Get rid of those opponent trucks/trains
The opponent STEALS my coal!!
The opponent STEALS my city!!
Play an Opponent - make him lower mountains!
Opponents' terraforming - timing.
The stock exchange
To Buy or not to Buy ...

Sabotage the computer opponents' trucks and trains ...
I refer you to the 'Bible': J.S. Baughn's TT Semi-FAQ
Why should I rewrite what he's written so well? It's all there, beautifully illustrated.
Just a few comments for TTo players:

• TTo: Trapping those trucks on bits of isolated road is easier in TTo than in TTd, since one can cut Opp's (Opponent's) and City's roads. Don't bother with anything more expensive.
• TTo+TTd: The loop of rails from the back of Opp's depot to the back(s) of Opp's rail station works in both version. Neat, cheap and simple! No need to crash a train.
  NB: Opponent must have a signal for this one to work! i.e. a 2-track station.
  You might also look at Burkhard Jahnen - he has good examples and variations on this trick.
• TTo: After your sabotage, your opponent doesn't always oblige by removing that clutter of rails and stations! at least not quickly.
  So, it's best if you can keep him away from your area of interest in the first place!
• TTo+TTd: Using trial runs: find out when Opp has his twice a year 'rethink' periods; e.g February 1st and August 1st. Then:
• When approaching one of these dates: do some trial runs, find out IF and where he's going to be active (he's usually stubbornly consistent!)
  Then block his path with your rails! and / or buy his stock.
  

The opponent STEALS my coal!!
A: I don't know the program's exact algorithm for sharing a resource, say 200 tons of coal / month, between station A ('mine') and station B (the opponent's); but since the Opp - (IF he delivers!) - gets much higher ratings than I, the result is always to my disadvantage.

Whatever I do with my station, it always ends up with about 10% of the coal etc.; while 90% of the monthly production piles up in the tiny truck station belonging to my 'A.S.' opponent.

Solution: Protect your resources:
Just placing a 'ring of steel' around your coal mine won't normally help! Your A.S. (Artificial Stupidity) opponent usually starts by building the stations. Then she worries about roads / rails going to / from it. If she can't do it, the unusable station often stays there, piling up stuff which you should be transporting.

Before the opponent installs herself: lay out a 'mine field' of horizontal / vertical rails in the area around your coal mine. You need to cover about 1 out of every 4 tiles. A useful pattern: (= piece of track; n nothing):

n n n = n n n = n n n = n n n = n n n = n n n =
n = n n n = n n n = n n n = n n n = n n n =
n n n = n n n = n n n = n n n = n n n = n n n =
n = n n n = n n n = n n n = n n n = n n n =
n n n = n n n = n n n = n n n = n n n = n n n =
If there are hills: you can save a few rails: pin some tiles UP, others DOWN.

Your rails pattern should make it impossible for the opponent to make her usual minimum station complex: a square consisting of: lorry stop, depot, 2 road pieces. Of course, you and I could sneak in a lorry stop here, and 'walk' it out; but the A.S. Opp always wants her station + depot square.

For railway stations the minimum seems to be Length 3, 1 or 2 tracks; with always a depot close outside, as part of the 'package'.
These station complexes are always built 'at one go' - they appear suddenly, not gradually.

For 2-track railway stations: Opp always wants a 2*4 rectangle, + a depot-tile facing the station; usually a 2*5 rectangle; should be easy to block.

Another item built 'at one go' is the rail passing loop: one often sees one smacked down somewhere before the stations are made! showing Opp's intentions. So you need to guard your future rail space too, with a few rails.

Opponents work on just one project at a time, and stick to it veeery stubbornly. If they want 2 Rail stations between A and B, that's what they will try to build, for months and months ... nothing else.
By blocking them a little, you might make them spend all their cash: tearing down and rebuilding the same bridges / tunnels ...

Vary Opponent 'Intelligence'? I've tried - no visible results.

Vary Opponent 'Building Speed' - Faster seems to give more frequent periods of frenzied activity, terraforming.

What if Opp has already placed her station there, but has not connected to the receiving station:
In this case, if you can stop her from connecting and transporting, she will end up with ratings around 40%. Your ratings should be higher than that, and the coal should 'come back' to your station.

The opponent STEALS my city!!

Maybe your pet resource is a city - which you have been spending time and money to develop. How to protect this?
It's not possible to make quite certain - after all, you want your city to grow! But you can do your best:

• Remove all the city's streets; (possible in TTo, not always in TTd) - then rebuild them as yours!
  To streets which don't make intersections - if at risk: place a rail across.
  At risk: the A.S. don't respect houses, and may tear down anything, even lovely Goods-houses. So in a city with a regular rectangular road network and 4-house blocks, you may need a rail across every other road - swastika look. This will stop Opp from mashing 2 houses to make her Bus stop + depot 4-tile square.
• Reserve free tiles centrally in the city; place a rail on them.
• The city outskirts: you can't reasonably reserve all of that?
  No; but watch out for nice flat groups of 4 or more tiles, especially within 'goods acceptance' range. Occupy one or 2 of these.
  Is there a Factory or Refinery near the city?
  Try to block spots which Mr. A.S would get a Goods service to.
• Watch the subsidy list! Mr. A.S. does!
• Sometimes you see an opponent pulling down hills near a city. let him bulldoze trees, hills etc; but place rails in his way, pinning DOWN what he's done; later you may profit from his landscaping. It's fun to let the opponent do the work for you.

