Any tricks when an AI rival is hauling your processed goods?

[Sergo]

I am playing on Tycoon with 3 opponents. I am dragging a ton of meat into a city, and a computer opponent seems to be hauling most of the resulting food out. Any tricks I can use to get to carry this food away myself? I do have a train pulling food out of the city, but there is very little food to pick up.

[RedKnight]

Sergo, one thing you can do is to set your Food train to Wait Til Full. If you haven't already.

If the AI is not Waiting Until Full, you will gather all the food at the city while he's moving between cities.

[Sergo]

If AI is waiting until full, will we split it half and half, then?

[RedKnight]

I suppose. If you really want to just hurt him, you could use more than 1 train. But that's pushing it; better to steal stuff elsewhere.

[Stone]

I've experienced that the AI "gives up" the stealing if you efficiently transport all of the food out the city. I've seen the AI start with 3-4 cars, then changing it to 1 or nothing when the supplies are short. To kill the competition, use 2 trains with 1-2 cars (depends on the distance), and have at least one with "Wait till full".

[RedKnight]

Right Stone, that would probably do it. I'd set them both on Wait.

Note that it is of course inefficient on your part to do this... it is hurting your bottom line, to have two trains assigned to the same thing (which cost money to buy, and more maintenance). But it's also hurting the competition's bottom line... and that's probably the point. Still, I would think it's a wash economically... you want to hurt him, not break even with him.

So I'd think it's probably most efficient to have just one train Waiting. Preferably a strong Freight hauler, with lots of cars on it. Every now and then, the AI will catch the city while your train is away. But not often. This way you're not paying through the nose for a second, practically superfluous train. That's how I'd do it, anyway.

Also of course do not unload the food cars when you get to the drop-off (unless of course you want to haul something back). Empty cars do not slow a train down (ever). And you will gain speed both for the fact that time is not spent switching consists, and your train is "closer" to the other town, due to its longer length.

Sergo, to answer more extensively, it's my experience that, yes, resources are split between anyone waiting. You can also see this if e.g. you have more than one train (all set to Wait) picking up a raw resource. It's a good question though; somebody should test it. It's important to know whether it's working the way we think. It's the only way that makes much sense to me, though. Probably the best way to test it is in MP, two human players set up a long consist at the same town, both set to Wait. And see if they both get full at approx. the same time. Doing it in MP helps ensure that other players/AIs don't get any different treatment.

FWIW in my experience, the AIs do not Wait. In which case, you are really hurting him if you have a resource that you are Waiting for. He'll get next to nothing when he bounces in, if you're already Waiting there.

[snoopy55]

I don't think the AI is really 'waiting'. From what I've seen on one that I took over, a short run between 2 towns, the consist changed every time he hit each town. A consist of Pass, Mail, Food, Pass, Pass the first time leaving town A. The next time, Pass, Mail, Food, Food. The next time Pass, Mail, Pass, Pass, Mail. It took whatever was available at the time he stopped, no waiting. Heck, 1 AI even took 8 cars of Food over to an Oil rig, dropped them ande then filled up 8 Oil cars! That one I changed I viewed these after I took them over.

[CalmDragon]

One idea is to buy the food plant, that way you get paid no matter who delivers the goods.

[Adamas]

Lay a "dummy" track in a circle around the whole city. This makes the city practically inaccessible by other players, at least it seemed to work with AI players; they did not try to steal the cars I was producing.
Not sure if this kind of "defensive wall" is waterproof against real players

edit: if you feel that a single circle is not enough, you could even make it a dual track.
It could be worth the cost and effort for big industries like cars and weapons.

[Rodea2007]

I am playing on Tycoon with 3 opponents. I am dragging a ton of meat into a city, and a computer opponent seems to be hauling most of the resulting food out. Any tricks I can use to get to carry this food away myself? I do have a train pulling food out of the city, but there is very little food to pick up.

Open and edit RRT_Characters.xml in InstallDir directory then edit line <iRobberSkill>4</iRobberSkill> change value 4 to 0 ---> <iRobberSkill>0</iRobberSkill> make change to all AIs or what AI do you want. Now your industries can be safe from robbery......

