Age of Steam III - Big Valley For Your Review

[KevinL]

I've been looking for the review thread on this scenerio so I could add my two cents. I finally found it!

Excellent scenerio, with lots of hills and valleys to make things challenging. Plus the choices make it a different game every time.

I started in AR first with heavy rail, and I always ran out of rail before the end of the year. Then I ended up short and didnt get a medal because I didnt have enough trains running and cities connected. I'm starting again in Virginia with medium rail. Hopefully I'll do better.

Was there any benefit or disadvantage to which state you start in?

Also, if you ever decide to "update" this scenerio, adding a sentence in the ledger about which two Tennessee cities you have to connect would be helpful. I forgot what cities I had to connect after coming back to the game after a break.

[low_grade]

It does seem like this scenario will have more replay appeal than most I've tried. Just took it for its first spin, starting in AR, going Heavy rail, and was frustrated repeatedly by missing the express speed goal and the connection goal and just never having much rail to work with. In the end I took the gold in 1930 on Hard anyway, but didn't ever connect much of the map. There was so much cargo moving around that I decided to double track quite a bit rather than expand an inefficient network. So I only made it to Nashville, though I did connect to Mississippi, Alabama, and Illinois as well.

Industry was key. It's nice to see a map which I feel compelled to fully develop, building every possible industry eventually, from aluminum to tires to cars. Of course many of my industries were in cities I never connected to, so they weren't as profitable as they could have been, and also the game had a sinister tendency to build competing industries in neighboring cities right after I build mine...

Now that I know that the express goal is pretty much out of reach and not absolutely necessary, I'm thinking my next go will use 90lb rail to see how much more I can expand. I can see trying the light rail as well someday. And of course I'm definitely going to try again and hold off any express cargo until I get the engine boosts, then get the 40mph goal on a section of track that I keep the service tower and station off of, using a short spur for them instead.

And I need to see what changes on Expert.

So, thanks for the great scenario!

[citizenvish]

Played this one a couple of months back; my apologies for posting a review this late. This has to be one of the better scenarios out there. Everything about it was just right—the terrain, resource placement, the goals, etc. My only complaint was that the map could have been a bit bigger (but I guess, this is more of a wish than a genuine complaint).

I hit gold at medium with quite a few years to spare; played my game naturally (build railroads and buy/build industries) and things just flowed. Getting the initial bit early on in the game is important as the easy cash later comes handy.

PS: The P-2 mountain locomotive was/is awe-effin-some.

Thanks for another great scenario W. Sherrick.



Regards
Vishal Bhatia

[edbangor]

Played this one last night after realising that the scenarios Hawk hosts are alphabetical rather than chronological so I could still find, 'new' ones past the first couple of pages.

Anyway, this one really dented my confidence as the past few maps I've tried - including my own - I've always manged to get gold with years to spare but on this I struggled to a Silver and then only just.

I've never been good with average speed scenarios for some reason and even had two false starts on this one as I made rookie errors (which I'm too embarressed to mention here!)

Still, this is one that I've marked to go back to, and have another go, once I've worked through all the other unplayed scenarios that I've now backed up, including the one that followed this.

Finally, congrats to the designer as this was great fun to do, and educational too...

[Gumboots]

Just tried this one. I have to say that WSherrick does get a good feel on his maps. They're fun.

This one is a lot simpler and easier than Blue Streak, but still very enjoyable. One small catch is that after you get Gold the game wont allocate you any more track.

This was a bit of a nuisance since I was looking forward to seeing how he'd modelled the 1929 Wall St Crash and the Great Depression in this one. I was thinking up plans for buying up stock at a bargain price and other things, but never got a chance to try it. I didn't get that far because I got Gold at the end of 1928. No more track. Game over.

The seeding I got made an Arkansas start the best option. May not work all the time. I also chose the heavy rail option, which in retrospect may not have been the best choice. I never had any real problems with speed or company cash, but did have the classic problem of running out of track three yards short of the next town. &!&@^@$! limited track scenarios.

[Wolverine@MSU]

One small catch is that after you get Gold the game wont allocate you any more track.

You should be able to Shift-E into the Editor before getting the Gold and tweak the events to let you continue. Haven't looked at the Events themselves, but it should be pretty easy.

[Gumboots]

Yes it's not difficult to change.

[BigBoyTycoon]

I know this as so many others is a quite late reply. But just wanted to share my extreme LOVE for the AOS scenarios, its just pure nostalgia and pleasure. And i love all the little dialogs and options there are. Its just wonderful. Even tho ofc it´s easy to know that when you get an offer for paying several millions or not, its definitely worth paying 2.5$ million for something, when you need a book value of over hundred of millions, those 2.5$ is worth just for testing purposes. Which is why it could be fun, if there was some options that would just backfire and not pay back or would be more random. But it was really fun. I loved all of them. All though the second one and first one was extremly easy and the next ones, this one was by far for me the hardest.

