Review Of Age Of Steam II-Green Diamond

[belbincolne]

Well tried it again this time doing nothing but buying up hotels etc until I was forced into railing. This way I started off badly but it paid off big in the end. I had double the CBV and PNW Gold requirements (on Expert with patch6) and for the last five years or so I was the top earner - but again I got nothing :( So back to the query at the end of my last post

[wsherrick]

This is a good scenario with some interesting choices and a few unexpected twists in the events. Well done!

Thanks for the good review. I have never been able to get the instant gold. I looks like it was pretty easy for you. One of these days I will get it.

When you achieve the highest lifetime revenue in class over the other railroads, a note will appear in the ledger informing you that you have reached that goal. To check on how you are doing, simply look in the ledger under income and flip the pages to see who's made the most money. This was easy before the 1.06 patch, now the AI's in this game get real greedy for real estate and they gobble it up. It should make it even more fun and a greater challenge to win.

[Gandar]

My but you make tricky scenarios Mr Sherrick. I didn't read this review thread until now, which is after I have played the scenario. I know I should have checked first but I enjoyed A.O.S. so much I couldn't wait to play this one.
I had two false starts and quickly figured out that you were deliberately putting industry out of reach so that you had to run steam trains to win. So I wisely started out with a lumber mill and then a furniture factory before I had to build track and the price of industry went sky high. I wasted no money on no good lawyers and I built rail. Expand and grow, run trains any cargo I did very well just cruising along and I figured I had it in the bag, thats when I realised the ai Canadian rail I think it was, had bought Industry like crazy and was pulling away from me in the earnings race. I did get gold but it took me 30 years and I did it by placing industry to intercept cargo flows that my competing ai needed.
I finished it and was very pleased, now I've just read that I should have appealed the ruling and bought dairy farms and built hotels and purchased ai stocks. Well let me tell you, I didn't do any of those things and I had a great time . I do have one minor complaint, I had just purchased the upgraded Atlantics about 80 trains and then a couple of years later you brought out those mighty Mountain loco's, so I had to have them, but I had to go in and change my consist to 8 to make it worthwhile,so I had to click every train and change it. If you could try not to make the new locomotives so tempting, it would save me a lot of work .
Thanks for a fine scenario, challenging and one to revisit, Now I am going to have to try the next one.

[wsherrick]

You guys are much better players than I am. I hope you also were smart enough to invest in the superheater patent. The last scenario in the series is almost ready and hopefully there will some suprises found there too.

[low_grade]

******, is it time for me to try a scenario on Expert?

Just enjoyed playing through, one shot, but on medium, and got gold in like 1903. So many great historical notes and events I'm just dying to find out what I missed by ending so quickly!

Hardly worth mentioning my strategy since I only played on medium, but I started by laying track around Chicago/Milwaukee/Madison/Rockford, got to buy a dairy farm, then build build build. Only bought my own stock. Constantly had higher growth than the AIs. Took every offer, very nice boost to train power! Never tried for 30 mph express, it just hovered at 21-23. I try not to micromanage, and doing the express speed thing in the Orient Express scenario from the Campaign was fun once but I won't spent 5 days to do it again... After the court case went my way I build all kinds of industries. Bought one AI, decided not to buy others so I could play for PNW instead, CBV was already gold.

To build PNW after it was already at like $60M I just repeated a simple routine every January. Issue stock, issue stock, buy, buy, buy 25K at a time until price is back where it was, buy back stock with company money, sell, sell, sell until price is where it was again. I got $3-$6M per year doing this, and company growth did the rest, with some nudging at the end with all that extra company cash.

Very diverse game. Nice map, hardly any 4 grades needed if I just fiddled with track laying a little, except to Chattanooga, making the boosted 8 wheeler awesome practically everywhere when it came up. Great to see so many profitable AIs. I understand you had to tone them down, but I did wonder why they never built any track... maybe give them a limit of 25 sections per year that accumulates?

A couple of surprises. I've never seen hotels and restaurants make as much money as on this map. Like $800K/year for a hotel?!? Insane! What's up with that? Also surprising, but not in a good way, it seemed like the values for cargoes was kind of erratic, and sometimes things wouldn't go where they should (lumber to furniture factories, coal to steel mills, etc.) And I felt kind of guilty making $2,000K per load of coal to Lafayette where there was nothing other than houses that wanted coal... But not that big of a distraction. Maybe you tweaked it to that hauling was more profitable. Halfway through the game I got a depression but it never seemed to hurt my profits, which was curious.

