The Port of Newcastle

[Glaycyer]

I finished my Newcastle & Port Stephens map the other day and I thought I'd give myself the challenge of writing my first scenario. It's quite a bit simpler than others I have seen, but I'm quite proud of it. The challenge is to expand a railway from Newcastle to key cities in the surrounding regions, while also supplying coal to the Port of Newcastle - the world's largest coal exporting port.

If you all wouldn't mind I'd like some feedback: things I did right, things that are iffy, and things that make you shake your head. Are the quotas for passengers and coal too low? I know they're attainable, I played it through myself, but I did have a year extra after I'd completed all the gold requirements ... although admittedly that was on the easy level.

Should I add some more events or choices ... some flexibility? Suggestions of any kind are welcome! One more thing: As I use Vista I'm on version 1.00 ... are there any problems with other versions?

Have fun playing trains in my stomping ground! I'm thinking of making a totally different scenario, but using this same map as well.

[Glaycyer]

An update: I've decided to up the gold passenger quota to 1500 and double the coal quota to 400.

Also, why is the company name not showing up on my newspapers? Am I doing something wrong there?

[nedfumpkin]

Make sure the event the brings up the news paper applies to human companies as its condition.

[low_grade]

Well I just played through, with the goals being 1000 passengers and 200 coal for gold, on medium in 1.06. Here are my comments:

Very slow starting scenario, but not really a problem.

Had all connections by 1913, and gold conditions met by 1919.

Very quick play, mostly with entire years going by in very fast, about 2 hours total time.

For the Gold event, you need it to check that Years elapsed since game start <30 not >30.

The Player Cash event is unnecessary.

The Newcastle and Maitland connection event doesn't award the player's company the promised $250K.

So, it was a nice breezy local flavor map, but not really engrossing. As you suspect, some more work could be done to jazz it up. I probably wouldn't increase the gold goals, since all it would mean is sitting through another few years in very fast mode, not very exciting. Instead I'd shorten the scenario to 20 years. Or both increase the medal goals and shorten the scenario, to make it a challenge to get gold.

I never once looked through my stations to see if I had more cargo I could be hauling. I just set up generic routes as soon as I built my track and stations and ignored those stations from then on. This says to me that there's no need to maximize this map or to play efficiently. Perhaps also add a PNW or CBV goal to force the player to watch their economics more carefully.

Here's an idea for a fun event, though I'm not sure it's appropriate. In the US, we have County and State Fairs annually where farmers and craftsmen compete to see who has the best products around. Perhaps in 1910 announce that in 1913 the State/Povince/County Fair (or whatever the Austrailian equivalent might be) is coming to Maitland, and that hauling a certain number of meat, cheese, and clothing there before that date will trigger an increase in passenger production and prices for another year as people get excited about what they hear is going to be a really great fair.

Here's another idea: give the player the option of shelling out perhaps $200K-$500K to promote the debut of some upcoming locomotive, like the Atlantic, perhaps 3-4 months before the train becomes available (perhaps make it unavailable in the scenario options, then create an event to make it available in June 1910. If the player goes for it, increase passenger production and prices either permanently or for maybe 5 years.

Here's another idea: early in the game give a message about how services like dining cars and pullman cars and station amenities like undercarriage luggage storage and quick retrieval were highly appealing to passengers. Perhaps start the game with passenger production and prices at -25% each, and then several times throughout the game give the player the option of adding one or another service, in return for which passenger production and prices increase permanently, though perhaps station loading time or engine maintenance or specific engine prices (the passenger trains) may increase, too. Of course some service improvements could actually decrease station load times!

I'd change the engine availabilities in the game slightly, making the Eight wheeler available since the Stirling becomes unavailable 5 years before you get the Altantic, so that you have a gap in passenger engines. It might not be historically a world engine according to the game, but really the Eight Wheeler is just a generic name for a short-lived improved design of older engines that were pretty much available everywhere.

I also felt that the industry availabilities were not too well thought out. There was no iron, steel, or goods, but tire factories were available? What are you going to do with a tire factory when there's no rubber and also no steel for making cars? There are probably other industries I can comment on, but I'll leave it to you to check through the list again and see what makes sense and what doesn't.

Well, I hope you appreciate my comments and don't take them as too much criticism. Honestly, I wish others would comment like this on the scenarios I've been working on! (Hint, hint: feel free to try out my Chile scenario...)

[Sugus]

First of all, in principal I agree with low_grade.

Secondly, I have to mention that - for the moment - I'm ****** to play under Vista with Patch 1.04 (horribly no Patch 1.06). This means, that there's no way to force unprofitable transportations (and also is a really hard handicap for my own maps created at the beginning of this year under an XP/RT3 with Patch 1.06). This all may result in conclusions made by me, which are not really important when playing under Patch 1.06.

Did some unsuccessful random starts because at first I never got happy with this map's startup. The small cities simply did not produce or demand for cargos enough to get money. My best try started in Beresfield with a direct connection to the coal mines (in Mulbring surroundings) due to the demands created by the random startup seeds of RT3. Thereafter I tracked to Newcastle and it seems to behave well. Hmmm - in 1903 the story turns to "red" and stayed there till 1991 - a really boring phase, because all these small cities didn't generate any usefull things to haul!

