Persian Electric

[Hawk]

Well, I'm about 14 years into the scenario and I'm not doing to well.

I haven't connected to Turkey yet. I don't really see the big need to. There's explosives there, which I'm not ready to get yet, and some petroleum, but other than that I don't see the need to go there.
I got the message to ship something to Istanbul via Orumiyeh, but it didn't give me any incentive to fight those mountains at this time. I know I have to connect to Orumiyeh for a goal but I'd rather put that off until I have to. I need to make some more money first.
I'm getting a little aggravated with all the train crashes. I only have 7 trains and I get crashes about every 6 months. I guess when all the trains have crashed I might not get so many for a while, but there's just not a good selection of engines to choose from. The electric engine doesn't impress me so I'm still running diesel. $15K a year compared to $39K a year keeps me away from the electric.

How the heck do you get troops moving? There's a military base just outside of Tehran and another just outside of Emamshahr and I have stations in both cities but the troops won't budge. Do you have to run track and place a station at the base to get the troops moving?

[Hawk]

Here's a couple more screen-shots that may interest you.

[nedfumpkin]

I think you missed the message that there is a time limit to get to Orumiyeh. It's precisely because I wanted to tackle to mountains last myself that I ended up making it a requirement. :) You can get routes through the mountains, but you gotta take time to find them.

Also, track need not be connected. So go for where you can make profit. Also keep your trains on a regular maintenance schedule.

As soon as you produce your own electricity, the price to operate electric engines is reduced significantly. I'm not sure why you are getting so many crashes, try using cabooses.

You need a station at the military base, then they will want to go to Tehran and Qom. At first they want to go on short trips, eventually they will want to go to other cities.


PS....you're actually in very good shape financially. Better than I was at that time since I had more than 5 million in bonds. And see what I mean by the stok splitting into gazillions?

[Hawk]

I did get the message that I had until 2015 to make that connection, but as I mentioned, there's no incentive to connect and I know of no penalty not to.

I'm so used to playing non-connected track scenarios I didn't even think of laying track somewhere else.

I am producing my own electricity but the electric engine is still too expensive to run right now. Maybe it will drop in cost soon, but by then I'll have miles and miles of track to electrify. It's a catch 22.

I do have trains going to maintenance/waypoint stations regularly. I think it's the engine itself just isn't one that's very reliable. Maybe the electric engine will do better. More choices would have been nice too.

There was another thread here somewhere discussing train crashes and I'm one that finds them extremely annoying. It's not so much the train crashes themselves, it's whatever algorithm the game uses that determines how often they crash. That definitely needs some adjusting, IMHO.
I generally check that before starting a scenario but it's been so long since I've had time to play I forgot. Now I don't want to start again so I guess I'll just deal with it. I have enough money to replace some of the engines, but I sure hate to spend it on that right now. I would have rathered put that off another 5 years. When funds are tight I try to put off updating engines until they're about 20 years old.

I was hoping the troops would get off their duffs and move a little on their own. I guess they're too tired from all the fighting.

I try hard to keep myself bond free as much as possible. I only use them when absolutely necessary and then I try to pay them off as soon as possible.

[nedfumpkin]

This scenario is designed as a balancing act. It's the key thing here. You've got to balance which priority is most important to you. For example, in the beginning, its a balance between getting back stock, and getting profitable so that in 30 years when you need cash, you can issue lots of dividends and you will get a better share.

Bonds versus no bonds. Get a nuke plant early because it helps. But to do that you need bonds, then the interest slows down expansion, and you can't afford to buy new industry. Generating a lot of your own electricity will give you bonuses, and reduce costs, but this doesn't really kick in until you are producing 500 gwh per year.

Knowing when to connect where. Some indsutries will wait on cargo from far away places...which ones first, where do you want to go?

Trains....certain connections will give you new locomotives. Others will get you hauling certain things that gets you others Choices... and you just never know what they are.

As a result, the game is quite open, and a lot depends on game play style. I am going to say that it is definitely a challenge, and intentionally so, and it took me a few tries to get it figured out, but it is possible to get Trainmaster on expert.


.....also, I left train crashes in because it actually happens a lot in that part of the world. I didn't get as manay as you though.

[Hawk]

Ah Ha! So there is hope after all?

