Reviews of Building to the Great West

[nedfumpkin]

I finally managed to get to 1858 without getting fired! Now lets see if I can achieve gold. :)

I tend to like to build a solid industrial base to fun expansion, and this scenario makes that strategy difficult. My suggestion if there is a review would be to lower initial industry costs in the beginning of the game, and raise them yearly throughout. It might make it easier to get going.

I do have to say that this scenario is really tough on my machine (piece of crap but it gets my work done) because there is so much going on. One trick I learned is to lay track across the path of the competitors and then stick a maintenance facility to prevent them from expanding.

[Canadian Viking]

Nedfumpkin says:

One trick I learned is to lay track across the path of the competitors and then stick a maintenance facility to prevent them from expanding.

Ned, have you tried connecting your railroad to the end of one of your competitors? That, too, hinders their expansion and will also draw their trains onto your track. One key to a good start in the scenario is to help your Chicago station live up to it's name - Chicago Union Station. Connecting to a couple of your competitors will boost your income as their trains run on your tracks. That will compensate for the fact that you can't load up on profitable industries in the first few years. (The time for buying industries will come a little later.) Just be careful not to overdue this or CUS can become a such a bottleneck that it holds up your own trains. Good luck.

[nedfumpkin]

Generally in games with competitors I tend to avoid any interaction with them because like you said, they get to bogging down your tracks. I don't even like them to buy my stock, so I tend not to buy theirs until after I have all of my own.

But I will say that if I can, depending on the scenario and track restrictions, I like to try to use my track to mess up their expansion plans, and I will sometimes insert sections of my track into their routes so they end up paying me to run their railroads. It's hard to do because you have to time your insertions right, but is good at messing them up.

I also like to set my own conditions when playing a scenario that is separate from the goals of the scenario. So for example, in this scenario, at the present time I only have 1/2 my stock with really low debt. I opted to go for a lumber mill rather than buy back stock when I had the chance.

As a spoiler, in November and December in 1856 the market is depressed so you can get cheap stock. If you can last until then without splitting your stock then you can get lots for less and not go too far into debt. But you have to plan for it so you have lots of cash on hand.

So as it stands now, I have a line from Chicago Union going only as far north as Racine. To the south I have gone to (crap can't remember the name but its across the river) and I will be expanding west via Bloomington. I have a paper mill and a lumber mill both upgraded, and these are supplied by three logging camps. My next industry will be a distiller since I have some produce orchards close by. Also, I'm about 300k in the red personally, and own 20k out of 40k stock. About 3 million in bonds at 8-10%, so I'm good for expansion now and gold is within sight....I think. :)

[belbincolne]

In this (as most) scenarios it pays to build onto your opponents lines - particularly in the north and nearby. After a few years I was always getting £300k from them and one year (of one try of several) I got $1m. The main point I want to make is that it shouldn't slow down your own lines for you because your own train are ALWAYS supposed to have priority on them and I never noticed them not doing.

The snag in this scenario is that it can use up a lot of your valuable annual mileage allowance.

In other scenarios I have had the position where a train on an AIs line never moved - for this reason - and to avoid paying an AI much (rather than stopping my opponents expanding) I always try to connect to the end of their line although (more in other scenarios than this) thats a good strategy too. In this scenario you'll need to run at least an ammo train along an AI line so you need to be connected to it - unless of course you're reaching Council Bluffs by way of the two towns with ammo.

[Grandma Ruth]

I've been able to reduce crashes by slowing down my mouse clicks, even waiting a second more between mouse clicks.
Watching the processor speed, my actions tended to max out the chips capacity which I believe now, caused the errors and crashes I was having.

Thanks, I tried it and also I said "No" to all the newspapers and so on to keep down the activity. It seems to have worked, I lost the game before I crashed again!

Canadian Viking - I don't know if anybody else mentioned this, but I got a message from President Lincoln after he was shot! And some of the newspapers aren't working quite right - they're getting mixed up with one of the "choices". Just little glitches not worth bothering about but if you do another version because of major problems, you could fix these whilst you're at it. Nice scenario, I'm having great fun and going to try again now to survive a bit longer!

