Canada Bound

Discussion about reviews and strategies for user created scenarios made for RT3 version 1.05 and earlier.
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Hawk
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Canada Bound! Unread post

The following text is a compilation of what was salvaged from the old Gathering Forum. It contains postings from several different people.
Thanks goes out to Wolverine for putting this all together.

Hawk



Canada Bound!
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It's posted at popular RT3 websites.
This scenario for advanced, patient players. The economy is tricky for the first 10 years, and there are some intricate plot lines.
Setting: British North America 1836 - 1867
There are 6 annual haul missions (HM) and 6 special political missions (PM). To win medals, all you need is enough of each.
A few hints:
1. There are 2 PM that start before 1840. You only have enough clout to complete one of them, so put all your energy into completing one or the other. After this, just build a solid railway company. The other 4 PM have deadlines in the 1860s so you have time to prepare.
2. Ten years may pass before you start completing HM but don't worry. As your company and the economy get stronger it gets easier and easier. Build enough in one area to ensure a successful annual HM then start on another one in another colony. Each time you complete a HM, related industries get a slight boost.
3. Once Reciprocation starts do your best to keep the Yanks happy. The Union and the Brits are going to have the occasional tiff especially during the civil war, but as an neighbouring entrepreneur, you understand the importance of relations with the USA. Happy Yank = Happy Wallet.
4. There are a couple of passenger missions, so you might want to keep express separate from freight. Same for military cargoes.
5. Read dialog instructions carefully, maybe even write them down. They may not be the same every time you play.
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I haven't had time to play it yet, but it gets thumbs up. I'm a bit disappointed that it doesn't cover whole Canada though. I still misses the RRT2 Canada Pacific map.
Seems much better than the PopTop Eastern Canada map. Here you can make a saner connection between Albany and Boston. BTW, Boston should be more to the south. Now it is placed where Gloucester is in RL.
I just tried the map. Spent the first year doing nothing, just waiting for never appearing victory conditions. You need to tell us if it is safe to start building before we have been assigned a goal. And if it is not safe, then the scenario shouldn't start before we are assigned a goal.
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I have now played enough to get the first political goals.
As a hint to other players: The two first ones are a passenger hauling goal with a f-ing speed limit and the other involves Aroostook (I don't know the details of this goal). It looks like winning gold is very hard (at last as hard as Great Northern) on this map.
Overall I like the idea of having a lot of small subgoals counting towards the scenario victory.
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I too have had a couple of goes at this and got absolutely nowhere. I'll give it another try but so far I've just not seen any possibility of achieving any PM or HM. Incidentally all PM/HM (3) have come up at the same time and in the same order and the first HM was after only about 3 years and is totally impossible because it's to haul wool (? bad memory) from the state in the north where you have to pay for entry quite apart from the distances involved.
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wrote: I too have had a couple of goes at this and got absolutely nowhere. I'll give it another try but so far I've just not seen any possibility of achieving any PM or HM. Incidentally all PM/HM (3) have come up at the same time and in the same order and the first HM was after only about 3 years and is totally impossible because it's to haul wool (? bad memory) from the state in the north where you have to pay for entry quite apart from the distances involved.

