Channel Ferries

[edbangor]

Here's the idea for the scenario I'm currently working on based once again, upon a height map provided by Wolverine@MSU

The concept is simple in that the human player takes the role of the various ferry companies crisscrossing the English Channel, while the computer will run the companies in the UK and France.

However, most of the resources will be in the channel but the amount of track that can be built - beyond the ferry routes - will be limited depending on how many cargos you can ship between the two countries and to their stations (the human will have no stations on land just connect to the other companies stations!)

The land has been left noticeably higher than the sea - which has natural terrain in if from the heightmap - as ferries get a lot slower whilst docking although I have greatly smoothed out the actual land to make it easier for the AI some of whose lines I will pre-build in the editor - especially those leading to/from the main ports - but not others.

Now the questions:
Is it possible to limit the amount of trains the human has access to, but not the AI (the ferries are slower so I was thinking of taking advantage of the latest change to use the old, out of date locos for the human by modern ones for the AI)
If the above isn't possible, then can I slow the trains down, just in the channel territory.

Nothing else yet is decided, including the start date, length of the game as all I've done so far is set up the territories, place the cities (these are mostly the ports in case you're wondering why I choose some and not others), placed some rivers (I took some liberties with the routes so they would supply the cities!), and did a very basic painting so I could tell the 'channel' from the land (all of the map is 'land' in games terms obviously).

Any other suggestions welcome.

A basic capture of the map is attached.
Lille is actually on the map at the very east edge but looks like it's off and cities have not yet been balanced so appear all the same size.

[MisterHinton]

I really should have more experience before answering this question, but if I'm wrong I'll learn something too- so I'll take a whack:
No, you can't globally restrict player/vs/AI engine availability. You have to do it the hard way- set the availability to only what you want everybody to have (or just the player if the AI will have access to all of the same engines as a base), then add a start event tested against "AI companies only" to effect enablement of the engines you want the AI's to have. Unless they will have access to the entire set at start, you will have to use this trigger every date that a new engine is available for just the AI's. I think.

[edbangor]

That's what I thought MisterHinton, I was just hoping someone would know a way around it.
Still as you point out it is only the AI's for which I'd have to set up later trains for as I could disable all trains after a certain point globally, and then 'Event' those in for the AI's to use.
That would work, wouldn't it?

[MisterHinton]

Short answer should be "yes", but if you disable globally the same rule probably applies- if the human player would get anything BEYOND that point, you'll have to Event it too.

[MisterHinton]

WOW! I woke up thinking what could possibly go wrong; check the site, drop off an answer, and go blithely on my way, hoping my last remaining brain cell isn't still sleeping...Apologies for not paying attention; this is what I get for sticking my oar in the water too soon; but I was fascinated by the ferry idea and your map; I'm really interested in seeing how it develops.

...Still as you point out it is only the AI's for which I'd have to set up later trains for as I could disable all trains after a certain point globally, and then 'Event' those in for the AI's to use.
That would work, wouldn't it?

Maybe that was a trick question. It's been ratting around my cranial cavity all day. Allow me to try to get it right this time. The only global locomotive controls of which I know are on the "Locomotive" page; three regions or selective choice of any individual engine for the whole game (available to start on the preset start dates) ; plus the activation by types for all steam/or diesel/ or electric on the event table. If there's a loco global-off in the events I must have missed it. At that point it's all individual engine on/off (or rather, on and set the temporary duration to the desired end date); if that jibes with your recall I think that's the answer. If I'm not mistaken, with the TM engine patch there is no standard off-time and you have to pre-set, by Event, all of the engines you're going to use or they don't have an end date anymore (thanks Ned... ), so I think you need to keep unchecked on the Loco page anything you don't want at all, or don't want to run game wide and game long.

[Blackhawk]

If I'm not mistaken, with the TM engine patch there is no standard off-time and you have to pre-set, by Event, all of the engines you're going to use or they don't have an end date anymore (thanks Ned... ), so I think you need to keep unchecked on the Loco page anything you don't want at all, or don't want to run game wide and game long.

