Any strategies to control seeding of Municipal buildings?

[RulerofRails]

I want to control the seeding of Municipal buildings such as the Hardware, Service Station, and Grocery Store. Is this possible?

(Will someone know or will I hear an echo from this silent space?)

If the answer is no, what workarounds can people suggest?

(I have an idea that requires lots of work: event-seeding of houses in cities. Better ideas would be welcome. Thanks!)

[Wolverine@MSU]

Can you regulate the density in the "seeding density" sliders for cities/regions?

[Blackhawk]

I don't remember there being a way to control the muni buildings and their spawns. You may be able to turn off a specific muni building for the entire map. (And then maybe able to place a couple by event if you have a specific one you want somewhere).

Another option would be to start the scenario so everything is seeded and then bulldoze the buildings you don't want, then save the scenario and distribute it like that. The disadvantage though is that the seeding will always be the same and I don't think you can use the Event check "At the start of the scenario" since technically, the scenario already started.

[RulerofRails]

From what I can see, I think they are tied to overall city size the way houses are in 1.06. I couldn't see any of the municipal buildings I mentioned in the seeding list. There is a slight chance that I overlooked them. If you have time could you check your list? (Needs to be late 20th century.) Unfortunately, I suspect the list is only a certain length and currently they are displaced to make way for the new normally more important, real industries. Of course I hope I am wrong.

This does give me an idea though (inspired by AZ Rail Rat's idea for event testing that's on his website). I might try removing some industries that are currently displaying on the list in a different install and see if I can make the municipal buildings appear. If I can, I will adjust them and see if the changes stick in a normal install. I have no idea how the game handles what's beyond the list, but I suppose it's worth a shot.
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Blackhawk, I didn't work out how to turn them off for the whole map nor could I see them in the event add building effects. Using the bulldozer method is a possibility. Something I probably wouldn't have thought of, so thanks. Later on some Municipal Buildings may appear as a result of growth rates, but if growth rates are low it may be manageable. Or would I have to set rates to zero, as the game would seek to replace them before building new houses?

[RulerofRails]

Deleting industries only shortened the list. No new ones appeared. Overrun doesn't seem the culprit here. So TM probably has a fixed ratio of muni buildings in cities. Oh well, worth a try.

Does anyone know if the game will delete houses placed by event in a city relatively quickly?

ETA: I just discovered that what I am attempting to do is impossible even with the original 1.05 muni buildings, commercial, retail, stadium, museum. Seems 1.06 added the ability to event place houses which I believe Stoker used to suddenly grow Los Angeles in his L.A. & L.A. map. So the chance of the game removing them may be a non-issue. Since it seems workarounds are necessary, more ideas on possibilities for this are very welcome.

[Blackhawk]

Some of the municipal buildings appear in the industry list and can be turned off (bank, bakery, flour mill) while others like the retail store and the stadium do not show. I'm not sure why that is. There's probably some way for them to show but I don't know what it would be whether it would be editing the muni file or figuring something out in the exe. On the other hand, surprisingly you can add retail/stadium by an event.

As for adding things by an event, there are a limited number of slots so not all the industries/buildings appear in the editor to add a building by event. I don't know if all the muni buildings were listed there or not originally, and somehow Ned was able to switch out a lesser used industry for a more likely to be used industry.

Generally, I think industries added by event stick around for awhile. As for houses by event I'd have to image they stick around then as well. And I'm not sure I've ever noticed a house disappearing. Even the random house in the middle of no where that gets spawned seems to stick around for a long time.

What muni building are you trying to limit? In TM the retail often seem to be the most difficult to deal with because their demand eats into the cargoes needed for other industries.

If you manually seed everything by placing houses and industry, I suppose you could vary up the industry location some by creating events that give you a "randomization" of whether it follows placement A, B, or C. Obviously not the best randomization possibly but it could create for at least small variations in the seeding. Then again this is TM and in many cases some of these maps don't have much of a random seeding.

[RulerofRails]

In the third world where there is high population, to me at least, many of the muni buildings don't fit that well. At the same time I was hoping to reduce some of the micro-managing to help players especially on the easier difficulty levels. I also dislike many idle industries on a map as that doesn't seem realistic. (They would go broke.) So most industry will probably be pre-placed or seeded (EDIT: by event). Overall, I am not too worried about randomization, as that is not a design feature of TM. People are used to industries being fixed in more than a few maps. I am just wondering what fixed houses would do? Event placing of many houses would be too much work. I suspect demands for some cargoes may suffer in the beginning, that may be good sometimes, but not what I am after.

[Blackhawk]

As far as I know I think fixed houses would work the same as spawned houses.

If you use fixed houses would you then set the city densities to 0%? That would ensure that you don't get any muni buildings you don't want, but it would also mean the city never grows.

However, if you use fixed houses and then still have a city density (default 100%), when the map spawns you will still get muni buildings showing up.

Which then I suppose goes back to the earlier option (which I'll call the 3rd option here):
Start the map and spawn the industries. Delete the muni buildings you don't care for. Add any additional houses/industries. And see how it works. Eventually some muni buildings will reappear if you have any city density.

So the question becomes, do you want your cities to grow and potentially have a muni building appear, or stagnate and remain the same size (unless you expand them using add events) without the risk of a muni building appearing?

[RulerofRails]

I am still unsure what I am going to do. I would rather kick a few ideas around than after many hours realize I should have used a different strategy. If I was to add houses by event, in my case I was going to set the slider as high as I could while still not normally getting a muni building. But there will always be a chance I suppose. If the city support value is under 1.0, I am guessing that the game prefers to build a house. I agree that growth rates will have to be low for this to work. Aesthetically growing cities look good. They are also good for demand, but passenger and mail generation can be synthesized by event. I don't know if it will be worth the effort to try to make them grow.

I have another idea to play with the reserved cells to try to make holes where houses will fit best. This may be far too finicky and obviously has drawbacks, but it could also work for some cities. Will try it when I get time.

[Hawk]

I'm afraid you'll find that reserved cells in RT3 aren't going to be as cooperative as you might hope.
I know in RT2 you could adjust them anyway you want, but it seems - at least from my own experience - that in RT3 you can adjust them anyway you want and they always, eventuall revert back to default.

[Cash on Wheels]

You can control most of this through the hex editor. I accidentlly switched my retail stores from 0A to A0 in the footer. Every small town had one retail and the larger metro had up to four! I fixed that problem. Then I set the stadium to "55" ran the chicago to new york map. I Counted at least 15 stadiums in the map on the year 1905. Some in one star towns! Stadiums do not spawn until ~1950!
I also notice little to no department stores in my 1.05 &1.06 versions turns out they were set to zero!

[Cash on Wheels]

^^^don't know if this works with trainmaster^^^

[RulerofRails]

I was hoping that I can have a solution without actually changing any game files so that my map will work on the standard install. But, I'm still interested in what value you changed. However, I fear that a change like this needs to be tested for side effects before it's considered safe.

[Cash on Wheels]

This thread has been waiting eight years for an answer!

viewtopic.php?f=24&t=1552

[Cash on Wheels]

In my version of the game the houses only produce mail/pass & waste.
So it would fail if a church, school, or cinama were the only municipal buildings in most small towns. I turned some of the station buildings into industies or municipal buildings. So getting a balanced seeding is very critical.