North vs South - Reconciliation or Annexation, etc

[Blackhawk]

Well I've currently been working on a scenario, off and on. Progress is slower than I would have liked but I got distracted with other interests at times.

Basically the overall concept of this scenario is Moggie's idea of 2 countries separated by a river. The North has the resources and the South has the manufacturing/industries.

I still have to modify some things and make sure the events work properly. But ideally the scenario will work as follows:

The first 20 (or 30) years you'll have to build up the Southern railroad infrastructure. The South's main sources of revenue are lavender farms which provide medicine and are scenic which help boost the country's tourism industry (passengers); and gold. Lucky for the South they found gold in the hills! So they can import a limited number of resources.

At the start you'll have to haul some medicine and gold to the ports for other ports to open up, and you'll have to export a certain amount of gold each year to keep those traders importing goods to the country. After all, who would trade with you for free? Later the Southern govt will require a yearly supply of gold as well to mint into money.

After the ports are supplying the South with a limited number of resources, it'll be up to you to connect a certain number of southern cities. After all the South wants to be an industrialized and modern society, so it must use its national railroad to connect the majority of the cities.

Once suspension bridges are available, there is now the possibility to reunite with the North. First the North requests aid, which you can supply if you'd like. And you can continue along hauling various cargoes to different parts of the Northern lands until you've brought unity among the two countries, or you can opt to take a war approach, by supplying the Southern Army throughout the North as it conquers the country. If you go with peace, you'll have to be careful not to exploit the Northern resources in some areas. If you haul too many loads of a cargo out, and don't return enough manufactured goods you just might end up being fined. Of course if you don't pay the fine you've breached the peace and lose, so of course you pay the fines. I have yet to test it, but the fines should vary depending on how many carloads short you are. An example of the fines (it's not actually one used in the scenario) If you export 10 loads of hemp, the North understands you'll keep some of the raw resource for your own country, so they'll only expect say a 60% return. And the North values hemp at 40k a carload. So if you return 6 or more loads of paper the North will be happy. But if you only return 2 loads of paper and you removed 10 loads of hemp, they'll be annoyed with you and fine you for 8 loads of hemp that you took from their country and didn't return. So 8 x 40k = 320k. So if you're just a couple carloads short, the fine might be an acceptable fine to take each year, if you need the resources elsewhere. Of course if you export a lot, and don't return any imports and exploit the North again, those fines could mount up to large numbers.

If you chose to go with peace you can help develop the country as well. Supplying certain cities with resources along with some Southern industrial knowledge will result in an industry being build in the city. And if you build up industries in the North, that means you can supply some of the North's needs from the North rather than having to haul some resources all the way to the South to manufacture something and haul it back up into the North. (Although in some cases it might require a cross-country haul across the North, which may or may not be faster than hauling the cargo to the Southern Industry) [The ability to build industries will likely be turned off, or highly expensive to build so you'll have to use the industries that appear]

If you chose war, you'll have to largely produce goods the army would need. (ammo, weapons, food, alcohol) Although you'll also have to ultimately produce electricity and provide some food and alcohol to the natives. Otherwise they'll want to keep rioting and destroying your rails.

Rather than winning based on how much you haul, I've decided to try and have set haulage goals, but the length of time it takes you to accomplish them will determine what type of victory you obtain. So the earlier you accomplish the haulage goals the better. I'm debating though whether or not to add more than just haulage goals. I don't know if that will keep the player entertained long enough or not. I might need to look into some other sort of goals after a few play tests, and if anyone has suggestions as to what type of objectives they like feel free to let me know.

Possible names for the scenario, unless anyone else has a better suggestion:
War and Peace
Reconciliation or War
Reconciliation or Annexation

(Hawk, I wasn't sure where this topic belonged. Cause it talks about a scenario in creation, but it's not really tips about creating a scenario so I wasn't sure if it belonged in the Creation or the Review section of the forum?)

[Hawk]

This looks like a good place to me.

