Mexico

[Gumboots]

Try it with no cash cheats now.

[gismoskip]

Try it with no cash cheats now.

i did it with no cheats . . it's a diffrent secret

[Gumboots]

Old saying: "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence."

[gismoskip]

Old saying: "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence."

lol. i konw. i was joking but i have tried to do it without industries(in the start) and it works on easy. on expert - i'm doomed. lol. I HAVE done a germany map though in which I have not merely exeeded the expectations; I blew them away! i was able to attach the saved game here - the map was Deutschlong - one of your website's many maps for download. It was on easy, no opponents, and I started out with NO industries too - no cheats ether. before i saw this site, i thought placing industries when you start was absurd. . now i think that it is an interesting stratigy, but a bad one. it's like taking the frosting off a cake. where's the challenge? or, should i say, i do better when i do ONLY railroads then when i do industries in the start. i end up buying out the opponents within two years on avrage map - with industries? ten. how much money do i make in ten years with industries to start?(in total) 50 million. (income, not profit, profit is around 25 - 10 mill) how much do i make with railroads to start after ten years?(and NO industries yet built, i did this test yesterday) 250 millon. profits were around 100-150 millon. i also did a multiplayer game against another person one time in RT3 - the opposing player started out with industries - i started with rails - before 4 years were up, i had 20 million profits, and he had 2 million. he was bought out the next year. so, learning expirience for me - i can own anybody if i try with rails. with industries? they are the last thing i think of if i am trying to get anything other than industry profits. that is the power of gismoskip to you. if you're against him, and you choose industries to start - unless it's a map like mexico - you're doomed.

[Shamough]

I built my TOOL & DIE (UPGRADED) right in the middle of the two Southern most IRON MINEs and in 1876 I placed my STEEL MILL (UPGRADED) next to it. Watch the profits from your STEEL MILL they will go NEGATIVE ... DO NOT SELL IT !!! Just add a 2nd TOOL & DIE (UPGRADED) next to the first one.

Note: I never borrowed more than $2M and repaid it ASAP after buying the STEEL MILL. I did however sell stock two or three times.

There is a LOGGING CAMP next to a RICE FARM. Add a PAPER MILL and then a LUMBER MILL and finally a BREWERY. No need to upgrade any of them. I was making about $450K without servicing them, (including the Rice Farm & Logging Camp once I bought them).

When My tracks finally got far enough North I dropped a LARGE STATION next to the STEEL MILL and TOOL & DIEs and then AFTER I had connected CHIHUAHUA, I connected that line to SABINAS.

The site will support a 2nd STEEL MILL (UPGRADED) and 2 more TOOL & DIE (UPGRADED). I added these AFTER I dropped my LARGE STATION and connected it to my line.

Buy the LOGGING CAMP, RICE FARM, and all of the IRON MINES and COAL MINES that are still up owned.

I laid all of my track straight through the heart of Mexico starting from Mexico City and almost due North to Chihuahua.

Connected to the American line at LAREDO in 1891, for the GOLD !

[Jeremy Mac Donald]

The advice is to buy industry before laying tracks... But I can't since I don't have enough money so how can I follow the advice ?

Little late but...
You have $1.1 Million to start and can take out a loan for $500,000 but their is a $10,000 dollar processing fee...leaving you 10 grand short. Issue stock and there is your Tool & Die plant.

[Cliff]

I agree that this is a tough scenario. I found it exasperatingly difficult until I decided to buy and build industries before building railroads. The area around the iron mines is good for a tool and die. Once the coal and iron mines become intermixed, steel mills really pay off. Then the products from the tool and die and from the steel mills can be shipped to the cities, making the railroads a much better investment. Since following this strategy, I have never missed getting a gold medal.

^ ^ This.

For more detail, I do it like this.

1/ Make sure the map has iron and coal up around Torreon. This is the best way to launch your rocket.

2/ Tool and die those iron mines pronto. You can just afford this if you go for bonds and stock. If the map is good, production will start almost immediately and the factory will be close enough to Torreon to have a good market.

3/ Sit back and rake in the cash for a bit, then start development down at Reynosa as soon as you can afford it. Usually there will be good money in a distillery, brewery, meat packing plant (more rarely) or textile mill. Build whatever will bring in the most moolah quickly, then build another industry or buy some primary producers, depending on the map.

