Alternate USA
Posted: Sun Nov 19, 2006 8:43 pm
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
Alternate USA - Added in the Coast to Coast Expansion
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What strategies are you all using for Alternate USA.
This scenario is a lot of fun, although I think the mapmakers were geographically evil on purpose (you'll see what I mean when you try to connect Witchita Falls to Dallas is Texas).
I've been playing Alternate USA the last couple of nights and have about 25 years left.
I chose a all industry strategy for the first 15 years without leaving the Plains.
Looking good so far, but the requirements to advance in relations on this scenario are very high. Even though its kind of a jackpot map it is still very challenging. After 25 years I have all the cities in Plains and Texas connected, still haven't met the Texas goals yet though, but I think I might next year.
I have been using industries as demand sinks to drive up the demand in Texas for grain and that seems to be helping. The industries lose money for quite a while though.
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Actualy, the gold medal is th eonly medal you can earn. It won't even kick you out for loosing. - Bad coding- they used "start year" instead of "current year" when checking for silver bronze and lose game.
As for tips...
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 (with the fertilizer youl'll make more profit and loads than the AI)
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.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
As for tips...
Issue stock at every turn.
doing it
Quote: take the fertilizer
done
Quote: 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 (with the fertilizer youl'll make more profit and loads than the AI)
done (and don't forget those cheap money machines if you can catch em at first build the dairy farm!!)
Quote: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.
kinda doin it...
this is a rather tough scenerio for me so far - in my 2nd playing of it and went w/the all industry route the first 10 or so years... also, I'd suggest issueing bonds whenever you can especially in refinancing those old ones - that bond money invested in industries will return much more than the interest you'll be paying.
other minor things:
*cut your dividen payment to $0.. no need to amass any personal wealth (goes against my personal belief ) --- in fact I ignore the stock portion all together.
*buy up those new industries every year...
*when goin into the great lakes area, buy any and all distilleries you can find - goes hand in hand with your set goal for it... so far that's the only area I've gotten into - don't think i'll be getting the gold but it is fun
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Ouch! Just realized that you have to meet the yearly goals 10 times for Excellent! I don't know if I can win at this point anymore, but it is still a fun scenario.
My big problem currently is that everywhere has high demand for livestock, so it is almost impossible to ship it to Dixie.
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I haven't gotten than far yet but perhaps you need to build a few meat packing plants down there?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
What did to get the livestock is build Large stations at every pair of raches in Texahoma and then a large station in memphis (where there was a warehouse needing it) and then a meat packing plant in Birmingham. Use cumsom consist train to take them from memphis to birmingham. So for every live stock you bring into dixie, you get 2 "counts".
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I didn't realize it would count twice if delivered within the territory. Thanks. I assumed it would keep track of where the train came from.
That should help, but it's gonna be tricky cause there are already meat packing plants near all the livestock farms in Texas. Mexico is okay, but that's a very long haul from Mexico to Memphis/Mobile.
Good thing I chose Dixie's side in the war.
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This was the first one I tried in the x-pak. After I saw what was necessary for just my first 2 goals (haul 25 grain 10 times, haul 35 corn 10 times), I decided there would be too much micro and so played the rest of the way through in my head, geting gold several years before the 46 year game time, on Expert of course. .
Maybe this exploit is necessary: For grain, build 2 stations in a town so that they both cover a distillery (and each other?), with as great a difference in demand as you can manage. Then you can haul the same grain one way over and over again with no micro and no special consist. Especially good as the grain surplus gets higher. Is this OK to do?
Seems like this and the next 2 scenarios may be designed to anticipate this exploitation, just as Poland may be designed to anticipate bulldosing.
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The meat packing plants are usually within the towns. Get the livestock from the cattle farms themselves (not the town). Since livestock has a fast price degredation the runs are usually pretty profitable (- fast price degredation - short distances makes a big difference in price from the closest meat packing plant to the cattleyard. Another tip to create a price differential would be to put the large station on the other side of the cattleyards from the meat packing plant. This will cause a longer wait at the station, but will ensure a lower pickup price (and more profit).
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I'm playing this scenario now...
I only use custom consist trains (express + haulage requirements + something optional for the return trip).
