North America Thru the Ages
Posted: Sun Dec 03, 2006 9:46 am
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
North America Thru the Centuries
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A new single player scenario using a modified Kraellin multi-player map is now available at exdx.net/rt3/ It is intended for those who want to run a railroad over a very long period of time under difficult economic conditions.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thanks for the tip. Where is that website ? I tried everything and could only get an electrical company. Would you try writing out the entire link for us dummies. Not everyone knows what you're thinking.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thanks for the tip. I tried all I knew to find what you wrote as a link and all I could find was some electric company website. Would you please write out the entire link for us dummies. Not everyone knows what you're thinking.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thanks for posting the website for me. I'm one of the dummies. I had great difficulty getting the map to some. The people at exdx made it easy, since all I had to do was to attach it to an e-mail. I'm enjoying their other maps, especially trans siberia which is quite difficult.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yes its daft that the site tells its not been posted when it has so you get it 3 times I've played the scenario several times and I'm stuck and unable to make any progress at 1902. But its quite a fun game even though I don't usually like long ones.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Having taken some loans I'm now up to 1917 and reasonably near gold (except for taking the loans) BUT I've connected 86 towns out of 90 and I've only Reno Boise and Mexico City still to connect to - so where's the 90th? I'm always careful that when I build a station it says connected but could have made a mistake so 2 questions:
1. Are there 90 cities?
2. If there are is there a way of finding which other one is unconeccted?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I had that problem once in a different scenario and discovered after a long search that one of my cities was not connected - why - who knows. In this scenario it also happened once and after an even longer search I discovered that I never built a station to the small city south of Minneapolis the tracks just went right on by - I was planning to build it later since I ran out of cash - but then forgot all about it. Yes, there are 90 cities. Count the cities in your station listing -go by pages (15? per page) and subtract any freight stops. If you're in 1917, however, there's plenty of time to find the last city. Worry more about making money.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I just downloaded it and started to play.
What a shock it was to discover I couldn't use some of my normal tactics (buy industry, sell stock like a madman, etc.)
Guess I'll have to work at being Casey Jones and try to connect as many different lines together as I can to get some of the cross traffic.
I've never played a map that allows 15 computer users! This is going to be real interesting. But it'll make connecting to all 30 cities a bit easier.
Anybody have any tips on where to start, etc?
(I tried up by Chicago a few times but never really got any traction so now I'm starting in Miami and working my way north ever so slowly.)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
My favorite starting place is Chicago to Indianapolis and either Cinn or milwaukee, depending on what's there. Wash DC can work, too. I'd like to know how Miami works out and if you're getting anywhere with the competitors.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I can keep things pretty much under control until around the turn of the century (1900) when all of a sudden it seems like I hemmorhage money.
Plus, if I try to keep enough funds up to get a connection to the west, the stockholders are going to vote themselves a special divident and take 5 mil away.
Ideas?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I usually built a line from El Paso going west. Usually, there's enough cargo to defray the huge upkeep costs. Somewhere in the 1960's is when I really had financial problems, since the I had to connect to the central rocky mts where i couldn't make much money. However, I actually increased cargo rates a little around then to help people finish (assuming they get that far).
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I got a good start connecting Philadelphia and New York to start, then connected to Washington DC and on to Boston. Took a long time to get enought cash to expand though. After a while I got started in the Midwest and connected Indianapolis with Evansville and Nashville. Expanded from there to St. Louis, Chicago and Memphis. Just when I started making some money, the darn dividend thing kicked in if I had any cash left over at the end of the year. Took a big bite out of expansion until I figured out how to beat it.
