California uber alles! [Final version]

[Gumboots]

This is an idea I had while playing the final campaign map a few days ago. I did have the campaign finished ages ago, but my old computer died and took the saves with it.

Anyway, I was having fun with the California "Chip off the old block" map. Got the gold requirements of course, and wanted to see what else I could do, but the silly campaign coding wont let you continue! It always just forces you to the closing video for the campaign as soon as you get gold.

This is a pity, because the map, although being fictional, does have great scenery for trains rides and interesting terrain for track laying challenges, as well as slightly unusual seeding and economic dynamics. In other words, I think it's basically a rather good one.

So, obviously what was needed was a standalone scenario version that you could sandbox to your heart's content. I made one. Bonus points if you know where the name came from.

The standalone version has updated medal requirements. PNW needed is increased, you need to have no personal debt at game end, there is a CBV requirement, and you must connect Santa Rosa to Crestview. For Silver you also need to have no company debt, along with more PNW and CBV.

For gold, higher PNW and CBV again, but also a haulage requirement to and from four cities. IOW, you have to haul at least $200k worth of cargo to each of these four cities, and also haul $200k from each of the four. These are done with hidden territories and a revenue requirement, not a basic loads requirement, so bait and switch is not going to work. If the trip doesn't make money hauling stuff to another city, you've wasted that trip.

The original campaign map only let you start at Santa Rosa. The standalone scenario gives you three options. You can start at Santa Rosa, or at City of Angels, or way up in the hills at Big Air. Some connection bonuses and time limits have been changed, to tie in well with the various starting point options. For instance, if you start in City of Angels, you don't get a bonus for plonking a station there.

As well the player cash bonuses the original had for connecting to 5 cities and 8 cities, this version includes further (and larger) bonuses for connecting 14 cities, and the whole 22 cities.

There are a few other tweaks, but you can find those yourselves. As far as I can tell so far, it all seems to work. If anyone would like to test it and give feedback, please do.

The Final version of this map in now available in the archives: California uber alles!

[Gumboots]

Found a bug in the events. Zip in the OP has been replaced with a corrected one.

[Hawk]

I was going to try this map out, until I saw the PNW requirements. It would be a waste of time for me to even try. I've never been very good at accumulating PNW.

BTW! You should consider disabling electric trains and track. You can do this with an event.
Right now you can build electric.

Didn't that title come from a Dead Kennedys song about Jerry Brown?

[RayofSunshine]

I will usually try any scenario, but have a preference to some.

Those scenarios which require to be the "sole survivor" is my downfall, as usually when a merge is made, that same AI only starts another railroad, and with no available no other "stockholders".

The second downfall is that of which Hawk mentions. PNV, when it also includes CBV and LIP combinations. It takes a mathamatician to figure out a system of "stealling from Peter to pay Paul". LOL

But each scenario is based on its merits, as well as its creation, imagination, and challenges. So as usual I will see how I manage an attempt with this scenario, although I don't really like navigating mountanous terrain.

[Hawk]

Well, I did try this map but there just doesn't seem to be enough going on initially to keep me interested.
After the first year, with very little freight or pax service, then getting hit with the tax, it just looses my interest.

I tried starting in all three places, buying what industry I could - usually dairy farms, but with so little for a train to haul, there's just not enough money to be made.
I could probably sit it out and wait two or three years - or longer - and maybe something will happen, but it's not catching my interest initially enough. The train spends more time running empty than not.

Maybe some of the more experienced players will have better luck.

[Gumboots]

Well I can regularly get Gold on Expert level when starting in Santa Rosa. Having played it some more, I think the City of Angels and Big Air starts need some tweaking for bonuses/benefits. I'm giving those some more thought. At the moment they're too reliant on luck.

There's always a lot going on for every seed I've played. I don't run trains in the first year or two though. This map needs an industry start. Dairy farms over near East Tokyo way are not that good a bet early in the game. They quickly oversupply the local market for milk, and their profits will drop substantially. They come into their own later in the game, when you can connect East Tokyo to the main island and haul some serious money. If you can pick them up for next to nothing early on they can be useful, but count on their profits dropping to around $40k/year for quite some time. IOW, don't spend a lot on them.

The tax after the first year was not intended, and the events were rewritten in the second zip.

Electric should be disabled by event. If it isn't, I'll have to take a closer look at that too. I used the same event coding that disables electric in the South East Australia scenario, so it should work, but TBH at the moment my installation does not include any electric locomotives. I'll have to chuck a couple back in just for testing. (I really do hate electric)

I think I'll keep the haulage goals for out of the way cities, but change them so they aren't essential for a medal, and just give an increasing personal cash bonus for the amount of cargo hauled for those cities.

Also, the newspapers for the earthquakes (carried over from the original game) are annoying after a while. I'm going to keep the earthquakes but change them to game messages instead of newspapers.

And you're right about the Dead Kennedys.


@Ray, I kinda like mountans. I think it's cool seeing terrain that looks totally impossible, then finding a way through it with decent grades. There's always a way.