Grain is going well:
pickup constantly have atleast 1 train waiting/loading at all the grain farms in the great plains. This makes for a virtual grain monopoly, which drives up the prices in Texas and the Great Lakes.
delivery deliver in a chain of cities (eg : Great plain farms => city 1 => city 2 => city 3 => city 4 => city 5) with an upgraded brewery in the last city (city 5). Each load of grain delivered to the brewery counts 5 times
Goods is going good too, in Syracuse there is an upgraded steel mill, with a lot of coal and iron supply. Right next to it are 3 tool & die's (2 upgraded, 1 normal). The track laying in New England is difficult, but I enjoyed it a lot
I also moved some grain from the Great Lakes further to New England and goods from New England further to the Great Lakes. This prevents saturation of the grain/good market in those countries.
Next I want to connect to Louisianna (corn : -1 , +20) and Dixie (livestock : -5, +25). Those seem a lot more difficult...
Corn to Lousianna : Louisianna is already flooded with corn (and I didn't even take the fertilizer offer
Livestock to Dixie : Livestock prices are high everywhere, even right next to cattle ranches.
As a conclusion, I have a nice picture of my track around Chicago:
Chicago west
2 tracks going west : the top one to my grain-farms network, the bottom one is for the express trains.
1 track going north to Milwaukee
Chicago East
1 track going south to Louisville
1 track going south to Indianapolis
1 track going east (towards Toledo, Detroit, Cleveland, Pittsburg, Philadelphia, New York ...)
I also made sure only trains that have to stop at chicago get to one of the 2 stations, if a train only wants to pass from on of the east side legs to one of the west side legs, he won't interfere with any of the stations.
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Hehe, I play the Alternate USA scenario too at the moment. Nice scenario and it gets really difficult to get Gold on Expert.
I used (my usual) rail-only approach but that didn't work well, not because of the profit but because of the demand, thus I needed to build a few industries just to increase demand. Biggest problem I have is with delivery to Louisiana and to Roosevelt - the countries where one needs to deliver corn. There's just nothing one can build to increase corn demand. I fear I will miss the Gold medal.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It helps to know what each territory will demand before playing for your gold. That way you can prepare your lines and your industries won't compete with one you may need. Like PJay said terminate you lines with industry that demands the goal cargo the most. When its grain build breweries in that city. If its cattle build meat packers. When its corn find cattle or sheep to feed.
I haven't finished a game yet but am on my second try as I had built a brewery in Omaha but needed one in the Great Lakes states on my first.
I actually start by building a textile mill in the middle of about 3 sheep ranches. This seems to be the only industry that pays well right off.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If there are logs close to the northern border of the great plains, a lumber mill can be profitable too, but I usually start with a textile mill also.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I use your idea of multiple drops. I just do a double drop now as its less confusing. I have collector stations and haul a custom consist of as much cargo (grain, corn, livestock) as I can. I have a drop station set maybe 10 cells right before the main destination station. This should have the price a few dollars less that the final station. I drop the cargo at this station and attempt to pick it back up (min 0 just in case demand shifts). The train then goes on toward the final stop. This will usually get a double score for each cargo and I've been averaging 30-40 load points a year once the system gets going.
What I've done in later game is not run track all over the place. Since I'm not running track all over the place, just meeting connecting and shipping goals and making money I went electric. The Bipolar is a real neat engine and pretty cheap. Also far less stops as no need for water and its pretty flat in the plains so need for sand is less.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
My hat is off to the designer of this gem. It kept me entertained for the better part of three weeks providing the right combination of track and empire building with challenging restraints. A job very well done.
The key I found was buying rights to Mexico. Coasted to a gold on expert (finally).
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I really liked the idea of this scenario but was annoyed with the constant requirment to fill varous minimium numbers in terms of hauling corn or such like. I'd rather have dealt with more discreet objectives - meet them and its done and you can worry about meeting the next objective.
