TransCaspian Railroad - BETA

[OilCan]

This is a 1.05V game. No AI.

Simple objectives: connect cities and haul cargo from the coast of the Caspian Sea across the map to the city of Taszkent.
I generally don't like unconnected track and don't prefer limited track, but both were necessary for the tenor of this game.

This game somewhat follows history. I had to change a few historical facts to make the game story work - starting with the timeline. And the first Trans-Caspian railroad stopped short of Taszkent - that line was not built until several year later. Nevertheless, the game is not too far from real history.

I added a small PNW goal to keep the player engaged in the industry side of the game. I'm on the fence on whether to drop the PNW goal and turning off the stock market.

I welcome all comments and suggestions which might improve the game.

(The ground colors are from Google Map. The terrain is from a GIS image.)

Note - Beta map removed. Final version will be posted shortly. June 23

[AdmiralHalsey]

I'll download it and give it a try once I catch some sleep.

[Hawk]

My first attempt turned out to be a miserable failure. I made a few mistakes that I didn't catch until too late.
Now that I know, I think my second try will be better.

[Hawk]

Well, second attempt. I took the northern route and as of June - 1898 I still have no access to Amu-Darja.

Not much hope for this attempt.

[Hawk]

Sadly I'll have to leave this one for the more experienced players. I just can't get anywhere with it.
The first time I played it I did manage to get territory access across the northern section of the map but I messed up by not placing a station in the military compound.
The next 3 tries - twice in the northern section, once in the southern section - I never did get enough territory access to finish the scenario.

[RulerofRails]

Just gave this a run starting with a line from Buchazi to Hinkum. I also bought a couple of the cheap farms but later realized that I would have been better off staying out of industry early on. At the beginning of the second year I connected to Krasnovodsk. I picked the Southern route because I thought that Paper might be more of a limiting factor than Clothing. I did a little micro-managing until I had connected to Achabad keeping all those high value cargoes earning their keep with a healthy 20% new connection bonus on top.

I don't want to give too many spoilers, but all the connections/territory access worked great. I paid the Khans for early access. I bought all the track I could until I connected to Taszkent. After that I found it necessary to buy an allotment once, but otherwise I had plenty as I was busy with the haulage goals. Early on I built a Distillery near Tszikish. This was a mistake. The last haulage goal I met was the Sugar. I had completed all the others by the end of 1900 without trying too hard.

My comments:
Why have the Steel Mill available for the player to build when Iron and Coal are not available on the map?
Allowing the player access to the Taszkent Military Base from the start of the game enabled me to place a Textile Mill and Paper Mill there long before I got access to Syr Darya itself. Was this intentional?
I easily met the PNW goal. 10M is really low for PNW. At the end of the game I had almost 90M PNW with 100% ownership and no debt. If margin buying wasn't allowed a 10% stake would be worth almost that. Maybe that could be a condition with the player forced to stay with their original company?

Will try the Northern route when I get more time. Thanks for sharing your creation! Thoroughly enjoyed playing it. Like the historical background information you included. I am impressed that you are getting terrain painting from Google maps now. I am curious about how you are doing this. If you have time, would you shoot me a PM with a few details, please? I am having trouble making a height-map and terrain paint "picture" line up on coastlines etc.

[Hawk]

would you shoot me a PM with a few details, please?

Why keep the info a secret via a PM?

[RulerofRails]

Why keep the info a secret via a PM?

Ok, I should have be more specific with my question (What are you doing to make coastlines etc. line up?). I have no desire to keep anything a secret. I wasn't hoping for a tutorial, just a little more info on the method. Gumboots has already posted a method in one of the threads, but my skill level in Photoshop is too poor to follow it. I don't want to start a debate about which method is better. I like the result Oilcan got with this map and hoped it is something I can do myself. I realize asking a question like this may drive the discussion off-topic. Anyway, Oilcan, if you would like to share some details I would be extremely grateful whatever way you should choose to do so.

Hawk, if you follow the start route I outlined in my previous post you should be able to win this map. (Don't want to try to force you, though.) Once you cross the river and connect to Taszkent the challenges are less and the rest of the map is hauling so there is little advantage in being more industrially savvy. The high-value cargoes such as Goods and Cheese available at the ports make exploiting demand a good idea. I do this by shipping as much as possible to the latest town I have connected to creating a "stockpile". While waiting to connect to the next town (for track or money) the price of those cargoes will be dropping. Then once I make the connection I send lots of trains from that town with the "stockpile" to the new town and flood the market there. I start new trains from the original port as well. The extra 1st year station bonus (I believe it is 20%) makes this lucrative. Repeat until you have a large enough income base from industries, passengers, etc. that you want to focus on other parts of your railroad.

