Latvian Republic 1920

[Gumboots]

I assume you must have the P2 installed on your 1.05. I can't see how else you'd get the editor option to enable it.

Anyway, on second thought your idea of offering a 10% reduction in overhead for connecting all Latvian cities is worth considering. It would be a bit of a mongrel of a thing to code, due to having to tally up all the Latvian cities and no others. There's no handy "number of cities in territory X" option, so it would have to be done by a large stack of connection checks. Not really difficult to do, but tedious to set up and with quite a bit of processing overhead.

However, for less proficient players who won't be going for Expert Gold anyway it could give some added interest while still being achievable. It would also bring the map back to being more Latvia-centric, and be a tempting consideration for expert players. They would have to trade off the benefit of the overhead reduction against the possible penalty from connecting Latvian cities that you don't actually need connected to win with that seed.

So from both those perspectives it's looking more interesting than the current event, which is only accessible to expert players and is really not worth doing most of the time.

[Gumboots]

Ok, made the recommended tweaks.

1/ The Saaremaa newspaper now alerts you to hotel, restaurant and tavern owners being very happy about the connection.
That should be enough to get people thinking (hotel and restaurant revenue is boosted 20%, with taverns boosted 40%).
The same event also gives a 20% increase in mail production, just to make pure express trains a better proposition,
but due to lack of space that's not mentioned in the newspaper. It's just an additional silent bonus.

2/ Changed the all cities connection offer so that it's now for all Latvian cities instead of all cities on the map.
Including Riga there are 40 Latvian cities, and they all have to be connected to Riga and have a train run to them.
The offer comes in the same year as before (start of 1931). The bonus for completion is $1 million company cash
and -10% company overhead. There is no time limit, except for the scenario finish at the end of 1939.

There are no other changes.

[RulerofRails]

In further reflection. The basis of my suggestions, re. helping out the rail start was partly aimed along the lines of stabilizing the variation from seed types. If you get one with poor options, there is some perhaps lower paying, but stable options available. I think the seeding is related in general to the setup of the map especially all the rivers and their proximity to cities, and the grouping of cities. It's IMO different from
normal", so has that special feel - makes mastering it more rewarding.

$120M CBV in 20 years from rail only needs a pretty relentless growth rate. It's easy to get a couple good years from rail, but chasing those rates long term can give a nice challenge.

I like the lower overhead addition. This is the perfect sort of strategy. Both pros and cons. Also, in the mid-game it's the right scale: a wide-scale effect on the whole company.

This is what I do for the haulage:

This way I make some Meat is being hauled, but in the balance these trains will keep moving. They tend to stay fairly profitable too. I have a theory that I'm fairly confident about: if you route a train a simple A-B it's much more likely to get a price lock via the mechanism I call "price islands" (a stronger equalization of price if you will), than if doing an unrelated stop on the return journey. So unless there is a reason for A-B, I tend to run A-B-C, with C being a town somewhere on the return route.


I have played this map a lot. I have 150 saved games in the install I'm using for the new weight scale (still using some stand-ins of course). Yeah, I know it's probably too frequent saving. I didn't finish it successfully more than half a dozen times, with more failed attempts. Most of which I gave up on before mid-way through. I will try the latest version when I get time. I'm sorry you were waiting (I spent my RT3 time lately playing Sugus' new map and the Zany one etc.). I thought this map was pretty much in final form.

While playing this I was also trying to figure out a bit more an understanding of how to get the most out of the transmission of price between stations (all the rivers are not so good for stacking). For example, when hauling Cattle from A to D (meat packer) whether to route Cattle A-B-C-D or just A-D. Price rises more per mile traveled the closer you get to the station, so I currently believe that A-C-D is probably the best. Such little things, but goes to show why I maybe got a little obsessed. And my plays take longer than even just a simple rail only one should.

[Gumboots]

Yup, it is pretty much in final form, but I was just wondering if the tweaks to early rail were sufficient to make rail-only feasible for you, at least some of the time. IIRC you hadn't played it through since those changes were made.

There's no huge rush on this. I'd like to get it fully and finally sorted by November 18th, for the centenary of the declaration of independence. I know there are a few eye candy tweaks I need to make (remove trees in rivers in obscure places, etc) but if you're happy with the current coding then I won't need to change that any more, and the remaining minor eye candy is going to be easy.

