Pacific Northwest

[Gumboots]

I found that simply having a few trains running straight to Portland from Seattle took care of the depressed meat and furniture prices at Seattle. These were set to pick up meat and furniture only at Seattle, then any cargo from Portland up to Kennewicke. Once the excess stuff landed at Portland it then sorted itself out either along the coastal line or up into the hinterland. It's a bit of a dodge, but if you regard Seattle as a hub city it sorta works. I also built north around the coast to Vancouver, doing the last bit via bridge, just to soak up some more stuff.

I didn't find that any micromanagement was needed to keep things flowing. And yeah it does make for a pretty relaxed sort of game. Good train ride material, what with all the long runs and interesting terrain, although from that perspective the map could do with a bit more eye candy in places.

[Just Crazy Jim]

I took a long, careful look at the Scenario in the Editor. The economy is fairly broken, but I suppose that's the point of the matter since it starts at the onset of the Great Depression and goes on through the Dust Bowl and years of WW2. However it's very annoying that Aluminum Mills and Steel Mills (thanks to RNG) get plopped all over an already challenging map in terms of terrain. Then there are those Toy Factories all over the place, gobbling up the already scarce lumber. And then there are all those Auto Factories with no source for tires and Distilleries with no produce to turn into alcohol. If memory serves, the Dust Bowl and the dam-building projects of the 1930s gave rise to vegetable- and fruit-growing industries in the Oregon, Washington (State) and California that we know today. Those were in full swing by 1950, still it beggars belief that there isn't a fruit of any sort to turn into demon liquor over the entire period covered in the scenario. Then there's the fact you have to pick-up from a dry start, when circa 1930 there were historically several railways in existence in the region, all about bankrupt. Also, looking at the exclusion areas on the map for cities and the industry list, it is fairly obvious that the scenario was a hurried piece of work or something that underwent several revisions to make it the hardest scenario in CTC, hard to say in the post mortem.

All that being said, if the RNG is good to you - a really big if - a Silver finish at hard is possible without ever getting to Canada. But RNG is fickle... very, very fickle. In all, it's a challenging map, but I've managed to eke out a gold win at hard on it one time, but - other than that one fluke - silver is the best I can manage. Usually I get close to a win, but then the RNG plops some huge footprint building near my rails and wrecks the grade, although there is something darkly humorous about watching an EP-2 Bi-Polar struggle to make it up a 88% grade because an iron mine spawned at the edge of the gorge at that crucial spot where you spent 40 minutes finding the way to edge along some nameless river near Helena. Before the 1.05 patch, I'd just spam Post Offices onto the map to get my grade back, seems that doesn't work any more in 1.05. So sad.

[Hawk]

You can always pause the game, Shift+E to get into the editor and grade the terrain to a more realistic 'railroad' model. Then just Shift+E to get back into the game.

Some may consider this to be a bit of a cheat, but isn't that what railroads did when building their lines?

[Just Crazy Jim]

You can always pause the game, Shift+E to get into the editor and grade the terrain to a more realistic 'railroad' model. Then just Shift+E to get back into the game.

Some may consider this to be a bit of a cheat, but isn't that what railroads did when building their lines?

True that, but I sort of feel guilty if there isn't a cost associated with changing the terrain. I suppose filling the cut with Post Offices after a trip through the editor then bulldozing them would serve the purpose of associating an in-game cost. May as well spend all that bond money on something.

[Hawk]

True that, but I sort of feel guilty if there isn't a cost associated with changing the terrain.

Good point.

[Gumboots]

is that if the grade on your rails gets borked by a building randomly spawning, that's effectively the game engine "cheating"* by using the editor, so it's kosher to use the editor to fix the "cheat".

*IOW, artificially throwing obstacles into an existing game.

[TheBonobo4]

Managed to get gold on this one on easy earlier. This is a really difficult map, it's quite easy to make money from industry and general hauling but doing the objectives is really tough. Furniture just isn't abundant enough, and is often barely profitable, I had to get trains to go away from Seattle carrying it and then send them back which counts the load despite making no money. Same with meat, though hauling meat was easier.

Custom locomotives help a lot. There's a large amount of good steam trains for the period available, the NW Class J 4 8 4 was fantastic, as were the diesels. I had some electric track but electrics proved useless to be honest.

A shame really because I love the map itself and the geographic area. The scale is good as well, mountains are actually mountains rather than small hills and the forests feel gorgeous. It's a shame RT3 doesn't allow maps bigger than 1024 by 1024, as I would love a full scale map of the USA, or a scenario spanning Canada building from Montreal to Vancouver.

[Gumboots]

You can do it on Expert without cheating the haulage. The short version is that you build lotsa meat packing plants and furniture factories in Canada, make yourself oodles of meat and furniture, then haul it direct to Seattle. Use Seattle as a hub for the coast and the hinterland, and have trains hauling stuff out of Seattle to other nearby destinations. This will keep demand at Seattle high enough to allow continuing haulage direct from Canada.

