Reviews of Building to the Great West

[Canadian Viking]

Whoo Hooo! The second scenario in my planned Historical Builders trilogy is finished! Building to the Great West has been sent to Hawk and should be posted soon. It is very rooted in history, giving you the chance to build west from Chicago to the transcontinental railroad, but it also gives you several variables which make the scenario worth playing multiple times. Be sure to read the Read Me file before you tackle the game.

I think it is accurate to say this one is more difficult than many RT3 scenarios, so consider yourself very successful if you get Bronze on your first try. If you get Silver on your initial effort, you are a far better tycoon than I! If you need , questions about strategy should be posted in the Scenario Strategy section.

I really loved working on the map, as I grew up in this area and have lived in, or very near, six cities on the map. Plus I have relatives in several others. Just wish I could have included more cities with cool names, such as Owatonna and Ironwood, but the map is loaded to the maximum amount.

Special thanks to Wolverine and belbincolne who play tested it several times, caught my embarrassing mistakes, and made some very helpful suggestions for needed improvements.

Hope you have fun and great success Building to the Great West!

[UncleJR]

Cool! Can't wait to test this one out. Sounds like a hoot!

[Grandma Ruth]

Can't download it, don't know why. If Hawk doesn't see this, I'll PM him and ask him to fix it.

[Hawk]

It's fixed and ready to download.

[Grandma Ruth]

Thanks Hawk

[wsherrick]

I only got Bronze as I had only time to make it to Council Bluffs and didn't get all of the haulage requirements in time. This is truly a high pressure game!!! It is well designed and all of the events seem to work okay. I will try again and put the connection city on random to see which one I get. It's quite a challenge for me to build a profitable railroad while having to meet the westward expansion schedule. I will try it again and see how it goes.
This is an excellent scenario which displays a lot of thought and effort. Good Job!!!!!

[steelm]

Played on normal and got silver. But the PNW goal was far away.

At the start I built to the north first, connecting the AI at Milwaukee. After that I went west following the 'Chicago & Rock Island' route. I bought mainly foreign stocks, but that was a failure. I pushed hard to Iowa City and reached it in december 1857 just in time. 'til 1860 stations have been built in Peoria, Keokuk and Galena. After some improvements I decided to expand further in southwestern direction, because only two possible hubs are in the north. Reaching Macon at the end of '61, I've started the first 'hauling train' with 5 goods to the west. I've played the random path but Council Bluffs should be the destination anyway. The war slowed down everything and I reached only Chillicothe and St.Joseph. But all 'hauling trains' are on their way and I build my first industry (1862 :-0). After the war I finished the trail and silver was mine at 1868. An additional connection goal to St.Joseph and Manhattan was no challenge, but my PNW was a wreck because of six years depression through the game.

It was great fun and I'll try on expert next.

/cu steelm

Some adds:
-I've got a strange event connecting St.Joseph and Manhattan. St.Joseph fired twice(?), Manhattan once but the status report says still 'no connection'.
-I would suggest to add a troop counter in the status during the war. I've missed the first bonus guessing how many loads have been hauled.
-Evansville must be a joke, I can't imagine how ...
-The AI mainly buy back stocks. If you disable it, maybe they build some more.
-The Logos MissouriPacificRR.PK4 and Logo_Hiawatha2.PK4 in the ZIP are wrong (not used by the scenario)

[proudcanadian]

This was a really fun and informative scenario. I played with the fictional terminus, and I ended up having to connect to Sioux City. I had already established a line to Council Bluffs, so it wasn't all that hard to connect to. Unfortunately, I failed to haul enough cargo to Sioux City before 1870 (I hauled the required goods and grain, but not the others). I had a bit of trouble getting down to whatever town it was that you had to haul the civil war goods to, so I missed out on the bonuses. I couldn't haul enough troops because there was only one barracks in Iowa City that was producing troops! I don't think this was a problem with the scenario, though.
Overall, good job CV, and I can't wait for part III

[Canadian Viking]

It is very gratifying to hear reports from those who've tried a scenario I've created, and likely other scenario designers feel the same way. I have just a few minutes to respond to some comments.

silver was mine at 1868

Exceptionally well done, steelm, for a first time result! I bow to your superior tycoon skills.

St.Joseph fired twice(?), Manhattan once but the status report says still 'no connection'.

I thought I had all the event bugs out of this scenario, but I'll check this out. The Game Status page should show the connection as being completed once you have connected to both of the cities, which you did.

-I would suggest to add a troop counter in the status during the war. I've missed the first bonus guessing how many loads have been hauled.

I see your point. There is no convenient way to check on your progess mid-year without a report in the Game Status page. I didn't include it there because, 1) the Status page is pretty full already (and quite complicated with all the possible messages that might be needed), and 2) the troop transport is not necessary for a medal.

-Evansville must be a joke, I can't imagine how ...

It's not a joke, but perhaps a test of decision making. As the advice dialog in the game says, some opportunities may be more of a hindrance than a help to accomplishing your main goals. The Union did ship many troops south from Illinois during the Civil War. Most were sent via Cairo, but since that is too far south to be on my map, I put in this event using Evansville and Alton as the gateways to the south. It is a variable event so you will get one or the other city each game. If you are already building a southern route down near St. Louis, than it may be worth trying to gain the bonueses involved. If you are not already in the area, then it is a distraction that is best ignored.

