Scenario in progress - "Warrington Wire" (CA02)

[edbangor]

Progress has been made today.
First thing fixed was to make the AI players mandatory as there wouldn't be much challenge with out them.
The territory access has been set up, with the AI's getting access to all by Cheshire and Lancashire, which are just for the human, while the L&M just get access to Merseyside, Manchester and the corridor between them. This ensures both that the L&M can't expand, and that the other AI companies, can't muscle out the human player too early.
I've also set up the regions and set up some of the cities to see where the AI's will set up well.
Ports have been added -with differing recipes, obviously - in Liverpool (cotton from the US south etc) and Hull, with a ferry terminal (OK another port) on Hollyhead, to act as point over to Ireland (connecting to it will be a goal of course.)
Plans have been made to open up the other territories to the Human, which will be goal based.
A test run of the game appears to work will, with the L&M looking really strong now they have several industries of their own, that will print money making taking them over all the more difficult.
The Seaforth port has been moved slightly north and given it's own territory (this will become active on the real time date the Canadian Docks were built), and will again be a goal. The port has been set to demand Machinery and Goods which it will ship to Ned's map.

Next stages will be to finish the balance of cargoes and to work out what the longer term goals will be and to start setting up the events.
One will clearly be for the human to be the only company, then there's deliveries to the Canadian Docks, and, naturally to get steel to the Warrington Wire works.
But I would also like to do something a little different from my usual "connect a to b", "deliver xx to somewhere", goals. Any ideas.

PS: How easy is it to add players back in, as Stevenson would be great given he started the L&M in real life?

[nedfumpkin]

Shouldn't be too hard to do...give me a list of names you want and I'll put some time into it this weekend.

I'm also going to work over my ports for export...turns out corn was being exported to England as well...I'm going to end up having two ports side by side but with different cargo.

[edbangor]

Robert Stephenson is the only one I really want as I have another brit currently running the L&M but he can be swapped to the human.
The rest of the AI's it doesn't really matter who they are going to be.
However, if it means swapping files around then it's probably not worth it.

[edbangor]

Even more progress now, and we finally have a map that will actually play... at least up to a point.

I had to delete the Human's rail line, as all the territory changes appear to leave the game confused about accesses, this though turned out good as I had to move the Manchester Ship Canel, south a bit as there wasn't enough room between it and the Mersey for the station to opperate correctly.

I also had to re-do some of the L&M industries as... well the AI running it during five test plays were complete idiots, re-routing all the trains I'd set up to make money. So I've moved the textile factory and tanner into Manchester itself, which does, at least follow the history better.

Other than that all the cities now have their recipies in place, and are balanced out so the later AI's will spread out all around the map instead of all in the south.

I've written a lot of the events, including the set up, and several other of the historical ones. , and to drop the Steel Mills into Shefield. (I'd have liked to drop the Seafoth Dock in as well but don't think that can be done!)
Access has been set up for Wales, Yorkshire, and the Canada Docks (Ned you may want to check the Historic details on that to make sure it matches yours!)

I've had a rethink of the Victory conditions, and think I'll go with a points based system, where points are awarded for completing different goals around the map, which I assume can be done via the Game Variable/s in the events. This will give me more scope to add more challanges as the game progresses and the map opens up. However the main goal will still remain taking over the L&M.

Anyway, the upshot of all of this is the map is now actually playable now, although, as you there are no goals set up, and you won't have access to the southern parts of the map, but if someone would like to give it a go to see how it works, that would be great.

Oh Ned, you may have said this before, but which Tycoon will be running your map (ie the Human player) so I cam make direct referances to them.

[nedfumpkin]

The player will play as John Molson, founder of Molson Breweries, also a steamboat entrepreneur, and the AI will be Francis Hinks of the Grand Trunk....still debating on an American RR.

Something to consider is the Corn laws...http://www.talktalk.co.uk/reference/enc ... 13640.html

I will be making reference to it, and its repeal in 1846 for my exports of corn and grain to England.

