Review Of Age Of Steam II-Green Diamond

Discussion about reviews and strategies for user created scenarios made for RT3 version 1.05 and earlier.
User avatar
Wolverine@MSU
CEO
Posts: 1166
Joined: Fri Nov 10, 2006 2:14 pm
Location: East Lansing, MI

Unread post

What's up with the small territories that the AIs have access to? Is it just something to give them an extra boost?

Starting afresh with the newest release of the scenario I got gold on expert in about 1914 or so. Would have been sooner except I built out into the west (Kansas City - Des Moines from Jefferson City/St. Louis). It cost a lot to build and maintain but didn't return much profits. I noticed that about 2/3 of the way through the game, demand for coal at the two steel mills on the map (one mine and one built by my surrogate AI) went away. In fact coal was bypassing them almost entirely, even though both mills had a Tool and Die right next door, sopping up all the steel produced.
After a few years, demand increased again and coal migrated there, returning the handsome profits I had been seeing.
User avatar
wsherrick
Engineer
Posts: 584
Joined: Sun Nov 12, 2006 12:38 am
Location: New Hope, Pennsylvania

Unread post

I knew you could do it. It's all about running a good railroad, plus a little luck. :wink: I managed to win by selling off stocks in the other companies to get the required PNW. I am much better at running a railroad than manipulating stocks. I knew that my company had to be paying high enough dividends to cover my income taxes and add to my PNW by 1913 when the IRS shows its ugly head. To answer your question about the territories. Those exist to test for the alternate gold win, if somone is sucessfull at absorbing 3 of the AIs. The only way to get access to each territory is to absorb the railroad that controls it. I had a lot of help from others here at the forum setting that up. I had to scrap all the AI's and start over because I had the Great Northern and Milwaukee connected and the Canadian National hooked up to the Grand Trunk Western. After I created the territories and much testing I discovered the AIs would schedule trains to go into the other's unique territory only to have all the trains sit there until the railroad went bankrupt, because the trains didn't have access to the other's territory. Did you find the revised map an improvement over the first one?
User avatar
Wolverine@MSU
CEO
Posts: 1166
Joined: Fri Nov 10, 2006 2:14 pm
Location: East Lansing, MI

Unread post

Yes it was improved in that it was easier to win. The newly added little perk early in the game made it possible to stay afloat and gain 100% control of my company. It also helped when I realized how much better running trains was compared to buying industry (although both times I've played the new version, the courts decided to keep the high tax on industries, so I had to use my surrogate company to do all my industry buying). I found it real easy to gain control of one AI and use it to buy lots of high-return properties. Perhaps you could prevent this exploit by making all companies pay the premium for industry after a certain point (maybe 10 years into the game.)
belbincolne
Engineer
Posts: 526
Joined: Thu Nov 30, 2006 7:28 am
Location: Colne, England

Unread post

I'm totally befogged by this scenario, and simply can't understand how anyone can get any medal on any setting the way it plays on my computer. I've just retried on Expert and the cost of laying rail is prohibitive. About the same time as the tax was slapped on industry a message came up to say something like the price of steel will make track and bridges more expensive and after that expanding at all was rough. I'd bought farms and hotels at the start to get in before the hike. The farms were great but the hotels never made much at all.

Knowing that after about 20 years the AIs would suddenly change from extremely profitable to disastrous I bought in modestly in each and sold out as soon as they started losing money (and earlier as well so that I could buy into the supercharger??). Anyway I was richer than Croesus with oodles ($16m) of cash. My railway was profitable if only just. I'd only a few (25%) shares in it cos the others had bought them all. Then comes (a) depression and (b) income tax. (a) causes my shares to drop a bomb and the AIs a little . Enough for them to all have to sell my shares so that the price drops to $12 - at that price I buy the lot and still have cash and no debt and the stock is back up to about $40 so I'm a wealthy man.

