Across the Blue Mountains

Discussion about reviews and strategies for user created scenarios made for RT3 version 1.05 and earlier.
RayofSunshine
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Across the Blue Mountains Unread post

Another great scenario. Lots of challenges. I did find that the mountains were of a challenge in themselves, as one of the required cities are on the opposite side. Also the Sheep, were are also a haul requirement. Well "wool".

The only suggestion I give is that of placing another "depot" closer to the water/ports. Otherwise Sydney becomes a very congested area. There is adequate amount of space to wrap a track around the Western side of the city. Also, after a couple years, remove and place the water/sand stop closer to the Sydney depot, which has been placed by the creator in the initial programming.

This is a worthwhile scenario, and believe players will enjoy its overall concept. :salute: {,0,}
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Moggie
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Re: Across the Blue Mountains Unread post

I've taken a couple of stabs at this and learned a couple of things already. So far no major success but I'm trying...The mountains are pretty formidable and one needs a lot of small towns in order to find enough cargo to get on the black.
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Gumboots
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Re: Across the Blue Mountains Unread post

Just had a couple of shots at this one, and I'm now convinced of something. The author never came anywhere close to getting a Gold on Expert level. I would be very surprised if he even managed it on Hard, and suspect he never tried anything above Medium. In fact, I'm not sure he ever got a Gold on any level at all.

To get Gold you have to connect all towns. That means you need track, and lots of it. There simply isn't enough available to do the job, even with the bonuses. If you could get every bonus every year it might be possible, but there's no way you can do that. In practice, the only track units bonus you can rely on is the one for hauling wool. You might get one of the others every so often, but not consistently.

The so-called "quota" for haulage (related to another track bonus) increases every year, but the rate at which it increases is just bonkers and makes it completely irrelevant to the game. I'm not even sure why it was included. **!!!**

This all means you'll end up short of track no matter which way you slice it. What I suspect happened is that the author tested it on Easy or possibly Normal level, and just assumed that "Hey I'd better make the hard levels harder for better players. I have no chance at all of winning it on those levels, even as it is, which means I can't really test it at all, so I'll just ramp up several things and hope it all works."

It doesn't. :mrgreen:

Short version: Bronze is possible. Silver is possible, although difficult enough that it'd count as a Gold in most people's terms. Gold as such is not possible. At all. :-P
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Re: Across the Blue Mountains Unread post

**!!!** Cannot find a map with that title in the archives :?:
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Gumboots
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Re: Across the Blue Mountains Unread post

arop
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Re: Across the Blue Mountains Unread post

!$th_u$! I see that it's an old Australian map. I thought it was a new North American map covering Blue Mountains Tennessee. !facepalm!
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Gumboots
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Re: Across the Blue Mountains Unread post

I didn't know those dastardly Tennessee types had nicked our mountains.
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RulerofRails
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Re: Across the Blue Mountains Unread post

I downloaded this one ages ago, but finally got to play it. Nice map. I like the haul goals to earn extra track pieces.

My strategy was to build a good industry (Textile Mill in decent demand area is probably the best choice for ROI over the length of the game). Then my focus was to make the general haulage goal which is 1 or more for the first year. In this era passengers are profitable. I made sure to develop the metropolitan area west of Sydney with this in mind, Hotels etc. I saved track pieces by building large stations that covered two "cities" (Parramatta/Botany Bay, Camden/Campbelltown, Richmond/Windsor). I serviced towns fairly well with an eventual total of 100 trains. At the start of a new year I would take out max bonds (the consequences of max bonds aren't too bad, bonds are still completely worth it), build the rails/buy the trains I needed to make the general haulage goal, then I spent any remaining money on industry. I never missed this goal. Was good for an 18 year medal on first attempt.

As I expanded my network south along the coast, my trains started picking up Lumber which was then funneled towards Sydney. I never bought special trains for this goal, just let the auto consist do its thing. To get the Wool goal I connected to cities which had a passing Wool cargo stream (often down a river). This included a connection up north to Newcastle. Before I made the connection to the east where Wool is plentiful I also hauled some Wool from the other ports into Sydney. Some of this Wool I had already hauled once (automatically), but I used these ports as collection facilities for a haul into Sydney as supplying the ports there with wool earlier is a fun side task. The way the ports are setup (supplies and demands but no conversion chain) once a port is well supplied with wool for 3-5 years it will upgrade. This gives more Iron to make Steel with.

