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Wargame: AirLand Battle Tutorial – How to Use Infantry

Posted in Guides, Wargame: AirLand Battle Guides with tags , , , on May 17, 2013 by troublmaker

If you read forums, blogs, and watch videos you will find that overwhelmingly people believe that infantry are in fact useless.

This is not the case.

The reason why people believe this is because of a match between Tigga and Fiva55 at the Wargame Cup.  Tigga was regarded as the favorite to win the whole thing with only a hand full of players even near his skill level.  Fiva55 seemingly came out of nowhere and blind sided him with a infantry heavy rush with some helos and some vehicles.

The infantry were absolutely crushing and at first people were angry and felt this was a weak tactic that is easily counterable.  However after Fiva55 used infantry to win the next 7 games and eventually the finals these infantry heavy approaches grew to dominate the game.

So when people say infantry suck in Wargame: AirLand Battle it is under the context that infantry were the most powerful unit in Wargame: European Escalation.

Basically in a Wargame a unit must trade for cost with its counter, but a large number of its counters should be able to take one of it out.

This just so happens to be how Wargame: AirLand Battle works.  Infantry will counter most things in close quarters, however if there is a far higher supply of the counter sitting around, infantry will get torn assunder.

So what use is infantry?

General purpose infantry are those that run around with 1-2 assault rifles and an RPG.  These bad boys when in close range can deal with nearly every single unit in the game at cost.

I should note, at cost.

Because these units are generalists they do not have that habit of getting insanely high trades.

When placed in buildings they gain a bonus to defensive stats that make them very tanky and hard to remove.  In close quarters they can trade at about a rate of 2:1.  This means if you have 4 motostrelki (60 points) they should be able to destroy an Abrams tank (135 points).

But the further you get away from this ratio the more massively destroyed these general purpose infantry become.

General purpose infantry have a few functions on the battlefield.

The first is frontline securing.  You cannot just rush your tanks forward so having these warriors run forward and take forests and towns becomes very valuable.  They are often in jungles wiping out anti-air and anti-tank weapons.

A second use is to act as a shield for weaker infantry types, more on this later.

A third use is for spotting various paths.  Sometimes they can be placed in buildings just to spot for a flanking manuever.  A 10 point general purpose infantry will easily pay itself off if you are covering the whole map in vision.

Flamethrower Infantry

Flamethrower infantry are sometimes referred to as anti-infantry infantry (AI Infantry).  These are used for destroying infantry.  They have a secondary function in that fire causes high morale damage so on weaker vehicles and tanks they can cause vehicle malfunctions and retreats.

Flamethrower infantry however are primarily used against infantry.  Because of this they die very easily to everything and should never be at the front line.

Flamethrower infantry can be used in towns.  Towns are collections of buildings usually at very important locations.  A flamethrower infantry would sit behind a general purpose infantry (where it is protected) and if the enemy engages with infantry the flamethrowers can be moved in to mow down your opponent.

This micro based approach means that flamethrowers are not about holding a position but about being mobile and being active on the map.

A second function for flamethrowers is to lead the way through the jungle.

Generally speaking people will have infantry in forests.  By having flamethrowers lead the way they can clear out the forests so that you can place your own anti-air and anti-tank weapons in those woods.

Flamethrowers have a limited range of what they can do, but what they do they do the best.

Anti-Tank Teams

Your anti-tank teams do the same thing as anti-tank vehicles.

The difference is that AT teams are very difficult to see in woods and can be used to ambush enemy tanks.

As well when placed in towns and buildings AT teams become more tanky and able to take hits, AT vehicles on the other hand will die much faster.

AT teams compared to most infantry soak up a lot of supply and sometimes it might not be worthwhile to resupply them.

Anti-tank teams are also well deployed in forward forest locations overlooking large open areas.

Once again AT teams have limited uses, but the places where they operate they do the best.

Anti-Air Teams

Anti-air teams are clearly the one infantry that isn’t the best.  Quite the opposite… they’re the worst.

