effect of 1.06 changes

[Pat in the desert]

Not sure if this was the right section...

I recently started the Campaign fresh with the setting at Hard. Running with the 1.06 patch. Does this affect some aspects of the game in the campaign scenarios. I got to the Germantown scenario, where it is to expand the train system in the midwest. I was able to get a silver but gold was not possible, at least with the start that I made.
2 observations. First, the AI companies were extremely successful. Never seen them do so well. Of the 4 competitors was only able to take over one of them. For a second company, had bought into 51+ percent of the stock but was unable to raise enough cash to force the merger. Short description of 2 of the companies. One started as Lansing-to-Saginaw in Michigan. Expanded to other other Michigan cities including Detroit. I headed from South Bend to Detroit at this point to try to contain him. He jumped to Toledo then later to Columbus, Indianopolis and others. Another started in Madison and other cities in the Wisconsin area. Connected to my company in Milwaukee. My initial starting point was Chicago-Milwaukee. He never expanded to very many cities just 4 or 5. He got to Dubuque (spelling?) but never crossed the Mississippi. Both of these companies made money like they were printing it!! They never went into a loss mode. The first company stayed almost even with me on cash. I looked at their rail traffic, and they were running a lot of trains to the same few cities but the profits never dropped and the volume was huge. To me, they were cheating. Big time. Eventually they started buying up industry all over the place with their spare cash. I stopped buying industry to build up cash to buy them out. Could not keep up with their growth to buy out. Target went from 18 mill to 22 to 25 to 28.
Second issue. Could not add hotel, restaurant, tavern or post office to the area of my stations. Not available on the list.

Did the 1.06 changes affect this? Do I need to go back to the 1.05 version to play the campaign maps? I see from discussion where some of you keep more than one installation in different folders or drives to have more than one version available.

[edbangor]

Second issue. Could not add hotel, restaurant, tavern or post office to the area of my stations. Not available on the list.

Did the 1.06 changes affect this? Do I need to go back to the 1.05 version to play the campaign maps? I see from discussion where some of you keep more than one installation in different folders or drives to have more than one version available.

I don't know about the first issue you raised but the availabitiy of hotels and other station building (well all buildings in fact) is set in the editor when the scenarios are made as any/all can be turned off so they can't be accessed by the player of that map/scenario. Whichever version of the game you have won't make any difference.

BTW: I only run two versions of the game 1.06 and TM on my machine.

[Pat in the desert]

I just tried starting the campaign scenario on the version 1.5 that I installed to the other PC. The tavern, restaurant, etc. are there. So the 1.06 must be making a difference of some kind. Guess I answered my own question.

So that makes another question. Never tried modifying any of the campaign maps. If I edit and change a map, is there a way to put it back in the campaign? Or make an alternate campaign? Or will it just have to be a stand-alone scenario. Or I should just play them on the 1.05 install.

Still interested on why the AI companies suddenly got so good. More like what level of "advantages" they were given. I know in RRT2 it would show the advantage/disadvantage for the players. Like on 'hard' setting it was like the AI players got +10% on revenues and the human player got -10%. And in custom those could be adjusted. In RRT3 you just set the level, it does not show the advantages for the level of difficulty.

[KevinL]

I went thru the same thing on the campaign maps, specifically Germantown like you mentioned. I had to go into the editor and enable the post office, hotel, tavern, etc. And disable the building of ports and warehouses. Its a small bug or difference in the 1.06 patch. I dont know what causes it either, but its easy enough to work around.

I dont know of a way to fix it permanently, so I just go into the editor each time I play that map and change it first before I start playing.

[Pat in the desert]

So you jump to the editor using the shift-E ? Then you have to save it or something. How do you exit the editor and go back to the game?

[Hawk]

Shift+E will take you back to the game, same as getting into the editor.

[OilCan]

Still interested on why the AI companies suddenly got so good. More like what level of "advantages" they were given. I know in RRT2 it would show the advantage/disadvantage for the players. Like on 'hard' setting it was like the AI players got +10% on revenues and the human player got -10%. And in custom those could be adjusted. In RRT3 you just set the level, it does not show the advantages for the level of difficulty.

While you are in the game editor, look at the 'Computer AI' page. This will tell you at what level of competition all the AI are set at for the game. Anything less than aggressive and the AI is more of a nusiance than anything else (and ripe for exploiting).

And, yes, the AI cheat. They somehow get money from somewhere even when their company is broke and given up for dead. Out of the blue they will come alive, connect to another city and start buying farms. This is why I've given up short selling their stocks.....they cheat.

You can mess with a powerful AI company by gaining the 51% ownership in their company stocks (plus your own company stocks). Take ownership of their company, sell their industry and their farms. Use the company cash to build a tunnel or bridge to nowwhere. You can delete a section of their track and they are not smart enough to rebuild it or go around it. This will drive down their stock price, then you can merge with them.

[Pat in the desert]

Shift+E will take you back to the game, same as getting into the editor.

A-ha!! So that's the trick. It would probably help if I read the whole manual ....

[Hawk]

It would probably help if I read the whole manual ....

Nah! That's what we're here for.