The metropolitan area around Sydney (close cities) makes getting the Steel Mill positioned and producing take a little longer than normal. When the station cell washes out (its orange, but the surrounding cells are green demand), it's a little frustrating to have to wait for the game to re-adjust demand there. That's a game weakness, so can't be helped. I used the Springwood-Lithgow pass to connect to Bathurst and then branched out to the north-western cities including Wellington. Tried to take the shortest routes, with spurs to reach the final outlying towns such as Queanbeyan (used a tunnel as I had plenty of cash), Musswellbrook, Goulburn, and Crookwell.

There is a yearly allowance of 100 track pieces even if you don't meet any of the haulage goals. Discounting the initial track available, I used up 4,050 pieces of track (I double-tracked most of the line between Sydney and Wollongong). If your play-style makes it difficult to get some of the goals, don't worry. If you can get one of the haulage goals every year (wool) and another for half of the game (lumber) you can still win this game. Admittedly, waiting may get a little boring. Anyway, I thoroughly enjoyed keeping my company growth in sync with the current year's target number of general hauls. IMO, it's one of the stand-out aspects of strategy here. :-)
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Gumboots
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Re: Across the Blue Mountains Unread post

Ok, so I actually played a game of RT3 again. Had a crack at this one, since RoR reckons it's possible to get Gold on Expert. Still can't quite get it myself. It's probably doable, but would require getting the wool haulage bonus every year right from the start, which means the whole strategy has to be developed around that so you can get enough track to connect all towns.

The other haulage bonuses are too unreliable. Steel doesn't even exist until the game is almost finished, so you can't rely on the steel haulage bonus to get you far. The timber haulage bonus is a bit unreliable too, since production is drastically curtailed by event after ten years or so, and even before that there's not a lot of timber around anyway.

Track allowance is the killer for this scenario. Everything else is a piece of cake. The amount of money rolling in means that's no problem, so you end up just hanging around waiting for more track. Once you get a bit at the start of the next year you immediately use it up, so then you have to wait around for another year.

TBH, it's because of this sort of thing that limited track scenarios really aren't my favourite type. :-P
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Gumboots
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Re: Across the Blue Mountains Unread post

Ha. Thought I had Gold, but the author went and hid a Gold condition in the events without mentioning it anywhere in the briefings. That was nice of him. :roll:

Ok, so with a bit of luck, and with some micromanagement here and there (just to make sure you get at least one haulage bonus every year), this one would be winnable on Expert. At the moment I can't be bothered doing it again. I'm kinda over it. I like laying nice track for grades and curves, and using maintenance spurs too, and when you're skimping for track segments you can't play it like that. It basically becomes a case of throw down a little bit of track every January, then fast forward the rest of the year, and maybe shepherd the occasional wool or timber train to make sure it offloads before year end. Or if you just want a win you could bait and switch, which would make it pretty easy.
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RulerofRails
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Re: Across the Blue Mountains Unread post

Good to see that you are getting closer on this one, and I am sure that you will be able to eventually get the Gold if you decide to persevere. I often tend to run pretty heavy traffic on my lines and this scenario encourages that. The main thing I enjoyed was keeping step with the general haulage goal target which is more immune to the bait-and-switch and other exploits. It kept me from getting bored while waiting for more track, but I can see the potential that if you missed two or three years it may be difficult to meet the target again if you were relying on this track quota. Thankfully in addition to the "free" 100 units you receive there are the other quotas that can be achieved fairly easily once you get a decent network going without using exploits.

I like the idea of making hauls to get track pieces, in reality though this is a weak point of RT3. I still believe this scenario makes one of the best efforts I have seen of making an enjoyable game without becoming no-fun as there is enough other stuff to mask to some degree the bait and switch, extra collection stations, and re-hauling exploit weaknesses. There is some definite strategy to do with track-laying and routing and I do enjoy that, but you are right that it isn't good for maintenance spurs or subtle, clever track grades. Don't know if you took a look, but I made some efforts while testing Age of Steam IV as modified by Hans on trying to teach myself a little more about how to use maintenance spurs while going for the crazy high haulage goals for the new Super Gold medal. They are an integral part of that medal. The downside I have to using them is that setup and train routing takes so long, and unfortunately my time is limited, as well as the complications I run into when trying to create long distance routes that seem to limit possible combinations and cost extra money which widens the gap in ROI versus industry. Basically they work great to keep speeds up, but they take a little too much planning and effort for me to use them all the time.

