New map in the works, but how do you make cities?

[Altoona+BeachCreek]

I'm actually pleasantly surprised at the simplicity of the RRt3 map maker, and I've made some good progress on my new map so far. I'm about ready to set some cities down in a few places, I'm I can't quite figure out how. Most of the other controls and settings are pretty straightforward, I'm sure I'm just missing something here. Thanks guys!

[Hawk]

To place a city; in the editor, just go to the same place you would go to to place a station, then scroll up.

[Altoona+BeachCreek]

Ah, brilliant! Thanks, I would have never looked there. I new it would be simple.

[frk]

I had the same problem and i'd NEVER figure the cities creation tool was there, so thank you very much Hawk!

Now, can somebody tell me how to remove cities? ...i placed a few fake cities just for testing and now i can't find how to delete them...

[RulerofRails]

Use the Bulldozer to remove cities.

If you saved the map with those cities on it, there will likely be some reserve cells left behind after the city has been removed. To get rid of those go to the Paint Terrain option in the editor, then choose the "not allowed" icon (circle with a diagonal line through it) to get the tools to add/remove those.

[frk]

Thanks, Ruler!

Can i ask what's it for the "Paint regions" tools? First i tried to use it for creating cities (Regions/cities are grouped together in control panel) but now i know it's not for that...

[RulerofRails]

Regions give the ability to control the buildings that are allowed to appear in that area of the map. They are useful because, you can divide the map up into areas based on geography (or for any other reason that you want to diversify the industrial economy of the map). For example one region could be coastal; an area where some Rice and Produce grows. Another could be drier plains where Cattle and Sheep are raised, and yet another the mountains were mining and logging are conducted.

The bit which may be confusing to you is that setting up the buildings that appear in each region is controlled through the Cities/Regions page in the Control Panel. In effect, each city on the map is also a seperate region giving you the ability to control what appears in each city individually. There is a list of all cities and actual regions. Actual regions are colored pale red. All regions are visible whether they are used or not and numbered from 00 to 23. For example "Region 15". These can be renamed. Cities are classic white and will only appear on the list as you add them to the map.

Seeding is one of the most challenging, and yet most rewarding aspects of map making. Some of the users here such as Oilcan do a great job with seeding, especially of cities, giving the economy a far more realistic feel than some of the original PopTop maps have. Having too many similar cities/regions makes a map feel generic, with excess dud industries and to some degree a stagnation of cargo flow.

[frk]

Wow, that's a very comprehensive answer, again, thanks a lot!

I was wondering if there's a way to set the "radius" of a city (not a region) and if it's related to the paint regions tool...

And also, if this radius has relations with cities' "dimension" (stars) or if stars are relative to buildings' density...

[RulerofRails]

If there is a way to make the cities radius smaller, I am not aware of it. Building density doesn't affect radius size.

Yes, the number of stars is relative to the building density.

It has been said before that it's impossible to get rid of the reserve cells of an active city. I believe this is due to a re-application of reserve cells for all cities when the map is saved in the editor. Cities always have the cross-shaped reserve cell pattern upon game save. However, it's not impossible to add new reserve cells. These extra ones should show up after saving the game. Check out the Go West map to see how reserve cells have been used along the Hudson and Mohawk Rivers.

By adding some reserve cells around the edges of the city radius, it's possible to make a city seed in a much smaller central area. However, if the area is reduced too much it will change the effective seeding rate. Seeding rates are percentages, however, if there is no room a building will not seed. This can have the effect of reducing the effective seeding rate especially for the buildings like Aluminum Mill, Steel Plant, and Electric Plant that have large footprints. In some cases they may not appear at all.

Depending on how your map is designed, you may want to build such large buildings in the editor, but taking care to build them some years before the map starts (change the Default Start Year in the editor, save the map, now reload the map in the editor to switch to an earlier date or in version 1.06 use the cheat code "Wolverine@MSU" and enter the new year), or they will be "new" (according to the year-built) at game start and therefore available cheaply at game start because they have no apparent earnings history. Pre-placing buildings is a good tool, however doing it too much will tend to ruin some replayability as those buildings will always appear in the same location at map start.

[frk]

RRT3 never stops to surprise me for its "depth" (i'm not sure i've used correctly the english term).

And this forum is for sure the best place for plumbing it. I'm really grateful for all the things i learned here about the game. Unfortunately my interest is intermittent, and so it is my participation to the board.

Anyway, if i'll go beyond simple testing of editor and if i'll create a decent map, i will for sure share it with all of you.