[Pat in the desert]

You can mess with a powerful AI company by gaining the 51% ownership in their company stocks (plus your own company stocks). Take ownership of their company, sell their industry and their farms. Use the company cash to build a tunnel or bridge to nowwhere. You can delete a section of their track and they are not smart enough to rebuild it or go around it. This will drive down their stock price, then you can merge with them.

I'm aware that it's possible to do that....
But it seems to me not in the spirit of a competitive game, with an AI who's not too smart to begin with. To take over the chairmanship and trash the company. But someday when I'm in a vicious mood I could give it a try. Better than kicking the dog.

I played thru the map on the 1.05 version. So the station add-on buildings were there. And the AI players played a much more ordinary game. I got off to to an aggressive start. In fact it actually took 3 starts. In the first one I was aggressive on the stock buying and a recession hit during the 3rd year. I could not keep cash value above zero except with repeated stock buybacks by the company. Recession continued until I used up available bonds to prop up the stock price. Gave up at the point that most of the stock was sold off on the margin call. 2nd time I did not like how the industries were seeded. 3rd time got a location west of St. Louis where 3 logging camps would feed a lumber mill. Built the mill then built a station next to it so that the stations 'footprint' would help capture the logs that were going down the river. Then built an initial connection to St. Louis. Meanwhile started buying stock in competitors after getting to about 40% of my own stock. AIs were looking far more ordinary with one going to negative earnings after 2 years. Was able to reach gold on the hard setting. After last competitor was merged in about 20 years, just had to keep building comapny wealth until reaching 40 mill.
So to see the campaign games the way they were designed, it looks like they have to be played on the 1.05 version. Or various changes, subtle or not-so-subtle, will show up.

[bombardiere]

So to see the campaign games the way they were designed, it looks like they have to be played on the 1.05 version. Or various changes, subtle or not-so-subtle, will show up.

Yes, I am afraid so. Changes in 1.06 can potentially alter all scenarios done with 1.05 or earlier. In some scenarios you will not notice any change, but in some diffirence can major.

Milo did something with AI behavior. I understand that he has made AI more aggressive and competitive. I don't know well his technical stuff, but I believe his changes were more than just add cheats to AI players. TopPop give bonuses to AI player depending on difficulty level.

[Grandma Ruth]

As I just said in another thread, it's best to look on 1.06 as a completely different game and play only the scenarios made for it. It should say in the archives which ones are for the 1.06 patch, I think there are a few. Or you could make some new scenarios yourself!

[Pat in the desert]

Understand that in my original message, and other replies that I gave. I was not complaining about the changes, or calling them wrong. Just trying to understand what was going on. And possibly help others who would read here to understand the versions of the RT3 game.

As I have come to understand, there is a breaking point between the 1.05 and 1.06 versions. And to be aware of that. Maps done in 1.06 won't work in the 1.05 version. And 1.05 maps can be played in 1.06 but the results are a bit unpredictable. For the most part it can be easier. The Custom Consist makes meeting the goals for delivering certain cargoes a lot easier. But sometimes they get harder or even impossible - as in the Germantown scenario in the campaign.

[Wolverine@MSU]

There's an applet on the RT3 Extras page that will make 1.06 games able to be played in 1.05.

[Orange46]

Pat in the desert wrote:
So to see the campaign games the way they were designed, it looks like they have to be played on the 1.05 version. Or various changes, subtle or not-so-subtle, will show up.

Actually, there were lots of changes between 1.0 and 1.05, and the campaign games were designed for 1.00. A major change was reducing express traffic as the number of connected cities increased. This was a major problem in 1.00 and was fixed by 1.05 - or if not fixed - improved to be more realistic. I was working on my first scenario -North America thru the Ages and had it working the way I wanted it to and then a patch came out-probably 1.05, but maybe an earlier one. Anyway, the scenario no longer worked the way I wanted it to and I had to rejigger it because of the improvements (i.e. lessening of) in express volume. Another big fix to 1.00 was terraforming, which in 1.00 was Terrorforming. Whenever new structures popped up near a track, terrains jumped hugely. I had a track spike to the sky in a valley in the Italian alps in one of the campaign scenarios. I didn't build it like that, it just happened when a structure spawned near my track. Amazingly, the trains still made it over the almost 100% grade. I experienced some of that old terror when I was in Vista using 1.03 - the problem was fixed to its current state over more than one patch.

[rcpark57]

I'm brand new to this forum, but an old hat at "playing" the RT3 (and earlier versions) game . Never imagined there were folks as knowledgeable as yourselves out there! I may in time feel like your peer, but for now am a mildly frustrated 1.06 player. One of the comments on this thread confirmed what I have experienced, and that is with this patch, you lose hotels, taverns, post offices etc..., quite a normal thing for me in all my previous play, so I felt a bit lost :)

I tried installing without the building patches, and the game hangs when it gets to the "loading buildings" part of the startup of a campain/scenario.

I saw another post that there's a patch/fix to get the 106 campaigns to play in 1.05, so I'll try that... but any ideas on making 1.06 use these buildings?

Thanks,
RCP

[Orange46]

RCR: Hotels, etc work the same with this patch as with the original. Scenario designers have the option to not make them available, so in some scenarios you can't build them.

On a related matter, there is a customs house that is available with this patch. I know what it did in RT2, but have no idea what it does in RT3. I am not sure if I have ever even built a customs house in RT3.