Express D'Orient

[Gumboots]

Was doing some more loco stats testing on this map, and have a recommendation for anyone who wants to increase the challenge slightly. The increased pax and mail production (particularly the mail production) are IMO unnecessary.

The standard event boosts mail by 100%, but with a Romania start and production set back to normal I clocked up the Bucharest mail haulage somewhere in the early 1890's (can't remember exactly when). I didn't make without any special effort to get it, apart from using post offices in most towns. The Budapest target was even easier. I built a station there in 1898 and had the mail haulage in early 1900. TBH I think the mail haulage targets could easily be doubled without making things impossible for most people, even with production wound back to normal.

The pax production is only boosted by 25%, so setting that back to normal isn't crippling. It does take a bit longer to get going, but once you have a decent network and an array of hotels there is plenty of pax traffic. The main difference I noticed once I had things established is that hotel profits were significantly lower. Hotels are a total gold mine with the standard +25% pax production. Without that event hotel profits are still decent in good locations, but not outstanding almost anywhere.

The other odd thing I noticed is that I actually managed to get a few taverns making decent money. Usually I find them fairly useless and stick to restaurants, but in a few prime spots on this map taverns can give good ROI once your network is established.

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I haven't yet figured out what was going funny with the Gold event. Something is up there, but I'm still not sure what.

One other thing that bugs me about this map is that if you go to the trouble of laying down a good express network right from the start, you don't get any credit for it. The status page and game variable ignore your express speed before 1885, so you could haul pax by donkey cart for 5 years and it wouldn't matter.

IMO it'd be better if you got credit for your express speed as soon as you start running express. No that it really makes any difference to the end result, since the weapons and coffee targets always end up being the limiting factors for finish time, but it's just a bit annoying when you're running good express speeds and it doesn't count.

IMO these small changes would be a good thing.

[Gumboots]

Just found out something about the actual route used by this train. In the pre-WW1 era it didn't go through Romania at all. The route was Vienna > Budapest > Belgrade > Sofia > Istanbul (because you can't go back to Constantinople).

So this map could be re-done to enforce that route, which would make things more challenging. Romania access would be off the cards, at least for rail (possibly not for industry, if that can be coded). You'd only have rail access to Austria-Hungary, Serbia, Bulgaria, and the Ottoman Empire. Playing that from a Serbia start would be winnable, but difficult. Even an A-H start would be more challenging due to the more difficult terrain from Belgrade on.



The other thing is that in the post-WW1-pre-WW2 era, the Orient Express did run through Romania (but not through Serbia) but it didn't use the route most of us use when playing this map. It ran east from Budapest, took a sharp detour around that isolated mountain on the eastern Hungarian lowlands, then went to Brasov, and from there straight over the worst of the Carpathians to Bucharest. Which again would be a more challenging route if anyone is up for it.



Railway Wonders of the World has more information on this train, for those who want it.

http://railwaywondersoftheworld.com/orient-express.html
http://railwaywondersoftheworld.com/wagons-lits.html

[CeeBee]

hmmm last time i played this map I went down to Belgrade and the followed the Danube through the mountains. Can't remember all of the towns I went through off hand tho.

[RulerofRails]

I have only played the default RT3 "Orient Express" campaign map. In that map the mountains of Yugoslavia seldom have anything interesting in terms of resources, so there's little incentive to go there. I do think that with a re-tweak following the historic path would be fun. Maybe it will work perfectly with this map, as I said, I never played it.

So this map could be re-done to enforce that route, which would make things more challenging. Romania access would be off the cards, at least for rail (possibly not for industry, if that can be coded).

To state the obvious work-around: make track laying/station building there Extremely expensive. That can be controlled for specific territories. Could also nix Pulling Power/Top Speed there as well.

[Gumboots]

Ah yes, good workarounds.

[Gumboots]

Hey I got curious about the actual routes used by the OE. Turns out there was a very good reason why it didn't use the "traditional RT3" route through the Danube valley. That section of the Danube is known as the Iron Gate, and looks like this:



It would be one of the dumbest possible places to attempt to build a railway, so nobody was that dumb. OTOH there is a natural pass through the Carpathians at Predeal, between Brasov and Bucharest, so they put a line there. There is another natural pass through the Balkan Mountains at Kalotina, so the line from Belgrade to Sofia went there.

Another thing is that apparently Romania was one of the first countries to have an oil industry, and in 1900 was the third largest producer in the world. They even had the streets of Bucharest lit with kerosene lamps back in the 1850's. The plain around Bucharest is loaded with oil fields, but in this scenario there is no oil in Romania.

Anyway I did stumble across a picture of a Romanian express loco from the early 1900's, and it's interesting because it was built in Milan and is an obvious development of the infamous Vittorio Emanuele 4-6-0. Not nearly as ugly though. They must have decided that as Italians, who are supposed to have a sense of style, they couldn't build another one quite that ugly.

It has the same rearward positioning of the cylinders behind the front bogies, the same long angled steam pipes to get to them, the same general arrangement of steam dome and sandbox, and several other similarities. OTOH it has several obvious improvements, like Walschaerts valve gear instead of Gooch, and a longer wheelbase on the front truck for better stability at speed.

[Gumboots]

I was just idly thinking of playing this one again, and checked out the events. The loco customisation events (that start in the 1890's) are weird. Three of the options work the way you'd think: they just boost whatever for 5 years (or do nothing for Option #4).

Option #1 is the strange one. Among other things, it reduces water consumption permanently, instead of just for 5 years, and also permanently increases engine maintenance cost. The result is that if you choose this option every 5 years the reduction in water consumption and the increase in maintenance cost escalate, to the point where water consumption ends up being zero and maintenance cost is more than doubled by the time of the last event. However, oil and sand consumption are not reduced permanently (they are changed for 5 years only). So, even though you end up with unlimited range in terms of water there is no way you can use it, because you are still restricted by only slightly reduced oil and sand consumption.

This appears to have been deliberate, but it makes no sense to me. I get the impression it was not thought through properly. Putting a larger tender on a locomotive is not going to increase maintenance cost by more than 100%, and infinite water capacity seems a bit bonkers. Also, if you want to extend range in RT3 the best way is to balance the reductions in water, sand and oil consumption so you can use the extra range without running out of anything too early.