Shattered Union - my "real" RISK map.

[PJay]

Preface

I'm reposting this here. This info was on hawk's old forum and on the gathering forum; both of which are down now. Luckily it was still available on railroadtycoon.info


Introduction

Some of you might know I've once created a test map for a RISK-kind of scenario. It proved the events all worked like they should, and I could start working on a real full-world map. I did a little work on that, but found actually colouring and setting country, region and city industry properties a lot more difficult. Long story short : I never finished, because I didn't like the map-editing.

Now, I recently re-installed RT3 to play Alternate USA because it stings me I've never been able to finish that map. :D However, while playing it, I suddenly realised this was the ideal map for my RISK scenario.


General info about scenario rules

I have played it a few times now myself, and it works reasonably well. The challenge is to haul the most revenue to a state. I changed the event from "loads hauled to" to "revenue hauled to" to prevent abuse by dropping the cargo and then picking it up again, dropping again, ... like you can do in alternate USA. "Revenue hauled to" counts the price differential (ie: the coins you see in the trains window) before deducting maintenance etc...

While this all works well from the event side, the performance of the AI had to be a lot better than standard. This map expects players to expand like mad and as we all know, the AI is not too good at that. Because of that I have included some special things to boost AI expansion and limit the human players' cash:


limiting the player

Buying and building industries is enabled on the game level, but it should only be used by AI's. I could not disable this for the human, but I was able to rise prices 1000%. Ofcourse, should you have lots of cash, you can still buy or build one, but don't do it, because if your industry profits are not exactly 0, you'll lose the game too. Warning: This includes taverns, hotels, post offices and restaurants.


boosting AI track expansion

=> AI doesn't pay maintenance. Not for track, not for engines (this make a big difference for big railroads)
=> Track, station and fuel cost reduced by 60%

I originally had buying/building cost for industries reduced by 40% for AIs too, but then their focus was too much on industries and not on track expansion anymore, so I removed it again.

I inserted 11 AI's (each one can be played by a human too, so this map can be played multiplayer too). From my experience, 3 of them will start a company in the first year and 2 will survive. In the following 10 years the others might start a company too, but half of them won't survive their first year. So, all-in-all you should have 3 or 4 competitors that stay allive for more than 1 year, spread around the map, with lots of cash (usually sitting on +/- $ 30M) and about 5 - 10 stations each.

Oh, and stock market is disabled too ofcourse, just like being fired, merging etc...

Scenario goals

When you start a company, you have acces to all countries for the first year. At the end of the year, everybody loses all acces except in the countries where his railroad was "best in class". After this, everybody also recieves acces to all the neighbouring countries.

You win when you have access to all 12 states, and all AI companies are dead. You die when you have no access anymore to any state. You can move your territory by expanding in the neighbouring states and trying to haul most revenue there of all railroads. This can be tough if you try to enter a well-develloped AI territory. If the AI connects to your track and sends out swarms of his tracks in "your" state, watch out for not loosing acces rights to your mainline.

There is no time limit on this scenario, take all the time you want. I added a scoring system to compare how well you did. The sooner you win and the sooner you have acces to a lot of territories, the higher your score.

General gameplay tips

Don't try to "block" the AI or use any cheap tricks, because this scenario is only fun if the AI performs and expands his railroad well.

Wait a few months to start your empire and choose an unoccupied state. If you start your railroad in january and find an AI who also chooses "your" state as starting point, you'll almost certainly loose the game after the first year.

In general, I think this is a nice map of the USA for those who want to just play without time limits or scenario goals to think about. For those who enjoy creating a railroad that spans the whole map and performs very good in every little corner of it.

After playing a few times, I noticed these general tips:
-> Starting in Texhoma might not be the easiest thing to do, lots of competition there.
-> Take a good look at the cargo screen before expanding
-> Unconnected track is allowed !
-> Watch out for Arizona / Lousiana, there are very few cities in those territories.

Scoring

So, from version 1.0 onwards, I added a scoring system to this map. You start with 1000 points.
-> every year : -2 points
-> every year, for every territory :
----> most revenue hauled : -0 points
----> acces rights, but not most revenue hauled : -1 points
----> no acces rights : -2 points

With 12 territories, expect -20 points / year in the beginning and -7 / year at the end.


