Demand-Supply grain in campaign scen 3, Topeka

[mart95777]

It is probably reason for many warehouse/farms issues, and other freight delivery chains.
I have 0 grain in Topeka, but currently "in deliver" is 21 units, and I do not see them, I checked all my trains, none has it. It probably blocks demand, so my grain trains do not load it.
Looks like bug, this value "21" was not deleted when it should have been.
This scenario is unplayable, I will see if it is the case on other maps.

[mart95777]

Definitely a bug/miss-information. I deleted all my trains and lines. I run the game for several game-days, it is still indicated 21 "Current Delivery by Train"
There is a competitor near Denver, far away, for sure, it does not provide anything to Topeka.
These must be zombie trains I think, unless this "by Train" is miss-information and there are some non-train deliveries.

[Mudfog]

Did you try deleting all Warehouses?

[mart95777]

Okay, puzzle solved.
Near Denver there is a farm, and near Denver there is a warehouse, that I set up for grain also. Now apparently my train from that farm to that warehouse delivering grain blocks/locks grain delivery amount to many cities that I would have not thought, including Topeka.
I have two more warehouses with grain in area of Topeka and Kansas City, that I would rather use for providing Topeka with grain (as we discuss this case). And Denver area I intended for Denver, Cheyenne, North Platte.

This may not be a bug in strict sense, rather bad game-logic.
Grain delivery from a farm to a warehouse should not be set as delivery to a specific city. Cause it is just moved to a warehouse, not a town/city. This may be ok for a system with one warehouse, but when I have 3 grain warehouses on the map, it is a mess.

[Mudfog]

Once you know how it is intended to work you can plan your supply network accordingly.

Glad you fixed it. Solving a problem is half the challenge and enjoyment of playing this game.

This video covers lots of warehouse information>
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CjrPmWfGbpk&list=PLLm2bFegFTr1A2BBbR07yg1ULVZxmVKL_&index=3

[mart95777]

It is not good intention,
When I have two grain warehouse near Topeka for grain, another farm-warehouse combo near Denver should not lock amounts for Topeka. It is a simple thing.

Do I really need to cut my track connections to reroute grain delivery from far-away when there is abundance nearby? (I just checked, it actually does not work). I have to destroy, yes DESTROY grain stock to unblock Topeka.
Maybe that is good politically correct crap for NWO, but this is bad game design.

[Fargel_Linellar]

Originally posted by mart95777:

It is not good intention,
When I have two grain warehouse near Topeka for grain, another farm-warehouse combo near Denver should not lock amounts for Topeka. It is a simple thing.

Do I really need to cut my track connections to reroute grain delivery from far-away when there is abundance nearby? (I just checked, it actually does not work). I have to destroy, yes DESTROY grain stock to unblock Topeka.
Maybe that is good politically correct crap for NWO, but this is bad game design.

This is how this worked in RE1 and it actually create a lot of others issues and exploit.

It also make little sense, those are not your grains. When they leave the producer it's because someone bought them.
Remember you are only paid for the transport those are not your goods (unless you own the rural business)


In term of exploits, in RE1, you could simply buy a rural business. Connect a train station in it to a warehouse.
Run some trains from the wheat station to the warehouse until it is full.

Wait for the wheat farm to reproduce the wheat (making you a profits for each wheat produced).

Then delete the warehouse and abracadabra. You just got paid for 60 cars of wheat that disappeared into thin air.

Repeat this until you've made millions without actually delivering something to anyone. You just moved it to a warehouse and burned it down (but still getting paid for it).

When goods are in a warehouse and you destroy them, you teleport them back to their origin.
It can still be exploited, but less, due to goods not leaving unless they have a valid destination.

[mart95777]

So when we are tasked with growing a town, we have to do this despite a whim of idiots who rather starve to death, than to accept grain from a nearby warehouse full of grain.
Is this game a psychopaths management game?
In such case, if a town wants to order something from my warehouse (MY warehouse) I should be able to respond, that no, you are not going to get grain from that distant place, cause there is a closer nearby warehouse full of same quality grain.
And when I haul grain from a computer-controlled farm, I should be able to choose for which towns I take such grain, because these are like binding contracts.
That would increase micromanagement in the game, and devs were saying, it would be opposite, it is probably not what they intended.

We actually get same money regardless of distance. Unless I'm missing something.
Hauling cargo on longer routs costs more. I would not take such contract.

