Warehouse sharing within a city

[cthulhu.mac]

So the game tips state that "Train stations within cities are in principle connected to each other and can exchange goods if they have warehouses where the same goods are set." This is the only line on the topic and that "in principle" is a fascinating use of wiggle words for a game mechanic reference. Does anyone understand the actual mechanics controlling this?

I ask because I've set up multiple parallel stations/lines because my main line was getting overloaded, and I'm having issues where warehouse A is sucking up all the resources from warehouse B on another line (both in the same city), leaving trains departing station B empty and a huge undelivered backlog accumulating in warehouse A. The sharing algorithm is clearly not very smart or adaptive, and I'm not sure how to manipulate it to stop doing this.

[Mudfog]

Check this out>

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CjrPmWfGbpk&list=PLLm2bFegFTr1A2BBbR07yg1ULVZxmVKL_&index=3

[cthulhu.mac]

That explains the basic idea of warehouse sharing, but not what triggers resources to move from one warehouse to the other. Ultimately I guess the takeaway is this mechanics just doesn't work reliably with parallel lines, so you need to separate out resources so each line is handling a different set.

[IndianaJones]

From my experience warehouses are not connected within city, and goods cannot travel from station to station within same city like passengers or mail.

I have not check this, but from description you presented it seems you need to setup the same goods in both warehouses.

For example:
1) Wood arrives to Station1 with Warehouse1.
2) Warehouse1 exports wood as goods.
3) Station2 with Warehouse2 also exports wood.

That should allow trains leaving Station2 to pick up wood. But as I said i have not tested it.

[Hicksy999]

You can definitely swap resources across warehouses i do this a lot.

[Bored Peon]

Originally posted by cthulhu.mac:

That explains the basic idea of warehouse sharing, but not what triggers resources to move from one warehouse to the other.

Resource - Warehouse - Point A
Warehouses do not stock goods until a train route is created from Point A to the warehouse.
If you do the warehouse tutorial it teaches you this.

[cthulhu.mac]

Originally posted by Bored Peon:

Originally posted by cthulhu.mac:

That explains the basic idea of warehouse sharing, but not what triggers resources to move from one warehouse to the other.

Resource - Warehouse - Point A
Warehouses do not stock goods until a train route is created from Point A to the warehouse.
If you do the warehouse tutorial it teaches you this.

Right, but the scenario I'm describing is one where there are multiple routes to point A, from two warehouses in the same city, and trains on one of those routes are leaving one of those warehouses unloaded while the other is filling up with undelivered goods.

[coenvijge]

Originally posted by Deadlock:

..........
I have not check this, but from description you presented it seems you need to setup the same goods in both warehouses.
..........

Yes, you have to set the same goods (i.e. wood) at both warehouses if you want to deliver wood to one station and pick it up with another line from the other station inb the same city. By doing so yo allow the specific goods to travel like pax and mail always do: changing trains with a short 'walk' between two stations inside a city.

And, to be complete, if you want pax and mail changing trains at a rural station you have to build a hotel over there. So a hotel is a 'warehouse for pax and mail in a rural station'. If you don't build a hotel pax and mail don't change trains at that kind of station.

[mrolli]

think until this works a lot better: make express and make freight stations. freight doesn't need speed: so use brdiges to get over the expresslines and other freightlines.
2 parrallel lines do work relativly well, if you don't use warehouse sharing.

[Dray Prescot]

I think that Warehouses should be mostly used in Small demands in several Cities cases.

If you have enough demand for a full train load (close to 8 Carloads) of ONE type of Cargo every couple of weeks in one City, FORGET using the Warehouse and ship it direct from Origin to Destination, and stop wasting/losing time at the "Warehouse", i.e. removing the Cars from one Train just so you can add them to another train (both operations take time in the Station).

Warehouses work best when the same trainload of loaded cars is going to be divided to go to multiple Cities. Along with other cargoes going to the same Cities at the same time.
Otherwise do not bother using them.

Too many Players find themselves with Cargoes stuck in Transit and taking a very long time to arrive, either in their Own Warehouses or in the Warehouses that belong to Competing Companies, AND they can not get other trains to deliver them because the in Transit Que is Full.

[Bored Peon]

Originally posted by Dray Prescot:

I think that Warehouses should be mostly used in Small demands in several Cities cases.

If you have enough demand for a full train load (close to 8 Carloads) of ONE type of Cargo every couple of weeks in one City, FORGET using the Warehouse and ship it direct from Origin to Destination, and stop wasting/losing time at the "Warehouse", i.e. removing the Cars from one Train just so you can add them to another train (both operations take time in the Station).

Warehouses work best when the same trainload of loaded cars is going to be divided to go to multiple Cities. Along with other cargoes going to the same Cities at the same time.
Otherwise do not bother using them.

A central hub for 3-8 cities doing each tier of goods (group them lowest 6 +1 the resource it sits on) which would be grain, corn, meat, beer, cloth, wood, and sugar. Then focus on buying those business feeding that warehouse. Do the next hub for milk, veggies, fruit, planks, clothing, alcohol, and cheese.

Usually have 2-3 trains feed a single resource, then 2-3 trains from the city to the warehouse. The trains will usually pick up an assortment of goods enough to keep the bare minimums for growth.

Just using those two hubs will easily get your cities to the 80-90k range. Past that point you start needing some direct trains to the cities because the demand has gotten too high to filter through the warehouse. Along with a third hub doing high tier stuff involving steel.

The biggest thing is to break the warehouse station into 4 gridirons of 4 platforms each. Then use each of those gridirons to split into two double tracks, giving you a double track to each city. This will help keep a constant flow and optimize platform usage.

[ViraCorp]

Warehousing is a mess in this version.