[Moggie]

I don't like the idea of war. I originally thought that when the countries separated, it was only because the cool heads of two admirals, one on each side, that prevented the outbreak of war. But other than that, nice design :).

[Blackhawk]

Well at this point I haven't really played much TM lately, so the development of the scenario has been stalled as the scenario needs to be bug tested several times, then final victory conditions written, and a painting of the map.

The idea of winning by war or through peace was largely for an increased replayability of the map. If you know what will happen and how to do it easily, you'll be more likely to just go play another map rather than replay this one. So the idea of two ways to victory allows you to replay half of the map towards different objectives. A

[Moggie]

I suppose you're right about the game mechanics. Just the idea pets me the wrong way. But two totally different approaches do add replay value.

[Blackhawk]

Alright the first beta... well maybe even alpha upload of the map. It's been tested up until about the time when suspension bridges are available.
I still need to decide on what "rewards" you get for successfully shipping things. (possibly player cash as a bonus or maybe a running points tally in a variable or maybe a locomotive or possibly any a variable which determines what you get)

The Capital City will require yearly gold shipments as well for its "mint" although I'm still trying to work out an ideal time that the mint starts demanding gold, as well as an amount. In one play test I was shipping about 15 gold a year, in another it was more like 5-8 a year to the Gold Coast Port. I'll have to do a few more play tests with the taverns disabled to see if the 5-8 numbers are more likely as with the 15+ I had the taverns enabled.

The lumber event might also be too difficult to achieve and need to be modified. It was something I threw in on my last test and seemed to be feasible, although there was a year or two when I had the Gold Coast doubling its production.

There will likely be an industrial profits requirement for the first 25 years as well as requiring a number of cities to be connected. Currently I'm thinking around 30 cities will be required to be connected by 1895, although I may increase that number [A 2nd "shell" company may be formed and used to buy the highly profitable lavender farms to prevent those from being bought and be called a Farmers Association or something, with the idea of forcing the player to actually try to make the industries produce with the limited resources available, rather than just relying on passengers for profit.]

My next steps in the scenario will probably be to create events disabling all the Northern Industries to prevent large stockpiles of resources. And then come up with attainable amounts of medicine to be shipped to the North. And maybe add in another haulage goal (possibly furniture) around the 1890s.

If anyone wants to take a look at the map go ahead. Feel free to offer suggestions or other "goals" if it seems like the haulage goals are repetitive. As the map is largely haulage based with some twists and turns thrown in. The stock market is disabled for now as you are in control of a government railroad so you shouldn't be buying "stock" in the company. Although I am debating adding a Northern Railroad.

[nedfumpkin]

Please plan on making this a campaign map, specifically, CA03.

[Blackhawk]

Ah thanks for reminder. I was going to ask but I forgot to mention it in my post.

[Moggie]

Wow, a campaign scenario! And I had a wee little part on it

[Blackhawk]

Wow, a campaign scenario! And I had a wee little part on it

For those that don't know this map is loosely based off of Moggie's idea in this thread: viewtopic.php?f=72&t=2466

Although the final map might not be exactly what Moggie original intended (like I threw in a possible path to victory through war), hopefully, it'll still be a map that he likes and has some of his ideas incorporated into it.

[Blackhawk]

Well the latest update... it's going slow. I've spent several frustrating days just trying to work on the a system that "fines" the player if they export too much cargo in comparison to how much they import. I had an old version of the map I tested things on and it seemed to work, but I decided to rework the calculations. However on a newer updated version I forgot I created a new event which used one of the variables I had been previously using. So then I thought I messed up on the new calculations and I went back and redid them all on a new map to make sure they worked. It was only later that I remembered, I used the same variable elsewhere. And of course that's when I also remembered I made a list of what variables I used and what each was for. (If I make another map after this, it will most likely have fewer events as I seem to forget what variables I used and for which events when dealing with ~150 events)

So problem solved! Or so I thought. I did a play test and again the events didn't seem to work correctly. I looked and looked and everything seemed correct. I compared to the older version which worked and they seemed the same. Of course I end up finding out, in my haste to lay track and place stations for connections I didn't place one of the stations within the territorial limits of a city, and that's why the "YTD to territory" variables were not working correctly.