Then (b) kicks in and takes $6m a year. For absolutely no reason my shares drop back towards $12 and in 3 years my PNW has gone into the red and with a couple of years to go its so bad all my shares are sold off.
Meanwhile the AIs shares have hardly dropped at all despite their having levels of debt at which I'd be CCC yet they're still taking on loans and losing $10m a year plus whilst I'm still making modest amounts. A message came up to say Canadian had gone into bankruptcy - but it hadn't and still went on taking out loans.

As I said the economic model seems to be right up the creek particularly the Income Tax effect - no player can stand that much loss per annum so how did Wolverine avoid it? And what do you mean by using a surrogate company to buy industry? Incidentally one game when I did take an AI over I didn't get access into its little territory.

I must admit that I'm wondering if I'm playing the same version of the game as everyone else? As I said before I'm playing II.
User avatar
Wolverine@MSU
CEO
Posts: 1166
Joined: Fri Nov 10, 2006 2:14 pm
Location: East Lansing, MI

Unread post

I don't bother trying to buy into the AIs, except for one, the bottom one on the list that has a station in Toledo (Grand Trunk Western?) It has most of its shares on the market and I try to buy them up quick, at least until I have >50%. I also buy up my own stock as soon as possible, often having complete control of the company in a few years.

I don't build railroads until I have to. I open the game by building a highly profitable industry. Look around the map for a grouping of raw-material producers and plop a factory down in the middle of them. I usually try to place it on the edge of the pile of cargoes, close to where another producer is so that raw materials get there fast. You may have to issue a bond to do this. If you have built wisely, the return should be in the $300-$400k range. During the first year, buy as much of your own stock as you can, as soon as you can. Also, if possible start buying into the target AI.

I sit out the second year and continue to let company cash accumulate. If the economy changes and you can refinance your bond, do so. Continue to keep buying shares. Toward the end of October of 1887 you need to build your second industry. Look around the map (all on pause of course) and find another cargo stream(s) [hint-hint] that are ripe for plucking. You will have to issue as many bonds as you can, and may have to issue stock too to be able to afford it, but now is your last chance for a while.

If you've gone into hock up to your neck, your stock price will go down dramatically at the end of the year, and you may get a call from your broker in January. Hopefully your company will have enough cash to buy back some stock, if not you should be able to issue another bond and buy back just enough to get you out of the red. If you're lucky, the economy will improve and you'll be all set. Your stock may have split, so keep buying shares as fast as you can. If you were wise in your industry placement in 1887, you should see pretty hefty profits coming in. Hang on to a little cash, but use the rest to buy back stocks.

In Decmber of 1888 you have to build rails or else!. I have found that you only need to build a station (haven't tried just a short piece of track) to satisfy the build requirement. Again, look over the map (cargo screen) and find two cities that are reasonably close to each other, that have mutual supply and demend. That is one city has lots of somthing that is in great demand by the second city, and vice versa. These will be where you will start, but for now, just build a station, even if you only have enough to build a small one.

In January of 1889, you should be able to issue another bond or two to complete your rail connections and start hauling.

After that you're on your own. Keep buying stock in both companies; try to get as much of the AI as possible. Once you have >50% share in both companies, and assuming the economy is good, call for an election in the AI and take over control. Issue bonds and use the money to buy back shares. Buy back as many as you can without having to issue bonds higher than say 10% interest. Then go back to your parent company and manage wisely. It's helpful to establish rapid passenger service; I use a Sterling with only 3 or 4 cars max of "express only". Let it run until you have to provide a service tower. If the cities are far enough apart, the service stops won't prevent the high PAX speed nedded to get the bonus. If they are close together, you'll have to build a spur line (or extend the rail behind the station) to service your EMPTY train when needed.