If you are only going for PNW, with no limits on personal debt or anything else, it become a no-brainer to just buy stock like crazy at the last minute. Trading off PNW against CBV, and pushing the limits on both, adds some interest to the game IMO.

In principle it's not too complicated. Usually, the company can comfortably sustain a dividend of between 10% and 15% of profit. You can wind it higher at times, based on an assessment of the current state of the game and what your aims are, but in general the 10-15% range is a good guide. In this scenario, you don't want to spend a lot of company cash on stock buybacks early on. It doesn't seem to work well. So, basically you buy into the company as hard and fast as you can, but keeping an eye on the prime interest rate and your personal debt compared to your income from dividends and wages. It's like balancing the household budget.

For instance, just taking handy round numbers, if the prime interest rate is 7% (that's "Normal" economic state) and your wages are $50k and you have 200,000 shares at 50c dividend each, then your total income is $150k and the amount of personal debt you can sustain without going backwards is $2,143k. IOW, as long as you're less than $2.1 million in the red, you'll be gradually paying down your personal debt. If the economy tanks and the interest rate goes up to 10%, then any debt over $1.5 million will start sending you backwards. This can happen disturbingly quickly.

The idea is to not start going backwards. You always want to be in a position where your personal debt is chosen so that you are either paying it down, or holding it steady. It's normal for a depression to hit about midway through the game. That means the dividends need to be set to stop you going backwards until the economy improves. This usually means dividends chewing into the profits fairly heavily, while spending the leftovers on stock buybacks while prices are down. When things improve, you should be in a good position. The other investors will get grumpy, but as long as they don't sack you it doesn't matter.

[Gumboots]

Aha!

Hawk, you can still build electric track, but you can't buy electric locos. This seems to be a limitation of the game. There's no way (that I can find) to disable laying electric track by event. It has to be a user option. I figure that if people are told up front that they can't use electric, and there are no electric locos available, then if they lay electric track that's their problem.

In a way this fits with the scenario. IRL, if the grid was broken by earthquakes you could still lay all the electric track you liked. It just wouldn't work.

[EPH]

You can also edit the scenario from a campaign game to a stand-alone scenario. I think there is a check-box to un-check in the editor and then you can save it as a scenario file.

[Hawk]

Aha!

Hawk, you can still build electric track, but you can't buy electric locos.

I see where you set electric engines to not be available, but it seems the event isn't working right, as seen in the below screenshot.

That's the Brenner E412.

The tax after the first year was not intended, and the events were rewritten in the second zip.

Actually, it looks like you only rewrote one of the tax events to not fire until after 6 years. That was the No City of Angels. The No Santa Rosa and No Big Air will still fire after the first year.

[Gumboots]

Ok, I've done some more testing. There's an updated zip in the OP.

I added a Shinkansen back into my game installation, and was not able to purchase it during the game. Diesel and steam locos were able to be purchased.

The City of Angels/Santa Rosa connection events have been rewritten, and wont fire until they are supposed to (as far as I can tell).

If you start at Big Air, you get five years from then to connect to CoA (ie: until year >=8). If you start at Santa Rosa or City of Angels you get three years from then (ie: until year >=6) to conect to CoA or SR, dependng on starting point. I figure since Big Air is such a mongrel of a place to start, an extra couple of years was a good idea.

I've dropped the newspapers for most of the earthquakes. There's now a game message to alert you to the relevant area, except for Devil Fall's if you buy into there.

I've also added some extras. Different starting points now give you different bonuses.

Santa Rosa gives cheaper locos, with lower maintenance and fuel costs, and better acceleration.
City of Angels gives cheaper bridges, and lower company overhead.
Big Air gives cheaper track (by gum, you'll need it to get out of them thar hills) and lower track maintenance costs.

Gold requirements have been changed to only include haulage targets for Big Air and East Tokyo (ie: Pocco Lobo and Tetille are no longer necessary). Big Air can be a litle bit challenging if you start at CoA or SR, so don't connect to it at the last minute. East Tokyo sorts itself without much trouble.

Another new feature is that you now get a 12% personal commission on haulage to and from Big Air, East Tokyo, Pocco Lobo and Tetille. The bonuses are triggered when revenue hauled into the territory matches revenue hauled out. If you haul $4 million into one of the territories and nothing out, you get no bonus. If you haul $100k in and $100k out, you get a personal cash bonus of $24k.

The bonuses only come in at set points: $100k, $200k, $400k, $800k, $1600k and $3200k. The bonus is paid at the end of the month, regardless of when the revenue actually hits the station. Notification is by game message, to make the notice less intrusive.

I've found that these bonuses as some fun and interest to the game. You're after PNW and zero personal debt, which means stock, so you'll be watching revenue for those stations and scheming about when you can get your grubby paws on that next tasty bonus, and praying the #%$^! train doesn't break down.

Anyway, as far as I can tell it now all functions as it should, and provides good variety of starting options with lotsa fun and achievable, if slightly challenging, goals for Gold.

I think it's past Beta and has reached RC status. After some more testing, I'll get a fresh copy of the original map and sit down and transfer all the custom events over in one go. This wont be too much trouble, and will get around the gfx degradation problems the current test map has. I think I'll also rename some of the towns to something less stupid.