The secret is to be in the red at the turn of the year, even if by only a few dollars. Here's what I've started to do, and haven't had to pay a dividend in many years: I let cash build up until November, saving the game throughout the month, until just before it goes into December. I use all the cash on hand to expand, spending every last penny on track expansion, stations and upgrading to double track in heavy traffic areas. Payments are made by the company at the start of December, so the company goes into the red. I then start saving games throughout December as cash starts coming in, getting a saved game right before the end of the year (and I mean RIGHT before). Sometimes I have to slow the game to a crawl to catch the revenue from the last train of the year and stop before the year turns. I then spend all of that money (if there is any) right down to the point of going into the red by a few thousand dollars. It's sometimes a little tricky to get into the red, but if you lay track just right, you can use the cash you have and go slightly into the red. More recently, I've found that if there's enough debt left from the beginning of December and one or two trains arriving late in the year tip the scales into a net profit, I stop the game, look for trains that are just about to arrive at their destinations, and stop them. That keeps me in the red and I don't have to pay the dividend. Of course, when the year turns, the gov't asks if I want any money and I say "No thanks" (I'm playing on expert and going for the gold, so no handouts are allowed for the medal), and restart the stopped trains.
I'm in the mid 1870s now, and have about a million and a half in cash to expand in November each year. Haven't looked way out West yet, but have connected to Dallas, New Orleans, Omaha, Little Rock and will push up to Minneapolis soon. I had to restart the scenario several times to get a good seed for the Wash-Philly-NY corridor, but once that was going, I've been able to expand by using the strategy described above. Only wish I would have discovered it sooner, before having to pay out those $100K, $300K, $500K and $700K dividends at the end of a profitable year. I actually paid attention to the directive to keep enough cash around to pay dividends (what a sap I am ).
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
All good intentions go to waste. I guess I should not have allowed that. However, I must admit I do worse things sometimes, but only in other scenarios. Originally, cash was removed even if you had none, but I got into difficulties once and the dividend just didn't seem realistic if I had no cash. I probably should not have added the check cash condition. Any opinions or or comments?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Things were going along real well through the rest of the 1800s. I was able to build along the West coast from Seattle to San Diego and up to Las Vegas and Reno. Also expanded out across the Great Plains to Denver, N. Platte, and out to El Paso and Albequirque (sp) and all the little towns on the Plains. Things were going well until the turn of the century, when a recession followed by a depression pushed me deeper and deeper into the red. Finally about 1905 the economy recovered, but I was $13 Million in debt, and the interest on that debt ate up all my profits and then some, so I was not able to recover. May have to go back and rethink the expansion strategy so early in the game.
I like the idea of working in a tight money environment, but the penalties for building up cash seem a bit extreme. I don't see how you expect a company to succeed if all their profits are given away at the end of the year. I decided to not play with any AIs since there is no provision for buying up their stock for eventual merger. Since you're locked out of any stock transactions, you can't even see what their stock value is to be able to make a reasonable bid for takeover. Even if you do bid, since you don't own any stock, I think the chances of a successful takeover are minimal at best.
Just one more note, I noticed that Green Bay (the water, not the city) is sunken way below the level of Lake Michigan. Was this a defect in the original map you used, or did something happen during your scenario creation.
The overall growth rate seems pretty reasonable. Most of the cities I connected in the early stages of the game have grown adequately and most of the major ones are 4 stars now, but with so many of them connected, and a lot of trains running (over 150) the prices have evened out over the map, driving profits down on many of the runs. I did notice as I plunged into the abyss around the turn of the century that many trains were running at a loss for several years, and I may have been able to cut the losses by retiring some of the trains. I'm going to have another go at the mid- to late-1800s and see if a more conservative expansion strategy along with upgrading already-laid track to double where needed might lead to a better go of it.
I like a challenging scenario; many of the PopTop scenarios are too easy. I've also struggled with Guilded Age several times with no success, but that's a different story.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If you want tight money, you can reduce cargo prices, though it will affect AI as well. Or you can reduce production. Or increase costs - like maintenance costs.