Their missiles have a lower average range than others.

Their secondary weapons do not shoot up.

They cost a lot of supply to maintain.

They are, awful.

So what are they used for?

A typical anti-air team cost 10 points.  On larger maps this means you can spread out these cheap infantry to cover a large range against helicopters and jets.  They are not your main guys but since the are very stealthy they can get into places that might be riskier to move a Marder Roland or a Tunguska.

Overall you will only use these to fill in the blanks.

AA teams are more valuable for the next selection.

Vehicles Rock!

Very few great players will have a tonne of vehicles in their decks.  This is because infantry come in vehicles.

Vehicle selection is important.  AA and AT benefit very heavily from expensive vehicles with rockets or tank destroyers mounted on them.  This allows for cheap AT solutions.

Flamethrowers and general purpose infantry however do not value these expensive vehicles so much.  Most of these favor the 1-point vehicles that act as only carriers or lightly armed vehicles for a little bit of ground support.

Overwhelmingly a lot of your infantry choices will come down to what vehicles you will get if you choose that infantry.

At the end of the day the biggest strength of the infantry is the thing that drops them off.

Hope this guide was helpful and enjoy the game.

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Wargame: AirLand Battle Tutorial – Expanding with Commands

Posted in Guides, Wargame: AirLand Battle Guides with tags , , on May 10, 2013 by troublmaker

This tutorial focuses on the mathematics of macro.

Macro (in RTS games) refers to the overall vision and economic holdings of a player.  A macro oriented player is one who seeks to have more stuff.  Even if a person doesn’t want to focus on a macro strategy having a good idea of how the economics of the game works will most definitely help you make better decisions.

Necessary Terminology

If you are going to be a pro at the game it is important to use the right jargon and terminology.

Command: This refers to any vehicle in the game that when placed in a zone will earn points,  Command vehicles are marked with a star and are often the focal point of your defenses.

Zone: Also referred to as strategic points, zones are marked on the map with parallelograms and rhombuses.  These are marked with numbers, numbers and an arrow or an arrow.

Reinforcement Points: Also referred to as a reinforcement zone these are zones with arrows on them.  After selecting which units you wish to reinforce they will arrive from whichever one of these reinforcement points is closest.

Points: Also known as command points these are spent on army units you rally out.

Expanding: This refers to the process of purchasing a new command in order to secure a new zone.

Command Transfer: This occurs when you wish to move a command from one zone to another.

How Many Points Does a Zone Make?

This is easily one of the most asked questions by people wanting to learn how to min-max out their army.

So how many points does a zone make?

Zones have variable values.

Each zone has a number on it from 1-10.  Middle reinforcement points are awkwardly have a number 0.

Each of these numbers indicates how many points you will gain every 3 seconds.  So a 1 point base gets you 1 point every 3 seconds and a 10 point base gets you 10 points every 3 seconds.

These numbers may seem tiny but a 10-point base will gain 200 points in a minute and a 1 point base 20 points in a minute.  Over a 30 minute game this will add up fast.

In a team game you can split that number based on how many people are playing.

0 and 1-Point Bases

The hardest question when dealing with expansions is, are 0 and 1 point bases.

The answer to this is not all that obvious.  The best players in the world seemingly always take forward 0 and 1 point bases.  The question might be why.

Before going into that, why these bases are bad.

On most single player maps you will either have 2-4 5-point bases, 2 1-point bases, and a mixed number of 3-5 point bases.

So let’s look at the math of the 1-point base first.

Income is generated at a rate of 1 point per 3 seconds, or 0.33 points per second.

A command tank costs 250 points.

250 points ÷ 0.33 points/seconds = 757.57 seconds.

OR

12.6 Minutes.

With games averaging around 30 minutes long it means this command tank will only pay itself off at the front line if it is very quickly placed there, otherwise it becomes very overwhelmingly bad.

Even once it is there the number of points it will generate is going to be mediocre.  Assuming it takes 1 minute to get there and takes 12.6 minutes to break even and an average game is 30 minutes…

After 16.4 minutes it will generate 325 points.  This is of course under perfect circumstances in which you take it immediately.

