Ukraine 1865 Beta

[OilCan]

Attached is a beta version of ‘Ukraine 1865’. This is a 1.05V game.

Game goals are to connect the four corners of the Ukraine and to haul different types of cargo. Gold medal requires being the only railroad on the map (2-5 rivals). The game follows a path of historical events.

Any helpful comments, ideas or suggestions to improve the game would be greatly appreciated.


Edit: I removed the beta version and will send Hawk the final version. Many thanks to those who tested the game and offered their improvements. Nov 16, 2011

[Hawk]

One minor little oddity I found 6 months into the scenario.

Click on image to view full size

[OilCan]

Good catch Hawk. Can't tell you how many times I found myself typing in 19 instead of 18 while creating the game. Really messes up an event trigger when it waiting for the 1900s instead of the 1800s. Don't be surprised if you see a 19 again in the game.
I'll run through the event dialogs and make sure that there are no errant 19s.

[Hawk]

Do I understand right that you only have 5 years to haul 75 loads each of furniture and cheese?

The briefing says that furniture factories and dairy plants don't appear until 1880, 5 years before the end of the 20 year scenario setting.

[arop]

Planning to make a v 1.06 version of your Ukraine map for p r i v a t e use, I have taken a first look at your new map. a) Region 00 Dairies is situated in the middle of the sea b) Region 01 No production. Shouldn't it have been opposite? c) You may be right that small coalfields are scattered around in the real world, but when using the region "coal" on such small areas it's almost unlikely, that coal mines will ever spawn. Another thing is your choice of locomotives: I find the 0-4-4-0 Fairlie almost useless playing such a map. You could easily use the 4-4-0 American, the 2-6-0 Mogul or the 2-8-0 Conssolidation while many early Russian locos were woodfired and the loco building practice grew more and more North American over time. I have also noticed, that there are almost no locomotives beyond 1900 (I think, that 30 years is a relatively short time to play, if you would like to follow the history of Ukranian railways). But all in all your new map looks interesting, although I would wish it was somewhat bigger

[OilCan]

Do I understand right that you only have 5 years to haul 75 loads each of furniture and cheese?

The briefing says that furniture factories and dairy plants don't appear until 1880, 5 years before the end of the 20 year scenario setting.

Yes, 5 years. It can be done. The cheese will be your toughest one. It will take a year after a factory is built for the demand to increase enough to start seeing loads hauled. After that, and with the right placement, the furniture and cheese factories start really producing. Upgrade them as quick as possible.

I started with a 10-year time frame, but during the last few years of a 10-year span the player is just sitting and watching the load counts increase.

Let me know if 5 years is really too short.

[Hawk]

I'm currently in Sept. 1876 and missed the weapons haul, although I did meet the ammo haul. Not having a proper limber run set up when I got the notice, 4 years wasn't quite enough time to get the weapons built.

The city connections was easy. I had all but Sevastopol connected in the first 5 years. The other haulage requirements are proving to be a real challenge.

Knowing what I know now, I may start again.

Edit 1: Looks like we were posting at the same time, but you beat me to it and left the forum before you saw this post.

[OilCan]

Planning to make a v 1.06 version of your Ukraine map for p r i v a t e use, I have taken a first look at your new map. a) Region 00 Dairies is situated in the middle of the sea b) Region 01 No production. Shouldn't it have been opposite? c) You may be right that small coalfields are scattered around in the real world, but when using the region "coal" on such small areas it's almost unlikely, that coal mines will ever spawn. Another thing is your choice of locomotives: I find the 0-4-4-0 Fairlie almost useless playing such a map. You could easily use the 4-4-0 American, the 2-6-0 Mogul or the 2-8-0 Conssolidation while many early Russian locos were woodfired and the loco building practice grew more and more North American over time. I have also noticed, that there are almost no locomotives beyond 1900 (I think, that 30 years is a relatively short time to play, if you would like to follow the history of Ukranian railways). But all in all your new map looks interesting, although I would wish it was somewhat bigger

Sugus, thanks for the comments.
a) & b) You're peeking at the regions! Yes, you are right, they should have been switched, but I actually started with "West Steppe" as the first region then later changed it to "Dairies" after I broke the steppe into different zones.

c) the coal fields spawn just wonderfully - scattered clumps and in different spots each game. The iron does the same thing. Coal and iron mines have a very small footprint.

d) OK, now I'm thinking that you have not yet started the game. The Fairlie is made unavailable because it is useless in this game. I went with European train engines only. I really like the mix made available. It gives the player a choice of a different way to play each time. The 'Connie' is made available during the game by special event.

