Couple simple ways to make rivers and train tracks suck less without decreasing the challenge factor

[Cesium Rainbow]

I love the game. It's stupid addicting. Almost too much. I'm excited to see where it will go.

I only have one issue regarding base mechanics. It's how you're forced to place water and train tiles in order to prevent them ruining all your carefully laid plans. If this game was only a casual mobile time killer about a high score, it wouldn't really matter. But Dorfromantik is (as I understand it) about creating a pretty, utopian countryside and being rewarded for it. There's nothing more idyllic to me about a pastoral area than the rivers and lakes running through it. But because rivers are implemented as a challenge-multiplier mechanic to break up scoring zones, the only strategy that makes sense is to keep water as completely separate as possible. This results either in a giant octopus-orgy-looking water cluster or snaking waterways so long that there's nothing else on the screen at rivers' end. The same goes for trains -- a rail network doesn't add to a region's attractiveness the way water does, but, imo, a rail "network" that branches a thousand times into and out of itself like 2D Escher looks even dumber than a river labyrinth. The game rewards you for this while penalizing you for getting either tile type anywhere close to scoring areas. It's ugly and frustrating.

Here's a couple ideas for not only helping alleviate the problem as it exists but also encouraging players to take more strategic risks with water and rail placement. The first is adjacency bonuses. There are only two adjacencies that make immediate logical sense to me: farm access to irrigation and rail access to towns. These adjacencies could be implemented all kinds of ways, such as farm and water edges along with rail and town edges being considered identical for point and perfect placement purposes.
Another option would be for stations to provide a bonus based on the size of the zone it's attached to. Since there's only one station in-game right now, it could work for either farm or town zones. For example, an extra point given for every house in a town adjacent to a newly placed station. This bonus would only work if the new station is connected to a rail network. A rail network could be defined as simply as a track with another station attached.
Even cooler, though, would be enabling direct bonuses for connecting stations. It shouldn't be a flat bonus as that would encourage building a field of nothing but adjacent stations. Calculating the length between two stations would add some coding overhead so it's not quite so simple but it would give stations a purpose beyond only being a water\rail crossing and would give players a reason to spread stations out, discouraging the slithering mass of randomly placed stations that result from the current game. That means the player would be given a reason to try to stretch a river or rail line across the map. And doubly so if stations received bonuses both for connecting to other distant stations and to large towns and\or farms.
The last suggestion might be easiest to implement but provide the least in terms of additional depth. That is to occasionally include town or farm quests that require rail or water access. And I'm sure there are ways to include forests too. Logging maybe?

There could be endless other ways to change water and rail tiles from feeling like a curse to adding significantly to how regional plans take shape. It's really the only part of the game to me that's both an eyesore and major gameplay frustration. Well, besides no undo but there's a separate thread for that.

Thoughts?

[dsegel4]

I agree that there should be some kind of game change in regards to railways and waterways.

As I'm playing the game, I really, really want to "finish" my waterways and railways but with the current emphasis on perfect placement and "group" rewards, it's almost impossible to do so. As you said, it all ends with a very weird map with no congruity.

I think there should definitely be a bonus for completing a waterway and train system (making a complete, connected and closed network). Maybe having tiles containing those elements having *some* "freebie" edges under certain circumstances.

But I wouldn't want to just do it in a "creative" mode. I have no interest in creative. I need some puzzle/challenge game element to keep my interest.

IMHO.

[Ghin]

something that really annoys me in this regard is that mousewheel (or any keys for that matter) cant be rebound and i end up accidentally screwing myself over with trains/rivers. really i shouldnt going AAAAAAAAARGH in a relaxing game at any point.

[Don Julio]

Hm, I've got no issues at all with water and railways, and I'd rather not have them tinkering with it. It's a challenge. Just saying.

[Nate69]

Originally posted by Don Julio:

Hm, I've got no issues at all with water and railways, and I'd rather not have them tinkering with it. It's a challenge. Just saying.

I can understand that you feel this way if you are just building nice landscapes and don't look at the score too much or only play for the score. If you want both, there is no way to reconcile them, in my experience. I feel that playing for score ruins the look of your map at the moment, more and more as you go beyond 20.000 points. Because of the adjacency bonus and perfect placement reward that you need to continue playing, my maps become quite ugly in the end.

[RandomTurtle]

I agree.

It would be cool if stations acted more as hubs. Like if adjacent to town foot bridges spawn. If adjacent to farm bridges for transporting grain appear. It'd be nice to see these stations look like they're loading grain up at some fields and a train or boat takes it down to a town (Although no bonuses or points will be granted doing this) as it'd be a nice visual touch that makes the world feel slightly more alive.

The only mechanical difference would be stations can link to farms and town and have a few more looks to them.

[boggers]

I found that when going for score it's best to divide the map up like a pizza, one slice each for farm, town, woods, rail and water, but with so little control over the rail and water tiles, I don't even attempt edge matching in those areas.
I think any "fix" for it needs to be very simple and reward the player for making nicer looking, more realistic placement. Maybe if completely enclosing an area in rail or water gave you a bonus multiplier for everything inside that area, or even a bonus tile for every perfect tile inside the area.

