National Coal - BETA

[OilCan]

A beta map to test. Fictional country. 1.06V map (needed 1.06V for its ability to make conditions as variables and to use math with variables.)

The concept is that the player hauls coal, from coal fields, to electric power generation centers. A large corporation named National Coal owns all the coal fields in the country. National Coal pays the player for each load of coal delivered to a power center. Game goals are to haul 500 loads of coal to each of 4 power centers, plus be the only RR in the game for gold (make $100M CBV for silver).

Two of the power centers are in AI territories which the player must take over in order to win. There are 2 rival AI companies hauling coal as well plus one AI company which starts up after the game begins. The player can add 2 more AIs into the mix as well.

Overlaid on all this is politics. The ruling political party randomly changes every 5 years and the economic side of the game changes to suite the party's ideology. The player must join a political party, via some questions, near the start of the game. Being a member of the ruling party brings bonuses and hidden benefits. Not being a member of the ruling party may bring fines, demands, strikes, high taxes, poor credit, lower worker production and other such bad things.

Please test the map and offer any comments, suggestions and ideas which might improve the game. I have tested it with three full games and made slight changes after each test. I think the cities and resources are balanced.

The map colors are spotchy. I'm not sure why. The paint brush would not cooperate and made blocky smudges. I hope to get the colors right by the final version.

The only hints I will give at this time are to choose your train engines wisely (cost vs speed), keep your focus on hauling coal and don't get too distracted on other things, take the company money near the end of each year and don't get into a hurry.

NOTE: BETA game file removed on March 25.

[OilCan]

Also........I'm not all that familiar with the British way of spelling and would appreciate any 'corrections' to change the wording in the game messages to fit the British style.

[Sugus]

Goodness me - that's a challenging one!

As you can see in

I really didn't it (on my first try ). Just started, I concentrated on hauling coal to the power centers - the primary goal - and I'm sure, that was not the wrong way to step in. Thereafter, I was looking for and then connecting the bigger cities, which lead to better earnings. But, see above, success looks not this way.

OilCan, that's a great map. And I love it because there is no (pseudo) historical background and instead "simply" concentrates on the means being inherent in RT3. And, finally, you disabled train crashes! I EMBRACE YOU!!! From my point of view, it's done. Maybe, the CBV (for silver) is somewhat too high and - instead - Silver by only three fulfilled haulings of coal could be a variant.

[OilCan]

Sugus: Thanks for testing the map. After making a couple of simple and easy games like Koristan and Snake River, I thought I'd make a more challenging one.
I noticed that you were unable to take over your rival companies. That might be one reason you CBV did not reach $100M. Taking over a company drops your CBV for a short while because of the loss of cash (and new debt), but after a year or two the investment should make your CBV climb way past what you paid for the company.
Again, thanks for the comments.

(I came up with a similar scenario the other day, except with oil. I'm temporarily stationed in Pensacola, Florida working on the clean-up response to BP's gulf oil spill. -I'm not a BP employee- They are still pulling truck loads of oil off the beaches every day. It would be interesting to create a gulf oil spill scenario where oil -representing oiled globs from off the beaches- from various ports along the gulf has to be hauled to Mobile, Alabama for hazardous waste storage. Public, private, municipal and corporate lands have to be considered as the player lays out track -i.e trains run real slow through municipal lands or public lands restrict any track building. Could add in some hurricanes and irrate politicians to make the game interesting.)

[RayofSunshine]

Well OilCan,
The scenario threw me a curve, although I don't know if I would have been able to do anything about it. But maybe at an earlier date. A suggest to other players. When a notice indicates that Coal Field #3 is open, which is the 2+ rear of play, make every initiative to merge with the AI operating the PWR Cntr #3. Otherwise there could be some penalties.
I had worked my way of contoling a couple of AIs in the territory of Pwr Cntr #1 and Coal Field I believe 4 or 5, but would not be able to attain any type of contol for a merge with the indicated AI, as by then, there were 200 stocks.
An interesting scenario, but I always have a problem with these "sole survivor" creations.
Between you and Orange46, both of your scenarios should keep the members guessing, as well as cussing. LOL

[RayofSunshine]

Just finished "playing" with the only comment of the "test" portion, is that I had no problems with the programming. However, I did not get the results of Sugus. Missed everything of the hauls, and was not able to attain the Nat'l Coal, including being short on the CBV as well.
Wilth that said, it is a great creation which keeps a player doing a lot of speculating. And the terrain is not of of difficult nature, although a couple of tunnels became apparant to get full access to coal mines.
It is a scenario well worth the time and effort to play for enjoyment, and to my inadequate judgement, one of the better scenarios of which I have played. (hats off) and

[Hawk]

I noticed something I think is strange. Note circled in red.