Play an Opponent - make him lower mountains!
The so-called "AI" opponent has some advantages over us humans. Among other things, his terraforming is quite free of charge! He also doesn't lose City Ratings when bulldozing trees.
My Mr Opp has recently started 2 truck stations - upp left, down right, and wants to connect them with roads. If I just leave him to it, he will make a bridge over that water, and tunnel through that mountain - not much use to me!

Starting out: Opp has lowered a little, but some green mountain tops are still there; all the way up to L8 (level 8 over sea).

How can I entice him to continue lowering land instead of roading UP or tunneling through? so that I can maybe build a rail line alongside his roads ...

Opp's 'thinking' seems to be: "Let's lower - or raise - a few random points of land; then look at it for a while, and see if it suits me ...".
One often sees then raising and lowering the same stuff, over and over ... Some of the time he's mostly raising, most of the time he's mainly lowering.

'Fishing' technique - when Opp is building roads:
Lead his roads (or rails) towards broken tiles! to make him lower land.
When he has lowered something, pin it down with vertical/horizontal rails. Most of the time, one wants land lowered, not raised.

The mountaintop just over the factory is down to L7 now.

Mr Opp has made a 'home' roundabout; he has levelled some L3 area (level 3 over the sea) North of the factory.
North of the lake he has led a road almost to the water, where I have stopped him with a rail.

CONTROL important road tiles! Whenever Opp has completed one road tile, start the next one with a 'half-road'!
Advantage: now you own the road tile, no matter how many stubs Opp adds. You can remove stubs, cross the road with a rail or a bridge, etc.
This costs money - one half-road per controlled tile - but saves trouble later.

Opp and I together - have made roundabout 2; I 'own' several of those road tiles.
I want a railway station at L2 - with a Factory anchor on tile A; so:
I've lowered 3 points to L2, and fixed them by placing a downhill roadpiece. Immediately Opp lowers 3 more points! just what I hoped! later he continues the good work. My A tile will be down at L2 soon.

Now Opp has merrily lowered lots of L2 area for me, including my anchor-tile, the one with 2 rails; and part of the walk-route North for my station and rails.
In one of the trial runs I tried to lead his road around the lake, levelling some land there. This was not successful - I don't know why. Maybe he dislikes chopping trees too close to Arismendi? or maybe it's just that he loves bridges!

So I let him make his bridge. Bridges cost money even for the AI opponents, but he paid less for that bridge than it costs ME to build one just like it!

I control the road-tiles just before and after the bridge. - My next aim is to make him pull down the ridge between those 2 arrows.

Road technique details:
The AI (both City and Opponent) usually lowers land before extending a road in that direction; see Green arrow on picture. Here you should add a half-road, and let Opp continue.

So when he extends a road all the way to an uphill: see Red arrow on picture - assume that he will road uphill, or tunnel.
We don't want that - what to do?

a: if not too expensive: lower one of the 2 points, making a broken tile.

b: block the uphill with a rail, forcing him to invent someting else. Note that I own the road tile (blue arrow), so I can remove the stub trying to go up that hill. But I can't make 'half-roads' uphill.

Just connected! (yellow arrow) - But Opp doesn't seem to KNOW this! If I do nothing, he doesn't buy trucks for many weeks.
Only if I connect the North part of the loop - (blue arrow) - does he feel he HAS a road connection between his stations; then he buys trucks at once.

That L8 mountain is down to L4 now.

If he becomes passive for too long, it sometimes helps to joggle him a little: complete a half-road, or remove an obstructing rail or 2, or ...

When he finally knows that he has connected his 2 stations:
- be ready to buy stock! His value will probably go up.
- he will buy vehicles, maybe even borrow more.

In trial runs: after starting 5 road vehicles to try to get that tiny subsidy - (3000 l/month), he starts making another truck station near the rubber; then tries for another truck station near the factory!

In the actual game: I grabbed that subsidy, using his road bridges - (naughty me ...). Now he shifted his attention to Campo Grande Rubber - the one I want to transport from!

So I had a second round of 'fishing' with Mr Opp! When finished, he had levelled lots of land to L2 for my stations and rails; and cleared most of the Campo Grande trees in my way; so I had no 'Very Poor' problems in that town.

My 1960 and 1964 saves from "Mike Wieclawek's Tropical competition" showing the cleared land etc - used to be posted on my Web site.
If you're really interested, EMail me, I might put it back.

Opponents' terraforming - timing.