It's quite challenging to try and supply multiple cities using this overflow concept.

IE: LOGS coming in to City 01 from the source. Going to a WH in City 01 set to logs.
The needs of City 01 are first fulfilled, and then additional logs get stored in the WH to move to City 02.

City 02 has a WH for Logs, to go to City 03 and so on.

Many times, the logs source is not putting out enough to fulfill all the initial needs and overflows to each next city. So you end up having to purchase it yourself to expqand production. Or, as stated earlier, the WH for logs in city 01 gets so overfilled, and is not taking logs to city 02, city o3 etc....unless you try running like 4 or 5 trains. I guess you could set that line to ONLY carry logs. The lines are also taking other freight NOT in the WH, things made in city 01 needed by city 02. IE: Meat, Clot, Beer, etc. You can set logs as priority on the route.

And this is just ONE resource. you can only have up to 6 in a WH.

Normally I do one station in each city, with one double track for Express, and up to 2 other double sets of track for city to city freight. The last 2 lines available I use to bring the RAW resources into the various stations to be WH and transferred on the Freight lines.

This works ok at the beginning of a game/campaign, however, eventually all your cities grow so much you also need to be able to move the Cloth, Fashion, Meat, etc produced in the cities around a circuit as well,

I handle this with a 2nd station in each city and WH for the produced goods on that line.

And then throw in the raw resources over 6 that they all need, and this ends up becomming a THIRD station and line (If the city has availability for a third stations.

So:

Station one WH is doing:

Wheat
Logs
Corn
Sugar
Milk
(Reserving for a common 6th) Normally Fruit

Station 2:

Meat
Beer
Cloth
Fashion
Steel
Tools

Station 3 (2nd Set of raw resources and Produced Goods):

Iron
Coal
Wooden Planks
Vegies
Chemicals
Cheese etc.....

One caveat, you do NOT need to include the good produced in a city in the WH of that City, but in order to cascade it on, it must be in the other cities WH that you are delivering too.

Disclaimer: I have only been doing campaigns, and no other scenarios, and while this seems to work to get goods around, and make a decent profit, the bottlenecks still end up being a problem. IE: I need to get tools to Paris in C5, however all the Iron Coal are sitting in a station and it picking up apples, and salt etc.....and adding more trains does not seem to help, as then you end up with TOO many trains running on the 4 tracks and they are sitting waiting to get in and out of stations.

What I end up doing to fulfill the scenario requirements is building these routes 1/2 way across the map from the raw recource to the main city that is making steel, and then a route from that city to the tool cith that delivers nothing buy Steel and Logs, and then another route from there to Paris with just the tools. I have set priorities on the already existing WH, but this does not seem to work well., Sometimes the system seems to ignore the priority good steel, and send a train full of fruit and milk instead.

I know I could do Manual selection, but then the other goods like Fruit and Milk that DO need to move, would not end up moving.

I also do NOT jsut run the logs all into one city. I run them into multiple cities in the chain. Same with the other rescources, to try and prevent thqat buildup and bottlenecking.

it almost seems better to NOT use WH and jsut do direct roiutes from each resource to the city that needs that resource, but that is expensive and inefficient.

I would love to hear how others are using WH to move the 6 to 12+ good from city to city as needed. Maybe I am missing something here.

[Legata Flavia]

I dont experimented with multiple stations within a single city, but if you have single station, then it can switch between the lines in your station. If you build another warehouse in another city, then it can switch trains again. I do this a lot and its extremely profitable and it helps to grow cities fast, the only downside is that the city basically have to order goods, so when the city demands the goods, the train will take it from production building and then it will have to switch all trains until it gets to its destination, so using it to switch in between two lines works perfectly, three lines are slightly slow and switching four lines takes ages.

[joewagner501]

Early game I use warehouses at country stations between cities. They are there only to bring raw materials from businesses to the warehouse where they are picked up by my actual freight line feeding my cities.

Later in the game I break my freight line into regional lines. Since most raw materials are everywhere (wood, cattle, grain, etc.) the regional lines will deliver them to all the cities with the designated regions. I use country stations with warehouses to transfer manufactured goods from one region line to another.

I hope that makes sense. It's the only way I've found to ensure delivery coverage allowing cities to keep growing without having to micro-manage every train and line.

[Calmark36]

I found your post because I, too read "Train stations within cities are in principle connected to each other," so I built it for the same reasons you wanted to have two warehouses in a city, and it didn't work. Just like you, my warehouse that was receiving all the resources but was not connected to any of the other cities received 50+ goods of each but never transferred it to the other warehouse for my trains to deliver. This is either a bug in the game, or the documentation needs to be updated and cleared up, as it does make it sound like you can have two warehouses in a city, and they will freely exchange resources.

[cthulhu.mac]

Originally posted by Calmark36:

I found your post because I, too read "Train stations within cities are in principle connected to each other," so I built it for the same reasons you wanted to have two warehouses in a city, and it didn't work. Just like you, my warehouse that was receiving all the resources but was not connected to any of the other cities received 50+ goods of each but never transferred it to the other warehouse for my trains to deliver. This is either a bug in the game, or the documentation needs to be updated and cleared up, as it does make it sound like you can have two warehouses in a city, and they will freely exchange resources.

Oh, to be clear, the mechanic DOES work, in theory. I've seen it transferring between warehouses. It works fine for warehouses connected to different routes (i.e. warehouse A receives wood directly and sends it out to one set of cities, while also transferring it to warehouse B which sends it out to a different set of cities).

Sometimes it even works well when A and B are both sending to the same set of cities. But sometimes it doesn't, and you get the issue you and I have been having. It's unclear what makes the algorithm fail sometimes.