Greece 1857: for testing

[brunom]

Hello fellas!

I have been working on a new scenario for sometime now. It's called Greece 1857 and, you guessed it , happens in Greece from 1857 onwards.
This time, for my own enjoyment (and hopefully for the enjoyment of others), I kept a "developer's blog" in another forum in this site, which you may have (or not) noticed (viewtopic.php?f=65&t=2891).

So, after this small background information, I hereby present a beta version for testing!

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This version is still incomplete. It contains all historical framework and significant events, but winning conditions are not yet programmed. This is because I have decided to base the medals, for this scenario, on a Victory Points scheme. This scheme will comprise 12 intermediate goals, but for now, only the first one is programmed. I worked hard to get a working version and my creativity will take some days/weeks to recharge before I can start thinking where to place those 12 VP's...

While you test it (if you wish to, of course), if some "intermediate goal" occurs to you, please take note and share it in here.

Comments on the "developer's blog" are welcome in here as well, in order to keep the original thread in the Map Making Forum as clean as possible.

Cheers
B

[arop]

I like your project, but I would like to have some small towns en route. Here you have a railway map covering Grece and the surrounding countries.

[brunom]

Hi arop

Thanks for the map, I had found a diagram of the current network, but that map makes it easier to visualize. Interesting to see that the northeast coast is yet "unrailed" to this day - it clicks with my assumption made earlier that the player would find it difficult to link to that region. Nevertheless, for a gold medal, players will have to better than real life - that's a sure point by now.

As for the small towns placed to allow for local trains running in the mainlines... we differ in this and we both know that. It's hard to balance it right, I give you that - but if there are a lot of towns, the increased traffic and goods demand makes it too easy to make money and that would be the wrong choice for this scenario. Greece was a poor country throughout the whole of the 19th and 20th centuries (21st is more of the same, as far as we can tell by now, )

But tell me, did you play the map? Or at least ran the scenario and laid some track around? What were your thoughts?
And did you read the "creator's blog"?
B

[brunom]

I have a question regarding this scenario.. and regarding something I would like to implement but not sure if possible...

question.jpg (41.93 KiB) Viewed 8880 times

See the above picture and the marked connection between Patras and Corinth (Korinthos)? I would like to force the player to build that, instead of only connecting those two main cities using the inland line that runs further south.
What sort of events could I use?

I thought of creating a special territory and counting track, does anybody know if we can count track in a given territory, or is it always company-wide?

Any other (better) ideas?

Many thanks, B

[Blackhawk]

You can use that special territory between those 2 cities and then use # of terr. track pieces. And that should test to see how many track pieces are just in that one territory.

You could also just use that special territory and put it between the 2 cities, and then use is territory connected to territory, but you're probably best off using the test to see how many track pieces are in that special territory.

[arop]

I have played your map for about 15 years reaching Korinthos in the south. In my private version I'll add a few more villages and prebuild all track in the editor to ensure all grades are below 3% and then remove all track by a hidden event and deactivate the company. Railways often follow narrow valleys, not shown on many RRT3 maps trying to gain hight instead of having up to 6% grades (which you only find on railways with toothbars between the rails, -you can find such one in a town between Korinthos and Patras to Kalambaka carrying a lot of tourists). I have traveled the route to Patras some years ago (narrow gauge now being converted to standard). On most part of the line to Korinthos the railway is build on a shelf carved into the mountains, sometimes high above the sea. Just before Korinthos you cross a narrow canal carved out of limestone with very steep walls on a high bridge. In addition to my map submitted, I will show you the way to even more detailed, mostly european, railway maps, strike: maps of railway networks OR www. bueker.net/trainspotting/maps.php . There you will find a map showing Grece with all railway lines running, projected lines as well as closed lines, once there was an isolated narrow gauge line in the southwestern part of the mainland. The map is too large to attach to this topic. By the way: I have some plans to make a map covering Crete (Kreta). This large island 260 by 60 km never had railways due to political circumstances (late reunion with the mainland). I would like to create a map telling a fictive story of a narrow gauge system like the one you find on Peloponnes. Some of the historical events in your map could be useful to repeat in such a map with your permission, if I can have that PS: The trunk lines on Peloponnes are Korinthos-Patras and Korinthos-Kalamata. The traffic on the Kalamatra-Patras line is more sparse with only a few direct trains.

[brunom]

Feel free to use anything that I post on the site, Arop. And to change it to your own liking.

Thanks for the link to the european railways maps. It jumped directly into my favorites folder.

That Crete plan sounds like a good plan. I think I will give myself some time off from map making for now, but next in line, for me, will be Turkey.