Later: No, still getting the crash. No reason I can see, I'm not doing the same thing when it happens or on the same part of the map or whatever. I hate these random things - if you can figure out what's causing something you can do something about it but this makes me -

[Canadian Viking]

I got a message from President Lincoln after he was shot!

The words of an old teacher describe this situation: "He, being dead, yet speaketh!" I think I know what I did wrong to cause that.

And some of the newspapers aren't working quite right - they're getting mixed up with one of the "choices".

Sounds to me like there was a minor glitch in your download. I've never had any problems with this, and no one else has reported it either. I'ld suggest downloading the game again and see if the problem disappears. If there was a glitch in the download, it could be a factor in your crashes, too. When Wolverine downloaded my first scenario, the game seemed to work fine except that he did not get the annual track allocation. There was no problem with the game, just a glitch had occurred in the download. When he repeated the download, the track allocation was there.

I wonder if saying "Yes" to the newspapers would do more to reduce the calculations in the game. The newspaper items are all 1-time events, so once the paper has been seen, the scenario skips over that event for the rest of the game. If the event doesn't fire, I think the scenario keeps checking it every month to see if it should be used, and all that checking would make for more activity I think.

[Grandma Ruth]

Right, I'll try that. I'll download again and I'll answer "Yes" as you suggest. I've downloaded Building to Buffalo and that's OK so far. I wondered if it was something to do with the logo files? That's the only difference I can see from other scenarios that worked fine. I'll let you know how I get on.
Later: No, the newly downloaded game crashed almost immediately.

[Gwizz]

Push your Ctrl, Alt and Delete keys to see what is running in the background. Turn off anything you don't need. This will tell you if something besides the game is hogging memory and causing crashes.

[Canadian Viking]

Sorry to hear that bad news, Grandma Ruth. Sad to say I don't know what to suggest.

[ostlandr]

Just finished my first complete game of this scenario. Made a couple mistakes- ran North to Milwaukee, and built feeder/branch lines- that turned out to be suicide. Went South to Alton/St.Louis, then West to KC. Ended up just shy of Council Bluffs and got booted. Really pays to expand fast in this one, as the revenue seems to support your bond payments.
In one case I ran my track paralell to the competition, then connected to their stations to save the capital cost of building my own.
Was running extra trains for troops/weapons/ammo durning the war, and was hauling coal and iron to the steel mill in Chicago and then steel back to the weapons factory in Alton. Got one bonus for hauling troops- one of the competing railroads had two barracks on their line, so I ran a dedicated troop train on their rail and took the loss.
One other thing- don't be afraid to lay track that ends up in the middle of nowhere. Use up every bit, issue stock and bonds as needed.

[ostlandr]

Awesome scenario. Fun and challenging. First couple tries I never got out of the gate on medium. Third try I ended up just shy of Council Bluffs- ran out of track and time. The war years were actually fun and profitable, unlike some other scenarios.

[Grandma Ruth]

Turn off anything you don't need.

Thanks for the tip but I don't have the knowledge to know what I don't need! There are 43 processes running at the moment but I wouldn't know which to stop and I daren't experiment I can certainly make sure there are no other applications running, at least.
Edited later (at 10 minutes to 2 in the morning!!): I think I've fixed it. I believe it was the logos -I already had the same files in the 3D folder and I think the computer was confused and didn't know where to look! Anyway, I got bronze without really trying too hard, as I was just waiting for the crash to come I wasn't really concentrating. Next time I'll try and get gold!

[Gwizz]

I just checked my XP and I have 3 programs running. One is a gateway update program I forgot to turn off in the control panel. There is no harm in turning any running program off except the one you are using and want to keep running.

If you do turn off one that affects your computer, a reboot turns it back on.

I have hawks site running and Zone Alarm my fire wall. I have 6 hidden programs running such as AVG and other security programs and a couple of Goggle programs that don't show up. I think they only turn on when the computer says I need you and turns them on.

Now my ME machine had all programs listed and I could turn the wrong one off and have to reboot.

[Wolverine@MSU]

It isn't just "Applications" running that can affect performance. Take a look at the "Processes" tab to see all the things that are going on in the background. A lot of it is not needed for normal operation. I have about 35 processes running, consuming about 200 Mb of memory! I know that some of them can safely be turned off, but haven't gotten around to paring down the Services used upon boot-up. There is an explaination of services put out by a guy named Black Viper that details what each one does and which ones you can keep from starting automatically. Visit his site at:

http://www.blackviper.com/

for more details..

