Guatemala

Discussion about reviews and strategies for user created scenarios made for RT3 version 1.05 and earlier.
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bombardiere
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Guatemala Unread post

I must say my comments on this great scenario. The view alone from the Guatemala City to Pacific coast is breathtaking. And the climb is designed well. I was able to make a glimb with no grade above 6%. (I really like good mountain terran)

However, some reserved cell above city called something beginning with E would help. Often houses or industry will appear here and it spoils the terrain features. This is important because the best route goes slight past the city and then curves back.

I liked the third world feeling of the scenario. And the events were fun too. But the scenario is hard also. After several hard start I couldn't make it and had to go with medium. And even with it, I could make only Bronze. Part of the problem was (for me anyway), that mountainous terran cost a lot to lay the track. In hard I couldn't finish the track from G City to E, but had to issue bonds. This get me constantly in near bankcrupcy. (actually quite fun and highlighted third wolrd feeling.)

I guess the key is industry, sadly I am no robber baron. And I would have wanted to continue to play after the scenario was finished, but that wasn't possible as the track allowance wasn't renewed. I would aööow play time for 40 years and keep the goals same. (off course I can do it myself)

Anyway this is a great scenario and I can't wait for more scenarios. (not that I haven't play all Lama's scenarios yet)
Lama
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Unread post

Merci for your comments, bombardiere!

Terrain deformation is of course a pain, and even though I try to shape the landscape in ways that minimize its impact, it does sometimes mess things up, even post-patch.
I am delighted, though, that you like the landscaping! This was actually quite a project.

For strategy, a good mix of industry and rail is essential. Cattle, meat, sugar and alcohol on the Pacific coast pay well, as does clothing on the Caribbean coast (P. Barrios).

Also, issuing stock whenever you can is a good idea.

Don't start your track in G. City - too expensive for a start. Begin at a port. I usually start in the port city on the Pacific Coast.

I am curious to learn what you did about the temptations of military adventure and corruption? How did that work for you?

Your comment about rail baffles me. I thought I had put in a safeguard, so that the rail allowance would be maxed out before the medal goal is triggered. I'll go and check.
Jeremy Mac Donald
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Re: Guatemala Unread post

So I just played the revised version of this entertaining scenario. I did find it fairly tough as I probably restarted 4 or so times before managing to win this baby. I chose to play squeaky clean and never stole from the company. That said the player can always funnel a fair bit of money to himself from the company simply by setting the dividend high. Admittedly that means the company 'looses' money to the 'other' stock holders. Something I tend to just live through as I'm not the kind of player that goes completely crazy buying on margin. I've lost to many games where I screwed up on a margin call - so I never have debt much more then my net worth that way I can almost always survive the economy sliding into recession. Nevertheless if your handing out $2 per share you can, eventually, become the dominant stock holder in the company even if it is undergoing stock splitting rapidly. I never owned all the stock in my company but I owned enough to meet the PNW goals.

Oddly enough I seem to have gone with a strategy thats slightly different then the one the authour is describing above. I started in the Caribbean and bought the alcohol refinery nearest the Mexican border. That usually makes a nice profit and as soon as I could afford it I upgraded it. This provided a nice steady amount of cash. After that I did not bother with industry as the scenario goals are really about carrying cargo.

Far more then most of the scenarios I have played I used a variety of trains on this map. Near the beginning I bought the rather out of date (but dirt cheap) American for a run between two very close cities. I then used mostly Consolidations for many of the routes. When the Dukes showed up three or four years in I used them on the straight flat routes in the Caribbean where the Dukes where a better train then the Consolidations which were sent into the mountainous heart of Guatemala. These trains where then shunted to the comparatively gentle terrain on the Pacific Coast when, near the halfway mark of the scenario, the absolutely excellent 2-Truck Shay shows up. This super cheap little train can climb a sheer cliff at a descent speed and I loaded 8 cars on these baby's and ran them through the mountains. Usually I avoid this train because its so slow but here they were totally in their element (OK they were still slow but on this kind of track they were comparatively fast).

I enjoyed the scenario a great deal but must say that luck can play a pretty big factor near the beginning. This is a scenario that starts quite hard and loosing early trains to accidents or just getting unlucky with the initial seed can be devastating. One of the games I restarted from was restarted because my trains had nothing to carry. Very few raw resource producers had appeared at game start in the Caribbean and without some sugar and cattle flowing into this part of the map to feed the meat packing and alcohol refining plants here there is not much chance of winning (at least not if you start on this side of the map). Another restart was essentially due to their being multiple alcohol refineries that were about equally popular with the regions sugar plantations meaning none of them made any worthwhile profit.

