Denver and Western

[Hawk]

The following text is a compilation of what was salvaged from the old Gathering Forum. It contains postings from several different people.
Thanks goes out to Wolverine for putting this all together.

Hawk

Denver and Western
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I have posted version 2 of Denver and Western on The Terminal and Heineken and Pacific. Since this is my first public scenario I am interested in comments to help improve my future ventures. I like making scenerios but have not made any maps.
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Just had my first bash at this and have to say that I dont understand what I'm supposed to do. Dont see how I can haul more goods into Denver than other railroads given there size and I never managed to haul either enough coal or coffee/oiletc to stop me being fined which left me regularly having to sell off stock so there was no chance of having enough to attempt to take over the AI's - especially with Eleven(?) needed!!!!
Am I supposed to run dozens of trains on competitors lines? The other puzzling thing is that although virtually all my trains are running at a loss and I've no businesses I keep making profits somewhere and my capital keeps growing. I suspect that if a train makes (say) $100k on a journey but I have to pay the whole of this to the track owner although it shows as Nil on the train log the D&W still gets the cash.
It's a nice idea but can you give us a few clues
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I have played this scenario dozens of time but only succeed about half the time. You can win. The events are random so the game will change every time you play. Hints; buy stock early in other companies and not in D&W. Hauling loads to Denver means to either Denver station from anywhere (other Denver station). If I tell you to much, it's not fun to play. You can win. You will be surprised because the Denver business man can never make up there minds what you are supposed to do (lke real life).
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Where is this scenario available? Does someone have a link?
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H&P has version 1 at this time. Terminal has version 2 http://theterminal.dune2k.com/?p=rrt3-f ... ps&maps=22
If you are a new bee you may be happier with version 1. It is not as difficult.

[Hawk]

I've just added Version 2 to my site.
I didn't even know there was a Version 2 until a friend commented he was having problems with this scenario and I looked here.

[ostlandr]

This one is driving me nuts, too. Fun scenario, but. . .

On my latest try, I managed to take over some short lines and was doing okay in the stock market. Had a big stake in Kansas Pacific (since I'm using their tracks constantly) and a controlling interest in my next merger target. I just needed to raise enough capital to build the Moffatt tunnel, and then I was really going to make money. Then the coal charges started sucking up all my profits. And then, to add insult to industry, the warehouse at Cheyenne burned down, cutting off half my supply of Coffee, Sugar and oil (and my only profitable source, as I had track running to Cheyenne.) Tried running unit trains of coal on competitor's tracks, but the line on the right edge of the map is completely clogged- even spent my own capital to upgrade a single-track stone bridge, but still no luck. Couldn't manage it. Those fines pushed me over the edge and I lost my shirt when I had to dump all my stock to make a margin call. Worst part is, I need to go Bankrupt with D&W, but on paper it's making money- the game doesn't recognise all that coal as operating expenses.

One trick that works is buying up stock in a failing company, then having Denver & Western take it over. If D&W is flush, that's a handy way to transfer company funds to your own account- buy heavily on margin, then have D&W pay more than the stock is worth in the merger.

Has anybody beaten this? I am at the point of changing the scenario to either reduce the coal charge or convert it to higher fuel costs, and reduce the fine for not hauling the stupid oil, sugar and coffee.

[wsherrick]

This game seems to have some bugs in it. There are a lot of events and I never felt like going through the editor and checking through all of them.

The first thing you need to do in order to insure a good start is to take over Denver Rail at the start of the game with it on pause. It is located at the bottom of the stack of companies. Then you can start out with a station in Denver and it is easier to get the haulage requirements.

