Coast to Coast

[Hawk]

The following text is a compilation of what was salvaged from the old Gathering Forum. It contains postings from several different people.
Thanks goes out to Wolverine for putting this all together.

Hawk

Coast to Coast - Added in the Coast to Coast Expansion
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I just downloaded and installed the expansion this morning and gave it a quick run through. The first scenario I played was Coast to Coast and I got a gold with the difficulty set to expert in a little over 2 hours. In my opinion, there was not a whole lot of strategy involved with this one. Mostly just connect cities and buy a few industries to get the CBV goals. I sure hope the other maps are a little more challenging. Mobius, you sure have spoiled me with your fantastic work on Great Northern and Prince of Steel.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I think none of the betatesters got Gold in Alternate USA on Expert. You might want to try that one.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I don't know if anyone was able to get gold on Pacific NW either.
But challenging maps were Mexico, and Poland too.
Southern Pacific took a number of starts too. I made a bunch of logos that would go along with this map. In editor you can go in and assign logos at the start for the AI by jumping around owners then save.
Might make it more interesting.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The new maps were deliberately made with varying difficulty levels, I found Ireland very easy & Mexico very hard.
Don't forget there are 3 routes to try on Coast to Coast, I think you'll find the Northern route a bit tougher than the other 2
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Really? The coast to coast map is easy? Maybe I am not a very good player. I find it quite hard to get a good start in that map. Have to pay a lot of attention selecting and looking for industries to buy. I haven't finished it yet, but I think I'll get gold after my third start. Hee hee...
I do think Poptop did a great job with this "major" update!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thanks for the advice on different maps and routes, I plan on playing them all as soon as I have the time. I just happened to play Coast to Coast first. I tried Mexico this morning, and it was indeed pretty challenging! I had to restart a couple of times because of some bad industry selection I was still able to finish with Gold on Expert in about 3 hours thanks to a couple of cattle ranches up near the Texas border.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I just got gold on Alternate USA. - Unfortunately it was in 1952. I looked at the coding on the scenario and there is no way to complete it without getting the gold. They goofed and used the variable start year instead of current year for the silver bronze and fail. I KNOW I could get golf before 1950 if I redid it. I had excellent in all except Roosevelt, and I could have had that if I had connected a little sooner.
Keys to helping w/ Alternate:
Issue stock at every turn.
take the fertilizer
buy all the corn and grain farms you can, esp the ones that pop up at the beggining of the year after you connect to your neighbors
Try to have all you imported milk/corn/grain/livestock input to a single city with moderate demand. Then connect many other cities in the demanding country to this city. Have trains w/ custom consist go between the input city and the other cities. This custom consist should contain a few of your imported good and the rest with "any" freight/express. This setup will enable you to move alot of the good around in the country racking up hauls.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I tried the southern route about 6 times and didn't come close -- at medium difficulty.
Switched to the middle route (Raleigh to Kansas to San Francisco) and got gold a moment ago -- at medium difficulty.
If someone's done the southern route I'd love to hear about it -- and how you did it.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Try at expert difficulty. I noticed that when starting at medium there are much less resources available at the start.
You should have plenty of cotton near Tampa or St Augustine at the start. I start by building a textile mill at St Augustine. As soon as possible I upgrade it. Only after that I start to build track to Tampa and Talahassee.
Key is to build as much industry as possible. Issue stock every year to get money. Also take the option on getting grants for industry, this will make it 20% cheaper.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thanks for the tip. I tend not to build my own industries, for some reason. Mostly never think of it. But the textile mill makes a lot of sense.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I've gotten gold on the Northern Route... I don't know what people mean by a "couple" of industries, I easily had over 100 industries, and probably 50 upgraded production industries.

