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Tunnel-web spider trophy not possible


cosmicicecream

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I just wanted to write this as a heads-up to anyone planning to go for this trophy:

To be able to found 30 new settlements you need to have a massive amount of population in your other cities which is difficult but in theory doable.

The big problem is maximum number of trains is 800. That is not enough to supply all the cities with the massive amount goods required.

I founded 21 new settlements until I reached the train maximum and I guess to get to 30 you would need around 1500 trains.

So I contacted the developer about this. Maybe they will answer or patch this in the future.

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24 minutes ago, cosmicicecream said:

I just wanted to write this as a heads-up to anyone planning to go for this trophy:

To be able to found 30 new settlements you need to have a massive amount of population in your other cities which is difficult but in theory doable.

The big problem is maximum number of trains is 800. That is not enough to supply all the cities with the massive amount goods required.

I founded 21 new settlements until I reached the train maximum and I guess to get to 30 you would need around 1500 trains.

So I contacted the developer about this. Maybe they will answer or patch this in the future.

 

Thanks for the info - but more importantly - thanks for reminding me that this game exists, I've tried a few times to start playing it but I still can't get into it, even though I would probably enjoy it. Another thing is that it's one of these games which keeps churning out pricey DLCs, which is annoying (unless they are top quality, but I wouldn't know). Did you enjoy the game?

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2 minutes ago, det_gittes said:

Another thing is that it's one of these games which keeps churning out pricey DLCs, which is annoying (unless they are top quality, but I wouldn't know). Did you enjoy the game?

 

Australia was the last DLC. I still have to play some of the other ones when they go on a sale. I can definitely say I enjoyed every bit of the game I played even up to the point when I found out that this one trophy is impossible. For a strategy game on console the controls are really good. For me it was kind of addicting when I discovered some new game mechanics that made my railways even more effective. It really is a high quality game. 

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2 minutes ago, cosmicicecream said:

 

Australia was the last DLC. I still have to play some of the other ones when they go on a sale. I can definitely say I enjoyed every bit of the game I played even up to the point when I found out that this one trophy is impossible. For a strategy game on console the controls are really good. For me it was kind of addicting when I discovered some new game mechanics that made my railways even more effective. It really is a high quality game. 

Thanks! I bought it as I've never stopped feeling nostalgic for Transport Tycoon Deluxe, but so far I've approached this game twice and both times got distracted very early on (not unusual in my case). But I will definitely start playing it properly at some point. 

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Yes, it's definitely not possible to achieve this trophy at the moment. The increase in required population is about 17% for every new settlement. So you probably need about 20 million of population to unlock the 30th settlement permit or roughly a half million per existing city! That's absolutely impossible.

 

I will message the developers as well, I hope they will release a patch for this and decrease the required population for each new settlement.

 

 

Edited by Piw3001
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  • 2 weeks later...

Hello, I hope this post is useful for other players.

I play this game since release and also have been following all news about it, over the updates R.E. has recieved during the last 2 years. Some game mechanics have been updated, things we thought impossible were made possible exploiting these mechanics to the extreme; I have good news and bad news. Bad news first: this is likely the last DLC this game will have, the devs are switching resources to Port Royale 4, even though that doesn´t mean it can´t be patched in a near feature it´s still a bad sign. In the past I wrote trophy guides for this game, but this one in particular will be very hard to unlock on the current state, it´s way too extreme to be considered even fair or, perhaps more importantly, a regular and fun experience like the rest of the game was.

Good news is the trophy might still be possible using city growth exploits, things a few people discovered over time and between updates to boost regular cities to "Mega cities", how big can a given city grow in population ? The answer is uncertain but still a lot more than most people think is possible. Three magic words: Museum, Warehouses and Promoters. The overall amount of citizens to unlock the 30th settlement, 17.017.052, a player seem to have found a way to unlock it, he even wrote a detailed guide and posted it, credit goes to Sam Pardon, you can find his guide here: https://www.trueachievements.com/a298177/tunnelweb-spider-achievement

 

Here is another link that shows what this "mega city" looks like, credit goes to Zdenek Kukula, posting it in January 2019:

 

I personally think 15 settlements would have been something of a "more natural" challenge. As it stands to achieve this trophy you would need in deep knowledge of the game and abuse of exploits not perceptive to everyone. With that said there are 2 possibilities, this is either a miscalibration of the challenge by the devs, or it was intended; they liked so much of the exploits people found out that they decided to endorse it with a trophy/achievement on the last DLC. Unfortunately, and I really do hope I am wrong about that, it might have been the second choice.

Edited by eduardohrks
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I can confirm the promoter stack also works for the PS4. I got the trophy an hour ago. Kudos to those Xbox guys, they did fantastic research work and made this trophy obtainable without a patch, which might never appear as the developers apparently stopped working on Railway Empire. I'm really glad, that this great game is now back at 100%. It would really be a shame to see it incomplete.