I don't own the line that's hauling coal to that power center. I don't even have access to that territory yet, but it looks like it's giving me haulage credit.

Man, this Nationalist party is killing me, but I just couldn't see buying into their agenda.

Oh well! Give unto Caesar what is Caesar's and try and scratch out a meager existence.

Edit 1: I believe I can win Gold next time I play.

I just didn't concentrate on coal quite as much as I should.

Other than the oddity I mentioned initially in this post, I didn't see any other glitches.
I think I figured out why I was getting credit for coal hauled that I wasn't hauling. I believe the game was counting the coal delivered to power center 3 by truck or mule or whatever was hauling it.

Now that I know the politics a little better it might be a little easier next time.

[OilCan]

Ray and Hawk:
Thanks for the reviews.

Ray - think about heavily investing in and then merging with the weakest AI first. By them out at twice their stock price and this should bump your personal cash up high enough to heavily invest in the next weakest AI. Knock out the AIs one by one this way. Don't worry about mergers until later in the game. Start hauling to power center #2 first. Add in coal field #3 to you hauls to power center #1. Let your company cash grow for a while, then when National Coal offers power center #4 use coal field #4 as a source to haul coal to #4. Push on to power center #1. Hook into power center #3 when the time is right. Last step is to take over National Coal.

Hawk: The total coal load count for #3 and #4 is supposed to include the loads the AIs haul to these power centers. The idea is that the player has a 500 load requirement for #1 and #2 and the AIs have the same requirement for their power centers. BUT...they don't perform very well and that is why National Coal eventually asks the player to start hauling to #3 and #4 (and that is why the player gets more $$ per load to these power centers).

Yeah, I can't stand the Nationalists either. Yet, they will cut you some sweet deals if you are a party member.

Take advantage of that Lanena connection and haul coal from power center #1 to it. Good profits and extra cash for you to invest with.

[Hawk]

Don't worry about mergers until later in the game.

Maybe that's where I messed up. I went for the merger as soon as possible.

Add in coal field #3 to you hauls to power center #1.

Again, another place I messed up at. I hauled coal from filed # 3 and #4 to power center 2 until later in the game. Obviously too late.

The total coal load count for #3 and #4 is supposed to include the loads the AIs haul to these power centers.

That makes sense now that I think of it. After I took over the Blue Arch I saw they didn't have a regular run to power center #3 and the Cardinal was hauling all their coal to Melville instead of the power center.

Yeah, I can't stand the Nationalists either. Yet, they will cut you some sweet deals if you are a party member.

Ya' know, the thought of joining that party never crossed my mind. I figured it would be bad news, as in real life.

Take advantage of that Lanena connection and haul coal from power center #1 to it. Good profits and extra cash for you to invest with.

I just completely ignored that one. Didn't see any need in it, especially since I was struggling with the requirements so bad.
I'll have to give this one another try.

Good map!

[RayofSunshine]

Hawk,
You better get more sleep, as I can see that you are making too many errors in the line of judgement. LOL
Guess I cannot critize, as I made some of the same errors myself. But I didn't see either the agenda to buy some of the Nat'l coal mines, as they don't produce any profitable revenue, as well as the cnn to Leonea. But I had the same problem with a stuggle to get all the agendas completed, so didn't attempt it.
Still a great scenario.

[Wolverine@MSU]

I found this one way too easy, and very open to exploits. Contrary to the advice given above, I merged very early with Blue Arch (in Jan. 1966). The secret here is to study the starting position of the companies: National Coal has a share price of $42 at the start of the game with a Book Value/share of $539. Buy as much of it as you can at the start, and keep buying it every time your purchasing power allows it during the firat year. Right at the end of December, sell it all off for a hefty profit. Then in January of '66, start your company, use some of its cash (leave a little more than $8 M in reserve) to buy back stock. Buy as much Blue Arch as you can with your cash, selling off as much of your own stock as you need to to get majority control of Blue Arch, then have your company take over Blue Arch (you may need to issue a bond and reissue stock to do this). Then buy back into your own company.