My other complaint is that the territories opened up a little to quickly at one point. I distinctly recall that after a period of time all of a sudden just about every territory in teh game would go from being closed to being open. Its ratherminor but it did kind of reduce that feeling of empire building that I agree that the scenario has.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Crikey! Territories just don't open up all at once in this scenerio unless you actively buy into them. This is one of the challenges of the game: Go in if, and only if, you have a reasonable expectation of meeting the requirements. Which also addresses the first part: When you enter a new territory have an idea of how you're going to bring the resouces of the territories to which you've rights to bear on the constraints of the newly entered one. Set up a network of trains & track which will perpetually fulfill those requirements.
Don't overlook making some money. Build/buy some industries in the newly opened territory that will compliment those in the old ones. What I liked about this one is that the constraints of one territory enhance one's ability to fulfill later ones (corn feeding the cows which you'll take to Dixie or Pacifica, eg). Sublime.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Quote: Crikey! Territories just don't open up all at once in this scenerio unless you actively buy into them. This is one of the challenges of the game:
Well I can't prove it but I played this a number of times - lost them all - and in each case I found that the initial territories would open up much more slowly and I think the last one or maybe two took a bit - but there was a definite situation right in the middle where it seemed that access to territories came quickly on the heels of each other. Much faster then they could be exploited.
Quote:Go in if, and only if, you have a reasonable expectation of meeting the requirements. Which also addresses the first part: When you enter a new territory have an idea of how you're going to bring the resouces of the territories to which you've rights to bear on the constraints of the newly entered one. Set up a network of trains & track which will perpetually fulfill those requirements.
Don't overlook making some money. Build/buy some industries in the newly opened territory that will compliment those in the old ones. What I liked about this one is that the constraints of one territory enhance one's ability to fulfill later ones (corn feeding the cows which you'll take to Dixie or Pacifica, eg). Sublime.
Good advice though I would still have preffered to have something a little more discrete (as in black and white - just in case I'm mispelling here). I found the contant hauling into a territory to be a chore. Also it kind of started to loose its feeling of authenticity. I could see how wanting a bunch of cattle or corn or something might be part and parcel of the price for joining a Union but when you hauling stuff in in huge quantities over a long period of time one starts to wonder what the people are doing all the excess resources. It begins to jarringly defy supply and demand.
Part of my problem might have been that I was not totally fullfilling any ingle states needs - so I tended to find myself running back and forth and trying to figue out where I could find yet more corn to haul to some place which already seemed to have the majority of the corn supply for north America in its borders. I kept wondering what the heck had I promised these guys - whatever it was they clearly tricked me into doing the dirty work to give them a corn monopoly.
So I liked the history in the scenario and I liked the idea of fullfilling goals for each of the states but would have preffered something more straightforward like haul 30 corn into a territory or some such so that I could work to achieve discrete goals and judge how well along that path I am.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Who's the sick twisted person who came up with this scenario? It's utterly impossible, and I can usually get gold on any of the campaign missions on hard settings, first shot.
Even when I strip the map of all it's resources, buy all the industries I use that are profitable, make piles and piles of money, I -STILL- can't fulfill most of the load requirements. Often, a train will refuse to go because it can't haul profitably, despite that I split destinations up so all the cities in a territory recieve goods equally. I can expand to occupy and control the entire map by 1935, including Mexico and Canada, but the load requirements are ridiculous, even when you tap every resource on the map...
Has anyone beat this scenario? It's giving me a bloody headache.
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Sounds like that SICK, TWISTED builder is VICTORIOUS
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Just make sure you haul all resources to the intended country first, then, once you delivered them there, haul them away to other cities again. This will help to keep the demand prices high. Also, although it might seem counter-intuitive, bulldozing some corn farms can help a lot. Just make sure the total annual production is still a little higher than the minimum loads/year you have to deliver.
Corn is difficult (because you can't add demand). The others are pretty easy, because you can add meat packaging plants etc...
Also, if you haul 200% of the needed resources, you're not doing good, but doing bad. This will only make it more difficult to get the requirements the next year.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I am having the same problem Tons of cash and stuff but I can't seem to haul any corn.
I did find a way to get the grain going by shipping other resourses along with it to make it worth the trip but took awhile before I started hitting the mark every year
This issue with the corn has me about to throw the game out the windows lol
Plz let me know if you got it to go, I'm going to try hauling it away as suggested see if that will work
Thanks goes out to Wolverine for putting this all together.