Hope this helps without spilling too many beans. I tried not to be too specific; these strategies are useful for starting most scenarios where CBV and PNY are major goals. If you want some "dirty" (but legal) tricks I can help you out there too.
belbincolne
Engineer
Posts: 526
Joined: Thu Nov 30, 2006 7:28 am
Location: Colne, England

Unread post

Well followed this stratagy and was doing well until the big offer came along. Obviously I took it but that put me in the red and as I (and 1 other) had 100% of both companies I couldn't buy stock back and selling off from the AI simply put me further in the red so every share I owned was sold off :cry: :evil: :cry:

One thing however was wierd - I tried to connect the AI to the neighbouring one to see what it produced in other income and the short bit of line (anywhere, as I found afterwards) costing say $20k was priced at something like $600k. I also routed some AI trains onto my line but after one trip the new owner shifted them back onto his own lines. When I tried to take over a second time I got 100% acceptance which must be a record in itself

Another thing was that until now the start seed was almost identical but the try I'm just restarting is wildly different - all the logs are in the NW instead of the SW but anyway my restart is doing o/k. :D And, of course, I MUST, MUST, MUST remember to do a save at crucial points not just rely on autosave and a restart in Nov/Dec if things aren't going right :)
belbincolne
Engineer
Posts: 526
Joined: Thu Nov 30, 2006 7:28 am
Location: Colne, England

Unread post

Well I'm now up to 1914 and am still befuddled :o I took over Grand Western and am very profitable (but still the directors don't reckon I'm any good!) and now I've got my first tax call $6m just like last time. Clearly I can't pay this much in dividends so from on my PNW is going to go down and I might just as well pack in because I can't see my Companies BV going up that much either.

I can't understand how you managed to get PNW up as high as you did and finish in 1917 because by then you'd have lost $24m - actually you should lose much more because clearly you were much more profitable than I. It seems logical that if you cant win before 1913 then you never will.

The only other strategy I can think of is to remain as Grand Western and take over your own company but this would mean pulling a few dirty tricks on it before you moved to GW to cause its price to drop dramatically. Incidentally there hasn't been a share up for sale for years. Canadian has just come back onto the market but it has debts of $33m, rating F with umpteen bonds. I'll bet that its able to take out more bonds though!!

I'll give it one more go then come back to you for more hints :lol: :lol:
User avatar
wsherrick
Engineer
Posts: 584
Joined: Sun Nov 12, 2006 12:38 am
Location: New Hope, Pennsylvania

Unread post

I want to encourage you. You can win the game in a straight forward manner, Even on Expert. You sound like me with EPH's Great Republic. He is one of the Senario Masters and he hosted a note in the old Forum about how the game was easily winnable, well I was determined to win that game! I was quite frustrated with Great Republic because there is a million random diasters in it plus track is super expensive :!: But, I plugged at it and finally got the gold on Expert. It gave me quite a feeling of accomplishment. One thing I did to win the game posted above was to take my patent earnings and buy my own stock in the Illinois Central. There wasn't any left to buy because of the AI's, so I put the game on pause-issued stock and bought it back. I also put as much money in divideneds as possible because I knew the tax man cometh verily. :!: I don't understand why the AI's crash and burn during the last decade of the game. It is probably because they can not expand past a certain point. I am working on my test map to alleviate that so there may be one more revision of the game.
User avatar
wsherrick
Engineer
Posts: 584
Joined: Sun Nov 12, 2006 12:38 am
Location: New Hope, Pennsylvania

More Additions and Corrections Unread post

Happy New Year Everyone! I wasn't planning on making any more Revisions to Green Diamond, but I have had so many helpfull suggestions that I felt I must fix the problems with the AI's and smooth out some issues. The income tax has been lowered on Easy and Medium levels. The random variable for the capital gains tax lawsuit has been modified-just a little bit. And there is way to get around the steel price increase on Expert-but you have to work for it. One big change is you can no longer "carpet bag," another company since assuming chairmanships is no longer allowed. I would like to thank Wolverine and AZ Rail Rat for their huge contributions and help. To everyone who has downloaded the game and has to do it again- I deeply apologize, but I think it will be worth the effort. The newest map has been sent to Hawk so keep an eye out. I look forward to a great year here at the Forum :D
Last edited by wsherrick on Wed Jan 03, 2007 3:26 pm, edited 1 time in total.
User avatar
Hawk
The Big Dawg
Posts: 6504
Joined: Fri Nov 10, 2006 10:28 am
Location: North Georgia - USA