I played on expert again, and bronze and silver was easy enough, the personal networth aswell. But i was like 2 years or so from winning before the crash came and was at 175 million in company book value. The express speed contract didn´t seem to do much, except for the initial 2 million i got. And another thing that bugged me was that the government took away the 1000+ mile track i had saved to 0. I thought i´d get it back So that was a bit of a bummer. Plus on the replayablity allthose newspapers and pop-ups was a bit much But i love this scenario. Its definitely a time waster, allthough i was looking to get it done. Still gonna play it some more. But always went for arkansas and then industry. A very interresting scenarioo, and extremly impressive that this is made from scratch. I only got compliments to say about it, all the other stuff is just minor complaints about nothing really.

Still gonna have to try and get a gold a bit faster, as there gotta be a way :P The crash was fun to manipulate but didn´t expect my company to suffer 50 millions in penalty for those 2-3 years :p First time i actually lost where i just wanted to see how things would go. Was so fun!. Anyway hope i can report back with a gold win soon enough :P

Edit: Nope only managed silver on expert, for some reason i get huuuuge amounts of negative cash all the time which is extemly frustrating, and i can see fuel is taking over 10mill per year. dispite trains claiming to be "outstanding"in fuel economy. On easy, medium, and hard its super easy to get gold. I could see i lost 100 mill due to playing on expert compared to hard. SO close to win gold, oh well. After 10 hours in this gotta take a break. With a little luck it should be possible :p or a new way of doing it. I love the challenge here

What did everyone else do step by step to get gold on expert? Im thinking even more focus on trains might be worth it even tho my industries were making a ton of profit. And had 150 trains with lot of profit too and i couldnt use more track )i used medium track this time) so not sure what to do diffrent tbh.

[BigBoyTycoon]

Managed to get gold much easier now on expert. The fuel killed me so just switched trains :P Got my favorite 8-wheeler instead of the pacific. Boom loved the scenario now
Great work!

[RulerofRails]

Glad you conquered this challenge! I always take a few plays to really learn a map. Contrary to what some other players do in both RTII and RT3, I find the Pacific to be an expensive engine to run and maintain. I will only use it if I am sure that I have sufficient capital and revenue to make the scenario goals cause I will only use it on prime routes. When cash is tight, I wont use it unless there is no choice or speed is a requirement. I tend to like industry, but run plenty of trains on the track I build and run them at 8 cars. Thankfully the Coast to Coast expansion pack and 1.06 give better steam options also, which are great for game-play.

BTW, I haven't actually played this scenario. I know there is a speed goal here, so the Pacific may be an important part of some strategies on this map.

[BigBoyTycoon]

Oh yesh definitely, playing the map swveral times makes you love the map. i really like you doing that too. And thanks for congratulatiing me :) Whats your favorite maps by the way? Oh yeah the pacific is definitely an expensive engine, and totally not worth it. Money saved is money earned as they say :) I also LOVE industry, mainly i only use railroads to support my industry. Passengers is just a bonus, i dont care for that. :P My industry is my baby <3 Thats also how i beat all the hard maps simpky by outsmarting the system. like you do :)

I only ever played the coast to coast expansion since i got my dvd disc i still own, ofc with a few mods or trains or whatever added on.

if you play this scenario my tip to you is: Use the pacific to get the 2 million. Just put 1 express + caboose, make it run, one time. And stop. Boom you´ll get like 50-60 average + 2million. Then change it to 7 cards + caboose again. Speed is easy to get here. and maintaining speed is too however that didnt affect me at all - so i didnt bother. Just get the 2 million once they force you. I tried only running industry first and lost due to thats not allowed - they rather want to force you into an unprofitable railroad :p

Also those who start with industry are not stupid or doesnt know how to use trains as some people think, we are just better thinkers imo. To use the railroad to support the industry. Like i´d rather make a sawmill near alot of logging camps, than put it in a town to make the cargo flow there. Then my ovderhead will just rise. I´d rather make my own town near the logging camps, and buy the logging camps - that way the overhead is nullified and they dont need to carry it on their backs, or on wagons :p + by buying the logging camps the material costs is still money that goes to me :)

I even make furtniure and all those things the same place -- ofc you can make it another place -- but the price diffrence is the same price diffrence you can earn by having it right there at the sawmill right? So the only problem is the price will fall due to all the furniture - however i just sdpam trains to get all the waste (haha my good queality products) away and spread around the world to be consumed and earn money. Thats how i do it. I often end up with a huuuge amount of profit that way. Trains i use them to zoom in and just watch them drive past c: industry is the key...+ i have imaginations of if this was real life -- just a silly childhood dream but at least we can be rich on those, right?