I looked up on the internet what kinds of trains would have been in Ukraine during mid to late 1800s. There were some models which are not available on RT3. It is true that the Russians were using modifications of the 2-8-0 and then later the 2-8-2 (Sch Class). However, I kept the Connie out of the start of the game because it is distinctly North American in RT3.

Let's talk timeframes. Right now, the game runs 20 years. I thought about running the game until 1904, but that would have been 40 years; way too long for such a scale map. The player would have become bored. I may increase it to 25 years, but not 40 years.
Not much interesting happened in the Ukraine after the mid-1880s until the 1904 revolution - which is a good thing. Alexander III relaxed more and more control over the Ukraine, even allowing the native Ukrainian language to be spoken and taught. After the completion of the TransSiberian and TransCaspian Railways in 1890s a lot of Ukrainians migrated out - huge numbers left.

Map scale is a tricky thing. You want a good balance of play space verse train travel time. This game requires hauling weapons across almost the height of the map, so train travel time had to be seriously considered (and tested). That is what determined the final scale of the map.

Now I have a question for you: why change it to 1.06V? The 1.06V will change the 'urgency' of completing the final haul goals because you can ship without profit. 1.06V will also change the special task of hauling weapons because a player can haul the weapons out of the territory and then back again for a double count.

[Hawk]

Sugus, thanks for the comments.

Sugus?

I'm going to start this one again, but this time I'm not going to concern myself with city connections. If the seeding is anything like the first time, the city connections will take care of themselves with me having to fetch raw materials, knowing what I know now.

It's probably going to be next week before I can get back to this. We have some friends coming in from Alabama for the weekend. I most likely won't be home much while they're here. They want to go up to Tennessee for some reason.

Personally, I think this map is better played in 1.05. I don't think Anders has a 1.05 install. I think he just has a 1.06 install.

[arop]

I'm a hardcore v1.06 addict. I like ore mines, furnances, (limestone?) quarries, (cement?) concrete plants, electronic plant, machine shops etc. I haven't played v1.05 since very long and have no v1.05 nor TM installed on my main computer

[OilCan]

I'm a hardcore v1.06 addict. I like ore mines, furnances, (limestone?) quarries, (cement?) concrete plants, electronic plant, machine shops etc. I haven't played v1.05 since very long and have no v1.05 nor TM installed on my main computer

I understand the appeal of 1.06V. It offers more industry options, ability to add warehouses & ports and correctly counts track. The main drawback is that it makes a 'haul' game difficult to set up because the player can cheat so easily.

I'm working on a 1.06V game about the Gulf of Mexico oil spill and had to create "no-station" buffers around some territories in order to stop the 1.06V haul cheat.

[Sugus]

This time it's really a post from Sugus!

I played the map yesterday on normal (RT3 with Patch 1.06) and got Silver. As you can see in

U2120.jpg (25.05 KiB) Viewed 11378 times

I was only short in hauling furniture and, of course, could do that better based on an earlier saved game state. This was surprising, because - as

U2020.jpg (24.68 KiB) Viewed 11378 times

shows - I had only Bronze at the beginning of the final year and was not sure, if I could increase my results! Furthermore, I was easily frightened, when Cheese and furniture became available. The screen shot

U1720.jpg (24.05 KiB) Viewed 11378 times

proves, that I was "nowhere" at this moment.

Indeed an interesting and challenging map!
Nevertheless - and with respect to a Patch 1.05 player trying it on hard or even expert - I would like to complain of two things:
(1) The Consolidation (available in 1865) arrives too late.
(2) The "over $5 million company cash" penalty of $2 million is too hard, especially when you try to take over companies.

[OilCan]

This time it's really a post from Sugus!

Nevertheless - and with respect to a Patch 1.05 player trying it on hard or even expert - I would like to complain of two things:
(1) The Consolidation (available in 1865) arrives too late.
(2) The "over $5 million company cash" penalty of $2 million is too hard, especially when you try to take over companies.

Sugus! Sorry for the confusion.

Thanks for the comments.
The Consolidation is supposed to be a 'prize' for reaching Brest. I'll change that around and make the Connie appear earlier in the game.

You are right about the $5M cash cap. I test played with 5 rivals. Taking over the last 2 rivals required me to take $10M loans plus whatever cash I could gain before the tax. The reason for the $5M cash cap is to encourage the player to invest into rails and industry rather than build a cash pile. Maybe a $15M cash cap instead of the $5M?

Maybe I should add 5 years to the time line of the game to allow the furniture and cheese industries to fully develop. Of course, that would mean a higher haul goal for each medal. I believe a game should have a challenge, but not be stressful. The extra five years might help reach that balance.