PS. I am curious, what Gold condition isn't mentioned in the briefing?
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Gumboots
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Re: Across the Blue Mountains Unread post

By "general haulage goal target" do you mean the overall "quota" that escalates like crazy every year? I never even bother paying attention to that, since the rate at which it escalates renders it meaningless IMO. The traffic congestion was already getting far too high for my liking, even without getting close to the levels of overall haulage required by that quota. I ended up running about 50 trains over the entire map, and even with only fifty trains a lot of them were hardly making any profit. I hate to think what it would have been like with double that number, even without considering the congestion.

Congestion was so high that shipping the loads of clothing from Sydney to Bathurst took almost a whole year. In reality, if someone in Bathurst ordered 8 loads of clothing and you said they could have them maybe by next Christmas, even though the loads were already sitting at the station in Sydney, they'd tell you to eff off and ask if you were sending them by donkey cart. Sending stuff to Bathurst only took a few hours, even with 19th century trains.

I tend to play heavy on track and light on trains. My instincts basically make me tend to set things up for maximum haulage speed, just because I like to see things moving nicely. You may have noticed that scenarios with speed goals tend to be a no-brainer for me. When I was starting out with this game I paid attention to how track laying affects speed, and even a subtle kink can have a noticeable effect on moderate-speed freight trains. The same kink can easily knock 20 mph off a fast express. Incidentally, if you have a tightish corner at the bottom of a grade this will also make express trains more susceptible to crashing. The game really does seem to model that.

Spurs don't really cost any more because, if used properly, they mean you can get away with fewer sheds and towers. This means the overall cost isn't an issue when making the choice, because the extra track is generally cheaper than the extra sheds and towers. They can complicate long distance routing if you want to vary routes a lot, but I still find them easy enough to use. I also tend not to use much long distance routing simply because the travel times are so horrendous that I can usually get the same or better ROI by other means (like more industry). I also like the route planning aspect of it, and enjoy the better loco reliability given by spurs.

The condition that isn't in the briefing is that all stations have to be connected to Sydney. Just having them connected, in the usual RT3 sense of the word, isn't enough.

Oh and what's this "Springbrook to Lithgow pass" that people keep mentioning? To my eye the terrain from Springbrook to Lithgow looks rubbish. The best way up the mountains is to head north from Springbrook, then loop back up the eastern tongue of the range to Katoomba. If you do it this way the grades are good. (0!!0)
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RulerofRails
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Re: Across the Blue Mountains Unread post

I have a save from 1871 where I have 100 trains. This was my second attempt, and I had made all the connections, but made a critical error of forgetting the 150 loads of Wool to the ports goal. :oops: Anyway, I just did a little math on the year 1870 to get a ROI for my investment in rails/stations/trains after all maintenance and fuel costs had been deducted but before overhead and interest. I had 5M of revenue from Express traffic. I used 1.35M of Post Offices, Hotels, and Restaurants in the high traffic area around Sydney. The ROI on those was 52% ROI. Combining this with rail revenues gave 19.9% (18.8% without). I was receiving a benefit from some connection bonuses and the newly opened price differential opportunities involved. I don't remember the economic state, but in 1871 it was normal. In the same year industry was only giving me 18.1% ROI, but I wasn't trying to maximize it completely as that is not the focus of this scenario. Each engine was worth 80k of revenue on average, and I am happy with that.

That play 1870 hauls were 1177 loads and the target overall "quota" (that's what I meant by "general haulage goal target") was 815 loads I believe. I viewed the quota as a performance target and this way it was fun. In the early years of the game, I was closer to the goal and some years I did take to surveying the map near the end of the year to maximize passenger traffic available especially in the high traffic areas around Sydney. This keeps more passengers in circulation as those passengers on trains wont disappear at year end (also the more you haul generally the more haulage opportunities available). I didn't care if the price was bad. Hotels make up for that. Without developing passenger traffic properly this goal would be much more difficult. Things do congested, I don't know a good way to avoid it, just manage it as best I can.

