Advertisement etc? Waste of money?

For better ratings: Try a truck or train PIGLET
TTd and TTo: Keep ratings up with assistant train or truck

A FOOD train is often an IDLE train! Train 'piglet' + wait for food! ...

. . . .
Small Advert ... Fund Buildings?

• The obvious time for an advert is when you compete with an opponent for the same resource, coal or passengers or...
• The small, medium and large Advert function by raising the station ratings at a radius around the city; no stations, no effect.
  
• The main difference between small, medium and Large is the RADIUS!
  Small works for passengers, mail, and industries very near to the town centre, within 10 tiles: ex 8 North + 2 East.
  Medium reaches 15 tiles; Large 20 tiles. You also get more % points raise from Medium or Large.
• So when designing your stations: plan ahead!
  Place your station's ORIGIN within 10, 15 or 20 tiles of the city centre! (The railway part might be many mTiles away..... :-)
  But station origin within 5 tiles! is best for city ratings and for city development; advert or not. The closer the better.
• If a (small) advert will boost both the city bus stations and the nearby MEGA-station with coal, wood and goods: you will probably gain by it.
  NB! You need to keep up efficient transport to keep the ratings up! else ratings are back down in a few months, and your advert is a waste of money.
• The right time: just before your train(s) start loading; let the trains load for a while, upping the ratings further. The right time: might also be when you have / soon get - a subsidy!
  And after a plane crash, when your ratings have plummeted - use an advert rather than lose some months' worth of business.
• If you already have high ratings - over 70% - an advert is probably a waste. The ratings will soon drop back to what they were. Each vehicle has a maximum rating when LOADing. Early in the game, no vehicle gives above 82%, I believe (the AI opponents are another story).
• All adverts will boost the city bus / lorry stations. So you might add an extra bus or lorry stop, + vehicles, for better city growth. In some cases, you might use a small/medium advert just to help the town grow to 'accept Goods' size!
  Small advert is MUCH cheaper than 'Fund buildngs', and they both need time to work.
  
• Note: a good ratings alternative to advertisements is the piglet!

. . . .

In a game I once did this:

• A: Started with simple minimum 1-track stations. Made one small train, sent from FNUP to FNAP; to establish a SUBSIDY.
• B: After a while, more cash was there: I demolished my mini railway stations, and quickly 'hopped' them to within 10 tiles of the nearest city centre. On the way: one of them 'rested' for a few days near a forest - to get some WOOD ratings.
• After making sure that FNUP and FNAP had ratings for all they were supposed to transport:
  'Small advert' (9000 pounds) raised the ratings by 24% for both the city's own stations, and for visiting FNUP and FNAP! ('Medium advert' would have given 44% up)
• Now FNUP and FNAP were hopped back home, and developed as proper MEGA stations:
  - Origins within 5 tiles of their home cities, but far away from it's corresponding station; for 'long pay'.
  - Railway stations stretched TOWARDS each other - short trip.
  - One 'leg' (bus stop) centrally in city to gather passengers, mail.
  - other 'legs' (Docks, Lorry station) near useful things - near that forest.
  
• Now the ratings were good, and the trips between stations paid much more than before!
  The stations were designed for varied and general use, but they had 8..9 months of extra well paid SUBSIDized transport left to go; and FNAP started with good WOOD ratings!

. . . .

Fund buildings: This is very expensive early in the game!

• It's effect: the town will repave some streets - temporarily enlarge the Business area; then build; usually 2 G-houses (Shop and Offices).
• This takes a month or three! The effects may well disappear later.
• Fund buildings for a very small town is a complete waste of money. It will build small, or tear down the G-houses later.
• If you have a BIG Goods producer piling up stuff;
  and within reach a nice, growing town with 1 G-house, or 2:
  This may be the right time to do 'Fund buildings', plus a small advert, and an extra bus, and some street layout.
  
• If it works, your town will build 2 G-houses, take Goods, and continue growing.
  But there's no guarantee! Towns with 3 G-houses often tear down one of them. You need at least 4 G-houses to feel almost safe!
• If your main aim in this game is city development, Adverts and 'Fund Buildings' are useful tools.

Piglet: TTd and TTo
Keep ratings up with assistant train or truck.
Case: Your train no. 4 transports a good deal of e.g. Oil, a long distance; but you use only one train on this line - you feel there isn't enough stuff for 2 trains yet.
But the station ratings are unfriendly to single trains on long trips. Your ratings vary between 60% at best, and 44%, average about 52%.
So what to do about it? . . . a 2nd train? . . . a small advert??