Still, all and all, a fun scenario and well worth the time.
RayofSunshine
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Guatemala Unread post

Mountainous scenarios are not "my thing". Maybe because I don't seem to be able to get much headway with them. This scenario has a good concept of challenge, but after 3 attempts, I have not be able to connect more than 2 cities, and although there are minimal commodities to haul, they are inadequate in the progress of operation. So, I am leaving this one for your "mountain climbers". Good Luck. :salute: {,0,}
Marz
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Re: Guatemala Unread post

Beautiful map, the intro made me laugh like a heartless tycoon, and there seems to be a lot of thought put into the events. !**yaaa
I played the game 4 times on normal, and the 5th on easy, but all failed. :cry:

My most promising start was the first game, where I had connected the towns Escuintia, Peurto San Jose, Maza*, and Reta*. By luck of the draw, there was 2 sugar plantations and a cattle ranch in the middle, so I had a total of 5 stations and running 3 trains. A meat market in Escu and a still in Maza began cranking goods and making money. Laborers hit me up for $100 right when I needed that cash for a maintenance shed, so I passed on it thinking I could pay them again next year. Cash *slowly* started building, and after about 7 years I was at AA credit rating. Things were starting to look up right as the economy slowed down. I decided to try connecting to Guatemala City, but didnt have enough track. After fast-forwarding a few more years, I gave up after no more track appeared. :-?

The next 3 tries, I attempted starting from Guatemala City and going down to the coast. It's super expensive, but connecting the warehouse to the port triggers a coffee event. With the slow fairlie being the only choice for the mountains, it has just enough time to make 1 trip. All 3 tries, there was never 3 loads of coffee to make payback... and even with the $220k, it would just keep my company on life support. Turns out the first game was my best and only shot at making money, but ran outta track, and the other 3 never could gain traction.

My last try, on Easy, was to connect El Progresso to Guat City, thinking the warehouses could feed each other and bootstrap an economy. I ended up with a credit rating of F - my lowest rating ever. !*00*!

I suppose the 3 balls to juggle the 1st year are
1. connect Guat city's warehouse to a port and hope 3 loads of coffee appear before August (in time to ship)
2. Save $100k to buy extra track
3. hope the starting cities have enough resources with the right industry to use them

I think starting the company with a little more cash and a little more track would make this possible. Otherwise, it seems tricky to build the right route with the right choices just to keep from going bankrupt.
TheBonobo4
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Re: Guatemala Unread post

Downloaded this a few days ago, and this one has me positively stumped, even playing on medium (I play the Campaign on Hard, and scenarios I'm comfortable with on Expert, and mostly get Gold, so I consider myself at least a decent player). At first I started from Porto San Jose to Escuintila, and then the other 2 towns nearby on the Pacific Coast, and quickly went bankrupt. Then I tried just buying farms, only to make around $100K a year, not enough to get anywhere with no hope of expansion. Even with an initial bond and 2 issues of stock, you only have around $1.6M, not enough for the really profitable industries (and it's interesting that we can only build Distilleries, Meat Packing Plants, Textile Mills and maybe one other industry, so there's little variety in that regard). I have tried also running from Guatemala City down to the nearest town, but that didn't work either, nor did Porto Barrios to Zacopa etc. It doesn't seem worth the extra track in 1st year since I can't make a profit as is. Finally I tried Porto San Jose to Guatemala City, which triggered a Coffee event that I didn't really understand, but failed as there was no Coffee in Guatemala City (there was a Warehouse in Quetzaltango near GC but not in GC itself).

So yeah, I'm truly stumped with this one. I realise this is an old map, and last post here was years ago, but if anyone can give any hints and tips I'd really appreciate it, because so far this is about the only scenario I have that I'm truly stumped with (off the top of my head at least), and I've played some pretty brutal (in my opinion at least) scenarios.

Also, just as an aside, it's interesting to note that it seems Guatemala's real, present day rail system is fairly non existent, thanks to truck transport and neglect. But it seems the first railroad built from Porto San Jose to GC itself, so maybe that is the way to go, even if the terrain is pretty brutal and you barely have enough initial cash to do so, and I went bankrupt attempting it. Also, whilst I do use hide trees and the grid, and I consider myself fairly good at mountain track laying, I still think I was getting track at around 9%, so maybe I need a longer/different route. Hmm.
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Gumboots
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Re: Guatemala Unread post

Sounds interesting. I too a quick look at the map and it appears to be made well. He's done a good job on the terrain, even though it's a bit exaggerated, and I like a good track-laying challenge. I wouldn't be able to resist using custom locos and stats though.
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RulerofRails
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Re: Guatemala Unread post

Hi again,

I don't have time to deconstruct this one right now. But I took an hour or two to poke around. Please note that I didn't look at the events in the editor, and I actually never played this one before. :oops: It looks good too. !*th_up*!

