South Central British Columbia (SCBC)

[Cliff]

Hi JSS -

On my SCBC1896 map I have 16 listed companies. All of those companies either run a railroad or own industries and one of them is a bank.

I've been meaning to contact you for a couple of weeks about your diabolical British Columbia scenario. This one is meant to take more than 3-4 hours, and I spent I spent about a day and a half on it, and was rewarded with a bronze win

I admit that I was a couple of years late connecting to Midway (on my first go-through I connected to Midway 1st thing, but having bought no industry-owning AIs, found that I couldn't afford to pay for the track & station maintenance simply by running trains all the way to Midway & connected towns in between).

So, anyway, on the 2nd attempt I bought out 2-3 of the industry AIs before laying track to Midway. Slowly started progressing towards the haulage goals to Trail Smelter, built up a little money, and then connected to Penticton "in a timely manner" according to the blurb.

Thought I was doing OK: Bought out the 3rd strongest industry AI (the fruit company), had a 49% stake in the 2nd strongest industry AI, and about a 30% stake in the strongest one. Should have bought out the two weakest industry AIs right away (in about the 3rd-4th years, when their prices fell very low), but by the time I realized I could buy them & sell their money-losing steel mills, one had gone bankrupt & shares were no longer publicly traded, and the other one had been preetty much bought up by the other players. Could have bought a couple of the railroads cheaply, but waited a year too long after their profits came out of the red, and their prices skyrocketed out of sight. (Is there any advantage to buying any of the railroads??)

Anyway, I was doing pretty good, *thought* I had connected to Petain & Hope with years to spare, but the connection was never credited -- even though I had stations at both places, and even connected to the AI main line at Petain. I guess I didn't place my Petain station *exactly* where the briefing said -- between the warehouse and the river -- seems my sticky track wouldn't go down that road correctly. So, even though the connection to Petain & Hope wasn't credited, there were still years to go in the scenario & I would get 55-75 extra track sections each month which I used to happily double up my main line.

Anyway, all of a sudden the scenario came to a screaching stop and I was told that I had won the bronze medal (since I hadn't officially connected to Petain & Hope, then I didn't qualify for the silver)

And, had all other things worked out OK: I had only accumulated 12 "Tycoon Points," and would need 25 for the gold win. I don't have a clue about how to obtain "Tycoon Points." Seems like I got a point for each AI I bought out, and a point each time I supported the winning candidate for the Provindial elections. But I couldn't see any clear way of obtaining another 13 points in the remaining scenario time. Any hints you can offer might entice me to try your blamed scenario again

-- Cliff in Virginia

[JSS]

Cliff, let me just say that out of over a hundred downloads you are the first person that has uttered a single word about the map and I for that. Perhaps Hawk will find it fit to place our posts to a different area since otherwise we might get accuses of hijacking this topic.

In any case, it is fitting for this SOB to create just such a “diabolical” map. I purposely try to keep the journey to the goals a bit of a mystery, sometimes on purpose and sometime by accident. For those less adventurous I usually provide a detailed description of the map workings. The map you downloaded was posted in the hope that people playing it will provide feedback that would help to create the final less buggy version of the map. At the same time I am certain that the map will not appeal to all players given its somewhat unique characteristics.

The map provides two directions for a win. The first one is by concentrating the delivery goals and the other (Tycoon win) is by concentrating more of a stock market/financial approach and eliminating other companies. Both require the connection goals. All in all 39 points are available for the 25 points needed for the Tycoon win. Those points are available from a variety of events. For instance to keep your word and provide required lumber deliveries to the Cascade sawmill (if you choose to take that event) will get you a point. If you fail you will lose one. A competing railroad company out of business (either by merging or going bankrupt) will get you another point. As a matter of fact if all other railroad companies are eliminated and you merge/eliminate the rest of the companies (last man standing) you get 18 points. There are several points available if you deal with your construction crew properly or you loose a point if your response to your banker is not in line with that of a tycoon. In the latest version I have a notification come up whenever the Tycoon count changes showing the current count.