Ultimately, problem solved and it now works. If you export 10 loads of cotton in the year 1906, you had better return at least 6 loads of textiles in the year 1907 or you'll be fined for each load not returned. (Currently I have it set at 60% must be returned the next year) I'll have to do some further testing to see what to set the fine at, and I'll possibly increase the percentage of cotton that must be returned the following year. I may also add an Event which also demands textiles at the same time, thereby creating some competition between returning textiles and sending textiles to satisfy an Event. But at least for now the basic calculations finally work like I want them to.

The one drawback of the method I used for the calculations is that if you use a train and pick up cotton from a city in the territory, and then stop in another city in that same territory to pick up more cotton, the 1st loads of cotton will now be added to the number of loads "shipped from" the territory. So essentially they'll be counted twice (or 3 times, etc if the train makes multiple stops). I don't really have a way around this, other than to warn the player that any trains hauling cotton should just make a direct route to the textile mill.

Well I suppose it's on to the next set of events to test and make sure they work correctly, as well as trying to work on attempting to clean up the ledger since I currently have a plethora of information, and not enough space to display it all.

[Blackhawk]

Of course I fix some bugs and go back and find even more. The scenario may actually be too long and too big to stay interesting throughout the entire time.

At times the editor acts a little strange too. I may be creating too many events. I'll attempt to move an Event up, and sometimes it'll move up several events at a time, instead of just one at a time. However, while doing this, it reorders the events it passes over.

I've also ran into an issue though in I created this event:
Force Test against Companies
Force Test against territories (tested against Gold Coast)
YTD Gold hauled to Terr < 5
Territory Variable 1 > 1

Effects:
-Cargo Production -200% for 1 year. to Territory Black Dust

The event works at stopping the cargo production, however, the game fails in undoing its effects after the temporary period is over. MY Event was applied to specific territories, but the game applies it's event to "the whole game"

Unless anyone sees something I'm doing wrong, I'm guessing I'll have to add another event or two, and stop using the temporary effects. Then have a variable (if I have any left) trigger whether to turn on the production or turn off the production.

[Wolverine@MSU]

I don't think you can have two different territories in an event. That is, you can't test deliveries in one territory and then drop production in another, which is what it looks like you're doing. You would need two events to do this, each specifying the particular territory.

[Blackhawk]

Thanks for the idea of checking the 2 territories potential issue but that wasn't it. I changed one of the events to deal with only 1 location and to have a temporary production shut down for a few months. The same issue results in that the game applies an event "to the whole game" rather than just the "territory" after the temporary event is over.

Guess I'll just have to use a few extra events and use non-temporary events.

[Blackhawk]

Well the scenario may be a little long. It starts in 1870 and for me the first time I played it all the way through I finished in 1953. It took me the majority of the 3 day weekend to play, so it is definitely time consuming. Since it runs for so long I'll likely have to add some more events to remove some of the older locomotives otherwise you could have 50+ locomotives to sort through.

I'll hopefully be able to post an updated version of the map either tonight or tomorrow.

Edit:
I should be able to post an updated map sometime today, depending on if I add a few more things or not. I was contemplating an event that would force the player to have to use some electric track, or require a certain amount of the track be double track, but I'm leaning towards not including these extras. The map probably goes on for a long enough span of time and keeps the player busy enough that they don't need more distractions/restrictions.

I'm also undecided about adding an AI player in the Northern Country, as it won't accomplish much, other than potentially be a distraction and slow down the player if they have to use the AI tracks.

[Blackhawk]

Alright the next version of the map is released. Again only the path of peace is currently playable.

