Ethiopia - testers needed (yet again)

[Hawk]

Hold on there you dastardly dog.
I did find a few spelling errors, but this post is about the scenario.

I chose Italy. Maybe I missed a message but all of a sudden I got trains that can't reach the next station. My first thought was some electric track missing somewhere. That didn't pan out so I got to diggin' deeper.

I won't revel everything I ran into (don't want to spoil the fun for folks ), but I will say it took me a while to figure out what the heck was going on.

Nice Play!

Then I find out that I can't just re-route some trains. I have to... Well, you know!

It took a bit of pocket change to get things flowing smoothly again.
I'm in Jan. of 1936 and here's where I stand (I was just getting started on industry when things changed)

Ethiopia4.jpg (51.57 KiB) Viewed 7379 times

I think I might be able to pull the industry up to snuff to get Gold - in medium play.

I like the terrain. Made it a challenge to get rail run.

Sorry I didn't jot down the spelling errors.

[RayofSunshine]

OH BOY, did they ever have an impact alright. They really blew the revenue.

But Brunom, I ran into another similar problem that I had with the Gibraltar. I was not able to get a Silver, which I did manage. Although I got the numbers of 15-100-150 mixed up with the coffee. Hence I was able to get a $25+ for the Silver.

I know that you had mentioned that you had no control over the engine crashes, which I am sure is programmed into the PopTop edition, but I sure have a lot of them The 2-4 a year I would consider within the normal in a 24 count inventory, but again, I had 6+. And these were again the A1s with only 4-6 years of operations. That really hurts in trying to get the revenue, BUT, I don't know what the percentrage in real life time.

However, which was unusal, a had a couple of S3s as the 1st 2 engines in operation, and finally did change them out at the 23 year life, as I couldn't afford to lose their revenue. And I don't recall them having any great amount of 'break downs" either. goofy.

Other than that, I didn't run into any 'bugs", so it must be a good day, as my computer didn't "shut down" either. LOL

With all these happenings, I did even try to reach Khartoum for the Gold.

[Hawk]

I know that you had mentioned that you had no control over the engine crashes, which I am sure is programmed into the PopTop...

There is two options for engine crashes in the editor. Off or on. Other than that, you can adjust the engines reliability with an event or two, but I don't think that will have any affect on crashes.

[brunom]

Hey all again

Thanks for all reviews with that version. 3 downloads and 3 reviews it's really all I can ask for.

As I said before, I have also spotted a few bugs and this-makes-the-game-too-easy aspects. Primarily, those would help anyone who chose Italy, Only some of the territories were supposed to be made cheaper, not all, and the engine that becomes available in 1920 when you choose their help certainly wasn't supposed to be a 1990 electric loco.

Medals weren't coded in the version you played, Ray. This one, below, should trigger correctly now.

Also, the cheap 2D2 at start now becomes the balanced-cost-in-comparison-to-steam 2D2.

Just for fun, I also added one engine not available in the regular 1.05... And I haven't tried running the scenario without the files for it being there - will this make the scenario crash, or will it just ignore that loco?

In general, I think this is now pretty much ready to go, but I definitely need a native English for spelling corrections before calling this a final-version. However, apart that, I hope this to be an almost-perfect beta:

--- ATTACHMENT REMOVED ---

[brunom]

I know that you had mentioned that you had no control over the engine crashes, which I am sure is programmed into the PopTop...

There is two options for engine crashes in the editor. Off or on. Other than that, you can adjust the engines reliability with an event or two, but I don't think that will have any affect on crashes.

Precisely.
I don't know this for a fact, but I always thought crashes are somewhat related to the quality of track laying.. no "bumps", no tight curves, etc. It's a theory I like to hold.. , even without any grounds to support it - makes me draw clean tracks.

[Hawk]

I played it until 1962 at which time I should have got the Silver because I only had 38m in IP. Guess I started on the industry a little too late.

I'll see what I can do about spell checking this newest version.

You might want to include installation instructions for the Class YE, for us dummies ya' know.

Edit 1: BTW! For whatever it's worth, if you have a program like Word, OpenOffice, or any program that will do a spell check, you can copy the text from the RT3 editor and paste it in Word (or whatever program you have), check spelling, then copy the text from Word back into the editor, but you'll have to delete the existing text in the RT3 editor first, then copy the text into the green box.
You will need to use the keyboard commands for copy and paste: Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V.