Anyway, there is only really one decent place to start and that's on the Pacific Coast. The ROI from mountainous track is lower. Something may be possible to scrape through, such as a direct link from Guatemala City down to the port, also an inland track from the Caribbean Coast, but I'm going to ignore these as being too difficult.

The first thing to say about having "one" place to start is that you are captive to the random effects of seeding. You can't go somewhere else if that particular area happens to be poor. For example if there is only 1 ranch on the Pacific Coast that seed is going to play differently from if there are 5 or 6. But, in such case of a "bad" seed, the game will invariably throw some in within the first couple of years. So the options would be build anyway and run at low profit until they appear, or sit out and buy these industries as they appear.

Building Hotels is a good move, especially in Escuintla. I think there is virtue in the placement of the 4 cities here for auto re-hauling to give a decent profit once cargo volume builds. That cargo would be mainly Meat and Alcohol. I wouldn't try to finance the line to Guatemala City until these cargoes have built up on the coast and those first trains can make a killing.

That doesn't seem like much info, but maybe it helps a little for now. Here's a quick idea how to make the climb at 5%.
Guatemala City climb.jpg
TheBonobo4
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Re: Guatemala Unread post

Thanks for the tips. It definitely seems like the Pacific is the only place to start. The terrain is flat mostly and there might be enough cargo for profits. Am interesting climb too. Thanks for the screenshot, 5 percent is manageable and I think we had worse on even the in game Central Pacific scenario. Just another point about that climb. How long did it take you to find that route? I play with trees off and grid on when building track. Maybe I was looking in the wrong place because that track laying is beautiful, if not perfect. :salute:

Oh and one thing I am confused about. What is the point of the AI in this scenario? They start with a company but don't ever seem to buy track or industry. Are they just there to buy and sell shares or do they do something event wise? Do they serve any historical significance?

EDIT: Managed to get Gold on this one, albeit on Easy. ::!**! A fun scenario, and a challenge even on Easy. The terrain is challenging, getting to Tegucigalpa in particular is tough, I have my only Shay going from there to Comayagua, since the grades average around 9%, everywhere else I used Consolidations or Dukes, and averaged around 6% on the steepest sections (8 or 9 in some areas for a few miles, but I mostly did okay for grades). Also, graft was interesting. I got a newspaper saying I was involved in a scandal around 1890, despite having at the time only around 5% chance of scandal. At its highest it was around 33%, when I grafted the coffee and had to donate to charity. I've no idea how anyone would beat this on Expert, as I say it's tough enough on Easy.


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RulerofRails
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Re: Guatemala Unread post

Well done! :-D

The track laying was maybe 10-15 mins. That was the second pass I made with 5% maximum. It is possible to smooth a few of the worst twists with a different station/track setup in Excuintla as I did on the first build.

I go off-piste a little - in the right places. Where the grade normally goes over, I either increase distance or decrease angle. Benching into the terrain while following the curves. Often tightening a little more just to stay on target.

I will do "exploration" sections around trouble spots first to check a line, then undo that before starting the proper run. An example here is the left turn approach to the "pass". This area is easy to do with a couple 6's, but to get all 5's I needed to swing it wide, then go tight. Often riding a little up on the terrain can help. It comes with practice.
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My playstyle is probably described as taking some of the benefits that full micro-management could give, but just at the most critical times. The key word is timing. Our profits rely on price differentials which are instantaneous at the time of depature.

For example, on the play that I started, had good supply of Meat and Alcohol, my coastal stations had 20 loads of Meat in their catchment areas. The price differential to Guatemala City was close to $90 per load. So I will buy enough trains at the same time on pause to haul all that Meat to Guatemala City. Should be good for $1.5M profit.

I'm cherry-picking the best price differential opportunities. In the best case, the process can be repeated over and over, even using the same cargo. Overwhelm demand in one place for a few months, and the price will drop significantly, giving a lucrative price differential to the next un-supplied town. A key aspect here is waiting. I don't want to haul the Meat away from Guatemala City at $8 per load when it might net me $30 per load later. So I might stop trains, or set them to Express etc. to prevent low value haulage. Stopping them means that they are on-demand for precisely the moment when the next gradient opens up (when the system is working in a loop).