4/ The tricky bit. You have to make enough money to build a steel mill near Torreon in early 1876. Stockpile that cash, and build that mill. This is essential.

5/ Now you can think about railroads, because you have a solid infrastructure that will produce stuff for you to ship. You need this first, because at the start of the game Mexico has almost nothing to ship and nowhere to ship it to. The first industries you build will make decent profits for long enough to get money for railroads, and once you have money for railroads you can keep the industry profits up.

6/ Build a line from Reynosa to Torreon, via Monterey. Don't run it up to Saltillo yet. Keep it low along the valley and you'll get good grades, apart from the last little section into Monterey. I usually have a train running Brownsville > Reynosa > Monterey and another running Brownsville > Monterey. These two trains go into operation first while I wait or a little more cash.

I put a maintenance shed and a water tower on spurs at Brownsville and Monterey, and schedule the trains to use them. You don't want oil dropping below 50% at any stage or reliability will drop sharply. Use a caboose on all trains as well. If you do all of this, you'll be rewarded with a very reliable service.

Once the cash is available, put a station at Torreon, with maintenance shed and water tower on a spur. A fully loaded Consolidation will get from Torreon to Monterey without running out of water, and without the oil getting below 50%. If you are careful about track laying into Monterey, you can get them to haul 6 cars of any cargo. Build the track to Monterey and put two trains on this run, starting them wherever they will get the best first load.

You are now off to a good start, and can approach the rest of the game just by applying common sense. If you play it right, you should hit gold with about ten years up your sleeve.

Oh and regarding company debt, IMO you should be maxed out on bonds as soon as possible. Bonds are 25 year loans, and most scenarios will run out of time before you have to repay the bonds. You wont max out the number of bonds immediately, so over the course of the game you end up with more money in your pocket if you just pay the interest. IF you have refinanced all your bonds at 5 or 6%, it's better business to pay the interest on 10 million worth of bonds and use the money for expansion.

Well, Gumboots -- I did pretty nearly exactly as you said, but even better I think. There was enough sugar flowing down from Texas + 1 sugar farm in Mexico near Brownsville to support two upgraded distilleries. There were two cattle ranches in Mexico near Brownsville -- which soaked up all the corn flowing in from Texas -- and these two ranches supported an updated meat processor. Tons & tons of cotton flowing from Texas supported two upgraded textile mills. Rice & grain from Texas supported an upgraded brewery (maybe two, I forget now).

Anyway, the T&D at Torreon was gang-busters from the get-go, and once I finished upgrading the steel mill there (in 1876 when the T&Ds stopped using iron), I built another T&D right next to the first one, and upgraded them both -- still couldn't use all the steel.

Never bothered linking to Durango -- didn't see the point. I did hook up 4-5 west coast cities as you suggested, for the express cargo. OK, but probably just managed to pay for the track, stations & trains.

The thing I did that you didn't suggest is that I bought into Texas in about 1878 or so, and hooked up every city & town in Texas -- double-tracked all the way back to Monterey and Torreon. I reached Chihuahua with "non-burn" track from Texas -- through Laredo & Del Rio. Even ran a couple of trains to Chihuahua for whatever it was worth. I then hooked up the coastal cities on Mexico's east coast, which provided much more cargo than those on the west coast. Then I saved & saved & built "burn track" up the cliff & through a steep tunnel to Mexico City -- which I connected in 1884 to win the gold.

[TheBonobo4]

Sorry for thread necro. Just wanted to say I did this scenario recently on Expert, with 1.05 patch (not 1.06), no mods (extra logos, that's it). Got from Chihuahua to Mexico City before 1890 and had more than enough Industry Profit (so met silver), but then the game kept playing as expected until 1895 but I never made it into the USA, so after 1895 I should have received Silver, but the game gave me Gold? Has this happened to anyone else? Seems like a very strange bug.

[Hawk]

Unlike other forums that don't like folks posting in old topics, it's the opposite here. I prefer folks posting in topics already started on a map, no matter how old the last post was. That helps keep the discussion of that map all in one place.

[TheBonobo4]

Good to know. I thought that'd be the case here, judging by other posts and threads.

[Gumboots]

I've never hit that Gold/Silver bug as far as I can remember, but it's been ages since I played this one so don't take my word for it. If there is an error in the events it will probably be easy to find.