[low_grade]

Certainly, after running through the game once, it presents deep challenges for those so inclined, to win in 1938, to win in 1937, to win in 1936??? 1935?!?!? I can see many ways to tighten my play up significantly, and also now familiar with the events, which is fair play on 2nd plays, I say, lol! I try not to peek on a first play, though. To win rail only, on Expert? Win with no stock issuing? Win with 100% control of the company and no company or personal debt?

Also, I went for better locos at the start, figuring that would ameliorate the P8's poor acceleration significantly, as well as save a few bucks here and there skimping on service stations, and probably reduce breakdowns even further by keeping the P8's topped off with oil most of the time. So many arguments why it's the obvious choice. Or is it? 60% off bridge building, when you know you're going to be building lots of bridges, might play into a faster start that just compounds to produce greater profits in the long run, possibly to the extent of being better than beefing up the P8 with fewer service stops... Especially considering that I probably built service at the same intervals I always do... So I guess I have some doubt that the 40% reduction in sand/oil/water is the obvious choice after all. Any thoughts?

[Gumboots]

RoR, naturally, wants to win it with no industry purchase or building and with no stock issues. Good luck to him, but I'm not going to try it.

I've played it umpteen times while testing and have never managed to win it in 1938 or earlier. Somehow, no matter how cunning I get, there is always something that sets me back to 1939. I'm sure it's possible to win in 1938 and probably in 1937, but I haven't managed it yet.

I always go for the better locos, just because that way I get better train rides (this is serious strategy stuff, y'know) and as you mention it does allow you to save on sheds and towers, which is handy in the early stages. I'm inclined to think that the saving on facilities combined with the reduction in number of stops makes it the better option, but on the other hand the cheaper bridges would be handy too.

[RulerofRails]

The deal with the bridges carries over from the original version. I never once chose cheaper bridges. In my typical use of bridges (wood most common) the embankments are worth a big chunk of the total cost. Can even be above 50% of the total. So my major concern is to keep these embankments down. Without embankments, the base cost for said bridge is not that much, so said saving is in the end not that great. If the discount was on graded track I would be re-thinking this right away. Bridges would at least in my usage be a similar cost, but there would be a decent advantage over all lumpy track parts. Such advantage could be balanced with deduction of pulling power: still keep the incentive for lower grade tracks.

I did decide to finally try cheaper bridges, and this is what I got. It's slightly (-$30k or so) cheaper to build a longer bridge here.

As far as the starting possibilities. My basics are to find at least 2 steady earner cargoes. Normally that would be two full production industries, but one could be substituted for a combinations of resources etc., (Milk and Livestock are quite lucrative). Normally I need 3 cities for this (all along the same river is not desired), but in rare cases two will do, but I need to be able to connect another with a new bond at the end of the year. Of course some stretches where bridges are needed or the terrain is quite rugged are not feasible, for example Talsi isn't really that good even if a Meat Packer seeds there (some of this is down to the poor pickup of Livestock at Kuldiga etc.). Aucne is another location that I remember having success with if there's a Meat Packer there.

Lately I have been recognizing the possibility of Rezekne. At least my seeds have had decent supplies there sometimes Lumber, sometimes Meat. Admittedly I haven't played enough to find a nice seed on the west coast since you added the early incentives. For some reason (random) Ventspils doesn't have a port. I don't think a Ventspils-Liepaja start has a good chance without it. I did make minor use of the Riga bonus in a previous play that I spoke to you about via PM (based on a Valmiera Meat Packer).

I know I didn't give you a straight answer about the incentives. And maybe I just felt like I overplayed the map a bit, and was letting rest. I should have and will try (I did notice that Ammo is back on the latest version) just some more starts possibly without playing the whole thing through. At this point I'm thinking that maybe Daugvpils could have an incentive too? This could ensure that a player will lock into one within the early game if doing rails-only.

IIRC part of the idea with these was also to encourage players to do something with rails early in the game. They are a little help with rails-only on the poorer starts, but aren't overpowering to make things a smooth sail. The mid-term outlook for rails-only is very enjoyable with natural haulage of Steel etc. and all the haulage goals, the need to get a larger network established first and the CBV target consideration to keep profits up take early gameplay to the next level. I think the incentives are good for strategy overall. I realize it's a bit crazy to be doing this map rails-only.

[Gumboots]

Ok, the cheaper bridges are not significant for that bridge, but the game involves quite a few bridges that (in my experience) cannot be done without ramps. The cost reduction is more significant for those. It could be increased from 60% to 80%.