325 points is evidently not a lot considering that this is over 16.4 minutes and roughly 80% of this will be functional income for the game.

0-point bases are of course much worse as they offer 0 income and will never effectively pay themselves off.

Command jeeps of course are not nearly as bad.  Costing at lowest 100 points and at most 140 points these make taking zones far less risky and far more worthwhile.

100 points (command jeep) ÷ 0.33 points/seconds =303 seconds

OR

Roughly 6 minutes.  Once you start getting out of purchasing high cost commands 1 point bases will not seem as bad.  The downside is that this is an opportunity cost.  Command jeeps can be randomly sniped by artillery and bombers.  If this happens suddenly you are down.  On the plus side it is so cheap to rally these out and a 1-point base can get you the income to replace this Command Jeep after only 6 minutes (or about even with the 250 point command tank).

5-Point Bases

Looking at 5-point bases the mathematics start to look far more favorable.

A 5 point base will generate 5 points every 3 seconds or roughly 1.66 points every second.

So let’s throw in that command tank:

250 points ÷ 1.66 points/seconds =150.6 seconds

OR

2.5 minutes.  A command tank pays off insanely fast.  Jeeps are even more ridiculous.

100 points ÷ 1.66 points/seconds = 60.4 seconds

OR

1 minute.

As a macro player this means that if you want the biggest bang for your buck you will always want to get these higher point bases.

The 1-point bases will not net you a profit until far into the game.  Under this guise it means it is far more valuable to take more big point bases and far less 1-point bases.

If you think to any team game you play a lot of players seem to favor taking a reinforcement point and another base.  Maybe next time you join in a team game you organize your team to take more big point bases and less reinforcement zones.

A 5-point bases pays itself off after maximum 2 minutes.  So assuming 1 minute to move to the zone and an average 30 minute game, that means you will have 27 minutes of profits which will amount to 2700 points over the game.  The difference is staggering.

The Opportunity Cost and Denial

So we have shown that 5-point bases are REALLY good and 1-point bases are REALLY bad.

So now the big question.  Why is it that the best players in the world take 1-point bases.

The answer is tactics.

A good player knows that 5-point bases are really valuable and 1-point bases suck.

The 1-point base represents a dual opportunity cost.  If you get that 1-point base it gives you a forward position to launch operations to get another 5-point base.  So essentially for this you will have two commands and two points.

So:

Total Income = (250 points [command tank] + 100 points [command jeep]) ÷ ((1 [1 point base]+5 [5-point base])÷3) points/seconds

OR

Total Income = 350 points  ÷ 2 points/seconds
Total income = 175 seconds

OR

3 minutes

When paired off like this the benefit of having a forward base seems obvious, it gives you an opportunity to grab a base that will pay itself off and your forward position very easily.

1-point bases do have some other advantages.  The most major is that you can quickly reinforce to the front and very quickly counter units your enemy is deploying in an attack.

A second less regarded value is that you are not using fuel to travel there so you are costing less supply overall.  Throughout a game this reduced supply could save up to 140 points presuming you have no FOB and presuming you resupply your vehicles at all.

A final value that is once again disregarded is that your opponent also has this opportunity cost.

In game’s theory everyone acts the same way when put in the exact same situation.  So given that almost all maps are mirrors everyone should act the same way given the situation.  This means everyone will always take that 1-point base realizing they can nab a 5-point base.

As a result this means it becomes advantageous for you to grab that 1-point base and deny them the 5-point base so that they do not have this income advantage over you.  On some maps this means being aggressive on their 5-point base while defending your own on another flank.

The overall cost of a 1-point base does not make sense in a macro game, however if this 1-point base can be used to leapfrog to a 5-point base it becomes very worthwhile.

It even makes sense after securing a 5-point base to command transfer from the 1-point base to the 5-point base for the much higher income, as if you need to rally in units close by it is just a matter of retreating that command back to the 1-point base.