As all the locos still have start dates, why not just use an event to remove the loco when you want it removed rather than create an event allowing the loco for a temporary number of years?

As for Ed's case I concur in that using the locomotive page to select what he wants everyone to have and then using Events to give the AI the added locos is probably the way he'll have to do it.

[MisterHinton]

... why not just use an event to remove the loco when you want it removed rather than create an event allowing the loco for a temporary number of years? .

Because I can't find the Event item to "remove" an individual loco from service. It's probably right in front of me- if it was a snake I'd be bitten by now; but I can't seem to find it. Could you tell me which event it is by name? Presumably on the effects tab side?

[Blackhawk]

In the effects when you click on the locomotive availability that you want, instead of having it say "True" click on "False" and it will remove that locomotive from being available to buy.

[MisterHinton]

...from then on for that company or companies... You're right Blackhawk- I looked right at it and I don't know how I missed it. Yes I do...long day. Thanks.

[edbangor]

Okay I'm back on this one again as I've finally got some train time.

I've set up the frerry routes in the editor using something of artistic licience along the way and now need to do some testing to see how much help the AI's are going to need in the UK, France and Channel Island (yes I've added them as a seperate territory), to run their rail networks.

Track building for the Human is going to be VERY limited, so routing your trains is going to be a major key, especially as the your trains will be slow, and I'm not placing any service buildings and some of the routes are long with steep inclines at the land ends.

More news / problems as I think of them.

[edbangor]

Hope someone's reading this thread.

I've hit a snag that is totally baffling me.

I've set up the territories like this. The AI companies, have access to France, England and the Channel Island. (all of them have access to all of them although they aren't joined). The Human player has access to the Channel itself.
Everyone has access to the three Port regions. English Ports, French Ports and Channel Island Ports.

IN the editor I've pre-built stations on all of the ports owned by the relative AI company, and connected them with track owned by the human.

When I play test the map in the game (NOT in the editor as the territories won't be asigned) itself, all the territories are correctly assigned so everything looks fine, but when I attempt to buy a train to run between any of the connected stations the game reports that I don't have access to a territory somewhere on the line but, I do.

The only way I can get to build trains is to switch total access to the master territory to the Human but that defeats the object. I've tried making the Port territories larger so that take in the entire foot print of the stations but that doesn't make any difference.

I'm sure the solution is obvious but darned if I can see it? Any suggestions?

[Hawk]

Maybe I'm misunderstanding you, but looking in the editor the human player effect for the 3 port territories is set to false, which seems to me to say that they don't have access to the 3 port territories.
The human player only has access to the channel and the AI players do not have access to the channel.

The channel condition is set to AI companies and the effect is set to false, while the condition for the three port territories is set to human player with the effect set to false.

Seems to me that for the human player and the AI to have access to the three port territories the condition should be changed to all companies with the effect set to true.

Am I not seeing this right?

[Blackhawk]

I wonder if British Miracle had the same issue and that's why essentially multiple ports get used. Although British Miracle is slightly different as the ferries only go up to the shore, and the human player still had to build their own stations, but they'd often overlap with the ferries' ports in the water.

Doing a quick test, if you use human stations in the ports zones you can create routes that connect. But if you try to use the AI stations, they don't work. It seems like if you use an AI station, the game looks to see if that AI has access to the next destination station.

The 2 possible solutions that I can think of for this would be either 1. use multiple overlapping stations in a city, one for the AI and one for the human player, or 2. create a sh-ell AI company which has access to all the territories, but no ability to build track, or place the stations with that company then liquidate the company. [Edit, I had to add a - otherwise that word got censored for some reason.... so sorry Hawk I went around the censor system] Although I wonder if the other AI players would bother to connect to another AI player's station or a neutral liquidated company's station.

Rather than using events to set who gets access or not you could also individually set each company's access in the editor. Just ctrll+click on the player's portrait in the stock market window and then go to the territory window and click on the territories and you can give or revoke access to territories that way as well.

[Hawk]

[Edit, I had to add a - otherwise that word got censored for some reason.... so sorry Hawk I went around the censor system]

Well there ya' go. There's a situation I didn't think about.
I'll get that fixed.