[Grandma Ruth]

Thank you both. I think I've identified the problem with this scenario, but your advice is really useful anyway. I get really frustrated with the slowness of the startup, I'm going to see what I can do about it!


Later: No, I'm afraid I was wrong - it's still randomly crashing. What a shame as it is a really good scenario. The couple of times I managed to play it I really enjoyed it.

[RayofSunshine]

This is a scenario from back in 2008, of which I somehow missed, or if played, forgot about it. But I see that others were having a problem in the attempts to get the medals.
>A great challenge, but with a number of bonds, I did manage to get to Council Bluffs. It was there that I "really" started to have financial problems. And my backers "on my back". The challenge was then to supply 5 different commodities to the "warehouse" at Council Bluffs, in the process to continue a Transcontinental Railroad. AND at the same to to not only lay a track to Evansville to help the "war effort", but to haul supplies.
>At this point I have a single track from CHI to Council Bluffs in 1862, and the requirement for lumber would initiate rails NORTH to Minn for the logs, AND at the same time rails SOUTH to Evansville. I didn't even look to see where all the other commodities locations, as I was too far in debt to even attempt further play.
>Guess I will leave the strategy to better players, as this is a great scenario of challenges of them.

[Cliff]

I have just (barely, by the skin of my teeth) managed to get Expert Gold on this gem after a couple of warm-up exercises. I decided to play this map a couple of days ago after completing Canadian Viking's first map: Building to Buffalo -- also a very challenging and enjoyable map.

So, anyway, the first time I tried this I managed to connect to Iowa City and Council Bluffs in time to get the $500K bonus at each place, but I vastly over-reached myself in the stock market and ended up going completely bust in the panic of 1857. I should have been prepared for this, but I wasn't. I started again and was more conservative with my "investing," but when the war started I saw that I could never connect to Evansville in time to get any of the bonuses by hauling stuff there, so I quit and started yet again.

Expert Gold Winning game: Yeah, knowing in advance what events are going to happen is a little like 20/20 hindsight and is sorta' cheating. Well, anyway, in this game I went for the red-herring of connecting to Evansville just to get the wartime bonuses (hadn't read this thread yet, so hadn't seen Canadian Viking's advice about not going to Evansville). I had already laid rails north all the way to Green Bay, 'cause I remembered from my first game that good money was to be made with these connections. Also, I connected my Chicago Union Station to all the other Chicago stations & doubled up the track there (in my 2nd game the AIs made this connection). Also connected my Milwaukee Lake Shore station to the AI Milwaukee station, and otherwise connected to the AI track wherever I could. Bottom line: Over 50% of my annual profits came from the AIs running trains on my rails.

Since I wasted all my available track connecting to Evansville, way down in the SE corner of the map, I didn't get to connect to Iowa City in time for the $500K bonus, and connecting to Council Bluffs was out of the question. The wartime bonuses were a bust! I managed to haul 10 troops twice, by micro-managing a couple of trains. But, even though I hauled a lot of ammo, weapons and livestock to Evansville, I guess I never got 3 loads of each delivered in any given year so never got any bonuses at all. At least they didn't take away victory points by not hauling enough war stuff, like on the "Gilded Age" map. But, once connected, Evansville, Vincennes, Danville and others on the route turned out to be money makers. My only industry was an upgraded textile mill in Vincennes which flourished with the 4 per-year cotton supply from the Evansville warehouse.

Once the war was over, even though the economy was in one of it's common recessions, my company was doing OK. I was just 25 track sections short of connecting to Council Bluffs -- the designated UP eastern terminal -- in the summer of 1867, and figured the connection would be made in January. I got an offer in September 1867 to buy another 200 track sections for a million bucks, but I turned it down. Well, when the calendar year changed I was suddenly a hobo walking on the track behind a rapidly retreating caboose -- didn't realize 'til then that you have to connect to the UP eastern terminal before the end of 1867 or all is lost.