Well, the HMs doesn't have time limits, so you don't have to worry about them at the start.
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Thanks for your help and comments CN. I will wait a bit longer before bringing a new version, but here is what I plan to do:
1. Increase Upper Canada grain - it seems a tad sparse.
2. Move Boston, heh. Too far from Providence. I should have known that from Go West!
3. I will add a help choice with the greeting event.
4. I am going to change the reckoning event for Political Mission #6. There is a time delay in the way the loads are counted - only one of each kind each week. I will either push the deadline back one month, or change the way loads are counted.
I am trying to find a balance between surprise and playability. Really, the 6 annual haul missions should be stated at the beginning. Any railroader would have known what the most important cargoes were. The annual hauls are:
- fur (wool) from Rupert's Land
- wheat (grain) from Upper Canada
- anything on Newfoundland
- coal from Nova Scotia
- logs to New Brunswick
- goods from USA during Reciprocation
Nova Scotia can be a nice place to rack up points with a short line. After completing my first political mission, I would build here if there is a port to receive the coal.
The political missions - well they seem to come up when they come up. I will move the Aroostook hint to the beginning, so you have the choice, and I will try to come up with a hint on the passenger / speed mission, and suggest you only take one or the other. They require completely different rail systems. For the passenger mission, you connect as many cities as you can and wait for Jack to come along. The Aroostock mission is out in the sticks, and might even be do-able without any city connections. BTW these two missions are very demanding, so there are some events to help make sure you accomplish them, like steroid shots for your locos.
Now a few excuses:
Yeh, gold is very hard. Since you have to pick one of the first two missions, you have to complete all of the others. I nearly always fail Political Mission #6, so do no better than silver. But it is doable - I have accomplished it at least once before.
This is the time period I wanted to cover. The economy had to be suppressed or growth would have outpaced history by too much. It's more of a political history than a railway history. I have 87 events (never again!) already so I decided to leave out the railway stuff.
There is enough railway lore to make another scenario. I may make one with PNW goals, and some rail history events. Some of the events I am thinking of will be drawn from Canada Bound (RT2), and some of them are pretty funny. This one would start in the late 1840s, so players can ride a nice railroad boom. Within about a decade, BNA increased her track mileage by about two orders of magnitude.
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Bug Warning! There is a new bug with 1.04 beta where temporary production changes to territories have multiple reversal events. So a temporary +10% production increase can end up -80% or something. I think i caught them all and changed them to game-temporary or territory-permanent, but in case I missed any, keep yer eyes peeled.
This bug may have killed some key events in Warming Trend and Of Men and Seals. I'll have to check them with 1.04b.
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The HM are triggered by where you placed your track - Lower Canada. There is a relationship between the textile industry in Lower Canada, and the fur trade. If you place track in Upper Canada, you will get the grain HM, and so on. To get gold you need to complete one of the first two PM. If you complete no HM before Responsible Government, you can still achieve gold.
So after getting one PM under your belt, you just try to make a lot of money for a while, maybe lay a little track.
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I've just played through "Canada Bound" once and failed miserably(at medium difficulty). I find the instructions somewhat unclear but maybe that's me reading them badly. But I would suggest you re-look at the ledger details where you outline what has been achieved and what hasn't. I've always liked RT3's way of doing it: "You're in year 0 of 00 years. So far you have hauled 00 loads of whatever. You have not connected A with B with C." And so on. It's always quite clear.
Somewhere during the game I got the instruction to haul coal "from Nova Scotia" but it never said to where. I assumed New Brunswick would do so I hauled some to Moncton but it never showed up in the ledger.
I note that you want there to be "surprises" in your scenario. Surprises are good and fun but mysterious unclear goals aren't so much fun. I don't intend these comments as criticisms because you've done a ton of work, obviously. I'm hoping you can make things clearer for an old geezer such as I am because it's a great-looking map.
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You will be glad to know that I have an improved version in progress. I have been delayed by business at work and recent problems with XP-SP2. My computer tech informs me that the RT3 maps I was working on have been successfully rescued and burned onto a CD.
Note that after you play a few times, you will see many examples of how some missions and choices can be employed synergistically. For instance you are asked to earn money hauling from Aroostook, and to bring logs to New Brunswick, so you can work two missions at once; that's what the Aroostook War was about: logging.