 

It took me about ten hours growing my largest city to about 2 million inhabitants, tweaking routes and keep it stable at this point. I used an old save, where I didn't focus to grow one mega city at first. If you start from the scratch, you probably could support a city of about 5-6 millions with your limit of 800 trains. From there on it's about save reloading and hoping for the promoters to appear. Anyway you don't have to put that much time and effort in a silver trophy. So here's a quick guide how you can achieve it with 5-10 minutes of work and perhaps two or three hours of waiting, reading a book, watching tv or whatever.

 

Start a game in the 100 year era (this way you can stack this trophy with the Beaver Duck one), establish a few routes to gain enough money to be able to hire the appearing promoters, then designate one of the existing cities (I would recommend Sydney as it has the highest population at the start of the 100 year era) to stack your promoters. NEVER connect this city with a railway station or warehouse! When there's no connection the supply will lock at 39% and the city population will never grow or shrink, but your allowed to use promoters there anyway. Now relax and wait for the promoters to appear. Each promoter will increase the population of a stable city by about 50%, so from 30k to 17 million, you will need 16 promoters or about one every six years. I don't know if you can contnue playing beyond 1930, so it might be better to save after each promoter and reload, if it takes significantly too long for a promoter to appear. Once you have reached 17 million inhabitants use all the 30 permits to establish the required settlements (you don't need to complete them) and the trophy should pop. 

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Nice one Piw ! You got the "Pioneering spirit" ! Congratulations, it is indeed a nice game to have completed, this game is a gem !

 

How did you end up doing it ? Did you use your promoters on the Mega city you were building or was it on the unconnected city to make it big, or maybe a combination of both ? I am trying to test a theory on the spawning rate of promoters, I wonder if they might appear more frequently if you focus on develop and expand through more cities rather than focus on a single cluster of cities or one particular mega city, what do you think ? Your method using the unconnected Sydney seems more appealing and interesting, because it you can focus on playing the game rather than just saving and reloading the game which would make the whole thing less boring. By the way, you can continue playing a free game even after the era is finished, only difference is no more inovation points will be awarded.

Edited by eduardohrks
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Hey Eduardo, I used an  old save game, where Bendigo was my biggest city. I put all the effort into this city and grew it to 2 million. But this was not very efficient and I spent way more time than actually needed. At two millions it was hard to keep the city stable, so as soon as a promoter appeared, I saved the game, waited the six month, if another promoter was available I hired him right before the end of the six month period, saved and waited for the next one. If no promoter appeared, I did reload the most recent save. Took me about two hours of constant reloading until Bendigo got to about 15 millions and for the 30th settlement permit. I realized afterwards, that it's not necessary to have a city connected for using a promoter there. So I actually wasted a few promoters, because a shrinking city will only grow by about 30% instead of 50% per promoter.

 

I don't know, if a certain playing style encourages the promoters to appear more frequently. It was very random! I had once four in a row, appearing within twelve months. And once I did reload about twenty times and waited fourty minutes for a promoter. What definetely might help is one of the technologies, which gives 10% more applications for all kind of employees and free-lancers. Overall the spawn rate isn't very bad, so even if you don't do anything and just wait, the trophy is no pain in the ass. Anyway your idea sounds great to play the game in a regular way and just stack the promoters in a disconnected city. The necessary 16 promoters (or even less, if you grow the remaining cities) should come naturally within a 100 year game.

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Can you grow up a city and then disconnect it from the railway to take advantage of th promoters strategy? 

During the game I've seen cities I haven't ever connected decreasing population with no reason.

That's why I'm not sure this tip may work.

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20 hours ago, tyamant said:

Can you grow up a city and then disconnect it from the railway to take advantage of th promoters strategy? 

During the game I've seen cities I haven't ever connected decreasing population with no reason.

That's why I'm not sure this tip may work.

 

Hey Tyamant !

No you can´t. You can stack promoters in a city that was never connected though, never ever interfere with this city by sending trains or building stations/warehouses, with each promoter you send there the population will grow but it will appear as if it isn´t growing because of the red arrow new to the city´s name, however note that the filled demand will stand still at 39%, this means the trick is working. This may well be a glitch that may or may not be patched in the future, but currently it works.

You can use this strategy in the mean time to help yourself while working towards building your connected mega city, currently the fastest way to go for the trophy. I recommend building it up to at least 1.5k without using promoters or until you feel like growth stopped. Try start using the promoters in sequence, always try to stack the next promoter before the end of the work of the previous one (the promoter works for 6 weeks), this means you need to contract the next promoter or the strategy will fail; if a new promoter don´t show up before the 6 weeks reload your save, if the promoter appears save the game and so on... It´s a tedious and cheesy strategy but it works.

Edited by eduardohrks
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  • 1 month later...

Good news: The developer listened and finally released a patch that made the Tunnel-web spider trophy much much easier. The requirement for the 30th settlement went from 17 million citizens to around 2 million citizens. So now everyone can enjoy playing a free game in Autralia and get the trophy without much hassle - like I did just now. ?

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