[darthdroid]

I know this is a bit late, but it is a good question that others may have so I'll go ahead and reply anyway.

These are all interesting ideas, but I don't think any really hit the nail on the head; one was close though. Two routes is definitely PART of the solution, but worthless without the OTHER part.

The key here is one must THINK like a pirate to BEAT a pirate. By pirate I of course mean the computer who is stealing your food, or worse yet a REAL pirate like myself that specifically looks to do this as a very high priority.

As a pirate, I plan to come in and make a shorter route than yours to a destination drop off point. If there is good money (ie one or both cities are metropoli, or the city is supplied by at least 2 cow annexes, etc.) then I will certainly make a 2nd route; a double track along the first route, making it perfectly parallel. If there is really big money (3 or 4 resources or more in addition to passengers/mail) then I may even have a 3rd or 4th route.
Believe me, all will make at least 200k/year and thus are very profitable and worthy.

Typically a pirate AIMS at finished goods. This is to damage you and also profit. However, to just damage you, I'll also go after your resource routes...with a twist (if you don't do this right, you'll lose $ too, but if you do it right, you'll again profit while his train (hauling cows in this case) goes negative. Now you've essentially bled him dry at least in this area....and a pirate would then target whatever else you have

The above may seem a bit off topic but it is designed to make you THINK like a pirate, and thus understand them.
The computer is a moron and hardly a pirate, it simply seeks profit but builds poorly and inefficiently so should not be hard to beat unless you do likewise.

A real player will not build/pirate like the computer so you need to train in that regard, then the computer/s will be child's play.

Back to the ISSUE at hand:
So what is the solution? Build like a pirate would in the first place. ie make your routes as short and straight as possible with future planning. In other words, make sure you've left ROOM for a 2nd or 3rd route in case a pirate DOES show up. Building this way requires long term strategy thinking but pays off very well with both AI and human beings. The REAL pirates are in one sense just like the computer: If there is really no profit (ie every resource in your 2 cities (the one cows factory is in and the one the food is shipped to) says "zero" at all times (ie youre not letting resources pile up) then a pirate will probably take his nastiness elsewhere...and likely so will the computer.

Bottom line? Solve the ACTUAL problem: You're letting resources pile up, which (basic law of economics) invites entrants into your market. If there's no profit they won't come and if they're there, they will leave (as someone kind of stated). And I bet I'm right in guessing that without that computer involved in your scenario with the cows, your city would have said "8 food" or something revealing you weren't shipping fast enough. So quit doing that, don't let resources pile up, if you do.... Not only are you not doing your job (being a nasty robber baron) but you are INVITING the pirate/computer to come help you out with delivering that food

I think that should help a lot if you follow my points.

[darthdroid]

Also, regarding the defensive wall around your city.

This is a very good tactic and will work well against the computer I think (it's been a while since I actually played a computer lol) and definitely against most human beings who haven't learned bridge building yet.

But do know that a real player that knows bridges cannot be stopped... Well, there is one exception: Another bridge builder can make a damn good effort to stop them and certainly slow them down for 5 minutes but they have to spend quite a bit to do so (worth it if it works)... like $700k or so I'd say. However, assuming it's more typical (I've only had a bridge builder slow me down once in my travels and it was hilariously nasty of him) you can spin 30 rings around your city, spend 4 million dollars....it won't matter, they'll walk right over it all as though on stilts.

Point being... don't rely on blocking too much but it's not a worthless tactic, just a selective one. Works very well on noobs and mediocre players, so not a bad trick to know how to use for sure. But personally I rarely blk ock. I might make some weak attempt at a block (20-50k worth of track) every 15-20 games and they almost always work so they are worth it. But one needs to know who they are playing (by watching their tracks) and then you can guess pretty easy if a block will work. But overall, I'd say blocking is more like a bonus tactic. Like if I happen to being going east, I might stretch it 5 degrees more to add a block to it, but I don't really ever go out of my way to do it, there's better things to do with time and money in SMR that will hurt opponent more than a block.

And as I've stated, if you route properly you really don't NEED to block much as you're shipping everything so well they're going to have trouble making any $ if they do invade....