TRANSPORT TYCOON SEMI-FAQ
A FAQ for those who need more, more, more information and strategies about Transport Tycoon.

Part 7: Cities

1. Local authority ratings
2. Local authority options
3. How do I increase a city's population?
4. Bulldozing a city's roads

Local authority ratings

The ratings used in Transport Tycoon are (from best to worst): Outstanding, Excellent, Very Good, Good, Fair, Mediocre, Poor, Very Poor, and Appalling.

When you first start building stations in a town, their rating of you is Very Good. The rating drops considerably if you bulldoze trees while building your services. Also raising/lowering large chunks of land and bulldozing town buildings will hurt your ratings. However, bulldozing town roads doesn't have any effect. Providing decent passenger service to a town will cause your ratings to rise steadily. For a quick ratings boost, plant a bunch of trees near the town. Note, however, that the maximum rating you can obtain by planting trees is Very Good.

What good are ratings? If your rating is Very Poor or Appalling, the town will not let you build any stations near it. You must have a Mediocre rating or better to bulldoze small houses. Good is required to destroy large buildings, and Excellent is required to bulldoze churches and sports arenas (football and soccer fields).

Local authority options

- Advertising Campaign - Provides a quick boost to the ratings of nearby stations. The larger the advertising campaign, the higher the ratings boost.

- Fund Road Construction - Causes the town to rebuild its roads for six months. This causes major disruption to road vehicles, and virtually disables any road services in that town. This will severely hurt the opponent's profits (and yours if you're not careful!), but since this option is so expensive, it might be better to hurt your opponents in other, more devious, ways.

- Build Statue of Company Owner - Builds a statue in the city center, causing ratings in your nearby stations to jump by 10%. Once built, the statue cannot be bulldozed and it occupies a space that could be used for commercial building. If you have money to burn, however, building statues in key cities might be worth it.

- Fund New Buildings - Causes the town to temporarily extend its business district (denoted by the sidewalks) and then construct a random number of offices and other businesses. This can dramatically increase a town's size, and, consequently, the number of passengers. This can take several months to accomplish, though. Funding new buildings has no effect on large cities.

- Buy Exclusive Transport Rights - All passengers and cargo will only be allowed to use your stations for one year. This will cause the opponents' stations in that town to shut down. However, this option is very expensive, and other more creative and inexpensive methods are available to hurt your opponents.

How do I increase a city's population?

Here are some guidelines for making cities grow and increasing passengers:

- In the temperate climate: Connect two cities with passenger and mail lines. This will spur their growth, and if efficient passenger transport is maintained, the cities will continue to grow for many years.

- In the arctic climate: Towns above the snow line require food before they will grow at all. Once a steady stream of food is received, the town will start to slowly grow. You can accelerate the growth the providing passenger and mail lines to the town. Note that the town will stop growing if the food supply is cut. Towns below the snow line behave like temperate towns.

- In the tropical climate: Towns in the desert require food and water in order to grow. Desert towns without water towers will not grow until one is built randomly or until you invest in one (expensive). Once a steady supply of water and food is maintained, the town will start to grow. It will grow faster if passengers are also transported. Towns not in the deserts grow quickly when you transport passengers and mail to/from them.

- In the Toyland "climate": I'm not sure, but I think the "towns" will grow when you transport passengers between them.

As a last resort you can spur a town's growth by Funding New Buildings (see section above). Usually several new office buildings will be built. This does take some time, however, just like real bureaucracies. And like government programs, this one is expensive!

Bulldozing a city's roads

You can only bulldoze a city-owned road if you are bulldozing a free end. You can't bulldoze a road section in between two or more other sections. Therefore, roads which form blocks or loops can't be bulldozed. Bridges may never be destroyed.

One trick to avoid future problems is to bulldoze all of a town's roads at the beginning of a game. Once the roads are bulldozed, rebuild them yourself, and now you'll own them! You may also want to layout the roads in a more efficient layout, bulldozing a few houses if necessary. Why do all this? Since you own the town's roads, you can bulldoze them at will to build stations and rails. Laying out the roads yourself will cause more buildings to be built in the future, generating more passengers and mail. Also note that bulldozing and building roads doesn't have any affect on the Local Authority ratings.

You could, however, just use the Scenario Editor to manipulate a city's road system. This is the only way to bulldoze bridges and roads that form a loop. Or, in the original TT version, you can remove city roads using a cheat. Build railroad tracks over the road you want to remove, and then bulldoze that square. TT will remove both the tracks and the road (in TTD only the tracks are removed). This cheat can also work with opponent's roads.

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