PS: While I remember, the plonking down of stations and track at the start of the game is, as the dialogue makes mentions, to demonstrate your committment to the chosen starting point. Whether or not you start using those stations and that track immediately is up to you.

What I was wanting to avoid was someone getting clever ideas like "I'd really like the cheap track bonus for Big Air, but I want to actually start building my railway down on the flatter areas, so I'll put one small station in Big Air to open all territories, then write off the $50k and demolish it so I can build anywhere".

Oh no, you don't. I'm as devious as you are. I've already thought of that. You'll have to put down a million bucks worth of stuff to get that extra territory.

[Hawk]

I might have to try this map again. The only problem I have with it is converting some pertinent info into game messages. I never pay much attention to them. They're mostly just about what train arrived where and how much it made.
I think it was OilCan that did that a lot and I missed a lot of important messages.
I can't even remember how to pull up past messages so one could check them periodically.

Of course, I don't think others have the same problem with them as I do.

---

Edit 1: I went into the editor ad made the necessary changes on those game messages to suit my lack of attention to small details.

[Hawk]

I found what may be a minor glitch.

It shows on the status page that I'm connected to Crestview,

but I'm not. I am connected to the California Collective territory, but not Crestview.

Click on image to view full size

[Gumboots]

Yup, I spotted that glitch myself. The game worked as it should, but I'd copied an event that set that variable for the status report. D'oh. I fixed that. It's now a separate event that will make the status report look the way it should.

I also (finally) fixed the electric bananas glitch. It had to test against the on-screen players company only. Testing with a Shikansen didn't help matters, because the scenario starts in 2050 and you can't buy a Shinkansen past 1980. I'd assumed, since they're all space age and I never use them anyway, that they would be available right through the later years. Not so. Anyway, its fixed now.

I've also fixed a few other minor things (wording in dialogues, etc).

I prefer the game messages for being unobtrusive. Too many newspapers and dialogues get annoying, but as you said it's easy to change this for personal preference. IF most people would prefer dialogues for the personal cash bonuses (better than newspapers, I think) then I don't mind coding the public release of the map like that. Whatever makes most people happy.

This scenario is now usually winnable, if you're on the ball, from a Big Air start or a City of Angels start, as well as Santa Rosa. A really bad seeding might still stop you. Them's the breaks.

Oh, I changed the Gold conditions too. The $400k revenue in and out of Big Air and East Tokyo was coming up too fast. I've changed it to $1.6 million. So, it's four times as much. That's not a problem, right? No sweat.

Bonus: after playing right through to the end of 2080 a couple of times, I've found it's sometimes just possible to ship $6.4 million worth of goodies in and out of East Tokyo. So, I've added another event to trigger the 12% commission at that level of haulage. This could save your gold medal if things are looking a bit tight on personal cash near the end of the game. East Tokyo is an economic powerhouse if connected properly, and that last bonus will net you $1,536,000 in your pocket if you can get it.

All four stations (Big AIr, East Tokyo, Pocco Lobo and Tetille) have the $100k, $200k, $400k, $800k and $1,600k revenue bonuses. Big Air and East Tokyo have a $3,200k revenue bonus (the other two stations will never get there) and East Tokyo alone has the big one at $6,400k.

PS: By the way, although the earthquake areas are a bit of a trap, it is possible to connect everywhere while still avoiding earthquake damage. You just have to be a bit cunning about how you route your track. The good bit is that being cunning like that, in this scenario, makes for really cool train rides. Or, perhaps I should say "really hot train rides".

[Hawk]

Well, I managed to get Silver on this, at medium level. Just couldn't quit get the PNW.

One thing I did find very annoying is the frequency of the earthquakes. They're just too often. I spent far too much time rebuilding track than I felt reasonable.

[Gumboots]

I just added a PS to the other post but you may have missed it. You can build around the earthquake traps. If you get the track positioning right, there's not really any need to ever rebuild track.

And I've been testing this thing using steam trains on Expert level. That's my default for any map: Gold with steam trains on Expert level. Diesel should be easier, if you want to use diesel.

Last play through, which was a City of Angels start with a reasonably good seeding, I ended up with around $44 million PNW and double that for CBV at the end of 2080.

[Hawk]

They only got me in a couple of places, but it was constant. Seemed like at least twice a year in each spot.

Click on image to view full size

Click on image to view full size

[Gumboots]

Yup, they would certainly get you in those places. If you want a cheat sheet, you can take a look at these:

Get anywhere with good grades (maximum of 6, and only in a couple of short spots) with no earthquake damage and really cool scenery.

[Hawk]

Actually, I forgot about Stonewood. I didn't connect there until the later years, but I had to rebuild track there too.

Maybe you could cut the frequency down a bit. Like say random 1 to 500 or 1,000?

[Gumboots]

Nah. Chicken. Go for it.

Anyway, the frequency and placement of the earthquake zones is taken straight from the original. I found my way around them myself. It's really cool once you figure it out.

[Hawk]

Yea, I saw those screenshots. That would work.