[Cesium Rainbow]

Originally posted by dsegel4:

I agree that there should be some kind of game change in regards to railways and waterways.

As I'm playing the game, I really, really want to "finish" my waterways and railways but with the current emphasis on perfect placement and "group" rewards, it's almost impossible to do so. As you said, it all ends with a very weird map with no congruity.

I think there should definitely be a bonus for completing a waterway and train system (making a complete, connected and closed network). Maybe having tiles containing those elements having *some* "freebie" edges under certain circumstances.

But I wouldn't want to just do it in a "creative" mode. I have no interest in creative. I need some puzzle/challenge game element to keep my interest.

IMHO.

Samez. I mean I'm not even expecting a score in creative mode and if you don't run out of tiles, this issue doesn't even matter in the first place. What was that cool little game that came out like a year ago where you can plop together pretty much any elements of buildings and infrastructure that you can imagine? Townscaper or something? I say it's a game but it's not. It's a toy. A cool toy, but just a toy. There are no gameplay mechanics. I stopped playing Cities Skylines for the same reason. There didn't seem to be much game there outside of like transportation. If there's no challenge, no game, it's not for me.

[Cesium Rainbow]

Originally posted by Don Julio:

Hm, I've got no issues at all with water and railways, and I'd rather not have them tinkering with it. It's a challenge. Just saying.

If there was a potential major payoff for actually stretching a river or rail through the meat of your landscape, you might choose to risk giving it a shot despite all the present and future zones that could be disrupted. It would add a new mechanic and that mechanic would provide more challenge, not less.

[Cesium Rainbow]

Originally posted by levet.byck:

i like how the experience is described here, but..where’s the description of how the rng should work in favor to this - how far would you be able to keep the game going..
- guess - to make the strategy more intuitive, it would be too casual if six stacks of tiles was available at once.. (each stack supporting at least one or two edges of a specific tile element)
- hm, maybe the bonuses would work to an extent as the game is now (but still feel a bit too random if..)

Yeah, it would take some tinkering to figure that part out. On one hand you'd have more compatible tiles with rivers and rails that could lead to more perfect placements which would make it easier. But on the other hand you'd be building rivers\rails through areas that in the current game you leave open to be ready for future quests and that would make it quite a bit harder, or at least force you to plan more carefully and take more chances. It would just be a question of balancing those two changes together.

[Cesium Rainbow]

Originally posted by randomturtle01:

I agree.

It would be cool if stations acted more as hubs. Like if adjacent to town foot bridges spawn. If adjacent to farm bridges for transporting grain appear. It'd be nice to see these stations look like they're loading grain up at some fields and a train or boat takes it down to a town (Although no bonuses or points will be granted doing this) as it'd be a nice visual touch that makes the world feel slightly more alive.

The only mechanical difference would be stations can link to farms and town and have a few more looks to them.

Full agree.

[Cesium Rainbow]

Originally posted by boggers:

I found that when going for score it's best to divide the map up like a pizza, one slice each for farm, town, woods, rail and water, but with so little control over the rail and water tiles, I don't even attempt edge matching in those areas.
I think any "fix" for it needs to be very simple and reward the player for making nicer looking, more realistic placement. Maybe if completely enclosing an area in rail or water gave you a bonus multiplier for everything inside that area, or even a bonus tile for every perfect tile inside the area.

I could see that too. Enclosing areas is already a part of the game as a quest type, so enclosing with rivers and rail would fit right in with what they're already doing.

There's probly a virtually endless number of ways to make it so river and rail tiles aren't like plague tiles that you have to keep away from everything else. I don't care so much about how they fix it. I just hope it gets fixed.

btw I start my games the same way. Six edges on the starting tile = six slices of Dorfromantik pizza, at least at the beginning. I think all six should be able to interact eventually, though. Like if they're going for a "negative" tile type they should be intentional and make it a polluting factory or something. I get that the whole point of the game is to have everything nice and pretty, no ugly tiles, but that doesn't mean it's cool to go and make rivers the bad guys. There doesn't have to be a bad guy tile for the game to be challenging.

[Cesium Rainbow]

Originally posted by Conny:

Because of the adjacency bonus and perfect placement reward that you need to continue playing, my maps become quite ugly in the end.

Well said. It's like games where clothes\armor have some rng in their stats so either you have to sacrifice effectiveness to wear something you're not embarrassed for ppl to see you in or just always go with the best stats and end up wearing pink hot shorts, a puffy yellow jacket, candy cane stripe tie and clown wig.
Totally ridiculous and unnecessary design choice in an RPG, but I'd argue it's an even worse look for Dorfromantik because its whole reason to exist is to create pretty landscapes but in order to play it as well as possible, you often end up with something that looks like a Civ map created by a corrupted map generator. And not in a cool way.