Just one question.

Is there any point to establishing more than one dock or tourist dock?
For example: Does it allow more to be exported from your island?

Opinions welcome. Evidence more than welcome.

Long live El Presidente!

Baically divides up traffic. closest dock gets the goods to be shipped out.
tourist dock, divides where the ppl get on and off the island.

Neither increases the flow of money.

This seems reasonable.

Has anyone made any good use of this?

The reason I ask is that I am playing a game at the moment where the traffic is kinda getting crowded around the docks. Is this damaging my export profits? I do not know.

In the early part of the game most of my exports were from 2 patches of bauxite. Now, it is 1983, and as this started to run down I set up a furniture industry. It produces lot's of pesos but that dock area is more crowded than ever.

Based upon computertech's suggestion would I benefit from placing a second dock on the side of my island nearest the factory?

It really depends on the seriousness of the congestion. Does the congestion cause detrimental delays in the goods being taken to the docks? If so, then yes, set up another dock nearer the secondary industries and put a garage next to it. Without adding the garage next to it, you aren't solving any problems, really, as your teamsters would have to walk home after delivering your goods to the new dock.

Extra tourist docks are only really necessary if you have multiple tourist centers on the island. I've done a few islands where this has been the case and have set up 2 complete beachfront tourist communities, necessitating the addition of a second dock so that tourists actually use the area.

There's no stock answer to whether multiple docks or tourist docks are needed for your island...it all depends on how things develop.

Thank's for the reply.

Well, I finished the game mentioned above.

2nd ever game. Random Sandbox. 12480 pts on 100%. Happiness 59%. Max no. of rebels = 2. Respect 100% after 50 years.

I changed the position of the dock...my initial dock wasn't getting any goods at all after I built the second one. The ship was arriving with nothing and leaving with nothing. So I demolished it.

By and large I think that you're right. It's largely circumstancial. You exploit the resources on your island as and when you are able to without screwing the political situation up.

Traffic is clearly a very important factor, and I think that I could have done better in my finished game. I shall go back and read the appropriate thread.

A second dock can be very useful in reducing traffic jams, especially if you've got an Oil Refinery some distance away from the original dock, eg in the Desert Island challenge, where it's about 90° around the coast. It was taking ages for the oil to get to the original dock through the traffic

In the Tourist Make your Country go challenge I wasn't getting enough tourists in to be able to reach the requirement (1500 tourists) so I built an extra 3 Tourist Docks, got them in with time to spare

(20-12-2009 09:36 AM)ScudNZ Wrote:  Traffic is clearly a very important factor, and I think that I could have done better in my finished game. I shall go back and read the appropriate thread.

Traffic plays a huge part in this game. Try keeping your industrial sector near the dock so it doesn't have to go through downtown. Also try to keep things like Churches/Clinics/Pubs within walking distance for your people to keep them off the road. Helps a lot.

(20-12-2009 11:09 AM)mikegurd Wrote:  In the Tourist Make your Country go challenge I wasn't getting enough tourists in to be able to reach the requirement (1500 tourists) so I built an extra 3 Tourist Docks, got them in with time to spare

I'm fairly certain adding extra tourist docks doesn't increase the amount of tourists that will come to the island, it just spreads them out.

(20-12-2009 01:18 PM)FiNGERS Wrote:  ...Also try to keep things like Churches/Clinics/Pubs within walking distance for your people to keep them off the road. Helps a lot.

This is actually very good advice. One of the things I like to do is build "blocks" of houses surrounding a decorated courtyard that contain the church, pub, market, and clinic for a "neighborhood", where the road reaches the housing, but not the services, making the services a "walk-up".

I'll follow up this post with an example image, but this works for making the services "localized" for the people that live nearby and making them walk to them instead of adding to road congestion.

I also like to, where possible, have "industrial loops" as it were...where most industrial traffic (except workers going to and from work) stays out of the downtown area.

Okay...I happened to get a random island that is perfect for showing the "comfort zone" for my citizens as I was discussing and said I'd get a picture of, so here it is:



As you can see, to the left are the tenements that sit close to the industrial complex, and on the right are the apartments that border the downtown district. The church takes up the centerpiece, with palisades leading to it from the road, and on either side of the palisades are the marketplace, restaurant, a pub, and the clinic. What you probably cant see is the police station nestled between the tenements on the left, next to the church. Behind the church is a cozy area where some courtyard homes are placed, around some statuary, benches, trees, statues, and a fountain. Interestingly, a lot of my priests moved into these. I don't think they ever have to get in a car for anything.

Edited to add: Oh yeah...almost forgot... The road in the foreground runs between my 2 industrial areas and skirts the population center, which works PERFECTLY for this layout... The teachers and students walk to the school in the foreground (except those at the furthest back housing), so there's no real congestion in this current layout.

Thanks for the reply! I shall have to give this a go.

However

I think the space to build such self-contained communities is probably quite tight. What do you reckon? (The reason I ask is that at the start of the game I kinda have a thing about getting a good agricultural economy going. Which uses space. When do you get rid of those "inner-city" farms that are there at the start?)
Do you work towards building these blocks right from the start? (Which would seem the sensible thing to do, to avoid wasting money.)
How many blocks like this would you build? By the looks of it there are enough tenements and apartment blocks to account for between 100-150 people. How far apart do you spread your communities on the island?
What about transport? I can see 3 garages there, is there a fourth on the other boundary road?

meh...now I'm completely off-topic!

How do you achieve these industrial loops? I can see the advantage of keeping industrial traffic seperate from worker traffic, but I just don't see how its achieveable. How do you control which route the traffic goes down, or rather what factors influence the drivers choice?

(20-12-2009 09:32 PM)ScudNZ Wrote:  Thanks for the reply! I shall have to give this a go.