Remember that there are already shareholder attitudes built into the game. Plus if there is a dividend and you are a shareholder, you should get some of it. Dividends affect stock price. Stock growth affects your salary.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I first developed a difficult scenario for RRT2 because all of the scenarios were too easy. I was unaware of this or the RXDX site, so I never published it. When RRT3 came out, I knew that I would need to develop a similar difficult scenario, but due to all of the differences, it took me a very long time to figure out what to do. I had one working scenario when a new mod for RRT3 came out and then my scenario stopped working so I had to rethink the whole concept and that's when I finally bit the bullet and put in the dividend rules. (To think that I bought RRT3 and a new Dell within a week of the game becoming available!) In RRT2 I allowed industries - in fact - it was a must - rail lines became worthless when unpurchased industries disappeared and I didn't have enough money to fix the problem - thus, I had to restart or go back a decade and buy the industry and forgo other rail expansion. I never had that problem with this scenario, but since I still had nightmares about it, I built in stuff to let people keep plaing, even if they went in the hole by mega millions (the bundle of cash works but you just don't get any medals).
Actually, I added the negative cash modifier to the dividend and the bribe for mega cash when in one play test I overexpanded and got way in the hole like you did (too pig headed to take the $1 million) and didn't want to start over, since I love it when I finally get to the GP's.
I tried tighter money thru reduced prices and cargoes but it didn't work - too many routes became unprofitable with lower prices and less express cargo didn't seem to do anything. I think I maxed out on how low I could go.
I had a problem locating Green Bay, so perhaps it was me who messed up. I'm not a map maker like Kraellin, but I really appreciate his and all of the other wonderful maps out there. If I were better at the terain, I would have done something to the rockies as I can never find a decent route for the UP to get to SF. I did lower the hills around Harrisburg to make that route profitable (Horseshoe curve to Pittsburg).
I never ran more than 100 trains to get the gold and in the late game I dropped back to 60 or so. But, maybe I'm too conservative.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I added 15 AI's just so I could hook up to their cities and let them haul stuff over my tracks so I could make money.
I tried buying them out once, but you have to be careful because they may be somewhere like multiple millions in the hole. I just hated the thought of having to pay to use their lines, but in the end it's just easier to let them build up as well, and connect a couple of AI's together so you can milk them a bit.
If you're determined to snag an AI rail, you just have to select the "attempt merger" option and then offer double what the going price is.
However, as I said, you have to be careful of their financial state.
I tend to over-extend myself and next thing you know I'm deep in the hole, so it's backtrack and try again.
It's decidedly a brain buster.
Thanks goes out to Wolverine for putting this all together.
Hawk
North America Thru the Centuries
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A new single player scenario using a modified Kraellin multi-player map is now available at exdx.net/rt3/ It is intended for those who want to run a railroad over a very long period of time under difficult economic conditions.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thanks for the tip. Where is that website ? I tried everything and could only get an electrical company. Would you try writing out the entire link for us dummies. Not everyone knows what you're thinking.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thanks for the tip. I tried all I knew to find what you wrote as a link and all I could find was some electric company website. Would you please write out the entire link for us dummies. Not everyone knows what you're thinking.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thanks for posting the website for me. I'm one of the dummies. I had great difficulty getting the map to some. The people at exdx made it easy, since all I had to do was to attach it to an e-mail. I'm enjoying their other maps, especially trans siberia which is quite difficult.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yes its daft that the site tells its not been posted when it has so you get it 3 times I've played the scenario several times and I'm stuck and unable to make any progress at 1902. But its quite a fun game even though I don't usually like long ones.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Having taken some loans I'm now up to 1917 and reasonably near gold (except for taking the loans) BUT I've connected 86 towns out of 90 and I've only Reno Boise and Mexico City still to connect to - so where's the 90th? I'm always careful that when I build a station it says connected but could have made a mistake so 2 questions:
1. Are there 90 cities?
2. If there are is there a way of finding which other one is unconeccted?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I had that problem once in a different scenario and discovered after a long search that one of my cities was not connected - why - who knows. In this scenario it also happened once and after an even longer search I discovered that I never built a station to the small city south of Minneapolis the tracks just went right on by - I was planning to build it later since I ran out of cash - but then forgot all about it. Yes, there are 90 cities. Count the cities in your station listing -go by pages (15? per page) and subtract any freight stops. If you're in 1917, however, there's plenty of time to find the last city. Worry more about making money.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I just downloaded it and started to play.
What a shock it was to discover I couldn't use some of my normal tactics (buy industry, sell stock like a madman, etc.)
