Passenger and Mail Pulses

[jeffryfisher]

Has anyone else noticed that over a long period of time (decades, maybe a century), a map's houses somehow become synchronized? When I start playing a map, the pax and mail appear fairly randomly here and there every month. However, after several economic cycles (and on some maps, after many events boosting and trimming production), the pax and mail arrive in waves. I'll get almost none anywhere for years and then BOOM, every city on the map has four years' worth all at once.

Any theories? I think it has something to do with the way econ level changes affect timing. Maybe if each econ level rise triggers several houses to produce pax and mail at the same time, then over several econ cycles, all houses end up on the same schedule, synchronized to the beat of econ changes.

These late-game pulses (and the intervening droughts) are problematic. I wish there were a way to rescramble the production timing.

[MaglevForever]

Yes, I've seen the same thing.

 

If the econ level changes are a likely culprit is there a way to work around them? We know most of their effects after all. But, it would be a lot of scripting, and I think the game doesn't like to be "forced" in this way. Trying to stop the economic state changes may result overall in the game attempting to change state more frequently.

 

Perhaps one could employ some hidden territories under the cities and see if some regular events affecting production by territory could revert some of this alignment. But, then you would lose some territories for other things, unless you can multi-task them with other things???

 

 

[jeffryfisher]

The economic cycles are an important part of the game that I wouldn't want to defeat. Moreover, if we were reacting to economic level changes, then the damage would already be done. Without getting into the source code, I don't think we can eliminate the problem, but maybe somebody else will have an idea.