TTD Records
Posted: 13 Nov 2022 18:22
So, inspired by SpComb's mini maps and AlexW's question what the smallest map might be to have a playable game, I toyed around a bit. What's the smallest rectangular map on which a regular transportation business can be operated, without cheating (unlike in my previous experiment to build the largest city possible)?
After a lot of trial and error, and several rounds of optimization, I got a profitable transport business running over three decades on a 3x4 map. An island of that size, to be precise. Since this is plain original TTD, not OpenTTD, I had to use an island rather than customizing the game to allow for such tiny maps, like SpComb did. Luckily, towns don't build onto the coastal tiles in TTD, so everything remained within the 3x4 rectangle.
Here's the scenario I used:
In case you wonder how I built that scenario: Exploiting a bug in TTD that lets towns use larger city centers than normal (fixed in TTDPatch 1.9.1 alpha 25), you can demolish town buildings that are under construction in the scenario editor, and repeatedly expand the town until the desired tiles are occupied by the largest office block that exists in TTD (population: 220). These yield a lot of passengers in the early months of the game, which helps with getting out of debt quickly.
In the game, I then built a single cheap bus that goes back and forth between a regular bus station and a proxy station that has its station sign diagonally across, but is actually located just next to the first, for extra income. Kept an occasional eye on the town's road construction and demolished it whenever it occurred to leave enough room for city buildings, and that allowed me to get into the 21st century with a small profit.
Later, inflation kicks in hard and makes it really tough to keep the business up. In the 2000s, the town also decides it's a good idea to build a lot of warehouses, fountains, smaller office blocks and what not, which yield very few passengers. But I would argue three decades of profit count.
So I'm wondering: What other types of TTD challenges can we come up with? What other TTD records can we set?
Here are the rules by which I went:
1) No cheating or savegame editing.
2) Obey the rules set by the original, unmodified TTD. No TTDPatch or other tools allowed.
3) No AI. (This is because their company value can be exploited by buying and selling shares for profit, even on a 0x0 map.)
4) Any difficulty setting and game options.
5) Any scenario that can be built with the scenario editor.
After a lot of trial and error, and several rounds of optimization, I got a profitable transport business running over three decades on a 3x4 map. An island of that size, to be precise. Since this is plain original TTD, not OpenTTD, I had to use an island rather than customizing the game to allow for such tiny maps, like SpComb did. Luckily, towns don't build onto the coastal tiles in TTD, so everything remained within the 3x4 rectangle.
Here's the scenario I used:
In case you wonder how I built that scenario: Exploiting a bug in TTD that lets towns use larger city centers than normal (fixed in TTDPatch 1.9.1 alpha 25), you can demolish town buildings that are under construction in the scenario editor, and repeatedly expand the town until the desired tiles are occupied by the largest office block that exists in TTD (population: 220). These yield a lot of passengers in the early months of the game, which helps with getting out of debt quickly.
In the game, I then built a single cheap bus that goes back and forth between a regular bus station and a proxy station that has its station sign diagonally across, but is actually located just next to the first, for extra income. Kept an occasional eye on the town's road construction and demolished it whenever it occurred to leave enough room for city buildings, and that allowed me to get into the 21st century with a small profit.
Later, inflation kicks in hard and makes it really tough to keep the business up. In the 2000s, the town also decides it's a good idea to build a lot of warehouses, fountains, smaller office blocks and what not, which yield very few passengers. But I would argue three decades of profit count.
So I'm wondering: What other types of TTD challenges can we come up with? What other TTD records can we set?
Here are the rules by which I went:
1) No cheating or savegame editing.
2) Obey the rules set by the original, unmodified TTD. No TTDPatch or other tools allowed.
3) No AI. (This is because their company value can be exploited by buying and selling shares for profit, even on a 0x0 map.)
4) Any difficulty setting and game options.
5) Any scenario that can be built with the scenario editor.