Guess I'll have to work at being Casey Jones and try to connect as many different lines together as I can to get some of the cross traffic.
I've never played a map that allows 15 computer users! This is going to be real interesting. But it'll make connecting to all 30 cities a bit easier.
Anybody have any tips on where to start, etc?
(I tried up by Chicago a few times but never really got any traction so now I'm starting in Miami and working my way north ever so slowly.)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
My favorite starting place is Chicago to Indianapolis and either Cinn or milwaukee, depending on what's there. Wash DC can work, too. I'd like to know how Miami works out and if you're getting anywhere with the competitors.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I can keep things pretty much under control until around the turn of the century (1900) when all of a sudden it seems like I hemmorhage money.
Plus, if I try to keep enough funds up to get a connection to the west, the stockholders are going to vote themselves a special divident and take 5 mil away.
Ideas?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I usually built a line from El Paso going west. Usually, there's enough cargo to defray the huge upkeep costs. Somewhere in the 1960's is when I really had financial problems, since the I had to connect to the central rocky mts where i couldn't make much money. However, I actually increased cargo rates a little around then to help people finish (assuming they get that far).
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I got a good start connecting Philadelphia and New York to start, then connected to Washington DC and on to Boston. Took a long time to get enought cash to expand though. After a while I got started in the Midwest and connected Indianapolis with Evansville and Nashville. Expanded from there to St. Louis, Chicago and Memphis. Just when I started making some money, the darn dividend thing kicked in if I had any cash left over at the end of the year. Took a big bite out of expansion until I figured out how to beat it.
The secret is to be in the red at the turn of the year, even if by only a few dollars. Here's what I've started to do, and haven't had to pay a dividend in many years: I let cash build up until November, saving the game throughout the month, until just before it goes into December. I use all the cash on hand to expand, spending every last penny on track expansion, stations and upgrading to double track in heavy traffic areas. Payments are made by the company at the start of December, so the company goes into the red. I then start saving games throughout December as cash starts coming in, getting a saved game right before the end of the year (and I mean RIGHT before). Sometimes I have to slow the game to a crawl to catch the revenue from the last train of the year and stop before the year turns. I then spend all of that money (if there is any) right down to the point of going into the red by a few thousand dollars. It's sometimes a little tricky to get into the red, but if you lay track just right, you can use the cash you have and go slightly into the red. More recently, I've found that if there's enough debt left from the beginning of December and one or two trains arriving late in the year tip the scales into a net profit, I stop the game, look for trains that are just about to arrive at their destinations, and stop them. That keeps me in the red and I don't have to pay the dividend. Of course, when the year turns, the gov't asks if I want any money and I say "No thanks" (I'm playing on expert and going for the gold, so no handouts are allowed for the medal), and restart the stopped trains.
I'm in the mid 1870s now, and have about a million and a half in cash to expand in November each year. Haven't looked way out West yet, but have connected to Dallas, New Orleans, Omaha, Little Rock and will push up to Minneapolis soon. I had to restart the scenario several times to get a good seed for the Wash-Philly-NY corridor, but once that was going, I've been able to expand by using the strategy described above. Only wish I would have discovered it sooner, before having to pay out those $100K, $300K, $500K and $700K dividends at the end of a profitable year. I actually paid attention to the directive to keep enough cash around to pay dividends (what a sap I am ).
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
All good intentions go to waste. I guess I should not have allowed that. However, I must admit I do worse things sometimes, but only in other scenarios. Originally, cash was removed even if you had none, but I got into difficulties once and the dividend just didn't seem realistic if I had no cash. I probably should not have added the check cash condition. Any opinions or or comments?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Things were going along real well through the rest of the 1800s. I was able to build along the West coast from Seattle to San Diego and up to Las Vegas and Reno. Also expanded out across the Great Plains to Denver, N. Platte, and out to El Paso and Albequirque (sp) and all the little towns on the Plains. Things were going well until the turn of the century, when a recession followed by a depression pushed me deeper and deeper into the red. Finally about 1905 the economy recovered, but I was $13 Million in debt, and the interest on that debt ate up all my profits and then some, so I was not able to recover. May have to go back and rethink the expansion strategy so early in the game.