Yes the area you have to place stations can be very small. On the later versions I have colored the areas where stations need to be placed in order to more precisely choose the right area for station placement. One of the reasons for precise station placement is because even the smallest station is required to cover some placed industries in order for delivery requirements to work.

The most likely reason the map came to a screeching stop was because you did not complete the requirement of the Petin connection (it did not recognize your connection as such). The importance of the timely connections to all three cities can not be overstated. Not only will you get Tycoon points for an early connection but also other events, not evident at the time, will be triggered.

Not quite certain now but I believe you are required to have 25 points for a Tycoon Gold win. For a normal Gold win fewer points are required (at least in the latest version). A great number of points (over ten) are available from deliveries to the smelters. How you deliver, as an example, to the Nelson Smelter all that is required over a railroad that you are not allowed to connect to is one of life’s mysteries.

[milo]

The problem's that none of the rest of us managed to finish it yet, JSS!

[Lama]

This sounds like a great scenario - I had overlooked it, so far. Is the version posted by Hawk the most recent one?

[Hawk]

Perhaps Hawk will find it fit to place our posts to a different area since otherwise we might get accuses of hijacking this topic.

Done!

[JSS]

Thanks Hawk. As efficient as usual.8)

Milo, to the best of my knowledge only one tester ever made it to the gold level and that with knowing the map pretty intimately.

Lama, the map posted is an older version that has been going through testing by some victims… I mean testers that have worked on it for a considerable time and have provided great feedback. I was waiting mainly for some more feedback from the posted version from others so I could to some adjustments in game play if needed.
The latest version is sitting on my hard drive with still a few minor things to be added but needing more play testing. Overall it plays very much the same as the older version but it went through some fundamental changes in the way the track building works and much was cleaned up and streamlined. For instance one addition was that there is also an overall limit on track pieces available for a connection. This very much solves the issue Cliff was talking about with track pieces now running out based on the known track pieces required for a connection.

[wsherrick]

Hi JSS
I have played your scenario 3 times in the past few days with the intent of reviewing it, but haven't reached gold yet so Cliff beat me to it. Needless to say it is a massive map and it is obvious you have put a huge amount of time into it. The care you have put into it shows. I have attempted several types of strategies to play it, such as; using the money to absorb companies and running them-always at a loss or using the money to reach the track building goals-always running out of time. The historic notes and events in the game are excellent and creative, also I like the options of play that are available. One of my favorite things about the game is that you make the route through the mountians buildable without any ridiculous grades and that makes a difference. The only problem I have is that there is not enough business to make the company a going concern while you are building it. Except for a few instances. my company always ran in the red. Perhaps I am missing something.
I know that the economy has to be balanced so the AI's don't get out of hand, and slow the computer down, but there has to be enough traffic to support the human company to some extent. I think the limitations against buying industry are fine and the idea of having holding companies which own industry without a railroad is good. I am going to try it again to see what happens. :D

[JSS]

Thanks for your feedback wsherrick.
Quote
The only problem I have is that there is not enough business to make the company a going concern while you are building it.

The KVR that serviced the same area at about the same time frame using some of the same terrain never really was a profitable railroad. So at least historically things work the way they are supposed to.
But yes overall I have to agree with you. In my test games and running less than five trains, the best train ever during early stages of the game was making less than 100k a year. With all that track and associated maintenance costs, train income at that time is not much of a help. What makes things worse is that the purchasing cost of stations and trains takes away funds much needed for a timely connection. I have also yet to see a good profitable express train route.

With a little luck and making the right choices one should be able to make the Petin connection in ample time with still a good amount of positive cash at hand and not running into financial difficulties within about a year after that connection. The grand plan is that by about that time some of the industrial companies are ready to be merged and will inject some cash into your company. Whilst working toward delivery goals the industries after merging now owned by your company should also be helping with the cash flow. However, I have yet to play the map to that point to really find out how easily that is achieved. Only testers have played the map past the Petin connection.

[Cliff]

Too ****** frustrating!