Afterwards, there was no problem to connect to Maitland and Raymond Terrasse. Also, I had no doubts to reach the hauling goals (200 coals and 1000 passengers). But what happens again? In a sudden no profitable transports any more and a "simply looking onto the red displaying cash screen" phase from 1916 till 1925. Of course, the point of "definitely kill it" was reached ...

@Glaycyer: No offence - the map itself presents well and I had a good feeling when starting to play it. From my point of view you should implement some additional tasks (e.g get a PNW of xxx or haul yyy loads of cheese by 1920, or whatever) and possibly increase to number of coals and/or passengers to meat the golden condition.

Nevertheless, I enjoyed to perform this test ...

[Glaycyer]

I very much appreciate the time and effort you guys have put in to give me some feedback :)

I can't really test the Chile scenario because I'm running 1.00 on Vista :(

low_grade, I've sorted out all those petty little things you've mentioned and am in the process of creating a few events. I'm thinking of making about five different little events that could happen randomly, to add a bit of spice and to make it appealing to play over.

Sugus, I see what you're at. It's a very slow starting map, and I've been busy bumping up the production to make a railroad to those smaller towns a little more viable. I've played the map on hard and 'just' stayed out of the red for the beginning phases. I'm doing as Nedfumpkin has suggested and am in the process of making a few events to keep you all entertained :) Hopefully

Thanks again for taking the time out to give some feedback!

[Glaycyer]

Okay, this is version two, with some additional tasks and a few random events thrown in. I haven't given this one an extensive test, although I have run it through twice. Let me know of any futher issues

[moblet]

Hi Glaycyer,

Fantastic to see a detailed map that's close to home (my grandfather was a coal miner in Newcastle and as a child I spent many weeks each year with my grandparents there, and more recently colleagues of mine have worked on trying to optimise these very coal railing operations). Like the others I felt the scenario could be more challenging and that the industries were a bit of a mess (e.g. tyre factories but no rubber). Here's my two bits' worth;

[This applies to v1, which I was playing while you uploaded v2. Just opened v2 and see that you've added steel and dumped aluminium, which is one of the things I was going to suggest.]

~ I found the scenario relatively lacking in resources, especially being familiar with the region. Newcastle and the Hunter Valley have long been associated with three things - coal exports, the steelworks (built 1915, closed 1999), and wineries. There's also a lot of pastoral land. So you could add both complexity and realism by introducing steel production and a swag of produce farms south of Maitland. You could then add an alcohol haulage target if you wanted (with or without exporting it from one or more ports or warehouses). If you were seeking realistic events, World War I provides the perfect excuse to place demands on steel, military and/or alcohol movement. Iron is not available locally and came in by ship, while most of the steel produced in Newcastle was, as far as I know, exported from the city by rail or ship. Having steel demanded at the ports, and/or at warehouses where the northern and southern mainlines leave the map (Paterson & Cardiff respectively), would be historically accurate. Ditto sending just about any agricultural or timber product south to Sydney. From memory the area north of the river around Maitland is mostly pasture (i.e. livestock & wool) while north of Raymond Terrace is dairy and timber. I'm not familiar with the Port Stephens area, would have to look that up somewhere. If you want to add some or all of these resources to the map but can't be bothered doing it yourself I'm happy to have a go at it.

~ Rice, sugar, cotton, coffee, rubber, oil, and bauxite are not produced locally, so you can happily drop any or all of them without compromising geographical accuracy. Cotton and perhaps sugar could arguably arrive down the northern mainline (at Paterson), but given the amount of produce available, and the amount of space for sheep farms, I wouldn't bother with either. I'd only keep rubber and tyres if I was going to import rubber through a port and build weapons and/or cars. I'd only include oil refining if I was going to import oil, or maybe I would import diesel in exchange for alcohol or steel, or drop it altogether.

~ Having cycled many parts of this map I can assure you that it's not that flat! The southern and south-western portions of the map are, in real life, hilly enough to challenge or discourage railway construction (e.g. there's a ridge requiring a tunnel between Kotara and Cardiff, and at least one road from Kurri to Cardiff is a twisting roller-coaster), so you could make them much lumpier if you wanted to add a bit more challenge. I know it gets lumpy at some stage north of Raymond Terrace too, as the northern mainline detours inland via Paterson to avoid it (although the hills might be further north than this map).

~ I'd suggest putting the debt on the status page so the player doesn't forget that it needs to be zero for Gold. Since zero debt is only required for Gold you could put conditions on its display so it only appeared after the other Gold conditions had been met (or when they're close to being met).

~ Also suggest placing a town called Port Waratah at the Port Waratah port, so that when the player builds a station there it's identified as Port Waratah instead of stealing the name Hamilton. You can set the town to have zero buildings.

~ For the record, I played until 1925 (only because I forgot I had to reduce debt to zero) on Hard level, by which time I'd hauled over 600 coal and 2700 passengers.

Thanks for putting this one together. My eyes nearly popped out of my head when I saw where it was!

