Yellowstone - Beta

[OilCan]

I did opt for the snowplow the second time around, and bit on the Iron-hauling (but not coal-hauling) bonus; don't know if it was worth it in the end though. Never bit on the "hunts", being the tree-hugger that I am.

Sounds like I need to make the iron & coal options more lucrative and thus a better deal. Hawk made a good comment about making the bonus as company cash. I'll make these two options more appealing.
It is hard to build tracks all over Yellowstone knowing how special that place is. I've been there 4 times and each trip was never long enough. But that's kind of the hidden message to this game: all our parks would be harnessed, commercialized and lit up at night like Niagara Falls if we did not set them aside. Allow the hunting, build the falls loop, run track through Old Faithful because thankfully it can only be done in a game...not in real life.

One question I have (in general): Do negative profits from an industry cut into the overall LTD industry profit? A lot of my paper mills started out as big money makers, but then started going into the red. At one point I started dumping them, assuming that they would count against LTD Industry profit. Was that the right thing to do?

I just tested this on a small trial map. Yes, negative industry profits reduce or cut into the overall LTD industry profit total. If a company industry starts showing a loss in profit (not revenue), then the LTD number takes a hit downward. I did not know this.

Sometimes it was hard to tell exactly where the hot springs were until after building the rails).

I thought the map colors showed where the hot springs were? Should I make the territory border visible?

One exploit I used on a few occasions was to issue more than $5 M in bonds. No real penalty for it; just had to pay them down before taking out more. Perhaps a severe penalty would discourage borrowing too much (why the limit anyway?)

Correct, there is no penalty of going deeper into debt than $5M. The limit is to slow down a player from rapidly expanding their industry base during the 3 years which industry building costs drop 30%. But, if a shrewd player realizes they can go deeper than $5M into debt at one go, this gives a secret advantage.

I will shorten the track leading away from Gardiner. Thanks for the evaluation.

[Hawk]

Maybe blocking off certain territories completely, instead of the consequences currently applied when laying rail, might make for a little less frustrating experience.

I'm guessing that you mean the hot springs areas in which you lose any track built in them?

Yep! That's where I'm talking about.

Sometimes it was hard to tell exactly where the hot springs were until after building the rails).

I thought the map colors showed where the hot springs were? Should I make the territory border visible?

Just make impossible to build track on. I think the colors were done well.

Me doing so lousy on this scenario may have been due to the fact that once I paid off the initial 6 bonds around late '84, I never again issued any bonds and only issued stock once. I did everything simply off of the money the railroad made.

[belbincolne]

Decided to play this of all the new scenarios / betas available as I always wanted to go to Yellowstone and I reckon this is about as near as I'll ever get.

Had 3 starts. All disastrous. One railing (at cheap time of year) to Mammoth Springs - got there o/k and trains to it were $400k but took so long to get there never made a profit and back was 1k if that. Couldn't afford to get to any other town (the nearby one had nothing seeded any start so never tried). Took the snowplough at 3 years and then it was all totally downhill.

One industry started well but rapidly the profits dropped off. Why? There was say 10 logging camps feeding mill and some six ranches feeding meat packer. Normally this would give huge profits. Both were in towns and being river fed - chart showed lots & lots going there so why were they useless? Best try was rail start to Mammoth and buy one industry and sit back. Had enough to buy 2nd industry but not to extend rails and soon went bust.

Anyway will give it another go having now read all the other comments. The rail fee at end of year seems to be a killer. Nice map but mighty hard scenario.

[Hawk]

I will admit, I did 'cheat' a little. I opened the map in the editor and changed the building density of Jardin from 21 to 27. It helped a lot.
Anything above 27 made it too easy though (25 or 26 might work as well).

At 27 almost every start placed an industry in Jardin. Either a bakery or a brewery, although I found the bakery a better industry since Gardiner also has a brewery almost every start up.

One industry started well but rapidly the profits dropped off. Why?

It seems to me that in this particular scenario, if your railroad isn't delivery the finished product, the industry won't be very profitable. I'm guessing it's because of the distances between the cities.

Please understand one thing Ray; My comments are just that. Comments! I'm not trying to tell you how to write the scenario. Just observations from my playing techniques, which I'm not the most advanced player in this community. Far from it.

[belbincolne]

I guess you're right on Industry Hawk. My lumber mill is in Grayling and havent been able to connect it to anywhere. Having read the other comments on my current start I connected Jardin straight away even though there was nothing there and it has been a profitable train. I also managed to get along the river and then got the iron offer. Took 3 bonds to get to it. The train from there is always 8 full loads BUT it takes 2 years to get there and back - it brings in about $500k and I assume another $500k at year end - my minus figure (principally because of $1m for snowplough and $500k to save Yellowstone) decreased by some $300k then.

