Train Connections?

[Bullwinkle]

I'm new. 1 city, 25k pop. I have never seen a train connection. When I try to figure out why, I tried simplifying things by starting a new game on the same map with unlimited money and everything unlocked. As the screenshot shows, train connections should be present.


http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/622969459005245383/33226E0271B722B291FDA635E50F17884B6B2862/

http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/622969459005154429/4F0337095056523E14DF088F2A30B95879822308/

As the second screen shot shows, even if I build a train line, there are no train connections to be seen. What am I doing wrong? Where are the train connections to the outside world? The highway connection is clearly visible top center. For that matter, where are the boat connections? I'm missing something pretty basic, but don't know what. Thanks in advance.

[BonPadre]

Ok, so here we are again...
Now on diamond coast, your starting tile has NO train connection to outer world...
Now from your starting tile buy the one just upper of it (farther from the sea), this one still has no train connection... just confirm me that you see on the infos of the tile BEFORE buying it that you clearely know you still have no rail connection...

From that buy the next upper one (that way you have bought a rectangle of 3x1 tiles...) before buying that tile... notice that FINALLY on that one it does show you that you have access to railroad to outer world...

The track is passing higer than the pond you should see on le right top corner... see that darker line ??? YESSSSS that's what you are looking for...

Now you just need to link that to your own rails, and tada... you have an outer train connection...

[Bullwinkle]

Now this makes sense. Sorry for being so dense on the other thread. Sometimes you just need to start over and use pictures I guess. ... or if I quit sniffing glue, that might help too. Thanks.

[BonPadre]

NP... I'm pretty damn sure you were still looking for something very different...
You know like whan you are searching that ORANGE cissor... and you just grumble and put a real mess in the drawer trying to find it... and your significant other just come by and tell you...
*My sweetie... they are just in front of your eyes... and pick them up for you...* and you just slap yourself... they were BLUE.... lol

EDIT : so now that you know what you are looking for, just go back to your previous map ;-)

[Bullwinkle]

Well, in Sim City (the older ones that I played anyway), train connections were hard to find. Two rails right on your border, probably sticking into your territory 10 feet... not some massive full size rail line wandering across your territory! And after you start the Diamond Coast map, the very obvious highway connection kinda looks like that: two lanes of highway sticking a little ways into your map (much bigger than what I'm talking about though), so yeah, I was looking for something really subtle, and kept scouring the map for it.

Didn't help that with Diamond Coast, it says it has rail connections when you start, but the central square and every square touching it does not have them.

[Pink Jodi]

Boat connections are a yellow dashed line in the water

[Bullwinkle]

Thanx. But you're sure it's not the dolphins having urinary problems and trying to send a coded message?

[Milkman]

I wrote the following in your old thread. You now understand how to find the train connection, but I thought this might be useful if you were wondering why the connections work/look the way they do:

Looking for something on the edge of the each sqaure in the map is the wrong thing to look for. Since the way the game works is that you buy extra squares on the map as time goes on (as you know), the edges of each square become unimportant as you buy the bordering squares, so those edges hold no special power to connect to the outside world (other than your starting square's highway connection--I'll get to that).

Instead, every map has highways and train tracks already running through the maps before you start. You can build off them and delete them like any other road or train track, but what makes them special is they are there before you start your game--you're not building them yourself--and they run off the edges of the map, beyond any squares you may unlock as you play the game. These are your outside connections. To connect a road to the outside, build off the preexisting highway. To connect a train to the outside, build off the preexisting train tracks.

The starting square does not connect to the pre-built train tracks. This is because they want you to unlock any and all use of trains later, as you gain population. Thus they don't give you outside train connections at the start. As you buy more squares to build on, you do, as others have mentioned, have to look for those train tracks in the squares you buy. Connecting to these preexisting train tracks is the only way to connect your trains to the outside. They should be pretty obvious to find, though--just look at each sqaure and see if there's train tracks going through them before you buy it.

You do immediately have access to the highway from the start. They do this so that you can have some outside connection via car and truck right away. They do that by building you T-intersection that just connects to your starting square, rather than by having the highway just go through the starting sqaure. This, like with the outside train connection, is because they don't want you to focus on highways right at the start of a city. So instead they give you this little exit to work off of. This is what makes it look like the outisde connection seen in Sim City 4--with the nubs of the highway just entering your starting square.

Does this help?

[Bullwinkle]

Great stuff. Thanks.