Questions About Territories, Limiting Access, etc.
Questions About Territories, Limiting Access, etc.
I am having a little trouble with a scenario under construction. I would like to put in an instant gold win if the human player can take over 3 railroads on the map other than his own. The human player is assigned a railroad and he has to compete against 6 AI companies that start out with a huge head start by having existing railroads up and running at the start of the game. I tried to write the event using the company ID numbers but I couldn't make it work. 1. How can I write the basic event? 2. Make it a lot harder when the play is set to "expert?" 3. Is there a way to disable the AI from starting up another company once he is ousted? Any assistance would be greatly appreciated-Thanks.
Last edited by wsherrick on Fri Dec 01, 2006 9:56 pm, edited 4 times in total.
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Ali Barba
Scenario building
:) Well I'm still not home for a day or so! In regards to taking over 3 railroads, if you set it up with 6 AI players when I presume (but am not in a position to check) that you can set the win conditions to there being < or = to 3 AI players left. Could be set up (if thats true) to a silver win for 4 AI players left etc.
I can see I might be busy when I do get home! LOL
Ali
I can see I might be busy when I do get home! LOL
Aliwsherrick, what I have used to detect the number of companies still in the game was “# of companies†event. If you make it check for less than four companies and the result is true then it should fire and give you the required result. But I am certain there are other ways of doing it.
So what have you actually tried?
So what have you actually tried?
The man who has no imagination has no wings. (Muhammad Ali)
- If you specifically want to test for takeover, you could try creating one tiny unpurchaseable territory for each AI, then testing if the human company has access to three or more of those territories - see Jeremy MacDonald's "Modern Africa" for an example of that approach. That prevents the human from winning just if the creditors shut down three of the AIs.
- Increase merger premium; increase AI owner funds so that they can own close to half of their own firms, or start them with half of their own stock and take some amount of cash away to force initial selloffs; limit track building to encourage human to let AIs build, but then scale up company overhead based on station count to discourage huge conglomerates.
- Set the special condition 'Disable starting multiple companies' (which also blocks the human from starting a new firm); kill the cash of any AI player who doesn't currently own a company (which can cause stock market havoc); or just deactivate AI players without companies (careful: buggy).
wsherrick, in reverse order:
3. One Company Only
The Special Condition Milo suggested would be your simplist/safest bet, although it also applies to the human player.
2. Expert Setting Play
In the event editor, there is a condition test "Game Difficulty Level". You could use this as the trigger for a number of options. The levels are zero (easy) to '3' (Expert).
Game Difficulty Level = 3 would be true if played on Expert.
Milo suggested a few options, but the field is wide open: Increased loco costs, Increased purchasing costs for industries, etc. I beleive most of these can be set to apply to the human player/company only (Cargo prices, however, are game-wide).
You don't have to confine these to happen at the start of the scenario, you could spread a few 'surprises' around at random intervals to make things interesting.
1. The "Take-Over" Test
1A. This is the hardest of all to pull off. Unfortunatly, I don't beleive there is a surefire way to do it in one event. JSS's idea is the simplist, most direct, however: as milo pointed out, it doesn't take into account the AI being liquidated. You could add an event to give the AI railroads a regular influx of cash to keep them solvent, but that also has side effects.
1B. Milo's idea of special territories would, I believe, work best. However, you would need to use 6 territories, 7 seperate events, and a variable - preferably a Company Variable, although a Player Variable may also work.
1B1. Each Territory test would have it's own event (Testing against each territory seperatly), with the effect being to add 1 to the Variable. The 7th event then tests if that variable is 3 or greater.
1B2. Each of the 6 territories would have to be set to "Border is visable"; "Limited Access"; "Access Cost" = $0. This would prevent the Human from buying his/her way into those territories.
1B3. You would then have to go into each of the pre-set Railroads and remove access to the other 5 special territories. Otherwise buying one AI would grant access to all 6.
1B4. Since you're testing territories, the human can still gain access to a liquidated company's territory by buying the 'assets' from the liquidater. Cheaper and easier than a regular merger, but still a costly option: Lots of trackage, but no trains!
I know this looks daunting, but in actual practice it's fairly simple
.
3. One Company Only
The Special Condition Milo suggested would be your simplist/safest bet, although it also applies to the human player.
2. Expert Setting Play
In the event editor, there is a condition test "Game Difficulty Level". You could use this as the trigger for a number of options. The levels are zero (easy) to '3' (Expert).
Game Difficulty Level = 3 would be true if played on Expert.
Milo suggested a few options, but the field is wide open: Increased loco costs, Increased purchasing costs for industries, etc. I beleive most of these can be set to apply to the human player/company only (Cargo prices, however, are game-wide).
You don't have to confine these to happen at the start of the scenario, you could spread a few 'surprises' around at random intervals to make things interesting.
1. The "Take-Over" Test
1A. This is the hardest of all to pull off. Unfortunatly, I don't beleive there is a surefire way to do it in one event. JSS's idea is the simplist, most direct, however: as milo pointed out, it doesn't take into account the AI being liquidated. You could add an event to give the AI railroads a regular influx of cash to keep them solvent, but that also has side effects.
1B. Milo's idea of special territories would, I believe, work best. However, you would need to use 6 territories, 7 seperate events, and a variable - preferably a Company Variable, although a Player Variable may also work.
1B1. Each Territory test would have it's own event (Testing against each territory seperatly), with the effect being to add 1 to the Variable. The 7th event then tests if that variable is 3 or greater.