Time Matters

The Wargame Cup 2012 taught us overwhelmingly that time matters.  How many times throughout the tournament has a player decided to rally in a command with 6 minutes left in the game, a time when there is absolutely no time to cash in on having extra commands.

As a rule in a game with a time limit if there is 10-minutes left in the game cut yourself off from purchasing another command.  Every single time you are purchasing a command look at the clock, if it is under 10 minutes, don’t buy it.

If you have tones of time left in the game a command will make sense, if you have little time, it won’t make sense.

Also remember that your macro ties into your over-arcing strategy.

If you intend to be aggressive getting a command will hinder your aggression.

If you intend to be heavily defensive against an expected push (let’s say you scout a tank build up), then suddenly a command can hinder your defenses.

Playing macro isn’t simply about taking expansions and getting a lot of units, although that is the core of it.  Playing macro also involves making smart decisions and knowing when to expand based on your existing information.  Time is one such bit of information that will help you.

If your opponent has taken a zone and you want to do the same, it is wise to take a new zone yourself.  If you are prevented from doing so it also makes sense to attack.

Making simple money decisions can be the big decider on whether you win or lose.  When you want to do some gimmicky flanking attack or a cheesie push you will need to worry about your income and your opponent’s.

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Wargame: AirLand Battle Tutorial – Deck Building

Posted in Guides, Wargame: AirLand Battle Guides with tags , , on May 4, 2013 by troublmaker

There are two bonuses available in deck building.

The first bonus is to limit by nation.  Limiting by nation will grant you extra points and special prototype units (such as the T80U for Soviet).

The second is to limit to a type of unit such as airborne, mechanized etc.  This limits the types of units you can use and will also grant you extra deck space.

Activation points are what decide how many units you can get.  In each category as you are more points additional units will cost more points.  This is to deter all in decks and promote combined arms approaches.

This guide will be split up in two different ways, first required types of units and second customized categories.

Command Armor

In Wargame: ALB there are three different types of commands.

The first is the command jeep.  This vehicle has no armor, is insanely cheap and moves very quickly.  This selection has a few advantages, the most important is its ability to retreat and advance very quickly.

Command jeeps also cost very little.  It means by deploying a command jeep you will have more points for units.  The first command you will get on the map is whichever is your lowest so a 100 point command will give you an extra 100-150 points at the beginning of a match.

The obvious downside (and why you might not even want them) is that they are very easy to kill and can be killed by one bomb, one rocket, or a few volleys of anti-air.

The second type of command is the command armor.  Most command armors come with an anti-infantry weapon (although you usually turn it off) and have medium armor.  This allows them to take several hits.

These are also the most common command as it removes the risk of randomly losing them to artillery fire.

The final type is the command tank.  Command tanks will generally only allow for one.  These are heavily armored and very hard to kill.  On top of that they actually have a very powerful main gun that can be used defensively in engagements.

A good deck needs to have at least two commands.  it should be noted that you should take between 3-5 zones on a given map.

Supply Trucks

The FOB (Forward Operating Base) is a giant cache of supply.  It is only useful to get if you are in a match in which you will use all of that supply.

If you intend to defend air with a lot of air an FOB will become useful.

If you intend to defend tanks with a lot of anti-tank rockets, an FOB will become useful.

If you intend to have an artillery unit, an FOB will become useful.

However if you do not want any of that stuff in a large mass you will not need an FOB.

If you do get an FOB it becomes important to get supply trucks that move fast so they can quickly move resources to the front of the battlefield.

If you do not want an FOB slower trucks are acceptable, however you will want trucks that carry more resources.

As well if you are not getting an FOB you should have a second supply truck in your deck, supply trucks with armaments on them do well because they can be used as weapons in pushes once they run out of supply.

Having no FOB however having enough supply becomes important.  Make sure to look at the stats and denote supply differences.

Recon

Every single flank should have at least one recon.  Additional recons can be used for hunting down infantry.

You will need a minimum of two recon but often a good deck will have three.