Well, guess I have to try it again on a more difficult lever if I want to experience income taxes, etc.

Thanks for all the hard work you put into this!

[AnotherCanuck]

Great map !! After about 10 tries I finally made gold on expert! I guess it was kind of a cheat when I realized that coal is the key to a win.
Starting at Madison, Milwaukee, Chicago with the lumber saving all my cash with medium stations and a single American loco, I managed to buy four coal
mines near St. Louis for 300-400k each before the big tax grab. It was a slow go till I could lay the cheapest track to St. Louis with bonds maxed out.
After that it was clear sailing running track out to Memphis to the south and Indianapolis to Akron east. Every $ extra went to coal mines as soon as the tax was repealed.
Checking every month or so for a new spawn or buying them for up to 20m each. They will return up to 2.5 mil per year. I got gold at 22 years and had 15 - 20 mines producing
30 mil per year revenue plus freight income. Did'nt worry about express, pullman cars, iron or lumber except the first few years for lumber. Had to be careful to buy enough
stock to keep ahead of the AI's because they grab your stock fast because it goes up quick and they bought all the remainder in 10 - 12 years hah..
Thanks again for all the hard work ! The info is super and the scenario works very well. I will do them all when I can.

[AnotherCanuck]

Here the exact stats I had for gold showing how the coal mines worked

CBV - 199,000
LCR - 328,000
PNW - 155,000

22 years of 35
speed 24 mph

iron hauled - 62 cars
19 trains (all Atlantic)
Lifetime Revenue
Express - 12,000
Freight - 76,000
Industry - 236,000 (20 coal mines, 3 dairy farms)

paid lawyers and all improvements except pullman, declined oil

I think I will try again soon to see if it can be improved. Love those steamers.

[KevinL]

I noticed the same thing with the insane prices for coal. So that is intentional? I had a wierd thing where I had several cities that demanded coal at a higher price than a steel mill did! I had to ship at a loss to get the coal to my steel mill so I could make a profit and get the steel I needed.

[citizenvish]

Sorry for another necro. Had a go at this one too. Definitely one of the more interesting scenarios out there. I got gold on medium with ten years to spare, but had to work at it.

First, the skyrocketing industry pricing came as a big shock. I lost the court case, and continued by investing in every train-related improvement, buying the rights to that property trust/bank, and building a VERY expansive rail network. Whenever the prices for industry got low, I built oil refineries; I had six of these operating at full capacity when I hit gold. I purchased one of the railroads (the one operating from Monotony); this helped in getting control over some industries. The rest was easy and simply flowed.

I also got hit by the same coal snag that KevinL mentioned; heck, it was insane: the price of coal in Jackson reached 1560/unit.

Nevertheless, a great scenario. Hats off, once again, wsherrick.

Regards

[Hawk]

Sorry for another necro.

See this post. viewtopic.php?p=19796#p19796

[wsherrick]

Thank you very much for the compliments and I am truly happy that you are enjoying the Scenario. The insane coal prices are not done on purpose. If you switch over from wood to coal, the price for it goes up a little. Maybe that is what is throwing the price off later in the game. Feel free to go into the Editor and remove the price increase when the event for switching to coal fuel comes up and see if this fixes it. Other than that I don't know what is going on with it.

[Lone Cat]

I've played this scenario (and not finished.. yet)
so tell me.

1. Is it possible to take over ANY rivals there? at any stage of the game these rivals has its purchase prices WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY more than player can afford to. and they keep buying lucrative industries. AT THE VERY START OF THE GAME. where players can barely have any chance to jumpstart. Mine starts at Chicago, Milwaukee and Madison, second plase of expansion was green bay, up north,
to the south i went to MEmphis, Kansas C. and little rock , (through St. Louis) another southern route went through Indianapolis and ends at Charlotte. this tine no apparent bonuses
2. Or should I continue a bitter coexistence with those murderous rivals to the end game? doing so means that Gold is slipped away. can anyone try to eliminate those banes yourself?

[RayofSunshine]

It has been a duration of time since I played this scenario, but do remember having some what of the same problem with the AIs. I do also remember playing it, that it was a "bugger" to compete with those AIs. Made for a struggle to get the medals, and a great challenge. But did enjoy the concept and imagination of the scenario itself. Not much help to you, but wish you luck in the attempt.

[grashopa]

I just played up to 1890 on expert and here is my status



Bought two dairy farms to start and connected Kammchake(sp) with the AI in Peoria because the two are close so its almost a 20% return on a train there. Took the 2 million express bonus and went to chicago - madison as others have done. Also lucked into a furniture store appearing next to a working lumber yard in Madison which I was tracking to. If there is a way to get a notice for every new industry appearing I'd like to know. I bought and upgraded that immediately giving me 700 a year. After that just hook up the AIs and get express going.