When an Opp (Opponent ... I'm lazy!) starts a project, he has already chosen the 2 end resources, and the method: Rail stations, Lorry stops, Airports. If he can't 'see' enough flat land for one or both his stations, he starts the 'Land down, Land up' game:

With a trial run you can see what he's going to do:
Every 1 week, or every 2 weeks, he terraforms: example:
- May 5 to 8: land DOWN
- May 12 to 15: land UP
- May 19 to 22: land DOWN
- ... etc ...
Inbetween the rounds he does nothing, unless he found space for one or both his stations; or for his rail passing loops - he often has one or 2 of those before building the stations!

This continues until either he succeeds;
- or about 5 months have passed - then he will scrap the project, remove the 1 station he has maybe already built + any rails left about; but not roads! Roads cost money to remove.

So when an Opp starts something, I wonder: "Can this be of use to me?" - On a map with lots of mountains, the answer is often yes!
So I start my counter-action: block tiles I don't want him on; pin down what I want down; pin up tiles I want up.

In the terraforming periods I spend most of my time watching him. You need to use the F1 key - he works very fast!
In the quiet periods I build my own stuff.

When an Opp is successful, he buys vehicles. You can earn a little on the stock market by buying before. Quick in, quick out is best!
Shortly after: Mr Sucessful Opp will borrow another 50K pounds (100K dollars) if he's allowed to. You can earn more on the stock market by buying before he does.

So it's often a good idea to let Mr Opp be successful with something you don't want for yourself. You get stock market profit ... and some peace! Terraforming fights with 2..3 Opps at the same time leaves little time for my own building!

The Stock Exchange
If you have some capital lying about, you may make money by buying / selling 25% parts in an opponent company. But note:
There's a difference - about 375 UK pounds, or 750 dollars - between buying and selling price per 25% blob. Just as in real life, the stockbroker wants his percentage.

So don't bother to buy before one of his little trucks cashes in, then sell. You need at least a proper trainload for the buy-and-sell to make a profit.
The best occasion: just before he borrows extra money!
2. best occasion: just before he buys vehicles

Why increasing his debt should raise his value is a mystery to me, but that's how the program works - in this TT version.

The higher his loan, the more expensive it will be for the human player to buy him out - so do this only if you really need to get him out of your way; and do it before the debt gets too high!

To Buy or not to Buy ... your opponent OUT
Buying OUT your opponent - buying the last 25% - that's a quite different matter! You inherit not only his cash, vehicles, stations, ratings, rails, roads, raw materials - but also his debts!

If / when you buy an opponent, you should normally increase your own loan to the maximum first; you won't be allowed to afterwards.
The program adds Opp's loan to yours, but the 'maximum loan' remains the same.
So the 'price' of buying your Opp's loan is to pay loan interest on it.
Opp's business, or what you can make out of it - should be good enough to outbalance this.

I've seen many saved games where the player has bought out an opponent, probably just to "get him out of my hair"; and then done nothing about the bad transport the player has just acquired! The same old trucks are trundling around 20 years later.

When you buy out an opponent, you should have a better reason than just getting rid of him. You're spending about 150000 or 200000 UK pounds of your cash to take over all his stuff - so compute what it's worth for you!

In the 'Austrans' game - a competition game which used to be downloadable at the TT fan club - there are 2 opponents; 2 good examples of what to buy out, and what not to buy!
Both have loans 200000 UK pounds, buying price about same.

First look at Opponent A - Red - Ms Mc Alpine:

• Her cash: little.
  
• Her vehicles: about 15 trucks, 2 or more years old - worth little.
  
• Roads: no use to you - you want trains, I hope!
  It costs money to remove those roads!
• Stations: you want them moved and rebuilt.
  
• Raw materials: The rubber plantation and diamond mine are small.
  
• The stuff in her stations:
  A small hoard of diamonds piled up;
  - some mail, goods in Perth, Kalgoorlie.

Now look at Opponent B - Yellow - Ms Hamilton:

• Her cash: little.
  
• Her vehicles: 3 trains. I would sell one of the engines, but keep the other 2. The wagons are all useful.
  All can be sold or reused - lots of extra cash.
• Rails: Those drunken curls around 'Broome' need rebuilding; the rest is relatively OK - surprisingly good for an AI opponent!
• Stations: The Alice one needs stretching to the city centre - it doesn't accept mail.
  The Derby one needs stretching a little to the city centre. Otherwise OK, although I would rebuild most of it.
• Raw materials: Diamonds. Passengers, Mail - some unused!
  Wood and copper - unused!
• The stuff in her stations: Aaaahhh!
  - about 5-600 units of valuable wood piled up in Broome!
  - about 3-400 units of copper hoarded in the diamond station!
  - Unused passengers, mail piling up in Broome.
  Especially the wood and copper will pay you well if brought to one of the factories on the map; you might combine with more copper from Broome.
  The passengers and mail - useful too - You already have Derby and Alice stations.

Of course, most of the time the situation will be somewhere between A and B.
Keep an eye on your Opp, wait for a good Opp'ortunity :-)
a subsidy offer, a production double, .... then re-compute: . . . How much is it worth for you!

Last updated: Opponent.htm 2004-0415,0201,2003-0106 ,(990606 990512 980602)

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