I made the connection to Midway early, and got the bonus & land grant. But my station at the Anaconda smelter near Greenwood never got credited -- after hauling dozens of irons the first year after connecting, the yearly blurb credited me with zero loads. So I put in another station -- although the first one was "between the smelter and the river" like the instructions said. Another year of hauling dozens & dozens of irons, and still credited with zero loads. This is just too frustrating, trying to guess exactly where you want the stupid stations to be.

So, anyway, continued laying track, and connected to Penticton early -- connected in May 1901 and "early" is anytime prior to July 1901. Well, all I got was the "timely manner" blurb with no bonus; didn't even get the land grant. By now I'm into about $1.5M 8-9% bonds. So I just said tohellwithit!

-- Cliff in Virginia

[JSS]

No need to raise your blood pressure Cliff, No worries mate.
Anaconda Smelter:
The Greenwood Anaconda smelter folks have the following proposition for you.
If you place a station at the east side of the smelter between the smelter and the warehouse and before 1902 connect this station to the ore mine in the hills just north of the smelter, they are willing to compensate you with $280,000 for this connection.
If you deliver at least 6 loads a year to the smelter you will receive an additional bonus of $100,000.

Your description makes me think that the station you placed is at the wrong location (between smelter and river). This also might explain why you were not being credited for any loads.

The beauty of this event is that once you connected to the mine in the north you can bring ore from any other mine to the smelter and it will still count for the required six loads. Thus for the rest of the game you can get $100k per year given you deliver the six loads.

I remember now that there was the issue that it did not credit the Penticton Early connection. The quick fix to that was to place the CC Penticton 2 event ahead of the CC Penticton 1 event (move CC Penticton 2 event up by one location). The land grant should have not have been effected but I can not rule it out without checking further into it.

In any case please remember that this is still a Beta map and subject to more bugs than one would expect from a finished map. Any reports of bug or game play issues as well as comments are welcome.

[Cliff]

Hi JSS -

No need to raise your blood pressure Cliff, No worries mate.
Anaconda Smelter:
The Greenwood Anaconda smelter folks have the following proposition for you.
If you place a station at the east side of the smelter between the smelter and the warehouse and before 1902 connect this station to the ore mine in the hills just north of the smelter, they are willing to compensate you with $280,000 for this connection.
If you deliver at least 6 loads a year to the smelter you will receive an additional bonus of $100,000.

Your description makes me think that the station you placed is at the wrong location (between smelter and river). This also might explain why you were not being credited for any loads.

Oh, my blood pressure is OK

Actually, my station at the Anaconda smelter was exactly in the position described -- to the east of the warehouse & smelter, between the two and bordering on the river to the east. I only put a small station here, but it covered both the warehouse and smelter. Of course I connected to the iron mine also, but didn't get credited with any loads for the two years I kept playing, even though I hauled dozens of irons to the Anaconda smelter.

I think I layed the track first, south along the river to the east of the smelter & warehouse; then there was really only one place the game would allow me to place the station.

I went ahead and played a couple of "easy" games -- like Prince of Steel and Mississippi Valley Fix -- just to regain my confidence. :D

-- Cliff in Virginia

[Wolverine@MSU]

Cliff,

If you still have a saved map from the game with the station placed, you could go into the Editor and look at the territories to see whether the station is inside the boundries. I'm not sure if it's the station or the track section in front of the station that needs to be within the bounderies to be counted.

[milo]

Whew... Finally made it through this enormous scenario. JSS, congrats - you came up with something that took longer than Trans-Siberian...

High points:
- There are probably several different ways to win the scenario. It's quite possible to earn more than 25 points, though you can't miss a trick.
- Getting to Midway in time is a real challenge!
- Merging with certain companies makes life a lot easier.