[edbangor]

Rather than using events to set who gets access or not you could also individually set each company's access in the editor. Just ctrll+click on the player's portrait in the stock market window and then go to the territory window and click on the territories and you can give or revoke access to territories that way as well.

Firstly I didn't know about this so that makes like so much easier and the EVENTs list shorter, so thanks for that and I've changed to use it.

Doing a quick test, if you use human stations in the ports zones you can create routes that connect. But if you try to use the AI stations, they don't work. It seems like if you use an AI station, the game looks to see if that AI has access to the next destination station.

I've tried some variations on this. First in the editor I connected the AI port stations to the next one in land so they had a connection but that still wouldn't allow the Human to place trains.

Second, using the Channel Islands for experimentation. I gave the human access to the main Channel Island territory, and then I was able to place trains running to those station (the AI access remained the same as did the ownership of the stations) so I'm wondering if I should allow that instead as the Human will have limited track building, but on the other hand that would ruin what I have in mind for the Trainmaster goal and there would nothing to stop the human from going across the Channel Island, instead of around them to the ports.
Of course if I do that then there's no need for seperate port territories in the first place.

The 2 possible solutions that I can think of for this would be either 1. use multiple overlapping stations in a city, one for the AI and one for the human player, or 2. create a sh-ell AI company which has access to all the territories, but no ability to build track, or place the stations with that company then liquidate the company. [Edit, I had to add a - otherwise that word got censored for some reason.... so sorry Hawk I went around the censor system] Although I wonder if the other AI players would bother to connect to another AI player's station or a neutral liquidated company's station. .

Of these the first is something I want to avoid if I can although it is an possible solution to the issue.
However, the second option I tried, liquidating the Channel Island company who owned the stations in the channel island, but even then the player still couldn't run trains to those stations.

Not sure what I'm going to do now, but I'm out of train time for this week, so it's next week's problem.

[edbangor]

Progress on this one now.

I decided to go with Blackhawk's option two and have redone the track layout so that the Ferries now own a port (a small station) right on the edge of the towns and the AI will then have a major station further in land that will, in some cases over lap to provide cargo. This is probably more realistic.

I've also redrawn the reserved cells to prevent cities from placing buildings in the 'water' - the channel region itself is of course baron, and discovered while I was doing this that if you place a town on a map and then delete it, the reserve cells remain behind leaving an enlarged X where nothing can be built despite there being nothing there, which is something to note!

I've also worked out some of the long term goals to do with connecting, and have limited track building. Now I just need to work out how extra track pieces get awarded. Well I know how - in the Events - just need to work out why in the game plot.
One way would be to do it on the number of loads ship across the channel in a year either from to France, to England and/or to the Channel Islands. OR to specific ports.
Is there a way to write an Event that would translate this exactly. So, for example if you shipped 13 loads from A to B in the given time, then you'd get 13 sections of track? Is that possible as there's no "Use variable" option on the "Set Company Track pieces Buildable" effect.

I'm also going to prebuild a fair bit of the two main AI tracks as test prove the AI is too stupid to do it on its own, and these will be needed if the Player is going to have anything to ship given that the channel has no resources of it's own.

One thing I wanted to do was to disable building Maintenance and Water towers, and then pre build those just inland from the ports so the trains would have be run to those first as if you were running an average speed scenario, but can't see a way to do that. Is there one?

Oh and is there a list of TM locos anywhere? I had a look on the main site but couldn't find one so I know which ones to bring in during the later stages of the game as all but a few old ones are disabled as part of the scenario.

[brunom]

One way would be to do it on the number of loads ship across the channel in a year either from to France, to England and/or to the Channel Islands. OR to specific ports.
Is there a way to write an Event that would translate this exactly. So, for example if you shipped 13 loads from A to B in the given time, then you'd get 13 sections of track? Is that possible as there's no "Use variable" option on the "Set Company Track pieces Buildable" effect.

When I need to do something like that, I just make small increment events.. like this:
if YTD hauled <2 and >0 then VAR +1
if YTD hauled <4 and >2 then VAR +1
if YTD hauled <6 and >4 then VAR +1
and so forth... you are limited only by how patient you are to copy/repeat those events - that will, of course, set a upper limit after which, no more cargo will increase the variable.