This technique is harder here with the limited track which limits your given opportunities to time your expansion, but I'm pretty confident. Might try it next week. Grabbing farms as they seed in on a "lean" start looks pretty promising too.
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Gumboots
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Re: Guatemala Unread post

Ok, I had a go at it. First thing I have to say is that I love the scenery and terrain. The track building is great fun and it makes for good train rides. Grades are nicely buildable everywhere so far, if you take a bit of care and try a few approaches.

I wanted to test out custom loco stats with my custom cargo car sets, so I've chosen to adapt the default loco roster slightly. I'm running two Fairlies, basically just because I can, but those freight-only runs would probably be better down with Moguls or Connies. All the other freight trains are either Moguls or Connies, depending on terrain, and there is plenty of freight to haul.

All the express is being hauled by the Thatcher Perkins 4-6-0*. This is handling full express consists nicely, even on the run up to Guatemala City from the Pacific coast. That line is double-tracked all the way (maximum grade of 6% in a couple of short spots) and has two express locos and three freighters running on it.

I've also connected north to Mexico along the coast, and over to Puerto Barrios on the Caribbean. I'm finding that once you have half a dozen or so cities hooked up, with hotels in each one, there is stacks of express traffic to keep dedicated express locos profitable and the hotels do alright for profit. Restaurants are also making decent returns in the major cities.

I just took the first seed I got, on Expert level, and played from there. I'm at January 1884 at the moment and have had Bronze in the bag for ages (both ports connected, and 260 loads hauled to them out of 100 required). Silver looks like a sure thing from here. Gold is looking plausible but not certain.

A Pacific coast start seems to make the most sense for rail, once you get into rail, but my first move was to build a textile mill over at Puerto Barrios. With cheap and plentiful cotton there on this seed, and a high price for clothing, I figured that issuing two lots of stock to top up the $1,100k you're given at the start made a lot of sense. You have enough purchasing power to buy some stock, and doing that bumps the stock price a bit. That's enough to get two issues over $100k with a little bit to spare, which means you can build the mill without requiring a bond in the first year. This sets you up well for the second year. !*th_up*!

*The stats I'm using for the Thatcher Perkins 4-6-0 are a bit de-tuned from what I released it with the other day. The initial guess at stats was a bit too much. Top speed is now dropped to 52 mph, and a few other things have been tweaked. The Mogul and Connie have also been wound back to something more like a freighter of the period. The Connie's top speed is only 38 mph, and the Mogul's is only 35, but they still haul well.
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Gumboots
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Re: Guatemala Unread post

Ended up getting a Silver easily enough, but was I short on loads to Honduras and Nicaragua, and short on PNW by a substantial margin, so no Gold this time. A Gold is obviously possible on Expert level, but it's a bit tricky and it would require a bit of luck as well.

The loads wouldn't be hard to get with a bit more advance planning. PNW is going to be the killer.

Anyway it's a fun scenario, and thoroughly enjoyable. !*th_up*!

Handy hint: the required connection to Tegucigalpa is easy enough if you use burn track, and place the station on the ridge above the city. A large station there will give coverage of the city for the required connection. It would even work as usable track if you ran a Shay up there, but the grades are too steep for other locos (9-10% at the worst section).
TheBonobo4
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Re: Guatemala Unread post

Gumboots wrote: Sun Jun 24, 2018 12:50 am Ended up getting a Silver easily enough, but was I short on loads to Honduras and Nicaragua, and short on PNW by a substantial margin, so no Gold this time. A Gold is obviously possible on Expert level, but it's a bit tricky and it would require a bit of luck as well.

The loads wouldn't be hard to get with a bit more advance planning. PNW is going to be the killer.

Anyway it's a fun scenario, and thoroughly enjoyable. !*th_up*!

Handy hint: the required connection to Tegucigalpa is easy enough if you use burn track, and place the station on the ridge above the city. A large station there will give coverage of the city for the required connection. It would even work as usable track if you ran a Shay up there, but the grades are too steep for other locos (9-10% at the worst section).
Do you have a picture of what you mean as I can't visualise it? Personally I just ran a Shay up the slope to Tegucigalpa.
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Gumboots
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Re: Guatemala Unread post

I mean there's no need to run the track up and over the mountains, and down into the centre of Tegucigalpa, because a large station perched on the ridges around the city will cover it enough to get the connection.