Edit: Hawk is the best for choosing these smileys. I can´t get over it.

[RulerofRails]

I appreciate many of the maps I have played. There are still many that I have never played also. I could make a big list, but some of the ones that I recommended to you already are pretty good. Oilcan is still around here making many quality maps with great scripting and balance. One of my favorites is Yellowstone. They play like a really fun game, but a little less time-attack. Most of my favorites I have commented on since I have been here. I like those maps which have events which make different strategies the best way to play for the medals. Hexum is another interesting map to play.

Industry is a sure road to success especially in some of the Poptop scenarios. However, I have been realizing that on some maps there is a faster start in rails than in industry (depending on the economy of the map, if there is a decent supply of the processed cargoes available). Then with the last half of my bonds starting some heavy industrial involvement. That's a start strategy thing I have been trying to develop.

Basically, I am saying that I was once really heavily into industry, but now have stepped back a little to try to always consider return on investment to unlock bonds and get compounded growth going as fast as I can. Building up the economy is one of the things I most enjoy and we are definitely on the same page about that. I do just like you, building industry and developing the potential of as many of the unused raw materials on the map as possible. I try to build an industry on the same cell as the resource that supplies it, doesn't matter if it is out in the countryside. I do just the same with building another factory such as the Furniture Factory also on the same cell. This is good strategy because the reduced profits of the countryside are a good insurance policy to keep the Furniture Factory running at full output instead of sometimes losing supply to houses or potential new upstart industries on the map.

Lately I have been playing without building special collection stations out in the countryside. This wouldn't work on some maps, but even when doing this I figured that it is still worthwhile to build industries in the countryside, as the lag that occurs if they need to wait for resources to reach them and the sacrifice of the initial high profits is greater than the potentially higher later profits I might receive. I have been playing fan made maps lately and this has been working quite well. No doubt I will need to build stations in the countryside eventually on one of those maps that doesn't have many cities soon enough. I have a little time to play today so may try to give this map a quick whirl. (I am tempted to try Drums of War again after talking about it, but only have time to try one today and then not much time for the next few days.) Thanks for the tip to get the express speed bonus. I like to try to be honest and help people with my railway as well as making a pretty penny. Instead of the real world where most riches comes from greed and taking advantage of someone else. Here we can imagine that the system is not in place.

[BigBoyTycoon]

I gotta have a try at those maps Yellowstone, Hexum etc that you mention. Oilcan certainly seem to both know how to make excellent guides aswell as scenarios huh? You can say his fuel economy must be "near perfect" :P

Definitely a really good way of looking at it, like what you´re saying. Better take a bit of a loss in profit (but still huge profits) than having other fewer losses but also lesser profit. Thats how things work with economy after all, and i love that. :)

Oh Drums of war - its just the atmosphere is like nothing else. Thats also why i want to try Australia or New zeland to get the atmosphere. I really really love the Africa scenario, its tough, its rough terrain and its full of monkeys! i love all the sounds poptop put into the game :3 I feel so lucky just to get to watch it or see trains passing bridges on that map :3 And all the different types of cargo the trains are carrying.

About the express bonus, im not sure if im correct of course. but i think it was in the the manual or the oilcan manual - im not sure - but i read some where that ugly meant =-15% and acceptable ofc =0. (or 15 compared to ugly.) then looks sharp to ultra cool + 15% per level. So that would be 45 from ugly rigth? and then the dining car and premium is 85. Might not be true -- but there certainly is a huge profit. I always put a dining car on baiscally all my trains anyway - coz if they use passengers. Its great - if not- not a loss that makes you lose the game :)

Please tell me how it goes if you try this map :)

[OilCan]

I gotta have a try at those maps Yellowstone, Hexum etc that you mention. Oilcan certainly seem to both know how to make excellent guides aswell as scenarios huh? You can say his fuel economy must be "near perfect" :P

My fuel economy is nowhere near perfect. I must credit the helpful comments and suggestions by many others on this forum as the sole reason any of my games actually work. And the guide is nothing more than a compilation of the posts, comments and insight of many, many others regarding the mechanics of RT3. The truth is my fuel economy is below average: the tandem engine boosts from others may make it look artificially high at times. (Hexum was created by Sugus, if I recall right, and is an intriguing game.)

[Hawk]

(Hexum was created by Sugus, if I recall right, and is an intriguing game.)

Actually, the credit on the download page is Taleisin, with Sugus credited for the German version.