I have done the Patras-Athens route too - 12 years ago - as part of a month inter-railing from Lisbon to Athens and back (via A LOT of places). But unfortunately this one was an overnight train (not exactly "overnight" as we arrived in Athens at 4 am or so), so didn't see the cliffs or the Korinthos canal.

B

[arop]

No reason to invent something twice as I plan to reuse some of your historical events from the mainland plus some local and fictive. I plan to reunion Crete to the mainland 1885 after throwing the Ottomans out already that year, starting the game in 1895 with a choice between an Anglo-American or a German Consortiom building and financing the first railway, game end max 1965. Now it's research time to sort out railway relevant towns and cities by size, and try if it's possible to cope with the mountanious terrain of Crete. Later about all this in another topic, -back to the subject!

[brunom]

You can use that special territory between those 2 cities and then use # of terr. track pieces.

Thanks, Wolverine, it works the way you suggested.
B

[RayofSunshine]

It is realized that the programming in not fully complete. However, in playing in Medium level, I was able to complete the deadline without any system crashes, which is a plus.

That is not to say anything about the "crashes" of both the engines and economy. A player will have to intentionally make sure that he always has an adequate amount of revenue to replace the multitude of the crashes of engines. The only way that might be possible, so as not to lose the revenue of the consists, is to replace engines in their 5th year of operation.

Track is phenominally expensive for the majority of the game duration, as in the last 1+ year, the lower cost is fairly too close to the end of the time duration, although it does give a player time in the access to Epiros.

Although part of the map, there wasn't any indicator to get access to either Makedonia or Albania.
When the mention of a "poor" economy is indicated, or at least a poor country, I might have gotten the "bottom of the barrel". There were some periods of Recession during the game, but starting in 1897 until 1903, it was a constant Recession/Depression/Recession. Wiping out all revenue, there wasn't any funding for the 6-8 engine crashes during that time factor. Hence an amount of lost consist revenue. And even thereafter, any profit revenue was basically used to bail out of the "red". I was only able to reinstate 3 of the "crashed engines" until 1911, at which time the economy improved to replace a number of the 18-24 year old engines.

I was only able to get "1 point" for the Athens-Piraeus segment. And although I made connections to Peloponnese, Central Greeece, and Thessaly, there was neither a notation or the award of any points for the balance of the game Again, it might not yet be programmed for the 12 points which are mentioned in the "text".

A good concept of imagination, and am looking forward to its completion.

[brunom]

Nice timing with the test Ray! You brought this thread to life just an inch before I did
I just finished a full working version today - which is below in this post.

This BETA version is supposed to be complete. There's historical events as before, 10 different opportunities to win Victory Points and Medals/Loose conditions counting the number of VP's won at the end of the game.

I played through and everything seems to work, but to get all VP's is very very hard. I would really appreciate that a range of players tried this, to tune up the difficulty of every VP opportunity. So, if Sugus, Wolverine, Ray, OilCan, Hawk, etc are reading this.. please have a go and share your judgment. I need some "outsider" input.

Thanks so much!
B

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[Blackhawk]

Well I just started the scenario. We'll see if I make it all the way through since it's a long scenario.

But so far the:
VP1 Failed event appears even if you've gotten the point and were successful with VP1.

[brunom]

VP1 Failed event appears even if you've gotten the point and were successful with VP1.

I don't quite get how that happened to you... I didn't see that happen and looking at the conditions again, they seem correct.

Anyway, I'll dig into it again, thanks.

Hope you have fun and enjoy playing as much as possible

B

[Blackhawk]

VP1 Failed should probably be written as:
Game Month Year = 185712, not > 185712.

As this then checks to see if YTD steel and clothes have been shipped after January 1858. Where as the victory point is related to whether or not you shipped these things during the entire year of 1857, not January 1858. I got the victory point at the end of 1857 (as I was told I did, and it shows I did in the ledger), but a month later I got the message from VP1 Failed, saying I didn't get the point.

[brunom]

Blackhawk, you're right...

I'm already keeping a "reviewed BETA" version. Cheers!

B

[Hawk]

Just curious; has anyone got the first two VP's on this?

[Blackhawk]

I've gotten every VP available so far. I know I'm not going to get VP #8 though as a focused too much on company expansion. I was able to get VP#2 as one of the first things I did at the start of the scenario was buy a munitions plant in Athens. Which it was good for a few years as it was making a profit, but then the economy started to get better and the price of steel rose, and the price of ammo dropped. So for a couple years I ended up taking a loss. I wanted to sell it off, but I couldn't until after I got the VP for industry profits, otherwise the sale price is deducted from your profits.