Low points:
- Little choice of route. Not only is the track rate strictly controlled, but several segments of the routes are fenced in with water squares to make sure you don't deviate. There are also suspiciously level paths conveniently planed into the sides of mountains or along rivers. Despite that, I stumbled into the wrong way to get to Eholt.
- If you take over the CPR (yes, it's possible), strange things happen to secondary route selection. Vernon shows up as connected but Spences Bridge does not - turns out to depend on where the CPR station in each town is.
- Merged with Red Mountain and got US rights. One month later they disappeared (growl...). Later I merged Spokane Falls & Northern, and this time the rights stuck. Not sure if this is intended behavior.
- The delivery requirements to the four smelters aren't apparent until the first year-end dialog pops up. It's extremely difficult to make most of these deliveries - meat, for example, is nonexistent in the eastern half of the map, and in my game there was zero coal outside of the ports.
- Something strange happened after I connected to Penticton: the dialogs popped up describing the next route to Petain, but my track allocations stayed at 10 sections/month in April. Then, the next year, the same dialogs popped up again, and my track allocations went back to normal project levels.
- Got a plum connection deal from the nice Premier... but there wasn't anything to connect. Bah.
- Might be a good idea to suppress the yearly project dialog if the player has connected all three targets.

The idea has nice promise, but... well, I'd probably scale the scenario down. Feed only one smelter, have fewer AI companies, use a smaller map size. Getting to Midway was a lot of fun, but after that the scenario seemed to slow down considerably, and the events felt as if not as much thought had gone into them.

[JSS]

Milo, thanks for giving the scenario a try. I do not have as much spare time as I once had to post but I am long overdue to let you know what is happening with this scenario.

From the release of the build 357, the build you were playing, I have reached Build 426. Since mid February no changes have been made to the scenario. Probably should have/will upload the latest build just in case you or anyone else gets the urge of trying it again. I have delayed doing that because most events since build 357 have been, in one way or another, affected by some changes. It might have only been that they moved places but as you know that alone could have an impact. There have also been additional events added as well as additional fine tuning of the availability of resources.
Now lets discuss your comments a bit.

Quote:
“There are probably several different ways to win the scenario.”
I know of only three. You either concentrate mostly on deliveries, concentrate mostly on takeovers or a combination of them both (which might be the best way for a win).

Quote:
“Getting to Midway in time is a real challenge!”
Really?! You might find it a bit easier with one of the later versions. In any case it still will likely still be a trade-off between the benefits of an “early connection” and that of trying to obtain assistance from the offers for connections along the way.

Quote:
“Little choice of route.”
This scenario is based on historical events and as such I would like to stay accurate to those events as much as possible. The “normal connections” to major centers along the route are based on the historical correct connection dates. The route to Petain that you are required to build is a surveyed route that was actually never built but was proposed to be build and a charter was issued to that effect. Some years later the Kettle Valley and other Railroads built their track over much of the same terrain.

Quote:
“If you take over the CPR (yes, it's possible), strange things happen to secondary route selection.”
Yes it is possible to take over the CPR and I have (in later builds) done it also several times but I found it to be way too much of a bother to keep it running (it looses money fast) or to remove the track. The few times I did take over the company I removed all the track right away and therefore might not have experienced your issues. Therefore, this issue might still be present in the later builds even though I have fiddled with those events also.

Quote:
“Merged with Red Mountain and got US rights. One month later they disappeared (growl...).”
To again be historically correct the removal of the access rights to the US is intentional. For a Canadian owned railroad to operate in that area would never have been allowed to happen at that time. Being able to gain access by merging with other companies later is accidental (the event to remove the rights is wrongly set to a one time only event). Did have some ideas about running an American owned company in the US only but could not figure out how to switch the chairmanship easily between two companies. But as is you are running a Canadian RR and are not allowed to have access to the US.

Quote:
"The delivery requirements to the four smelters aren't apparent until the first year-end dialog pops up."
Even though the final documentation would indicate what the requirements are, an additional event that will pop up when making the first delivery to a smelter indicating all requirements, might be helpful.
With secure ranches at about X265 Y405, X285 Y440, X440 Y330 and X488 Y302 coordinate and the nearest/farthest smelter at about X664 Y293 and X960 Y425 coordinate the distances to travel are still less than half of the map width. One would also expect some random ranches to show up. But yes, it is meant to be a challenge.
I do believe that adjustments to add more ranches have been made in later builds to increase the supply.

Quote:
“Something strange happened after I connected to Penticton:”
This issue should be already resolved. Have played it through to the Pentin connection without encountering any such issues several times.

