Ontario Northland

[nedfumpkin]

A qucik note...I just noticed that the ledger continues to say 40 years instead of 50. I'm going to fix that, but it will only say 50 years after Gore.

Starting in the Sudbury area requires more capital investment, but is just as effective as a strategy. Do try to keep your bonds down. I have gotten to over 7 million, but the interest really hampers your growth. The best I've had is with 3 million or less. Then you don't really need bonds since your revenue will be much better.

[RulerofRails]

Ok, I managed to finish this one off. Distractions did a good job of preventing me from playing.

I didn't have any problems with wild prices this time. There is now plenty of coal to generate enough electricity. I didn't use the Railyard Structures, but I can see why you enabled them. Grain out of Winnipeg was the last goal I needed for the win. The fact that I built a Meat Packing Plant and Flour Mill in Kenora late in the game had a similar effect.

I had to revert to my saves 3 or 4 times as I messed up the no-re-hauling scheme by accident a few times. The first time, after I had completed the Lumber hauls to Ottawa I decided to re-route the train that had just arrived. I didn't remember to wait for it to leave the station before removing the Ottawa station from the trains route. While sitting in Ottawa station it started loading with Lumber from another station and I foolishly thought nothing of it. Sure enough I "lost" a couple of months later.

I mistakenly believed that it only applied to the warehouses that demanded Lumber, Iron, and Hides. So a little later I had another "loss" from hauling a couple of loads of autos out of Fort Albany to one of the bauxite mines. Then the same story with lumber out of St. Paul. All I can say is you need to be really careful not to have any trains with haul-any-freight consists leave ANY of the Warehouses connected to the goals.

I couldn't get the Chicago Warehouse to activate. Does the cargo load you haul to "unlock it" have to have been produced by in that small territory? I wasn't sure so and as is only a converter, I tried hauling some Aluminum out that I had previously hauled in. Didn't have any effect. Did you get it working? (I believe plenty of passengers also were hauled out naturally.)

All that aside, I had fun with this map and learnt a little more about some of the industry possibilities in TM. I ended up with about 180 Atlantics and a nice big industry empire. Thanks for the effort. I think the goals are pretty sensible now. I like how you made messages to inform the player as soon as they complete each of the hauling requirements. I like the snow along the Hudson Bay.

[nedfumpkin]

Thanks and I am glad you enjoyed it. One thing I forgot to mention, and this almost got me a loss, was when you take over another company, you have to make sure that they don't have a train hauling cargo from a warehouse and make you lose.

I'll look into the Chicago warehouse, but it is set up to check at the end of every year to see if a load of cargo was hauled from it ever. If not then production is reduced for 11 months, then it checks again. This is so that cargo doesn't pile up there before you connect to it, but enough cargo is created to get that first load.

The idea behind the game was that you had to micromanage the consists to and from the warehouses, but in the cities you could let them go free. I ran all my trains with a full load of any cargo with a caboose and pretty much forgot about them, but for my goal stuff, I was on top of it moving cargo all over the place to make the necessary cargo.

I found that the Storage Shed for Hides was the Railyard Structure that I found the most usefull. It helped me collect the hides in one place and made it easier to haul them. Also getting to the iron mines north of Kapuskasing early and using them to supply Ottaw first then Toronto made a huge difference in meeting the goals.

Again glad youenjoyed it, I'll be uploading the final version this weekend...have to repaint the map due to some typo errors I corrected and saved too many times.

Im also thinking that I might do the next in the 1950s era..I originally made the Made in America map for RT3, and Ihave always planned to revisit that map in TM. My thoughts are to sort of make this one a Cold War spy map, and use the military industrial complex for a back drop. Thinking of going from 1945 to the break-up of the Soviet Union (i.e. you goal will be to achieve that), maybe even throw some intrigue in there. This would be a diesel map for sure, but steam would be available until 1960.

[Blackhawk]

Finally had a chance to have another go at it.

I did an industry start. Buying the paper mill in Dryden and building one in Sault Saint Maire. I built a lumber mill then in Biscotasing. Considering all that is needed to win is $50 in player cash, I wasn't concerned about owning all of my own company. I went for all the outside investment I could get. When I saw the AI players's company's growth was negative, I shorted their stocks and was able to make a small amount of money on that. I think I may have built a textile mill then in Sault Saint Maire. (eventually a creamery and publishing house as well)

After I had a few industries up and going, I decided I was going to buy out an AI player, and connected Sault Saint Maire to the town north of it (which is where the AI player had connected to). From there I just kept building more industries and expanding. Furniture factory next to the lumber mill in Biscotasing, and connected to the city to haul out of there.

I then connected to the farms near the Ottawa/Toronto warehouses, built a meat packing plant, and started hauling hides to Ottawa, and later grain to Toronto. I also worked on buying the AI player that was in the towns east of Biscotasing and Massey (Sudbury), and then connected that to my lines in Biscotasing and to Sault Saint Maire. A little later I bought the final AI on the east side of the map.