I grabbed a shot of what I did in the Springbrook to Lithgow area on my second attempt. The spur to Katoomba is rubbish grades (could be improved with slightly more track if you are happy to have the entrance facing west towards Lithgow to make a longer ramp and/or lower station placement), but I am fairly happy with the rest. I was more careful on the first attempt and had only 5 track cells above 4% grade on the main line to Bathurst, but some of my station and maintenance shed placements left a little bit of a mess. !*00*! I had worse grades in the south climbing into Braidwood as I wanted to position the station on the north east side to catch Lumber better (first attempt with a nice quick curve on the southern side was mainly 5 with one 6). The Consolidations seem to do ok on 5% grades, IMO.
Penrith to Lithgow.jpg
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Interesting that you saw some trains crashing on the tight corners, I never paid attention/noticed that before. I am aware of the effects of kinks though, and sometimes the low-grade super twisty mountain routes can actually end up being slower. I try to aim for a balance. Sometimes it works. I am also paying more attention to curves now than I did awhile ago, especially when connecting two sections of track together.

On the Age of Steam IV map where I needed to make long-hauls right across the map for some of the haulage goals for the normal Gold medal, I ended up building dedicated double-track right across the map solely to make these long-distance hauls. I did try to develop a system of having bypasses with in-line maintenance facilities that were also shortcuts distance-wise to service the long distance traffic, but I didn't master it. You are right that in general play and with the right strategy using spurs can save money, this would offset any loss from making extra services for dedicated long-distance routes. Even though it seems like an extra expense for the long-distance routes, this is offset by the overall saving of having less overall. I agree with you on not doing many long-distance routes, except for haulage goals. Majority of time I would say that only a couple for rare resources (Iron/Coal, Tires etc) are useful on a map without haul goals, so not a biggie. I tend to spend less effort on chasing resources these days, instead trying to plan for industry placement that is hopefully more self-contained. My rails should help stabilize the most important thing: demand.
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Gumboots
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Re: Across the Blue Mountains Unread post

OK, I owe the author of this map an apology. It's very well tested and scripted. It just required me to rethink my usual approach. Knocked it off in early 1877 this time, and even had enough track to double some of the heavily used sections. I've been sitting out a tropical depression after a cyclone hit up the coast, so good days for gaming. :mrgreen:

I found out a few things. This time the player name and the seeding were different to the cookie cutter seedings I was getting before. Not wildly different seeding (it's still generally the same) but just a bit. No idea why the player name changed either. All the other times it was Lord Strathcona, but this one was different (can't remember offhand what name it was).

There are some tricks on Expert. The early game requires some industry, but not much. You can't go industry heavy early on or you'll miss too many haulage bonuses, which will put you permanently behind the eight ball. I found a paper mill between two logging camps was a good trick. It's stable income, and cheap to set up, meaning you have money left over for rail early on. I was skimping for cash in some of the early years because I was focusing on rail, so you need (IMO) just enough industry to keep you solvent. Rail alone won't keep your head above water in the early stages.

The way you do the early rail seems to be critical too. The best way is to upgrade the Sydney station to large asap, then put another large covering Botany Bay and Parramatta, then a medium at Liverpool. The medium is big enough to do the job at Liverpool and saves you 100 k (money is tight at the start). Then expand out to Campbelltown and Picton when you can, as well as Windsor, Penrith, etc. The idea is to get a tight network based on Sydney, which is where the early haulage and money is. A few carefully placed hotels and restaurants help once things get rolling, and make very good money.

Since the only goal was to maximise haulage, I ran American 4-4-0 with 7 cars and caboose on flat terrain. This gives max haulage for minimum congestion, and they're reliable if replaced when they hit 6 years old. I used this rule all the way through, even for other locomotives elsewhere which weren't hauling 7 cars. I found that if I replaced them all at 6 years I had hardly any breakdowns at all, and with the Americans being so cheap it made sense in a game that was tight for haulage schedules. I also went with too many maintenance sheds rather than not quite enough, again to maximise reliability by minimising time spent running with oil below 50%. I ended up with 66 trains in total, and could have done it with less.

With the overall haulage quota, I found that after some practice I could keep up with it until the mid 1860's. After that it started getting away from me, so I then relied on the other bonuses for haulage of wood, wool and steel. I figured out how to ace these consistently. The wood (lumber) haulage is just a matter of having heaps of trains hauling mixed consist on a diverse network. As long as the seeding is decent for logging camps and you are keeping up with the overall haulage quota, at least until the mid 1860's, you should do ok for wood haulage.