[Blackhawk]

For the sake of references I think this may be the thread that is being referred to for using a google map:

viewtopic.php?f=65&t=3420

[Hawk]

Hawk, if you follow the start route I outlined in my previous post you should be able to win this map. (Don't want to try to force you, though.) Once you cross the river and connect to Taszkent the challenges are less and the rest of the map is hauling so there is little advantage in being more industrially savvy. The high-value cargoes such as Goods and Cheese available at the ports make exploiting demand a good idea. I do this by shipping as much as possible to the latest town I have connected to creating a "stockpile". While waiting to connect to the next town (for track or money) the price of those cargoes will be dropping. Then once I make the connection I send lots of trains from that town with the "stockpile" to the new town and flood the market there. I start new trains from the original port as well. The extra 1st year station bonus (I believe it is 20%) makes this lucrative. Repeat until you have a large enough income base from industries, passengers, etc. that you want to focus on other parts of your railroad.

Sounds like you're playing this 1.05 map in 1.06

[RulerofRails]

Sounds like you're playing this 1.05 map in 1.06

Actually, no, I am playing this in 1.05. I have never used ship at a loss to try to make these "stockpiles". That's not to say it could be useful sometimes, but I think that ship at a loss will mostly do what the name suggests: cause you to lose money. When I haul this "stockpile" to a new town I will normally get between 30 and 40k per load. The idea is not to haul this cargo away until the demand there drops enough to repeat the process. Smaller towns can work better (demand drops more quickly), but towns next to rivers are a no-no as the cargo will migrate away from that stations capture zone. I don't know if you have noticed but the way the consist manager handles Meat is interesting. Sometimes demand at a town can rise (if the train hauled all the Meat away) or fall quickly enough (when it is supplied with a decent amount) that for a small profit the same Meat will return to its origin (I don't mean the Meat Packing Plant as the constant supply will keep price there lower) on the very next train. This re-hauling means that using the consist manager results in some loads being recycled over and over again. However it is the greatest thing for spreading out masses of cargo equally to keep industry profits rolling. When using ship at a loss in 1.06 or TM clever routes will result in less total loads being hauled, but spreading out masses of cargo from an industrial powerhouse can be quite a chore.

[OilCan]

Thanks for helpful comments.

I'd be glad to share how I married the google map to the terrain. I'll redo my written notes into a readable document and post that. I will say that it does requires some savy with GIMP or photoshop and GIS software. I'll try to make a step by step walk through.

Hawk: sorry you didn't have success. I didn't tamper with cargo prices, so trains should make a decent profit as they run between towns. The same with industry (hint: T&D at the ports with steel). The wait at the river has a 65% chance of delay for another year; so on average you should only wait about 3 years. In all my test runs, I never waited more than 2 years.

Try the northern route again. Set up a textile mill at Porsu as soon as the territory opens and it should be cranking by the time your rails reach it. Build another mill. Set up trains to haul the military cargo. Sit for a couple of years at the river and then press for Provoski and down the river to Taszkent. Connect a string of towns along the way and your trains should reap nice profits. Buy track every year.

RoR:
The steel industry has to be enabled for steel to be available in a port recipe. This also means that a steel mill appears in the build list. It is an annoyance because it can confuse the player.
Your discovery of building mills in the military base did not occur to me. I'll consider whether to turn off the access to the base at the start of the game or allow a smart player the benefit of this discovery.
Yes, I agree that the PNW goals are low....but I set the goals according to a 10% ownership at the start. Thus the reason for the salary: to allow the player to slow buy more stock. This game is intended for those players who do not really like PNW goals but like connect and haul games. My test runs at a 10% start in ownership would end in a PNW of about $20M. (I am considering taking away the entire stock market for this game. The only reason for the PNW goal is to make the player become more engaged in the industry side of the game and to add a little challenge besides building track and setting up cargo consits. I am still unsettled about the PNW goal.)

[Hawk]

Hawk: sorry you didn't have success. I didn't tamper with cargo prices, so trains should make a decent profit as they run between towns. The same with industry (hint: T&D at the ports with steel). The wait at the river has a 65% chance of delay for another year; so on average you should only wait about 3 years. In all my test runs, I never waited more than 2 years.