So in short, a town orders grain from a far-away farm/warehouse, cause maybe for few days it is the only option, ok. But then, there is grain in two more warehouses nearby, where my trains are stuck now, cause these psychopaths are fixated on that contract, I could not actually approve. The far away warehouse was never intended to store grain for Topeka. I intended that for Denver and two more nearby towns.

[Fargel_Linellar]

Originally posted by mart95777:

We actually get same money regardless of distance. Unless I'm missing something.
Hauling cargo on longer routs costs more. I would not take such contract.

Yes, the money is the same. Then why do you make a train network on automatic mode and let them take order to deliver goods from one side of the map to the others.

Originally posted by mart95777:

So in short, a town orders grain from a far-away farm/warehouse, cause maybe for few days it is the only option, ok. But then, there is grain in two more warehouses nearby, where my trains are stuck now, cause these psychopaths are fixated on that contract, I could not actually approve. The far away warehouse was never intended to store grain for Topeka. I intended that for Denver and two more nearby towns.

The trains only do what you ask them to do.
If you put them in automatic mode and leave them the option to haul goods from one side of the map to the others, why are you surprised when they do?

The game doesn't force you to do that.

If you don't daisy chain warehouse, then trains will not try to haul goods from a side of the map to the next.

When a train is loading goods, it will first to pick up goods for the nearest target.
But if it still has room and it has the ability to load goods for another city (through a chain of trains/warehouse) it will do so to fill his maximum cargo.

The logic is very simple.
If each train has to calculate which others trains will be delivering Goods X before them to all city, the CPU usage would be multiply astronomically.

Keep your network simple. So that goods can only go in a specific regions or cities.

P.S: Also because the trains pioritize goods for the nearest targets goods that are now in a warehouse for a far away target will be picked last (and will tend to stockpile more than goods for near destination).

[mart95777]

The thing is, that there is 6 cargo types in a warehouse.
I do not want to micromanage, so when I want to ship 5 of these cargo types to far-away town I put general freight option. and this is fine, as that town has no closeer options for these 5 cargo types.
Now, there is 6th cargo type, for which I do have a warehouse close to that town. Yet it was not so for some time.

And here comes a problem - game when marking such a distant cargo of 6th type, uses demand available "slots"
Let's say, town needed these 5 cargo types more, so my trains rather haul them first before hauling that 6th type.
Notice. this hauling takes time, so when player expects a town to pick up that 6th type cargo from nearby location, it does not work. That "order" for far-away warehouse blocks it.

The problem is, the game gives no opportunity to reset these orders. Normal case would be: "we wait over 4 weeks for this 6th type cargo - not delivered !!! so we cancel this order and take something now available from nearby location.

[Fargel_Linellar]

If you look at the tutorial and tips and tricks in the game, you will realize that what you are doing it not what the game intended warehouse to be used for.

Yes, they only have 6 slots, but this is more than enough. (there's actually only 12 raw goods in the game and 17 manufactured goods)

You should not put basic goods (Wheat, Corn, Wood, Cattle and Cotton) in a chain of warehouse.
There's always a produced nearby (as those ressources are consummed in big quantities).

Those ressource are so numerous and spread out that all city on the map are close enough to one of them to be delivered by road (with most cities being close enough to receive delivery for 2 of them by road)

Warehouse are useful for:
Centralizing goods logistic
Hauling goods over long distance



You can also do what you want in term of resetting orders.
There's a reset button on the warehouse that will purge out all the stuff in it.
It will also remove order to close by city, but those would start again in the next train mouvement.

Also, I'm really saying that daisy chaining warehouse is more complicated than making a simple network (and such network will be less complicated)

https://imgur.com/a/Hf9uKgF
Red (light and dark)=Freight of raw goods
Green = Freight of manufacturer goods
Blue= Express (passenger and mail split)

Look at this diagram. You could even remove the part where I make 2 stations for passenger and mails and put those on the same (or new) tracks as the freight.

[mart95777]

I do not want to purge stuff in my warehouse, why would I want that? I made effort to haul all this cargo there. in-game it costed time and money, and now I just destroy it? No. I want this cargo to be available to be shipped to towns of my choosing. This is normal.

And yes, I do want to store all these things: grain/wheat, corn, wood, even cattle in a warehouse, (if they can behave themselves...) This is natural choice for many players, and also in real-life you do have warehouses of wheat, corn, wood is stored too. Nothing unusual here.