However

I think the space to build such self-contained communities is probably quite tight. What do you reckon? (The reason I ask is that at the start of the game I kinda have a thing about getting a good agricultural economy going. Which uses space. When do you get rid of those "inner-city" farms that are there at the start?)

Well, you can build them as tight or as loose as you'd like. However, if you want it really small, and are using streets as a border, it's better to do it with apartments, due to their orientation (unless you don't care about aesthetic appearances like I do).

I usually get rid of the "inner city farms" and housing as quick as possible, so I can do my downtown road network layout quickly and build on it as I need.

(20-12-2009 09:32 PM)ScudNZ Wrote:  Do you work towards building these blocks right from the start? (Which would seem the sensible thing to do, to avoid wasting money.)

I do, if room permits. If I get an island that's rather close quarters due to hills or coastline, I forgo this design altogether. You have to remember, though, that the layout was borne out of an aesthetic plan, not really an efficiency one, though it does lend itself well to efficiency in many circumstances.

(20-12-2009 09:32 PM)ScudNZ Wrote:  How many blocks like this would you build?

One or two...one for the next-to-downtown area, one in my rural community (where most of my farming is done). The rural community one, however, is usually done with bunkhouses and country houses and isn't as tightly packed.

If I end up doing lots of tourism, I'll have a third for my upper class district (usually coastal).

(20-12-2009 09:32 PM)ScudNZ Wrote:  By the looks of it there are enough tenements and apartment blocks to account for between 100-150 people. How far apart do you spread your communities on the island?

Normally, I keep my communities well-separated to make sure the workers that live in a given area use that area's services instead of traveling to another by car.

(20-12-2009 09:32 PM)ScudNZ Wrote:  What about transport? I can see 3 garages there, is there a fourth on the other boundary road?

That particular map ended up with 7 garages... there was a 4th you couldn't see on that main left-to-right road just to the right to handle the "downtown" traffic. There was also one just past the armory (next to the palace) on the back left-to-right road, yes. There were 2 ranches and 3 farms back there that it serviced.

(20-12-2009 09:32 PM)ScudNZ Wrote:  meh...now I'm completely off-topic!

How do you achieve these industrial loops? I can see the advantage of keeping industrial traffic seperate from worker traffic, but I just don't see how its achieveable. How do you control which route the traffic goes down, or rather what factors influence the drivers choice?

Industrial loops are easy...they just have to be the shorter distance between the docks, factories, and farms (when goods are going straight from farm to dock). What you couldn't see on that map was the dock to the near left...imagine immediately to the left and behind where that pick was taken from. That main road in the forefront ran from it, along that side of town, to the farms, lumber camps, and oil field. The workers for most of the services to the right off-pic had a small community of bunkhouses and country homes so they lived and worked in the same area, cutting down traffic from them. Most of the workers that lived in that screenshot worked in the downtown district, negating driving, or the factories just to the left, also negating most driving. In fact, until I put in the coffee and tobacco farms, power plant, teamsters office, construction office, and 2 army bases in the distance straight across the map in the direction that pic faces, there was almost no worker driving traffic... It was nearly all teamster, construction, police, and presidente traffic.

Khanon you made a very nice looking city! I try to make them as aesthetically pleasing as possible but in the end, the efficient part of me wins out.

I wish I could make mine look as nice as that. I just lose all imagination, when I'm dumping stuff down next to each other.

(21-12-2009 06:50 AM)FiNGERS Wrote:  Khanon you made a very nice looking city! I try to make them as aesthetically pleasing as possible but in the end, the efficient part of me wins out.

+1

I always forget to try and put things down in a way that makes sense, I almost always drop them down to address whatever "issue" is bothering the people at the time.

I have covered this topic extensively here...

FritoPatata's Transportation Guide

Basically, you should be moving your docks into an industrial sector, as toward the midpoint of the game, you will not need to rely on your docks for immigration anymore. Keeping your dock separated from your population center will prevent traffic jams around it, and will keep your profits flowing.

As far as multiple docks, I only recommend this if the profit for having 2 separate shipping points will outweigh the maintenance costs and the cost of the increased traffic. Docks cannot be filled past any given capacity. No matter how many goods are sitting on a dock, as long as there are dockworkers present, they will all be loaded on a single ship.

"Move your docks"

Yeh, I tried this last night as the place that the game puts them in at the start of the game doesn't seem to be always the best. It's cheap anyhow. [and fun to blow up the dockworkers!]

In some ways I wish that the game would let you set things up yourself initially. Y'know. After you've had a look at the position of all the exploitable resources. I also find it a pain that you can't change the position of the palace. Can you?

Well, like I said, Frito... I don't build for 100% efficiency... My first objective is always aesthetics. Secondary for me is the "feel" of the layout... I ask myself a couple of key questions, not the least of which is "does this look like it could be a Caribbean Island circa 1965?" If the answer is "no" then I do it different.

What I do with the neighborhoods is aesthetics and "feel" and has the added effect of being fairly efficient, if not 100% so, by virtue of that layout. Are there better ways to build things? Of course. There's always a better way than x, y, or z. Your guide is wonderful, of course, but (and I mean this with no animosity and without any offense intended at all, as I have 100% respect for all the work you put into your guide) I hate it when these games get min-maxed into the hole and people, out of that, create "build your blocks like this or that and you'll never lose" guides. To me, it takes all the fun out of games... "The Perfect Block" ruined such wonderful games as Pharaoh/Cleopatra, Zeus/Poseidon, and The Settlers for me. Why? Because if you build it in that fashion you'll...well...never lose.

I still lose games, as I'm not perfect and I won't build "the perfect block" for all the tea in China (as it were). But it'll be purty as the city tanks!