[Grandma Ruth]

After spending months on the first of the Coast to Coast scenarios, I did this one in a couple of hours! I thought I'd just give it a quick run-through, see what it was like, and got gold without really trying.
For what it's worth, I picked the central route and started off on the east coast. Connected all the cities up and down the coastline, ran 70 - 80 trains along more or less at random and that was that. I bought a few industries - maybe 6 or so that were profitable, and changed to electric track about half-way through to run 2D2's.
I didn't connect until the last month of the last year - or at least what I thought was the last year. Then did a straight line with no attempt at making it workable as no trains were ever going to go on it. My arithmetic was out a bit and I had another year left which just nicely took me over the $50m.
Easy-peasy!

[Elliott]

Well I just played this... and failed.

And yet, I connected Tampa to San Diego. I don't understand why it failed me. Maybe its because I achieved the $25mil of industrial profits needed to get the final territory open in the last month of the last year and only did the connection then. Or maybe I missed a connection in track somewhere. Either way, that sucked.

As I have said elsewhere, this sort of industry profit scenario causes me problems. I just bought up loads of industries after running some track to get profits going, but looks like I need more than that. Maybe I should be micro-managing I guess?

[Moggie]

You people have MONSTROUS amounts of trains and industries . I finished Coast to Coast middle route with less than 20 industries and about 30 trains. I wonder if this is a question of style of if it has a "deeper meaning"...

[Elliott]

I only had about 20 trains, but that's because I was trying to buy up industries instead of expand my rail.

If I didn't need to worry about industries, or worry less, I would've covered the land in track and trains, but as it was, with my balance, I barely managed what I needed to and the game failed me anyway.

[Elliott]

Well I tried it again, and started with the northern route this time, and I realised something.

The need to make $50M industry profits by end game in 20 years is a requirement for only the Southern route. The Northern route simply requires you to make company profits, which makes the game much simpler. Simply lay rail until you're golded!

Wonder what the middle route entails...

[RayofSunshine]

Hey Elliot,

You are getting the hang of things, and I likewise make the same mistake. I don't always get the challenges correct, and thereby don't necessarily make an adequate amount of progress toward the medals.

As for the Medium or Middle route, just read the post previous of Granda Ruth. Now, like me, you may not have read """"all"""" the previous posts to get the "slant" on methods which others have used. A person doesn't have to "copy" them, but gives a player some idea of the problems or success which other have used.

Now here is just a suggestion, of which I use frequently. Options. If there are options, and in this case, different routings, I 1st save just the basic initial map. Any further play is "tagged" "a" or "1" thereafter, saving the inital map in the case that I believe I should use a different method. I might play it for a time until at least getting a better economy. Then I will save it.

Then I will go to the 2nd option, and so forth with the 3rd option. If any option does not seem to have an adequate amount of industry or economy, etc, I just reboot it, and start a different save. That might be the reason it takes me some time to get finished with a scenario. Well is, if I am only playing and not testing.

I like this scenario, and although the southern route looks the simplest, it is the hardest of the 3 routes. Just remember to try and enjoy. It is only a game of fun.

[spankenstein89]

Would it be cheating if instead of spending money buying up industries in the Coast to Coast northern route, I were to just save up and buy rights to go into Canada and cross the continent that way?

[Hawk]

Would it be cheating if instead of spending money buying up industries in the Coast to Coast northern route, I were to just save up and buy rights to go into Canada and cross the continent that way?

No.

[spankenstein89]

Well I'd still have to make the connection to Minneapolis, so perhaps there's no point, but thanks for answering.

[Hawk]

Plus you would lose $10mil in CBV.

Everything your company owns counts towards CBV. Trains, track, stations, profitable industry, train profit, etc.

[RulerofRails]

Was fooling with this one a bit. Built the southern route. I always sensed that something was strange trying to cross the river between Phoenix and San Diego. Sure enough this is another phantom river. See Gumboots post here on how to remove: viewtopic.php?p=43851#p43851. Same thing with the Alternate USA map. Pic attached.

[Gumboots]

That makes me wonder how many other phantom rivers are hiding in various maps. I'd bet there are several we still don't know about.