Trouble now is I don't see how I'll ever get back into the black to be able to take bonds to get to the $2m city. Did do a stock issue earlier but now that brings in nothing. Guess I'll have to abandon shortly and try yet another method - mighty hard scenario

[Hawk]

In my last disastrous attempt I built a line to Jardin then bought a limber mill in Grayling. When I saw the lumber mill was losing money I issued bonds and built to Grayling and Mammoth Springs.
Running trains between Grayling and Gardiner and Grayling and Mammoth Springs proved to be financially very healthy, and the lumber mill started really making money.

What really thew me for a loop was noticing that a train between Gardiner and Mammoth springs, pulling 8 cars up the mountain ran 4 times faster than a train from Mammoth Springs to Gardiner, pulling 2 cars down the mountain. Then I started paying attention to the months.

[belbincolne]

If I could ever do that I would!

[Hawk]

I'd suggest holding off building from Gardiner to Tower Junction until later in the game. Depending on the seeding you might have better luck hauling iron from Canyon to Gardiner.

Personally I didn't find the iron haul to be worth any extra effort. If it happened, it happened.

[Hawk]

so I started running lots of Express-only trains with high-priority,

That brings up a question. For this scenario, would it be better to run custom consist-passengers or express only.
It seems to me that mail isn't part of the equation.

[belbincolne]

Well I made another half dozen starts - most successful was when I ignored industry. Finally got one which was going well so here's my comments on the scenario as a beta:

1. My permanent grouse - the map is upside down. It's quite easy to turn the right way round before issuing so - please - all map makers - do it I know its easy to do it yourself but I find it annoying
2. After 16 years and going strong I was told I'd lost. As 25 year scenario seems there's something wrong.
3. Industry - is absolutely terrible. The only time it has ever produced profit is when I got the cheapo offer at about year 12. It makes no difference whether the town where the industry is is connected to others or not. The cause seems to be the high cost of raw materials. I doubt if anyone could make the industry target. After 16 years (Meat from inception) I'd made $3.3m.
4. At year 16 I was told I'd connected 6 cities - obviously doesn't count Gardiner as I'd connected 7.
5. The most profitable incentive was the line over the falls - even the train had a profit that year. It was supposed to increase tourism - I assume it did, but in some 4 years that train never carried another passenger.
6. Just some details - at end I'd carried 115 passengers 53 from Gardiner and I'd managed to carry 8 loads of iron twice - takes 2 years each way - and this was with 4 trains!

My conclusion is that you should do something to improve industry profitabilty when it would make a nice scenario much more interesting as you'd have a real prospect of getting a win.

[Hawk]

The reason the city count doesn't include Gardiner is because that's not your station. It's owned by the Northern Pacific Railway. If you had changed the lose date, in 1893 you are given an option to buy the Northern Pacific Railway for $550k.

The 16 year loss is because the end date for the lose event is wrong. It was mentioned earlier in this thread and I changed it on my end.

After 22 years, here's where I'm at.

Yellowstone4.jpg (37.1 KiB) Viewed 4924 times

As you can see, passenger traffic is abysmal, and I just can't make enough money to connect all the towns and buy/build industry.

[Wolverine@MSU]

I thought the map colors showed where the hot springs were? Should I make the territory border visible?

The boarders a a little bit "fuzzy" so it's easy to wander into the wrong place. If possible, either shrink the territory a little more inside the borders (you don't need to make the border visible) or expand the coloring a little more outside the territory.

For this scenario, would it be better to run custom consist-passengers or express only.

Maybe, but an auto consist of express only would do the same thing. For most of my express only trains, I set the loads to be 0 minimum and 3 or 4 maximum (depending on whether the route was hilly or not) with a diner (why not get a few extra bucks?) and mostly used the Duke (with an occasional Connie if it was a long haul, like Gardiner - Grayling). PAX traffic is slow to build throughout the game, and often there are only 1-2 loads going to a particular destination even in the "peak" season. It's really important later in the game (last 1/3 of the scenario) to keep a close watch on PAX waiting at stations and set up a train to take them where they want to go. I often set up trains that go A-B-A-C-A-D-A-E etc., especially from Gardiner, which generates the most PAX and leaving the min at 0 ensures that a train won't be sitting idle waiting for the sometimes rare return passenger.

Having read the other comments on my current start I connected Jardin straight away even though there was nothing there and it has been a profitable train.

By "straight away" I hope you don't mean right at the start of the game. Building costs are sky-high in the winter. Your track dollar will go a lot farther if you wait until June to build.

2. After 16 years and going strong I was told I'd lost. As 25 year scenario seems there's something wrong.

Hopefully Oilcan will fix this in the final release. Condition is set to trigger in 1889 instead of 1898. You can change it yourself if you are so inclined.

4. At year 16 I was told I'd connected 6 cities - obviously doesn't count Gardiner as I'd connected 7.

Just before the offer came along, I built my own station in Gardiner. Be paitient an you'll get a chance to have your own station there without having to build one.