I ignored the steel mill at Sudbury. Much of the iron in the area was collecting in Biscotasing and I hauled that to Ottawa. Then I figured, it would seem like such a waste for all that iron to just get exported, so I built a steel mill near the Ottawa warehouse. Initially I didn't use the steel for anything but a few years later I built an electronics factory there and I shipped steel and electronics to the industrial assembly plant in Parry Sound. I'd have to go take a look at it again but for some reason the plant appears for a couple years before anything can be built in it. I also ended up making this town another mini-industrial hub. With the industrial assembly plant, a paper mill, a meat packing plant, textile mill, and maybe a creamery. Down in Toronto when plastics became useful I built a chemical plant, although I never did build a plastics factory I don't think.

During this time I bought the AI out in the west and connected to Winnipeg and started hauling paper there so I could start hauling away oil. I then completed the northern route to connected the east and west. I bought into Michigan to bring the supplies from the farms back to Sault Saint Marie. I also built north to the st. james bay ports, hauling the machinery to the 2 logging camps a little west of the bauxite mines and I built a lumber mill there and hauled the lumber to Ottawa/Toronto. I also built a paper mill there and hauled that to the ports. Gradually I built up to some of the iron mines/lumber mills in the wilderness and had trains sit and wait to haul a full load back to Ottawa/Toronto.

By now the money was rolling in easily so it was just a matter of waiting for the cargo to be hauled. I built the aluminum mill next to the bauxite mines and hauled that to Detroit. (supplemented with a little bit of steel from my ottawa steel mill). I bought into the remaining states and took care of the lumber and livestock hauling goals. The warehouse in Chicago seemed to work fine for me. I was surprised to see that the St. John's warehouse had 1 lumber to 4 furniture.

The electricity goal was relatively easy. I built a power plant next to the Toronto warehouse for using the fuel. And another in Thunder Bay. These are the biggest 2 producers of power. Another can be placed in Winnipeg with it's coal output.

In the end I got stuck waiting for what seemed like eternity but it might have been 5-8 years for the grain to convert in Winnipeg. I didn't realize that the warehouse only has an output of 4 while the oil warehouse outputs 8. So I wasted some of the output on trying to convert the medicine to livestock.
I think I finished about 35 years in. Not really sure as I just put the speed on the fastest it would go and waited til enough grain converted.

Seems there are a variety of ways to win and go about it. I think I had maybe 100 locomotives and primarily single track.

[Blackhawk]

I looked into the Industrial Assembly Line and why it wasn't producing for a couple years. Turns out the Assembly Line is available after 1890, but it uses plastics or electronics and neither of those are available in 1890. Although the electronics factory is also available in 1890, Electronics as a cargo isn't available until 1900. The plastics factory isn't available until 1901.


I looked in the editor and see the "Age of Automobile" event is triggered for AI companies only. It also says the food and goods requirements would now be 500 instead of 250. However, the tests for victory are for 250. So maybe this was just an event that you changed your mind on? I figured I'd just mention I saw it in the editor triggering for AI companies rather than the human company.

The 1950s cold war map sounds like it could be pretty fun and interesting. It's been awhile since I played a more modern map. Can't wait .

[nedfumpkin]

Thanks for the review and observations. I caught the 500 cargo loads, not the AI thing. I'll fix that.
I'll also look into the industrial asembly line.

You strategy is one that I hadn't thought of. I might make an event to prevent steel being produced in Ottaw as in production -200%.

I'm also thinking that 50 years is too long. You did it in 35, so I am think I might create some taxes to siphon money to make things harder.

If you built the power plant next to the TO warehouse, then it's productio wasn't counted. I might make the regions around the warehouses larger. The borders are invisible, but they are in different regions so they don't count for in Ontario.

This map needs some tweaking I think.

[Blackhawk]

I think it may have been 37 years exactly. The last years were waiting on the grain from Winnipeg.

Unfortunately, I don't think there is a condition for electricity in a territory, only company or game electricity. So that's probably why my power plant's electricity counted. I don't think its location matters too much thought as I still had my trains pick up the petrol and haul it the 5 feet down the track to another station which was closer to it. Last game I also put it slightly further down the line (outside of the Toronto area) and did the same thing.

If you make steel production -200 in Ottawa it would prevent a steel mill there but you'd also have to be careful about Toronto. Less coal but easy to haul that in from Ottawa, and the Toronto warehouse produces 1 steel as well so you wouldn't want that completely turned off.

Since lumber has to be sent to Ottawa and Toronto you might want to do a -200 furniture production as well. (I built a furniture factory by Toronto as it would always produce something with the +1 steel, and could produce more if there were any shipments of lumber.)

One thing you could do rather than the -200 modifiers, is to create buffer territories around the warehouses. Then program it to trigger weekly and destroy any buildings or stations built there, and have another event that is triggered immediately if a station is built in the buffer zone to prevent someone from building a station outside of the city and trying to haul it away. This would probably require building stations for the player though in Toronto/Ottawa/Winnipeg. But wouldn't require the -200 modifiers on various cargoes.

Taxes could be a way to try and slow growth. Also potentially a higher PWN requirement than just the $50. Only needing $50, you can issue a lot of stock if you really wanted to help speed up the growth of the company.