[ostlandr]

That works. I buy up every share of Denver Rail I can, then have D&W buy me out. Then I buy into all the AI roads. They pay good dividends. It's nice to see those track fees D&W pays to Kansas Pacific coming back to my stock portfolio.
I managed Bronze twice, but Silver is out of reach for me on medium. I think I need to take a different tack with this one and do the 'Jay Gould thing' by deliberately running D&W into the ground while lining my own pockets. Then start a new company (which gives 10,000 units of track BTW) and buy out the shell of D&W for pennies on the dollar.
Running unit trains on foreign rail for huge distances is expensive, but cheaper than paying those huge "fines" for not getting the coal hauled.
Feeder lines help, too- the AI doesn't seem to connect industries, so use 4-4-0 Americans (switch to Camelbacks when available) to haul coal from the mines and drop at the AI stations. Buy the mines, if the AIs don't beat you to it. Lumber and paper mills are profitable the same way even in AI cities. In one try I built a steel mill in Cheyenne to help persuade the AI to help me haul coal. This worked, as I was bringing Iron in from over by Pueblo, giving my coal unit trains a backhaul.
Another problem was congestion. I ended up having to spend scarce capital and track upgrading my lines and even bottlenecks on the AI tracks. Southern Pacific had so many trains on my single track line it was killing me, since I couldn't get the coal (and coffee, sugar and oil) to Denver fast enough.

This game seems to have some bugs in it. There are a lot of events and I never felt like going through the editor and checking through all of them.

The first thing you need to do in order to insure a good start is to take over Denver Rail at the start of the game with it on pause. It is located at the bottom of the stack of companies. Then you can start out with a station in Denver and it is easier to get the haulage requirements.

[BikerTim]

What I am curious about is if anybody ever wins anything above a bronze medal in this scenario. The $100 million book value is certainly doable, and I think if a person uses good enough strategy, they might even make it to $150 million and also connect to the three cities. The really difficult part is the number of railroads in business. The chairman of the UP always starts with a great majority of the stock in his own railroad, putting what would already be a prohibitively expensive acquisition even further out of reach. On top of that, once the shares of UP are all bought up, which does not take very long, the chairman of the UP starts using his immense wealth to aggressively buy up shares in the other railroads. After about ten years, he usually has majority control over most, if not all, operating railroads. Because he never buys anyone out, the number of companies in business remains high. Not only that, but if I do buy out a small railroad early, its chairman almost always sets up another railroad, further undermining the chances of getting the number of railroads in business down. Last time I played, the chairman of the Kansas Pacific started a new business of which he was the 100% shareholder. How is anybody going to buy that out? So I would like to know what strategies can help overcome this.

Besides that, I have found a few ways to enhance results despite the prohibitive obstacles. Early in the game, it is a good idea to start several trainloads of coal from Southwestern Wyoming and oil from Union Pacific Junction toward Cheyenne. Just be sure to stop the trains before they reach Cheyenne. Then, after the connection between the D&W and the UP is made, change the destinations of these trains to Denver and start them up. These trains are likely to reach Denver pretty quickly, thereby giving the player a leg up on the heavy haulage penalties. As for avoiding the $50K penalty for not hauling the most loads into Denver, the key thing to remember is that your arch rival is the Kansas Pacific. Try to buy the KP out as early as you can. Then the $50K hauling penalty will no longer be a problem.

[BikerTim]

The curve balls in this scenario never cease to amaze me! The last couple of times I tried it, I was well on my way to $100 million BV, and had a shot at $150 million while making the three connections. Suddenly, the scenario changed goals on me. After that, whatever I did with D&W did not matter. My ability to acquire more track laying vanished. Instead, I was expected to take the chairmanship of DRC and work toward new goals for that business. The first time, I did not have the 10% of company stock required for becoming chairman. The next time, I made sure that I had the required 10%. It still took several years before the other stockholders approved making me chairman. At that point, I was given extra time to attain the new goals. But the "number of railroads in business" requirement still prevented me from getting any higher than a bronze medal.

[ostlandr]

Yeah. I got so frustrated with this one I gave up. Eventually I will get up enough ambition to rewrite the scenario so it's winnable.

[BikerTim]

I am trying to modify this scenario myself to make its win conditions more reasonable. I have hit a couple of stumbling blocks. Perhaps somebody could help me. First, can things be arranged so that none of the computer players are chairmen of any of the pre-existing railroads? I want them to start new railroads, not chair the existing ones, so that everyone will have a fair shot at the pre-existing railroads.

Second, what do I need to do to set the stock prices of the pre-existing railroads to something more indicative of true market value? I believe this would add a realistic piece of strategy to this scenario.