I do know that if you do get into Texas and meet the Gold requirements it will give you the right award, so the bug (if it exists) may only be with Silver.

[TheBonobo4]

Interesting. I'll have to consider that. I have noticed that the CtC scenarios seem more buggy than the originals, and are almost always much harder.

[Gumboots]

CtC was a bit of a rush job and didn't get a lot of love, as far as I can tell. Some of the additional locomotive models are as rough as guts too.

[RulerofRails]

Despite not having got anywhere near America let alone Houston I was awarded Gold! So that's another CtoC with a major flaw/quirk in it!!!!

Seems others have found this bug in the past. Yep, I agree that Coast to Coast didn't receive the attention it deserved.

In fact the problem is very simple. The events are setup right, except for the effects. The Silver event when triggered will: Set Game Won (Gold) to TRUE. It should be the option above: Set Game Won (Silver) to TRUE.

To fix this on a personal copy, from the game's main menu choose Extras then Editor. Load the Mexico map. Once the map loads, click on the lowest icon in the editor sidebar on the left of the screen. This is called the Control Panel. The last white page is called Events. Once there look for the event called SP - Silver. Now choose the EFFECTS tab. The third button above the effects list is EDIT EFFECT. Use that to bring up the list of possible effects. Click on the previous one "Game Won (Silver)", then OK. EXIT the Control Panel and save the map with a different name/write over the old one is fine too. Remember to exit to the main menu and start the map normally before playing.

[bombardiere]

I did try this scenario a few times, but I find this one annoying. First there is that lack of cargoes at the beginning. Ok, that is a challenge and just needs a proper strategy, so it is no real issue. However I don't like the map. Terrain is jagged in many places and many cities are placed on ridges, so if I want to place a station to the city centre, I need to do a ridiculous climb. And many cities are big and sprawled. Good for passenger output, yes, but perhaps too big for scenario purposes.

My overall feel is that this is an unfinished map. A rush job to include some scenarios with CtC.

(Though the jagged terrain had an interesting side effect. I had fun curveous routes, while I was trying to keep grades under 5% )

So this is for industry start. I had a bad seed. Only one cotton farm at northeastern tip of the map. That meant that a textile mill was out of the question and I could not afford a steel mill. But there was two orchards near Reynosa, so I went with a distillery.

The orchards were near enough that even though I was losing some output to houses, I was making a steady profit after three years. I used this money to build a railway line from Reynose to a city at South. It was not very profitable and goods only for one train, but it was doing enough and I don't think that it cost me the game

However, then I made two mistakes. I did look at Central Plane coal and iron, but I did forgot that I could a Tool and Die, and thought that I need a Steel Mill, but could not raise enough bonds for it. Some cotton farms had grown up near Laredo, so to boost my company, I wanted to add a second industry. A textile mill is a good chose, but I blundered my timing. I did not had enough patience to wait to have enough cash, but it took out two bonds and issued stock twice. It did not give me enough cash, so I ended up paying interest rate, but I had no income return on it. Doh! A pretty bad investment indeed.

So I needed to wait couple more years and take one more bond to finally have my textile mill. And then two more years to wait it attract cotton. Slowly my two industries were making money and equally slowly I built my lines towards south. I connect two more cities, but it was then 1884, and I realised that I will never make bronze if I continue in this way.

I went out with bond madness and begun to build line out of Mexico City. I quickly connect big cities north of Mexico City, but there little cargo and line was not profitable. I ignored this and took out as many bonds as I could and built towards Chihuahua. I run out of money just South of Torreon. I had two more years to go, but I was not making any money from long Mexico City line and interest weight me down. I simply dried out with more than 6 million bonds and stock almost worthless. Nothing to do than just watch last two years.

So this is a story of mistakes. I played Hard and had industry profit of well over 9 million and I got two thirds of Mexico CIty - Chihuahua connection, so this is a winnable scenario. I just played badly.

Next time it is Tool & DIe and towards Monterey. If I got this close with total blundering then I am fairly certain that it is a winning strategy.

I did play this scenario to test Gumboots Ten Wheeler and his new loco stats. However this play was failure on locomotive department, as in the end I had only 8 trains, and no of them very profitable, so this ended up as a poor locomotive test. I need to do better. Cities were big so there was ample opportunities for passenger traffic, so I would speculate that beyond the freight from your own industries, the passengers would be the main railway income source.