Anyway, I played around with this scenario a bit more and have come to a few conclusions.

1/ The steamship company is a waste of time. The idea is cute, but the scripted returns are a maximum of 10% in a good year, only 5% in a normal year, 0 in a bad year, and with the possibility of losing the whole thing to a random hurricane. Obviously the hurricane will trash ROI, but even without the hurricane event the ROI is not up to a level where it would be worth putting any money into it.

The profits would have to be tripled before it became an interesting possibility. At that level you'd be averaging around 15%, depending on random generation of good and bad years, which is in the ballpark where it might make sense. It's currently just a trap for beginners, and doesn't add any depth or interest to the scenario.

2/ Unfortunately, the same applies to the banana plantations. This is a pity, because both of these events have potential to actually add something to the scenario, in terms of gameplay and in terms of historical accuracy. I think it would benefit from a bit of re-scripting here.

3/ This scenario may be so tightly tuned with default locomotives and cargo cars that it becomes almost unwinnable on Expert level with the custom cargo cars and locos. ROR and I are used to romping it in on most scenarios, and wanted to make haulage more interesting and more challenging and a bit more realistic, but it's possible we may have met our match here. :mrgreen:

I have thought of trying it with default loco stats and freight cars (basically, 60 mph rocket-powered Connies, with better pax appeal, and 10 tons max on freight) but where's the fun in that? *!*!*! I shall be interested to see what RoR makes of it.

4/ You will definitely need to maximise all industry opportunities as they occur, to give your company a solid base. That doesn't mean buying everything available, just picking the best ones for ROI and making sure you grab those at the right time.

5/ The graft and general shenanigans available are fun to play with. This is one where you are actively encouraged to come to the dark side for the cookies. What could be more fun than swearing you will be good in future, and then going back to your evil ways at the first opportunity? ^**lylgh

You can get away with a surprising amount of it too, but it does weaken your company. This becomes an good ROI exercise, in that you have to get $12m PNW one way or another, and that will require paying out some dividends, and paying out dividends also weakens your company. However, if you use dirty tricks to boost your buying power on the way to the PNW goal, that has the benefit of weakening your company less than if you had sent the same amount of cash to yourself via legitimate dividends.

Using legitimate dividends means you have to pay out extra cash to other investors to get the same amount into your personal account. It is actually better for the strength and profitability of your company to set dividends to a low level, even zero, and rely on graft to get yourself going. It stiffs the other investors, but who cares about them when playing RT3?

In this scenario you should use graft as much as you want to, but use it wisely. It would be unwise to take more than you would reasonably pay out in legitimate dividends under the same circumstances, because that will weaken your company more than is sensible. It's also worth bearing in mind that if you get busted for it you will need to either a/ pay out a wodge of personal cash ($50k for the first bust, $75k for the second) and swear to be good in future (your word is naturally worthless here :lol: ) or b/ deny all allegations and bluff it out.

B/ looks like the better option at first glance, but it does come with a reduction in credit rating. This is significant not because it will stop you raising cash (you will probably be maxed out on bonds anyway by this time) but because it can prevent you refinancing your bonds at the lowest rate in the next boom. That, in turn, means a problem for profitability towards the end of the game.

So, if you are thinking that refinancing your bonds at the best possible rate will be important, it would make more sense to pay out personal cash and swear to be good. On the other hand, if you have already refinanced them or if PNW is looking like the more critical factor, you should probably deny all wrongdoing and bluff it out. !*th_up*!

6/ Assuming an adequate supply of Ammunition, Troops and Weapons is available, and assuming your company is financially strong enough to make the required connections, the invasion of El Salvador and Honduras is a gold mine. In this period and in this region, free and fair elections were won by destroying the opposition. Might as well do it to your neighbours too. It will save you about $2 million on territory access costs, and it will give you 1,000 units of track without you having to pay extra for them. It will also give you increased production of Ammunition, Troops and Weapons for the duration of the war.

Looked at purely as return on investment, this becomes a no-brainer.
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Gumboots
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Re: Guatemala Unread post

Had another crack at it. At the moment I'm up to June 1883, exactly halfway to the 25 year time limit, and things are looking good. !*th_up*!
June_1883_will_work.jpg
I approached it differently this time around. I went back over some saves, and took note of which industries had seeded in which years and at what point they started becoming profitable. I used this as a guide for the current play, and made sure I maximised buying of industry whenever it was economically feasible. This seems to have given the company a much more solid base. I've been able to have legit dividends staying around 10% of annual profit right from the start, with good growth in profit and stock price over time. Stock price did flatline for a while due to the economy going into a depression, but it never went into a downward slide. So although this appears to be a rail-heavy scenario without much in the way of buyable industry, it's still useful to take advantage of all sensible industry options as soon as you can. I didn't lay any track or run any trains at all for the first few years, and concentrated on the industry base.

