Mod Hack to Open All Demands for Goods

[albriradios]

The devs have kindly allowed us to mod the industries (factories) to our hearts' content, but I have never found a way to mod the demands for the factory goods.

Feb.15.21 >> IGNORE THIS POST FROM THIS POINT ON. My proposed mod in this OP has unsolvable issues. Please don't do this mod. <<<<
(One cannot delete a post after 5-7? comments, so I have used this above disclaimer.)

As we all know, demands for goods appear as city population grows. For example, the demand for paper appears for the first time when any city reaches a population of 100,000.

For this reason, there is no point in modding a paper mill to be a "first factory" at the beginning of a game: none of the cities yet have a population of 100,000 or more. So, we are stuck with beef and beer at the start of every game!

IGNORE --> What if one "hid" a city of say, 200,000 people, on the map? Then every good would be in demand at the start of a game and paper mills could, indeed, be a "first factory".

IGNORE--> That's the hack to mod demand: hide a big city.

IGNORE --> To do this, add a new city in TILED and place it either in the ocean, on a tiny island, or far corner of the map - somewhere out of sight. Resize (shrink) the city so it looks like a postage stamp in TILED. Make it tiny. This stops any buildings from appearing. Set its population at 200,000 since this city will slowly decline in population. No first industry. (Or set its population at 70,000 so most but not all demands open up at game start.)

IGNORE --> In TOME, set TownActive to false. Do not enter a city name in the NAME field. This hides the name on the map.

IGNORE --> Voila! One can now mod paper mills, textile mills and other factories to become "first factory" at the start of a game. Enough of only beer and beef!

[chaney]

Very resourceful, thanks for reporting it!

[albriradios]

Originally posted by chaney:

Very resourceful, thanks for reporting it!

And I greatly appreciate your many insightful comments in the discussion threads about production, demand and outputs. Did u ever join the Windows 10 congregation?

[chaney]

Ha, I did get a newer machine for games only, but for general use I'm still resisting the up(yours)grade to Windows 10(tacles). Switching machines is a bit of trouble. Haha, "congregation" - nice :)

[genemead]

So basically you want to cheat and not play the game how it was designed to be played.
Got it.

[albriradios]

Originally posted by genemead:

So basically you want to cheat and not play the game how it was designed to be played.
Got it.

No to the first claim. There is nothing dishonest or unfair by modding a game using the modding tools and instructions provided by the devs to customize their game: https://www.gamingmindsstudios.com/re-modding/

Yes to the second claim. Customizing is what humans do best. We color outside the lines. We think creatively, unconventionally. We change the default design; even the default design of Railway Empire games.

[chaney]

What's the objection about genemead? This seems uncharacteristically caustic.

The stock scenarios include factories that are not immediately relevant, why shouldn't a player mod scenario be able to do the same? In general, it won't be a productive resource to exploit but for a story it may make a lot of sense to pre-build one.

I'd be annoyed if it were some childish mod to insta-win with super 1337 mega money machine with Goddard's vacuum tube trains (now termed "Hyperloop" by the pew-pew-pew I win I'm the best boys who put ego over historical perspective) but this ... seems like it can only be a tool to build a more sophisticated story line.

It's also a single player game, so I don't even care if people use twin-turbo-ultra-cheatengine technology with septuple over-head cams and nuclear fuel injection, pathetic as it may be, but agree that is degrading.

I just don't see any bragging or fundamental distortion of the game with this one.

[genemead]

As I see it there's 2 kinds of mods:

1- "Pretty" mods. These are just for beautification or enhancement. They could be a new map, better looking trees, a new suspension bridge, etc.

2- "Cheating" mods. These change the game play in the player's favor or make it easier for him to win. They change the base game from what the designer had in mind of how we're suppose to play. These mods let the player "customize" the game (ie, change the rules) to their liking. Some think this "customization" is a Good Thing. But a developer might as well put out a simple, bare game and let players add their own mods, making their own game with it's own rules, (each one ending up a completely different game from everybody else's.)
This isn't Roblox.
"Customization" can be both Good and Bad!

I don't mind "pretty" mods at all. I like them a lot and have no qualms using them.
But I hate "cheating" mods.

The developers know, much better than you, what they're doing and why they're doing it. They've worked on, tested (with many, many people), and thought about their game for months (if not years). I want to play their game, not yours, I don't want a change you want on a whim because you want the game to be easier for you.

I understand I don't have to use a mod if I won't want to, and I get it's a single-player game so it's no sweat off my rear end if you decide to use a "cheater" mod. If you want to short-change yourself, go right ahead. Nobody's stopping you. But don't come bragging to us about how you "won" the game!

[gardlt]

This might have been better placed in the modding section. I'm going to try to calm your fears and say that this "mod" will only affect specific maps that you find in the workshop and not those in the base game itself. As such the "creator," a fellow player, when doing the setup obviously INTENDED for the map to be played in this way. There are enough settings available that balancing for such a change is a doable thing.

PS. The designers of this game unfortunately gave no support for what you call "Pretty" mods. In fact you probably have to hack the game to get anything like that to work. I understand if they are going to make players pay for maps instead of being able to make their own, but the problem is that they stopped making them. I would pay for 10+ more maps, but I've lost hope that there are any more coming.

[chaney]

Thanks for the discussion. I certainly share disdain for "cheat" mods when a game is well balanced/designed, and the purpose is just bragging and shallow self gratification. I just roll my eyes and don't care, kids will be kids, and I've been known to be childish now and then, too :)

I just don't see this method as being a cheat. It doesn't really help a player super-power anything, it just allows a map designer to lay out a story better. albriradios doesn't seem to be doing anything but putting an idea out there that can allow a more sophisticated scenario. "The developers" have put in industries that are not yet "eligible" in some of the official scenarios, so that feature is clearly within their scope of design, OP is just showing how modders can do the same thing when building a scenario.

"The developers know, much better than you, what they're doing and why they're doing it. They've worked on, tested (with many, many people), and thought about their game for months (if not years)."

I'm going to disagree with that, at least mostly in this case. The developers, years ago, wisely looked to the community here (and in other places) for feedback, and we had a lot of suggestions, requests, and demands. Some of those feature changes were *strongly* resisted by the developers, but a number of important features were eventually changed at the insistence of the community. These big and contentious issues being changed, in my strong opinion, improved the general game appeal greatly. This isn't true only for RE. Even the original and great Pac-Man created by a huge gaming company, got stale pretty fast. A third party hack added variety to the game, and the resulting Ms. Pac-Man was even better and more successful than the original game. Ms. is still fun, popular, playable, and making lots of money, as are many derivative games, while original Pac-Man is only considered playable - in pure original form - by a few specialist players. I believe the original vision for RE evolved over time with community feedback and also practically due to limited development resources.

Anyway, I think we agree in general principals, but I see this particular case as a nice extension on reasonable map making rather than a petty cheat. :)