[Glaycyer]

I'm going to do a bigger post later (thanks for the review, moblet, I'm currently working on a version 3). Just a quick question: I'm going to include the building and decommission of the Newcastle steel works (1915 and 1999 respectively) ... I've added an event to build the steel mill in 1915, but I can't find any way to get rid of it in 1999. Does anyone have a solution to this problem?

[low_grade]

While you can't eliminate buildings other than stations, you can drop production of steel by 100% in order to simulate the decommissioning of the steelworks. Since it's not producing, it will eventually stop demanding coal and iron as well. You might additionally prod iron production by 100% so ports stop supplying it as would be accurate.

I look forward to giving version 3 a spin! Nice to have folks making scenarios!

[moblet]

I've added an event to build the steel mill in 1915, but I can't find any way to get rid of it in 1999. Does anyone have a solution to this problem?

You can use the Destroy Buildings event effect to destroy all the buildings in a territory. If you create a little territory that's only just big enough to accommodate the steelworks you can use this effect to knock it down when you're finished with it.

Does this mean you're now building a 100 year scenario?

[Glaycyer]

Does this mean you're now building a 100 year scenario?

Nope, but if someone wishes to play through I don't want it to remain there forever, when in reality it's not :P Just a bit of accuracy

[moblet]

Now that's just cruel. Then again, a sadistic streak is an essential trait for any scenario builder...

[Sugus]

WOW!!! I'm back on RT3 under XP with Patch 1.06!

So, i'll intend to work with "The Port of Newcastle" as soon as possible. Nevertheless, there are some maps I didn't complete due to my earlier "Vista and Patch 1.04 beta" related restrictions. Therefore, be patient ... I've never forgot a map till now!

[Glaycyer]

Okay, here's Version 3. It's not perfect ... in fact, probably far from it. There are several bugs I've been unable to solve and I can't see how or why they're happening. For me, the newspaper announcing the opening of the Steel Mill happened in 1911 when the event specifically says 1915. The ports and warehouses are being weird. Not everything is being shown on the ports, and the warehouses aren't showing anything. There are probably several other things as well ... If anyone can help me with those I'd be grateful, and if any of you want to have a crack at editing it yourself go ahead

[moblet]

I can't open this version. I get the message: Data problem: unable to find building type 'vineyard'. Are there some additional files we need to run it? For the purposes of having others test the scenario at this stage it might be simpler to leave them as standard produce farms until the operational aspects of the scenario are sorted.

Also, the zip file still has v2 in it (making it twice as large as the previous upload).

[Glaycyer]

Data problem: unable to find building type 'vineyard'. Are there some additional files we need to run it?

Nah, this can't possibly hint that you'd need additional files ... where'd you get that from?

Sorry, forgot to mention that it needs (as per the error message) the building type 'vineyard' ... Can't have the Newcastle/Port Stephens regions without vineyards. You can find this building type on this web page.

[moblet]

Vineyard's installed and the party's started. The scenario opens too.

Warehouses: the warehouse problems seem to be a combination of not having selected the right "Warehouse" from the list of indistinguishable warehouses (trial and error is the only method I know), and having switched off most the resources that the warehouses use. Bauxite, steel, sugar, and coffee were all switched off in "Industry (Overall)", therefore they won't be available in the scenario and won't appear in the warehouses. By switching these resources on and then trialling and errorring to find the right warehouses I was able to get them all happening.

Steel mill:
~ To time the event correctly try using the condition "GameYearMonth" and testing it at the end of each month.
~ I had this event trigger maybe 10 times in testing and only once did a steel mill appear. I've found that RRT3 can fail to add the requested number of buildings if the terrain isn't flat land; seems to me that RRT3 picks a random location to build, and if the terrain isn't suitable at that spot, it fails to add the building, and doesn't try again. The co-ordinates for this event are likely as not to try to build the mill in the harbour, in which case no mill will be built.
~ The region/cities industry weightings include steel mills, so RRT3 can and will build mills elsewhere at random. As you'll have to switch on steel mills for steel to appear in the scenario, that means the player can also build them (unless you prohibit the player buying/building any industries). Is it necessary for the Mayfield mill to have a monopoly on steel production? Is it necessary to give the mill to the player? I'd consider requiring the player to haul either steel or some steel product, and letting the player worry about where to build the mill and how to pay for it. I'd put a newspaper or dialog or two in there to inform the player of the history, and force the player to rail by a certain year to make sure the mill was built at about the right time. I looked up the mill online and the story I read was that construction was inspired by steel demand due to WWI, and that BHP made a fortune providing steel for weapons, ammunition, and shipbuilding.

Resources:
~ If you're aiming for historical accuracy, few Australians drank coffee before post-WW2 Italian immigrants introduced it.
~ If bauxite is to arrive at Paterson it'll need either to be demanded somewhere else or by an aluminium mill.

Terrain: nice to see a few more lumps in the south but it's still way flatter than the real thing. Go nuts.

Can send you my copy if you want it.

[Glaycyer]

I'm in the process of fixing up what you've mentioned, and I'd love to have a look at your copy

[moblet]

Sent via PM.