[JayEff]

1. In the editor, you can become any player by ctrl-clicking on him. Then resign and move on to the next player till you are done.

2. You cannot control the exact price, but if it is out of equilibrium, you try letting the game run in editor mode also, before saving it again. Be sure to set it for negative industry growth so that new industries will not appear while you do this. And make sure you don't lose any pre-build industries that are important to the game (rebuild them if they disappear).

[BikerTim]

Tried it last night. It did not work. I could gain control of the player OK, but when I got to his company, "Resign" was not one of the options. The problem could very well be on my end. Whenever I start up, the system will not acknowledge several scenarios that I know I have saved. It is particularly bad with the scenarios that I created myself. The 1.06 patch industries are all preceded by ~4000 and something. Whenever AI start railroads, the logo is usually that green shield-like logo with the thin gold lettering that looks like an H with a vertical line down the middle. It seems like some other functions are not working right, either. Any more suggestions?

[JayEff]

I just loaded D&W in 1.05 and had no trouble. The resign option is there. Possibly you x'ed the box that says you cannot resign or be fired?

Another comment- the more prebuilt railways and companies there are, the more chance there is for bugs. Bad track can be a particular problem. D&W, with so much pre-built, and then taking a 1.05 map and editing it in 1.06 might just be too much.

[Stoker]

I decided to give this scenario another try after getting some feedback on my latest map effort "LA & L.A." implying that it was perhaps "unwinnable". La & L.A. is in fact quite winnable, and I am actually considering throwing in a few more curve balls just to spice things up . But in light of hearing that someone thought my scenario unwinnable, I decided to have a second look at two scenarios I myself had considered unwinnable. The first was Building to the Great West, and last night I actually managed to get Gold on Expert thus dispelling my belief that it was unwinnable. The other one I suspected was not winnable was this one, and this one also has proved winnable, even on Expert. The key to this scenario is gaining control of Denver Rail & Commerce in the first moments of the game. Heres how I did it: First sell off both shares of Denver & Western that you start with, then issue stock 2 times, and issue Bonds, which should give you $1,810,000 in company cash.Now merge with the liquidated company "Denver Union Terminal" which has a merger price of negative $3k, which gives you $2k extra in your comapny cash Next, buy all 20 shares of Denver Rail. All of this while the game is on pause at the start of course. After you have bought up all 20 shares of Denver Rail, the share price will be $24. You want to be able to transfer ALL of that company cash to your personal account, so you need the Denver Rail share price to be higher . Do this by letting the game run for 1 second and then pause it again, and you will see the Denver Rail price jump to $49. Now, merge with Denver Rail, adjusting the offer to use every dollar you can from your company cash, which should be $1,800,000. You should now have $1,612,000 in your personal account. Denver Rail & Commerce shareprice should be $159, allowing you to purchase 15 of the 20 shares. Now call up the company info and perform a chairmanship takeover of DR&C, and then buy back the remaining 3 shares, leaving you with 15/17 shares. Now, while still paused, short sell 7 or 8 shares of Denver & Western stock , let the game run for a second until the price plummets and pause. buy back the shorts and all of the shares and then merge D&W into your new company DR&C, which gives you the track and Denver station that came with Denver Rail.

[Stoker]

Now, there is an event that triggers at the END of the month that will give Denver Rail & Commerce 10,000 sections of track and SET ( not ADD to) the company cash @ $3,000,000.Therefore you want to spend all of the company cash before the end of the month. I chose to upgrade the Tool & Die in Denver and buy a grain farm. Heres the deal with this: The game ledger will now not display your "goals" but you dont need to actually be chairman of Denver & Western to win, and the events scripted to give you track and $ when you get control of DR&C make me think this is what the scenario writer planned on you doing. The event scripting in this scenario is complete garbage, but I think this is the way the writer meant that the scenario is "winnable", and proceeding from here its pretty easy to gain control of all the other companies EXCEPT for Union Pacific, but it is simple to end up with only two companies, one of course needing to be Denver Rail & Commerce which is now your company. The Coal and Delivery quotas are triggered by ANY companies stations connecting Denver and Cheyenne, and they are triggered at the END of the year. I countered this by "baiting" the AI to connect with my line, keeping a sharp lookout for it, and then bulldozing one section from my line, and the AI of course will not fix this, thereby stopping the Coal and other haulage requirements from kicking in. Even if they do kick in, with 10,000 track sections and a good income from DR&C you can run your own line to the coal and meet the quota to avoid the penalties. There are a bunch of random curveballs in this scenario, but using this startup method I have got Gold on Expert in this scenario a few times in a row now. Give it a whirl if you too were frustrated (as I was) by this scenario!