The other thing I've found is that, unlike most scenarios when I just go nuts with bonds, in this one it's best to be a bit circumspect with bonds. I've been using a mixture of stock issues and bonds, with both being done moderately rather than to the limits. The difference to most scenarios is that with the limited track and limited industry in this one you simply cannot make use of maxed out bonds in the way you usually can. I currently have about $5 million of bonds out on a fairly low interest rate (can't remember the exact figures offhand) whereas in most scenarios I would be maxed out by now. I've also been averaging maybe one stock issue per year, with two issues in some early years and none in others, depending on what feels right for a range of factors. Obviously I've been buying stock on margin, but have balanced this against income from wages and dividends so that my position is secure. Oh, and income from graft. I love graft. :mrgreen:

Since the company really has been doing well this time around I have run several of the coffee scams in suitable years (depending on income from and expenses for other things) while keeping a close eye on the chance of a scandal. Running a coffee scam is obviously more lucrative than the usual "nick a little bit of cash" option because you get $200k in one year, but it does seem to bump the chance of scandal much more quickly. I've also nicked the little bits here and there, when things seem quiet enough.

Obviously when running coffee scams you want to make sure you can deliver, so for insurance I have had a Fairlie pre-loaded with four cars of coffee. This gets sent to a port, but stopped just before it arrives. This means that even if none of the other trains deliver any coffee on their normal runs I can just set this one free and be guaranteed a prize.

I'm now gearing up for the invasion in 1884. Historically this came about because the government of Honduras attempted to back a coup against the government of Guatemala. The bloke in charge of Guatemala understandably took offence, and decided to go wallop the Hondurans. He failed, and got killed on the battlefield for his trouble, but this is RT3 so things can be different.

Since in real life El Salvador behaved itself, I have decided to not get involved with invading it (seems a bit rude y'know). Purchasing access in the usual way takes it off the invasion hit list, and worked out with how I wanted to expand anyway, so I've bought into El Salvador and connected all towns from Zacapa down to San Salvador. Honduras is going to be invaded though (serves them right). The required delivery of Ammunition and Weapons is going to be a no-brainer, because once again I have two Fairlies pre-loaded with the necessary goodies and stopped just outside Puerto Barrios (Fairlies are the cheapest to buy and they're only sitting around anyway).

As soon as the Honduran border goes down these trains will have their locomotives replaced with new Connies, and will be routed straight to Puerto Cortes on the new track I will lay. That will only leave me with 10 loads of troops to deliver to anywhere in Honduras, and four years available to do it, which is going to be a piece of cake. This invasion is going to be a success, at least for Guatemala. (0!!0)
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Gumboots
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Re: Guatemala Unread post

Got Gold, with no personal debt, and five years eight months left until the deadline. (0!!0)

The Gold event doesn't check until the end of the year, so I didn't officially get it until the end of December 1890, but this screenshot of April 1890 shows the last required loads for Nicaragua on the Connie that's about to arrive at Puerto Morazon. !*th_up*!
April_1890_Gold_sorted.jpg
By this stage the company debt was $3 million in bonds at 5% interest. By the end of the year company cash was up to $3.3 million, so effectively there was no company debt when the medal event fired. PNW had also risen slightly.

Turns out the custom cars and custom loco stats are no problem at all if you play it right and get a little bit of luck here and there. The economic cycle over the course of the game was pretty normal, slowly swinging up and down from boom to recession without getting stuck anywhere. The starting seed was pretty normal too.

Apart from a few disposable Fairlies here and there, I did the whole game with Moguls, Connies and the Thatcher Perkins. By the time the Pennsy H3 became available in mid 1890 I had already won, and the Eight Wheeler doesn't come in until 1893.



Oh yes, the invasion. It went well. Knocked it off in the first few months. If you attempt the invasion you have to get it right, because if you fail to meet the objectives you get kicked out of your company and all your stuff is confiscated, which means it's the end of the game for you.

I had oodles of loads of troops on the map (just about every city has a barracks) so I got evil there too. I loaded up a couple of troop trains by bait and switch, then sent them down to Puerto Barrios to wait with the weapons and ammo. The whole lot got delivered in one big hit as soon as Honduras was opened up.