Unread post

The newest version is now available in a map archive nearest you. :D
Get it while it's hot folks. :wink:
Hawk
belbincolne
Engineer
Posts: 526
Joined: Thu Nov 30, 2006 7:28 am
Location: Colne, England

Unread post

O/K I've now downloaded the new version. I was (and obviously still am :D ) going to post that I've discovered how you can get gold without cheating. For some reason the scenario works incorrectly when you take over a railroad. I bought into Great Northern and my own company (keeping some of my own so that I could keep buying back whenever I got a call).

My was it hard work. Clearly I wasn't going to get gold so I took over GN for a second time and stuck with it. It's very profitable so I did nothing to the rails (except see next) just kept building industry. Boy is that profitable. It had two trains running 99% on other companies lines (actually Illinois!) so I switched to run solely on GN and did the usual other improvements. Perhaps two years later checking how the trains were doing I found two were still loss makers - yes the original idiotic ones had gone back to their original schedule :?: :?: :?:

Meanwhile Illinois had gone from barely making money to $5m a year profit as well as repaying half its debt. Interrogation of the Almanac showed no reason for this - trains were barely any more profitable and "other income" was negligible and the 2 industries didn't help that much (like $500k profit as before). So why was it going up :!: :?: :?:

Two years later (with my PNW now through the roof) Illinois's trains were making $600k pa profit on the same lines so the almanac figures probably made sense but not the game play. Something in it ensures that AIs do far better than humans.

Anyway with plenty of PNW I decided to buy into Grand Western as well and soon owned 80% of their shares - took them over, borrowed lots and built industry for them (my idea was that when the crash comes later on they'll still be making money from industry so their share price will still be o/k - obviouslt this strategy can't be used with Illinois). I also tried to extend their rail line - once again it cost about 100 times the real price.

Anyway back to running Gt N. Suddenly from loving me with salary of $40k and bonuses my directors hated me and cut my salary by $2k to $2k - yes I haven't missed any 0's off :o Not that salary matters a ****** I'm getting a pile in of dividends and, whilst my cash is negative, I'm still worth a mint - in fact my PNW is now near Gold and I still haven't had the pay-out from my investment so now all I need to do is build up the CBV - presumably by Industry.

So maybe I will get Gold - but it's hardly because of my game play. I'll finish this one off and then try the replacement and see if it runs any better!
belbincolne
Engineer
Posts: 526
Joined: Thu Nov 30, 2006 7:28 am
Location: Colne, England

Unread post

Well I achieved Gold objectives a year early and had $181k CBV and $187K PNW - but got nothing!! Clearly the targets only apply to Illinois - and I suspect so does the Chairmans salary because the comments and pay decisions are nonsensical. For years I was on $1k although making some $20m profit a year then I got a rise of $4k and it shot up to $16k and suddenly Illinois was making profits again (although it was still in the red by $30m).

Even when it was at its worse its value was so great there was no way I could take it over (even if I'd wanted to assume its debts). Anyway now we'll have a go at the new version to see what happens. But there's also Great Republic mentioned above which I can't remember playing - and the new Sink Hole. Oh, heck, lifes too short.
belbincolne
Engineer
Posts: 526
Joined: Thu Nov 30, 2006 7:28 am
Location: Colne, England

Unread post

Before I started with the new map in view of your previous comments about Great Republic I thought I'd try that again because I couldn't remember it. Are you sure you've got the right scenario? I played it on Expert and got Gold in 19 years (11 early) with absolutely no problems at all. It was one of the easiest I've ever played.