[TheBonobo4]

Added screenshots from my run through.










The reason for the loss of CBV was because I sold an unprofitable Furniture Factory right after the Scenario ended, clearly I didn't realise it wasn't doing anything until too late. Hence also the -$2M profit in January.

[Grandma Ruth]

“Only God can make a tree” – or in our case the Random Number Generator. So the thing that limits success in this scenario are the logging camps. Cattle ranches aren’t so much of a problem.
I wanted to win without going into Canada or using any of the “robber baron” schemes, so my first job was to find a scenario with a good number of logging camps. I spent a happy hour or two choosing which to have, and the best I came up with was one with five logging camps and three warehouses providing 2 loads of lumber each. Another logging camp appeared during play, so at its very best I was looking at 18 loads of lumber per year, more than adequate to meet the furniture requirement.
Taking advice from this thread, I first concentrated on making lumber. I kept it on trains by the simple expedient of loading the train, then stopping it almost immediately. At one point I had 30 loads of lumber waiting on trains before I had even thought how to make it into furniture!
In one game all my lumber was being stolen by toy factories. Furniture factories are slow and the lumber will escape if you’re not careful, so I realised I needed to have more control. Keeping the lumber on the trains meant it could be delivered on the “Just in Time” basis that actually operates in many real industries.
I made most of the furniture in Idaho (well away from the toy factories) rather than hauling lumber to the pre-existing furniture factories on the West Coast. It means building factories, which is more expensive than using the existing ones, but money was not really a problem. I issued stock every year and was able to amass quite large sums. Also when conditions were favourable I maximised debt.
In the winning game, I concentrated more on furniture and less on the livestock/meat chain. The map was always quite generous with cattle ranches. I picked up cattle at each stop along a route – this might be called cheating, as each load is counted again at each stop. But this is what would happen in real life so I don’t have a problem with it. It’s a peculiarity of RT3 that it counts carloads that actually “stay” on the train as new ones. From elsewhere in this thread, it’s clear that nobody really has a problem with livestock haulage.
Towards the end of the game money was rolling in, I’m still not quite sure why. I had a lot of industry of course. 2 tool & dies and a steel mill, four meat packing plants, two lumber mills and three furniture factories as well as the six logging camps. I could have made more of a game by using the money inventively, but by the time I was making a good profit I was just anxious to make the haulage requirements.
I won in 1953 with $88667 book value, $21409 cash and no debt. I had 52 trains and at the end I still had 21 loads of lumber waiting on trains! I hauled 215 furniture, 234 meat and 320 livestock. (I was actually, unusually, having to make the livestock requirement at the end. In other attempts I had got the livestock by the mid-1940s.)
The trick is to make enough money so that you can run at least half your trains unprofitably. Trains were loading up to go to Olympia, for example, only to be switched to Seattle at the last minute. If you switch the destination of a train once it’s on its way, it will usually make no money. I think it was essential to do that, but it would be interesting to try and win without that trick.
It sounds simple, but it has taken me weeks to arrive at the winning strategy. I’m not really much of a player, I’m more interested in the creative side. I’m sorely tempted to use the map as a basis for a scenario of my own – all those chemical plants! All the aluminium mills! Surely there’s a story waiting to be told?

[Gumboots]

Taking advice from this thread, I first concentrated on making lumber. I kept it on trains by the simple expedient of loading the train, then stopping it almost immediately. At one point I had 30 loads of lumber waiting on trains before I had even thought how to make it into furniture!

In one game all my lumber was being stolen by toy factories. Furniture factories are slow and the lumber will escape if you’re not careful, so I realised I needed to have more control. Keeping the lumber on the trains meant it could be delivered on the “Just in Time” basis that actually operates in many real industries.

That's a good dodge.

The trick is to make enough money so that you can run at least half your trains unprofitably.

I haven't played this one for ages, but I found the same thing when I did play it.

Trains were loading up to go to Olympia, for example, only to be switched to Seattle at the last minute. If you switch the destination of a train once it’s on its way, it will usually make no money. I think it was essential to do that, but it would be interesting to try and win without that trick.

You can win it on Expert level without ever using bait and switch. The trick is to set up a legit way of redistributing Meat and Furniture from Seattle to other cities. That will keep prices at Seattle high enough for loads from the interior to be hauled at a slight profit.

