Railroads are not rollercoasters!!!

[Altoona+BeachCreek]

Ugh... Not another one. Here I am, trying to build, run, and operate my railroad as realistically and efficiently as possible. Playing in my favorite era on Pacific Coastal, with one AI enabled, I start in the Sacramento Valley with two Class J' s at the moment and some very level track. Then I notice the AI has finally done something useful by starting his own company. Naturally curious I check it out. He took the typical AI route of two cities connected by one useful train and one unnecessary engine that will burn cash for a few years. But wait... CRAP

up to 9% grades!

Why, AI, why? I'm not really sure why I'm posting this, I'm guess I'm kind of venting. Now I'm too far in to restart just because of this, and it's gonna be a while before I can merger with it. Anyone else have similar stories of getting trolled by a computer?

[Hawk]

AI will generally take the shortest path between two points,using the least amount of track as possible, whatever the terrain may be.
AI should stand for Artificial Ignorance.

You could always Shift+E and adjust the terrain under the AI tracks.

[Altoona+BeachCreek]

That's not a bad idea actually... Noone would ever know!

[Gumboots]

TBH it's stuff like this that makes me want to avoid AI players. As far as I'm concerned, merging with an AI of any size is an end of game requirement only. What I mean is that, if the AI company is large enough to have built a significant network, sorting out the crap they have built is too much hassle and expense to bother with. It always goes like this:

1/ Build up cash and stocks and take the AI company over.
2/ Immediately pause game.
3/ Start sorting through my expanded list of trains to find all the ones that came from the AI company.
4/ Move them all to the end of the list.
5/ Now go through them all again, and figure out which ones are too old and/or too unprofitable to be worth keeping. Ditch those (usually around half of them). If they have some cargo on them at the time, but it's only 10 or 20k, just ditch them anyway to get things sorted. This whole exercise is going to cost heaps anyway.
6/ OMFG, the track! Stop trains that are on reasonable track. Start the game again to move trains worth saving away from track that is not worth saving. Pause game again.
7/ Demolish lots of track (usually about half of it). Lay new track in a sane fashion.
8/ Oh did I mention maintenance buildings? Invariably, every single maintenance shed and service tower from the AI company will be useless to me, because I always put those on spurs and as scheduled stops. So, demolish every one that came from the AI company and build new ones where I want them.
9/ Go over the remaining ex-AI trains again and re-route them so they make more sense. Maybe add a few more if needed.

Ok, now it's all done. After purchasing the AI company, it has probably taken at least another million on top of the purhcase price just to get things useful. More likely it will have taken well over two milion, and it has probably chewed up close to an hour of time. Honestly, I can't be bothered most of the time, and will probably just toss the game instead because I know I can win it.

[Altoona+BeachCreek]

Ha! That's EXACTLY what I have to go through when I merge. At least it's what happened ever since I adopter your idea of spur-track maintenance. AI tends to have 2-5 trains going between two cities sometimes, and that is just uncalled for. Whenever I takeover a young AI, I always end up scrapping at least one loco.

[Gumboots]

A week or so back I was playing the campaign version of the British Isles map, in which the computer players actually do something (unlike the scenario version) and you have to take them over. Got the last and largest AI with a few years to spare, then started sorting through stuff. Didn't bother finishing. I just gave up in disgust because of how stupid the whole thing was.

There's a handy pass between Manchester and Leeds that you can get through with very good grades. It's worth doing too, because it's quite a profitable route for one or two trains. The AI had missed the pass and gone straight up the side of the steepest hill, and had put at least half a dozen trains on the route, and had put a maintenance shed halfway up the steepest slope. With single track. The whole thing was a massive cluster. Traffic was hardly ever moving at all. That's just one example of had bad the whole network was, and it's pretty typical for AI players.

[Blackhawk]

Thinking about it though, wouldn't you expect to have to take some time to sort through the finances and operations of a new company you've taken over? Just like in the real world, upon a buy out or merger there are often changes that must occur to stream-line the operation and join the 2 companies into 1. Often a company's poorly managed and it takes some effort and sometimes money to fix those problems. Similar to taking over an AI railroad.

Usually it does take some time and effort to sort through the AI trains. Often the AI trains like to just go between 2 cities, so I'll fix that. I'll retire old trains, reroute most of them, and if they aren't needed on the formerly AI track, I'll add use them elsewhere on my line. (Unless it's something like they're still using steam engines when diesels are more common and preferable.)

[Gumboots]

If any company IRL was as stupid as the AI's in RRT3, no sane person would want to take them over.

It's not the finances that are the problem. It's everything else. A lot of the time it's just too tedious to bother with IMHO. It's not something I enjoy doing, so I'd rather ditch the game and play another.