-The AI mainly buy back stocks. If you disable it, maybe they build some more.

I picked leaders for the AI's that are strong on rail expansion, and I tried several different ways to help them do that with only limited success. Some games they do expand well so it must depend to some extent on the seeding of that game. I'm not fully satisfied with their performance but finally settled for what I hoped was "good enough."

-The Logos MissouriPacificRR.PK4 and Logo_Hiawatha2.PK4 in the ZIP are wrong (not used by the scenario)

You are the first to report this problem so I'm not sure what went wrong. The Milwaukee & Mississippi should use the Hiawatha logo and the short railroad out of St. Louis is the predecessor of the Missouri Pacific and should use that logo. Thanks very much for your feedback.

[WPandP]

Hey CV:

A suggestion on the troops counter (or any other info you might want to track without listing it in the ledger status page) - in my own WP&P / Paston Valley Lines scenario, I set up a reminder message that posts as a game message, in the same top left scrolling text that informs you when a train arrives at a station or when a competitor buys stocks. In my case, it just reminded players that "You still need to connect to the Shenandoah Valley main line" or "You need to deliver coal to Winchester" or what-not. You can make it say anything that could be declared in the ledger; the drawback is that it can get lost in the other messages. But if it isn't that important (or is just redundant reminders as in my case), the Game Message approach works well. You can make it fire as often as you like, too.

[steelm]

-The Logos MissouriPacificRR.PK4 and Logo_Hiawatha2.PK4 in the ZIP are wrong (not used by the scenario)

You are the first to report this problem so I'm not sure what went wrong. The Milwaukee & Mississippi should use the Hiawatha logo and the short railroad out of St. Louis is the predecessor of the Missouri Pacific and should use that logo.

It's no biggy, I just stumbled over it.
The scenario is using a Logo_Hiawatha.imb. The Logo_Hiawata2.PK4 consist of a Logo_MHiawatha.imb. So no match.
Same at MissouriPacificRR.PK4 which has a MPRR.imb in it while the scenario use a MPR.imb.

I guess you have two other logos on your computer that look similar.

/cu steelm

[Canadian Viking]

I'll respond to several other comments.

I had a bit of trouble getting down to whatever town it was that you had to haul the civil war goods to, so I missed out on the bonuses. I couldn't haul enough troops because there was only one barracks in Iowa City that was producing troops! I don't think this was a problem with the scenario, though.

Hauling the civil war goods is a tough project, and doesn't usually fit in well with your primary objective. On the other hand, hauling troops is more readily achieveable. When the war starts, about a dozen barracks are planted in cities that were big recruiting centers for the Union Army. I researched this and most of them are in southern Wisconsin, south-eastern Iowa, and a few major cities in Illinois. A couple times I've hauled 10 troops in a year even though I paid no attention to them; I just let my trains keep running as they had been! When I add a couple dedicated troop trains between cities that have barracks, I've hauled as many as 18 loads in a year. Of course if your route doesn't hit many of those cities, it is difficult to get your numbers up, so every game is different.

Overall, good job CV, and I can't wait for part III

Thank you. And I think you will be doubly interested in part III as it is Building to the (Canadian) Pacific! However, I'm still roughing in the rivers on the new map so it will be months before it is finished.

WP&P, I like your suggestion of using a Game Message to report on troop transportation. Thanks for the idea. I'm going to test out having the message run at the end of every March, June & September during the war years.

Steelm is correct that I've got two similar but different Hiawatha and Missouri Pacific logos in my computer, so I'm checking into this further. I was aware of the two Hiawatha logos and thought I had been careful to pick the correct one. If not, I'll send Hawk a corrected version.

[Canadian Viking]

As steelm noted above, two of the logos I packaged with the scenario are incorrect. For the first 88 people who have downloaded this, I have attached a zip file with what I believe are the two correct logos. Add the two logos to the UserExtraContent file in the Data file of your game, and the logos should attach themselves to the northernmost and southernmost AI railroads in the scenario. My apologies for the initial mistake.

I have one more detail to check in the editor and then will send Hawk an updated file for posting tomorrow.

[Canadian Viking]

I've sent Hawk a corrected version of Building to the Great West which has the proper five logos to go with the scenario. I also added an event so that during the Civil War years, a game message (scrolling text that appears in the top left of the game screen) will report every 3 months how many troop loads you have delivered in the current year. Have fun Building to the Great West.

[Hawk]

The updated version is now available.

[Grandma Ruth]

I've had trouble with the first version - just crashes with the message "Railroad Tycoon has encountered an error and has to close". So I'll download the updated version and see what that does.
The new version's crashing as well. What a shame, it looks like a really good scenario! I wonder if it's because I've got the 1.06 patch installed and this is a 1.05 game? Can you have two versions of RT3 installed on the same machine, so I could have both?

[belbincolne]

Very odd isn't it Ruth? Mine's always played perfectly and yours crashes whereas I can't play others (e.g. Phoenix Rising) and you can. Have tried this several times and best I can manage (on Normal too) is Bronze. On my last start I finally made Council Bluffs and got my $5m but was so much in debt as a result ($6.5m) that I never managed to run profitably again.

[Grandma Ruth]

It's very strange. Do you have 1.06 installed?

[Gwizz]

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.

[Grandma Ruth]

I'll try it. Thanks