Transport Fever

Well-known game principle

Our job is to build stations and tracks , buy trains and move people. For this we use the currently available means of transport. While we started with a simple horse-drawn carriage in local public transport in 1850, many years later a Volvo bus hums along urban asphalt roads.

In order for cities to grow, we not only have to ensure passenger transport: we also need goods, tools and food for the trading areas as well as building materials, machines and fuel for industry. The former improves shopping opportunities, the latter creates new jobs.

We have these commodities manufactured in factories that in turn need raw materials. We combine 18 different goods in multi-part transport chains. Example: Iron and coal are processed into steel, the resulting waste product slag is further processed into building material. The steel is turned into machines (for industry) and tools (for trade) in another factory.

Often, end products can be made from two different raw materials, for example plastic can be made either from grain or from oil. If we still deliver both, production increases accordingly. By the way, we are not allowed to build companies ourselves, they are automatically placed when the cards are randomly generated.

Transport by FlieWaTüüt

Goods are transported by road (truck terminals), rail (freight yards) and, more recently, also by water. The ports and the associated ships (both for freight and passengers) are an asset and not only ensure large transport capacities, but also a significant increase in the model building wonderland atmosphere . The same goes for the new airports. Taking off and landing Boeings are a real eye-catcher, even if the Jumbos unfortunately only transport passengers.

The game hasn't changed in principle, but while the options in Train Fever were quickly exhausted, in Transport Fever it is only just beginning. Satisfying a single city one hundred percent and balancing all its needs can take dozens of hours . Especially when we manually plan each freight line (for example, by assigning fixed freight to the vehicles instead of having them loaded automatically). Then a whole universe of tinkering and strategy opens up, in which we can test our planning skills to excess.

Two is better than zero ...

... thought Urban Games built two campaigns into Transport Fever as a big innovation compared to its predecessor. In the European campaign, for example, we're digging the Gotthard tunnel in Switzerland, while we're helping Nikola Tesla with the introduction of electricity or smuggling alcohol on the American continent. The exceptionally successful framework activities skilfully loosen up what is actually always the same transport principle.

There are always cool side tasks between the main missions: While we help dig out the Panama Canal, for example, we can drain swamps so that swarms of mosquitoes don't torment our workers - which otherwise results in higher costs. Or we should protect the population of rare gold frogs for an animal rights activist by avoiding or afforesting certain areas.

Another new element are the decisions that we are allowed to make as part of the campaigns. Do we take the scalps of the Indians who stand in the way of the railroad according to the established American tradition and break their resistance? Or do we bribe them - according to another American tradition - with firewater ? Both have consequences that we must consider.

In addition, the campaign also helps to consolidate the basics of the game learned in the tutorial, because the tasks within each of the seven missions (the game time per campaign is seven to ten hours) only slowly become more complex. The solo missions are a real asset to the game and will make Transport Fever accessible to those planners who can't do that much with a free sandbox. However, in addition to the many good innovations, there are also a few flaws in the game that also plagued the predecessor.

Operating annoyance

Why the hell can't we right-click the demolition tool? Why does the construction menu close when we have set up a truck terminal? Maybe you want to build a second one? And why do the menu windows keep pushing themselves out of the picture so that we have to laboriously adjust them?

The fiddly and confusing menus still take getting used to. It takes a while to find the freight allocation for vehicles (only available when purchasing!), And the replacement of vehicles only works automatically if we set it up for the entire line. We then have to do the associated click terror for all lines individually - once we have over thirty freight lines, activating a new truck is no longer a pure reason to be happy.

If we upgrade a train station or port, the cargo or passengers stored there will disappear . While the actual upgrade is very easy via a context menu, we are also constantly presented with the message "Collision during terrain adjustment" when the platforms are extended. We read this personal hate report next to "The slope is too big" in every second building project, which makes a new building or some kind of replacement necessary. In addition, if a structure is demolished, the change in the terrain remains.

That may be realistic, but not nice. At least we are allowed to fill the holes in the dirt with a Terraform tool for a fee. In addition, we can now spruce up the area with trees, stones, lamp posts and noise barriers. With the latter, however, the operation is currently very bad because the wall parts do not click into place.

The important construction of tracks and roads goes well by hand. But if we try to build bridges over water or abysses, we are often presented with the error messages already mentioned. Managing train lines with signals works really well when we set up our rail system perfectly. But as soon as we let two trains run automatically on two separate tracks and allow track changes via switches, the trouble starts: For some reason, trains in stations always want to use the first track - regardless of whether there is a second or a third. The general vehicle behavior is also in need of improvement. Carts like to block each other, especially at intersections, because there are no traffic lights.

Better performance

Graphically, not much has changed compared to its predecessor. We observe more details in the houses; the 165 vehicles are really well done. Many of them are already known from Train Fever, but ships and planes are new and look very good as usual.

The game is extremely stable and only crashed twice in around 50 hours of testing. The performance, especially on large maps, has been improved, but is not yet perfect: Transport Fever does not run smoothly at the fastest game speed, especially when there are many vehicles on the move, even on powerful computers. But it's still playable, and that's an important improvement. Nevertheless, we recommend players with weak computers to be content with small or medium-sized cards.

As a transport simulation, Transport Fever has developed much further in breadth (vehicles) and in depth (supply chains, needs and partially improved management) compared to its predecessor. With that, the game has taken a significant step forward. If the guys from Urban Games stay on the ball, improve the operation, continue to tweak the scope of the transport chains and maybe even introduce competing companies, then the game is well on the way to becoming the successor to the good old transport tycoon that fans already believe long wish.

