Or maybe not. Gave it some more thought.
Medal and goals
The scenario goals make sense on Expert level if you are going for Gold, which is what anyone playing on Expert level will be doing. I'm not sure Expert level even needs a functioning Bronze and Silver. It could just be Gold or Lose.
If not playing on Expert level there is a huge jump between Bronze and Silver, and Gold introduces the need to go into Russia anyway. As low_grade said, it's tending to lose the Latvia-centric feel a bit. It's also going to be more difficult for less proficient players, and given the briefing I think Riga should be a focus for all medals. So I was thinking that a/ difficulty levels lowers than Expert should be able to get Gold without requiring buying into other countries and b/ there should be a more even grading between Gold, Silver and Bronze. With all that in mind I think it should be:
Bronze: 25 Meat to Riga, 25 Lumber to Riga,10 Automobiles to Daugavpils, CBV $10 million.
Silver: 50 Meat to Riga, 50 Lumber to Riga, 10 Automobiles to Daugavpils, 20 Clothing to Ventspils, 20 Paper to Ventspils, CBV $20 million.
Gold: 100 Meat to Riga, 100 Lumber to Riga,10 Automobiles to Daugavpils, 20 Clothing to Ventspils, 20 Paper to Ventspils, 20 Cheese to Liepaja, 20 Fertilizer to Liepaja, CBV $40 million.
Expert Gold: 200 Meat to Riga, 200 Lumber to Riga,10 Automobiles to Daugavpils, 20 Clothing to Ventspils, 20 Paper to Ventspils, 20 Cheese to Liepaja, 20 Fertilizer to Liepaja, 20 Automobiles to Pskov, 20 Diesel to Kleipeda, CBV $80 million.
To help beginners explore the map, territory access costs could be reduced 20% on Medium difficulty and 40% on Easy difficulty. I could even be talked into dropping them 10% on Hard level.
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Territory access events and cash bonuses
The first event, "Baltic Rails", gives the choice of $300k cash up front or access cost reductions on several territories. This is a bit pointless, since at that stage of your expansion the $300k is worth a lot more than the reduced access costs, and later in the game when you actually want access you can usually afford it without any drama. I always just take the $300k. When you work out the possible ROI it easily covers the difference in access cost later ($300k @ 20% ROI over 15 years = $900k in your company's bank account) and it fuels your expansion earlier, which adds to the benefits. The event could be called a government incentive to rebuild Latvia's railways, and you just get the $300k. Easy.
With the other connection events, I think their bonuses should be worked out on the basis of a standard percentage of the likely connection cost. At the moment they seem to be a bit all over the place, and a bit of rationalising wouldn't go astray.
Another thing is the timing of them. If you aren't going to go into Estonia, and there's no need to for any medal on any level, then it's a bit daft having connection bonuses promised for Estonia. It would be simple enough to recode such events so that they are only triggered once you have access to a territory. The countdown to your time limit could then be relative to when you gained access. This is not hard to code (says he after thinking about it for hours
).
Once you have access, there is a monthly event that automatically adds 1 to a given variable every month. If your time limit is 5 years, that's 60 months. Your cash bonus event then just checks the value of the variable, and if it is less than 60 you get paid. That's the simple case for when the bonus offer is made as soon as you buy access.
If you want a delay on the offer that's not hard to code either. Works the same way. If you want to give a 3 year time limit but only make the offer 4 years after buying access, the same variable is still ticking along at one per month, and your bonus event just has to check that the value is < 84.
These would be best as territory variables for the territory in question, since there are so many available and it leaves more critical variables free for other uses.
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Extra events for added interest
low_grade also mentioned the idea of extra optional haulage targets for possible bonuses, as a way of adding interest while waiting on medal goals. Pax haulage related to Estonia was mentioned as one. This is also easy to code, which means I spent yonks thinking about this too.
1/ Estonia: Already very lucrative, even without adding more to it. I think I'll drop the pax production increase for connecting Saaremaa from 100% to 70%, and get into the Livonian cultural thang and require you connect Kuressaare to Kolka. That will save a few checks in the coding, and once someone has got to Saaremaa they will connect all towns anyway.
Anyway, yes a pax haulage quota makes sense as a trade off to the increased pax production. A total of 20 loads/year, hauled to Estonia, would be about right. This would include internal haulage between Estonian stations, since that's how RT3 variables work. If you meet the quota you get a $200k company cash bonus and a $40k personal cash bonus. If you don't meet the quota, you and your company get hit with equal penalties.
2/ Russia: This is Soviet Russia. They don't make agreements. They just make demands. Pskov was the major industrial centre, and it has a steel mill that needs supplying. Access to Russia could come with a demand that you ship 5 loads of Coal and 5 loads of Iron to Pskov, every year. If you do, you get the bonus of not being shot. Soviet Russia is nice place. You will like it there, or else. If you do not meet the quota, then you get fined $200k company cash and $40k personal cash.