Hawk
Alternate USA - Added in the Coast to Coast Expansion
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
What strategies are you all using for Alternate USA.
This scenario is a lot of fun, although I think the mapmakers were geographically evil on purpose (you'll see what I mean when you try to connect Witchita Falls to Dallas is Texas).
I've been playing Alternate USA the last couple of nights and have about 25 years left.
I chose a all industry strategy for the first 15 years without leaving the Plains.
Looking good so far, but the requirements to advance in relations on this scenario are very high. Even though its kind of a jackpot map it is still very challenging. After 25 years I have all the cities in Plains and Texas connected, still haven't met the Texas goals yet though, but I think I might next year.
I have been using industries as demand sinks to drive up the demand in Texas for grain and that seems to be helping. The industries lose money for quite a while though.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Actualy, the gold medal is th eonly medal you can earn. It won't even kick you out for loosing. - Bad coding- they used "start year" instead of "current year" when checking for silver bronze and lose game.
As for tips...
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 (with the fertilizer youl'll make more profit and loads than the AI)
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.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
As for tips...
Issue stock at every turn.
doing it
Quote: take the fertilizer
done
Quote: 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 (with the fertilizer youl'll make more profit and loads than the AI)
done (and don't forget those cheap money machines if you can catch em at first build the dairy farm!!)
Quote: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.
kinda doin it...
this is a rather tough scenerio for me so far - in my 2nd playing of it and went w/the all industry route the first 10 or so years... also, I'd suggest issueing bonds whenever you can especially in refinancing those old ones - that bond money invested in industries will return much more than the interest you'll be paying.
other minor things:
*cut your dividen payment to $0.. no need to amass any personal wealth (goes against my personal belief ) --- in fact I ignore the stock portion all together.
*buy up those new industries every year...
*when goin into the great lakes area, buy any and all distilleries you can find - goes hand in hand with your set goal for it... so far that's the only area I've gotten into - don't think i'll be getting the gold but it is fun
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ouch! Just realized that you have to meet the yearly goals 10 times for Excellent! I don't know if I can win at this point anymore, but it is still a fun scenario.
My big problem currently is that everywhere has high demand for livestock, so it is almost impossible to ship it to Dixie.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I haven't gotten than far yet but perhaps you need to build a few meat packing plants down there?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
What did to get the livestock is build Large stations at every pair of raches in Texahoma and then a large station in memphis (where there was a warehouse needing it) and then a meat packing plant in Birmingham. Use cumsom consist train to take them from memphis to birmingham. So for every live stock you bring into dixie, you get 2 "counts".
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I didn't realize it would count twice if delivered within the territory. Thanks. I assumed it would keep track of where the train came from.
That should help, but it's gonna be tricky cause there are already meat packing plants near all the livestock farms in Texas. Mexico is okay, but that's a very long haul from Mexico to Memphis/Mobile.
Good thing I chose Dixie's side in the war.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This was the first one I tried in the x-pak. After I saw what was necessary for just my first 2 goals (haul 25 grain 10 times, haul 35 corn 10 times), I decided there would be too much micro and so played the rest of the way through in my head, geting gold several years before the 46 year game time, on Expert of course. .
Maybe this exploit is necessary: For grain, build 2 stations in a town so that they both cover a distillery (and each other?), with as great a difference in demand as you can manage. Then you can haul the same grain one way over and over again with no micro and no special consist. Especially good as the grain surplus gets higher. Is this OK to do?
Seems like this and the next 2 scenarios may be designed to anticipate this exploitation, just as Poland may be designed to anticipate bulldosing.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The meat packing plants are usually within the towns. Get the livestock from the cattle farms themselves (not the town). Since livestock has a fast price degredation the runs are usually pretty profitable (- fast price degredation - short distances makes a big difference in price from the closest meat packing plant to the cattleyard. Another tip to create a price differential would be to put the large station on the other side of the cattleyards from the meat packing plant. This will cause a longer wait at the station, but will ensure a lower pickup price (and more profit).
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I'm playing this scenario now...
I only use custom consist trains (express + haulage requirements + something optional for the return trip).