Quote:
“Got a plum connection deal from the nice Premier... but there wasn't anything to connect.”
Well, that’s politics. :D

Quote:
“Might be a good idea to suppress the yearly project dialog if the player has connected all three targets.”
Believe that is also corrected.

Quote:
“I'd probably scale the scenario down. Feed only one smelter, have fewer AI companies, use a smaller map size.”
The point is to try to recreate the happenings considered to be the “golden” days of that area. Perhaps I will never succeed fully but foremost the aim is to be as historically correct as possible. The smelters operating at or about that time are there. Many of the mines of those times are there as well as the railroads. Most of the other A.I. companies have a role to play albeit under a different name as their historical counterparts.
In the later builds some companies are a bit more developed and are likely to be more useful in game play.
If there was a choice I would rather make the map twice its present size (in cell count but keeping the same geographical area) rather than half the size. Would provide me with much more detail and would make the placement of track in narrow valleys easier. Also the “flats” would appear to be smaller.

Quote:
“Getting to Midway was a lot of fun, but after that the scenario seemed to slow down considerably, and the events felt as if not as much thought had gone into them”
You are basically correct. I left out most of the “filler” events and some of them did not work as envisioned anyhow. My interest was mostly, besides finding bugs, in how hard it was for players to get the medals and how the track building procedure was being received.

Thanks again for your input.

[rcjalydar]

Did an updated version of this scenario ever get posted? I downloaded it and got the older version JSS says he has updated.

The scenario appeals to me for its strong history content and its intricacy. If the newer version is available, I'd like to give it a try.

[Hawk]

If you got it at this site, as far as I know, that's the latest version.

[JSS]

Hi folks.
Have not played RT3 for at least two years and nothing further has been done to the map. Simply way too busy with real life. However, I still plan to finish the map one day since the map covers such an interesting period in Canadian Railroading.

BTW, hope to be able to share with you guys some pictures traveling on the the World's Steepest Cogwheel Railroad in the near future.

[Hawk]

BTW, hope to be able to share with you guys some pictures traveling on the the World's Steepest Cogwheel Railroad in the near future.

Now that would be cool.

[RayofSunshine]

Welcome back JSS,

I know that I have had a problem in trying to lay track between the point of origin, and to the city or cities of requirement. Don't believe that I ever did complete any medals, although it is a very interesting concept of imagination. Hope to see what changes of progress you might include this time.

[Moabdave]

Awesome scenario. I love how the paths for the railroad are leveled, awesome idea. However, I have played this scenario about 6 times and cannot for the life of me figure out how to get gold. I can get reliably 24 tycoon points, but that 25th has proven very elusive. Has anybody won gold? FYI, how I get to 24 tycoon points is to acquire as many companies as possible as soon as the scenario is opened (before any time passes). I have so far been able to acquire all but 2 out of the gate, however this requires a lot of short selling, and acquiring the companies in just the right order. The two I haven't been able to acquire at the beginning are the Canadian Pacific Railway, and the livestock holding company. I acquire the livestock company as soon as possible, but always wait on the CPR until near the end, as it does nothing but lose value for the first 10 years. From then, it's build and connect the Grand Forks, Eholt and Greenwood stations in the right place and as fast as possible (I have to enter the editor to ensure they are placed properly) to get the 3 bonus delivery contracts if they are connected in time. After that it's complete the 3 "lower priority lines" after the line to Petain is complete. That usually gets me 21 tycoon points by 1910-1912. I will then usually get 3 more just from meeting various haulage requirements, but not the 4 that are available from hauling to the smelters. It seems like no matter how many trains I run, there's just not enough freight traffic to meet the requirements for the 4 smelters. Is there another tycoon point to be earned somewhere? All I need is one more =-)

However, despite the frustration of not figuring out how to win gold, kudos, the map is incredible, and the event coding is quite complicated. It shows a lot of time and TLC went into this. This has joined the Arizona, Denver and Utah scenarios as my favorite. I was recommended to play this scenario, as my Conquering the Sierras scenario didn't turn out like I wanted it to, and someone thought I could use this one to learn how to improve it. Yes, I've learned a lot. Not sure when I'll feel up to re-releasing the scenario though. Cheers
David