Unlike your revised one where I shall now have to think up a whole new strategy. I couldn't get enough shares to take over a chairmanship anyway - and forgetting what you said I had a try with less than 50%. It certainly let me try even though I didn't get enough votes.

Anyway its an interesting scenario - otherwise I wouldn't keep playing it!
User avatar
wsherrick
Engineer
Posts: 584
Joined: Sun Nov 12, 2006 12:38 am
Location: New Hope, Pennsylvania

Unread post

I think to get the gold on Expert you must win the appeal to the Supreme Court regarding the capital gains tax. I have won gold on Expert 3 times, but each of those times I won the case. One way to hedge your bet is to alternately save the game in 1896. If one game loses the case you can go back and start one of the alternate games. During the times I lost the case I got either the bronze or silver. The random variable for the court case is Random 100<=10 and it throws the dice every month for a year. So it should be much easier to win the case in the latest revision. But I know that somebody is going to tell us that they got gold without winning the case. I hope so at any rate. :shock:
User avatar
Wolverine@MSU
CEO
Posts: 1166
Joined: Fri Nov 10, 2006 2:14 pm
Location: East Lansing, MI

Unread post

This agrees well with what I have seen. I have played several times and not won the case. Perhaps you are thinking that if there is a 10% chance of winning on any given roll, and I roll the dice 12 times, the odds are I should almost surely win. Actually this is not the case, and is an oft made statistical mistake.

Let's look at it from the other side: the odds of losing on any roll is 0.9 (90%). The odds of losing twice is 0.9 x 0.9 or 0.81 (81%). The odds of losing three times in a row is 0.9 x 0.9 x 0.9 = 0.729 or roughly 73% (conversly, the odds of winning in three rolls is 1 - 0.729 or 27%). Taken out to 12 rolls, the odds of losing are 0.282, so you win only about 70% of the time.
belbincolne
Engineer
Posts: 526
Joined: Thu Nov 30, 2006 7:28 am
Location: Colne, England

Unread post

And, sorry, Wolverine but your stats aint right either. The odds are 9:1 against every time. One of the most common myths is if that you've lost the toss 10 times the odds must be in your favour next throw. Tthey're not, they're still evens. My team captain has lost every toss so far this season. I deputised for him last night and won! That must prove something :) :?: :twisted: No of course it doesn't :D
User avatar
wsherrick
Engineer
Posts: 584
Joined: Sun Nov 12, 2006 12:38 am
Location: New Hope, Pennsylvania

Unread post

Do you think I should change the random number? If the chances of winning the court case is too slim what do you think a good number should be. My intentions were to give a fair chance of winning, but still make it a cliff hanger, because if you win every time or most of the time then the point of the whole excercise is lost, but in all things fairness is the goal. I am open to suggestions. :roll:
belbincolne
Engineer
Posts: 526
Joined: Thu Nov 30, 2006 7:28 am
Location: Colne, England

Unread post

For now I'd say leave it as it is and see how we get on.
User avatar
EPH
Dispatcher
Posts: 451
Joined: Sun Nov 12, 2006 3:23 pm
Location: York PA

Unread post

I am in principle opposed to a random number having such power. If, by repeated play, the tycoon learns the victory is out of reach if the random number doesn't go his way, then the natural feeling is that the time spent playing the game to that point has been 'wasted'.

I would suggest you incorporate an additional event (or events) to allow the player a way out of this. One suggestion is to permit a 'political contribution' to buy immunity from the tax; another would be a revised and less stringent victory condition if the court case is lost.
The optimist proclaims we live in the best of all possible worlds; and the pessimist fears this is true." - James Branch Cabell
User avatar
canis39
Brakeman
Posts: 153
Joined: Sat Nov 11, 2006 5:02 pm
Location: Reston, VA

Unread post

Just my 2 cents: I think a 50/50 chance would be appropriate.
Post Reply