[Altoona+BeachCreek]

All those reasons are exactly why I would like to play multiplayer! I yearn for a challenge, so often I actuallly boost up the AI's aggression and add the maximum, or base the number off the map size. I added 14 AI's to Aurelia to simulate a real country with a massive need for railroads. I'm gong to get on now and see what I can do.

[gismoskip]

All those reasons are exactly why I would like to play multiplayer! I yearn for a challenge, so often I actuallly boost up the AI's aggression and add the maximum, or base the number off the map size. I added 14 AI's to Aurelia to simulate a real country with a massive need for railroads. I'm gong to get on now and see what I can do.

i know! i mean, the AIs are SOOO stupid! Example: in one map, the AI opponent built a connection with 24% grades. WHY? I DON'T KNOW! lol. the world may never know . . . . (exept the programmers that made this game)

[HerrPanzer]

I don't look at the Ai as real competitors but rather roadblocks, albeit usually minor ones, to indefinite and unrestricted expansion. Even in the majority of cases where an Ai only connects a handful of cities, it still makes expansion more expensive and if one is unwilling to run trains on their lines (like me), it forces creative workarounds. Buying even a small railroad is many millions of dollars that will never be recouped, but I like having to come up with that unproductive cash which forces me to hold back further expansion for a while. For example, I am currently doing the Long German scenario, which has no Ais, I had every city connected within a couple of decades. A few Ais might have made the expansion a little more drawn out and forced me to plan instead of simply being able to spew out new lines every year and vomit up industries wherever I wanted them. I took a few years to buy back $100mil in public stock, but now I have another 30 years of game and nothing to do.

99% of the time, since I know the Ai has no idea what it is doing, when I buy a company I bulldoze all their lines, retire all the trains, instead of taking the time to parcel out the 4% of the company that was set up the way I would have. I guess the best way to put it is that I look at Ai companies as variable value territories. I don't expand where the Ai is located until I buy them out.

[Gumboots]

I'm much the same. To me, AI's are just a nuisance rather than a challenge as such. Too many of them just means too many nuisances, which to my mind makes the game boring too. All they do is build completely crappy networks which are no use whatsoever, and attempt to infest my network with piles of unprofitable trains. I call AI trains running on my track "fleas".

[Hawk]

I call AI trains running on my track "fleas".

Fleas you can make a profit from, albeit a bit trivial. Profit none-the-less.

I generally take the time to sort out the AI trains and routes when I buy a company. It can become profitable if you take a little time and sort out their mess.

[Gumboots]

Oh sure, but they also clog your stations. That reduces the profit from your own trains.

I'll take the time to sort out an AI after takeover if, and only if, there are some interesting things left to do in the game. If it's a case of taking over means I win, I'll just toss the game at that point. Even when I do sort them out, I'll usually throw away at least half their trains and track, all their maintenance sheds and water towers, and sometimes a few stations as well.

[Wolverine@MSU]

I often find myself connecting to AIs rails, let them send the "fleas" onto my lines, and then buldoze part of the connection so the "fleas" are stranded. AIs can also be helpful if you use them to your advantage. For instance, assuming you have >50% of your own company, you can buy a controlling share in an AI, and either use them to buy/build profitable industries and max out the dividend rate (this works especially well if you own most or all of the AI's stock), or do a "Bain Capital" on them: get control, take out as many bonds as you can, use it to buy back stock, buldoze some of their track to prevent income from trains, sell back your stock, retake control of your own company, short-sell their stock, and watch them go into the tank.

[RayofSunshine]

Some very good comments and suggestions. But my complaint is to that of the lay of the terrain as well. In the days of early steam, the terrain was not of great importance, considering the speed of the engines. Oh there were problems with deep gullies and mountains. But in these modern times, I find it unrealistic for both diesels and electric to be operating over the same terrain.

e.g. Without considering the real early steam of Adler, PLanet, etc, just the mid time steam of 50-65+ speeds have the trains doing a slight jumping over the lower or med height hills. But once a player gets into the electric, some of which reach 100-200+ mph, passengers would have to be "tightly strapped" into their seats. Snack or meals on the deluxe trains would be impossible. The RT3 developers had some very good programs in its creation, but I do believe that to eliminate the "rollercoaster" effects of moving trains would have been a tremendous task.

I do construct maintainence stops. However, I do find that in a merge, it is occasional to find them. By the same token, although AIs are usually in a mess when being merged, I have found some with "brand new" engines. Guess it is all in the programming.

But with all the complaints we find, it is still a great program, although on occasion, I do like to return to RT2, Gold and Platinum Editions.