[Grandma Ruth]

I didn't know "bait and switch" was a real thing, I thought I invented it!
I had got as far in my thinking as that I would have to take stuff to places other than Seattle, but I didn't want to "waste" the cargoes. Of course now you've said it, it's obvious. Seattle can be the wholesale hub, selling on to retailers around the West Coast.
By the way, completely unrelated to this scenario, how deep can we go into the game algorithm? Can we change the selling price of buildings? It doesn't make sense that you sell a building for half the price you bought it for. You might sell it for half of its current value, that would be more like it. You might even make a profit! The game must "know" the current value of buildings: that's what it costs to buy them in the first place. Have we been able to change basic things like that in our tinkerings?

[Gumboots]

By the way, completely unrelated to this scenario, how deep can we go into the game algorithm? Can we change the selling price of buildings?

No. Or, to put it more precisely, not without hacking the core code in the .exe. Things like that would effectively require building a "1.07".

[Grandma Ruth]

God forbid! 1.06 was enough for me!

[Gumboots]

I had a thought about this one. Given the way the terrain and cities are, it probably lends itself to "stack and dump" tactics. Back when I played it last I didn't know enough about the game to try that, but I can see it working well. It could provide more profits from rail and more consistent haulage to Seattle.

[Grandma Ruth]

What the Dickens is "stack and dump" ?????? Another thing I probably thought I invented, no doubt! I did a sort of relay with the livestock - took them to a station somewhere near Boise, then that train went back for more and a new long-distance train took them on to the meat plants. Is that the kind of thing?
Anyway, I've got Gold without cheating, and actually in 1951, a couple of years earlier than before. I didn't need to panic so much about logs and lumber, there was quite adequate amounts. The trick is in clearing out the meat and furniture from Seattle, of course, so the demand keeps up. I also had to look at the cargo supply map to find where was the highest price (or lowest, depending on what I wanted to do). Luckily I had enough cash to connect to wherever was best.
I'm exhausted! Now I have to go and clean the house - I've done nothing but play this scenario for weeks

[Gumboots]

Stack and dump is when you deliberately amass a stack of cargo, and dump it all at once on a destination that has a high demand price,. instead of just delivering as you can. It works best with maps that have a tendency to generate large price differences over a reasonable distance. It can be very profitable. When you get it going really well you can dump a dozen trains of some cargo (or of mixed cargo with a high price) then immediately re-load and re-route those same trains to another destination that now has a good delivery price (because the dump will have depressed prices at the first destination).

[RulerofRails]

The powerful thing with stacking cargo is when you wait a little while for price to depress further. Your target should be $20k+ per load. This often involves stopping the trains that just delivered the cargo. Then starting them up again a month or 2 or 3 later (in many cases as long as possible before significant amounts of cargo wander off into the countryside which happens when price collapses completely). It can be fine-tuned a fair bit. In many cases, with the notable exception of super low volume, this strategy can be significantly better than industry (50%+ ROI).

The way I use it is when expanding, I look at the price differential from my most recently connected city to the next closest city. When the differential hits the maximum (without the cargo moving off on it's own) I make the new connection (expansion) and then send many trains to this new city which has Maximum prices. As the trains arrive I stop them to wait for the price in this city to collapse, at which time you repeat the cycle. With some practice you can see amazing results.

[Gumboots]

I was just thinking through the dynamics of it.

Obviously if you refrain from delivering anything that can be delivered, as soon as possible, then to some extent you are taking a financial penalty. The profit from those deliveries will not be available until later, so in the meantime you are losing out on cash that could be used for expansion.

The other side of it is that by waiting until you can get a high price per load you are saving money. The classic beginner's (and AI) mistake in RT3 is concentrating on delivering as many loads as you can, regardless of profitability. That's a good way to go broke, because hauling all of those loads costs you for fuel.

Stack and dump is basically the opposite of this. It's a lot cheaper to generate $1 million in revenue at $100k/load than it is to generate it at $10k/load, because your fuel cost will be much lower. So the trade-off is balancing the delay in revenue earned against the net revenue (ie: revenue minus fuel costs) available once you can build up a nice stack.

I've found it can even be done without much waiting time, once you have the first stack, even on an established network that is not expanding. An example is my NSW map, which has no price modifiers (so no artificial spikes). It still tends to bounce prices around enough to make opportunistic trains very profitable. I was running most trains on fixed routes, and about a dozen or so opportunistic trains that always got reloaded and rerouted manually as soon as they unloaded. Because delivery price is set when the train loads, but does not affect the target station until a train gets there, I could set several of the opportunistic trains to the same delivery point sequentially, as soon as they unloaded from their previous trip.

Once they got to the next target station the unloading would depress the price there fairly quickly, so they were usually ready to go with another profitable load (to the best random destination) within a fairly short time. The prices per load weren't massive, but they were substantial enough to be very worthwhile. It requires quite a bit of micromanagement, which is largely why I didn't try it with more trains, but it allows pulling extra profit from an established network without expanding the network. You effectively end up with a large, manually-controlled, stack of cargo that is always in transit, apart from the brief load/unload times.