But what if the Pskov steel mill doesn't seed? Doesn't matter. You haul coal and iron to Pskov anyway. How you do it is your problem.
As a trade off to this, connecting Pskov could provide increased (20%?) coal and iron production at the ports that produce those cargoes, to make running multiple steel mills a bit easier and provide more stuff to haul. Incidentally, this is another area that needs balancing. Since Steel Mills use Coal and Iron in equal proportions, production should be balanced to equal proportions. At the moment the map produces too much Iron for the amount of Coal.
3/ Lithuania: I wasn't thinking of including a haulage quota/bonus/penalty. Instead, connecting Kleipeda could boost Automobiles production, and simultaneously boost Automobiles price at Pskov. This would provide a slight reserve for games when the placed Riga port doesn't upgrade and the second Riga port doesn't seed (had that happen the other day). The price increase at Pskov wouldn't need to be much. Automobiles price on this map is usually around the $300 range, and it only needs a slight nudge to make hauling to Pskov viable. 3-4% equates to around $9-12/load, which should be just enough difference to give a fairly consistent result. This would mean no need to frig around with warehouse recipes at Pskov. Just get the desired result some other way.
Speaking of which, I can't see any real reason for having an Ostrov warehouse and a Pskov warehouse. Pskov was the industrial centre anyway. Might as well just have the Oil production at Pskov and save a warehouse recipe.
3/ Strugi Krasnye:
I just have a thing about Strugi Krasnye at the moment.
It sounds so
Russian. That region specialises in Meat, Milk and Logs, with Pulpwood being a natural side effect of the Logging Camps. An idea I had would be to not allow Logging Camps to seed in that region. Instead of Logging Camps and Lumber Mills, have a Strugi warehouse that will produce Lumber and Pulpwood for you if, and only if, you adequately supply the workers with beer and vodka. This would be coded as a conversion instead of a demand, and could be a handy thing for the Riga haulage goals. Haul booze to Strugi Krasnye and get Lumber in return. With newspapers telling you if the workers were getting thirsty, and calling you names.
Coding would work like this: Have a Strugi territory with the warehouse inside it. Territory is set to depress Lumber production by 100%, until YTD Alcohol to Terr. is >10. When enough booze is supplied, production reverts to the normal level, which could be quite generous. This haulage would be entirely optional, but should be easy and fun.
Related to this, I was thinking of increasing industry buy/build costs in Russia. During this period private ownership of industry was discouraged. Foreign ownership even more so. Latvians, who had just won a War of Independence against Russia, would have been possibly the least welcome.
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Balancing of port/warehouse conversions
An example is the Parnu port. Conversion is only marginally profitable there, and the Iron production tends to dominate due to being slightly more profitable. This is really the same problem as the notorious 1.06 Furnace: having two possible products usually means one doesn't get made at all. One option here would be a separate Parnu dock and warehouse, so that production could be balanced independently.
But there's still the profitability issue to deal with, since both conversions are running at a massive loss. At the moment Parnu does not produce any meaningful amount of stuff for Steel Mills. Production is negligible, and is all Iron anyway. In terms of running a Steel Mill anywhere on the map, Parnu port might as well not exist. All it really does is supply Cotton and Weapons. If the intent is to have the port be useful for making Steel then there are two sensible options:
1/ Simply make the bloody thing supply what's needed, which in this case really is Coal. Current Coal supply is basically 6 loads/year from Riga. A simple supply of 4 loads/year from Parnu would balance Ventspils port's 4 loads/year of Iron, and increase the amount of Steel that could be produced on the map by 67%.
2/ Alternatively, revamp the conversions to be profitable enough to actually run in the game, and have a separate port and warehouse. The problem here is that Wool and Grain prices at Parnu are commonly in the $60-70 range, and Coal and Iron prices are rock bottom even years into the game. Grain:Coal conversion at Parnu would have to be 1:8 or more to get in the ballpark of being profitable in the 1920's. Not so bad in the late 1930's, but even then it would need to be 1:2. The situation with the Wool:Iron conversion is similar, although not quite as bad.
Given a production limit of 4 for Iron from the port, the practical limit is a 1:4 conversion. That would start to work in the early 1930's but would still be useless before then. IF Coal comes from a warehouse and has to be able to generate 8 loads it could run a 1:8 conversion, but by this stage you have to ask "Why bother?". Just for the sake of saying "Hey look, I'm running a conversion!"? and chewing up 1 load of Grain and 1 load of Wool per year?
On balance, this really does seem to reduce to
one sensible option: simply make Parnu port supply 4 Coal per year. Done and dusted.
And the reason he didn't see them was because he did a robber baron start, so had $3.5 million on the first day.
Слава Україні! 
) which is pretty cheap for what you are getting. Obvious thing to do: boost Estonia to $2,500,000. That would be fair given the revenue potential, and there would be more incentive to explore the other territories if it wasn't so blatantly one-sided towards Estonia. Also change the reduction options to an even 20% for all.