Something I have been thinking about regarding the point system and I came up with a way of tracking different things using one variable. Let's say you want to keep track of five different connections...

Connect A-B add 1 to v1 ... 1

Connect c-d add 10 to v1....11

connect e-f add 100 to v1....111

etc.. up to 11111

This way you can connect different things at different times and have numbers like 10110 or 1101 etc.

When the number =11111 comes up...your event triggers.

[edbangor]

Firstly I forgot to mention in the above catch up thing that I also added in sevearl more rivers, and a few extra cities, to bridge some of the gaps and to give the AI's easier connections to make (becuase the AI's are rubbish!)

Okay, thanks Ned for the information. about your tycoons and leaders.
The Corn lawas is very interesting, as a way to play with some of the cargo prices and productions, especially as Cheshire - the human starting county - is a big farm area. The repeal I would assume would either make corn flood the map or become rare although I don't have any ports set up to export corn, but could do that, I think, possibly through the main Liverpool Docks, although only L&M has access.

The points system I was thinking of was a fairly simiply +1 for making connections, and/or for completeing various tasks that will pop up during the life of the map depending on where you connect to (connections to cities will trigger either historic notes or hints as to what to do next as is already in place with Chester, and going into Wales), but I was also thinking of having delivery bonus and penulty schemes.
This would work that if you - for example - deliver 10 loads of steel from Sheffield to the Warrington Wire works you get a point, but if you deliver less than 5, then you loose a point. Similar could be done for the Lumber from Canada Docks.
This way points could only be gained (or lost) over a long period of time.
I just need to check out the best way to display this on the ledger, in a way that gives the player enough information but without making the ledger hard to read, or too full. Naturally, some of these will be set on switches and will only appear when triggered and then disappear when compelte but have to avoid them all being there at once.

The other issue I need to address is that if the human manages to take over one of the other AI companies (not the L&M) early in the game they'll end up with access to all territories, but I can't disable mergers, as that would make the overall outcome impossible.

[edbangor]

Ned, more details about the Corn Laws here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corn_laws

And you'll find this interesting from the point of view of both scenarios: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada_Corn_Act

especially as it was passed three years before the corn laws themselves were repealed.
I'll be making referances to both events, esecpially the Corn laws which will be crashing the price of corn and grain on my map.

[nedfumpkin]

Yes..the Canada Corn Act was the source of my events for that period, amd my reasons for re-arranging my ports...although real life arose so I haven't been able to get back to my map.

The AI companies are not likely to take over other companies...at least not in my experience.

The system for keeping track of connections I posted allows you to set it so that you can have some connections and not others, and be able to distinguish which ones. Using the simple +1 for each connections will do the same thing, however, you have no idea which one is connected and which isn't.

I still haven't decided whether or not I'll set up the conditions to use it, but it will offer the ability to identify certain goals, and choices that have been made by the player...since it can be used for that too....let's say they have 5 choices...well that gives 25 combinations possible using just 1s and 0s.

[nedfumpkin]

Also, don't forget that when you raise the price of corn, then the profitability of industries is affected, so you may want to have a delayed effect where the price of alcohol or flour is also increased.

[edbangor]

The AI companies are not likely to take over other companies...at least not in my experience.

No they don't, at least I've never known them to do that.
What I meant was, is that as the AI set up companies (Ie all those but the L&M) will have access to all territories that the Human doesn't, one method of play would be to simply buy up stocks of one of those companies than then for the human to take it over early on in the game. This would naturally render all my carefully crafted clues and triggers to open up the territories. So in order to prevent that I have to make sure the AI companies are going to be strong enough to resist it, at least for the first half of the game.

Anyway, I've added in most of the historical notes, and started working on the points system for scoring it all, including some hidden negatives along the way, just to be annoying!

Oh and I won't be raising the price of corn, I'll be cutting it as all that cheep Canadian stuff floods into the UK market...