A wee strategy note... When you have a mission to haul from somewhere, you can deliver to the same territory if you wish. Similarly, hauling to a territory can count even if it originated in the same territory.
The coal mission is one of the annual haul missions. The ledger should show how many loads were hauled this year. At year end this is automatically reset to zero. Also at year end, you will receive a series of game messages, one for each successful annual mission (5 loads, 6 possible missions). A successful coal haul makes your trains run better for a while. It is just small writing that shows up with the arrival and stock purchase messages, top left.
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As I recall, if those annual messages ZIP by you too quickly, you can get them redisplayed if you do it before going along further. You simply hit the "m" key, perhaps a few times, and VIOLA! they re-appear. I recall doing this on one scenario, I think it was Canada Bound, but I may be wrong. It would be more convenient if it appeared as you suggested in the briefing but I dunno if it can be designed that way. CB is a fun scenario and I will re play it when the new version comes out. I really liked that no two games were alike. Cheers. Stoneman.
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Version 1.1 is uploaded at H&P and Railroad Tycoon Info, and has been sent to Express World.
- Moved Boston to where it should be
- Fixed Durham event
- Moved Union Army Depot to Boston
- Fixed St. Albans raiders
- Fixed Fenian haul count and added a month to time allowed
- Full disclosure on the 6 annual haul missions
- Dialogs assigning political missions are clearly labelled
- Removed AI dole but increased U.S. passengers to normal levels
- Increased grain in Upper Canada and wool in Rupert's Land slightly
- Increased 1850s boom track to 500 pieces per year
- Added headline for Canada's birthday: that gives you a six month warning for end of scenario.
All that done in less than 11 months.
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Well I downloaded the new version and it's certainly playing better than the first - in fact my first attempt is going really well even though I hit Expert (big head ). I may even get Bronze I'm finding real difficulty in meeting the political targets - too far away, track limit etc. To get to Boston I took over a railroad I didn't want just to get their track allocation - I didn't get it although earlier when I took over other companies I did. The annoying thing about this was that although I had 500 miles I couldn't use it that year and then lost it at year end.
I couldn't carry loads of troops, weapons, ammo to Northern Canada because there is no demand there - alcohol no problem! And I cant get to Newfoundland (Island) because suspension bridges aren't available and building industries on their bit of mainland doesn't work very well.
There may be others too which I've forgotten about - but, as I said, at least it's playing now so that I can enjoy myself which I couldn't do on the first version.
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Your track does not have to be all connected. You can have separate railways on Newfoundland and around Boston if you want.
The Fenian military haul is to Upper or Lower Canada. They each will have at least 3 barracks to receive cargo and generate troops. Look at the likely invasion routes Niagara River and Riviere Richelieu; there will be one or two in each of those places.
The Fenian event still needs another fix. Players can do it themselves by editing line 316. Add the condition "test against companies" and choose human companies only. That should do it.
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Well yes that's what I did for Boston but you dont haul enough until you get to the main line. For Newfoundland it says TO N.. so I didn't think internal hauling would count - and I must have misread the Fenian one because I thought it said to Upper C - ah well, back to the beginning!!
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Well after yet another 6 hours I got Bronze on Expert - I managed 3 political points but only just scraped the mimimum 30 loads carried. One reason was I was waiting to take over the AI in the north but instead of it being a failure it proved highly profitable and it took too long so I didn't haul much fur from Robins Island (or wherever ). It would have cheaper just to pay to go in a let earlier!
There was still absolutely no demand for troops anywhere in Canada and very little for weapons although I did manage the ammo. I shall have to have a note of your previous comments on this because (of course) I'd forgotten the detail when it came to searching. Ah well
Building rail within Newfoundland worked a treat - and was very profitable as well!
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I have played it over and over since you posted it; doubt if I ever even made Silver Love the period, love the events! Who sez good history can't be fun
ps. maybe I better dl the update and see if I can finally win one
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I am not a very observant .what happened to the American fort you are supposed to deliver all the stuff to?
It doesn't seem to be where it was, and I can't find it anywhere else.
Ok, found it. Boston you say
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Version 1.2 is up at RT Info and the Terminal, and on its way to H&P and Express World. The only change was a repair to the Fenian capture event.
RobO
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Prosperity at start? Unread post