1B2. Each of the 6 territories would have to be set to "Border is visable"; "Limited Access"; "Access Cost" = $0. This would prevent the Human from buying his/her way into those territories.
1B3. You would then have to go into each of the pre-set Railroads and remove access to the other 5 special territories. Otherwise buying one AI would grant access to all 6.
1B4. Since you're testing territories, the human can still gain access to a liquidated company's territory by buying the 'assets' from the liquidater. Cheaper and easier than a regular merger, but still a costly option: Lots of trackage, but no trains!
I know this looks daunting, but in actual practice it's fairly simple
.
Thanks for all the helpfull advice, I will get right to work on it. I will try to get it worked out over the weekend. Now, as far as the AI's go in the game, they grow like crazy. I want them to grow rapidly to a point, then much slower. Milo mentioned upping the AI company expenses after they have grown to a certain point, say 5 or 6 cities each. How much should I raise their operating costs to slow them down but not stop them altogether? I have played my test map over a dozen times to observe the AI behavior. As it is now the AI's cover the map in 10 to 12 years and of course all that activity really slows down the game. Thanks again
Hi Folks, I seem to be unable to do the most basic things it seems. I created the 6 territories as suggested and blocked out the human company to access, but when I put the territory to, "Border Is Visible"-"Limited Access"-"Cost=0" it doesn't prevent the human player from access to the territory for 0 cost. The event I wrote to disallow the player access to the territory didn't work either. Now that I've got the territories set up there has to be a simple way to block the human player from access to the special territories untill he absorbs the AI company that controls it. In short, how do you make a terrritory unpurchaseable? 
Uncheck Limited Access. The following works for visible territories. I am not sure about invisible territories.wsherrick wrote:In short, how do you make a terrritory unpurchaseable?
When
When a company is started
Conditions:
On screen player's company only
Company Variable 1 = 0
TerritoryID>3 [All Territories]
Effects:
To the company \ territory for which the condition is TRUE
Set Company Variable 1 to 1
Set Territory Allow All to FALSE
This will cut the company off from territories 4 thru 24. The use of Company Variable 1 prevents other human companies from being closed if they were able to get opened in the course of the game. You don't need it if there is only one human company ever.
Hmm, I just checked out my Of Men & Seals map, and I see why the territory closures didn't work. I applied the closures to the territories. You have to name the territory or its id in the condition, then apply the closure to the company.
Sherrick, are you able to redo the title of the thread to better describe its content?
Writing Event For Instant Gold
Okay Guys, I have created the unpurchasable territories and made it so that the human player does not have access to any of them and the 6 AI's
can only access the terrritory on each individual track. Last night I stayed up until 4:30 AM attempting to write the series of events to trigger the Instant Gold Win but to no avail. I set the conditions like this: When a company is started, tested monthly, Force test against Co.(true) Force testagainst Territories (True) Test against On Screen Player Only. Effect: Company Variable 3=1. I did this 6 times each time adding one to the Company Variable untill Company Variable =6.
There are 8 territories in all counting the U. S. and Canada, plus the 6 I made up. I wrote the seventh event to test for company variable <=3 to give me the Instant Gold and it failed. Oh, by the way, in each of the 6 events I selected one of the restricted territories in the test. What did I miss? I thought that when I absorbed 3 of the AI companies it would subtract the Company Variable by 3 to trigger the Gold.
can only access the terrritory on each individual track. Last night I stayed up until 4:30 AM attempting to write the series of events to trigger the Instant Gold Win but to no avail. I set the conditions like this: When a company is started, tested monthly, Force test against Co.(true) Force testagainst Territories (True) Test against On Screen Player Only. Effect: Company Variable 3=1. I did this 6 times each time adding one to the Company Variable untill Company Variable =6.
There are 8 territories in all counting the U. S. and Canada, plus the 6 I made up. I wrote the seventh event to test for company variable <=3 to give me the Instant Gold and it failed. Oh, by the way, in each of the 6 events I selected one of the restricted territories in the test. What did I miss? I thought that when I absorbed 3 of the AI companies it would subtract the Company Variable by 3 to trigger the Gold.
OK i think i see now:
To test for access should be:
Trigger: Comp. has access to Terr. is TRUE (this automaticly asks for company & territory specifics)
Select "On Screen company only" (as you did); Select territory as you did.
Testing monthly is also good.
You also need to check "One time only event", otherwise it will trigger every month.
Effects: Company Variable = +1 (this automaticly defaults to apply effects to "company \ territory for which the condition is true". which is what you want.)
Each event will add 1 when you gain access to the special territory.
Your Seventh test (for Gold) would be "Company Variable >=3". Be sure to set the medal award in the effects (which I'm sure you did).
I apologize for the confusion, and hope this helps.
To test for access should be:
Trigger: Comp. has access to Terr. is TRUE (this automaticly asks for company & territory specifics)
Select "On Screen company only" (as you did); Select territory as you did.
Testing monthly is also good.
You also need to check "One time only event", otherwise it will trigger every month.
Effects: Company Variable = +1 (this automaticly defaults to apply effects to "company \ territory for which the condition is true". which is what you want.)
Each event will add 1 when you gain access to the special territory.
Your Seventh test (for Gold) would be "Company Variable >=3". Be sure to set the medal award in the effects (which I'm sure you did).
I apologize for the confusion, and hope this helps.