That's how I'm doing it.

Edit 2: Attached below is a doc file with all of the spelling corrections I could find. I hope it makes sense and is of some help.

[RayofSunshine]

A couple of comments.

First I will have to agree with Bronum on the "engine crashes". Althogh they can screw up the necessary revenue and profits goals, I don't like to change the programming. I will have to check on those terrain features in the future as probable cause. Although the lessor of 2 evils, an editor change could make a difference, but then, I could also just "cheat" with the ""safety first"" option. That sort of takes away from the challenge

As for chosing Italy territory Hawk, I don't completely know what conclusion you used to rectify the " ????? to the next station", but with the uprisings of the 30s, as well as the end of WWII, certain territories come under different country ocupation. At first glance of the map you enclosed, it looked like your track was in the Brisish Somolian territory, but you would know, as you would have had to pay theri access fee.

I did not check any of the spelling, of which both of you claim, as with cataracts I don't see every thing clearly anyway. Other than that, this is a g-r-e-a-t scenario. Takes an amount of thinking for all the challenges. And although I did not get the medals, I really enjoyed its concept of its talent of imagination.

So now Brunom, are you going to take time out for that and peanuts?

[brunom]

I think this is one of those scenarios where you always need to take a few times to get the Gold. Bronze is very easy, and a good player can get Silver at the first attempt. But for gold, you really need to plan - and knowing what's coming .... helps.

Thank you for the spell check Hawk, and for the tip for future work. I want to paint the map a little pinker in the south and correct those spelling minors, after which I'll send a Final version - most likely tomorrow.

As for beer and peanuts - world cup is over now, and so is my stock of peanuts. But since Lisbon is starting to calm down traffic-wise, I've been on a daily visits to the beach routine instead. You see, I am a teacher so my holidays are a little longer than usual.. And my girlfriend only starts hers a week from now. That's why I have a lot of free time nowadays.

B

[Hawk]

Just curious; What do you teach, and what grade level?

BTW! Pardon my spelling corrections for the old English spelling. I just couldn't resist.

[RayofSunshine]

Well Brunom,

Just enjoy those "free or spare time" now, as with a girlfriend, and then a wife, which usually brings along a family, your spare time will be a lot less "spare" LOL

[brunom]

With spare time to spare, I took my time to finish this... But hurray Ethiopia scenario is finished as well!
That makes 4 scenarios in 4 months - now it's time to take a break (few ideas starting to brew, but not anywhere close to ripe yet)

I'm a science teacher, Hawk. I can teach any level up to Uni, but what I really like is teaching kids around 10-14, and that's the groups I normally have. I also train teachers in Teaching with IT.. eheh
(PM with file for archives on its way...)

Many thanks to everyone who tested - Andybis, Ray and Hawk.

B

[Hawk]

The latest version is now available in the Africa section of the archives.

[Grandma Ruth]

This is a bit late, I know, but I've just discovered something which I think is worth sharing. You were looking for a way to have a "hidden" territory that could be manipulated by events but weren't able to do it - I looked here because I'm wanting to do the same thing with my EU map. I want East Germany to exist but I don't want the border to be visible as the map is drawn according to the countries that are there today - i.e. Lithuania, Estonia, and so on.
Here's how I think I've solved my problem - there is a border between East and West Germany which I've camouflaged by drawing rivers along it. Fortunately the River Elbe was really the border for some part of the way, at least. I've called both territories "Germany" so to the naked eye it looks like one country with a river running through it. In reality, East Germany won't be available until reunification in 1990.
I don't know how well this will really work, but I think it looks OK.

Click to enlarge

Berlin and Dresden are really in East Germany (I'm afraid I couldn't cope with West Berlin having a border as well, you'll just have to pretend!)
You can see the border between Germany and the Czech Republic quite clearly but it's really hard to spot the border between East and West.

[brunom]

Thanks for sharing.

I ended up just having the territories traced from start. As for disguising the border with river - it's effects are limited to the main view (still shows in the territories maps), but I like the idea.

b

[Sugus]

I know - beta testing has passed - but you know it: I'm always a little bit too late ...