I tried out Canada Bound with v1.2 and got recessions and worse most of the time at start. I have now switched to V1.3 and - at the same time - patcj 1.06 beta 4, and seem to be getting prosperity and booming ecnomy quite a lot at start. Is there something wrong here?

The scenario is hard enough even in a booming economy, but I'd like it to be played as it is envisioned by JayEff.

Now, the readme said that I should disable news of economy changes. I didn't do that :oops: and that may be the cause of my confusion. Is it?
milo
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Unread post

Wolverine@MSU found a bug in 1.06B4 - it broke artificial economy changes. Sorry about that. Should be fixed pretty soon.
RobO
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Unread post

Thanks for the info. That explains whu I could manage both the passenger political point and hauling lots of grain from Upper Canada in 5 years.

I guess I'll need to switch scenario or uninstall 1.06. Any idea on the timeframe of the update?
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JayEff
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Unread post

There are still some bugs in Canada Bound. Since people are still playing it I should fix them. There is one that comes up early that says something about the end of the American Civil War or a related mission. That is because I use the same variables more than once. There were one or two other bugs too I think.
RobO
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Unread post

Well, I don't know if "people" are still playing it, but I certainly am right now. I've got to ca. 1860 now, and have a few comments in case someone else want to try it. I like to play on Hard, but have done this one on Medium - I don't think I'd get very far on Hard with this one.

First off, a confession. I reloaded the startign map a few times to get enough grain east of Totonto. That seeding also gave me two logging camps in Arostook. The downside was the lack of a Meat Packing Plant at Nova scotia cose to the viable route there. I opted for the passenger mission at start, but I can reload and try the other one after I finish.

To get passengers, I connected Montreal with Ottawa with a spur to Cornwall. I put in double track from Montreal across the river to save some track in the long run - I know from previous plays that this stretch will be very busy. I set up some express passenger trains (no mail, no dining cars) as well as some freight trains and a mail service and basically waited until I got the first poolitical mission (making sure to upgrade the passenger trains as soon as I get the faster loco) at the start of 1838 (I think). That gave me the credit rating to take out a bond, and I opted to extend to Trois Ponts. Prayed for good tailwinds, but the wind wasn't quite strong enough. I then spotted a 6 grade at the foot of the bridge btw. Ottawa and Montreal (I have no idea where it came from) and decided to restart. This time I used the same approach and made sure that the track grade was no higher then 4 everywhere. I almost made it - ran 9 passenger loads the second year, but at 14 mph, not 15. I have done it at least once before, so I know it's possible. Oh well. I decided to plow on, aiming for Silver.

At 1860 I have almoast 40 Haulage Points, but still no Political Points.
The supply of fur from Rupert's Land is a bit erratic and I have some trouble getting enough goods to flow from the US, but I'm working on both. I'm earnign a ******* of money and have done so for some time.

I'm a bit confused as to what those last four political missions are. I'm setting up a reasonable (but probably still too small) weapons industry as I expect it might come into play. I get a message saying that Newfoundland is at 100%, but I don't remember the full significance of that. It certainly hasn't given me a political point yet. And I'm most likely not doing too well in the US. Perhaps I just need to build more of a rail network there. So far it's fairly limited.

I have not met the track laying limit yet. Not sure if it's going to kick in - I'm trying to save some for the eventuality, but also need to doubletrack some of my lines.

So, to sum up: It is very challenging at start, then becomes a great deal easier. But by that time you're a bit confused where to use your capital to get the most political support the first time through. The Haulage point system does provide some guidance, however.

Oh, and there's something funny with the Firefly. I guess it might be intentional. After I complete the passenger mission I get the Firefly with a speed of 60 (IIRC). A bit later I get it again with a slightly lower speed (58?), and the one with the higher speed becomes unavailable. I'm pretty sure I have also got the Firefly in a game where I didn't complete the passenger mission (that might well have been with patch 1.06 beta4). In my latest game (using 1.05), I did not get the Firefly (and did not complete the passenger mission).

Edit: I'm now at 1865, thus very close to the end. I have one political point, for the Newfoundland mission. It seems to be about having Newfoundland take part in the movement of the French speaking community to secede from Canada (as an English speaking nation). And please forgive me if I'm messing up history here. I got á news alert about that and after this I got the point and the entry disappered from the ledger.