I don't really want to mess with pulling power via event, because it screws up balanced locos stats. I'd have to recalculate everything so that it made sense with and without the event, and I don't fancy that at all.

However, a cost reduction for graded track is easy to implement, and could still substantially reduce the cost of bridges that are hard to do without ramps. Personally I'd never use it (longer trains rides FTW) but I'm not averse to having it if you think it would add interest. How much reduction do you think would be reasonable?

IIRC part of the idea with these was also to encourage players to do something with rails early in the game. They are a little help with rails-only on the poorer starts, but aren't overpowering to make things a smooth sail.

They aren't meant to be overpowering enough to make things a smooth sail. They are intended to make rail-only possible, on the right seeds, for someone who is roughly as skilled as you and wants the challenge. All I want to know is if they make it possible for you to win rail-only, since you were finding it impossible (but only just) without them.

That being said, they are definitely useful for less skilled players who are not playing rail-only. The cash boosts, although small, are large enough to be meaningful at that stage of the game, and the credit rating boost is also handy for more rapid expansion.

[low_grade]

Actually going along with the science theme of better locos vs track engineering, I'd go with -25% track maintenance and -60% bridge building, I like the encouragement to go a bit out of the way to avoid grades and expensive bumpy track. Checking my 1932 save, that would have been a cumulative $1M saved at that point on maintenance. Also at the same point, 5% off all track would have saved almost the same, so maybe 25% off graded track if you wanted to go that way, since most track won't be graded much on this map. I might even go 90% off bridge building just to make it cheap to make them all stone, for fun... Heck even with all three I'd still probably pick -40% oil, water, and sand consumption. Maybe 20% off track maintenance, 80% off bridges, and 20% off graded all together?

[Gumboots]

It might be better to just have a blanket 5% or 10% cost reduction on all track, just for simplicity.
Maybe 10%, since with the shorter locomotive range you'll need more facilities and there will be more time spent stopped at them.

I like the encouragement to go a bit out of the way to avoid grades and expensive bumpy track.

In that case you'd want to increase the cost of graded track, not decrease it. Which would also increase the cost of bridge ramps and overpasses, so is probably a bad idea.

[RulerofRails]

I didn't have much time for any games in the last bit. Anyway, found a bit now.

Ok, the cheaper bridges are not significant for that bridge, but the game involves quite a few bridges that (in my experience) cannot be done without ramps. The cost reduction is more significant for those. It could be increased from 60% to 80%.

That picture was an illustration that it was cheaper for me to make a longer Steel bridge (compared to the conventional route with a Wooden bridge) because it involves a slight shortcut and I can avoid some grades this way. Steel I think is 75% speed limit, but with less corners and grades and a shorter route I can only speculate that there will be little difference in journey time (don't have time to test properly).

I agree completely that there are places where ramps cannot be avoided. The pic was an illustration of how could I take a realistic advantage of the cheaper bridges (as currently set). I'm to a degree isolating the bridge from the ramp cost, and therefore I am seeing some advantage, however as you can see it's rather a specific case and definitely not useful the way that the lowered consumption rate is. I don't know if I would use it, but the suggestion for lowered graded track cost was to make the bridge option more useful on a normal bridge (with ramps). You could always get fancy with this and put hidden territories along the rivers . . .

The lowered consumption is quite a big advantage, but it feels right for the scale of the map. For example distances like Valmeria-Exportosta, Ventspils-Liepaja, etc. can be done on one service/maintenance stop.

Anyway, I see that you re-did the connection offer timeframes. This is good for rails (lot less tight), makes play more similar to when the bonuses could be had at any time, but with added strategy of timing. I started Valmeria (Meat) -Exportosta (direct via Saulkrasti). A direct train provided enough revenue to hit he 1st year target. Focused on immediately upgrading the port. . . . It's looking good so far. End of Year 5 I was @ $4M CBV, and profits (Year 6) are going to be $3M+. I went to Estonia early (maxed bonds when bonus offer came up). Not sure if it was a good idea.


But I thought I would post to ask about reserve cells. Were there any changes there? Maybe this seed is just randomly unlucky, but I had a church right in the way (dozed it) of my regular Riga station on the east of the river. Even after dozing the church I couldn't place the station how I wanted (missed a Museum in the south).

Also in Parnu there's two houses right in the way of my "regular placement."

I have the option for a placement on the north side of the river (unreserved cells), but I miss a Stadium and also don't have any catchment for port production that's going out to sea. I haven't decided yet if I should doze the houses or not.