The first recon should have Exceptional Optics.  Optics is the stat that states how well they see.  You will want a strong exception optics recon on your main attacking flank so spot units you can pick off to weaken the opponents defense.

The second type of recon you should get is a cheap spammable one.  Cheap spammable recons should be deployed across the map to spot various flanks while remaining hidden.

A third recon that is optionable is an anti-infantry or anti-tank recon to use to hunt down vehicles and infantry while being mostly hidden in large jungles.  These are often very expensive and are entirely dependent on value on the map.

Anti-Air

Anti-air obnoxiously represent three different categories of the game.  Overall you should have three anti-air units.  Mixing up various types will become very valuable.

You will want at least one type of rocket based vehicle.  Rockets cause splash damage to air (AoE) meaning they will deal insanely high damage to clusters of air forces.

Some rocket based vehicles carry only rockets.  These often have much higher ranges and much higher attack speeds.  They however can only be used against air.  These units should be accompanied by recon to spot the incoming aircraft, otherwise they die.

Hybrids will include an anti-air gun that will allow for autocannon damage as well as the rocket.  These have lower ranges and can be used against infantry as well as anti-air.

A second category are the anti-air helicopter.  The AA helicopter is often also an anti-tank helicopter.  This means you have a hybrid that can deal with high armor counts and high air counts.  The NATO unit the ADATS also works like this however it is ground.

The AA helicopter is also mobile which means that you can move them to vulnerable spots or use them more effectively while pushing forward.

The downside is they are very vulnerable to anti-aircraft fire and are most often a target for jets.  They can go into ground mode to mitigate anti-air weapons however.  This means the AA helicopter is very heavy on micro and requires very fast response timing.

A third category of AA are the infantry AA.  Infantry AA have a unique feature (of AA) of becoming very tanky when placed in towns.  On top of this they become very effective in forests.  As another advantage they are very cheap.  This means you can deploy a lot of these across a very large area.

On the downside the infantry AA is largely immobile meaning once placed they will rarely move anywhere, not in any reasonable amount of time anyway.  With 1 point vehicles being in the game these units are insanely cheap and easy to deploy for some extra AA.

AA infantry generally have longer load times and shorter ranges, something that makes them not the most powerful unit vs jet planes.

You will want three of these.  Which you choose will depend on your deck, if you have enough anti-tank more rocket based AA will do very well.

I should also note there are some tanks with limited anti-air capacities, do not rely on these as one of your three.

Tanks

Tanks take a lot of damage and can dish it back out.  These are the core of the army and are used in pushing.  These can also be used for wiping out infantry and vehicles.  Tanks also end up being one of the most complicated groupings in the game because of the variety.

There should be at least one heavily armored tank.  These are generally going to be more expensive than most.  As a tactic these units lead the charge and as the approach comes they pull back.  The goal is to make them soak opening blows from the enemy while your other units can get into position.

A second choice is a long range unit.  These units will do a lot of damage and will generally have less armor.  These tanks can also be used (with recon) to pick off enemy units and weaker enemy defences.

A third type of tank to get is a cheaper bulky tank.  Rocket based defenses are very good against single heavy tanks.  However the more targets they have to hit the more rockets that get wasted.  In a push you need some fluff to decrease the chances of rockets wiping out your army.

As well cheaper tanks can be deployed around a lot of flanks in order to help clean up infantry and act as defensive fluff against the target.

Infantry + Vehicle

Each infantry comes in a vehicle.  The choice of vehicle is just as important as the kind of vehicle.

If you only want the infantry and have a very specific purpose for it you can select a 1-point vehicle to simply drop off infantry.  If you want your infantry to be used for taking over towns and forests this will be a preferred option.

However anti-tank and anti-air units are often deployed away from the front and so having some vehicles up front can be helpful.

If you are lacking in anti-tank options you can spam out anti-tank vehicles to fulfill that particular miss.

There are only two infantry that are required, an anti-infantry and an all-around infantry.