I figured out a good approach for wool haulage too. There is plenty of wool way out west but it's awkward to get to. What I did was put a textile mill up near Goulburn, right next to a sheep farm, as soon as I had the cash available. The draw from this made the Tycoonatrons cart all the extra wool up and over the range for me, and the wool just stacked up at my mill after a while. The stockpile there meant the price for wool was lower than at Wollongong, which had demand caused by two ports and a (seeded) upgraded textile mill. Once my network was at the stage where I could connect to Goulburn and Wollongong (in 1865, as it turns out) I put an extra station at the textile mill, between Goulburn and Crookwell, and ran four priority Connies from the mill straight down to Wollongong, hauling mixed consist both ways. Since the only cargo at the mill that was demanded at Wollongong was wool, they hauled wool to Wollongong port without any management. Combined with the other (general haulage) trains on the map I was averaging over 30 loads of wool a year without trying, and had about 250 loads hauled to the ports after 22 years. Once I could see I had that goal in the bag I took some of the Connies off that run and sent them down the south coast instead, leaving just one doing the wool to Wollongong haul to keep the annual quota for rail allowance bonus well and truly covered. This still worked well with my mill because I didn't upgrade that. This kept demand down at the mill, so shipping to Wollongong was ok without bait and switch, and it still chugged away making its regulation four loads of clothing every year at a nice little profit. !*th_up*!

Came up with a nice dodge for steel haulage too. The trick here is to put your steel mill at Port Kembla, which is where it actually is in real life. I know because I've seen it. :mrgreen: As an Australian I know the steel mill should be there, and I bet the map author was thinking the same way. You will have to clear a bit of space for it, but putting your mill here has several advantages. The area around Sydney tends to get full of tool and dies and steel mills fighting over resources. If you put your mill down at Port Kembla, right behind your station, you get first crack at all the iron coming out of those ports, which will have upgraded themselves because of all that lovely wool you are feeding them. Your south coast run will also feed your mill iron from the port down at Bateman's Bay, as well as coal from down the coast. This means your steel production is guaranteed and the mill will do quite nicely. Since I deliberately did not build a tool and die down there, all the steel my mill made was drawn up the hill to Campbelltown etc, so steel haulage took care of itself. This was all running in the late 1860's, so the steel kept giving me rail bonuses once the overall haulage escaped me. The requirement is 5 loads per year, and most years I was hauling 10-15 without trying.

I came up with a good way of doing the overall network too (pic attached). Grades are good and congestion seems minimal (or as minimal as it can be). Katoomba is connected from Windsor, for easy grades and a short run, with Springbrook just on a spur and the actual station down on the flat (ditto for Braidwood down south). Kandos is connected from Lithgow, again for good grades and a short run, and this ties in well with the other towns in the northwest. Queanbeyan is connected by coming round the mountains when she comes, apart from a short section of tunnel just outside Goulburn. This was pretty cheap, and just got me there with that year's track allowance.

I did send special trains to get the goods haulages to Goulburn, etc but no bait and switch was used. I just sent a train when the goods were available at a viable shipping price down at Sydney, then re-routed those trains to local routes after they dropped off the goods.
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Gumboots
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Re: Across the Blue Mountains Unread post

Oh this is how I did the runs up the mountains. I agree that Connies are fine with short stretches of 5% grade, at least with pre-1900 freight cars, so I didn't get too fussy. I could have keep the grades on some cells a bit lower with more care, but thought this was ok. If I kept some of the 5's and 6's to 4, it would have put some of the 2's and 3's up to 4 as well.
Windsor_to_Katooomba.jpg
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Lithgow to Kandos was like this. I could have kept it all to 4% but it would have meant extra distance, and at that stage I wasn't sure how much track I would end up needing.
Kandos_to_Lithgow.jpg
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With the Goulburn to Wollongong run, as you can see I put in a small bypass to avoid congestion at the Moss Vale/Mittagong station. This worked well and cost very little track. The track from the turnoff to the south coast, and all the way through to Sydney, was double tracked. Sydney to Windsor was doubled too.
Goulburn_to_Wollongong.jpg
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I just checked the save again and this time around I only had two hotels and two restaurants. This really was a bit of an oversight in terms of total revenue, but I'd placed those early on to give a bit of a boost when Sydney and Botany Bay/Parramatta were the only places that would give good and fast returns on hotels. After that I forgot about them. Playing sandbox after the win for a year, with passenger traffic well developed then, I noticed I could have made good extra revenue with hotels and restaurants at Campbelltown, Windsor and Wollongong as well. I never made any attempt to specifically develop passenger traffic. I was focused on other things this time.