So, anyway, another little white-cheat: I reloaded my last save (July 1867 or so), and when the offer came to buy track for a million bucks I jumped on it. Completed the connection to Council Bluffs ASAP, and then started planning how to deliver all the required stuff. The only thing that was really hard was lumber, but it was available in Green Bay (someting like 2 1/2 years away with my Consolidations carrying 5 dedicated cars of lumber). I hadn't bothered to connect to Rock Island (and a lot of other small towns on the way to Iowa City and Council Bluffs), but I now noticed that Rock Island had an upgraded lumber mill -- so I quickly ran a short line to connect and was able to pull some 20-25 loads of lumber out of there before the time was up (end of 1872).

Once the required goods were all on their way the only remaining problems were to have a PNW of $20 million with $2 million in cash (and having the company be debt free, although that requirement was never mentioned in the briefing). Again, with 20/20 hindsight about the 1857 crash, I didn't buy any stock 'til after the crash, and then I slowly bought into all the profitable companies 'til the depression/recession went away -- got about $3 million on margin. (I could have sold everybody short just before the crash, but convinced myself that this would be serious cheating). Some of the companies were paying huge dividends, so I had my company pay only a small dividend. I wished for boom times, and boom times eventually started in the spring of 1872. I had to issue stock 3 times in 1871-1872 in order to raise enough money to pay off my $10 million of wonderful 5% debt. My PNW hovered between 20 -22 million, but of course I still had $3 million or so on margin. Then, at the very last minute before the end of December, I sold off my best AI stocks in batches of 5000 shares. Didn't take long and I had over $2 million in cash and PNW still above $20 million.

[RulerofRails]

I played this map for the first time. I had started it months ago. But this time when I opened it up I went too heavy on margin (was actually conservative with my old saved game, typical of first attempt) and had to restart at the recession which is probably better to get the overall feel. The goals require efficient use of the limited track supply, but there are enough resource especially Livestock to provide a revenue base. You will need to make sure you have access to resources for later in the game.

I think the key to a good start is not to try to compete with the AI on their pre-built routes. ROI for that can never be good, and therefore you wouldn't want to use bonds, and that would mean slow growth. The clear option I can see is to head to Milwaukee as has been suggested before. It's possible by being very careful with track usage.

I decided against linking up with the AI (I did link to the one in Milwaukee and used his station), because I actually preferred them to be profitable and build up their network, instead of clogging tracks or gifting me too much profit. The obvious exploit of establishing a majority and then controlling a couple of them would make this map a cakewalk, but that's not my style. This way I inherited a bit of extra track when I got around to taking the all over.

The relatively undeveloped resources leave a decent number of industry building opportunities, some of which almost need to be done from a cargo supply stand-point. Taking advantage of these should ensure a solid base, and can be done in tandem with rail expansion. Express is good revenue here, so don't forget those Hotels.

What I did in the second year was to takeover the two southern AI, north of the river. I had made enough ($900ishk) in the first year that my reputation was good enough to takeover any AI I wanted with only the few shares I could buy. I did a saved game and experimented, as I was really not sure which ones to take out. Obviously, I target the ones with a decent cash balance, and higher CBV per share than share price. In combination, credit rating might actually improve. I was playing with my Large station mod, to try to help them out a bit. They are still not that bright. Pre-built Medium Stations are letting them down.

I targeted the Illinois Central, Northern Cross, and Chicago & Alton, since they seemed to have the most strategic value. Also there was some Livestock movement I could capitalize on and St. Louis was a good supplier for cargo. Later, I cashed in on the Livestock and Coal stacks developed there, hauling them to Chicago. From then it was consolidate profits, deal with the recession and expand westwards.

This game has an air of uncertainty and has random elements (including the connection target/s) which is a good touch for replayability. There are options to not have as many information newspapers show up, but there are still a lot that show up anyway. Good to learn the history, but on a replay, I would like to see even less of them. I didn't go in the editor, so am assuming that everything worked correctly with the choices.

These are the bugs I saw:
Counts of wartime hauls to Alton, are blank in the end-of-year notice. From Cliff's post above mentioning Evansville, maybe this is a random location?
Troop Game Message counter is not working, again for the wartime hauls

Plenty to do, but if you know what will give a good ROI and do that instead of desperately trying to head west, it should be doable by most. The map is large, the west feels large and untamed, like it should be. Many thanks for all the hard work that went into this.