Greece 1857: for testing

[Hawk]

To add to BH's post, Bruno is going to correct these issues in the next beta, coming soon I suspect.

[brunom]

Uff!!

Here is the latest beta. With a lot of corrections and some additions..

VP6 should work perfectly now! That one really messed my head up.. I re-wrote it from scratch, tested the mechanics of it in a separate map and it seemed perfect.. but in the actual map it just wouldn't trigger! I tested, tried and re-tried, head-butted the laptop.. and nothing.. took me more than 2 hours and a lot of sugar in the brain to figure it out: I had a "Current Game Date (YYYYMM) = 1888" !!!! Oh bulhocks, the obvious is always what slips unnoticed!

So because of that and because the scenario is so long, I haven't yet finished the whole thing. I will be playing it slow and steady, towards a perfect gold medal one of these days... From my experience, the medals seem doable and even with 60 years to play, the player will be busy for most of the time.
Anyway, even without having never been tested from start to end by me, I'm holding my promise in delivering this revised BETA.

If you download this BETA and have a go at it, please post your dealings with it. The targets for the various VP's need to be tuned for the average player. Which means we need to know how many people you hauled to Kalamata, how much IP you made for VP2, how much Net Worth you managed to have for VP8, etc...

--- ATTACHMENT REMOVED ---

UPDATES list:
-- VP6 re-written
-- "Silent Robbers" (Corruption) string of events added
-- VP11 and VP12 introduced
-- Gold, Silver and Bronze targets changed, to accommodate the extra VP opportunities
-- VP opportunities counter added to the ledger
-- Town of Akrata added
-- Spawning of barracks for VP4 corrected

[Wolverine@MSU]

I'll have a go at it and let you know how I fare in a few days.

[Hawk]

It may be tomorrow before I can get to it.

[RayofSunshine]

Well thanks Blackhawk for the info on the weapons/troop require. As Hawk will tell you, I don't always get the instructions straight.
With all the threads of suggestion and comments on the Pitrai laid track via the Corinthian Coastline, I have no idea of how to calculate, or count the sections, to get the 550+ laid track. Can it be calculated by the terrain squares obtained with the "key G"? Usually there is a counter when the image of track is clicked.
I managed to get the Silver with 7 VPs. But I should have only gotten a Bronze. Missed the PNW, as I had too many Recession/Depression economies. The other reasons for not getting Gold is the troops/weapons, as well as the Corinthian Coastline of laid rail. Looks like the problems of programming have been corrected.
SO, how about another attempt.

[Hawk]

Here's my status on the latest release.

Year: Jan. 1876
VP Awarded: 2
Cities Connected: 17
PNW: $9,312K
Personal Cash: $-4.452K
Purchasing Power: $2,430K
My Share Value: $13,764K
Share Price: $94.00
0 Outstanding Bonds
Shares I own: 148,000
Shares Owned by Others: 74,000
Company Cash: $1,305K
20 Trains
1 Industry Owned - Tool & Die in Athens
LIP: $10,358K

Greece.jpg (12.51 KiB) Viewed 4886 times

[brunom]

Seems you are doing fine so far.

I had the opportunity to play some extended time yesterday... Got 10/12, but that's because I designed it
(and I found one minor flaw, easily corrected, everything else looks smooth)

Good luck, mate!

[Hawk]

What's the flaw so I know to keep an eye out for it. That way I won't report it if I stumble across it.

[Hawk]

Dec. 1879

20 cities connected.
Corinth and Patrai connected.
9 passengers hauled

Edit 1: BTW! On the ledger it says that the 16 cities have to be connected before 1880. I'm currently in July, 1880 and did not get the VP (it's still showing on the ledger). I'm assuming this is because you have to have the 16 cities connected before the end of 1880, but it doesn't say that in the ledger.

ledger.jpg (10.34 KiB) Viewed 4879 times

[RayofSunshine]

[quote="Blackhawk"]Ray the beta map counts weapons/troops FROM the Thessaly territory rather INTO it. So that's why you've sent weapons there and it's had no effect. You may want to try sending them to Larissa and then from there haul them to Volos.