[nedfumpkin]

Something I meant to mention earlief....if you don't use the first port or warehouse listed in the game on any of your others, then you can use that one for adding via event later in the game. When you add a port or warehouse, it uses the first cargo recipe in the list. In my case, I will be adding a warehouse later in the game at certain places to handle cargos that aren't previous demanded by the ports.

And yes, in my case, the price of corn will rise.

[Blackhawk]

Something I meant to mention earlief....if you don't use the first port or warehouse listed in the game on any of your others, then you can use that one for adding via event later in the game. When you add a port or warehouse, it uses the first cargo recipe in the list. In my case, I will be adding a warehouse later in the game at certain places to handle cargos that aren't previous demanded by the ports.

And yes, in my case, the price of corn will rise.

Ah thanks for clarifying that, I was wondering with the add effect - adding a warehouse, which warehouse it would add. Thanks for the information

[edbangor]

I've got a little behind on this one, as my train time has been limited recently but hope to get back to it shortly.

[edbangor]

Made some progress with this now.

-rivers have been added to Wales (using the Welsh language names rather than English)
-added the trigger to get into Midlands
-added more historical notes for most of the Welsh cities
-changed the warehouse/port recipes, so Canada Docks can be added by the editor at construction date.

Further idea would be to remove the Manchester Ship Canal, as it wasn't built until much later than the L&M railway, and serves no over purpose.

Now for the problem.
As said above, I've removed the Canada Docks that was placed, and having changed the order of the recipes, moved it to the top so it can be placed on the date it was built. (this is one of the things that will tie this map to the one Ned is working on so is somewhat important.)
However, during testing, the port is never built. I used the X & Y coordinates of the one that I'd placed, and even given it a wide range but it still won't appear even though, using the exact same coordinates I can get a warehouse built just in land, but not a port.

So, if someone can look at the attached, latest, version of the map, and see what's wrong!
For this test the port will be built (or won't) at the end of May of the first year. (you'll see the Historic notes when it should appear).

BTW: this version is actually playable to a point, as there's no Victory, or lose, conditions yet.

[Hawk]

If you're using the exact same coordinates for the warehouse and the port, that may be your problem. Ports need to be a little closer to the water.
Try adjusting the coordinates 1 digit at a time closer to water and see what happens.
You could also temporarily adjust the event fire time time to a month or two into the scenario for testing to see if the port places.

[edbangor]

If you're using the exact same coordinates for the warehouse and the port, that may be your problem. Ports need to be a little closer to the water.
Try adjusting the coordinates 1 digit at a time closer to water and see what happens.
You could also temporarily adjust the event fire time time to a month or two into the scenario for testing to see if the port places.

I used the coordinates of the port I'd previous placed in the editor, and during testing increased the radius, to see if there was an error.
When I changed to warehouse it was placed right next to the water, but I tried placing the port in other places and it just didn't work so I don't know if it's actually possible to place a port.
And yes, I tried different coordinates along the coast, but that didn't work either which is also why I increased the radius, in case that was the issue but still couldn't get it to build.

Oh and the time trigger had been adjusted for testing, I changed the year not the month which is why it's in May, as I always wanted to see how the AI companies worked, which is why it wasn't earlier.

[Hawk]

The reason I mentioned that is because on one of my maps I had an event to place a port and it took some trial and error to get it to place. With a port's proximity to water and land it can be a bit tricky and the coord's and radius have to be almost exact.
'Course I'm talking about a map I made in 1.05. I wonder if there's something different with TM that's is causing an issue?

[Hawk]

Here's something that may interest you.

viewtopic.php?f=31&t=885&hilit=ports

[edbangor]

Oh so, if I get this right, the X Y coordinates have to be exact as the radius makes no difference when placing a port, as it does with other buildings that can be placed.
So it's just a matter of slowly working through the XY until I find one the game likes?
Well isn't that a pain in the [something I can't mention on a family forum]

[Hawk]

If you read the thread I linked to, Gwizz said he doesn't use the XY set-up. He uses territories somehow.

viewtopic.php?p=7302#p7302

viewtopic.php?p=7341#p7341