In this case I'm calling the bait and switch a legit tactic. This scenario encourages dirty pool anyway, so it goes with the general feel of the thing, and the way I figure it you don't ask troops where they want to go. You order them to go where you want them. If they want to go to somewhere nice and you want to invade Honduras, they can shut up and invade Honduras for you. :lol:

However, given the numbers of troops on the map I'm sure it would be feasible to get the troops haulage without tricking them.



For the connection to Tegucigalpa I ended up not using burn track or a Shay. Since by that time I wasn't worried about cash I just ran a tunnel at 4% from the foothills through to the centre of the city, and put the station there. Tunnel cost was just under $2.3 million, and service was the usual Connies for freight and Perkins for express.
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RulerofRails
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Re: Guatemala Unread post

I finally completed my play. I wanted a "hard" seed, so after trying out a few, I settled on one that only had 1 ranch on the coast. There also were no Distilleries on the coast, but there were 4 or 5 Sugar Farms. I started with a line straight from the port to Guatemala city as there was a Distillery there. Because I didn't want to ever issue stock, and had built large stations I started with two Americans at $40k each hauling 5 cars on the climb. I was playing no industries too. So, making things harder for myself.

The early game was predictably slow to get off the ground. But, the upside to this was that I was able to get 100% ownership with about $1.3M on margin (ballooned to $1.9M over course of game before I turned dividends on in finally years since Recession had struck).

Mexico was useful to me. In first couple years a second Warehouse seeded there. First country I went into. Isolated location so gradients outbound are generally good.

Didn't do any grafting and left the other offers alone. My company wasn't strong enough for meddling with those. Was probably a bit too aggressive with expansion into El Salvador. Bonded out for that, since I took the max. 550 track units offer. Full bonds were ok until Recession, then I was dragging a year or two longer than I should have. I didn't see the invasion, maybe it only triggers if you haven't already bought the access rights? Didn't peek in editor yet.

Definitely a good map. The terrain steepness I think is just right. I did accept 6% sometimes which is perfect "heavy grade" territory for Connie (I played in a default install), whereas 4% is moderate and Dukes are useful then. I will probably try again with the custom cars, but on a different seed, any suggestions of what might be "difficult"?

Here's some pics. You can see that I built Hotels and that Express was the largest revenue source.
Tegucigalpa route.jpg
Ledger, stocks.jpg
Company book, medal.jpg
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Re: Guatemala Unread post

RulerofRails wrote: Mon Jun 25, 2018 5:23 pmMexico was useful to me. In first couple years a second Warehouse seeded there. First country I went into.
Same here.
I didn't see the invasion, maybe it only triggers if you haven't already bought the access rights?
Yep. If you haven't purchased access to Honduras or El Salvador you get the option to invade both. If you have purchased access for one, you only get the invasion option for the one you haven't bought into. No invasion event if you've already bought access to both countries.
I will probably try again with the custom cars, but on a different seed, any suggestions of what might be "difficult"?
You seem to be doing a good job of making things difficult for yourself. :mrgreen:
Here's some pics. You can see that I built Hotels and that Express was the largest revenue source.
This map is loaded with express once you get a range of towns hooked up. Although given that there are a lot of troops, and a reasonable amount of mail, pax appeal ratings don't have quite as much effect as you might think.

I was thinking that with this map it's probably possible to get an 1885 Gold on Expert level, if you dedicated all your efforts to getting that result. By 1885 PNW should be at a level where you can boost it above $12 million with various tricks, at least for an end of year spike. The invasion requirements are a piece of cake if you set up for them in advance, and the track bonus is very generous. The amount of track required to hook up to Honduras is minimal on the Caribbean side. The only real problem, in terms of available track units, is hooking up Nicaragua and Tegucigalpa, but with 1,000 track to play with it's probably quite possible (haven't actually checked yet).

So as well has having the weapons, ammo and troops stashed at the border you could also have 7 full trains (full of anything) for Nicaragua, 4 full trains for Honduras (50 required minus the 20 for military loads) and 10 full trains for El Salvador (100 required minus the 20 military loads). These could be temporarily redirected from standard services.

Then, as soon as the borders go down, it should simply be a matter of laying bare track down to Nicaragua with the absolute minimum of facilities, hooking up Tegucigalpa on the side, and directing all trains to offload at one or two stations (possibly two to minimise congestion) in the relevant countries, as close as possible to the Guatemalan border.

It will depend on how fast the trains can trundle all the way south, but I think it should be feasible to get it all done before the end of 1885. I had considered trying this out, but I was having fun just playing the scenario normally.