Right now I am heading back into the question of the above mentioned "troops and weapons". And unless Brunom has changed the programming, this is what the "notice" indicate.

>>>>>>>>Thee are 2VP opportunities rising from the opening of Thessaly. One is to connect Volos and Trikala to Athens. The other is to haul at least 5 troops and 5 weapons (((((TO the territory before the turn of century))))

The other indications of TO rather than INTO IT is in the yearly ledger of I believe 1881 or 2,
((((((((5 troops and 5 weapons TO Thessaly))))))

As an attempt with this latest version, I will try each method, as it is evident that Blackhawk was able to obtain the goals with the FROM rather than the INTO. Which is not the way that I would interpret the notice indicators, and which would not be the way the scenario is programmed.

[Blackhawk]

I have not gotten to that point in the revised scenario yet, but in the prior beta version although you were supposed to haul the troops/weapons into the territory, the only way to get the VP was to haul them from the territory. I'd guess Brunom will have fixed that issue in the latest beta release.

Edit: Quick check of the editor on the revised beta. It now tests against troops/weapons hauled INTO the Thessaly.

[Hawk]

Confirmed! The city connection event does credit at the end of 1880.

[brunom]

Actually, it's two flaws, Hawk ..

For that VP it should be written "before the end of 1880".

The other flaw is the "missed VP" message concerning the 5 troops and 5 weapons TO Thessaly (Yes, Ray, revised version already tests "INTO IT").. The failed VP message goes to the ledger instead of being a pop up. Still, it's a "one time only" event, which means it will have no effect in game play.

B

[Hawk]

For that VP it should be written "before the end of 1880".

Yea, I figured that out. I was mainly letting you know.

The other flaw is the "missed VP" message concerning the 5 troops and 5 weapons TO Thessaly (Yes, Ray, revised version already tests "INTO IT").. The failed VP message goes to the ledger instead of being a pop up. Still, it's a "one time only" event, which means it will have no effect in game play.

B

I'm still struggling with this one. It's 1890, I have a weapons plant in Graditza and a lumber mill in Farsala. Hauling steel from Piraeus and Patrai and still not getting any weapons delivered to Volos, nor am I getting any troops to Volos.
I've been running trains from Graditza to Volos and trains from Athens and Tripolitza (the only place I've been able to find troops so far) for a couple of years and still nothing.
Maybe a couple more years will change this.

BTW! For the passenger haul I forgot to check in Dec before I got the VP, but about a year earlier I think it was about 60.

So far I have 6 VP's.

[Hawk]

Welp, game over for this one.
Got a margin call and the broker sold off all 300,000 shares of stock I had. Other investors had 33,000 shares.

Time top move on to another map. Something that doesn't have PNW.

Still no troops and weapons hauled either at the end of 1891.

As I've said before though, don't make any changes based on my play style and results. I've always sucked at PNW.

[Blackhawk]

An update on my run through this updated beta:

by the end 1863 - I had 4 million in industrial profits. I did not have the fortune of having a tool and die appear in Athens so I had to buy the munitions plant that appeared there again. There were a few months where again with the improving economy and rising steel price it became unprofitable, however, shortly after another barracks appeared in Marathon which helped increase the price of ammo and make the plant profitable again.

Year: Jan 1881
VP Awarded: 3
Cities Connected: 17
PNW: $11,760k (it was higher a ear or two ago back when the economy was in a boom. probably around 13-14,000k)
Personal Cash: $11k
Purchasing Power: $5,891K
My Share Value: $11,760K
Share Price: $56.00
18 Outstanding Bonds (at 6%)
Shares I own: 210,000
Shares Owned by Others: 126,000
Company Cash: $2,024K
12 Trains
29 Industries Owned
LIP: $43,651K

Passengers hauled - 11 (I had already gotten 4-5 before I was noticed it was a VP)

[Hawk]

I just kept loading the map until I got the seeding I wanted, which was a textile mill and tool & die in Athens, with no ammo plant or weapons factory.