Official Scoreboard (post your scores in this thread, I will edit this msg) :

points : years elapsed : name
-----------------------------------
954 : 4 : RulerofRails
883 : 10 : Wolverine@MSU
830 : 13 : Wolverine@MSU
811 : 13 : RulerofRails (no bonds, no unconnected track)
762 : ?? : Orange46
730 : 20 : PJay


Shattered Union

Well, I've chosen this name because it's Poptop's next game and I'm using Poptop's map.
I've also chosen it because the theme is slightly similar : a "war" in the USA.
I've also chosen it because I can't stand the lack of info about their next game.


Where to get it

The last version is currently available here:
railroadtycoon.info
hawkdawg.com


Version History

2005-09-30 : Shattered Union 1.02
* bugfix : removed "." in the map name, so the map isn't colour all-green anymore. (if you have the 1.01 version, you don't need to download it again, just change the filename from "Shattered Union 1.01.gmp" to "Shattered Union 1_02.gmp")

2005-09-20 : Shattered Union 1.01
* bugfix : loose event didn't fire when you lost all your territory acces

2005-09-19 : Shattered Union 1.0
* added : score system
* change : more usefull ledger information
* change : doubled the number of players
* bugfix : prevented AI boost to be applied multiple times to the same company

2005-09-16 : Shattered Union 0.5
first version

[belbincolne]

Well I've never had much success with this before so I downloaded the latest version and got gold (only on Normal) in 1925 with 747 points. Perhaps its because I understood it a bit better. Mind you I forgot disconnected line building was allowed - if I'd remembered I could probably have won earlier.

Two things. First I waited as suggested to see where the AIs got started - and it took so long that it was about July before I started up and it was too late and I got booted straight out :? :( So next start I picked the best looking spots and grabbed them (obviously centrally so I could expend anywhere easily). Worked a charm.

The other is that I've started connecting to AIs just for the other income it usually generates. What happens here? Does their cargo runing on my lines count towards their total?

Anyway founf the scenario worked really well and was great fun to play.

[Cliff]

I haven't played this scenario for over a year, but I remember that I played it two or three times on expert and found it way too easy. I Forget the actual winning scores, but the scenario seemed to be a cake-walk. The AIs weren't very aggressive, and disappeared the minute you beat them in yearly hauls.

I put this scenario aside and turned to "Alternate USA," a diabolical scenario that took me three attempts to finally win on expert.

-- Cliff in Virginia

[RulerofRails]

I saw this while searching for info about turning territory rights on and off. When I saw the score system I couldn't resist having a go. Here's my result on the second attempt:

I expected to have to connect all the territories for the medal, but instead I was surprised with a medal after 4 years. Playing this with unconnected track would obviously make it more difficult. I found the company that gets a stronghold in The Republic of Arizona the hardest to beat. This time another company had connected Tucson to Hermosillo. But it was was destroyed because I think it failed to haul any loads into Mexico one year. So Tucson was already "connected" so the AI wouldn't connect there again. So beating him was easy with tracks parallel to his between Phoenix and Flagstaff and then the connection to Tucson. All the Goods that were being made in Flagstaff and Phoenix gave around 40k per load in Tucson and that was enough to beat him in yearly revenue. I used some Shays too. This was a good place for them. I haven't used them for a good while. About time.

The Meat/Cheese/Diesel combo in Houston and San Antonio on this map make a line from Houston to New Orleans my preferred start. In fact given the great supply of resources on the map, with correct management, trains are better than industry so no industry is not a disadvantage. I like the concept of territory superiority. The AI just aren't smart enough to make it a good challenge. Multiplayer would be a different story. Things could get quite interesting . . .

[PJay]

Wow, I was really surprised to see a reply to this thread in my inbox.

Glad you liked it and indeed, the AI doesn't really know how to play this scenario.

That is quite an impressive score you have there after 4 years.
You don't need to connect all territories, but all the opponents need to be out of territory and you should have access to all territories.

I know I tested with disabling unconnected track, but I don't really like to play that way because it always seems easier to build a junction like I want if I start to drag the mouse from the "open" towards existing track instead of the opposite way. You can of course still play the game by abiding to "no unconnected tracks" as your own rule.

[RulerofRails]

Wow, I was really surprised to see a reply to this thread in my inbox.