[Sugus]

Correct! Taleisin made some exciting maps ... and I am only a poor translator

[RulerofRails]

Big Valley attempt.jpg (54.63 KiB) Viewed 9113 times

Well, I completed this one for the first time. I started in Virginia using the heavy rail option with a line between Coleburn and Bear Wallow to get the Steel Mill running there. I lucked out by forgetting to turn a train to all freight (I used the Duke to begin with), so got one carriage of express going downhill which was good enough for 43mph and the 2M bonus in the second year I believe. Thereafter I only ran a single express out of Memphis once my track reached the plains until my average express speed fell to 41 mph. As I thought this was the limit for the bonus later, I decided to try to maintain it to the end. (I wanted to see the bonus at least once, turns out the limit is a much more attainable 35mph). On this map I actually used the Pacific for most of the game, despite my post about how uneconomic they are. Half the reason was that they had the best performance for the 6% grade I had climbing into Kentucky. Since I was forced to connect there early, I thought I would continue across the mountains on the northern route. The other engine options at that time were quite hopeless on grades, so I bought Pacifics. The events such as the super-heater made their stats look better as well, but in reality they were only slightly improved. Maybe this has something to do with the increased performance. Speed and power are increased while operating costs seem to stay constant. Even while thinking this, I am befuddled how the Atlantic can have Instant acceleration and not take off like the E-88. I ended up with only 41 locos.

I chose the heavy rail option with the idea that my overhead would be low for years, and that was the case. But track laying sure is constrictive. My only section of double track is visible in the screenshot. I thought that I would focus on industry instead and just lay the track I could. That worked ok, but I aren't really happy with this result. In a future play I will chose the 95lb option on the bids.

Ironically, without being able to buy the existing industries or build much new rail, I ended up focusing on building industry as the only place to invest, on a map that in my opinion is for the most part seeded sufficiently to use most of the resources naturally with a good rail network. I would look round the map and see all that cargo that is just begging for me to haul it out of the mountains or across the river for consumption, but I am stuck trying to find new spots for industries that: (1.) don't sabotage the profits of the existing ones that I cannot buy, and (2.) are theoretically pretty safe from sabotage themselves by buildings that are seeded later. That got a bit frustrating. I did make some mistakes too like building a Furniture Factory as I didn't know that Lumber prices were to increase and severely eat profits. And of course there's a score of early good opportunities I missed also, I am often too cautious when developing in geographically isolated areas as it is difficult for me to read the steepness of the map without laying track over it to see the grade which is impossible with connected track only.

I have some more ideas to try, and pitfalls I know to avoid, so I think this deserves a replay. I also bought all the passenger goodies such as Pullman cars, even though I wasn't hauling many passengers. So I didn't get any idea of whether or not these are worthwhile. Overall, I enjoyed this one, a nice map, the events are good too, with lots of different potential strategies as is expected from an AOS map.

[Hawk]

I am often too cautious when developing in geographically isolated areas as it is difficult for me to read the steepness of the map without laying track over it to see the grade which is impossible with connected track only.

Press the G key to turn on the grid. It helps to see what the terrain is like.

[RulerofRails]

Press the G key to turn on the grid. It helps to see what the terrain is like.

Thanks, that helps some. An example of my lack of terrain skills is that my first start strategy idea hoping to mix it up was buying into North Carolina immediately for a connection from the Milk farms in the canyon above Asheville down to the town itself. To me it looked like maybe 8 or 9 % grade straight down. Well this idea was a failure, the best I could find was a max of 15% with a pretty direct line, but considerable stretches above 10% giving expensive track cost and running costs for the engines. I didn't get anywhere with that strategy so tried the more vanilla approach as seen in my previous post. I also tried the other way over the ridge to Bryson City, but got caught in a death spiral without new bonds available. So far this is hinging on a Corn Farm seeded near Bryson City. I just discovered it is possible by the skin of my teeth, building a small station covering the Corn Farm, issuing stock, using Shays, and buying the cheapest track to pull it off and not get caught in a death spiral without new bonds. I have just been able to build a Textile Mill, so this attempt seems like it will work. The neat thing about this is that you have 100% ownership from the first year also as the drop in book value from the territory access purchase drops share prices through the floor down to around $15 (sell off at start of game). I have been issuing stock every year and in the third year I am -574k of player debt with PNW 1.3M. Will stop that after a while, but definitely necessary in the start. I wont be able to get the passenger bonus for a while though as the best way out of Bryson City is down the valley into Tennessee and I can't get access there for the first 10 years, so will see what happens with staying in industries and if I get desperate I will connect the long way up the mountain and back down into Virginia. I think I am going to run with this and will post what happens.

[Hawk]

I'm guessing you already know this, but if you run track from one low elevation, across the mountain to another low elevation, it will automatically build a tunnel, if you get your track lined up right.
Sometimes it takes a little experimenting to get the tunnel just right.