A tool and die appeared at the edge of Athens and unfortunately it didn't want to product anything because the munitions plant on the other side was demanding all the steel, so I had to build a small station and send steel to the tool and die. (well wait for it to be slightly profitable to send there. I'm playing in 1.05 as I wasn't sure if this was meant for 1.05 or 1.06). I ended up buying the tool and die and supplied it and that gave me a good amount of profits. I also built a distillery out by some fruit orchards southeast of Athens.

In your final year for VP#2 when the new territories open up I looked for good investments there as well. Profitable and potentially cheap diary farms, cattle ranches, sheep farms, etc. In 1867 I built a tool and die in Patrai which became very profitable as well, however, I'm not sure if 1 year would be enough for a newly built industry to become profitable enough to be helpful towards VP#2.

As for VP#1 I didn't have a problem with that as there was a building that demanded steel in Athens and a textile mill in Athens to produce the clothing to bring back to the port. If there was no textile mill or industry demanding steel in Athens I could see how it could be difficult to do.

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Other things I've noticed in the scenario:
-VP2 failed - says there are only 12 points, but there are only 10 points.
-VP3 failed - to should be too
-territories 1881 - acknowledged misspelled

-Reduce the number of track pieces required to connect Cornith and Patria for VP#6. I managed to connect the 2 cities with 491 pieces of track, and on a different attempt to see how many pieces it would take it took 548 and that included a branch of track to connect to Kalavryta. So requiring 550 pieces for something that only took me 491 seems a little excessive.
-VP6 done should then be checked monthly rather than being a status/ledger event.
-Also related to VP6 since the event uses the "territory connects to city" condition. I would either tell the player they must build a station along the coast in that territory, or build a station on the coast for the player to build his railroad through. Otherwise you're left wondering why you aren't getting a point after you've connected the two cities and built along the coastline. Or just use the # of track pieces and city connects to city condition and don't use the territory connects to city.

Edit:
VP#4-5 - The event says to haul troops and weapons TO Thessaly. However, your events test for troops and weapons hauled FROM Thessaly.

[Blackhawk]

A few final notes:

VP4 done - victory misspelled
VP7 done - worth should be worthy?

I'm not sure if it's the intended result or not but when barracks spawn in some new cities (I think it was for VP4-ledger) Rather than just spawn 1 barracks in the cities, it spawned several barracks (after I opened the ledger).


I also thought the last 25 years of the scenario were a little slow. By the time I got the message to get enough personal wealth within 5 years I knew I had no chance at gaining that level of personal wealth for the VP, so I just kept running my company. With nothing else to do from 1890 to 1913 I turned off all messages/newspapers/ledger and put the game on fast and came back a later to finish VP#9. Which was easily accomplished by then with 25 years worth of money saved up.

I think the hardest part of the scenario is probably the start and the slow expansion to small cities. I connected between select cities slowly and heavily invested in industries early.

[brunom]

Blackhawk, you are MIGHTY!

I have corrected almost all the points you noted. In fact, some of them were serious bugs and I don't know how I missed them!

My only problem is the VP6...
There's no condition to check exactly what I want, as you know. I wasn't sure whether to check city to city, or city to territory. And I changed that just before release - because I was under the impression that the player didn't need to have a station in the territory, just tracks, to have that event checked.
I was wrong, of course. However, checking city to city is more open for "cheating".

I even thought of forcing the player to start a second company that connects the two cities and then force him back, but it sounded awkward, so I gave up on it. I'll give it some more thought..

As for the last 20 years being boring.. I am aware of that. The whole idea of the VP's is to keep the player "ticking" during the length of the map, and a couple of the VP's don't have a deadline so that the player can deal with them in the last decade or so. Still, I could throw in another pair of VP's (any ideas?), after 1900.
At the same time, you are such a great player that over a long scenario like this one, your skill shows even more. Let's wait for more reviews.

Hawk, as for the first VP's. It very much depends on the industries spawn in Athens at start. From my experience, if there isn't steel demand in Athens in January, 1857, you better forget VP1 and start getting rich with textiles and spreading the clothing, then raise enough money to get into the tools business.
However, having said this, I just went to the Editor and increased the money available at start, so that the player has enough to build a Tools Factory.

B

[Hawk]

I tried buying the brewery and distillery but, needless to say, there was not going to be enough profit there to achieve VP2, and buying the textile mill took too much money to complete VP1.
I never did try the munitions plant. Maybe because I didn't see it because the start I saved didn't add it.

My play style is such that if I can't make the first two VP's there's no sense going on.