[Blackhawk]

I just got done with this map on expert. I finished in mid-1883. I took the Russian deal and started in Russia and worked my way back to Odessa. I didn't realize I could have added more AI's so I just played with the default 2 and I merged with them after 4-5 years before they got bigger and harder to merge with.

I was fine with not getting the Consolidation until the last few years. I think it's main advantage was its high speed with a full haul and over longer distances, so I really only used it on the hauls of cheese and furniture at the end as I'd wait for 7 full carloads from a factory before I'd send the train off. I never really bothered to update my engines ever along the way, when a new engine came out I'd start using that. I probably could have updated them fairly easily though with all the cash I had in the later years.

I was a little concerned I wouldn't have enough cheese or furniture but then once they started being hauled it was easy enough. The factories/processors lose money for a couple years though so occasionally for the dairy processors I'd build them, upgrade them, and sell them. That way I got some of the cash back and could build another processor quickly.

The one problem with haulage goals is that you can just use the same cargo and send it to station A then B then C and get credit for hauling it multiple times.

I think you may need to fix the fine for failing to build the Russian connection. It's a -50,000 one time event, that would need to be an event that occurs more than once. You'll probably want to remove the message from that event as well otherwise I'm sure people will get tired of having to click on it 50 times.

I'm not sure if it was intended or not but the AI had access into M,G,& L districts so when I bought them out I got access there.

Overall a nice scenario that requires rapid expansion so you can meet the 10,000 loads hauled goal. Then for the final 5 years be sure you've got a good flow of cash in, some cash stockpiled, and the ability to take out some bonds if needed so you can build up and upgrade the furniture factories and dairy processors and then just set your furniture and cheese trains on express and sit back and hope you meet the deadline. I had 5 dairy processors and 6 furniture factories to build the cargoes and 130 engines.

As for the 5 million dollar fine, I can't really comment much on it as I didn't need more than 5 million to take over a company but I did need 3.5 million I think so I could see how you would need more than 5 million to take over a company if you waited and it grew larger. I know the fine is supposed to stimulate investment but I think in this game it's sort of a requirement that you invest and build out your rail network quickly and buy up some successful industries in order to meet the 10,000 haul goal.

Edit:

I just let the game run til all 20 years were up and so I'll post a screen shot of that.

[OilCan]

230 loads of cheese! Incredible! You must have fed those dairy cows a high-energy feed. And a super job with setting up the custom consists.
- the multiple counts as the loads bump from station to station is factored in. The best I could do with cheese (always the lowest haul count for me) was about 150, so I halved it for the gold medal.

It is intentional that the AI's have access to the other Russian districts. Offers the player a 'bonus' by merging. Later in the game, if the player does not already have access, it is provided.

I'll fix the $50K monthly payment.

Thanks for the helpful comments.

[RayofSunshine]

This scenario has a very good concept of challenges. Basically based mostly on other members threads. To my demise, I didn't get the hauls to Sevastopel in time, as every train leaving Orel was taking away the lumber which I would haul for the weapons. But from the comments made in previous threads, it is a worthwhile endeavor to initiate more attempts. Again, a great scenario.

[OilCan]

This scenario has a very good concept of challenges. Basically based mostly on other members threads. To my demise, I didn't get the hauls to Sevastopel in time, as every train leaving Orel was taking away the lumber which I would haul for the weapons. But from the comments made in previous threads, it is a worthwhile endeavor to initiate more attempts. Again, a great scenario.

Thanks for testing the game and the kind comments. If you attempt the game again, it may help to create a separate station for the weapons & ammo factories at Orel. Setting a custom consist for trains leaving the city station of Orel helps stop the loss of lumber. Also, take advantage of hauling from any 'productive' weapons or ammo factories in the Ukraine. Just some ideas.

[RayofSunshine]

That or those are great suggestions. I keep forgetting to implement these methods from one scenario to another. In a number of other scenarios I find it frustrating to have made an effort to supply the demand at an industry, only to have it taken to a different destination. Will have to try and remember these methods.

[Hawk]

This map is now in the archives.

http://hawkdawg.com/rrt/rrt3/map_arch/rt3_europe.htm

[PaulJohann]

Hi,
wonder if anybody has played this map yet. Just cant believe the requirements for medals. 10,000 loads for gold (7,500 for bronze) in 25 years appears to be absolutely ridiculous for this map. Started playing on expert level, got 120 loads after 5 years which I feel is at the upper limit of what is possible on this map. Have I missed any additional info for this map?
Its a pity since this is really a nice map with an interesting story line.