I know a few things still need to be fixed:
-The TM/SM/YS victory messages need to be fixed as they are too long.
-If you don't ship enough medicine by 1902 nothing happens. A lose event will likely be added but I need to play through the War option to win and see how it interacts with the rest of the scenario as it's been so long I've forgotten what actually happens.
-I'll probably add a New Briefing or two after you decide whether to chose peace or war.
-I might need to make a message or new briefing during the first 30 years of the game stating that 30+ cities need to be connected, and 11+ million in industry profits must be made prior to the end of 1895.
-I just added some demand warehouses, and possibly warehouses demanding steel, so I'm not sure how they'll affect the rest of the map.
-I changed around some of the types of industries that appear in a city. For example a rubber factory used to appear after delivering enough steel to Alpine, but now it's a different industry. So I'm not sure how much of an affect this will have on progress either.
-All of the cities that you can deliver steel to don't appear on the 1 page ledger. Eventually they'll all be there but they just don't all fit at once. I'll either have to reorder them so they are cities you have access to (It doesn't make sense to put a city you don't have access to down yet) or I may just delete them all and just leave a briefing message saying these cities are cities that are requesting steel.

Well I'm sure there are more things I could say but I can't remember them right now so here's a decent beta of the map. Hopefully eventually after I fix up the war side of the scenario, someone will beta test it all the way through and give me an idea of their time line and when they were able to get into each territory and finish the scenario. (and possibly what locomotives you preferred to use) Then I'll have a better idea of where to set the victory conditions.

I may also need to give an extra year to complete the first 3 haulage goals during the first 20-25 years of the scenario. If you fail to meet the goal there is no message saying you failed (I might need to fix that) and you don't lose, however, later several years down the line the effects of meeting the goal or not meeting the goal are felt in different ways.

Edit:
A few other comments. 1. I have not added any events to remove locomotives so towards the end you will have 50+ locomotives. I may have to reduce the number available as well as some locomotives don't really seem to have much of a purpose when others are available.
2. Industries are not supposed to be built. Railroad structures should be allowed to be built, but taverns are disabled (or at least they should be). On my versions of TM I ran into issues with having taverns and industries disabled, as I was then also unable to build rail yard structures. Hopefully someone else can tell me if it works for them.
In the final version the taverns may be enabled, but as it is right now they multiple the gold too fast and are too profitable, so I'm waiting to see what happens and if Ned makes changes to the tavern or not.

[Blackhawk]

With only 1 download this isn't really much of an issue, but I added a company in the last update and forgot to update the majority of the events. Consequently, many of them, like the status events display twice, or don't trigger correctly.

[Hawk]

I'd try your map but I've found TM to be a bit beyond my play expertise.
I never have been an expert at RT3.

[Blackhawk]

That's fine Hawk. TM isn't for everyone. And this map is definitely not for everyone as it's long and requires some efficient and well set up custom consists.

I'll upload a new beta map for this. It should be about playable for both the peace and war sides. There are a couple things I still need to decide on:
1. Should not shipping enough medicine by 1902 result in a loss, or I may do something more complicated and allow you to be a couple years late, but then it'll add to the hostility the other side has for you and towards the number where they revoke your access. I may also need to reduce the number of loads of medicine required.
2. the final dates for the TM/SM/YS events, and I need to shorten their text.
3. possible some of the above fixes from prior posts could still be made. (Like creating new briefings, although I think the text in the ledger is understandable by itself)

Then I guess it's off to attempt painting the map. And then wait for a final testing with any possible munitions plant fix (unless that was just a fix in the supply guide) and/or tavern fix.

There is 1 point under the war path where at the end of the year the game will hang for a bit. So if anyone plays it any wonders why it's taking awhile at the end of a year once you've gotten access to the Plains Region, don't worry.

[Blackhawk]

No updates have been made to the events in this version, but for anyone curious of how the map looks after being painted here it is. I'm not sure that I'm entirely done painting but I'm close to it. Also I added some trees, but it may be better if I release it without the trees. Since it is already a map that may be demanding on computers with its size and potential number of locomotives that are used on it.