[belbincolne]

Aha - too late! Carried on and connected the NE town with $2m offer - didn't get it (presumably because I'm now "off scenario"). There's a lumber mill there with lots of logging camps nearby - should be a money spinner but no its losing money. Tried to buy it (to see if hauling logs in would change its fortunes). Should be below cost but no - price $2m. Built my own instead at station (and en route of log flow) train comes in full and others camps are sending logs to it - its losing money.

Really don't understand it - I've never had a scenario where Industry is so bad before.

Wolverine - Always only build June-August when cheapest. Seems best to build your own station at Gardiner - never thought of that.

[belbincolne]

Played on to what should have been the finish. Allowed me to be $11m in the red ($6.5m bonds $3.5m in red). Connected 11 towns. Hauled 297 / 121 passengers $5m IP and 2154 miles of track. Long - long way from Bronze. Real tough - and this is my only "decent" score from 20(?) starts.

[OilCan]

OK, OK ..I get the message - make the scenario somewhat easier at the first. I'll do this. And I'll make the other changes that have been noted. Passenger production is dampened by 50%, I will make it 25% and add more player cash at start up. I'll also add some small cities across the map to break up the long routes. And, I'll fix the ending date plus the other changes previously mentioned.

Belbincolne: I'm not sure why your industry profits were so poor. There is nothing in the events to reduce production -- only to increase it during the 5 years after the investment offer.
I read your comment about an upside down map. I set the start up view to be a vista of Yellowstone without any thought of what that did to the map orientation. With due respect, I think I will leave it that way for this game.
Yes, Gardiner does not count, its owned by another company. There is an option to buy it later in the game.

Here's the thing with the iron and coal hauling - they do nothing to help you reach your game goals. They are distractions. I added them in for that purpose. They add realism in that not all choices are good choices. They add 're-playability' to a game in that a player has a choice to play the game a different way the next time.

I do greatly appreciate everyone's feedback - even if Belbincolne met nothing much more than frustration, his comments are very helpful. With no disrespect, I had to chuckle at a couple of them. Belbincolne, you could start a show as a disgruntled comic.

I recommend that we stop the beta test at this point and let me make the changes. It will take a couple of weeks because my free time is not so free for this week-end and most of next week. If you have some afterthoughts in the next few days, I would appreciate hearing them as well.

[belbincolne]

Rightho. I've started on Northern Nevada now - the exact opposite to yours - seems dead easy and I'm off on hol for next two weeks as well.

[Wolverine@MSU]

OK, OK ..I get the message - make the scenario somewhat easier at the first. I'll do this. And I'll make the other changes that have been noted.

I don't think this is really necessary. The whole idea of a game is to analyze the map, figure out a strategy to achieve the goals, and press on to reaching those goals, modifying the strategy as the game procedes. As I said above, I was a bit worried about making the PAX quota, but lo and behold, with an appropriate strategy it was possible to win Gold even on Expert, with plenty of time to spare. If a scenario can be won as written, I don't see any reason to "dumb it down" because some people can't figure out how to win. I find a challenging scenario much more fun than an easy one. Perhaps an acceptable alternative would be to link some of the "dumbing down" to the difficulty level by events at startup. I've done this in Panama Canal, placing needed industries on the map for levels lower than Expert. It's a way of widening the gap between Expert and Easy moreso than what's built into the game engine.

[Hawk]

I must admit, I agree with Wolvy on this one. Just because I can't get anywhere is no reason others can't.
As I've mentioned, I'm not the best player around.

[RayofSunshine]

To help my playing ability, I probably spend more time reading the stategies, then playing. But I do like to play, and not necessarily to get the medals. It's supposedly to have fun, although at times it does get a little frustrating to figure out the stategy.

Anyway, I love the terrain of this scenario. There are some areas of mountains, but not any which are just "sheer" impossible. For some reason, I did not have a problem getting my depot to "connect" at the Hot Springs. Maybe just lucky.

My problem as usual, is not enough starting cash, considering the length of track to the destinations. I will just play within the programming of the 1873-1888, and then give it another shot on the newer revision.

PAX are a problem toward the goal. I have only carried 1 passenger in 4 years, but only have 2 depots/cities. Hot Springs and beleive Jenkins, heading to Madison next. If MSU can get the Gold, then it is possible, but then Hawk and I are in a different league. But Hawk does come up with some great ideas. Not necessarily medals. Just good ideas. LOL Love yah buddy.

[Hawk]

I recommend that we stop the beta test at this point and let me make the changes. It will take a couple of weeks because my free time is not so free for this week-end and most of next week. If you have some afterthoughts in the next few days, I would appreciate hearing them as well.

I'd wait until he makes some of the corrections he's thinking about before playing this map anymore.

I agree though, I really like the map and terrain. It presents some interesting challenges in mountain railroading.