Grain is going well:
pickup constantly have atleast 1 train waiting/loading at all the grain farms in the great plains. This makes for a virtual grain monopoly, which drives up the prices in Texas and the Great Lakes.
delivery deliver in a chain of cities (eg : Great plain farms => city 1 => city 2 => city 3 => city 4 => city 5) with an upgraded brewery in the last city (city 5). Each load of grain delivered to the brewery counts 5 times
Goods is going good too, in Syracuse there is an upgraded steel mill, with a lot of coal and iron supply. Right next to it are 3 tool & die's (2 upgraded, 1 normal). The track laying in New England is difficult, but I enjoyed it a lot
I also moved some grain from the Great Lakes further to New England and goods from New England further to the Great Lakes. This prevents saturation of the grain/good market in those countries.
Next I want to connect to Louisianna (corn : -1 , +20) and Dixie (livestock : -5, +25). Those seem a lot more difficult...
Corn to Lousianna : Louisianna is already flooded with corn (and I didn't even take the fertilizer offer
Livestock to Dixie : Livestock prices are high everywhere, even right next to cattle ranches.
As a conclusion, I have a nice picture of my track around Chicago:
Chicago west
2 tracks going west : the top one to my grain-farms network, the bottom one is for the express trains.
1 track going north to Milwaukee
Chicago East
1 track going south to Louisville
1 track going south to Indianapolis
1 track going east (towards Toledo, Detroit, Cleveland, Pittsburg, Philadelphia, New York ...)
I also made sure only trains that have to stop at chicago get to one of the 2 stations, if a train only wants to pass from on of the east side legs to one of the west side legs, he won't interfere with any of the stations.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hehe, I play the Alternate USA scenario too at the moment. Nice scenario and it gets really difficult to get Gold on Expert.
I used (my usual) rail-only approach but that didn't work well, not because of the profit but because of the demand, thus I needed to build a few industries just to increase demand. Biggest problem I have is with delivery to Louisiana and to Roosevelt - the countries where one needs to deliver corn. There's just nothing one can build to increase corn demand. I fear I will miss the Gold medal.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It helps to know what each territory will demand before playing for your gold. That way you can prepare your lines and your industries won't compete with one you may need. Like PJay said terminate you lines with industry that demands the goal cargo the most. When its grain build breweries in that city. If its cattle build meat packers. When its corn find cattle or sheep to feed.
I haven't finished a game yet but am on my second try as I had built a brewery in Omaha but needed one in the Great Lakes states on my first.
I actually start by building a textile mill in the middle of about 3 sheep ranches. This seems to be the only industry that pays well right off.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If there are logs close to the northern border of the great plains, a lumber mill can be profitable too, but I usually start with a textile mill also.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I use your idea of multiple drops. I just do a double drop now as its less confusing. I have collector stations and haul a custom consist of as much cargo (grain, corn, livestock) as I can. I have a drop station set maybe 10 cells right before the main destination station. This should have the price a few dollars less that the final station. I drop the cargo at this station and attempt to pick it back up (min 0 just in case demand shifts). The train then goes on toward the final stop. This will usually get a double score for each cargo and I've been averaging 30-40 load points a year once the system gets going.
What I've done in later game is not run track all over the place. Since I'm not running track all over the place, just meeting connecting and shipping goals and making money I went electric. The Bipolar is a real neat engine and pretty cheap. Also far less stops as no need for water and its pretty flat in the plains so need for sand is less.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
My hat is off to the designer of this gem. It kept me entertained for the better part of three weeks providing the right combination of track and empire building with challenging restraints. A job very well done.
The key I found was buying rights to Mexico. Coasted to a gold on expert (finally).
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I really liked the idea of this scenario but was annoyed with the constant requirment to fill varous minimium numbers in terms of hauling corn or such like. I'd rather have dealt with more discreet objectives - meet them and its done and you can worry about meeting the next objective.