If there will be an special thread on this (final) scenario, please Hawk, move my post correspondingly.

I assume, that I've played the final version and I'm surprised, that - with respect to the comments found within this thread, or even due to them? - I got gold in 1943 on my very first try (on medium)!

It's a really great scenario and I'm sure that I'd like to translate it into German, if I'm allowed and have the time to do so! (But - oh Goodness me - there's a lot of texts ... hmmm)

... and Europe was a real disaster in those days - anyway.

See my results:

brunom!

[joost]

Hi, thanks for this scenario. I just played and I love the idea, but I think it's a bit too easy/predictable. I don't know if you have a variable starting map, but in my case resources were very dense in some places, notable logging camps in the east that were screaming for a lumber. This earned my about $600 a year, enough to make winning gold a formality. I think this should be adressed, either by lowering the number of natural resources or increasing the AI agressiveness to make it harder. A few more thoughts:
- I think the historic event don't have enough influence on the game. blocked access to Italian colonies cost me almost nothing. It would be very interesting for instance to put most of the coffee plantations there to let the war have a serious impact on the main goal of the game, getting coffee to djibouti
- It could be interesting to have a few AI players, very conservative ones or otherwise they will develop the country for you, but they could "sit on" some profitable lines, making it harder for the player to grow rich from his monopoly.
- enabling the stockmarket would naturally follow.
- The goals are fine, but it could be fun to add one, maybe a personal wealth goal, or be the only surviving railroad.

I hope this helps,
cheers,

[brunom]

comment to both: goes to show that investment in Africa can be successful.

The changes you propose, joost, would make the scenario a whole different thing. And, as you can see, from the long thread, we struggled to balance between historical accuracy and its effect on the play. Of course, difficulties also depend on the player's choices.

[Jeremy Mac Donald]

So I finished playing this and its a fun scenario. I liked the included history. That said its really not very hard. It essentially exists in that perfect point regarding resources where there are enough to make hauling stuff with trains profitable and yet they are rare enough that the cargo's tend to be very valuable. I really noticed this with this scenario where almost every route was just raking in the dough.

[low_grade]

Just played this on Expert, chose France to ally myself with. Got gold in 1942, very satisfying.

This is my favorite map of Bruno's so far. The start was very challenging, not many resources and very hard to develop any industries. Also with the increased track maintenance I was having a very hard time making any profit. Had to watch my 8 trains carefully still going into like years 15-20. Only very gradually built up to like 15 trains, extending from Adis Abbeba to ... the city by the lake and down south as well.

Enjoyed the events, suffering the consequences made me focus that much more, and the beneficial boosting events were much appreciated because they were greatly needed.

Really enjoyed the terrain, hard to find good routes, had to use a massive bridge in one place.


Went with steam (still scrapped the Shay) and used P8's exclusively until the A1 came along. Used the Decapod for a couple of resource-to-industry feeder routes. This is my only kind-of complaint, I like to have a reason to use 5-6 different engines for their various specialties, but I didn't really have to think about this at all. But, that's mostly due to the great terrain which forced most routes to include a healthy dose of 3's, sometimes 4's and 5's. But only rarely 6's and never above that, so didn't have to use any real grade-haulers. And since hardly any good flats in the early game, and then the A1 being great later, didn't use the Atlantic or anything like that. Yes, the P8 has Poor acceleration, but it's also cheap to fuel and maintain, which was my larger concern for most of the game.

From the autosave the year I won, you can see what industries did the job for me. Started with a lumber mill fed by like 5 logging camps, way on the edge of the screen but it was the only option... and even though there was a furniture factory in that town, profits dropped quickly after half a dozen years or so, and a couple of the logging camps disappeared because I couldn't buy them because they were in Kenya... you know how it goes. Not an easy job getting things built up, or even staying profitable at times.

[RayofSunshine]

Just a comment or two. Have enjoyed Brunoms scenarios as his maps do not have excessive elevations of terrain. I don't know of any map, of which I had to use tunnels to lay track. Even the river crossings are of such, that the track does not have that "droup" of inclines. This scenario is one of the better creations, and am looking forward to many of his future "imaginations".