[BikerTim]

Hey, Stoker! Thank you for the good advice! The first time I tried it, I did not do it right and lost. So I reread your strategy, then tried again. This time I did not follow your strategy to the letter, but still got the gold medal. So THAT'S how it's done! Many scenarios have tricks in them that a player needs to figure out in order to win. This one was harder to figure out than most. Thanks again!

[RulerofRails]

Just played version 2.0. There are a couple of bugs in the events, but this is a good map for re-playability. A few years back I played version 3.0 for 1.06, but I believe that this version is more difficult as you only get 8 pieces of track per load of Steel hauled compared to 15 in v3.0. Also, no hauling at a loss rewards good economy planning.

Conditions of my play: no manipulation of stock prices for any reason, no starting new companies or switching chairmanships (except the switch described below), no long runs on AI tracks for the Steel, Coal, Sugar etc. hauls, no deliberate re-hauling of these cargoes including no running trains between the two Denver stations, no tracks parallel with any of the AI's, stations only in the cities, issuing stock was allowed.

It's possible to blitz this one in a multitude of ways if you manipulate the stock market and buy early control of the Pacific or Kansas Western. Maybe even under 10 years. I wanted to change things up a bit, and try what seemed like a bad start option, This was the initial bonus offer (cash/track) for a connection to Ogden up from Salt Lake City. I discovered that if you hold off placing that station and use up all 300 track units you are given to start the route north from Denver to Cheyenne, then place the Ogden station, the remaining 300 units will just make it all the way to Cheyenne. This seems like a good play as Steel can be hauled solely on your rails if you merge with Denver Rail as I did. The downside is that you will get charged the crippling fuel surcharges starting in the second year. As I didn't want to build track parallel to the Union Pacific out to Evanston, Wyoming to get Coal, I had to pay this cost for many years until my lines reached Moab, Utah. To counter this cost I issued stock for some years until I started buying lots of shares.

While it is the most straight-forward way to a medal (unless you are jumping ship and starting companies often), it isn't necessary to develop the DRC from near the start. You should keep it around; however, until all the other companies are merged (except Union Pacific), you have made all required connections, and you reach 150M CBV after the potential cost of the merger is factored in. Medals are awarded at year end, so do the merger in November. Between the years 15 and 21 the board of the DRC will tell you to takeover their company. Once you receive this notice you will then have to control the DRC for at least a month in order to have a chance at the medal. But, it's possible to then switch back to control of the D&W. Once back there, you can merge with the DRC and as long as CBV is at least 125M you will get a medal at year end. It doesn't matter if you made the connections to Durango, Steamboat Springs, etc..

On my play, I had set my sights on saving enough (~120M) to merge the Union Pacific at double the share price. When I got the notice to takeover the DRC I was making 20M per year. I had read the briefing carefully and thought that if I had the D&W and DRC only I could win without leaving control of the D&W. A little look in the editor proved the briefing message to be mis-information. I discovered that there was now a test attached to the medal that required that I had been chair of the DRC at least once. I was a victim of my own success, as while I was chairman of the D&W I had expanded it to the max. I even owned most of the farms as I got a great opportunity to buy them when all the crops failed. I wanted to grow the DRC properly, but there were only 5 or so unconnected towns left and very limited industrial opportunities, so I got a medal in the slightly sneaky way I described above. To perform a proper takeover of the DRC, PNW should probably be one of the main focuses of how you run the D&W. Have majority control of most everything in time to do some serious merging once you switch to the DRC.

Tip:
Make sure you expand your railway to all the potential city pairs that the AI will seek to start a company to connect before performing a merger that will make one of the AI men rich. If there are no opportunities, they will not start new companies.