[Gumboots]

You could always get fancy with this and put hidden territories along the rivers...

I think the events coding is complex enough already.

The lowered consumption is quite a big advantage, but it feels right for the scale of the map. For example distances like Valmeria-Exportosta, Ventspils-Liepaja, etc. can be done on one service/maintenance stop.

I agree. It does have a good feel to it overall. But I'm happy to change the Science event to give an alternative of lowered overall track cost if you think that would be a useful alternative for replay value. The other alternative, of course, is to simply remove the event and make the extended range the default for this map. I'm happy to code it either way.

But I thought I would post to ask about reserve cells. Were there any changes there? Maybe this seed is just randomly unlucky, but I had a church right in the way (dozed it) of my regular Riga station on the east of the river. Even after dozing the church I couldn't place the station how I wanted (missed a Museum in the south).

Yes there were some changes there. What I did was reduce the reserved cells to what I thought the minimum could be, bearing in mind that I didn't want buildings breaking rivers. I found during testing that this made for better replay. I could always get good placement of all the stations and track I wanted, and it stopped station placement being such a repetitive no-brainer.

[RulerofRails]

Ok. I finished that play. I went to Estonia a little early, and missed out on Parnu track cost reduction. I made some other mistakes too, the main one was not starting Lumber haulage on time (had half a dozen or so Furniture Plants). So in the end failed at the gold medal, haulage was 160 something. But it was just error on my part.

Also, the Oil Refinery appeared with 6 or 7 years to go, but it vanished while the first loads of Oil were in transit, so I ended up building one myself, I wasn't going to chance my luck waiting for another to appear.

But the good news is that the tweaks to the events are giving some more space that even with one slightly negative year early on (and a bit of lack of focus here and there) I managed to get the CBV target with some room to spare ($126M). I messed around with a couple other seeds and start possibilities. I think in general it's now possible for most seeds to do rail only. If the economy tanks to an early depression, you might still run out of luck, but in general I think that it's doable more often than not.

In regards to the bridge science choice. I don't really have an opinion. I was just making the point that reducing bridge cost is not going to reduce the total cost of your bridges by -60%, only the span and not the ramps. Sounds more useful than it is, so for the more casual player could be a "gotcha" of sorts.

In my mind, the increased range is very useful on this map in the later game with all the long distance haulage . A potential cheaper rails option could give a slightly better start, however rails are something that the player can optimize a lot with careful effort (including avoiding a lot of repeat bridges). The more effort you put into setup, the less savings you will see. For this reason I'm not crazy about said option. I like how you added track cost effects to some of the connection offers, I think this is enough.

In my games, station cost actually makes more difference for rail starts than track cost. I tend to only build large stations for any freight services. In the short term station cost (includes maint. facilities) is a big component of spending. So if I was to suggest an substitute offer: maybe a small reduction in station cost would balance out against the need for more maint. facilities too. But I wouldn't go too crazy. 10% max? Please note that I didn't think of this idea before posting so it may not be a bright one. For example, it's not as much "science."

[Gumboots]

Ok, sounds like we're on a roll here.

The refinery is a bit of a lucky dip. Sometimes it seeds early and stays until you need it. Sometimes it never seeds at all. Other times it does what it did to you. I think it's fine and doesn't need any tweaking. The variety is good for replay.

I think the best option is to simply remove the early event, and just make the extended range the default setting for this map. It has enough going on anyway, and we're having trouble coming up with a better alternative, so I reckon just go with what seems to make sense. Then we'd just have the other locomotive upgrade options coming in later, which I think is enough.

By the way: if you're going for a rail start at the western side of the map, and taking the early connection bonus for the Livonian coast, then I've found that medium stations are quite sufficient for Mazirbe and Mikeltornis. I usually put a large at Kolka, but mediums on the others are fine and will save you $200k. I've even gone with temporary smalls on all three at times, depending on how the seeding looks, but that's unusual.

Other stations are almost always large, although even then there can be some rare exceptions.

Also, was the latest testing done with the default $90k player cash and a January 1920 start? Or were you still relying on the Easter eggs?

[RulerofRails]

By the way: if you're going for a rail start at the western side of the map, and taking the early connection bonus for the Livonian coast, then I've found that medium stations are quite sufficient for Mazirbe and Mikeltornis. I usually put a large at Kolka, but mediums on the others are fine and will save you $200k. I've even gone with temporary smalls on all three at times, depending on how the seeding looks, but that's unusual.