[RulerofRails]

I didn't mention how long it took me to win this map because when I suggested a 1.06 map was too easy I got a lot of flack from someone who didn't believe it was possible to earn the amount of industry profit I did. He is not allowed to post here anymore. I am a bit of a fanatic about this game and fine tuning my strategies, so don't think that all players would enjoy doing things in the same time that I do. I don't want to boast, but I did this in 25 years, and had 600 loads of food hauled and was about to come up on 500 of goods.

I thought I would bring it up because you were mentioning making the map harder. I didn't use the "cheat" method I told you about. I did my best not to double-haul anything on purpose. My industrial production cities for goods and food had farms so I hauled them away with custom consists to cities without farms and let trains on auto consist distribute them from there.

I started this map over 5 times in various versions. I definitely would have taken longer on a first attempt, the more attempts the better start and compound growth effects. I bought most of the industries that seed from the various connections. I even didn't connect to Cobalt and Kirkland Lake so I wouldn't get Lumber Mills out there where I didn't want them.

What I felt made this map easier was too many supplies coming in from the warehouses and ports especially when they decided to upgrade. (Is there a way to prevent them from upgrading?) Especially in Toronto, I had traffic jams there trying to take all the cargo away. Winnipeg was the exception though as its warehouses never run obscene profits, and I connected to the USA later so I never got those warehouses to upgrade.

For electricity I built 4 Electric Plants on one cell just south of Nipigon. I supplied them with coal from Thunder Bay and Winnipeg. Once I was hauling oil to Toronto I had the returning trains deliver Petroleum to them. I upgraded them later and after 25 years was had 14,500GWh. I used the Steel Mill in Sudbury and in the last few years for fun I built one for fun in Iron Mountain.

I also got the 100k player cash bonus right at the end of the first month because one of the AI bought an iron mine as soon as it started. Late in the game, when I paid off my buy-out debt I turned dividends off at around -350k personal cash relying on a 120k salary to pay this down, but after a couple of years I noticed I somehow had 2M cash on hand. I don't know what caused this. I double checked and dividends were still at zero. Maybe an event gave me some more cash?

This play I started with a Sault Saint Maire, Massey, North Bay line. All large stations to catch two farms and the good prices in Sault Saint Maire make this work well.

I know you like a delayed start to build your PNW, instead I use stock growth and the margin generated to finance a sizable chunk of debt which is easily paid off while waiting for those hauling goals to come in. I will buy to the edge of my margin even when price is double book value as long as the company is growing fast. After obtaining all my stock, I go after the AI stock which is cheap but still worth buying as with this start the AI seem to build semi-useful track, even linking it to my original line. As a strategy I find that is better to nip the AI in the bud then let them become more profitable increasing their buyout price for things I don't really want.

I found that the city center in North Bay is such that the AI always builds a Medium Station on a single cell right out towards the lake. This annoys me as I always have to come and doze it anyway. Works better to connect there first myself.

I kept my original reply on this down as I always like some mystery factor in the maps and would hate to take this away from anyone else. But, since you are talking about tweaking I thought I would chime in here. I like the sound of a Cold War map, there is lots of possibility in this concept and am looking forward to seeing your creation.

[Blackhawk]

Posting the amount of time a map takes is always difficult. If you have the best time you don't want to brag, but on the other hand if the scenario is in beta it can help in knowing how long to make the scenario.

I wonder if I was just having bad luck with the Winnipeg warehouse producing and that's what took me another 5+ years, similar to your Chicago warehouse not doing much.

And yes, there are also some events that give personal cash. I think that gives 1million in company cash, also gives 250k in personal cash.

I figure I often give a play by play of my experience on a map, particularly if it's in beta or just out of beta as it may be of some use to the scenario writer. Then later if anyone has problems they can always come back and read some ideas. Since chances are if they come back in a few months and ask for advice, I won't remember what I even did! Better to write it down while I remember it.

[nedfumpkin]

From my perspective, when I create a map, I will think of a few strategies for completing it, and I appreciate when others are there to try it out because they will use their own strategies. This map is a very good example. Although it has gone through a few changes, I wanted to make this map a bit difficult to do. Hasn't really turned out that way now that it has been tested by others.

So for me it is great to get detailed feedback on how the map works, and how quickly people were able to achieve their goals. I personally like playing a map that you are unsure if you will achieve your goals until the last few years of the map. I feel like I have failed in having BH sit waiting for cargo to be shipped to get the goals.

Hawk says that there are more people registered for d/ls that aren't forum members, it is fairly doubtfull if they read the forums, especially to the depth where maps in progress are being discussed. So the trade-oo becomes that people who are trying out the maps in progress may not get the final version but they get to contribute to its development, and see it first.

Positing how quickly a person finishes a map, and the stragey they used should never be viewed as a negative. If peoples' egos are that fragile when it comes to a game, then there is more at play than imaginary trains. That's just my opinion. But as a map maker, if , like I just did, made a map that I thought would take 50 years to accomplish, and people are finishing it in half the time and not saying anything, then my future mapmaking ability will be affected. The way I figure it, the people on this forum are what is keeping the game alive still. We should remember it, and focus on the game, not on personalities....again...jmo.