The anti-infantry infantry generally has a flamethrower (napalm) and are responsible for cleaning up enemy infantry in forests and towns.  These are best paired off with all purpose infantry.

All purpose infantry can destroy tanks and vehicles very easily in close quarters.  All infantry are harder to detect and become very tanky when in towns.  Combined with anti-infantry infantry they can take any forest location or any town.

After this you can mix in more of any type of infantry depending on what you are missing.  Generally these units will be placed in towns and in forests to avoid detection and sneak up on enemies.  The downside is other than when they are in towns they are easy to mow down.

Artillery

Not covered in the video are artillery.

Artillery have a few features.  The first is a difference between four main weapons.

One main type of artillery drop a cluster of shells in an area and do great damage against infantry and vehicles but generally do not do much damage to tanks.

A second type of the rocket based.  These are very inaccurate and hit a very wide area.  However if they actually hit they can do massive damage to all units.  On the downside these cost a lot of supply.

A third are mortar type.  These are very short range artillery units but deal a lot of damage and are very cheap on supply.

A final type of napalm.  Napalm will burn a section and cause damage over time to any unit in this area.  This has many uses.  One of the big uses is controlling where the enemy has forces

A secondary feature of most artillery is smoke.  Smoke can be used when attacking to obscure vision and allow for your lesser ranged units to get into position.

Artillery is very important when playing defensively to chip away at the enemy’s army but can also be used when attacking to cause morale damage, smoke an area to obscure and to burn an area to make the enemy’s units move into the open.

Artillery however eat up more supply than others so having more than one artillery unit in your deck is not recommended.

If you have artillery however you need to have enough supply trucks and an FOB to keep this thing going.

Helicopters

Choppers are the big end game unit.  Once you can eliminate most or all of your opponent’s AA you can rally out a lot of helicopters to finish off the enemy’s army.

This means your helicopter choices should be very expensive powerful units.

However you can also get the AA/AT helo as suggested earlier.

As another option you can get cheap helicopters for some early game skirmishing.  One odd use is to force your opponent to send in some jets while you have AA staged in the area.

Overall there is a strong preferences towards very expensive potent helicopters towards the end game.  However less than 5% of games will ever reach end game.

Jet Fighters

Jet fighters come in two useful categories, bombers and interceptors.

Very potent interceptors are very good at just destroying stuff.

However just one powerful interceptor will lose to multiple.  It becomes important when winning air battles to have some bulk to your air army.  This way when engaging you are likely to trade cheap jets instead of expensive ones.

Bombers are used for destroying infantry and generally do not fair very well against other jets.  You need these to wipe out AA.  They are often very expensive and require precise micro to work well.

Bombers are risky for newer players and are entirely used as skirmishers.

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Wargame: AirLand Battle Tactics – The Reinforcement Block

Posted in Guides, Wargame: AirLand Battle Guides with tags , , , on April 27, 2013 by troublmaker

Wargame: AirLand Battle is a game of positioning and tactics.  One minor miss-step by an opponent can be disasterous for the army.

In this series I will be showing some basic Wargame tactics that you can use for great results.

The first of these is called The Reinforcement Block.

After spending resources on a units they must travel to said location.  The first point they emerge from is a reinforcement zone.  These reinforcement zones are different from normal zones distinguishable by a white arrow.

Units require vision in order to fire on a unit.  Other than this you can choose to “Fire Position” to blindly target an area.

Each unit that gets ambushed as they are leaving the reinforcement area will in the least get second hit.  If the unit attacking is powerful enough it can just destroy units as they are being made.

So the strategic advantage is to move some units where the units spawn from (these white arrows).

The key unit for this is the infantry unit.  Placing the infantry unit here will mean the infantry with its super high damage will do very well.

For more long term effects you should bring many infantry, some anti-air, some anti-tank and maybe even a tank.

Reinforcement points become huge contentuous fighting zones because of how easy it is to get a lot of bang out of your buck with this tactic.

