize your distrcts, so you can keep expanding. I prefer this over starting over, so you can see more how logistics work to always be able to have low traffic, even at earlier milestones.

But it's up to you. Optimize as best as you can and start over. Or keep pushing the limits of the game by manipulating the agents.

 

[sys_64738]

The agent limits are a floating limit. They will bounce around as different demands in your city are met.

You have surely been having this issue for a very long time. To see the effects of the limits means you would have had this going on for a long time.

you have literally over 16,000 vehicle agents on the map. You could likely lose 20% (guesstimate) or more of these agents before any ill affects. The AI is smart enough to send helper vehicles when things are late, so now you get two chances of a delivery making it on time and not cause issues.

You can continue expanding your city if you reduce the redundancy of needlessly export/import freight in your city. Same with tourists. Reduce attractions to reduce cims in your city and you can expand even further.

My suggestion is to balance your city enough to have it flow smoothly and not have jams. Then make a final save and keep it as a backup. Then continue the saved game (With a new name so you don't overwrite the old saved game and lose it by mistake) and try to optimize your distrcts, so you can keep expanding. I prefer this over starting over, so you can see more how logistics work to always be able to have low traffic, even at earlier milestones.

But it's up to you. Optimize as best as you can and start over. Or keep pushing the limits of the game by manipulating the agents.

Naah, I'll give it a fresh start. Otherwise, I'll always hesitate to destroy already existing patterns.

My next city's main goal will be good traffic flow, exactly for the reasons you've mentioned. (Also it's partially a challenge to do this without mods.)

The next city will have a lot less points of interest, also a lot less park life zones. (I liked them a bit too much, so my current city is scattered with these.)

Also, the next city will have a much more compact industrial zone to keep freight truck distances short. The road and rail infrastructure will be a nightmare to build and even worse to optimize, but this will be part of the challenge.

Also, the next time I'll build more tram, monorail and subway lines and a lot less bus lines.

Even before this disaster hit my city, I was already taking notes about some mistakes I've made (for example the almost never disappearing traffic jam at the end of a highway and my commercial zones were also a bit too far stretched), so I'm confidant that the next one will be much better.

Thank you for looking into my issue.

Best regards.
sys

 

[MarkJohnson]

Alight, Have fun. I'm sure you'll do better next time.