[OilCan]

Brunom:
I'm back from Texas and downloaded the "Full Beta" version. I'll give it a go this evening.

[Blackhawk]

Oilcan I think the "Full Beta" version was the original beta, the newest beta is on page 3 called Greece 72 - Beta 03. http://www.hawkdawg.com/forums/viewtopi ... =30#p28436


Well I was up late last night so I could finish this scenario. I got 11 out of 12 VP. The only one I didn't get was having more than 1000 loads hauled in a year. I connected to every city I could and made some smaller side routes just to farms/logging camps to bring the cargo to the city to be refined, but I still came up short. I think I had around 90 trains. After 60 years of playing without taking a break saving took awhile and my game was lagging with each engine (after 70-75). I came close and if I had stopped some trains so they'd offload right in January instead of November/December then I probably could have gotten the required amount. Generally I don't bother sending cargo somewhere if I'm only going to make a small amount of money on things and that seems to be what needs to be done for the haulage requirement. I kept adding more and more trains to make small runs but it didn't help me enough. I guess I could have added more to see if that would have been enough. I was able to get 977 as a high.

This time I was able to get the personal net wealth and personal cash goals easily. I rarely issued any stock this time so my company expansion was slowed a little. I tried to buy my stock at good times, but I almost bought too much as after the economy went into a depression I had to buy back stock with company money, and actually take out a bond at 13% to buy back stock again. The interest rate on negative cash really is painful during the depressions, so I figured the next time the economy is booming and my stock price is up around 100 and about to split I'll sell off a lot of stock. So maybe 5-10 years later once in a boom, I started to sell off some stock. I would sell it off towards the end of December and generally it was around 135-140. I would then sell off some stock and get the stock price back around 100 so it wouldn't split yet. I repeated this for 2-3 years and went from having negative personal cash of 2,600k to only having negative cash for 575k. I still owned over half the company so I then set a dividend that was big enough to counter act the interest on my cash and help me get out debt. Down the road at the next boom I repeated this process again and sold off stock at a high price preventing the stock split and got my 7.5 million in cash. By the time I needed 7.5mil in PNW I already had 7.5mil in personal cash, so I had both VPs satisfied before they even became goals. (I think my PNW was around 30million overall when the PNW goal was checked)

I still think if someone doesn't know about the PNW/personal cash goals it will be difficult to do by the time you get that far into the scenario.

As for the PAX shipped goal I had about 50.

The Win Nothing event also has loser misspelled.

[brunom]

Blackhawk, you are definitely a master at this!

Hawk, you're closer to the "average player", a lot like me.

The 1,000 cars haulage seemed impossible to me as well. My max was around 700, so I already decided to reduce this VP target. The other VP missed in my game was the 5 troops, 5 weapons. But that was due to me half-ignoring it, so I'll keep it as it is.

It's true that the first time at this map can be a disaster, with surprises one after the other. But that is intended. I will take your opinion into consideration, Blackhawk, and possibly add a note at the start warning that VP's will be varied and include intermediate targets for passengers count, no. of cities connected, personal net worth, specific cargo haulage or player cash, but still, it's supposed to be a long and demanding scenario, not a newbie-free-ride.

I know the frustration of getting all your stock sold by your broker, it happened to me as well in some tests, and it means two VP's lost ahead. But since Greece goes bankrupt halfway into the game, it makes sense that as an industrial tycoon you also struggle during that period. But if you don't have such a big personal debt, you can get very very rich. I used the same technique as Blackhawk - buy & sell, buy & sell, with an eye on share value all the time.

Let's wait for OilCan's, Wolverine's and Ray's reports.
B