Mazibre and Mikeltornis most of the time don't have any industrial production/collection, so qualify for smaller stations. All that is needed is to cover all houses + municipal buildings. In this last play I used small stations because they covered all exiting stations. Later in the game I would have upgraded them to mediums since a few new buildings had spawned, except that there was "no room." Didn't bother to build new stations.

On the topic of stations, I only built a single one in Riga, also Exportosta. My early expansion was to get through the area quickly (probably also blocked enough land to prevent a second port from seeding). That may have been a contributor to lower/failed haulage counts. This is how my setup looked.

Also, was the latest testing done with the default $90k player cash and a January 1920 start? Or were you still relying on the Easter eggs?

Yes, standard Jan. 1920 start. And of course no stock issues.

[Gumboots]

I've found it's possible to clock the haulage goals with only one port in Riga. In fact one port is how it seems to play most of the time.

I do like having three stations (one west of the river in Riga itself, and one each side of the river mouth). It's useful for splitting traffic logically. I'll usually drop the first two in early, then add the third one west of the river mouth once traffic at Exportosta starts getting too congested for my liking. I've found I can place this so it doesn't block a second port, but the second port still only seeds occasionally.

Anyway, I'll make those last tweaks to the coding. It won't really affect gameplay, since nobody has been using the cheaper bridges options anyway, but will clean up the event coding a bit. Then it's just minor eye candy and I can call it done. As far as how the thing actually plays we can call v1_1 the "final" version, but I'll rename the thing to something obvious before archiving it.

[Gumboots]

Ok, new thread for my new Latvia map, to save confusion. All posts about the new map are now in this thread.

The map itself is now available in the archives, on this link: Latvian Republic 1920

I got the final version done for the 100th anniversary of the declaration of the Latvian Republic.

This scenario will play just fine with default 1.05 cargo cars and locomotives, if you prefer to use those.

Personally I prefer to play this scenario with my custom cargo cars, and with some custom locomotives. As extra locomotives I use the 1.06 G10 and 264T Suburban Tank, as well as my SR Schools Class 4-4-0. This gives a good range, that is fairly representative of Latvian rail in the 1920's and 1930's.

My revamped version of the G10 is attached to this post.
The revamped 264T Suburban Tank is in the archives on the the New Engines page.
The current SR Schools Class (beta version) is attached to this post.

I also use custom .lco and .car files for the locomotives, to give better balance between them. Those are attached to this post.

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If anyone wants the topic for Juriko's original Latvia map, you can find that here: Latvia (beta).

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[RayofSunshine]

Well Gumboots,
This is a very interesting and challenging scenario. I did run into a problem and got "kicked down the track", but don't know the reason.
The only item which stays on the end of the years is that of the GOLD. For at least more than a dozen years, the passenger hauls have been 40 to 60, and the total after 20 years is 840, which well exceeds the demand of 480. I believe that the CBV exceeds the requirement with $1,948M was well. Got any ideas of the problem? Appreciated.

[Gumboots]

I'll need more information.

The obvious first thing is that the status page always does CBV in $K. There's no way you would get $1,948M for CBV (that's 1.948 billion) and if you only got $1,948K then that's a bit under $2 million, which is not nearly enough for a win. But then there's no way you would even get Estonia hooked up with a CBV under $2 million, so I need to know the real figure.

I'd also need to know if you got all the other Gold goals. If you're going for 480 pax that implies you are playing on Expert level. Did you get all the other Expert Gold haulage counts? It might be easiest if you post a screenshot of your status page.

[RayofSunshine]

That Gumboots is interesting.
I am not able to copy the Ledger page for some reason, but this is it typed out.

Now this is Jan 1937

Book value -$1,931M
301 Lumber to Riga
553 meat to Riga
Bronze goals completed
Silver goals completed
Gold: Estonia passenger 706
0 loads this year
Bonus alcohol 4 of 10

As mentioned previous, passenger hauls to Estonia yearly is between 40 to 60, and are acknowledged as Estonia satisfied
Alcohol is over the 10 yearly, as get a "satisfaction" and the Bonus of either $100k or $200K.

One year prior of getting the Bonus, I was "evicted" from Russian, but repurchased it, as I discovered that the train from the supply in Poka had a "wrong demand consist".

Hope that helps, as I enjoyed the scenario, with its challenges.