I like the idea of working in a tight money environment, but the penalties for building up cash seem a bit extreme. I don't see how you expect a company to succeed if all their profits are given away at the end of the year. I decided to not play with any AIs since there is no provision for buying up their stock for eventual merger. Since you're locked out of any stock transactions, you can't even see what their stock value is to be able to make a reasonable bid for takeover. Even if you do bid, since you don't own any stock, I think the chances of a successful takeover are minimal at best.
Just one more note, I noticed that Green Bay (the water, not the city) is sunken way below the level of Lake Michigan. Was this a defect in the original map you used, or did something happen during your scenario creation.
The overall growth rate seems pretty reasonable. Most of the cities I connected in the early stages of the game have grown adequately and most of the major ones are 4 stars now, but with so many of them connected, and a lot of trains running (over 150) the prices have evened out over the map, driving profits down on many of the runs. I did notice as I plunged into the abyss around the turn of the century that many trains were running at a loss for several years, and I may have been able to cut the losses by retiring some of the trains. I'm going to have another go at the mid- to late-1800s and see if a more conservative expansion strategy along with upgrading already-laid track to double where needed might lead to a better go of it.
I like a challenging scenario; many of the PopTop scenarios are too easy. I've also struggled with Guilded Age several times with no success, but that's a different story.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If you want tight money, you can reduce cargo prices, though it will affect AI as well. Or you can reduce production. Or increase costs - like maintenance costs.
Remember that there are already shareholder attitudes built into the game. Plus if there is a dividend and you are a shareholder, you should get some of it. Dividends affect stock price. Stock growth affects your salary.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I first developed a difficult scenario for RRT2 because all of the scenarios were too easy. I was unaware of this or the RXDX site, so I never published it. When RRT3 came out, I knew that I would need to develop a similar difficult scenario, but due to all of the differences, it took me a very long time to figure out what to do. I had one working scenario when a new mod for RRT3 came out and then my scenario stopped working so I had to rethink the whole concept and that's when I finally bit the bullet and put in the dividend rules. (To think that I bought RRT3 and a new Dell within a week of the game becoming available!) In RRT2 I allowed industries - in fact - it was a must - rail lines became worthless when unpurchased industries disappeared and I didn't have enough money to fix the problem - thus, I had to restart or go back a decade and buy the industry and forgo other rail expansion. I never had that problem with this scenario, but since I still had nightmares about it, I built in stuff to let people keep plaing, even if they went in the hole by mega millions (the bundle of cash works but you just don't get any medals).
Actually, I added the negative cash modifier to the dividend and the bribe for mega cash when in one play test I overexpanded and got way in the hole like you did (too pig headed to take the $1 million) and didn't want to start over, since I love it when I finally get to the GP's.
I tried tighter money thru reduced prices and cargoes but it didn't work - too many routes became unprofitable with lower prices and less express cargo didn't seem to do anything. I think I maxed out on how low I could go.
I had a problem locating Green Bay, so perhaps it was me who messed up. I'm not a map maker like Kraellin, but I really appreciate his and all of the other wonderful maps out there. If I were better at the terain, I would have done something to the rockies as I can never find a decent route for the UP to get to SF. I did lower the hills around Harrisburg to make that route profitable (Horseshoe curve to Pittsburg).
I never ran more than 100 trains to get the gold and in the late game I dropped back to 60 or so. But, maybe I'm too conservative.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I added 15 AI's just so I could hook up to their cities and let them haul stuff over my tracks so I could make money.
I tried buying them out once, but you have to be careful because they may be somewhere like multiple millions in the hole. I just hated the thought of having to pay to use their lines, but in the end it's just easier to let them build up as well, and connect a couple of AI's together so you can milk them a bit.
If you're determined to snag an AI rail, you just have to select the "attempt merger" option and then offer double what the going price is.
However, as I said, you have to be careful of their financial state.
I tend to over-extend myself and next thing you know I'm deep in the hole, so it's backtrack and try again.
It's decidedly a brain buster.