Try the northern route again. Set up a textile mill at Porsu as soon as the territory opens and it should be cranking by the time your rails reach it. Build another mill. Set up trains to haul the military cargo. Sit for a couple of years at the river and then press for Provoski and down the river to Taszkent. Connect a string of towns along the way and your trains should reap nice profits. Buy track every year.

That's pretty much what I did the first attempt. The only problem I had the first time was I neglected to build a station at the military depot. I was trying to haul ammo and weapons to Taszkent. I didn't realize it until too late.
Making money was never a problem in all 4 attempts. It was just the last 3 that wouldn't give me access to the needed territories. I waited until at least 1900, but by then it was too late even if I had have been granted access.

[RulerofRails]

I'd be glad to share how I married the google map to the terrain. I'll redo my written notes into a readable document and post that. I will say that it does requires some savy with GIMP or photoshop and GIS software. I'll try to make a step by step walk through.

That would be great! Thanks.

Didn't realize that building the Steel Mill needs to be enabled to have Steel available from the ports. I just tried the Northern route. I waited at the river and was given free access the second year. All the territories opened up fine for me. Finished mid-way through 1899. Everything worked as it should. This time I bought all the track I could and had double tracks almost all the way from Krasnovodsk to Taszkent. Sorry, Hawk, don't know what is wrong with your territories. Were you waiting for access to the territory across the river?

[OilCan]

The wait at the Amu Darja river was historical. The real Trans-Caspian railroad took the southern route and reached Czardzu. The rail builders sat for 6 months watching the river while the Russian government and the Khan of Buchara dickered over where the railroad would run across the district. Once in agreement, the rail builders than had the daunting task of bridging the river. They built a 2 mile long wooden bridge, working day and night - apparently an engineering marvel for its day.

[Hawk]

Sorry, Hawk, don't know what is wrong with your territories. Were you waiting for access to the territory across the river?

Yep! That's the access I never did get in the last 3 tries. I don't know what happened either, but it did - or didn't I guess you could say.

[zkidrailroad]

I do say, the historical depth of this scenario is brilliant, I enjoyed it quite much. However, I can't say I was so successful in winning any medals, sadly... I feel as if the problem is the requirements to open up Omans for the wood (since I went north), as there is 0 timber anywhere else. By the time I am able to make the effort into opening up the territory, the game is basically over before paper can be hauled. The requirement to complete a good portion of an entire scenario's worth of shipments before being able to tackle the actual scenario's shipments seems a bit much, in my personal opinion.

[OilCan]

...in my personal opinion.

I am very appreciative of your personal opinion. It greatly helps gauge where to set thresholds. In this case, it seems that I need to change the requirements for the territories to open. I will make the territories open by a certain year even if the original requirements are not met - that way the player has sufficient time to make the haul goals. I will also make sure that the player does not wait more than 2 1/2 years at the river.
Thanks for testing the game.

[RulerofRails]

Hawk, are you getting a message saying that you have connected to Porsu or Khiva when playing the northern route? I am completely confused why this isn't working for you.

zkidrailroad, I don't want to discourage you at all from posting exactly what you think, but thought I would post my experience with this so we have some more contrast/ideas. Simply for the sake of profit I haul as much Weapons and Ammo to Porsu or Achabad as I could as soon as I connected to one. Thus, I complete this goal without trying or even knowing about it. No matter how fast you can connect to Porsu or Achabad you should have at least 10 loads of each on the map already. Weapons and Ammo prices drop quite quickly at a single barracks so they will all be ready and waiting to be shipped out there at a tidy profit.

Even if you haven't hauled any there when you get the message, if you set some waiting trains it should only take 3 years to collect enough cargo to satisfy the goal as at this point you should be getting around 5 of each supplied in a year. To make this a completely sure thing, I would suggest stopping the first train of Weapons or Ammo once it is full with 8 cars while waiting for the second one to load. Otherwise the price might equalize and the second one have trouble loading.

Now after saying that, I like the idea of automatically granting the player access after a certain amount of time. This way no one gets stuck without access. Good solution.

[Hawk]

Hawk, are you getting a message saying that you have connected to Porsu or Khiva when playing the northern route? I am completely confused why this isn't working for you.

I don't remember if I got a message when I connected to Porsu in the first attempt (which was the play that did open up the territories), but I did not get a message on the second try with the northern route when I connected to Khiva.
I did get a message about connecting to Achabad when I took the southern route, but the territories didn't open.

I'm going to try this again, taking the northern route.

I did look in the editor to see if i could figure out what I did or didn't do to not get access, but it was a bit too difficult to figure out in short order.