My other complaint is that the territories opened up a little to quickly at one point. I distinctly recall that after a period of time all of a sudden just about every territory in teh game would go from being closed to being open. Its ratherminor but it did kind of reduce that feeling of empire building that I agree that the scenario has.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Crikey! Territories just don't open up all at once in this scenerio unless you actively buy into them. This is one of the challenges of the game: Go in if, and only if, you have a reasonable expectation of meeting the requirements. Which also addresses the first part: When you enter a new territory have an idea of how you're going to bring the resouces of the territories to which you've rights to bear on the constraints of the newly entered one. Set up a network of trains & track which will perpetually fulfill those requirements.
Don't overlook making some money. Build/buy some industries in the newly opened territory that will compliment those in the old ones. What I liked about this one is that the constraints of one territory enhance one's ability to fulfill later ones (corn feeding the cows which you'll take to Dixie or Pacifica, eg). Sublime.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Quote: Crikey! Territories just don't open up all at once in this scenerio unless you actively buy into them. This is one of the challenges of the game:
Well I can't prove it but I played this a number of times - lost them all - and in each case I found that the initial territories would open up much more slowly and I think the last one or maybe two took a bit - but there was a definite situation right in the middle where it seemed that access to territories came quickly on the heels of each other. Much faster then they could be exploited.
Quote:Go in if, and only if, you have a reasonable expectation of meeting the requirements. Which also addresses the first part: When you enter a new territory have an idea of how you're going to bring the resouces of the territories to which you've rights to bear on the constraints of the newly entered one. Set up a network of trains & track which will perpetually fulfill those requirements.
Don't overlook making some money. Build/buy some industries in the newly opened territory that will compliment those in the old ones. What I liked about this one is that the constraints of one territory enhance one's ability to fulfill later ones (corn feeding the cows which you'll take to Dixie or Pacifica, eg). Sublime.
Good advice though I would still have preffered to have something a little more discrete (as in black and white - just in case I'm mispelling here). I found the contant hauling into a territory to be a chore. Also it kind of started to loose its feeling of authenticity. I could see how wanting a bunch of cattle or corn or something might be part and parcel of the price for joining a Union but when you hauling stuff in in huge quantities over a long period of time one starts to wonder what the people are doing all the excess resources. It begins to jarringly defy supply and demand.
Part of my problem might have been that I was not totally fullfilling any ingle states needs - so I tended to find myself running back and forth and trying to figue out where I could find yet more corn to haul to some place which already seemed to have the majority of the corn supply for north America in its borders. I kept wondering what the heck had I promised these guys - whatever it was they clearly tricked me into doing the dirty work to give them a corn monopoly.
So I liked the history in the scenario and I liked the idea of fullfilling goals for each of the states but would have preffered something more straightforward like haul 30 corn into a territory or some such so that I could work to achieve discrete goals and judge how well along that path I am.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Who's the sick twisted person who came up with this scenario? It's utterly impossible, and I can usually get gold on any of the campaign missions on hard settings, first shot.
Even when I strip the map of all it's resources, buy all the industries I use that are profitable, make piles and piles of money, I -STILL- can't fulfill most of the load requirements. Often, a train will refuse to go because it can't haul profitably, despite that I split destinations up so all the cities in a territory recieve goods equally. I can expand to occupy and control the entire map by 1935, including Mexico and Canada, but the load requirements are ridiculous, even when you tap every resource on the map...
Has anyone beat this scenario? It's giving me a bloody headache.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sounds like that SICK, TWISTED builder is VICTORIOUS
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Just make sure you haul all resources to the intended country first, then, once you delivered them there, haul them away to other cities again. This will help to keep the demand prices high. Also, although it might seem counter-intuitive, bulldozing some corn farms can help a lot. Just make sure the total annual production is still a little higher than the minimum loads/year you have to deliver.
Corn is difficult (because you can't add demand). The others are pretty easy, because you can add meat packaging plants etc...
Also, if you haul 200% of the needed resources, you're not doing good, but doing bad. This will only make it more difficult to get the requirements the next year.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I am having the same problem Tons of cash and stuff but I can't seem to haul any corn.
I did find a way to get the grain going by shipping other resourses along with it to make it worth the trip but took awhile before I started hitting the mark every year
This issue with the corn has me about to throw the game out the windows lol
Plz let me know if you got it to go, I'm going to try hauling it away as suggested see if that will work