The 5th political mission caught me completely unprepared, though I could have picked up a hint in the readme. I simply connected to Boston by making a tunnel several hundred miles long. Not very realistic in the 1860's, but I could afford it and the game allowed me to do so. I make at least 5 million in profits per year now (so maybe I should play it on Hard after all). Crossing the mountains was not really an option. Next time I will plan ahead for this. I have a hard time hauling enough stuff, though. I remember it as 100 loads, but it seems more like 1000. Or perhaps only some of the loads count and I missed that part of the message. I think Lumber counts double, but unfortunately I never got around to developing New Brunswick, let alone connecting it southwards.

The reciprocation business is a bit weird. I try to haul as much stuff as possible to, from and within the US, but it doesn't make much of a difference. Then I get a notification about passenger trains to/from the US and Lower Canada (I already hauled quite a lot of passengers so I didn't adjust anything), and a bit later I got a message that the US had caught the culprits on one of my trains. That got me WAY more leverage towards reciprocation than I'd accumulated already. As it was random, it seems a bit strange. But I guess it might change next time I play through.

It really is difficult to remember the details of the political missions. I vaguely remember a hint to write them down in the readme (or was that another scenario?) but a separate readme (marked as spoiler info) with the proper context for each mission would have been helpful.

And a note on track limits. I did hit them, but also found that track limit seems to reset to 300 in January, ignoring leftovers. Which is strange, as I seem to remember having an allowance in excess of 400 at a certain point. But the main lesson seems to be to use as much as possible before the year runs out, especially if you have a long way to go.

So, will I get Silver? Probably not. I have plenty of Haulage points, but only one Political point under my belt (I need 3 for Silver). I might get the reciprocation point, but probably won't make the 5th mission. I'm preparing as well as I can for the 6th by setting up trains with troops and weapons ready to go at a moments notice. I already have several trains running to the Toronto / Hamilton / Buffalo area.

All in all good fun, recommended, and I'm certainly going for at least one more playthrough - this time starting with the Arostook mission. And maybe another on Hard.

Just to finish it off: I failed both the final political missions, but had well over 70 haulage points at the end, leaving me with Bronze. That troop/weapon/alcohol mission at the end is nasty.
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JayEff
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Unread post

The last four missions are:
1. Persuade Newfoundland to attend the Charlottetown Conference. Regardless of when you complete the mission, it is resolved in 1864 at the time of the conference.
2. Connect Montreal to Boston and haul 100 loads to the Union Army Depot during the American Civil War. Lumber loads count double. This mission is resolved at the end of the war.
3. Convince the USA to renew reciprocation by a combination of hauling the goods from the USA, hauling cargo to the Union Army Depot, and dealing appropriately with the St. Albans raiders. You get points for each, even with incomplete hauls. This is the most confusing mission because its resolution is interlinked with these other missions and events. It is resolved at the end of 1865 when the initial agreement expires.
4. The military haul to capture Fenian invaders takes place in 1866. This one is a byatch. You have to be pre-loaded with cargo, half way between the two likely avenues of approach, and move quickly when the attack is confirmed. One way to deal with this is whatever trains you had hauling weapons, munitions and alcohol to Boston should be loaded up and moved to Kingston or thereabouts, and stopped without unloading. You don't have to haul all 20 loads, but the closer you get to 20 (5 of each cargo) the better your chances of success.

The Durham mission sometimes powers up your locos for a couple of years. So you could get the Firefly just before the speed bonus expires.

I usually try for the passenger mission around Toronto. No bridges to build. You can connect to London and Hamilton pretty quickly. You can also set up large stations near Detroit and Buffalo, and cover most of these cities even without access rights. If you wait, an AI will start at Detroit. You can then lay a station on your side. Later you can also place a hotel so that the AI station and yours both give it coverage, and you get the income from both groups of passengers. It the two stations catch each other, the passengers have a chance to move on, even if the tracks are not linked.