I got the pop up about the nuke plant but just ignored it. I've found them to be a waste of money in the past so I stay away from them. I wouldn't normally buy an electric plant either, but in this scenario I guess the loss is worth the gain. It may already be too late for the nuke plant. I'll have to check and see what it costs.

I may have to start again, what with all this new found information, but like this scenario, my life is a balancing act. Do I continue to play yours and Ed's maps or do I go back to working on my own? I am somewhat limited in time before I'll have to go back to work on modeling, probably shortly after the first of the year.

Decisions! Decisions?

[nedfumpkin]

But Hawk...you must forget the past....Trainmaster is a whole new world. Also, in this scenario, you will need a nuke plant to get the electricity generated that you need.

[Hawk]

I didn't even think about the nuke plant for electricity.
Must get my head wrapped around this new world.

[Hawk]

I just noticed something as I started at the beginning, this time on Expert.
In Aug. of 2000 a pop up shows up saying that a nuke plant has been built near Bandar-e Bushehr, but when you look there's nothing there. So I checked the event and the placement for the nuke plant is X,Y:0,0 so it's not showing up on the map.
Not a big deal. Just thought I'd let you know.

[nedfumpkin]

Indeed you are correct...not sure how that happened, but I've noticed in the editor that placing buildings effect always reverts to zero if you touch it once set.

In any event, it really isn't a big deal since I never connected to it myself, but I have made the fix, and since I was editing, I enabled some of the new industries. I'll be including this map in the Beta zip later today.


Oh...and Ha! Those 143 secret service types who downloaded the map will be looking forever for the Bushehr nuke plant. :)

[Hawk]

I guess I'll wait until the new map is available to continue with my trip into insanity.
After playing the other attempt until 1926 I saw a lot of ways to improve my strategy, so I started again - this time on Expert as before I started on the default setting. What is that - medium?
I think I'm only 2 or 3 tears into this new attempt so I won't be loosing much by waiting and starting again. Besides, I just got a little web site updating work to do from one of my customers, and that's money in the pocket, something my wife and I are in desperate need of right now.
Plus AndyBis just sent another translated map for the archives that I need to add.

Sure wish there was more rubber on the map.

[Blackhawk]

I was going to wait to post til after I finished playing the map, but I suppose I'll post now. As I see Hawk already brought up the Bandar-e Busehr nuke plant being built off the map over in Saudi Arabia. Some things I may comment on may intentionally have been made that way, but I'll post them as things I observed anyway. If I repeat something that was already mentioned here or in another thread sorry :) I also realize this is in the strategy section and not the scenario creation section, but being that Hawk brought up the nuke plant being in the wrong place, I figured I'll post in here as well.

1. The warehouse by Orumiyeh has a production that requires passengers to be produced into passengers. Maybe that was to create a demand for passengers?

2. There is a similar instance bank production turning gold into gold. I guess maybe its to create demand? I don't know how much it demands and how much it produces but maybe it creates a little more gold as "interest"? All it says is 0 gold = 0 gold so I don't know the decimal amounts supplied and produced.

3. Rice Patties: Maybe it was intentional that a rice pattie has no visible "building." But when I first started playing the game I wondered why there were just fields, but no building which I knew to click on. It was only 10 years later when I was building in Turkmenistan that I noticed I was getting supplies of rice, and noticed they were actually rice patties and not just an empty field. Having a building show up would be useful to know how to build your railroad around it, and to know when the field is actually in a station's range. And when you are trying to click to see what the production/demand is, it's a lot of random clicking until you hit the right spot on the field.
http://img32.imageshack.us/img32/2096/riceyk.jpg

4. Some typos that I noticed so far:
- 2002 newspaper - Iran has access to Turkmenistan. - It says "Iranian railroad now HOW access to TO the North" <-- The How should be Have, and there should only be one to.
- Newpaper to Iraq - Once again it says "how access" when it should say "have access"

5. Since not connecting Orumiyeh by 2015 results in losing the map, I would recommend there be some reminders about this requirement. Since there are 15+ years to build there, it's a long time for someone to forget, especially if they take a break in between those years. Having not made my own map I am unsure of how the alerts/messages work, but maybe have something after 5 years, something after 10 years, and then yearly until its connected or you lose the map in 2015. Maybe that's too many reminders, but I'd definitely think something more than just the initial message saying you have to connect it would be nice.