The exploit here is to build a large station just outside of the Power Center territory (close enough for the station radius to cover the territory) and build a dedicated line to haul coal into the territory at $25 K per load. I rans several trains on doubled track and was getting $3 - $4 M in returns per year! After connecting to Power Center 2, I did the same thing there, and also ran trains hauling coal between the two Power Centers. Granted, they didn't make a lot of money on the hauls themselves, but 8 loads at $15 -$20 K/load adds up to BIG profits at the end of the year. As a result, my company grew at a pretty good pace, and my stock investment grew handsomely.

After a few years, after the offer to ship for Cardinal, I bought it out and merged, pulling the same "tricks" with Power Centers 4 and 1. Below is my final ledger, just before getting Gold.

I know the intent of the scenario is to haul coal from the coal fields to the Powere Centers, but I'm a Tycoon, and will employ all legal tactics allowed to reach the stated goals. To prevent this kind of exploit, you need to increase the size of the Power Center territories, and check for (and not count in the totals) coal being hauled OUT of the territories. If 15 loads are delivered, but 10 loads are hauled off to another Power Center, the player should only get credit for the 5 net loads hauled in.

I like the "political stuff", but I would suggest that for the "pollution fine", there should be something in it to reduce the fine if the player is running electric trains instead of diesel/steam. You can't check whether electric locos are used, but you could reduce the fine if the company has a certain percentage of electric track. Just a thought. There are also some handsome profits to be made in Industry, both by buying pre-exising ones "coming into their own" and by building certain ones at the right time and place.

[RayofSunshine]

That is a very different approach to the concept of attaining the challenge goals MSU. I have seen such approach of both that to forgo the laying of track to that of buying up AI stock, as well as that of buying industries. Even to hold back on the delivery of cargo short of destination, so that it can be credited the following year. Very interesting, and will make an attempt with your strategy. Thanks for your input, and for that to lay "electric track" to avoid a penalty is an agenda which many of us did not consider. At least being that diesels are basic use. Just shows the level of TYCOON you really have attained. (hats off)

[Blackhawk]

Well I finally got a chance to play this scenario.

At first I started to try and just build up a rail network connecting cities, but after a year or two I realized this would not be profitable enough as there weren't enough passengers to support growth, and deal with all the fines I was getting. Early on the fines seemed oppressive, but once I got the coal connected the cash just started flowing in and I didn't even notice the fines anymore.

-The Nationalists took control first which was a little rough as there was little incentive to take out a 16% bond to help expansion, as well as dealing with the fines and reduced coal production. My biggest complaint with the fines was that I didn't really know what each party stood for other than a vague idea. Why are the Nationalists for oppressive pollution control? or Why am I suddenly dealing with a passenger requirement for the Populists? And I only found out about it mid-year. If the populists had taken power first, I'm not sure I would have had enough PAX a year to satisfy that requirement. So maybe there could be a description of each party before you pick your question answers with the pros/cons of each party. (maybe there was something like that but I missed it)

-More importantly, if the Nationalists are for pollution control, why am I the only one facing stiff fines, while the heavily pollutant National Coal with its coal mines and coal power plants gets off without a fine? It seems like there would be a increased environmental regulations that would further slow/stop heavily pollutant industries, like coal. As MSU said, what if you're running electric? Wouldn't that be encouraged by environmentalists? It would also be interesting if it was possible to sort of influence the elections somehow. Personal/Company Campaign donations? Shipping an amount of select goods? (ex. alcohol for the workers for Populists, food/milk to feel the poor people for the Nationalists, maybe autos for the rich Reformists?) While this might not guarantee your party being elected, it may increase the odds. Overall I thought the political system was interesting and challenging to deal with at first, especially when the Nationalists were in power first, I'd just like more control over it so I have more control over my own fate (as those mines don't produce well under the Nationalists)

-Moving on, is there supposed to be multiple start up companies besides the Blue Arch, Cardinal, and National Coal? I had a small company start up by Newcastle, which I quickly bought up as I wanted to build in that area (and actually thought I had). After I bought out that company within a couple years from the start, I now had access to all the other Districts, which I didn't know if that was supposed to happen or not? I then ended up buying up Blue Arch after just a few years as well, then Cardinal was shortly after that. I waited til the end to buy out National Coal as they were very rich and their coal mines were difficult to know whether they would be profitable or not. Also after I bought out Cardinal, another small start up company started.

-It's nice that the money you get for shipping coal seemed to be tax free, for once something doesn't get taxed :)

-I had already taken over Cardinal by the time I was told Nat. Coal was not happy with Cardinal, so that event might need a condition in there to not run if the company doesn't exist anymore.