Answer: Try a PIGLET!
Add a lorry stop to the station; make a depot with only 1 or 2 road tile(s) between; give the lorry/lorries just ONE order: go to A, LOAD.
A truck (or train) LOADing for cargo X will keep the X ratings up even when full!
I found this out with an old slow engine; but a truck does the same job, cheaply.

The lorries (1 Oil, 1 Fruit, 1 Copper) look like little piglets - rushing to 'mother' to suck, then to depot, back and forth. Result:
the station whose ratings used to be around 52% now gets stable ratings between 70 and 80%!! after a time, it stabilizes at 74 .. 80%
FREQUENT visits are more efficient than 1 LONG visit.

Calculate: How many extra units per month can you get with ratings 75% rather than 52%? How many extra £/year can you make with these extra units?
Cost of piglet, per year: roughly 500£ running cost, + 1000£ for loss of truck value, 1st year. The value depreciation is high the 1st year, then gradually goes down.

NB: If your station is important, you should renew your piglet each new year! Since the piglet's rating goes down with age.

If piglet ratings will give you more than 13 .. 1500 extra £ per year, it will pay for itself. You do need train(s) with enough capacity; If your line is too badly paid, or has too few units of the stuff: forget it. 40 units per month is not worth a pork. It probably wasn't worth a train!

With a piglet your train will spend less time munching in the station, more time out on the rails; it will get to depot more often (you DO use a depot force?) and will break down less often.
With a piglet you can safely add a wagon or 2 to your old train; it no longer matters if the train is away for a little longer.

If you were thinking of 2 trains: 2 extra carriages + 1 piglet truck is cheaper!

If you were thinking of a small advert: 1 piglet is cheaper, and LASTS - MUCH - LONGER!

If your station has more than 1 resource:

• 2: use 2 piglets; ratings max 76%
  
• 2..3 or more: if you can spare a railway station track: make a 'Hoglet' or 'Toglet' (Tog = Train in Norwegian!) a train piglet: a cheap engine with 1 wagon per resource; + 1 wagon for something the station does NOT have!
  Give the 'Hoglet' a sensible maintenance period, since it will stay in the same spot, just LOADing, 99% of the time. The ratings get to about 80%

  - 1 cheap engine + 3 wagons cost about the same as 3 trucks; but running cost is a bit lower.
  

That train Hoglet has been mentioned before! by Kevin Bunyan
The truck piglet idea is mentioned too, but only for harassing the 'enemy'!
• 3 or more: if you CAN't spare a railway station track: use 3..4 piglets, but make a longer road between the truck station and the depot; with maybe a road roundabout. You don't want those trucks to BLOCK each other!
  A truck which is likely to load empty most of the time (Food, Goods) should have just 'Goto', not 'LOAD'; to avoid taking too much of the load-time from the other piggies. Note that with 3 or more piglets, your ratings will be lower; 71..74% rather than 76..80%.
• Note: use straight road between the lorry stop and the depot! Straight road is FASTER - leads to higher ratings.
  

  

  
  A FOOD train is often an IDLE train! - In one game, there were several 'Food only' trains; typically:
  'FULL LOAD' for a long looong time, until a fruit train comes in; then the food train gets 97 t of food, but has room for 3 more; so it LOADs until next blue moon ... same principle for Goods, Steel, Paper ...
  

  Fix 1: find out how many units are produced each time the feeder train comes in. Let the food train have 1 LESS wagons rather than 1 MORE; in this case 3 food wagons, not 4.
  

  Fix 2: Since this train will be spending most of it's time in station, why not let it be a 'piglet' / 'hoglet' train?
  Add 1 wagon for each of the OTHER resources in that station: Wood, Oil, ... this will keep the ratings up for those resources too!
  Of course, you may have to micro-manage that train - tell it when to go to the food-hungry town.

  Fix 3: Maybe the train which brings grain etc to the Food plant can also bring the Food on to the city? System:
  1 Grain-etc piglet; 1 food piglet; 1 train with both Grain and Food wagons, and 2 plain 'GOTO' to the Food Plant station.
  The 1st Goto brings grain etc to Food plant station.
  The 2nd goto turns the train around (it should be SHORTER than the station's max length), and picks up the food. then on to the city; then back to the farm ... ... ...

  
  

  NB! Some of these hints are from old TTo, no one way signals, etc!
  some hints may be obsolete, or wrong - in TTd - TT deluxe.
  

  Last updated: misctric.htm 2004-0409,0201,2003-0106, (2001-1004,-0528, 2000-0130...1999,1998)

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