No clue what to do next as track costs are so high - I think I can at most get a 10% return by borrowing another 5m with 6% interest rates. There is a lot of oil on the map, wonder if that will factor in.

I notice several people had bugs with the coal prices and hotel revenue where it seems like the events for increases were triggering multiple times. As far as I can tell it says trigger once in the editor, but I still avoided the coal price increase option just in case. Perhaps they were using 1.06 with this map?

[grashopa]

Wow, passenger traffic really picks up after Pullman cars arrive. What is the best way to handle the traffic?

I've got 48 passengers waiting in one city that is only connected to two cities. What is weird is that my express trains aren't filling up in that city. I only have 2 trains which run between this city and the two neighboring cities.

Is the problem that passengers show up even if their destination is not connected to the rail line? So they just sit there?

Or do I need long distance express trains going straight to their destination? ie they won't move to the neighboring city even though they can eventually get to their destination if they did? I have 1 express train between every neighboring city currently.

[Hawk]

Is the problem that passengers show up even if their destination is not connected to the rail line? So they just sit there?

That is correct.

The citizens of the Railroad Tycoon world don't keep up with the news much so they aren't informed about where rail service is available to and from.

If you have 4 cities and pax want to go from city A to city D, and you have trains running A>B>C>D they will get on the first train, then change trains at each city until they get to their destination.

It's cities like B & C is where hotels & restaurants can make a little profit. Not so much in A & D.

[grashopa]

It's cities like B & C is where hotels & restaurants can make a little profit. Not so much in A & D.

Yeah I see that now. I'd build more hotels, but the government upheld the tax in my game. Even with the +400% cost for industry hotels will still be very profitable in the hub cities I created where 6 cities feed into one.

And I ran into the coal price problem in 1896. It maybe has nothing to do with the event, because there is not enough coal on the map and the populations in the cities grow too big. The cities on the map average about 1.3 coal demanded per city right now and there are not enough coal mines. I notice I am running with 1.06, but the creator of the map did play it in 1.06. Can you edit in coal mines without giving yourself ownership of them? Or should the game start automatically adding more quickly because of the shortage? Or is this possibly not supply and demand despite the imbalance? Coal is already at 450 when I noticed it.

[Gumboots]

So last night I actually played a game of RT3, for the first time in six months or whatever. Picked this one, since it was mentioned in another thread. It's an interesting one.

Didn't take the court case option early on, so was stuck with massive prices for industry for the rest of the game. This meant that unlike my usual industry-heavy style I had to play this one as primarily rail, which was a change. I did build some industry towards the end of the game when there wasn't much else to connect by rail, and my company was making enough to afford the build cost for industry. The ROI wasn't the impetus. More a matter of using the cash to make some profit, even if not much, just to boost CBV. Also had a few choice industries that were bought early in the game, before prices skyrocketed.

Didn't take over any of the AI's, but bought heavily in some once they were paying good dividends. Sold most of those later at the top of a boom, just to insulate PNW against economy changes.

I did notice that the income tax seems to be erratic. Rather than taking a set percentage of your income every year, it seems to take insane amounts at more or less random intervals. Haven't looked at the coding yet, but that seems like a bit of a bug.

Ended up getting Gold on Expert level in February 1918. If taking the option of the expensive court case early in the game, I assume industry prices would be dramatically reduced. That should make a win easier.

[RulerofRails]

Glad to see you enjoying a game of RT3 again!

Interestingly, I have been staying away from industries in my last few games as well, mainly for the challenge. I am currently on my first run in a few years through Age of Steam V Phoenix Rising as after reading the thread on it I wanted to try to beat the AI without buying industry. (BTW, if you can put up with diesels which are rubbish {horrible fuel and maintenance costs} for the first 10 or so years, that scenario is the one of the most pro-steam scenarios I have ever played. And definitely the most pro-steam in the present/future genre. That scenario is such that steam is 100% the way to go and leaves diesel for dead!)

It was a year or so since I played this one, so I don't remember clearly what strategies I used or choices I made. I guess that means I need to add it to my list of scenarios to play next.

[Gumboots]

I think I'll give it a couple more runs. I like getting a scenario and trying it different ways to explore what is possible with it. I probably should have another go at AoS V too. If I really grit my teeth and consume copious amounts of painkillers, I suppose I could get through the diesel era of it.