Better players are going to have units staged at their reinforcement point to prevent this from happening.  This isn’t to say you shouldn’t go, but merely that you will have to bring a larger army to secure this very key location and block reinforcements.

As a player who has no learned one of the key tactics Wargame: ALB has to offer you need to dedicated some resources every game to make sure people are not also doing this to you.

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How to Build a Transit System in Cities in Motion 2

Posted in Guides with tags , on April 9, 2013 by troublmaker

No doubt one of the worst parts about Cities in Motion 2 is just how helpless you feel.

This is not a new feeling for simulators.  Almost every simulator to ever exist has been so complicated that it has made us scream in pain and suffering.

In this tutorial/guide I hope to show how you build a profitable transit system.

Note this tutorial comes with a video compliment.  The video will not cover everything in this but will merely show the mechanics of how it all works.

Section 1: Metro Stations

Metro routes are the most profitable of all routes.  Unfortunately they end up being the most expensive ones to start up.

As a strategy it can be wise to start with a metro route, but only one.

In the current build there is no ability to build underground metro stations.  So fir this every single metro will have to be the sky train.

Make a road outside of the edge of your city to an area.  First plop down a road into a open area on the edge of your city.  Plop down a metro depot   Delete the road you just made.

By hitting the Page Up key you can make the railroads go up and Page Down you make them go down.  We’re building a sky train so Page Up all the way.

Once you click on a path you can make it curve.  Continue clicking and you can zigzag your train track around to cover giant sections of the city.

Metro routes should cover giant sections of your city, you are expected to take out a $200,000 loan to afford this.

This might seem like a lot and might seem like it will take a long time to pay back but honestly…. that’s not your concern.  Move on to section 6 on money concerns.

Metro routes have to loop so you might as well loop it around the most populated areas of your city.

The giant metro route will cover the majority of the transit in your entire city.  Every other route should feed into your metro route attempting to bring people from areas the metro doesn’t touch to the metro station.

Also note there should be some overlap for people to be able to move between the various stations.

Section 2: The Tram

The second most profitable route is going to be your tram stations.

I should note that trams can be built on railroad tracks however you should avoid this as it will just massively slow down your metro station.

If you decide not to start off with a metro route you should start off with a tram depot.  It is highly profitable and after you have a lot of tram lines you can connect them all with a metro.

Trams cannot reach as large an area as trains or water boats but can cover a large area.

On top of this trams move very fast, can carry a lot of people.  Trams are best used in mid-range routes.

Trams are far cheaper than trains.  However they do require tram tracks which will require you to plop them on roads.

As a general tip plop down your tram depot first and build tram stops second.  Make sure to craft out your tram stations in whatever pattern you use.  The less turns you make the faster the route will be.  You should also note that having one tram/trolley/bus stop (second row) at the edge of your tram network can be helpful later.

Make sure that all of your tram stops are pointing in the proper direction.  Right side of the street is traveling on the right side of the road (or forward) and left side of the street is traveling the opposite way.  One way streets can also fool you up, so putting down stations first can make it so you don’t run into bad one way street.

Once you have the tram route plotted out what stops it’s time to connect them with tram lines.  Tram lines can be placed in two different spots, middle of the road and edge of the road.

Your stops will turn from a dark shade of red to a light shade of red when they are connected.

Between each street is an intersection.  By clicking on two different lengths of tram line you will connect the middle.  If you click on the last piece of tram line you can automatically connect it with the next.

Each tram depot can support as many as four tram lines.  Each tram depot should have at least two tram lines in the upward of three.

This will cut down on maintenance costs and connect 2-3 routes easily.

Section 3: The Bus

Buses are by far the least profitable routes and are the ones you would want to use the least.  Toiled with high maintenance costs and low seat totals these are a way of transportation you will want to avoid.

They are however the cheapest to put down and make great for connecting any awkward parts of your city.  They also require no special tracks which makes them very easy to use.

Bus routes are most profitable in short routes but are more often used for very long routes.

Whenever there is a mission asking you to connect multiple areas buses are going to be your best option.

