Map building thread

[Gwizz]

Thought I would start a new thread on map building, Gwizz style.

I believe part of the reason that players don't build more maps is that the RRT3 editor is not as intuitive as it could be for first time users.

As an example:  To place a viable city on a map.

Click on building a station.  Get a list with "Volcano" at the top.

                              But, this is not the top of the list.

Click on the up arrow.  Get the real top of the list.

Now click on add a city and hand click it onto the map and name it.

A city comes with demand industries that will be randomly placed depending upon the size of the city and the building density chosen.

  (Building density can be adjusted on the same screen, as can be the

    industries for both supply and demand.  If one industry is set at 25%

    and a 2nd industry at 100%, then the 2st industry has a chance of

    being randomly placed that is 4 times greater than the 1st)

The larger the city the more industries will be placed around it using random placement.

I can choose a smaller group of industries that I want the game to randomly pick from or even add supply industries to this list such as a farm.  Or I can place my own industries by hand which will reduce the number of randomly placed industries that the game will choose.

I can hand place industries by clicking on one of the industries lower on the list and clicking it onto the map by hand.

To speed up the process of placing supply and demand in each city, I will place the first few cities and name them:  A1(supply only city), A2 (demand only), A3 (misc), etc.  I then can copy from these cities to make a number of my other cities have the same supply and/or demand.  Later I will rename the "A" cities, by clicking on them, changing to their real names

I tend to set up or balance a map depending upon what type of map it is.

For example: Historical maps might have coal in one area and a steel mill in the same area.  Because RRT3 has cargo flow it is not always possible to have a good historical balance for playability.  Therefore, distance being a factor, I may place coal or a steel mill in areas where they never were in real life to gain some distance and balance. Balance also means if there is supply cargo on a map then there should be equal demand cargo on the map. (a Place where supply cargo can be used at a distance from the supply. This is a transportation game)

Balance helps make the game play smoother and be more fun to play, and random placement helps make for replayablity of a map.

My play style is as a builder; I seldom play for a win.  I do put win events on my maps for those who are interested in playing for a win.

Because of my play style, I tend to have more cities and more supply industries on my maps.  It is much easier for those who desire less to delete some cities or adjust building density for a map more to their liking. Making a new map can be a lot of work.

I change maps I play all the time, unless I'm testing a map for someone. But then, because of my play style, I find it less fun trying to be good tester. 

I hope this thread is helpful.