(a Eng) Balkanika

[belbincolne]

Ye Gods this is a hard one - got Bronze on Normal but was nowhere near Silver let alone Gold. Laying lines is frequently hell and then you sometimes find you cant build a large station so have to put in a medium only partially covering the town. Industries sometimes did well but then collapsed - given the cost of laying lines an industry start seems sensible.

Anyway be glad of any hints

[andy-rails]

Well i made this map, it can be a little more...ehmm...difficult than usual First of all, anytime i played with it, i made a rail-line between Larissa and Lamia...there is oil in Larissa and it is worth it! Then it depends on which goods are on the maps: sometimes there is wool next to Patrasso and then a textile factory is convenient, or else there is logs next to Larissa and then you can make lumber. Then i extend my rail line to Athens and Salonicco. The start is the hardest part of the scenario: as soon as you get enough money to come to Bulgaria, well, most is done...and Romania is quite rich in this scenario! A little hint: first of all connect Greece to Bulgaria, it can be very helpable for the high access cost! Gold is not impossible, try it! (if you have nough money, you can try to merge one of the societies in Romania...all is done, if you can!)

[Hawk]

Andy - Maybe you should post the strategy tips in a new thread in the Strategy forum as well.

[belbincolne]

Did the oil thing - built a refinery - great for a few years then dropped to zilch. Fortunately I'd also bought the wells which then kept making money. Shall have to try Bulgaria / Romania - can't remember now what I did with them. Anyway will try again and re-read your recs first

[andy-rails]

This scenario is a little difficult btw----and there are things in this scenario that doesnt work....:( i try to correct them asap

[belbincolne]

Followed your strategy as above - and got Industry Gold target before Bronze connection one. Then it was the hard work of connecting profitable towns to pay for getting to the required ones.

With 5 years to go and 16 bonds and not even Bronze achieved thought I was doomed but money flowed in so quickly got all but final town (Rhodes?). This proved hard because I didn't save before going there and I found I couldn't build a station when I'd got the huge bridge in place. Finally managed to go beyond and double back to place a station where it would count. Then it was sit back and repay all my bonds which I did with just over a year to go

Really enjoyed re-playing it. Thanks

[Gandar]

I am playing this map at the moment and I think I will make all the targets but the industry profits seem to be off by a tad. On the income ledger I show lifetime industrial profit at 63 million but on the goals page it says I have 11 million in industry profit. Is it only certain industries or territories for the goal ?

[Gandar]

Ok so it didn't matter about the industry profits being off, I still made it in plenty of time , although to be honest, I would not like to ride on the track I laid, it was brutal especially in the mountains, which pretty much means everywhere, and when I did find a flat piece I couldn't lay track because there was invisible water there. On some sections, I had more red rail than green. It was funny that you got a bonus for connecting to Rhodes. If you had enough money to connect to Rhodes, you didn't need the bonus. I seemed to get all of the connection bonuses backwards, perhaps because I started laying track in Jugoslavia I thought it would be easier laying track to cities over there than in Greece.
This is one of those maps that you can play in a number of ways and still make it. good one.

[andy-rails]

im gonna work on this scenario soon, thanks for your comments!
I tried it but achieved no gold even if i repaid my bonds...and joining Scutari and doing all requested...no bonus ...uhmmm and i don't know why, i think I will take thee AI player off...
Stay tuned, i will try to make this scenario working and more enjoyable
Andy

[belbincolne]

Odd - I never had a game play problem so as far as I'm concerned the scenario doesn't need fixing. On several other scenarios though I (and others) crash and have various problems which Hawk and the writer don't get. I'm sure its something to do with the way we've downloaded RT6 so when the writer has done it the same way as myself everything is o/k but when they've done it Hawk's way there's a problem - but goodness knows what that difference is.

[Hawk]

This map has again been updated.

[Sugus]

Have I already mentioned it? (Too) Fast released scenarios means hard life for a stupid map translating idiot ...

[Gandar]

im gonna work on this scenario soon, thanks for your comments!
I tried it but achieved no gold even if i repaid my bonds...and joining Scutari and doing all requested...no bonus ...uhmmm and i don't know why, i think I will take thee AI player off...
Stay tuned, i will try to make this scenario working and more enjoyable
Andy

I didn't find the AI player to be any trouble at all, on the map I had, he only connected to 3 cities and was no hindrance at all, I did in fact plan on merging with him but just as I got a majority of shares I had them all sold off to meet a short call so I ended up railing all around him instead. Like I said I started in Jugoslavia first and I didn't connect to Bulgaria until later in the game, in fact I connected to Bulgaria before Greece . The map seemed to play well I didn't understand the discrepancy between the reporting values of industry profits but the game is very winnable as it stands especially as I did it all backwards and still hit gold, by the way I connected to Scularti and I was already connected to the town for the engineer but I didn't notice anything happen, was there a bonus ?

[belbincolne]

I didn't find the AI a problem either. On NO play did he rail - only bought my stock. I assumed it had been set up that way.

[andy-rails]

Have I already mentioned it? (Too) Fast released scenarios means hard life for a stupid map translating idiot ...

I don't understand who's the stupid and the idiot?

[andy-rails]

Btw, this last released version is the last one, it works and anyone can be free to change, re-do and make other scenario on this map, as soon as on any other maps i've done.
Txhx for all your comments, i have other maps to tranlsate but i think i will check them at first and not only one time!
Andy

[Sugus]

Can't help, I'm the ...

(... stupid idiot, who has translated more than 130 maps from English into German till now. And believe me, there are a lot of better tested ones than yours!)

[andy-rails]

Eheh, 130 translated maps...I translate my maps from italian but, sure, i made only 5-6 scenario. Next uploaded scenario is tested and working! :D

[RayofSunshine]

If you thought that the Hawaii scenario by Semmy, where ever that map is hidden, as even Hawk has not entered it into the archives, you should try this scenario for difficulty.

The terrain featrues are terrific with its mountains, so was only able to get track laid between Athens and Xanthe by the end of the 30 years. And that was with a couple of bonds. It might be better from Istanbul for adequate revenue to tackle the mountains, but it might just be better to build bridges. Might try that next time. PNW is not much better, as the Purchasing Power as well as the salaries are not adequate to give get the PNW goal required. The only helpful requesite is the "no crashes".

Give it a try as it is a great challenge, as it must be possible if Andy has set the "pace" for the goals. Thanks for the creation Andy.

[RayofSunshine]

I didn't see any thread for this scenaio either.

Against my better judgement, I played in the Hard level, as I am not that keen on mountainous terrain. I was surprised as I completed the goals for the Gold by 1926. Not liking mountains, I did not use tunnels until the very last to get to Rhodes. Then, the approaches to the tunnels and bridges were so "perpendicular", that I didn't bother to operate trains over them.

My consideration of not using tunnels until the last couple years, was that of expense. The scenaio had the better of engines for "inclines", which also a prompt of not using tunnels. But I did have to pick away at canyons, etc, to get headways between destinations. The cost seemed to be the lessor of 2 evils.

Being that said, and being that there were "access" fees, my direction was to keep costs at a lower level. SO, seeing that I managed to complete the scenario 4 years prior the deadline, I would next time try using some tunnels earlier in the playing.

I did have 4 bonds @ 10-11% in the beginning. But I reduced them when a BOOM era came with 5% bonds, paying the penalty, and the paying them off near the end when goals were completed, and revenue was more plentiful.

Although I don't like mountainous scenarios, I do play them, and did find that this scenario had some very interesting challenges. And I did enjoy the concept of the game, and do hope that others will find it as interesting and enjoyable as me.