FAQ
FAQ
Short answers about town growth, money, vehicles, and achievements. Each answer points at the longer guide when the fix has several steps. This site does not invent formulas the game has not stated.
FAQ
Growth, money, and rules
Two confirmed brakes. Passengers who only travel inside the town, between home, work, and shopping, produce less experience than passengers from another town or farther away. And low city ratings reduce how much experience counts. Town authority follows the lowest of reputation, satisfaction, delivery, traffic, noise, and pollution. Open the layers and repair the worst one. The city guide is the long version.
Because late cargo still pays the full income and still hurts the rating. Food is time-critical. Bulk goods such as stone have a much higher tolerance. A fast aircraft is often the wrong purchase for stone. A ship can be the economical choice. Check the cargo satisfaction layer for the stops that miss the window. More detail is in the cargo guide.
Rank is measured by how much you grow the world’s population, from junior up to Tycoon. Cash lets you build the lines that cause that growth. Cash alone does not promote you. Headquarters expansions, landmarks, prospecting, and marketing arrive as rank rises, so a rich company with stalled towns also delays those tools.
They are generally unavailable when non-cosmetic mods are installed or when gameplay settings leave the standard values. Switching off all costs, freezing cities, or starting at Tycoon rank are sandbox or custom options. Use them on a save you do not need for the 41 achievements. The list itself is in the main menu and the company progress window, and it is written out on the achievements page.
Only if you accept the noise. Residential areas mind noise. A short walk to a loud station fights satisfaction’s need for convenience against the noise rating. An edge hub plus buses or trams is quieter, adds travel time, and adds maintenance. Choose the option that repairs whichever rating is currently lower. Station layout is covered in the railway guide.
No. Pollution from industries, infrastructure, and vehicles is recorded across the whole municipal area, which includes the land around the city. You cannot wall the score off by stepping past the last house. Build less infrastructure and run it harder. That is the developers’ own efficiency advice.
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Hidden details that are easy to miss
Experience is not “any trip”
Outside passengers are worth more than local ones. Complex goods, the ones that pass through more industries, are worth more growth than simple goods delivered in bulk. A full local bus and a mountain of stone can both look successful and still level a town slowly.
The headquarters picks a favorite
Its growth bonus goes to the nearest city, and later expansions add more bonuses as rank rises. Dropping it on a scenic ridge can make a hamlet you never supply the “nearest” city. Move the decision to the start, when relocation is still cheap.
Tools are limited on purpose
Prospecting, marketing, landmarks, and similar measures are often limited in number or come with side effects. An airship marks a running marketing campaign. Spending the tool on an unconnected town wastes a charge you may not get back.
More questions, still concrete
These are the follow-ups that do not fit a single button in the list above.
How many growth levels are there?
Eighteen, from small hamlets of fewer than 100 people through villages and onward to metropolises. More than 400 town buildings reflect that growth. The names of all 18 steps are not repeated here, because guessing the labels would not help you play. Watch the town window for the level you are on, and keep supplying people and goods while the lowest rating stays identifiable.
Do citizens have schedules I should follow?
Each citizen has a home, a job, and places to go. You can follow individuals, and the manual points you at resident details and the passenger satisfaction layer for waiting and travel. The public materials used for this site do not publish a clock of rush hours. Do not plan a timetable around an invented peak. Plan around the wait and the trip length the layer already shows. A day-night cycle and dynamic weather change how the map looks. Timekeeper and Weatherman are the achievements for changing the time of day and the weather yourself.
Can I ignore the economy and still build?
Yes. All costs can be turned off. Sandbox goes further: time can move forward and backward, you can found cities, place industries, freeze growth, set cargo demands, change a city’s size, adjust the mix of building levels, and reweight the city needs. You can also start already at Tycoon with bonuses and landmarks available. Those are creative tools. They are a poor way to learn profit, and non-standard settings generally switch achievements off.
What should I do when the map changes under me?
Expect it. New vehicle types, town growth, and dynamic industries change the right answer. The useful habit is a revision pass, not a larger station in the same bad place. The route page gives the three passes: shorten what is slow without entering housing, fix fleet size against leftover cargo, then change mode if the deadline and the rating disagree. The planning page is where to look before the next corridor, so the revision has room.
Which mistakes are worth unlearning first?
Clearing land for a screenshot and then wondering why reputation fell. Running only intra-city passengers. Buying speed for stone. Adding vehicles that wait. Hiding a factory just beyond the houses and calling the town clean. Accepting ten subsidy contracts you have not routed. Turning custom rules on and hunting achievements. None of these require a secret menu. They require reading the rating that just moved.
If your question is about a specific town on your map, this FAQ cannot see the save. Describe the lowest rating and the cargo in the question form if you want a reader note stored. It will not reach the developers, and it will not alter the game.