3 ms·

As someone who is new to the genre, what is the goal of these games? How can you 'win'?

dangerbird2 5y ago
By default, OpenTTD and many similar games have a competition mode, where the goal is to run competing players (either AI or human) out of business a la Monopoly. In practice, it's a sim game at it's core, so the process of building a functional transportation system is a goal in itself.
KronisLV 5y ago
Some of those have end dates, others have technology research goals, in most you need to supply cities with a certain amount of resources that they need to grow. Almost all of them involve managing a transport enterprise that earns money by transporting goods of various sorts and ensuring that supply chains are uninterrupted (raw materials to factories, goods to the cities, usually with plenty of steps along the way). In that regard, they can be reasonably forgiving, as long as this simulated company of yours doesn't go bankrupt, and you can usually pause them and play at your own pace. To me, a lot of the fun is in planning out these supply chains and seeing how i could use the available types of vehicles in a somewhat efficient manner as well as building the roads and infrastructure that's necessary for that, though other players might enjoy an approach that focuses more on number crunching, while others might just want to make a total mess of things. I'd definitely draw some parallels with games like Factorio.
dvh 5y ago
You win when you make circular tracks and they work.
corobo 5y ago
You win when you've had a constant stream of dopamine for so long that when you snap out of it, it's 4am... again.
jodrellblank 5y ago
OpenTTD is like playing with a physical trainset, you don't win you just play. That said it does offer some metrics you can compare performance on, such as: - Company performance rating https://wiki.openttd.org/en/Manual/Detailed%20Performance%20Rating https://wiki.openttd.org/en/Manual/Detailed%20Performance%20... - income and profit and cargo delivery: https://i.redd.it/am22ad5jkqv31.png https://i.redd.it/am22ad5jkqv31.png - company finances and value: https://bugs.openttd.org/task/104/getfile/172/finances_screenshot.png https://bugs.openttd.org/task/104/getfile/172/finances_scree... It typically runs through the 1900s and unlocks more vehicles later in the game, by the 2000s the game gets very easy to make money and the map is full and there are no more vehicles, so servers tend to have an arbitrary cutoff endgame then and you can compete "most valuable company" by the end. There are plugins which add specific goals, such as CityBuilder where you take a small city for yourself and have to supply it with whatever it needs to help it grow, and the first person to cross a certain city size wins and ends the game. Then there are customised versions which make the vehicles more expensive, the routes less profitable, resource production is limited, and it's a lot more challenging to make a sustainable company at all. "Master Hellish" has some good OpenTTD introductory videos on YouTube: e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMXFMjZu8j8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMXFMjZu8j8

By default, OpenTTD and many similar games have a competition mode, where the goal is to run competing players (either AI or human) out of business a la Monopoly. In practice, it's a sim game at it's core, so the process of building a functional transportation system is a goal in itself.

KronisLV 5y ago

Some of those have end dates, others have technology research goals, in most you need to supply cities with a certain amount of resources that they need to grow. Almost all of them involve managing a transport enterprise that earns money by transporting goods of various sorts and ensuring that supply chains are uninterrupted (raw materials to factories, goods to the cities, usually with plenty of steps along the way). In that regard, they can be reasonably forgiving, as long as this simulated company of yours doesn't go bankrupt, and you can usually pause them and play at your own pace. To me, a lot of the fun is in planning out these supply chains and seeing how i could use the available types of vehicles in a somewhat efficient manner as well as building the roads and infrastructure that's necessary for that, though other players might enjoy an approach that focuses more on number crunching, while others might just want to make a total mess of things. I'd definitely draw some parallels with games like Factorio.

dvh 5y ago

You win when you make circular tracks and they work.

corobo 5y ago

You win when you've had a constant stream of dopamine for so long that when you snap out of it, it's 4am... again.

jodrellblank 5y ago

OpenTTD is like playing with a physical trainset, you don't win you just play. That said it does offer some metrics you can compare performance on, such as: - Company performance rating https://wiki.openttd.org/en/Manual/Detailed%20Performance%20Rating https://wiki.openttd.org/en/Manual/Detailed%20Performance%20... - income and profit and cargo delivery: https://i.redd.it/am22ad5jkqv31.png https://i.redd.it/am22ad5jkqv31.png - company finances and value: https://bugs.openttd.org/task/104/getfile/172/finances_screenshot.png https://bugs.openttd.org/task/104/getfile/172/finances_scree... It typically runs through the 1900s and unlocks more vehicles later in the game, by the 2000s the game gets very easy to make money and the map is full and there are no more vehicles, so servers tend to have an arbitrary cutoff endgame then and you can compete "most valuable company" by the end. There are plugins which add specific goals, such as CityBuilder where you take a small city for yourself and have to supply it with whatever it needs to help it grow, and the first person to cross a certain city size wins and ends the game. Then there are customised versions which make the vehicles more expensive, the routes less profitable, resource production is limited, and it's a lot more challenging to make a sustainable company at all. "Master Hellish" has some good OpenTTD introductory videos on YouTube: e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMXFMjZu8j8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMXFMjZu8j8