TOPIC:

Dear Diary:
"It's already Wednesday and had a tiring tuesday working day... 3AM, what todo to relax a bit?"
Suddenly, Diary whispered to me "play OpenTTD" and I said: Challenge accepted!
Since Frank re-Started BTPro CB#2 I was to try it and at that moment was empty... so, here we go!!
But... puff... in couple minutes more 3 players. While I was choosing the correct train (server deserve a try only for that... even more because of the gameplay) - took about 3 minutes - saw how challenging it can be ^^.
Anyway, after that I tried to collect some opinions about what's the best town_layout for a CityBuilder... this one called my attention:

[04:50:55] <%ttd-srvcb02> ST2 (Pink): question: town_layout is now set as random. Do you prefer in 2x2 or 3x3 grid?
[04:51:55] <%ttd-srvcb02> Keeper (Orange): 2x2, 3x3 grid wastes 1 slot every square
[04:52:11] <%ttd-srvcb02> ST2 (Pink): personally I agree with it
[04:54:29] <%ttd-srvcb02> Keeper (Orange): 3x3 only useful for a server with high aircraft limit and a set with decent helicopters
[04:54:39] <%ttd-srvcb02> Keeper (Orange): so you can stick a heliport in the waste squares
[04:54:59] <%ttd-srvcb02> ST2 (Pink): damn... you "stole" my thoughts

As I said, personally I prefer for CB servers a town_layout with 2x2 grid (examples here ) but other players opinions are important too... so:
- What grid you prefer for CityBuilder servers?
- And why?

Thanks in advance for your opinions.

Enjoy the games

I usually build further with what the town started with but as I understood you "loose" space when using 3x3 layout which is a bit of a shame.

On the counterside loosing only 1 square where I think you loose more space to the roads when using a 2x2 layout.

I think I will try a 2x3 layout the next game so see how that goes.

I made some calculations yesterday about free space with different city grids...

By amount of free space one of the best road systems, i found, is "swastika" system.
Top part of your town: (X - roads, 1 - free tiles)
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
X11X11X11X11X111111111111X
X11X11X11X11X111111111111X
X11X11X11X11XXXXXXXXXXXX
X11X11X11X11X111111111111X
X11X11X11X11X111111111111X
X11X11X11X11XXXXXXXXXXXX
X11X11X11X11X111111111111X
X11X11X11X11X111111111111X
X11X11X11X11XXXXXXXXXXXX
X11X11X11X11X111111111111X
X11X11X11X11X111111111111X
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Bottom is same, but reverted: left part roads - horizontal, right part roads - vertical.
Free space in each quarter is 88 (4 lines, each 2x11), total space - 352.

2nd place by free space is full 3x3 system, each quarter will have 9 built-in 3x3 road boxes, so overall 72 (not counting central tiles) free space for each quarter and 288 total.

Last one, ofc, is full 2x2, each quarter will have only 64 tiles of free space, and total amount will be 256.

P.S. Lately i don't like "swastika" road system, cause it have bad coherence for in-town cars. Main problem is that you can't build arrows on road tiles in center of town, then you have to put your stations more far, or let your cars make a big way back to sub-station with stuff for your town.
Probably, i'll try full 3x3 road system next time. I feel like it's more usefull for in-town "self-transporting" pax and mail, because car stations have coverage radius of 3 tiles - equal to 3x3 boxes, and there can be build just 4 bus and 4 truck stations, that will cover almost all town's territory upto 6-8k pop.

the town_layout setting only specify the roads layout when server starts. After that, players can use the prefered layout, ofc! Only because the random setting at start can create some good located towns but not using a good road layout.
For what I've see till now, some players like towns started with 2x2, other players with 3x3. The only possibility to have claimable towns (not CITY) with that layout... is keeping Random town_layout build ^^

Anyway... best way to see how it works, see BTPro.nl- [NL] CB#1 - currently set to 2x2 for towns at server start.
Note: Does not mean that player town must respect 2x2 or 3x3, it's only a setting that sets the roads layout when server starts, to the towns.

Probably it's good on #10 with "random"... players can pick towns with the layout they like

but well, most important message is: Enjoy the games

Greetings, I prefer the 3x3 (or 3 by 7) As I like to make large city's, And i like underground subways, what I do is, around the main city i make the grid, but i make stations on -1 elivation. I dig a trench of 5 long in a 3x7 grid and put a lenght 4 subway station in it, a straigth with traffice ligth behind it. this way, houses will be made all around the subway station on the angled ground. By looking at the catchments i place the next station further on in the ground with a tunnel between, this is however a circle line, so once im nearing the planend edge of the city, in the 3x3 grid part i make a triangle hole in the ground in the middle, this way i can make the subway turn, place a signal, and let it proceed to the next station..

This way I can make an underground subway using the minimum number of squares. you may even make slightly smaller stations as subway trains are capable anyway. In my oppinion this is the best intra city transport method for mail and pax. (withoud crowding with busses etc. and allows you to connect nearby city's too.



ofcourse this can be done with more turns and more stations. allows a nice network.

Hello,

I saw this interesting topic. We done some intensive searching for the best growth pattern for best town growth and most logical layouts on another server. Thought i might share some info i got with you.

From the numerous layouts we did the swatsika was absolutely superb in grow speed and space-occupance, and we also played a little with the length of the roads. Result was that 11 tile long roads work the best, as you can merge those roads with the crossroads of other lanes, making effective 11x2 road grid.

There is another road grid i read and saw somewhere that will spawn ultimately bigger towns but are not effective in low-sized cb games, same goes for many random layouts.

Also another thing is that growth speed of towns is dependant on the type of road grid you spawn the map with, IF i remember correctly original roads have the highest grow speed, and 2x2/3x3 the slowest.

As for the busses and trucks inside town you can play with dead-end roads a bit when there a building placed already at the dead-end part. If town keeps growing and not miss a month growth the chance is very low town will actually remove the building.