Can we make neighbour deals work better?

[armpit43 172]

Am I the only one who finds neighbour deals limit rather than enhance gameplay? When I build a rural area of my region for example, it would be useful to have a power station on one city tile that can power neighbouring tiles, to avoid having to place power stations in every tile and ruining the landscape. But, the game won't allow a neighbour deal to be created on-demand unless certain conditions are met.  It would be great if there was a way to mod the game, so neighbour deals can be created (maybe even for free) between cities on startup, creating a more realistic energy grid in the process. But perhaps there is already a way to get around this problem?

[CorinaMarie 29,864]

You might like @cogeo's Neighbor Deal Mods.

One thing tho in vanilla and that mod is that income and cost for garbage deals is made such that the price fluctuates wildly depending on the capacity of the receiving tile. That can cause auto cancellations and significant budget trouble.

So, I made what I feel is an enhanced version with even easier deal setups such than one can over-buy more significantly to help with long city tile chaining deals as well as set a fixed cost and income for garbage deals. I never got around to writing any documentation for mine and it's been months since I played with it so I've forgotten the details. However, if you'd want to take it for a test drive, I'll attach it here.

Easier Neighbor Deals v1.0 - Tweaked by Cori.dat

[armpit43 172]

Thanks Cori will give it a spin

[armpit43 172]

On 30/05/2021 at 5:09 PM, CorinaMarie said:

You might like @cogeo's Neighbor Deal Mods.

One thing tho in vanilla and that mod is that income and cost for garbage deals is made such that the price fluctuates wildly depending on the capacity of the receiving tile. That can cause auto cancellations and significant budget trouble.

So, I made what I feel is an enhanced version with even easier deal setups such than one can over-buy more significantly to help with long city tile chaining deals as well as set a fixed cost and income for garbage deals. I never got around to writing any documentation for mine and it's been months since I played with it so I've forgotten the details. However, if you'd want to take it for a test drive, I'll attach it here.

Easier Neighbor Deals v1.0 - Tweaked by Cori.dat

 

Okay, so here's what I've found.

Before downloading the mod, I created a new region with three different cities; Tom, Dick and Harry. Tom had a coal power station and water towers, I found that after creating the neighbouring Dick and Harry tiles, they both triggered a power neighbour deal instantly. Putting a rubbish dump in Dick, it instantaneously offered a neighbour deal to take Tom's rubbish.

However, Harry didn't trigger a neighbour deal with Dick for rubbish. Meaning the game needs refuse facilities in each tile for a deal to be considered. Also, power from Dick couldn't be transferred beyond one neighbouring city tile.

Then I downloaded the mod and - sucess! I can chain power beyond the neighbouring city tile!

This comes with a downside though, it seems the further away from the home power station the less energy you can transfer across borders. Two city tiles out from the power station, I can only buy 100 mw of power from the Harry (neighbouring Dick who holds the power plant). The effect seems to be the same for water too.

I'll carry out some testing on ready made, larger cities later to see what the effects are. I had one city that was bankrupted completely by a garbage neighbour deal and became unplayable, so will check the effects on that city,

 

[CorinaMarie 29,864]

2 hours ago, armpit43 said:

Then I downloaded the mod and - sucess! I can chain power beyond the neighbouring city tile!

Yay! Is this mine or Cogeo's which you tested?

 

2 hours ago, armpit43 said:

This comes with a downside though, it seems the further away from the home power station the less energy you can transfer across borders.

For my mod, I recall testing garbage deals out to 5 or 6 tiles away, but I don't remember if I tried power or water that far. I also don't recall if I made any changes to power and water. I seem to recall I did work on the over-buy amounts for all three types of deals.

[armpit43 172]

23 hours ago, CorinaMarie said:

Yay! Is this mine or Cogeo's which you tested?

 

For my mod, I recall testing garbage deals out to 5 or 6 tiles away, but I don't remember if I tried power or water that far. I also don't recall if I made any changes to power and water. I seem to recall I did work on the over-buy amounts for all three types of deals.

Yours, I haven't had any time to do any further experimenting today but I did find the garbage deal didn't work. But will check again