One thing I did do was put two intermediate stations between Maitland and Muswellbrook. This was simply because at the time I didn't have enough track to go straight to Muswellbrook but knew I had to go there eventually. Good haulage for livestock and wool was coming down the river, and the amounts of track I had weren't really enough to go anywhere else useful, so I thought why not just go up the river in stages? It worked well for immediate haulage to keep the stats up, and the flat terrain made for an easy run with cheap track. I wasn't putting stations every 6 inches to get stupid with short hauls. I just ran to the limit of the available track twice, then a final short section to Muswellbrook itself. I figure this isn't a cheat because I know there are stations between Maitland and Muswellbrook anyway. I'm calling it a legit tactic. :mrgreen:
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RulerofRails
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Re: Across the Blue Mountains Unread post

Glad you made it! Excellent strategy write up also. Routing network looks quality too. :salute:

A word of caution for future players, the cities like Bathurst and Wellington that have delivery quotas have fairly small territories that count these loads so you need to make sure to actually put your station near the houses instead of going for just a "connected" achievement. I found this out the hard way in Wellington where I tried to bring my track in level instead of dropping down into the town itself. Also, to make these long-distance goals I tend to get all the loads ready at once. Otherwise once half of it has arrived the price at the destination will drop and may give trouble loading.
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Re: Across the Blue Mountains Unread post

RulerofRails wrote:Otherwise once half of it has arrived the price at the destination will drop and may give trouble loading.
Unless you're playing in 1.06 which allows hauling at a profit loss, which would make the scenario easier; maybe taking away from the intent of the scenario creator.
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Re: Across the Blue Mountains Unread post

It's not necessary for this one anyway. For example, the event coding lets you ship part of one quota to Goulburn and the other part to Muswellbrook. Some loads of goods tend to go to Goulburn by themselves, but then the price for goods there will usually stabilise at a lower price than the Sydney area. No need for bait and switch though, because the demand for goods at Muswellbrook will still be quite high, so whenever you feel like it you just send a train of goods to Muswellbrook. !*th_up*!
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Re: Across the Blue Mountains Unread post

I think I'm getting the hang of traffic flow on this one. I kept up with the overall haulage quota until the end of 1872 this time. Just missed it, by 3 loads, in 1873. Got it again in 1874, then lost it after that. By that stage it didn't matter though since everything was connected anyway. I'd been getting the other bonuses for wood, steel and wool consistently, so had plenty of track available right through the game.

The only thing that screwed me this time around was that I'd forgotten to get goods production pumping earlier, so I had to boost that up and then wait for enough to ship at legit prices. That took me to late 1877. If I'd been more onto it and pumped out goods earlier, I could have easily finished by 1875.

Ended up with 84 (I think) trains, but 5 of those were for the Gulgong Railway Museum. :mrgreen: Just for fun I had the main line running from Kandos to Mudgee and then straight to Wellington, with Gulgong on a spur to the side. The spur was nicely double tracked all the way, and naturally there was a hotel and restaurant and tavern at Gulgong. They even made a little bit of money. The train service between Mudgee and Gulgong was one each of all the obsolete locomotives that were no longer being used on the main lines, so there was a Norris, a Firefly, a Beuth, a Baldwin and a Crampton. These were all set to one car plus caboose, to preserve their fragile old guts, and they were still making a slight profit. The Norris made the most profit, funnily enough (about 30 k per year). I think a Gulgong Railway Museum should be part of the Gold requirements. (0!!0)
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Re: Across the Blue Mountains Unread post

Hard to believe I haven't played this one for four years. Might have to drag it out again.

Anyway, I was doing a bit of checking on Australian history for possible other scenarios, and found out something. The steel mill in this scenario shouldn't be there. There was no steel production in Australia until 1915, when the first mill was built at Newcastle. The Port Kembla mill only came along 12 years after that, in 1927.

Before 1915, all steel used in the country was imported, mostly from the UK. Steel was obviously worked in the country, but the raw steel wasn't actually made there. There wasn't even any iron mining until about 1900. So really this scenario should be revamped, to have only imported steel and iron from ports.
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