-I'm not sure about the next thing I'll say but I'm not sure if your 5million dollar loan repayment event works correctly. As well as the NC $loss 1 & NC $loss 2 events work correctly. The 5million repayment event probably needs to be tested against the player's company, as well as if it's tested monthly I'd test it using the Game-month test rather than the current game year. The NC $loss events use current year rather than game-month, I'm not sure if that matters or not. I just didn't remember seeing money deducted from my account to repay the loan, and I didn't see any effect on Nat. Coal as it's stock price just kept going up as well as the amount of company cash it had. So either the monetary losses were too small to have an effect in creating Nat. Coal's decline (as they had profits from coal fields and interest) or the event wasn't working as expected.

-I also have to say I agree with MSU in that using variables to do the amount of coal in - the coal out = total coal would be the best way to go if possible. I tried to tycoon without taking advantage of the exploits but eventually my coal trains started to take coal with them, after they had just delivered it as the coal was actually worth more at the mines than at the power plants. I also used a station outside of Power Center 4 (to avoid traffic clutter from all the trains) to run the coal that I had just shipped to Power Center 4 to Power Center 1. I had already reached 500 for Power Center 4, so rather than take the time to reroute all my trains, I figured I'd just use PC4 as the staging ground for the connection train to PC1. Since I had already reached 500 at PC4, it wasn't like I was reusing the coal multiple times to reach the haulage goals, but I was getting the extra money at the end of the year for shipping it to PC4, and then the PC1.

Before my trains started to hauling a few car loads of coal away from the Power Centers after they had just brought coal in, I had wondered if there would have been enough coal to satisfy the demands. I paid a lot of attention to the levels of coal I was bringing in early in the game, but that was under the Nationalists so that may have been why I was worried about not meeting the demands. However, once the Populists came in I wasn't so worried. I may go back and try part of the game again making sure none of my trains leave the Power Centers with coal and see if I would have had any difficulties in reaching the haulage goals.



-A couple naming issues. Luzon is called Luzon2 on the map. I'd rename the Melville station to Power Center 4 (like you did with the Power center 3 station) Although you call that station the "Power Stn 3", rather than "Power Center 3"


Seems like there are various different ways to play this map.
While I didn't almost immediately buy out Blue Arch like MSU, I did buy it up within the first few years. I also build a brewery, and later bought a paper mill. Cardinal was bought up a few years after that. With the 25k per load of coal bonus, it made sense to buy up these 2 companies as fast as possible. I later built a couple more industries (textile mill, distillery) and made sure to have all the coal fields connected and hauling. As long as the coal was flowing things were profitable.
I ignored the uranium side-goal, as it did not seem like a wise investment that was worth my time. Uranium mines are too slow to produce and the cost of the track and maintenance costs just didn't seem to make a lot of sense. Of course I had more than enough money to make that line if I had wanted to. I did make the line to Lanena as PC1 was just right there, and while by that point in the game I just had the speed on fast waiting to meet the haulage goals so it gave me something to do. Again I didn't really need the cash from this either. It did make it easier to take over Nat. Coal, but I doubt I really needed the extra personal wealth.

Hopefully I didn't ramble or repeat myself too much. In conclusion, nice scenario, especially if it can be played and won in several different ways, but as with most haulage games, it could be useful to take advantage of the variables in 1.06 and get a total for the coal rather than being able to take the coal from 1 center to another.

[OilCan]

Thanks to all for the helpful comments and suggestions. This is why I like to send a new game out as a BETA before releasing it to the map archive. It always helps for other eyes to see it from a different perspective.

I will remove the BETA version and work on the final version. Again, thanks to all.

[Hawk]

Personally I'm looking forward to the final version.

I still haven't beat the scenario after several attempts.

I do like it though.

[RayofSunshine]

Hello to All,
As I have played a number of betas over the past weeks, I came back to see which "tested" betas have either been put into another version, or a final version. But knowing that our user creators are into different projects, time goes by fast, hence a question. OilCan in March mentions a "final version", and I may have missed it, but I am unable to locate it, IF it is actually in that stage. Any comments? Appreciated, as after final versions of play, I put them into my separate and special "inventory" archives.

[AT41B]

What ever happened to this scenario? Did it ever get posted?

[Hawk]

I don't think OilCan ever finished it. It's not in the archives.

He stops by occasionally. Maybe he'll see this and comment.