6. As I read in the forum earlier there was a problem with the gold cars spacing. There is a similar problem with the isotopes cars.


7. I saw in the editor it looked like you were going to have a slightly different briefing for those that played on expert so you could get the award of Trainmaster vs when you played it on hard/medium/easy. Here is a picture of the briefing hard/medium/easy gets when you click on briefing in the ledger:


And in the editor it appeared as if you had a similar briefing, but it would say Trainmaster at the top instead of stationmaster. But instead on expert when you hit briefing you get the long story line of what you must do:

Once again nothing big, either way you can find out what to do, but for consistency it would probably be best to have it look one way or the other.

Guess I'll get back to the scenario and see if I notice anything else. My nuke plant decided after a few years to no longer be profitable so it's back to trying to find my next industry to invest in. So far it seems like a nice map, other than having to haul goods all the way across the map to get something else built!

[Blackhawk]

One more thing to add. I can't say I've had any real problem with train wrecks. I think I've got 8-9 trains and am 13 or so years into the map. I've had a few breakdowns, oddly often on my newest engines when they were just a year or two old, but so far I haven't had any crashes. And I'm using the initial diesel engine available. (I set most of my hauls at 5 cars and a caboose.) If I come close to Hawk's train crash every 6 months I'll post about it.

[nedfumpkin]

Of course I find out now that I have uploaded the map in a 500 mb file. :)

Thanks for the feed back...

The warehouse is intentionally set to exchange passengers...this represents the passengers going to and from Turkey of Pakistan.

Banks actually exchange gold at a profit.

Rice Paddies should have a building...odd that it doesn't, make sure you are looking in the right place.

I'll look at the typos and briefing text. I'm still going to make the extras pak for the map so I will put them together with those fixed.

It is inetional that you don't get reminded of your connections. It's part of the challenge of the scenario.

[Hawk]

It may be that the reason I get so many train crashes is because I don't use a caboose and I set the max number of cars to 8. No need running a half length train when the modern engines can handle a full train.

I'll let Ned jump in on the rest of the stuff.

BTW! aboard Blackhawk. Good to have another active member, especially one willing to help beta test Trainmaster.

[nedfumpkin]

In TM you don't necessarily need to run full trains except maybe at the beginning as much as directed trains. Full trains will cargo going to the wrong place may give you a few coins on delivery but will harm your industries and cost you in the end.

Remember, just like Osama Bin Laden, there are municipal buildings and limited industries just waiting to take your cargo. :)

[Blackhawk]

Thanks for the welcome Hawk, I've been a luker here for awhile and used to check in on the progress of Rail Mogul.

Thanks for clarifying some of those things Ned. As for the rice patties, maybe one of the files for me just didn't transfer properly if no one else is having a problem with them. I went to the editor and tried placing some rice patties and still no building.



Nice words of wisdom Ned, I noticed some of my chemicals going in the wrong direction recently and noticed even 5 cars was too much for that train and had to put it down to a 2 car return from that city. In some respects I like that TM brings back some of the micromanaging that RT2 had.

[nedfumpkin]

Try installing the beta and see if that doesn't fix the rice paddie building. I'm totally baffled.

The micromanaging in RT2 was one of the things I like most about that game, which is why I tried to make it so important here. Glad you like that.

[nedfumpkin]

Couple of things I forgot to mention....

I notice that on some years my uranium mines made good money but the nuke plant didn't, on other years it was the opposite...I think it is related to prices.

Also, the message about the connection to Orumiyeh comes after you haul a load of textiles (GhraArea HrRugs)


There are two electrcic plants on the map that can be very productive and indirectly profitable if you do things right. The key is buying industry at the right time, which is usually just before you supply it, but others should be picked up sooner because cargo is going to them by itself.

[Hawk]

I noticed the same thing with the uranium mines and nuke plants. To me it seems that if the nuke plants don't get their 5 required uranium loads in a given year they will lose profit. Never paid too much attention to the uranium mines. Nuke plant profits do go up and down though, from what I've seen.

I never saw any benefit of buying the electrical plants, except to lose money.