Edit: Just ran a quick check. I think the track allotment will stop it happening. It's almost doable if you have already built well into El Salvador, but the side connection to Tegucigalpa will probably stop it happening by running you out of track. Although if you could stockpile some extra track (a couple of hundred would do) and have that added to the invasion bonus track then I think it would work. There are options to buy large amounts of track a couple of times, but I can't remember when they come up or if they could be used in this way. Might be worth checking, if anyone is interested.
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Re: Guatemala Unread post

By the way: on my last play I was starting quite conservatively, due to having had the company in dire straits the previous time I played it and sort of feeling my way this time to see what was possible.

Having been alerted to the possibility, I took a quick look at going for 100% of stock in the early years and yes, it's not difficult to get that. You need to be on the ball, and make a couple of tough calls, but if you're prepared to do that you can own 100% of the company after three or four years and still have a good credit rating and a solid company profit, with a secure position on personal buying power.

The only problem is that, from my perspective, I don't think the scenario will be as much fun played that way. All the scripting for graft becomes pointless pop-ups, because if you own 100% of stock and you want more personal cash in any year you just adjust the dividend to suit. It's all going to you anyway, so the effect is the same as if you used graft to make the same amount. There's basically no need to ever look at the stock market again, except when you want to raise more money for your company, at which point you simply buy up the new extra stock. As long as the dividend is always set to 7% of share price (quite modest, on the whole) you will automatically be covered for personal debt.

IMO, with the banana plantation and steamship company events already being pointless, it's rather a pity to render the graft events pointless too. It would detract from the unique feel of the scenario, and risk turning it into just another map where you run trains around. I think what would be good is to somehow script an aggressive and cashed-up AI player who will fight you for stock right from the start of the game. That could add some spice to it. If you can't get yourself past about 40% ownership it becomes a different game.

Edit: Another idea that occurred to me is scripting a more active board to keep you in line a bit. For example, the board could be made to intervene if they thought dividends were being raised unduly high, even if the fact that the company could pay it would prevent the usual "action by board" reduction. In fact, there is quite a bit that could be done to make the board more keen to throw their weight around.



Ha. I seem to remember some idiot (may have been me) saying PNW was going to the the killer for getting Gold on this one. Just for the heck of it I've played the 100% stock ownership start through to the end of 1880. This is was a no-holds-barred start, with whatever purchases of industry and stock issues I felt were useful. Umm, PNW doesn't really seem to be problematic. ^**lylgh
January_1881.jpg
And in case anyone is wondering no, the $4.2 million worth of margin buying isn't a problem. It only requires a couple of hundred K a year in dividends to stabilise it, which is not going to be a significant issue. I'll pay it down some before a recession hits.

The company currently has $6 million in bonds, all at 5% interest rate, and an AAA credit rating. Having just got the first of the big track offers I went for the 500 sections at $500k, which with the usual 150 sections and optional extra 100 that you get every year means I have an easy $5 million to play with and 750 sections of track. A bit of expansion is on the cards, methinks.

I did something else unusual this time, and went into Mexico before I laid the first track. The first track section was from the Mexican city back to Retanwhatsit in Guatemala. After that I hooked up the other three cities on the coast, before buying a ten or so Connies and running an all-at-once mega stackathon up to Guatemala City. That's the one-off $5.3 m yearly profit. All the stack trains have just been down to El Progresso, and are now on their way back up to that other city just north of GC (can't remember the name offhand), with two more stack trains on the way from Mexico.

Edit: Oh yeah, just by a fluke I found out that it's possible to get from the coast up to GC with a maximum grade of 4%. Seems easy now. *!*!*!
Max_4_percent.jpg
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Re: Guatemala Unread post

Gumboots wrote: Tue Jun 26, 2018 4:13 amI did something else unusual this time, and went into Mexico before I laid the first track. The first track section was from the Mexican city back to Retanwhatsit in Guatemala. After that I hooked up the other three cities on the coast, before buying a ten or so Connies and running an all-at-once mega stackathon up to Guatemala City. That's the one-off $5.3 m yearly profit. All the stack trains have just been down to El Progresso, and are now on their way back up to that other city just north of GC (can't remember the name offhand), with two more stack trains on the way from Mexico.

Edit: Oh yeah, just by a fluke I found out that it's possible to get from the coast up to GC with a maximum grade of 4%. Seems easy now. *!*!*!
Nice. I assumed Mexico was too hard for a start. Stacking is key to big riches. Good job on the 4% gradient too. :salute:
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