How does a town growth in size?

[Dom]

I see the town never grow
What is the criteria for any town to growth in size?

[canophone]

Initial (anywhere from 50 to 1200) plus growth bonuses (public/private transportation and cargo) minus growth qualities (stations, car traffic, emissions).

[><Ce|\|T><]

Originally posted by canophone:

Initial (anywhere from 50 to 1200) plus growth bonuses (public/private transportation and cargo) minus growth qualities (stations, car traffic, emissions).

And I think the initial value increment each 60 months

[canophone]

Originally posted by ><Ce|\|T><:

Originally posted by canophone:

Initial (anywhere from 50 to 1200) plus growth bonuses (public/private transportation and cargo) minus growth qualities (stations, car traffic, emissions).

And I think the initial value increment each 60 months

The base_config.lua does say 60. If that's months, then that's months. I actually changed that number to 10 for myself!

[Metacritical]

click on the town name, there are 7 factors listed in the overview tab, each one affects city growth, any that are 0% means they are stagnant, positive percentage increases city growth negative slows it down. connecting other towns and supplying cargo increases city growth, having overcrowded stations, congested roads and high emissions slows down growth. as long as the target population score is positive the city will grow in size

[Dom]

If the Score is +, the town will growth automatically?
And when it growth, does it build new houses itself and along the roads?

[Zyntax]

How far can a town grow? Is there a limit how far from the center ( town name label) the town can grow?

[canophone]

Originally posted by Zyntax:

How far can a town grow? Is there a limit how far from the center ( town name label) the town can grow?

I don't think there is.

[Elrod Drigo]

Making the towns grow without mods can be very, very slow. Without mods you will want to connect a town to every nearby town, which is where most people want to go. Bringing the 2 goods each town wants will also increase the size of the "main" town plus those connected to it.

With mods however this can be accelerated a lot. There's a mod that eliminates pollution, and a couple of mods that increase the amount of initial towns and the speed at which the town grows. There's a mod that generates new needs for towns, which in turn creates more possibilities for growth.

[Vimpster]

Outside of the 50% growth of the initial town size between 1850 and 2000, any additional growth is directly linked to the growth bonus modifiers. The bonus modifiers tell you what the target population is that the town can reach with it's current bonuses. Once the town reaches the target size it will never grow beyond that target unless more bonus modifiers are added.

If you are trying to get the achievement for reaching a town size of 1500 then, without mods or an edited map, you will need a minimum growth bonus of 400%, in the year 2000 or higher, and the town will need to have been a maximum initial town size according to whatever year you started in. In 1850 the maximum initial town size is 200 and in the year 2000 it is 300. Though it is exceedingly rare to find a town that has the maximum initial size, so something slightly below that is more realistic.

[sergetechone]

Without mods or the sandbox mode on, it will be very hard or almost impossible to grow the town size pass the 1500 mark. When the towns is generated, a "growth factor" is set per town. Some are set up to 200. So even your supply the town at 100 % in goods and you have all the connections to the others city set at 100 % and personnel traffic is also at 100 %, the town "may" pass the 1500 mark ... with an almost 0 % overcrowded, 0 % emissions and 0 % traffic jam in those perfect condition. In my opinion, very hard and almost impossible to obtain.

So to help out to growth my towns a bit larger than 1500 and help the growth of the towns, you have to use the Sand Box Mode, click on a town and change the "growth" factor the Residential, Commercial and Industrial up to 800. or place the biggest town with a modify growth factor of 800 for RCI.

Than supply the town normally with supplies, some connections to the surround towns and control the flow of traffic inside the town that will be crazy traffic , btw and watch it grow.

How far it can grow ? that I still dont know, but I did just that, and the town got close pass 3000 with a demand pass 1000.

Here a picture :

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1960499605

Here the emissions :

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1960500182

As you can see, I was having a hard time to supply the town with foods and bricks. It supply by trains, but the trucks have a bit of a hard time with the local traffic, even with street with bus / truck lane. With a limited catchment of the train station, I have to use trucks and truck stop to supply the brick and food at the location not cover by the train station. The local transit - tram - have two loop - CCW - CW to help supply the passager train station going to a town close to 1200. As for the emissions, well it was luck the C and I where in the bottom and at the left of the R. And I place the airport in a North - South position. Under those condition, that the best I can do to control the emission.

By changing the growth factor in the town editor, it is possible to growth the town to the biggest as possible.

[Zapp]

Doing all these things is great and all, but the true king of making cities grow is...

Having enough other cities nearby.

If you use the Sandbox mod to add new cities, they will all interconnect, and they will all grow massively.

I mean that the regular factors (reducing emissions, supplying goods etc) add perhaps 50 or 100 percentage units to the city's end total size (the number that's affecting the town's base size).

But if you have several interconnect cities they will all report figures like +500, +800 or even several thousand percentage units. Meaning that even the tiniest hamlet with a base population of 50 will grow to a population of 1000. While cities that start big can reach 2000, 3000 or even 5000.

All you need to do is the usual stuff - cover your cities with bus lines that lead to the city's railroad station, and connect the cities with frequent commuter trains.

Your city growth will skyrocket to the point where it will feel you have broken the game. Mucking about with industries and goods will pale in comparison (if your percentage is 800 then even if you manage to provide a perfect supply of four or six goods, that will only add maybe another +100 to this number. In other words, industrial supply plays a insignificant role; utterly dwarfed by public transport connections.

[Zapp]

My point is: once I realized I could save hours of work painstakingly setting up industry chains and supply lines and whatnot for a small gain by simply plopping down a couple extra cities (that doesn't need to be very large!) for a much much bigger gain, it kind of sucked the air out of the game...

[Zoso]

Originally posted by Zapp:

My point is: once I realized I could save hours of work painstakingly setting up industry chains and supply lines and whatnot for a small gain by simply plopping down a couple extra cities (that doesn't need to be very large!) for a much much bigger gain, it kind of sucked the air out of the game...

Who could've guessed that cheating would suck the air out of the game?

[Tsubame ⭐]

Originally posted by Zoso:

Originally posted by Zapp:

My point is: once I realized I could save hours of work painstakingly setting up industry chains and supply lines and whatnot for a small gain by simply plopping down a couple extra cities (that doesn't need to be very large!) for a much much bigger gain, it kind of sucked the air out of the game...

Who could've guessed that cheating would suck the air out of the game?

Single player game, using mods that are even included in the base game. Hardly cheating at all.

Use it if you want, do not use if you do not.

[Zoso]

Originally posted by Tsubame ⭐:

Originally posted by Zoso:

Who could've guessed that cheating would suck the air out of the game?

Single player game, using mods that are even included in the base game. Hardly cheating at all.

Use it if you want, do not use if you do not.

I use mods and cheats in single player games myself, I just don't say it sucks the air out of the game when I do so. It's like giving yourself god mode in an FPS then saying it's too easy.