Intervals and variable increments are your choice, obviously, this is just an example.
B

[Blackhawk]

I've also redrawn the reserved cells to prevent cities from placing buildings in the 'water' - the channel region itself is of course baron, and discovered while I was doing this that if you place a town on a map and then delete it, the reserve cells remain behind leaving an enlarged X where nothing can be built despite there being nothing there, which is something to note!

I was going to mention that but I figured it was in the early states of the scenario so I'd wait a bit and see if the reserve zones and floating buildings got fixed and I see you noticed.

Is there a way to write an Event that would translate this exactly. So, for example if you shipped 13 loads from A to B in the given time, then you'd get 13 sections of track? Is that possible as there's no "Use variable" option on the "Set Company Track pieces Buildable" effect.

As Brunom said you'll likely have to use multiple events to give an approximate amount of track rather than an exact amount of track as cargo shipped since there is no variable option.

One thing I wanted to do was to disable building Maintenance and Water towers, and then pre build those just inland from the ports so the trains would have be run to those first as if you were running an average speed scenario, but can't see a way to do that. Is there one?

I think the only way to do that is to also disable the ability to build stations. I forget if its possible or not, but you could also increase the build costs in the channel territory which might prevent them from being built. Or possible a yearly destroy buildings event in the channel territory could take out any stations and maintenance sheds built on the water.

Oh and is there a list of TM locos anywhere? I had a look on the main site but couldn't find one so I know which ones to bring in during the later stages of the game as all but a few old ones are disabled as part of the scenario.

As far as I know there isn't a list anywhere. I usually just start a scenario in 2000 or 2010 in sandbox mode with all the locos available and then see which ones I'd want to use.

[edbangor]

was going to mention that but I figured it was in the early states of the scenario so I'd wait a bit and see if the reserve zones and floating buildings got fixed and I see you noticed.

Oh it was a test. Did I pass?

As Brunom said you'll likely have to use multiple events to give an approximate amount of track rather than an exact amount of track as cargo shipped since there is no variable option.

Thanks Brunom, I used a similar formula/s in "Warrington Wire" for steel production at the end, but was hoping to avoid having to do that multiple times. Guess I can't.
Darn. I was hoping for something simple. But I've had a rethink about this and will go with a steady ## of track at the end of the year with 'bonus' amounts coming when load totals are passed, connections are made and so on.

I think the only way to do that is to also disable the ability to build stations. I forget if its possible or not, but you could also increase the build costs in the channel territory which might prevent them from being built. Or possible a yearly destroy buildings event in the channel territory could take out any stations and maintenance sheds built on the water.

Even if you disable station maintainence towers can still be built so that's another idea that's going to have to be just allowed to stay.
I was thinking of having the occasional 'storm' come though the channel to be annoying and take away trains, and/or track and/or station as I did in one of thehub maps, but that will only be localised as doing it on a grand scale can upset the game. (ie crashes it!)
I think we're just going to have to live with the slightly unrealisitc aspect of having maintenance towers, and other rail structure buildings being built on water, as I don't want to disable the latter for reasons that will become clear once the game is playable.

As far as I know there isn't a list anywhere. I usually just start a scenario in 2000 or 2010 in sandbox mode with all the locos available and then see which ones I'd want to use.

Maybe Ned can work on one, given that he's got nothing else to do these days.

[Blackhawk]

was going to mention that but I figured it was in the early states of the scenario so I'd wait a bit and see if the reserve zones and floating buildings got fixed and I see you noticed.

Oh it was a test. Did I pass?

Yes it was a difficult test and you passed it! Since it was early in the scenario I didn't want to seem nit-picky as it's much less important of an issue than getting the trains and stations to work correctly.

Even if you disable station maintainence towers can still be built so that's another idea that's going to have to be just allowed to stay.

Are you sure about that? I thought when I clicked on the disable stations option in the special conditions it prevented me from being able to build sheds, towers, and stations, but I could be wrong.