Pre-built AI railroads

[Canadian Viking]

Some of you have made scenarios which have pre-built railroads in them. I just finished playing Age of Steam II - Illinois Central, which has about 6 railroads on the map when the game begins. What techniques have you experts learned in setting up these railroads?

Do you build them in the editor at the start date, and you choose the trains and their route schedules? Or do you build the AI railroads with the game clock set for a couple years before your scenario will start, and then let the clock run while the computer controls what the AI's do?

I'm thinking of having 7 or 8 pre-built AI railroads in my next scenario, some of them very short, and others having already connected 3 or 4 cities. Each will be historically accurate for the starting date. Any wisdom you can share that will help me do this well?

[Gwizz]

When you prebuild an AI in the editor, all it needs is a good profitable route or routes. 3 cities will give it a good start. It can buy its' own locomotives. But leave it enough money to do so.

[wsherrick]

This is how I put together the AI's in Age Of Steam II. The first thing I did was decide who the AI players were going to be and I picked them all out. You can become any player in the editor by control-clicking on their picture. I built the railroads for each player while I was controlling them. You can decide how much money each AI company gets while in the editor. After I was done with each one I resumed being the player that the human player is supposed to be then carefully saved the game each time. It is not a good idea to let time pass while doing this stuff. Keep the game on pause while in the editor mode or you will screw it up. I found that out the hard way. The hardest and most tedious part of the process is to test play the game over and over until you get the results you want. While test playing you can watch how the AI's behave and adjust accordingly. In Age Of Steam II I wanted them to be aggressive, but only be allowed to build so much track so they wouldn't overrun the map and slow the game down overly much. I also wanted them to be profitable and hard to take over as well.

[Canadian Viking]

Thanks for the info in your replies, gentlemen. Wsherick, your details were very helpful. I have finally gotten to this stage in my scenario creation and am finding it quite fun to create railroads and then test them. Having learned some things by trial and error, I am now going to start over to get exactly what I want. Do I need to build the maintenance sheds and servicing (water) towers for the AI railroads when I pre-lay their track? I see they do buy their own engines and set the routes, but those two needed buildings don't seem to pop up on their own.

Also, if I discover the need to plant another building in the game (I've preplanted my ports and warehouses), how can I do that without it being owned by one of the players? To ask it in another way, once I have control-clicked on a player, how can I escape from being in control of ANY player? This one has me stumped, and I can foresee that the need to do it may arise.

[Canadian Viking]

I can answer 1 of my 2 questions. I ran several 3-year tests and found that maintenance sheds and water towers just do not show up on track that I pre-laid. But when the AI railroads expand on their own from the base I gave them, the new sections of track have the needed service buildings.

I still don't know the answer to my 2nd question in the post above.

[WPandP]

CV:

What I have done is just sell off the buildings right after placing them in the editor. I've had some civic buildings get placed with a company logo over them as if they were an owned industry, but then there is the Sell button, and I click it and it gets sold for $0. Of course, actual industries will get sold for some real dollar amount, but then while in the editor you can always go back to the company cash and reset it to what it was before you sold the property.

[Gwizz]

I wonder if you could start a company, buy the industries you want, then liquidate the company in the editor and still have the industries remain? Track, trains and stations should disappear but I'm not sure about the industries owned. I would think they would also disappear.

[wsherrick]

All you have to do is go into the editor and enter the list of industries and simply place the one's you want. After you drop them they will not be owned by any railroad. If you want a railroad to own the industry you can become chairman of the company while in the editor and then buy the placed industry. You can give your company as much money as you want to buy pre-built industries, just remember to reset the original cash amount for the company after you are done. Always do this while on pause or you will woefully screw up the stock market and everything else.

[arop]

If you take a look at my map "MONTANIA", where all railways are prebuilt and the right of way is smoothened to avoid bumps, you can go to the editor and find the event "clear". Take a look at that. It works! Starting up a new game, the tracks and the company(companies) will disapear. Remember to change the company logo to one you dislike before saving, while the old logos will not appear in the the new game.

[dazzharvey]

I found this forum very helpful :)

[Hawk]

Cool!