Patchwork Scenario - It's hard !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[mbutton15]

I'm trying the Patchwork scenario for the first time and finding it really difficult. My track layout feels cramped and trying to get even the basic goods supplied is tricky due to the 'region' mechanism.

I have actually, to my surprise, gold ticked the entire first page. Feel the 750,000 connected to the network was a bit of a cheat as I bought up a region which had 4 cities with nearly 200,000 towards that goal. So I just dumped a station in each city to grab that population and didn't actually do anything to grow those cities myself.

I'm just not feeling I'm in control at all. I might even pull the plug on it for now and dive into a free mode game just to get a feel for how to build up a city size as I'm now tasked with getting 10 cities above 100k population.

What sort of strategy is need for city building in this scenario ? I'm aware of Adekyn's cluster approach, but just don't know how to over come the lack of basic goods. Is it best to use warehouses for goods - normally I deliver goods straight to the cities.

Any basic advice would be helpful. :)

[Maxim]

I havent played "patchwork scenario": Where is it?

However.. you must always look for every money making opportunity and also look for every cost cutting maneuver.

When goods arent easily acquired right away, focus on passengers and mail.. or vice versa when goods are easily acquired.

Re-use supply towers and repair facilities whenever you can in early game, just destroy, get refund, and replace in other areas wherever the trains need.

Build track early game that guarantees you can move something / anything right away without a lot of earthwork digging or raising of the land. . . and worry about higher cost direct flat track plus bridges or tunnels later.. in other words destroy and rebuild later in the game to replace earlier track.

Warehouses have multiple uses. They can either be:
1. Directly connected "in-range" of a city or farm..
2. -or- "out of range" not directly connected.

In either case make sure you know what good is "selected" inside the warehouse, and also what goods the city desires and expects you to deliver. You cant force a city to take a good which is not currently highlighted in its internal "list of needs" - but when the population reaches the set value in the list.. you can have warehouses out-of-range filling up in anticipation of the city hitting a population goal.

Warehouse suggestion - Imagine a track running from north to south.. now imagine 3 farms to the west/left of the track and 3 other farms to the east/right of the track..
Build a warehouse to the west to gather the first 3 farms goods.. Build a warehouse to the east to gather the goods from the other 3 farms.. then build tracks coming in from the left and right warehouses to the main track..

Now set some trains from left and right which will now merge into the main track and head to any cities north and south carrying whatever mixture of goods the north or south city wants.. sometimes you have to prioritize some of the trains. But this overall method of dividing the map in half will get you started thinking about how to use warehouses in a way that avoids lots of complicated bridges or tunnels.. and helps you get organized.

Larger stations move people and goods faster and increase city happiness.
Universities, Museums, Touristic sites help you - read details by clicking in building menu for each type of building.

[X037]

Originally posted by Maxim:

I havent played "patchwork scenario": Where is it?

Germany DLC

[start214]

The germany dlc was for me also not easy too.

I made the First cluster: city's Cassel, Frankfurt and Worms in territory Haase
Note: In Worms I changed the first industry to wheat beer, because Frankfurt had already the
bakery for pastries.
And the 4 city cluster: Saarbrucken, Carlsruhe, Stuttgart and Ulm
And another 4 city cluster: Cologne, Essen, Gutersloh and Hannover.

All these city's with eventually two big stations and sometimes an inside warehouse (or two)

I managed it eventually with a president rating, but after several attempts. Every
attempt you learn someting ;)

[mbutton15]

Perhaps I should have mentioned that I'm not a novice, having 800+ hours in this game.

Having said that, I did get something out of Maxim's reply and that is to look at my passenger v's freight balance. At the start of the game I noticed freight was bringing in about 20% more than passengers. But now passengers has become my biggest earner. As I've been almost exclusively focused on freight demands it does surprise me how well my passenger links are doing. All I normally do is set up 2 'auto' routes starting in opposites cities. The occasional longer route I will double up. But I think I need to take the time to find out where I can run a few more inter-city links.

I've not come across the Saarbrucken, Carlsruhe, Stuttgart and Ulm cities yet. Must still be locked somewhere !! Bit short on cash at the moment to open up more regions as I spent around 5,000,000 trying to get the Berlin/Colonge express route going. Time will tell if that's a success. I've restricted it to 1 carriage and assigned some speed boosts workers. Maybe I need to put some reliability boost workers on instead at it has broken down a couple of times, despite still being over 60% health.

I might even change character as I'm using the first one (forget his name) who has 40% extra bridge/tunnel costs. I didn't expect so many mountains on the map so I also think that has been a bad choice !!

[Leisen]

Passenger and mail is extremely profitable in this scenario. By 1854, I have 6 passenger trains running on Kassel-Frankfurt line and each train makes average 20000$ per week. I'm planning to double the amount of train because only 60% of passengers and 40% of mail are transported by trains. Meanwhile my freight routes struggle to reach 2000$ per week. In 1854-Q1, 93 passenger routes earn about 10m while 39 freight routes earn less than 1m. Before starting developing cities, it's probably better to snowball with passenger routes until you have enough income.

You definitely need more than two trains between cities. Generally you need enough trains so that the platform is constantly working but not too many to see trains queue up. Keep your eye on express goods tab. If less than 70% of passengers and mails are transported by train, you should add more train and platform to the passenger route. It's also advised to separate passenger routes and freight routes. You don't want to see bunch of passenger trains line up behind a slow freight train.

[mbutton15]

Thanks for all replies. At the moment I've decided it's probably a good idea to get a feel for whats on the map first and have decided to play a free-mode map... that's something I've done on all my previous DLC. Really not sure why I thought I'd dive straight into this one !! Especially as I heard it had 'regions'.

Though funnily enough, playing a free-mode map doesn't give you the region mechanism - it's completely open from the start !!

I've also switched character. I previously chose The General. Not a character I've ever really used before. Not sure why I went with him here. Probably was a bad choice !!

My free-mode run is with The Lady, and seeing what has been written above about passenger income seems the best choice.

[X037]

Originally posted by mbutton15:

Though funnily enough, playing a free-mode map doesn't give you the region mechanism - it's completely open from the start !!

In Free Mode everything is optional and the default is 'off'. Nothing special or funny about it.

[mbutton15]

Originally posted by X037:

Originally posted by mbutton15:

Though funnily enough, playing a free-mode map doesn't give you the region mechanism - it's completely open from the start !!

In Free Mode everything is optional and the default is 'off'. Nothing special or funny about it.

Ah, OK. Didn't notice that as an option. Thanks.