I reckon I am more surprised that you replied! I saw you hadn't logged in for quite some time. I am guessing you were mainly involved with RT3 before this forum was formed in its current incarnation. I must say thank you for your notes and the tool for bmptogmp! Not a few of the newer maps have been made using this tool.

I discovered the railroad series with RT3, then went backwards to RTII, forwards to SMRR, back to RTII, and finally I am playing RT3. Unless circumstances prevent me, I think I am playing RT3 as the game world is the most immersive so far, in my opinion at least. I admit the original campaigns weren't much, but some of the stuff by people such as Lama, Oilcan, and EPH is really great and proves how complex and immersive the game can really be made.

I have tried in a few posts to write out my strategy for medals such as this. I wish I could get it down crystal clear. As in industry, placement is key, so, in shipping, timing is key. Essentially what I do is harness the initial profits a new railway gets again and again. I will start my railway at a town with the best supply of the high-value cargoes (Diesel, Cheese, Goods, Meat, etc.) whether it is a port or manufacturing center. Without this supply this strategy will not work for obvious reasons. On this map Texahoma is the place.

Instead of just getting the benefit once like normal (between the first and second towns), when I connect to the third town I use the same price difference (I wait till it is around 30k per load on the price map before making the connection) to more advantage to send cargo from the first town as well as the cargo I already shipped to the second town. The key is to send this off all at once, I often buy new engines to do a clean sweep and load all the cargo there is. This will give a good supply of cargo in the third town. I wait again for a good price difference (30k or so, I will often stop a few trains returning empty for the next "stage"), connect to the fourth town then ship the cargo from the third town as well as more from the first town. This effect can be continued for as long as you like or until you make a mistake and a river takes it away while you are waiting for the price difference to increase. Using a straight line route across the map heading into areas without any supply works best (Dixie on this map). The station first-year revenue bonus (20%)works in my favor and pre-1900 engines are cheap enough to safely buy many as are needed.

I am curious if you can understand the strategy from this explanation. Please let me know. This strategy is much better in Return on Investment than Industry for starting any game. It becomes work later on though. I normally only do it for the first 5 or 6 cities. By that time I have made enough other investments to have enough money to focus on the other goals. In this game I used this strategy on the route Houston-New Orleans-Baton Rouge-Mobile-Tallahassee. I added the connection to San Antonio to further increase my high-value cargo supply. With Houston it formed my "first" town for supplies. Ports with a good output are also a good first town.

I will try this scenario without bonds or unconnected track. Thinking about it I realized that the AI that don't cross borders are the most vulnerable. This way you only need to beat them in one territory.
If they are in two territories you need to beat them in both. If they are in three you need to beat them in three. etc. Giving them a better chance will make it a longer game, and that will be enjoyable also.

[RulerofRails]

Ok, finished playing this without bonds or unconnected track. Took 13 years with a score of 810. I had to change my starting cities to Oklahoma City and Wichita. Before the end of the first year I had also connected to Wichita Falls, but then without bonds I had to save a long time to make the next connection to Kansas City. Then I slowly built my network north as far as Bismark and Duluth, using my haul-timing strategy once I connected to Omaha. I alternated a northern connection with a southern one, expanding deeper into the Texahoma Republic for more high-value cargoes to use in this strategy.

The AI started two companies in my territory (Texahoma Republic), so I am glad that I had connected to The Great Plains Union otherwise I would have been wiped out that year. The next year, however, their revenue was lower than mine, so they disappeared. The AIs had a war amongst themselves while I was expanding northwards, and only 4 survived. One in Mexico, one in the Republic of Arizona, one in Roosevelt, and a decent one that expanded into 4 territories, The Great Lakes Confederation, Louisiana, Dixie, and New England, absorbing a few competitors in its wake. This large one was my first target and it was fun to coordinate an offensive to beat him in all of his territories. Once I beat him I finished off the others the next year. Here's two screenshots:

If you are wondering, in the second shot, train 36 doesn't have any revenue showing, this is because it was heading to the AI station that was just destroyed. I have a suspicion that it is possible to medal slightly quicker with these conditions. Also a different starting location may give a higher score as more territory access would be available early in the game when I was stuck saving my pennies. Anyway, I enjoyed this and will leave it here for now.