For the Aroostook mission, all you need is a lumber mill seeded at Fredericton and a couple of logging camps in Aroostook. It can be a cheap burn track railway with one loco and a small station at each end.

Anticipate the Reciprocation Agreement of 1854 as the time to go into the USA. The cost of rights drops at that time. Then expand track, hook up some tool and die shops, and make sure they get iron. Then the goods haul gets going in support of the haul mission and the Reciprocation political mission.

The Union haul mission is dead easy, especially if you have a strong layout around Boston.
RayofSunshine
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Canada Bound v12 Unread post

I found this older scenario mixed with my RT2 inventory.

This scenario is based on points, and a start date of 1836. It not only issues 1 point hauls of 30 for BZ, 3 pts for Silver, and 5 for the Gold,but requirements for hauls of wool from Rupertsland, grain from Upper Canada, cnn to Newfoundland (Island), coal from Nova Scotia, logs to N. Brunswick, and goods from the USA.

Those are the "points". However, there is also "missions". I did not realize that one consisted of laying track into the Aroostook territory. And it wasn't until the 3rd mission, that I realized that it was part of the "goals".

There is also a 'political' agenda. The Oligarches is of a 'recession' economy. Responsible Gvt is the 'normal', and lastly the Reciprocation is that of 'prosperity'.

I do remember playing a similar type of scenario, but none of the title came up in the 'search'. This again is a scenario which has a lot of challenges. It is one recommended. :salute: {,0,}
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CeeBee
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Re: Canada Bound Unread post

I tried this one today for the first time? Might have played it 9 or 10 years a go but don't remember for sure. Anyway, I stunk. After 10 years I had 0 points of anything and so I just quit. Found this thread after the fact and while it might help, I'm not sure I'll try again. Maybe a better seed would help I suppose.
TheBonobo4
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Re: Canada Bound Unread post

Downloaded this one earlier, barely played it so far, even on Medium it's really tough. Few points I'll say though:

The Passenger haul mission, whilst tough seems far easier than the Aroostook mission. Aroostook is tiny and hilly, so I don't see how it's possible to be profitable here. For Passengers, I started by connecting Montreal, Trois Rivieres, and Quebec, building Hotels in each, but I couldn't get the 15mph needed (I generally suck at speed goals, and only got around 12mph, despite having plenty of passengers by about 1839), so either I need Stone Bridges instead of Wooden, maintenance spurs, or just haul less cargo cars, since I think I got it about as flat as I could (there is a steep slope of 4% up to Quebec that seems unavoidable). Doesn't help how at game start we only have Planets, and have to wait for Norris, which itself isn't exactly "fast". :-(

I've not played beyond 1840, I was only really doing quick testing, so I've not found any bugs. But I will say that about 1 month in I get a newspaper saying that the Union won the US Civil War? In 1836? *!*!*! Is this an oversight, a bug, or was there some war of 1836 I'm unfamiliar with?
TheBonobo4
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Re: Canada Bound Unread post

Just got gold on this one on medium. Overall great map, very challenging. I ended the scenario with 5 or the 6 political points and around 100 haulage points, these became fairly automatic once I set up specific routes and trains although some years I failed to get all 6 for the year, especially if logs weren't profitable or abundant enough to New Brunswick or Coal from Nova Scotia became too expensive to haul, and also Wool from Ruperts Land became quite expensive comparatively.

I did have an end game fortune though, thanks to the trade deals and the economic boom I was making about 12 million profit a year and about 10 million industry profit a year, end game I had no bonds and around 35 million company cash and around 200 million in book value. I even set the dividend at around 7 dollars a share just for laughs, since there was nothing else I needed to spend money on after I'd met the requirements for gold.

The only real challenges were the first and last political points, I went with passengers at 15mph and connected London to Quebec as my main line over several years, I forget where I went initially, but I had hotels in all major cities and some were making 100k a year profit. Even Newfoundland made profit end game thanks to industry built in St John.
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