As an alternative to the metro/tram connection you can also use bus routes to grab the remainder of people.  With their low costs they can very capably transport people from low populated neighborhoods.

Section 4: The Trolley

You might look at the trolley and think of it as a bus that requires wires to get around.  For the most part you would be correct.  Trolleys however have slightly lower maintenance costs and ever so slightly higher higher capacity limits.  They travel roughly the same and because of the wires are slightly higher to plop down.

Another thing is that buses and trolleys use the same stops, meaning they really look similar.

Trolleys are the preferred method of transportation for tourists.  Yes it’s odd that tourists actually live in your city and represent an actual part of your population… but that’s in the game design.

Choosing to use trolleys in short routes over buses will give you more tourist approval without undermining all other ratings.

Trolleys like buses are mostly useless.  Unlike buses that can cover a lot of awkawrd areas trolleys end up being used for very small neighborhoods or can be double deployed on top of regular routes to get that tourist approval rating up.

If you choose to go the train/bus path you can plop down a trolley network in place of a bus network and because of their inter-changeability you can have buses connect with them directly.

Section 5: Water Buses

This final form of transportation allows for paths around the waterways of the cities.  Water buses appeal to tourists but will also be useful in transporting people across short route water areas.

Every single city should have at least one water bus route.  It will alleviate road traffic and will cover every single part of your city along the river.

Water buses can only be deployed at a specific angle along the coast.  To adjust the angle of your water bus stops right click.

Water bus AI requires water bus waypoints.  These are points you can select on the route that will allow you to set the path of the vehicle, just like the stops.

For whatever reason if you don’t do this water buses cannot connect to their stops.

Water buses can be deployed in one of two ways, one giant route or multiple small connecting routes.  Smaller connecting routes will give you the best bang for your buck, however will require the extra cost of extra depots.

Section 6: Loans

Every single traffic system in the world is built off of massive loans.  This game is designed around this concept.

In most games taking out loans is frowned upon and is heavily penalized, in this one it is not.  Loans can never be repaid in full.. and even if you could you wouldn’t want to anyway.

Loans will be your primary form of income for development.  It might seem odd and might seem risky, but trust me, it’s not.  Loans are investment capital.

The only thing to note is that… you should spend all of the money you take as a loan.

A metro will cost around $200,000…. but you will get 9x the payments in profit.  Trams routes will cost around $14,000 and will give roughly 5x in profits.

There is no point in waiting for profits to build up, take out another loan and continue to build more infrastructure.

With each loan you take your interest rates will increase.  As you pay off your loans the interest rates will decrease.  If you have taken out “too many loans” your interest rate will show as dark red and you will disallowed from taking new loans.

This can be countered by making money.  If you can show the bank collateral in the form of high profits you can take out more loans.

Section 7: Managing Lines

In Cities in Motion two you had direct control over what route had how many vehicles.  In Cities in Motion 2 you have control over how many vehicles each route will have per X amount of time.

The UI will indicate to you when you do not have enough of a vehicle.  Merely click on the announcement and add a vehicle.  This announcement will not indicate demand, it merely means that your set organized routes do not have enough vehicles to maintain the specific route times.

As you go through the world map you may notice that some stops are red and some vehicles are over full.

To deal with this you need to adjust deployment times.

Open up the line you need more vehicles for and go to the Schedule.  At the schedule change the intervals of vehicles leaving.  Note that there are multiple time frames that you will need to adjust time for.  These are not many travelers during night time or weekends.  There are more travelers during the morning and late rushes than any other time.

Make sure to adjust these all appropriately.  By lowering the intervals you will increase the number of vehicles on that run.

This in turn will however require you to increase the number of vehicles in the depot.

Section 8: Expanding the City

In order to expand the cities population you simply build roads to open areas, people will fill, those areas automatically.

To make it fill up faster make sure to add transit to these areas.

Another use of expanding your city is when you have trams or trains along the outskirts of your city.  By expanding the area you can create people to take existing infrastructure.

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