Transport Fever is the next part of a series of economic strategies developed by a small Swiss studio Urban Games . In the game, we take over the management of a transport company that deals with the transport of goods and passengers. The game takes place on maps of various sizes, usually containing from a few to a dozen cities, and numerous mines, farms and processing plants. We use trucks, buses, ships, planes and - the most important in the game - trains to create profitable connections and ensure smooth communication. In Transport Fever, there are 20 types of cargo, transported according to the production tree principle - we deliver the raw materials to the appropriate factories, and these start the production of goods, which we then have to pick up and deliver to stores in cities. If this is not done, the factory loading yard becomes full and production stops, rendering the line transporting the raw material completely useless. We provide passenger transport both between cities and within the same town - from residential districts to commercial, industrial or railway stations, etc.

In clouds of steam

In Transport Fever, we have a short tutorial, sandbox mode and a large campaign at our disposal. Its presence is certainly a great advantage of the game, because in times of widespread domination of sandboxes, a good set of missions is a rare rarity. There is no form of multiplayer game for that.

The campaign takes us on a journey back in time to important events in the history of transport in the USA and Europe. So we can take on such challenges as, for example, excavating the St. Gotthard under the Swiss Alps, or organizing the construction of the Panama Canal. In total, 14 extensive missions are waiting to be played, which gives a total of over 40 hours of gameplay. However, I have the impression that the campaign tasks are a bit too detailed. Most of them consist in transporting a certain amount of goods from one place to another, and there are few typically economic challenges encouraging the proper development of the company.

In the free play mode, we decide ourselves about the parameters of the map and the time period in which we will act. The game covers the period from the mid-nineteenth century to modern times, and with the passage of time, the architecture of the cities and the pool of available vehicles change. Thanks to this, new possibilities of modernizing the rolling stock appear constantly. Unfortunately, Transport Fever was not equipped with the option of competing with artificial intelligence. This is a big lack that has already been pointed out to Train Fever - the previous Urban Games game - and still has not been corrected.

Let's go!

Vehicle traffic management and coordination of multi-stage transports is our main task, and at the same time the greatest asset of the title. When planning transport routes, we have to take care of their appropriate capacity and frequency of vehicles, and synchronization in one system of differently functioning water, land and air routes requires constant combining. In addition, in Transport Fever , as in Transport Tycoon , trains - the backbone of our shipping network - cannot penetrate each other, and if we want to change the composition or replace the locomotive, we have to direct the vehicle to the depot. It all requires careful traction planning and line marking so that the vehicles do not meet on the route. A simple yet effective signaling system helps us in this, thanks to which, with a little imagination, we can optimize virtually any complex tangle of tracks. Solving such a logical puzzle and then watching the smooth operation of the created infrastructure is really a great pleasure .

Before we put up the signaling and mark the lines, however, railroads must be laid. This is achieved by the - unfortunately underdeveloped - tool for building traction and roads. First - and the strangest thing - construction is done by dragging the end of the track with the left mouse button pressed all the time. This solution is inconvenient and not very intuitive. In addition, the game, when marking a longer section of tracks or roads, plans excavations with great panache whenever it encounters even the mildest unevenness of the ground. Traction designed in this way is many times more expensive and, in order to avoid additional costs, we have to arrange it piece by piece manually.

Wajchy and buttons

In such complex games as economic strategies, a clear and functional interface is absolutely crucial. While the previous installment of the series has completely failed in this aspect, there is some improvement in Transport Fever . Individual menus are clearer and frequently used functions are easier to access. Unfortunately, "better" doesn't mean it's okay now. We will still have to deal with one of the most classic interface shortcomings - every action we take causes a whole cascade of pop-up windows that must be closed manually by clicking on the small "x" in the corner. This causes a pile of frames that obscure the screen and - especially at the beginning of the game - leads to a real shoemaker's passion. The interface could also use a greater degree of integration - there are no collective windows, the so-called "Managers" that would allow for comprehensive company management from one place. So if, for example, we want to send a train to the tracks, we will not do it from the line panel, but we have to manually find the depot and only take the appropriate action from its menu. The same goes for most in-game activities. In addition, some panels are overloaded with unnecessary information while missing essential information. We will not even find out how many wagons we can connect to a given locomotive so as not to drastically decrease the acceleration value.

Meanwhile, at the managerial level, the operation of many important mechanisms remains a great unknown. All because of the lack of appropriate information in the game and the proper introduction in the tutorial. We can only guess how our earnings for the transport of goods are calculated. This is a big problem, because when planning new routes, we act in the dark. There are a lot of graphs in the line window, but there is no information on basic things, such as the length of the route. Therefore, it is difficult to determine the cause of problems with the profitability of some connections. In addition, we do not have the ability to precisely control the loading, so control over which goods and in what quantity will reach the recipient must sometimes be carried out by multiplying lines and vehicles along the way.

Views

The catalog of vehicles in Transport Fever is very rich, for which the creators deserve great praise. We have about 160 vehicles from different times at our disposal. The machine models look great - they are detailed, well animated and covered with high-quality textures. So sometimes it's worth taking a break from macro management and zooming in on the view to look at such flavors as, for example, the retracting landing gear in airplanes, which incidentally go around realistically when the runway is occupied by another machine. I also recommend that you turn on the camera from the outside of the vehicle at least once and watch the map from the plane flight. The impressions are really interesting.